Road Cycling

Decided to take the Felt F5C out given the lovely weather, the shocking news is it can generally climb a bit quicker than on the skinnified Voodoo Wazoo!:eek: ;)

First proper ride on the Felt in years, didn't enjoy the downhill or fast flat bits much at all, I was too pre-occupied thinking about how vulnerable my head was; how skinny the 25c tyres were if I hit a pothole; how my braking distances would be further on the Speed Limit rim brakes compared to hydraulics.

But going uphill, clipped into my Time ATAC XS pedals instead of the flat C162 pedals on the Wazoo, it was much more fun. Part of me wanted to carry on riding, to tackle a few of my other local hills and compare times between bikes, but I could tell on my final climb of the day that my legs were spent... No doubt partly through the adrenaline fear of being on a drop bar bike and not timing my ride very well, catching bits of school run traffic here and there.
 
Full on summer gear today! Shorts, short sleeve jersey & base layer and summer gloves. No over shoes and not a cap or buff in sight :D

4 loops of the RR circuit this afternoon, including a 25min 10m to & from. Accompanied by a recently ranked Cat 3 rider from the club. Made a nice change and was humbling to be on the receiving end of some hurt and equally dish out a bit myself :cool:

54miles, 2,200ft @ a shade under 20mph avg with a moderate wind.
(90 mins of which was the RR circuit, 8 miles 23~mins, with an avg of 3.1-3.2w/kg :eek: with a total ride avg of 3w/kg and an IF factor for the total ride of .9 2hrs 40mins #shutuplegs.)

Slightly different kinds of hurt than I'm used to, with it being demanded by the rider in front rather than being able to take it as & when you please on a solo ride. Haven't ridden with the club or really followed a wheel (social 16-17's) since Sept/October but it came back quickly enough for the 2nd,3rd,4th loops. Will get out again soon with some more sets of legs and less turns on the front :p
 
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Had to hurry home from work so the mrs could go out. Engaged beast mode and battered it but still only averaged 16.9mph and didn't get a single achievement. Rubbish.
 
Forecast looking good for the weekend boys! Get your summer bikes out! (if they're not already......I'm not sure what the weather has been like there the past week)
 
UTmaniac said:
Decided to take the Felt F5C out given the lovely weather
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Glad you got out & did a decent loop on it. Keep riding and the familiarity will come back, as will the confidence! :)
BennyC said:
90 mins of which was the RR circuit, 8 miles 23~mins, with an avg of 3.1-3.2w/kg :eek: with a total ride avg of 3w/kg and an IF factor for the total ride of .9 2hrs 40mins #shutuplegs.
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Great riding & training ready, if you're nervous in a group and not ridden with one for that long it'd be a good idea to get out with some beforehand! See if you can find a couple of guys who also race to give you some nudges and pushes to really get a feel for things. Couple of times group guys I ride with have been messing around pushing each other it's quite scary! Couple of times I've had elbow bangs/shoulder rubs it's really shaken me up. Imagine it takes quite a bit of getting used to! :o

I was pushing 3.2w/kg most of last nights race with a good section of around 20 minutes at 4w/kg! :o
Vonhelmet said:
Had to hurry home from work so the mrs could go out. Engaged beast mode and battered it but still only averaged 16.9mph and didn't get a single achievement. Rubbish.
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Blame headwinds! :D
 
https://www.strava.com/activities/893874255

Absolutely ruined myself last night in a Zwift KISS CAT B race. My first CAT B after riding a couple of C's & D's where I held back to keep under the w/kg limits. I knew there would be no hiding now, but equally I wanted to really put an effort in to get an idea of where I stood.

http://www.zwiftpower.com/race.php?id=4303

CAT B sets off with CAT A, so where before I'd previously set off with CAT C & D finding I could easily hold the 4w/kg start and be in some of the front bunches. Not the case with CAT B & A! I was pushing 5-6w/kg and losing wheels everywhere! Reeled myself in to 300W and tried to settle into a tempo, after a mile or so realised I was in no man's land with a group forming a couple of seconds behind me so dropped back to ride on some wheels. Around 15/20 of us kinda rolling turns for a good few laps, I had a dig or two off the front figuring out who was strong and would follow. The race was for 8 laps and after holding around 3w/kg avg for several laps with this group I felt like I needed to try and bridge across to the next biggest group up the road, around 50s in front on lap 5/6. There were a handful of solo riders between the two groups so I hoped to take 2 or 3 with me and pick a few up. When I went several tried to go with me and I had to hold 4.5w/kg to really make any progress, after a mile or so it was me and 1 other guy (Darren Murray) with several seconds on them. We pushed hard for 2 laps, hardly dropping below 4w/kg and got the gap down to around 30s. I was pretty done at that point, there was no way I could sustain that so I settled back down to 3.5w/kg and a handful from the group behind soon collected me, around 6-8 of us, I could tell it was going to end in a sprint so surfed as many wheels as possible to recover. As we where on the Volcano crit circuit there are a couple of rolling slopes just before the finish, I'd hit most of them at 4-5w/kg all race and was distancing people so I figured I'd go for a long sprint and hope I had enough left in the tank to hold them off. With an aero powerup saved I pushed again at 4w/kg at 1.6 miles to go and nobody went with me. it with 0.8 to go I popped my powerup just as a couple came flying past me, holding 5w/kg I was able to hold onto a couple, I faded badly at the end and lost a couple of places. On screen I finished in 50th place (A & B in same list), so I figured I'd be around 20/30th place in B.

