Road Cycling

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Well, that was pretty relentless. Headwinds for most of it along with spells of crazy hail and rain. Not too bad an average speed though I think on any other day if I'd averaged just under 200W for the whole route it would have been substantially faster.

https://www.strava.com/activities/560849366

Fun ride anyhow..just me and one other guy from Manchester Wheelers :p
 
Lethal` said:
Congrats! That's some progress! Even 50 mile flat (assuming it wasn't!) at 20mph is quite an achievement.
I'll take a look at the Cambridge route... only sportive planned this year so far is the Velothon Wales and that'll be my first sportive. Why isn't the Cambridge event popular?

Edit: Oh. Didn't realise you wrote tomorrow! I might have been tempted but no chance getting there for 7am at this short notice.
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Thanks :)

I don't really know why it's not so popular - in 2014 there were 427 finishers. Compared to the other rides I normally aim to do it's tiny - Norwich 100 with ~4000 each year and the Tour of Cambridgeshire had a good few thousand last year. It's a shame because as I mentioned it's a nice route, but at times you can find yourself on your own on the route which kinda takes away from the benefits of riding the route as a sportive.

If you're looking for another organised ride for later in the year then I'd highly recommend the Tour of Cambridgeshire: http://www.tourofcambridgeshire.com/

~80 mile course on 100% closed roads. It's a qualifier from the UCI Gran Fondo World Series finals so you get some very fast riders out front, but the rest of the field is quite mixed. The villagers (stuck at home due to the closed roads!) along the route really made it though. So many people out cheering riders on and handing out water. I had to stop a couple of times: once because of a puncture and another time because one of my contact lenses came out, and people were straight over to try and help me out. Really looking forward to that one this year (5th June).

If I remember correctly the Velothon Wales is also closed roads? If it's the one I was thinking of it's definitely on my list of rides to aim for next year.
 
Phil99 said:
If you're looking for another organised ride for later in the year then I'd highly recommend the Tour of Cambridgeshire: http://www.tourofcambridgeshire.com/

~80 mile course on 100% closed roads. It's a qualifier from the UCI Gran Fondo World Series finals so you get some very fast riders out front, but the rest of the field is quite mixed. The villagers (stuck at home due to the closed roads!) along the route really made it though. So many people out cheering riders on and handing out water. I had to stop a couple of times: once because of a puncture and another time because one of my contact lenses came out, and people were straight over to try and help me out. Really looking forward to that one this year (5th June).

If I remember correctly the Velothon Wales is also closed roads? If it's the one I was thinking of it's definitely on my list of rides to aim for next year.
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Cool. I'll take a look at that one.

Yep - Velothon Wales is closed roads. I'm surprised that it's not sold out already (@Roady - you could still join if tempted!) considering the over popularity of things like the RideLondon. I'm just hoping for some good weather. I'll have been on holiday without riding for 10 or so days before it so hopefully I can still make it up the climbs! Some workmates are coming too though not sure I'll hang around with all of them... hoping at least 1/2 will go a good pace.

Good luck for the one tomorrow and let us know how it goes!
 
As some of you may recall, I had to send my Giant Defy 3 back to Giant for a warranty replacement, I am glad to say a month later that I have a bike back. It is a Giant Defy 1 2015 frame, I much prefer the colour scheme on this bike. I have pictures of the old one (white) and new one (black below).

MyZiLeml.jpg


gfGXAcpl.jpg


A lot of the wait came as the new frame takes a pressed bottom bracket, can some one tell me the difference between a that and the original one? and also that Giant did not send a new seat post as my original one was an o shaped post and the new one is shaped like a D.

Can anyone provide a link or give me a brief idea of what I should be doing to the bike before and after a ride? I keep hearing and seeing conflicting information. I previously would lube the chain every week and leave it at that.
 
MM-Seat said:
As some of you may recall, I had to send my Giant Defy 3 back to Giant for a warranty replacement, I am glad to say a month later that I have a bike back. It is a Giant Defy 1 2015 frame, I much prefer the colour scheme on this bike. I have pictures of the old one (white) and new one (black below).

MyZiLeml.jpg


gfGXAcpl.jpg

A lot of the wait came as the new frame takes a pressed bottom bracket, can some one tell me the difference between a that and the original one? and also that Giant did not send a new seat post as my original one was an o shaped post and the new one is shaped like a D.

Can anyone provide a link or give me a brief idea of what I should be doing to the bike before and after a ride? I keep hearing and seeing conflicting information. I previously would lube the chain every week and leave it at that.
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Nice. If I remember correctly Roady has that same frame.

I generally degrease and lube once a week / every 2 weeks or so but it really depends on conditions. If I've been out on a wet/muddy ride I'll give the bike a quick 5 min clean. If conditions were dry and generally fine I'll wait a few rides first.
 
Use dry lube...clean the jockey wheels and chain every ~150 miles...job done :) You may need to re-lube the chain more regularly than that if it is raining (i.e. whenever it rains).

You really want to keep your drivechain clean but aside from that mud everywhere doesn't matter that much.
 
Bike built up this morning and raced this afternoon! It's pretty rapid!

DSC_1191_zpsi7qr4ayt.jpg


Few adjustments made after my TT, but pretty much there.
 
So I've signed up for a thing at work called the Global Corporate Challenge. Anyone done it before? It's like a 100 day exercise challenge that runs from late May to early September. You sign up as a team of 7, so my team is made up of me and another guy in my office who does quite a bit of running, and then 5 girls from our Epsom office. You get a pedometer and have to log how many steps you do per day, and you can score steps for other exercises like cycling or swimming, which have particular conversion rates based on how far you go. Swimming converts pretty well, if you're a quick swimmer. Cycling gets you about 300 steps per kilometer, so I'd get about 11000 steps just cycling to and from work each day.

