Road Cycling

[touch]

To people that do both: Are Mtb's that much harder (haven't been on it for 5+ months) or am I really that pathetic?

Yes, I'd say climbing on a MTB is harder due to the uneven surface for a few reasons:

• Losing traction with the rear wheel when trying to push makes it hard to keep the momentum going.
• Having to increase your effort to lift the front wheel over roots/bumps/etc makes it harder to keep a steady pace like you can on a road.
• Off road paths can be steeper gradients than you'd ever get on a road

 

[Lethal`]

I'm gonna post this here because it's road biking related, but concerns mountain bikes.
I know I suck at climbing hills on my road bike. I took my mtb to hamsterley forest on saturday and started from the car park with a climb. I was dead by the time I reached the bottom, and crawled up everything else after that.

To people that do both: Are Mtb's that much harder (haven't been on it for 5+ months) or am I really that pathetic?

Also I had to take my car to the garage this morning and didn't want to leave my road bike secured unsecurely (only have an Anus combination lock) so fettled up my old hardtail mtb and put some sort of slick tyres on it. omg it's horrific. Riding position is wrong. IT's just *****.

I dabble in mountain biking now and again. It's certainly harder, what with worse terrain etc but I find I typically put out far less effort based on my heart rate avgs. I think it just requires practice as well, and a lot of it is technical skill like not braking for every single corner, picking the correct gear for ascents. I hate the really technical sections full of routes etc.

I most likely n+1'd at the weekend... borrowed a mate's MTB that he's trying to flog for a test ride and it seemed nice enough so will likely buy it.

It sounds like it's designed ok just not enough common sense used by drivers has lead to it being quite dangerous - I bet there's a large proportion of the oncoming traffic turning across you? Many drivers seem to 'forget' the highway code (when it suits them) and not to treat cyclists as vehicles/hazards. They don't look for us, don't consider us travelling at speed and worst of all - they see us and 'ignore' us and proceed regardless (turning across our path etc).

Yep. We only get better at anticipating it I guess. I had seen the first car turn across my path so already braked for him, thought the second car had seen me but had to swerve left to avoid her. Workmate still can't understand how the driver was in the wrong. I give up!

 

[touch]

I've just called the bike shop to get a quote for a wheel repair. They'd want anywhere between £15 and £25 for labour and £10 for spokes.

The alternative is I spend a tenner on spokes and figure out how to fix the wheel myself. However that would mean figuring out how to measure the spoke length and then doing the fixing without a proper wheel truing rig, which sounds like hard work. Argh.

How many spokes need replaced?
Labour price sounds ok to me though.

 

[madindehead]

Thanks & that's quite a route/ride, although not as far as I thought (thought it was over 100 mile). The climbs look awesome, once you're over the second big one (at 52) you know you'll get a good recovery for almost 15 miles. Would be best to rest as much as possible here, maybe even consider stopping?! The climb at 70 mile is the steepest of the day (10%) I imagine that one will be a real test for most of the riders! The other climbs before the end at 80 and 90ish you'll probably just have to spin up, thankfully they don't look that long and as brutal as earlier in the day. The elevation profile really puts it into perspective - although quite how you train for multiple 2-3 mile digs of constant 5% to 8% gradient around you is a tough one. The 'long one' I did yesterday was only 2.5 miles at 3% avg (1 mile at 5-6%).

I think the climbs at the end mainly hurt because they are steeper, and you have so much in your legs already!

There are 3 feed stations, mainly before or after the biggest of the climbs! I think the final climbs will be the spinning ones. The drags I do around here are comparable to some of the early climbs: they aren't super hard, just twiddle my way up them. At least there are lots of recovery sections! All the descents are quite wide and sweeping, so should be good fun. And nothing too steep thankfully!

 

[Vonhelmet]

@touch:

It's a 32 spoke wheel. The chain got wedged between the freewheel and the spokes so most if not all the spokes are scored at the elbow and it was enough to break 4 of them, albeit at the nipple, so I reckon they'll all need to go. I'll take a closer look when I get it home, but I reckon most of them are done for.

 

[physichull]

Just pay the money. Your time is more valuable

I'm of this opinion also. Things like that just look like a total frustrating head rend.

 

[touch]

@touch:

It's a 32 spoke wheel. The chain got wedged between the freewheel and the spokes so most if not all the spokes are scored at the elbow and it was enough to break 4 of them, albeit at the nipple, so I reckon they'll all need to go. I'll take a closer look when I get it home, but I reckon most of them are done for.

Ah, ok. So maybe 12-16 drive-side spokes to be replaced? Not far off £1 per spoke, which is quite high. I think my LBS charges 50p per spoke.

 

[Vonhelmet]

He quoted 60p a spoke, so the tenner is based on my saying most or all need replacing.

 

[Jono]

Anus combination lock, eh? Well I never.

Originally I typed Abus, but Anus is funnier Well it is if you're 5, like me.

