Road Cycling

Status
Not open for further replies.
Vonhelmet said:
Out early this morning for 28 miles and 2000 feet. A bit slower than I'd have liked, but not bad given it was cold and I've not done much climbing yet this year. My single speed commuting to work must be helping with my low cadence grinding, because I got to the top of the cat 3 and realised I'd done it without dropping below 34*23. Not bad.
Click to expand...

Good effort

Same - quick early morning blast before a day on the beers and Muse gig tonight!

https://www.strava.com/activities/547705183
 
I had a bit of an amusing moment on a little climb I went up. You take a right turn after a fairly long flat stretch and go up a fairly decent slope for a couple of hundred yards. I'd overtaken a guy on the flat, gone past him at about 21mph and put a fair bit of distance between us. When it came to the right turn I had to wait for an oncoming car, so he caught up to me and shot past me up the climb as I was still spinning up in the wake of the car. He couldn't maintain his pace, though, so as he changed down to the small ring I cruised past and dropped him for a second time.

Quite satisfying, particularly as I've made the same mistake myself in the past :D
 
Bloomin' cold first thing this morning! Was going for a slightly bigger ride today but mechanical issues meant i had to come home. Still managed to get a 33 / 2200 done though.

I set a goal yesterday to give myself until the end of May to beat a PR up a climb...ended up beating it today! :D It's nice to see i can still beat PR's when not at my strongest, i need to get rid of this cough/cold before a 100k 5000ft ride in a couple weeks. :(
 
Quick blast: https://www.strava.com/activities/548017605

Beautiful sunshine today: but my goodness the wind! Had to cut my planned route short because of my feet. The wind was so cutting, my feet were frozen! Knee warmers and arm warmers of course! Lots out wearing either leg warmers (wasn't cold enough for those) or no leg/arm warmers. Mad.

I need some windproof overshoes! I really struggled to pedal with cold feet!
 
Last edited:
Set out on a route that is strictly dry riding only as the lanes are pretty muddy. Short un forecast shower near the start but I decided to press on, must have rained for longer on the second part of the route as the roads were soaked. Bike and kit are well and truly caked in crud :(

On another note, I'm pretty tolerant of whoever wants to use the roads but there seems to be a growing trend for walkers to walk down the middle of the road on the quiet lanes. Gets on my wick as I have to get pretty close before they can hear you which means losing momentum every time.
 
lordrobs said:
Set out on a route that is strictly dry riding only as the lanes are pretty muddy. Short un forecast shower near the start but I decided to press on, must have rained for longer on the second part of the route as the roads were soaked. Bike and kit are well and truly caked in crud :(

On another note, I'm pretty tolerant of whoever wants to use the roads but there seems to be a growing trend for walkers to walk down the middle of the road on the quiet lanes. Gets on my wick as I have to get pretty close before they can hear you which means losing momentum every time.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I noticed a lot of walkers out today too. Some walking on the wrong side (with the traffic).

Had two dodgy passes: the drivers gave me plenty space, but forgot that there was oncoming traffic, and got tooted by the oncoming drivers.
 
Definitely a weekend of not feeling it this one. Recce a tt course yesterday but had no legs felt hard all the way round. Out last night and on Walk home almost froze to death, decided not to get up for the tt this morning. So popped out for a blast. Wanted to get back but did put in some good climb efforts. Weather was better but still chilly with the northerly wind.

Now just watching amstel gold whilst dozing.
 
Popped out with the Manchester Wheelers for an intro ride and brought along two friends. Ended up being 16 of us with quite a range of ability. Pace was really relaxed aside from two sprints (up Tatton wall and down Styal road into Gatley - I won both..take that, new, inexperienced riders :p).

Some slight frustrations that are to be expected with riders new to groups in terms of not calling pot holes and being a little unpredictable but it was a fun ride. I also found out that they mostly organise their rides via FB and the forum now (not sure why I didn't think of that earlier really). I'll have to try and get down to more in future.
 
Tackled most of the Haddenham Howler climbs this morning, bar Whiteleaf because I ride that semi-regularly and wanted to save some juice for unfamiliar territory. The full is 80 miles but the first 50 contain all the climbs with a 30 mile leg stretch to round off.

https://www.strava.com/activities/548011660

Misjudged Bledlow Ridge, I'm familiar with it but was running out of puff come then end but still PR'd by almost a minute off a 14 minute climb.