Now all results are in I finished 19th place in B. 150 starters, around 50 in A and 100 in B. I'm happy with that, top 20 out of 100 in my first B race! :D

Zwift prompted me to change FTP to 285W at the end of the session, didn't choose to change it so have kept my 271W FTP for now. 101% intensity, 76 suffer score on Strava and 293W avg for the race on ZP. No wonder I was totally ruined! Legs actually felt ok but the rest of me really felt strange all night afterwards, had some stomach cramps just before bed which I'm putting down to having a caffeine gel so late at night (and from the way I collapsed on the sofa afterwards). I know I went deep and that's not something I've done very much recently.

EDIT: 108 TSS on TP :o
 
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Yesterday's Triathlon Relay (I cycled - screw running and swimming!) - https://www.strava.com/activities/893171828

Hardest time on a bike I've ever experienced. No real opportunity for a warmup beforehand and was standing joking with workmates that our swimmer is paralympic so she'll be out any second. Turns out it was literally 3 seconds later so I was first off on the bike. So quick 'baton' swap fumbling to put the timer round my leg and I'm off running to the mount point with my bike. HR was up at 180bpm before I'd even turned out of the transition area.

I was lulled into a false sense of security by a tailwind start (and an adrenalin rush). As soon as I turned down the long west section of the course I hit a headwind. Very narrow turning onto that as they'd coned off a two bike width on a right hand bend with traffic light. Speed down from ~26 to 18-20 through the bend and sprint out of it into a headwind. I did one attempt at a similar effort 2 weeks ago where I averaged 187bpm for 30mins. Today I was at 199bpm avg. I was conscious of this but any efforts to lower my HR seemed to have a massive drop off in speed so I kept it going. Arrived back into the transition area in a multistorey car park to realise everyone was wearing red and I struggled to spot my teammate then a skid in my cleats before fumbling with the timing band again!

Finished the 18km in 26:56.3 - fastest cycle (not that there was a category for that!). Our team came 3rd in Mixed - Relay team category and 8th overall. Pretty happy with that :)

Some impressive solo efforts. One of the individuals came 3rd overall. Two relay teams above him.
 
Lethal` said:
Yesterday's Triathlon Relay (I cycled - screw running and swimming!) - https://www.strava.com/activities/893171828

Hardest time on a bike I've ever experienced. No real opportunity for a warmup beforehand and was standing joking with workmates that our swimmer is paralympic so she'll be out any second. Turns out it was literally 3 seconds later so I was first off on the bike. So quick 'baton' swap fumbling to put the timer round my leg and I'm off running to the mount point with my bike. HR was up at 180bpm before I'd even turned out of the transition area.

I was lulled into a false sense of security by a tailwind start (and an adrenalin rush). As soon as I turned down the long west section of the course I hit a headwind. Very narrow turning onto that as they'd coned off a two bike width on a right hand bend with traffic light. Speed down from ~26 to 18-20 through the bend and sprint out of it into a headwind. I did one attempt at a similar effort 2 weeks ago where I averaged 187bpm for 30mins. Today I was at 199bpm avg. I was conscious of this but any efforts to lower my HR seemed to have a massive drop off in speed so I kept it going. Arrived back into the transition area in a multistorey car park to realise everyone was wearing red and I struggled to spot my teammate then a skid in my cleats before fumbling with the timing band again!

Finished the 18km in 26:56.3 - fastest cycle (not that there was a category for that!). Our team came 3rd in Mixed - Relay team category and 8th overall. Pretty happy with that :)

Some impressive solo efforts. One of the individuals came 3rd overall. Two relay teams above him.
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Awesome result, great speed and even pacing considering the monster HR! Your position on the bike in pics looks great, looks fairly effortless/comfortable for you?!
booyaka said:
Free gels!

http://www.scienceinsport.com/uk/promotions/dbpth-mar17-enter
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Same as other years/seasons where they're 'free' when you order £30 of other gels and pay silly high postage? Not as 'bad' as I recall...

A transaction through www.scienceinsport.com is necessary to claim gift.

No minimum purchase amount is required to receive the free SiS Gel Training Pack; however, an order must be processed through www.scienceinsport.com to activate the promotion. UK orders under £10 have a standard UK delivery charge of £3.99. UK orders in conjunction with this offer of over £10 have free standard delivery.

Promotion is not valid outside the United Kingdom.
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Roady said:
Awesome result, great speed and even pacing considering the monster HR! Your position on the bike in pics looks great, looks fairly effortless/comfortable for you?!
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Those photos were actually taken post event sans leg warmers and arm warmers as weather was so nice by then!

It's not that comfortable really :p Saddle could probably do with being further forward but don't think there is a lot of scope for that left as it's already quite far forward. Perhaps bars could be lower as well but only going to get 5mm lower with one spacer left to remove.
 
merlin said:
You seem.......surprised?
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The delivery issues of old (late 2015-mid 2016) were explained away with the implementation of a new factory and IT system. Canyon have since been promoting that these issues have been resolved and everything is back to normal. Which seemed reasonable…….on the surface.
  • My order was confirmed early January with delivery by mid Feb.
  • This was delayed because of an outside supplier issue: "Lack of availability of Shimano’s disc Di2 system". (even though Specialized and BMC both could have supplied me with a bike within 3 days with the Di2 Disc groupset).
  • New delivery week of 7th March and so far no communications from Canyon.
Looking around the web people do get bikes delivered quickly (in stock) but its pot luck if you do or don’t with bikes that are required to be built.

It will be worth the wait, the saving is about £1.5k over equivalent spec bikes from Spesh, Cervelo and BMC.

In response to your post, i'm surprised, as it looked like they had sorted their problems but the customer experience has been very poor.
 
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