Road Cycling

Had some friends over at the weekend who like their riding, they're way better than me, but ate and drank too much sat night. I was ruined yesterday. Was asleep by 8:30pm.

Me and one of the guys are going to setup a 24hr Zwift "race". Stupid idea, but we're doing it for charity. My wife has been diagnosed with a rare bone disease called AVN so lacks mobility in her joints (currently her hip is the worst) and will require a replacement soon. As such, we wanted to do something ridiculous and this seems pretty stupid, so going to try and centre an event around it.
 
New disc wheels on order. New (well, ebay) crank set on order, new carbon stem on order...to go with the new disc rotors, pads and callipers ive already got.

So much for my BMC being a off the shelf winter hack.
 
Didn't have winter gloves on this morning, just windproof. Hands only slightly cold, ambient 5-6 degrees with only slight windchill. Don't think I'd have overheated in winter gloves as my commute is now so short I barely warm up (especially riding in with the +1 in the mornings so I take it fairly steady). I'm dreading the colder weather as I'm in 70% winter kit already (and the ambient is nowhere near freezing)! :o

Some pondering I've been doing recently (has cropped up due to looking at trainers & PWM's) is due to the pound dropping in value so much. Previously we had quite good buying power over our European neighbours so things like turbo's and power meters, although expensive, were still affordable. We're reaching the position now where things are going to level out to a 1:1 euro exchange and possibly the same to the dollar. Already we're seeing price hikes in many items, look at Shimano groupsets for a prime example, clothing is starting to go the same way. Our British own brands (Altura and others like DHB/PX) are going to become much more the norm when they're loads cheaper than Castelli, providing they can keep their prices in line with the pound and not be overly influenced by their outsourced manufacturing. We're going to see far less sales on sites like Wiggle on these popular brands, possibly even close to retail price levels. It's not just cycling that'll feel it, much of our electronic commodities are going to reflect the less competitive pound and this will hit many other parts of our lives.

All of this is going to happen at the same time as cycling again features a resurgence in the general population, on one hand with more expensive cars and fuel, we should see more people commuting by bike. But on the other, our premium branded frames, power meters, garmins & other gadgets are all going to see price hikes. Much of the popularity and increasingly competitive markets of these items isn't going to be reflected in the prices we see (offset by drop in sterling value).

TLDR; Damn BREXIT! Now I'll never be able to afford a power meter! :D ;)
 
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randomshenans said:
Had some friends over at the weekend who like their riding, they're way better than me, but ate and drank too much sat night. I was ruined yesterday. Was asleep by 8:30pm.

Me and one of the guys are going to setup a 24hr Zwift "race". Stupid idea, but we're doing it for charity. My wife has been diagnosed with a rare bone disease called AVN so lacks mobility in her joints (currently her hip is the worst) and will require a replacement soon. As such, we wanted to do something ridiculous and this seems pretty stupid, so going to try and centre an event around it.
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Sorry to hear about your wife but that sounds like an excellent idea for a charity support event. I reckon you could get huge support if you setup a small website and some social networking groups/etc.
 
One More Solo said:
Indeed. Still saw some mad folks out in shorts and jersey this weekend though. Even racing at this time of year is full winter arms and legs for me.
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I didn't realise how cold it would be yesterday so went out in shorts and don't have any overshoes. Had to stop at a pub on route to get some foil to help insulate my toes as was starting to get pins and needles, the wind chill from descending was horrible.

Definitely investing in some overshoes for my next long ride and a long sleeve winter jersey.
 
randomshenans said:
Me and one of the guys are going to setup a 24hr Zwift "race". Stupid idea, but we're doing it for charity. My wife has been diagnosed with a rare bone disease called AVN so lacks mobility in her joints (currently her hip is the worst) and will require a replacement soon. As such, we wanted to do something ridiculous and this seems pretty stupid, so going to try and centre an event around it.
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That's rubbish to hear about mate, hope things work out for her and doesn't cause too many issues for you all.