I'm thinking I might use it as a springboard to try out running... I've always been crap at running, like utter garbage, can't do more than 100 yards, but I'm thinking I must be able to get the hang of it, given I can cycle somewhat competently. I'm thinking of getting some running shoes and other kit and trying out the Couch to 5k plan. If I took my gear to work with me I could get in a couple of runs at lunchtimes during the week. It'd be something new and it'd probably be good as cross training, and good to do a bit of impact exercise before I lose all bone density.

So, maybe I'll be logging runs on strava before too long...
 
Can't say I'm a fan of running. I stupidly thought that when my fitness on the bike improved that I must be able to run... wrong.

So on Monday my missing spacer was being posted to me, when Mr Postman still didn't have it in his sack today I emailed them again. In the mean time my plan for a metric was thrown out of the window when my wife managed to make herself ridiculously late for a meeting with some friends so I dropped her into the city and took the opportunity to just go and buy a spacer so my Campagnolo garage ornaments could be re-purposed as wheels for my bike.

Went into Evans and told them what I needed, a few seconds later the chap came back with one, a few slightly awkward seconds passed and I asked "how much do I owe you?" Oh, just take it. We always have a few knocking around from when we make up 11 speed bikes. Which I thought was decent of them. Picked up a few High 5 starter packs while I was in there. £3.95 and they included (IIRC) 6 gels, a 10 tab tube of High 5 Zero, 2 Energy source drink sachets and a recovery sachet.

EDIT - Oh and a quick spin with the Khamsins revealed two things 1) Silent freehub, never had one of those before :p 2) My bike stops a hell of a lot quicker now! The braking surface is far less ridged than my old wheels so I guess the contact area is much larger. Oh and 3) Michelins look awful after their first run as that white powdery stuff appears like magic.
 
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Vonhelmet said:
So I've signed up for a thing at work called the Global Corporate Challenge. Anyone done it before? It's like a 100 day exercise challenge that runs from late May to early September. You sign up as a team of 7, so my team is made up of me and another guy in my office who does quite a bit of running, and then 5 girls from our Epsom office. You get a pedometer and have to log how many steps you do per day, and you can score steps for other exercises like cycling or swimming, which have particular conversion rates based on how far you go. Swimming converts pretty well, if you're a quick swimmer. Cycling gets you about 300 steps per kilometer, so I'd get about 11000 steps just cycling to and from work each day.

I'm thinking I might use it as a springboard to try out running... I've always been crap at running, like utter garbage, can't do more than 100 yards, but I'm thinking I must be able to get the hang of it, given I can cycle somewhat competently. I'm thinking of getting some running shoes and other kit and trying out the Couch to 5k plan. If I took my gear to work with me I could get in a couple of runs at lunchtimes during the week. It'd be something new and it'd probably be good as cross training, and good to do a bit of impact exercise before I lose all bone density.

So, maybe I'll be logging runs on strava before too long...
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Running sucks :(

You might be aware of the pitfalls for a competent cyclist already - your cardio system is in far better shape than your legs' ability to deal with the stresses of running. It's extremely easy to feel like you're not pushing that hard but actually you're destroying your legs. Also, a mile running is a hell of a lot further than a mile cycling (which may seem obvious but it actually isn't when you're planning runs). Start slow, take it *very* easy and try to run less far but more often. Running three or four short and easy runs in a week will do far more for you than two runs that leave you limping for days after.

I have never taken this advice myself. Hence my longest run being just under 5k..and it left me quite broken for almost a week.
 
Vonhelmet said:
So I've signed up for a thing at work called the Global Corporate Challenge. Anyone done it before? It's like a 100 day exercise challenge that runs from late May to early September. You sign up as a team of 7, so my team is made up of me and another guy in my office who does quite a bit of running, and then 5 girls from our Epsom office. You get a pedometer and have to log how many steps you do per day, and you can score steps for other exercises like cycling or swimming, which have particular conversion rates based on how far you go. Swimming converts pretty well, if you're a quick swimmer. Cycling gets you about 300 steps per kilometer, so I'd get about 11000 steps just cycling to and from work each day.

I'm thinking I might use it as a springboard to try out running... I've always been crap at running, like utter garbage, can't do more than 100 yards, but I'm thinking I must be able to get the hang of it, given I can cycle somewhat competently. I'm thinking of getting some running shoes and other kit and trying out the Couch to 5k plan. If I took my gear to work with me I could get in a couple of runs at lunchtimes during the week. It'd be something new and it'd probably be good as cross training, and good to do a bit of impact exercise before I lose all bone density.

So, maybe I'll be logging runs on strava before too long...
Click to expand...

It's a load of ****.
I done it the other year, my team hammered every team in my company and nobody even batted an eye lid but I see this year there are banners and leafllets all over the office for it....

I was running 90+ miles a week and 4 hours in the gym and people who commuted 5 miles each way on their bikes were putting more steps per day in that me.... My 16 mile long run days can't remember how many steps the wee thing gave me but I got pretty annoyed with what was complete under-reading from my device or other people were straight up lying on the entries they were putting on it every day.

Cycling by far seemed to give incredible amounts of "steps" versus anything else.

Not that it was really a competition or anything. I just don't do losing well. At anything. Ever!
 
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