Another windy ride home, joy. I made life harder for myself, as I have done a few days now, by riding about 3/4 of a mile uphill out of the saddle on the home stretch. Is that good for something? Core, maybe? It's hard, whatever it is.
Great for core and useful for stretching some muscles which may not fully 'elongate' (my minds gone blank what the opposite of muscle contraction is called) in the normal riding position (hamstrings being one of the main ones). It helps with pedaling efficiency when stood climbing - if you're putting less effort into holding the position, you can concentrate more on smooth power when pedaling!
My Sportful Fiandre NoRain jacket turned up. It seems like a nice warm jersey, kinda similar to the dhb blok micro soft shell too. Only one rear pocket is a bit disappointing as I generally segregate pump, phone, food and certainly wouldn't want to mix keys and pump with my phone. I think the size might be a bit tight so kinda tempted to try a large but Wiggle are OOS... Maybe I'll do a Roady and wait until they have more stock in Large then do an exchange
Great jacket, you'll love it! So very tempted to get myself one of the
Light NoRain jerseys...
The exchange thing works well, although you do run the risk of them taking a while to restock (especially with brands like Sportful), or the line becoming EOL and them never getting any more. I generally have a look around other sites and look for reviews to get an idea of when the product was launched and if it's been superseded or not yet.
Is that the road that leads from the Jolly Farmer? It then goes into Marlow and comes out right next to the Compleat Angler?
Loving the pub directions! Sounds like some of the routes around here - "Turn right at The Swan in Letton, Left at the Red Lion, over Dorstone hill into Dorstone until you see the Pandy Inn"
Has anybody here any experience with the Topeak DynaWedge (small)? After a little bit of googling it doesn't appear you can get much in it (levers, Co2 canister & small multitool) but its quoted as being 0.8ltrs internal?!
I currently have the Evoc tour bag which is 1ltr and i manage to fit a tube, Co2 canister, tyre levers, large multitool, torque wrench and small tin (patches, spare bolts, glue etc). Unfortunately the bag fails at the first hurdle and its an absolute bugger to unzip, due to the zip opening up towards and under the saddle.
I don't have experience with the DynaWedge but the
Aero Wedge (Medium) I have, the rear zip can be fiddly at the top as my Fizik Arione overhangs at the rear. This fit/fiddle/overhang obviously depends on your saddle!
The 0.98 litres listed for mine is more than enough for everything you listed (I have room for my
multitude of toolage and 2 tubes) with some room to spare (expansion zip closed) so I would take Topeak's capacity with a pinch of salt.
Urgh, legs are pretty dead this morning. It was also ridiculously cold. Took about 20 minutes for my hands to get to the point where they weren't utterly burning.
Bitter cold wind
this morning, almost wish I'd put my winter gloves in my bag! Headwind for me too which really taxed my legs as I
went out with my mate after work last night. Great ride, headwinds out and lesser headwinds back. Split the ride out
into 2 so we both
did a stint in the strong wind, turned south and
practiced my sprint (9th overall I'm happy with!) then we
turned back towards town. Less winds but still felt like headwinds, both of us utterly drained at the end but considering the conditions that's the quickest I've done
the loop, just with a different friend than normal!
Scots don't take bank holidays as they are allowed to bank the days and use them when they want so normally work so no excuse.
