Road Cycling

Just went to Decathlon to get measured up for a frame. Their online size guide put me at an XL, but on testing it out, I'm actually a L so glad I went and checked. Also made me ride round the store :( first time I've ridden a bike in literally 10+ years. I was all over the shop, not helped by the fact I could never find the brakes as I kept trying to feel for them in a normal bike position.

Ordered it online when I got back to the office and pick it up at the weekend, I'll have to cycle it home as I don't have folding rear seats. So will be an experience :X
 
Bruhhhh, as I said (but for the benefit of others too), full 105 Groupset on the 540 and wheels will be hard pushed to beat for £650. And on a bike that reviews as 10/10.

You might find something more heavily reduced that's stock from a few seasons ago but still my original point stands :)
 
SoliD said:
RTM - eBullying! Come on we should treat all people who can't ride a bike the same....
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The rule of the cycling sub-forum land is that of man.
He helped him very nicely, then counter balanced that help with an insult. Perfect and valid execution.
 
SoliD said:
RTM - eBullying! Come on we should treat all people who can't ride a bike the same....
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Rule #5

xdcx said:
The rule of the cycling sub-forum land is that of man.
He helped him very nicely, then counter balanced that help with an insult. Perfect and valid execution.
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I can jest with Steedie because I will actually be dropping him, sorry, taking him :p, for his first respectable ride on Monday.
 
Nice to met you @Lethal` this weekend at Etape. Hope you enjoyed the time north of the border!!! Glad we cycled yesterday, left Inverness today - 3 degrees, 30mph winds and snow blizzards!!!

Good to catch up for a few beers as well.

Not sure I could have kept up the whole way with your pace off the line!! First 20 miles flew past despite the headwind, until the accident.

Fingers crossed that the chap involved in the big crash we witnessed, pulls through. Sounds bad. All over the news up here now.

Just a reminder for everyone to be careful out there!
 
platypus said:
they were bought at a date before my Wiggle order history starts it seems :/. Though I know I bought both from Wiggle, and can remember the exact prices I paid.
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Wiggle order confirmation emails have prices on if you kept them? Roughly what year?

My Wiggle order history goes back to when I started - 2014. You do have to go into a 'View My Orders' button on the right of order history then you'll see a page with 'tabs' for the different years.

EDIT: Benny. I love you! xD
 
Roady said:
Glad you guys had a good time, write up/report (& Strava links) please! :D
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quick strava link

https://www.strava.com/activities/954148233

Quick report from me - Flying start, myself, Chris (Lethal) and David (my cycling pal). 20 miles covered very quick with a bit of a headwind. A few decent groups. Then up a rise in the road, over the top and about 40/50 people in a group, well spread out but I could sense a few jittery riders and of course bang, huge crash. At 4 people and bikes hit the deck and fortunately we all narrowly avoided it. All doing around 30mph. Long and short of it was a severely injured chap, my mate Dave was dealing with the emergency services, race director etc and other first aiders etc on the phone at the crash site.

I waited with Lethal just slightly down the road but after 15 mins, I said to Lehtal to crack on as I would wait on Dave etc. Ambulance and medical crews arrived and took over. Myself and Dave set off again. Tough climb in the middle, sort of 3 parts to it but over the top. 40mph off the top, my freehub decided this was a good time to suddenly give up! Basically had zero engagement from the hub, i.e could freewheel but couldn't pedal, nothing was engaging. Managed to limp it to feedstop which had a mechanic there. He did a quick bodge job trying to free the pawls etc - I think 2 of the 3 pawls freed themselves but 1 didn't. So anyway had to crack on with only 2/3 of a pedal stroke producing power for the last 25 miles.

Eventful day, poor time for me and Dave due to accident (25/30 mins and mechanical 20 mins lost) - also lost any decent fast groups to work in - so me and dave had to just two up chain it between us for last 25 miles. Got zero help from anyone as they were all slower than us.

Overall - lovely scenery, glad to just avoid the crash. Nice route - would be a very fast one in a few groups. My other cycling pals did 3hrs 10 mins as they didn't stop and had groups to work in for the full distance. Fastest was 2hrs 48 mins.

Later in the day whilst having a few beers, ended up getting interviewed in the back of a police car about the crash. Chap appears to be a fairly bad way and they are investigating the circumstances of the crash due to his injuries. It was just one of those things as far as I'm concerned. Lots of people spread out, going fast and it was going to happen.
 
booyaka said:
Nice to met you @Lethal` this weekend at Etape. Hope you enjoyed the time north of the border!!! Glad we cycled yesterday, left Inverness today - 3 degrees, 30mph winds and snow blizzards!!!

Good to catch up for a few beers as well.

Not sure I could have kept up the whole way with your pace off the line!! First 20 miles flew past despite the headwind, until the accident.

Fingers crossed that the chap involved in the big crash we witnessed, pulls through. Sounds bad. All over the news up here now.

Just a reminder for everyone to be careful out there!
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And you! Nice to hang around with your club. It was a fun weekend out!

Good to meet @xdcx and @touch for a ride Saturday morning as well. Looks like @touch finished the 'race' within the top 10 :)

Still keep thinking about that crash. Only about a foot from hitting one of the down riders. I think people get a bit of a false sense of security in general with closed road events thinking no dangers about. I braked a few times up the climb to avoid hitting riders that suddenly swerved right for no apparent reason. Almost had a similar incident to @xdcx last year on the run into Inverness with the cones.. some guy swerves right while I'm overtaking him to avoid the smoothest drain cover I've ever seen almost pushing me into the cones. It was dry too :confused:

I spent all the time after leaving the accident scene trying to find a group of similar pace to no avail. Of course everyone is going a similar pace so they remain the same time gap away! In hindsight, I probably could have entered a better time estimate and joined Wave A and tried to hang on. I'd have probably been dropped up that climb though!

Roady said:
Glad you guys had a good time, write up/report (& Strava links) please! :D
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There's a bit of a write up above :p I'll be writing a review for a blog soon anyway and will link that.

Strava here: https://www.strava.com/activities/954063420
 
booyaka said:
Eventful day, poor time for me and Dave due to accident (25/30 mins and mechanical 20 mins lost) - also lost any decent fast groups to work in - so me and dave had to just two up chain it between us for last 25 miles. Got zero help from anyone as they were all slower than us.
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I didn't get overtaken for 46 miles after leaving you guys besides my 30 second feed stop. Was really hoping some similar pace riders had stopped at a feed stop and peel out at a convenient time or pass me! I jumped onto the front of a group of 20 or so doing 4mph less and slowly accelerated away hoping I'd tempt a few riders with me but no one budged :(
 
booyaka said:
Nice to met you @Lethal` this weekend at Etape.
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Lethal` said:
Good to meet @xdcx and @touch for a ride Saturday morning as well.
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Roady said:
Glad you guys had a good time, write up/report (& Strava links) please! :D
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I was in a different start wave so I didn't get to ride with booyaka + Lethal. I did get out for a bit on Saturday with xdcx + Lethal though. We did a nice 60 mile loop.

The etape itself was quite good. I enjoyed the closed roads, most people naturally stuck to the left for the first 5-10 miles until we all realised we could ride anywhere. There were a few sketchy riders in the group, it could have done with a hill in the first few miles to split the groups up into equal abilities. I just hung off the back of the back of the group by 10-20metres and moved up to the front for the climbs to avoid being boxed in (local knowledge helping there).
The first climb comes about 15 miles in. It's short and not very steep but it's enough to split up the group so I didnt want to lose the front of the bunch. I moved up to the front through the little village before it and was 2nd wheel going into the bottom of the climb - couldn't have planned that one any better! We pushed it far too hard on that climb and by the top there was 4 of us together and the group of 50 or so was further behind. We worked together for a few miles and caught the next group in front but the other group we had lost on the hill also came back to us. I went back to sitting on the back for another 20 miles.
Started moving up again a couple of miles before the big climb and just as I was getting towards the front one of my clubmates attacked. I followed his wheel and the 2 of got away from the group. We only had about 5 seconds advantage at the bottom of the climb but it was good enough that we wouldnt get boxed in (we were catching the wave in front so it wasnt a completely clear run at it but we didnt really lose any time anywhere.).
The 2 of us stayed together right to the top of the climb and got into a small group for the ride back. The group didnt work particularly well together and we didnt make up any time on riders in front but gradually got caught by others. The small group of about 6 grew to nearer 30 by the time we were coming into Inverness. I tried an attack on the last small climb before town but I got chased down pretty quick - nobody wanted to do any work or make any attacks, but everyone was happy to chase other attacks :( After that I just sat in with that group. I knew that we had dont a good time up the climb and most of the riders around me were ones who had started in the wave before so I was already 2mins up on them.
Rolled into the finish on the back of that group and avoided any sprint.

Got 5th for the KoM and 5th overall, so I'm pretty happy with that. :) Strava link
 
Roady said:
Thought I best expand on that but got distracted... Anyway...!

Powertap C1 Battery level is on the ELEMNT! :D
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Ha, you're welcome. I'm running Energizer Ultimate's in my P1's and both are still showing 'GOOD' after about 70 hours use, the original lithium's were in the bin after 60 hours.

I did think the left was on the blink due to what appeared to be dropouts on the Elemnt but ride files showed no such thing so perhaps just some signal interference, similar happened on Saturday but again ride file is fine.

9H3fVmil.jpg
 
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