Yes, I'd say climbing on a MTB is harder due to the uneven surface for a few reasons:

• Losing traction with the rear wheel when trying to push makes it hard to keep the momentum going.
• Having to increase your effort to lift the front wheel over roots/bumps/etc makes it harder to keep a steady pace like you can on a road.
• Off road paths can be steeper gradients than you'd ever get on a road

This was my route: https://www.strava.com/activities/540123493
Last time I did it was hard, too but I thought I was fitter. 'twas very muddy in places and had to walk up a bit, but was great fun.

 

[Roady]

I've just called the bike shop to get a quote for a wheel repair. They'd want anywhere between £15 and £25 for labour and £10 for spokes.

A fairly good quote to be honest! When you consider buying spokes are prob 1 or 2 quid each for you (depending on type)... You can use a frame as a truing stand, just upend on stand/support and then tape a ruler to the chainstays. A bit harder to sort out dishing but you can calculate that (& roughly by eye).

I think the climbs at the end mainly hurt because they are steeper, and you have so much in your legs already!

There are 3 feed stations, mainly before or after the biggest of the climbs! I think the final climbs will be the spinning ones. The drags I do around here are comparable to some of the early climbs: they aren't super hard, just twiddle my way up them. At least there are lots of recovery sections! All the descents are quite wide and sweeping, so should be good fun. And nothing too steep thankfully!

To be honest you should be doing most of your recovery on the bike, the more/longer you rest the harder it is to get going again (muscle cool down). The feed stations should usually be no more than a stretch stop, refill bottle, munch something, toilet and off again. They're best treated as nothing more than a place to pickup food from so you don't need to carry as much with you up the climbs...! (but you should be carrying some!)

My longer rides have all been about fueling, like yesterday, I think the only time I struggled was 60 miles in as I didn't eat much at the stop 50 miles in (just a banana and snickers bar). I ate at ~20 miles, ~36 miles in and should have eaten something at ~45 miles but didn't!

I had plenty left in my legs (even considered doing a local loop to get to 100 miles) but the pain/discomfort from my sit bones was the worst. Obviously the longer you're riding, the worse this'll get! Although as many will say it's all about conditioning yourself and getting used to it.

 

[madindehead]

I will be eating plenty. The feed stations apparently have waffles I'm looking forward to every descent. About being off the bike for too long: I really noticed that when I punctured a few weeks ago. It was horrible, I felt quite crap getting back on.

 

[SoliD]

I will be eating plenty. The feed stations apparently have waffles I'm looking forward to every descent. About being off the bike for too long: I really noticed that when I punctured a few weeks ago. It was horrible, I felt quite crap getting back on.

This for LBL? My friends completed it last year, eat eat eat and don't overstretch at any point, there is always a climb around the corner

My legs are feeling it today after yesterday, didn't think I tried that hard, could be because I didn't bother riding in today, didn't want to get the Ridley dirty

 

[Kimi]

Yeah, right in my backyard there basically!

Christmas Common is quite nice, and the routes down to Stonor and Hambledon are pretty nice. Lots of climbing in the Chilterns actually!

For sure, we're moving offices at the moment but our current one is in Thame so i used to ride Thame to Bracknell a few times a week. Up and over the Chilterns really is an awesome route.

 

[Jono]

I reckon more than 3 mins stopped is enough for me to have trouble getting going again.

 

[Roady]

Some great onbike footage of Paris-Roubaix from TeamSky. Only posting here (real talk belongs in the Pro thread). Has anyone with a GoPro also got a VIRB? I'm a VIRB owner and have to admit the footage in that video is better quality than the majority of mine. I know it's possibly cherrypicked but still...?!

 

[FrenchTart]

Virb video quality is good but mine never worked properly (cut out randomly) and I could never get it sorted. I ended up returning it.

 

[One More Solo]

I was wondering what sort of mount they used as that footage is much less shaky than I expected.

 

[grudas]

Some great onbike footage of Paris-Roubaix from TeamSky. Only posting here (real talk belongs in the Pro thread). Has anyone with a GoPro also got a VIRB? I'm a VIRB owner and have to admit the footage in that video is better quality than the majority of mine. I know it's possibly cherrypicked but still...?!

depends what go-pro's they've used.. if they used 4 blacks then yeah, no doubt it will be better! but it costs 4x as much too

 

[PermaBanned]

Some great onbike footage of Paris-Roubaix from TeamSky. Only posting here (real talk belongs in the Pro thread). Has anyone with a GoPro also got a VIRB? I'm a VIRB owner and have to admit the footage in that video is better quality than the majority of mine. I know it's possibly cherrypicked but still...?!

Well, they're all ranges of cameras. Velon has the budget for a bunch of top of the range GoPros, so obviously they're going to be better than a base level Virb.

Of course, there's an abundance of good quality action cams under £100 these days so it makes those higher model GoPros a lot harder to justify for most people.

 

[madindehead]

depends what go-pro's they've used.. if they used 4 blacks then yeah, no doubt it will be better! but it costs 4x as much too

As far as I know they are using the Session most of the time. Maybe Silvers. I doubt they will use a Black, as it's not 4K video they are capturing there.