Road Cycling Essentials

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Royal Fleet said:
I am doing a London to Champagne ride next weekend. Although it will be signposted I could do with having local maps cached on my Android phone. Does anyone know of an app where you can download maps to the phone using open source maps.

Thanks.
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This app looks like a good bet, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmand&hl=en

It says 16 map files can be downloaded on the free version, not sure what that would mean exactly but it uses OSM maps which are free and can store them on your phone.
 
Had my first personal MTFU ride yesterday
http://www.strava.com/activities/83273317

Decided to take the long route home and saw some dark cloud, thinking I'll miss it. How wrong was I. First leg of my ride was good, once I changed direction and into a strong gusty headwind, I was hit with sharp hails falling on me for about 10mins and cold rain till the last mile home.

Definitely an experience, not sure if I was enjoying it or more venting my frustation of the situation but I managed to peddled home feeling quite good, despite having a left leg that keeps threatening to crap any moment I pusd too hard.
 
Sometimes have a beer after racing as the pub has started to sponsor some races.

Rather have an ice cold coke though when its warm, gives me some energy for the ride home too.

Rode in the wind tonight, felt really hard but still scored some PBs on some climbs.
 
Royal Fleet said:
I am doing a London to Champagne ride next weekend. Although it will be signposted I could do with having local maps cached on my Android phone. Does anyone know of an app where you can download maps to the phone using open source maps.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

navfree is free and features sat nav style navigation with audible directions if you want them.

the maps are downloaded as packages you just select which countries maps you want.

I'm not sure if you can import tcx files or whatever into it though
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.navfree.android.OSM.ALL&hl=en_GB
no idea why that guy's is showing the maps as 1.99 or whatever he said because on mine I can download all the country maps for free


there's another app kinda like strava that uses googlemaps cached to the phone but I can't remember what it was called I'm pretty sure in that one you could import gpx files like you do courses on garmins
someone in here told me to download it when I was using my phone to track rides and the strava app kept crashing
 
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Phantom Shadow said:
Had a look and you can use OSM maps or their premium maps, maybe he was talking about premium maps being 1.99 and you've got the free ones?
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I can't find anything paid for in the upgrades section regarding maps.

my maps look the same as the ones he's using I can either have the flat ones or birds eye style view
his review is well over a year old though
oh he was saying you had to have the additional country maps as a separate app to have them for free.
looks like they got rid of that idea ages ago and they are free to have inside the one app now rather than forcing cheap skates to use a seperate navfree for each country

pretty crap how a free app for a phone I paid £120 for about 2 years ago has far superior quality maps than the premium maps you get with garmins.

although I guess thats because the displays on garmins aren't exactly high resolution and amazing
 
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I was lazy about sorting out my spare wheel for my turbo trainer so, as a result, my rear tyre isn't looking so great. The front is fine though, which is irritating as they are 23mm and in red, and my next pair will be 25mm (so will be black).

My cycling is club rides and rides on my own. I usually ride on fairly good roads (few horrible gritty country lanes). I guess I want an all round tyre, because grip, puncture resistance and speed are all important.

Which tyres do people think are best for the winter, all in 25mm:
(current tyre) Vredestein Fortezza Tricomp Folding Tyre £20.76 each
Continental Grand Prix 4000S £55.84 (pair)
Michelin Pro4 Service Course Folding Road Tyre £21.99 each
anything else?

I'm torn between the top two I think. The Vredsteins are more appealing because I can buy just one for the rear (and then put up with the colour mis-match :( )

Edit: actually, sod it, I already have a vittoria rubino 23mm in red at home, I'll use that instead!
 
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Royal Fleet said:
I am doing a London to Champagne ride next weekend. Although it will be signposted I could do with having local maps cached on my Android phone. Does anyone know of an app where you can download maps to the phone using open source maps.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

You can download google maps and make them available offline, but I've had a couple of problems with it sometimes forgetting so I might look at some of the other suggestions as a backup.
 
mpledge52 said:
I enjoy riding fast, not far.
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That's my biggest problem. I am just an unfit, wheezy beginner and I have this insatiable need to go everywhere quickly, rather than building up slowly!

I am so far repressing that feeling and just taking my time, letting my muscles and joints ease into it.
 
Berger said:
Sometimes have a beer after racing as the pub has started to sponsor some races.
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How is your racing going anyway?
The season over only just starting really, is it?

I have my last race of the season this weekend. A 2 day stage race with a prologue and 2 road stages.
Should be a nice race to finish with but i cant wait to get it over with and rest for a bit. I'm completely burnt-out now. Looking forward to a wee holiday from the bike then winter training time :)
 
arknor said:
pretty crap how a free app for a phone I paid £120 for about 2 years ago has far superior quality maps than the premium maps you get with garmins.

although I guess thats because the displays on garmins aren't exactly high resolution and amazing
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That's it I guess, if Garmins had a screen equivalent to a phone the battery would last about 4 hours and you wouldn't be able to see it in the sun. Some of the free maps available for them are great and regularly updated even if the resolution isn't top notch.
 
uv said:
last time I cycled whilst drunk I got all the way home, but then cycled onto my lawn. It had been raining, the wheel stopped dead in the ground, I went over the bars and face-planted. Fun!
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ROFL :D

I managed to get all the way home fine then as soon as I slowed down I binned it face-first into my hedge. Then another time I rode home from Tower Bridge about 11-12 miles and took a diversion into the local park where I grew up. I was ok until I went on the soft grass and twisted up and landed face first on my bike. I had to sit on the swings for a few minutes to stop hurting :D
 
Disco Boy said:
Which tyres do people think are best for the winter, all in 25mm:
(current tyre) Vredestein Fortezza Tricomp Folding Tyre £20.76 each
Continental Grand Prix 4000S £55.84 (pair)
Michelin Pro4 Service Course Folding Road Tyre £21.99 each
anything else?
Click to expand...

I have the Michelins and have found them great for summer use. However they are a race tyre and as such maybe a little softer than some others. I will be using my gatorskins on my winter bike as they are a bit harder wearing on gritty roads
 
Disco Boy said:
I was lazy about sorting out my spare wheel for my turbo trainer so, as a result, my rear tyre isn't looking so great. The front is fine though, which is irritating as they are 23mm and in red, and my next pair will be 25mm (so will be black).

My cycling is club rides and rides on my own. I usually ride on fairly good roads (few horrible gritty country lanes). I guess I want an all round tyre, because grip, puncture resistance and speed are all important.

Which tyres do people think are best for the winter, all in 25mm:
(current tyre) Vredestein Fortezza Tricomp Folding Tyre £20.76 each
Continental Grand Prix 4000S £55.84 (pair)
Michelin Pro4 Service Course Folding Road Tyre £21.99 each
anything else?

I'm torn between the top two I think. The Vredsteins are more appealing because I can buy just one for the rear (and then put up with the colour mis-match :( )

Edit: actually, sod it, I already have a vittoria rubino 23mm in red at home, I'll use that instead!
Click to expand...

Slightly OT but a turbo tyre is well worth getting if you have a spare wheel.
 
One More Solo said:
Slightly OT but a turbo tyre is well worth getting if you have a spare wheel.
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I have two (soon to be three) old tyres sitting around at the moment which I was going to use.

What I find annoying is that I can't accelerate very hard with the current setup, as the rear wheel just slips. Is this better with a turbo tyre?
 
One More Solo said:
That's it I guess, if Garmins had a screen equivalent to a phone the battery would last about 4 hours and you wouldn't be able to see it in the sun. Some of the free maps available for them are great and regularly updated even if the resolution isn't top notch.
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yea but they could have used a bigger battery it's only 1100mah in a garmin 800
4NP6rWl.jpg

2000 mah lipo's don't weight a lot even 3000 mah ones are fairly light.

I suspect garmin just don't bother because they can milk massive profits out of them.

bryton rider 60 looks like they will have a much better screen than the current garmins so might force garmin to actually do something other than small revisions with a few improvements every generation
Qr1vfDE.jpg

second one could be a marketing photo and a stretch of the truth but juding from the first photo it looks like the screens are atleast mobile phone quality
UkqJE8w.png
 
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