No.12 Small Dean Lane was a 'first time' concern but after conquering it I think Kop Hill is worse as it's considerably longer and holds similar gradients. (Both climbs detailed here http://cyclechilterns.co.uk/steepest-15-climbs-on-the-chilterns-cycleway/ )

The rest were neither here nor there. Hampden Heart Breaker, took a wrong turn :rollseyes: but a nice long slog. Leather Lane again not challenging except for the distance & climbs that came before. The choppy section 40 miles in I've ridden before and it used to be grim enough at the start of a ride let alone at the end.

Question:
I removed a headset spacer and lowered the stem slightly, in addition to fitting new bars & tape, and now I'm getting quite a bit of 'buzz' on choppy road sections. I've held all the cables secure around the headset/frame so they're not touching anything whilst riding and it still occurs.

I read something in the week that tightening the bolts at the back of the stem before the cap & bolt that go on top can cause this? and that they should all be tightening simultaneously. Anyone had something similar?
 
I don't think I'd manage to eat 3 flapjacks in that time, 8 seems a lot, but to maintain what you would have roughly burned then what you ate will do just that.

I've also realised that finding summer kit is impossible for me! Damnit Rapha and your sizes, do they make a Small-Medium, I'm bang in the middle. :(
 
BennyC said:
Question:
I removed a headset spacer and lowered the stem slightly, in addition to fitting new bars & tape, and now I'm getting quite a bit of 'buzz' on choppy road sections. I've held all the cables secure around the headset/frame so they're not touching anything whilst riding and it still occurs.

I read something in the week that tightening the bolts at the back of the stem before the cap & bolt that go on top can cause this? and that they should all be tightening simultaneously. Anyone had something similar?
Click to expand...

Yeah, you need to tighten the top cap first with the stem bolts loose, so that it presses the whole stack down on the fork steerer tube. Once that's done, tighten the stem bolts. You can then back the top cap off a bit if you want.
 
BennyC said:
Question:
I removed a headset spacer and lowered the stem slightly, in addition to fitting new bars & tape, and now I'm getting quite a bit of 'buzz' on choppy road sections. I've held all the cables secure around the headset/frame so they're not touching anything whilst riding and it still occurs.

I read something in the week that tightening the bolts at the back of the stem before the cap & bolt that go on top can cause this? and that they should all be tightening simultaneously. Anyone had something similar?
Click to expand...

Loosen all the bolts, tighten the top bolt to 3nm, tighten the stem bolts to whatever the stem/steerer is rated for :)

DanF said:
Does this sound about right?

ride today was 2,042kJ over 85km - https://www.strava.com/activities/548169130/overview
was eating flapjacks at 310kJ per bit
is it as simple as divide 2042/310 to work out how much I should have eaten?

I ended up eating about 8, 1 per 10km so really don't feel hungry at all after the ride
Click to expand...

Strava kcal estimates are dodgy even with a PM. What did Garmin Connect say?

With a higher average power output than that I tend to burn 35-42kcal per mile so I'll eat a 330kcal flapjack every 10 miles if I'm on an imperial century or longer. I'll often not be hungry at all if I do that.

However, if you're also eating breakfast, lunch, etc you of course should factor that in.

edit: You also burn kcal just being alive of course :)
 
FrenchTart said:
Strava kcal estimates are dodgy even with a PM. What did Garmin Connect say?

With a higher average power output than that I tend to burn 35-42kcal per mile so I'll eat a 330kcal flapjack every 10 miles if I'm on an imperial century or longer. I'll often not be hungry at all if I do that.

However, if you're also eating breakfast, lunch, etc you of course should factor that in.

edit: You also burn kcal just being alive of course :)
Click to expand...

Garmin Connect is saying 2,038 C. Yep I feel like I ate too many this time and will try 1 every 15km next weekend. Just trying to sort out calorie neutral for multi day riding.
 
DanF said:
Garmin Connect is saying 2,038 C. Yep I feel like I ate too many this time and will try 1 every 15km next weekend. Just trying to sort out calorie neutral for multi day riding.
Click to expand...

If you can keep going on lower kcal then it's probably worth saving a few for a nice enjoyable meal afterwards anyhow :)
 
As for eating on the bike: I don't think it's necessary (or even possible on the ride itself) to get enough calories to replace what you've burned on the bike. If I do a ride and burn 1800 calories, I think I would make myself sick trying to get that many calories on the ride. You have to accept that you will generally have a deficit afterwards.

Eating around 60g of carb and hour is enough. Anymore, and you're going to cause yourself some serious gastrointestinal issues.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom