Road Cycling Essentials

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I could do with a bike stand, not sure if I can be bothered trying the aldis around here though.

is there any way to check with stores will have cycling stuff before venturing out?

What's the best way to mod a basket to be more aero? Tape tin foil over the holes?
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Surely just turns it into a kite? I'd have assumed the holes cause less drag than no holes

get an aero popup basket :P
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anyone noticed veloviewer classifies some segments as climbs that strava does not?

http://veloviewer.com/segments/7082043/athlete/2584042
Type:
Ride
Distance:
11.2 km
Elev Gain:
242 m [242 metres =
793.963255 feet]
Elev Change:
170 m
Avg Grade:
1.5 %
Max Grade:
13.2 %
Climb cat:
3
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on strava it's not classified as a climb :(
http://www.strava.com/segments/7082043?filter=overall

some people make **** segments as well (diff segment obviously)
mine is the top one and the bottom is the original someone made
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why cut off half the climb? unless it was someone with a mobile phone that made the segment and they didn't have enough gps points to make the segment proper,I gained over 300ft on the ride when I corrected the elevation and I'm guesisng a large chunk of it was that segment since most the rest of the ride was almost flat
I guess strava uses the elevation data from whoever creates the segment?
 
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arknor said:
In my experience it is normal and you will slowly be able to sit in the saddle for longer and longer until eventually you can sit for many hours without really feeling it.

I once heard a story about someone going for an xray and the nurse mentioned she could tell they were a cyclist because of a calcium build up around the sit bones.

no idea if true or not but I guess it could be.

You still might want to look into a more comfortable saddle though just in case it isn't right for your sitbones, try to find a store that will measure the imprint you leave after sitting down on there test thing

also don't be afraid to sit on your saddle at slight angles etc slowly move your sitting position as the ride goes on and try to do some riding standing up to give your butt a slight rest every 5-10minutes which will also likely stop it getting soaked with sweat.

also check the angle of your saddle as someone else said above when sitting on it you should feel like you are not about to fall forwards if you remove your hands from the bar.

most people seem to have a completely straight saddle or a slightly upwards tilt at the front, often it depends on the curvature of the saddle as some have a slight dip in the middle
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Thanks for that Arknor, I expected some soreness but they whole cant feel my groin I wasn't expecting. I'm sure it is just my body getting used to sitting on a saddle for extended periods.

I will preserve however. Enjoyed my ride today, amazing what you see that you don't notice whilst driving.
 
Well that was tough:
https://www.strava.com/activities/157572914

Took the pontillion climb steady to save some for the rest. Smashed it on the descent, then had a steady, enjoyable ride up the peyresorde. Set off up col d'azet nicely until I got to the second 10% section and started to blow. It flattened off a bit after that, but it poured down during the descent and by the time I got to the pla d'adet I was in bits and crawled up and got overtaken by half of the trek factory racing tdf team!
 
Nice! Is that the route of the Tour with the little bit into Spain?

I'm staying in Loudenvielle to see the tour. Not going to have my bike with me though :(
 
touch said:
Nice! Is that the route of the Tour with the little bit into Spain?

I'm staying in Loudenvielle to see the tour. Not going to have my bike with me though :(
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Yup, slightly adjusted.

Doing repeated climbs like that really takes it out of your legs.. I'm gonna be doing John Wayne impressions tomorrow.

Thursday is the Pau - Hautucam stage including the tourmalet, hopefully I'll have found my climbing legs by then!
 
Thanks for that Arknor, I expected some soreness but they whole cant feel my groin I wasn't expecting. I'm sure it is just my body getting used to sitting on a saddle for extended periods.

I will preserve however. Enjoyed my ride today, amazing what you see that you don't notice whilst driving.
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well my groin never went numb but my sitbones did get sore and bruised/went numb on my rides, I slowly went from aching afer a few miles to being able to ride 50 miles (about 3.5hours at my speed) fairly comfortably and I've just stuck with the seats that came with my bikes rather than trying to seek out a more comfortable saddle.
if your whole groin is getting numb then you probably need to tilt your seat slightly up so the weight is supported more by the buttocks and sit bones and not pressing into your groin.

even a tiny adjustment feels huge so don't change the angle much
When you first start I doubt any saddle is comfortable for long
grudas said:
I believe it uses the elevation data from your garmin ;) what happens if there's no segment on the climb eh? :)
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people have still likely ridden the road before, when you create a segment strava scans everyones rides to create the leaderboard so it could easily average out the climbing data from everyone who did that ride to get a more accurate reading rather than relying on whoever creates the segment if it does or just using some random database.

I guess velo viewer uses a different database and that's why it shows some segments as a cat climb whilst strava does not

https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/20965883-elevation-for-your-activity
it seems they just do a look up on an elevation database.

I'm going to keep hitting the correction button for all my rides then and trusting what my garmin says even if the starting elevation is set wrong on my garmin it will still accurately log my climbing distance on each ride.
 
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Pinched from Pistonheads - the story of Jonathan Shubert the 2014 National 24h TT champion.

What an amazing end to an incredible year. In truth, the national 24 hour was perhaps not won on a time trial bike in the picturesque setting of East Sussex, but many months ago as I crossed vast deserts, struggled through a bitter winter, sand storms, experienced weeks without talking to people, all of which not only shaped my body but also my mind.
The race itself was a close fought thing and a two way dual right to the very end. The only time I saw Ultan Coyle, the former champion, who had started 11 minutes after me, was within the first 10 miles when I noticed he was already two minutes ahead. From this point on, I started to push the pace, passing through the first 100 miles in 4:12 and maintaining the effort towards my first of two scheduled stops at the eight hour mark, by which point I had pulled almost 10 minutes clear of Ultan. With lights fitted, a faster rear wheel after an earlier puncture and some solid food inside me, I felt refreshed and ready to take the battle into the night. A 24 mile night circuit with brutal climbs, little or no lighting and a terrible road surface kept me alert. I kept pushing hard and still felt very strong right up until 14 hours, all the time wondering if the lights I could see behind me were riders I had overtaken, or Ultan Coyle catching me. By the time my second and final scheduled stop arrived, there was no way to hide from my body clock, my speech was sluggish as I tried to eat some warm food and then get back on with the job in hand. At this point the time gap between Ultan and myself was apparently less than 15 minutes. This felt as though it was going to be a battle to the bitter end. With four hours remaining I hit the relatively flat finishing circuit and we were on my territory now. I always finish fast and my stockier build could take advantage of the lack of hills. As the day progressed, I began to feel more and more awake, my legs not feeling tired, I was hammering away like it was a 50 mile time trial getting time checks every 45 minutes until within the last 15 minutes of my ride I knew I was safe and I had taken the win. We later discovered that I had in fact made a substantial amount of ground up on Ultan during the night and there were eventually 11 miles between us by end, when I finished with 517 miles and the forth furthest ride of all time.
For the entirety of the race I was in utter awe of the job that my world class team of helpers were doing, never leaving me on my own for more than half an hour, always encouraging, how they could do a hundred things for me in our five minute formula one style pit stops, using immense initiative to find solutions to every problem and ultimately allowing me to achieve what I have dreamt of since I was a young boy
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Incredible stats, to have the mental strength to do this is hard enough, let alone having a body capable of it!
 
arknor said:
I guess velo viewer uses a different database and that's why it shows some segments as a cat climb whilst strava does not

I'm going to keep hitting the correction button for all my rides then and trusting what my garmin says even if the starting elevation is set wrong on my garmin it will still accurately log my climbing distance on each ride.
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If it works like the garmin elevation correction then I think it just ignores your barometric elevation data and uses its own data which isn't always what you want.

I think veloviewer keeps the elevation and climb classification info when it first imports a segment, sometimes the elevation data may be changed by strava if it was way off when created which won't be updated with veloviewer leading to the differences.
 
Phantom Shadow said:
If it works like the garmin elevation correction then I think it just ignores your barometric elevation data and uses its own data which isn't always what you want.

I think veloviewer keeps the elevation and climb classification info when it first imports a segment, sometimes the elevation data may be changed by strava if it was way off when created which won't be updated with veloviewer leading to the differences.
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Strava elevation data is pretty good. My Garmin totally screwed up today as it was affected by rain.
 
arknor said:
I guess velo viewer uses a different database and that's why it shows some segments as a cat climb whilst strava does not
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There isn't a database of climb categories and there is no mathematical way to calculate it.
Look at the routes of the past few dauphines then look at the route of the past TdFs. Same roads, same climbs, even same full stages in some cases yet the climbs can have different categories. It's based on how the climb compares to other climbs in the race and what has come before the climb in a stage.
Strava has come up with its own way of mathematically calculating categorised climbs (and presumably other sites have done things their own way). It gives a rough idea of how hard a climb is but it doesn't compare to what you see in pro races.
 
touch said:
There isn't a database of climb categories and there is no mathematical way to calculate it.
Look at the routes of the past few dauphines then look at the route of the past TdFs. Same roads, same climbs, even same full stages in some cases yet the climbs can have different categories. It's based on how the climb compares to other climbs in the race and what has come before the climb in a stage.
Strava has come up with its own way of mathematically calculating categorised climbs (and presumably other sites have done things their own way). It gives a rough idea of how hard a climb is but it doesn't compare to what you see in pro races.
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Indeed. A cat 2 at the start of a stage is not the same as a cat 2 at the end of a stage, and a brutally steep cat 2 is not the same as a long gradual cat 2. I'm planning on making another run up the (strava determined) cat 2 to the mast near me, in readiness for crossing the Pennines between Oldham and Holmfirth on the way to the TDF, but I'm not sure how they'll compare when one is 10 miles from my door and the other is 30 miles away. Mind you, the one near me is markedly steeper in spots, so we'll see.
 
touch said:
There isn't a database of climb categories and there is no mathematical way to calculate it.
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there are elevation databses for the UK but they aren't as accurate as other countries which is what strava will be polling

strava even says it uses a database
Strava detects devices with barometric altimeters and recognizes the data from that source. Since elevation data derived from a GPS signal is fairly inaccurate, Strava automatically corrects elevation derived from a GPS source by consulting elevation databases to determine the elevation at each point in the activity.

If you suspect that your elevation data is incorrect, you can request an elevation lookup.* Click on the "Elevation" text under the elevation statistic above the map. The dialogue pops up with a button to "Correct Elevation." This button will only appear for data collected with a Barometric Altimeter, or if a previous automatic elevation correction has failed. After a short while, the "Calculating" text will change to "Updated," and if you click on "Updated" your page will refresh with the new elevation data.

*Please note that the option to lookup elevation is only available if your activity was recorded with a device with a barometric altimeter or if the elevation data comes from our database but lookup process failed in some way during the original attempt to fetch elevation.
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I'm going to keep hitting that button unless it's raining

why you no use my baroemtric altimeter readings in the first place??!?!?!?! sounds like it's supposed to from what that says?
 
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There is a database of elevations, but not of climb categories, that's the point. A particular hill could be a cat 4 climb one day and a cat 3 the next.
 
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