Great idea to do something like that, although I'm sure I've heard of 24h Zwift things going on before. Still remember the first time I saw a guy who'd covered over 100 miles in a single ride on there (quite enjoyed seeing all the encouragement and comments he was getting too!).

One of the guys from here (unsure of forum name sorry!) did a metric on sunday with the ODZ guys. Think it was an organised event (Cervelo sponsored?).
 
Roady said:
Some pondering I've been doing recently (has cropped up due to looking at trainers & PWM's) is due to the pound dropping in value so much. Previously we had quite good buying power over our European neighbours so things like turbo's and power meters, although expensive, were still affordable. We're reaching the position now where things are going to level out to a 1:1 euro exchange and possibly the same to the dollar. Already we're seeing price hikes in many items, look at Shimano groupsets for a prime example, clothing is starting to go the same way. Our British own brands (Altura and others like DHB/PX) are going to become much more the norm when they're loads cheaper than Castelli, providing they can keep their prices in line with the pound and not be overly influenced by their outsourced manufacturing. We're going to see far less sales on sites like Wiggle on these popular brands, possibly even close to retail price levels. It's not just cycling that'll feel it, much of our electronic commodities are going to reflect the less competitive pound and this will hit many other parts of our lives.
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Problem is that most of the 'British' brands are still made overseas and those that aren't are normally mega bucks due to the cost of producing stuff in the UK. PX must get stuff from China by the container load, I can't see how else they would still be in business with their perpetual sales knocking out stuff for a couple of quid.

The rising popularity with cycling is the only thing that may have a positive effect on pricing as suppliers will be able to leverage bigger discounts with larger orders. Obviously this is going to benefit your Halfords, Wiggles and CRC's way more than your LBS so I can see more of them closing down. Personally I think that would be a shame but I say that as a huge hypocrite with my last three bikes coming from Evans, Halfords and Wiggle respectively :o
 
Thanks guys, going to try and get it all set up. See if my arse holds out more than anything. Going to have to move back to the UK first part of next year, as we'll need support from family etc.
Bit of a bummer, but hey. Means I need to make sure I can have my own office and man cave... this is a priority.
 
lordrobs said:
Problem is that most of the 'British' brands are still made overseas and those that aren't are normally mega bucks due to the cost of producing stuff in the UK. PX must get stuff from China by the container load, I can't see how else they would still be in business with their perpetual sales knocking out stuff for a couple of quid.

The rising popularity with cycling is the only thing that may have a positive effect on pricing as suppliers will be able to leverage bigger discounts with larger orders. Obviously this is going to benefit your Halfords, Wiggles and CRC's way more than your LBS so I can see more of them closing down. Personally I think that would be a shame but I say that as a huge hypocrite with my last three bikes coming from Evans, Halfords and Wiggle respectively :o
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Similar to my thinking - the larger brands and e/re-tailers are the only ones who'll be able to weather the storm. Many of the smaller brands, shops and websites are really going to struggle. There's just not much produced in the UK anymore. Maybe we'll start to see more?! :cool:

Fairly new light brand with some good reviews and good pricing if anyone's after lights.
 
randomshenans said:
Thanks guys, going to try and get it all set up. See if my arse holds out more than anything. Going to have to move back to the UK first part of next year, as we'll need support from family etc.
Bit of a bummer, but hey. Means I need to make sure I can have my own office and man cave... this is a priority.
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Oooh, big changes! No way to transfer with your work (UK site/office)? London^commuting^luls ;)

What sorta thing are you looking for? Canyon sales rep? ;) Not saying we can help, but someone here may know of something. Unless it's HGV driving/Horticulture I can't help!
 
randomshenans said:
Had some friends over at the weekend who like their riding, they're way better than me, but ate and drank too much sat night. I was ruined yesterday. Was asleep by 8:30pm.

Me and one of the guys are going to setup a 24hr Zwift "race". Stupid idea, but we're doing it for charity. My wife has been diagnosed with a rare bone disease called AVN so lacks mobility in her joints (currently her hip is the worst) and will require a replacement soon. As such, we wanted to do something ridiculous and this seems pretty stupid, so going to try and centre an event around it.
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Depending on the timing I'd consider joining you for that :eek:.

randomshenans said:
Most likely Herts/beds/Cambs/ sort of way. Close enough to my Mum for help and close enough for me to hopefully get a contract in London. That's the idea. Just a short ride down for you :D
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We should hook up for a ride :).
 
^^ defo! And I'll sort out things for the ride, going to knock up a site and get it all pushed out.

@Roady, I've spent the last 2 yrs building up a company, but we just need a push on sales to make us fully able to fund ourselves. We sell in to education and that is the slowest sell ever. One deal is currently taking us 9 months...
In the meantime I am a Project Manager; managed projects in many IT space, infra, MS products, SharePoint, Office Moves, DR, Software development, cloud, migrations, onboarding, offboarding etc... loads. Agile & waterfall, depends on the project.
I would hate commuting to london, but hey, what can you do. I've been there and done that and nearly got signed off for depression haha
See how far away I am to ride... :D No chance moving current job over, contract here and as I run projects I'm client focussed, which is on site in Basel.
 
randomshenans said:
@Roady, I've spent the last 2 yrs building up a company, but we just need a push on sales to make us fully able to fund ourselves. We sell in to education and that is the slowest sell ever. One deal is currently taking us 9 months...
In the meantime I am a Project Manager; managed projects in many IT space, infra, MS products, SharePoint, Office Moves, DR, Software development, cloud, migrations, onboarding, offboarding etc... loads. Agile & waterfall, depends on the project.
I would hate commuting to london, but hey, what can you do. I've been there and done that and nearly got signed off for depression haha
See how far away I am to ride... :D No chance moving current job over, contract here and as I run projects I'm client focussed, which is on site in Basel.
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Ahhh, interesting, not quite sure but hadn't figured out what you did! Educational related sales are probably similar to the support side of things (which I did for a few years) - easy money but the amount of red tape, back scratching and paperwork really made it a time sink. So much so it felt like a total waste of time compared to the corporate & SME stuff we were concentrating on at the time. We found too many other contractors milking the system and providing poor service so those actually doing any work would have to cover much more than contracted to do so (that might just be a flaw in the UK system at that time though)! Example: We were contracted to do Desktop maintenance & support during term times, yet also got tasked with rolling out site specific mail servers & mail migration between the platforms.

I know at least 2 others who do similar IT project management, one based on the south coast and the other in Northampton. There's much outside of London if you're looking for it! Part of me is thinking of the wasted commuting time working in & around London. Most of all that time is the start and end of the day. Away from your wife and family! Somewhere with less of a commute would give you more time with them - possibly similar to what you have now! :)
 
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Imma be honest, me and my gf are tempted to ditch london and run away.. I just need to figure out where.

it's too expensive here :o even with our above avg income we can't save enough for a deposit to buy a house and rent is going up and up year by year..
 
Can only see it getting worse to be honest, London will always remain in a 'bubble' due to all of the foreign business and investors. The rest of the UK will be more impacted by BEXIT and devaluation of the pound, part of me hopes that it'll drive some UK industry and open up some more export markets for UK products. Maybe I'm being too hopeful! :rolleyes:

I always find it quite interesting of the demographic we have in here - mostly IT/technology orientated guys (bit obvious with the website really) interested in cycling. :cool:
 
Roady said:
Can only see it getting worse to be honest, London will always remain in a 'bubble' due to all of the foreign business and investors. The rest of the UK will be more impacted by BEXIT and devaluation of the pound, part of me hopes that it'll drive some UK industry and open up some more export markets for UK products. Maybe I'm being too hopeful! :rolleyes:

I always find it quite interesting of the demographic we have in here - mostly IT/technology orientated guys (bit obvious with the website really) interested in cycling. :cool:
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Unfortunately I can imagine that Hereford will suffer quite significantly due to Brexit - although it has been on a downward spiral for decades now!

At least there is decent cycling to be had :p
 
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