I see Halfords do a carrera bike for £190 and then I’ll have to buy a trainer too.
Any better deals to be had? I aim to use it for 1 hour before work and after, I can service it myself etc but with it staying in the garden then it won’t need tyres etc.
Road bike or mountain bike?
Buying second hand will get you a better deal. But of course you can also get stung!
Although nothing wrong with some of the Carrera range, I cut my teeth on a Virtuoso, you have to know what you're buying. I was lucky and had a 2012 version so the groupset was mostly all series Shimano but I know the following years they swapped out many of the groupset for non-series and cheaper/unbranded parts. As you're buying it for turbo work then weight doesn't matter, so buy aluminium. Spend the money on the groupset.
If you're looking at turbo work are you also looking at things like Zwift & Trainerroad to focus your training/keep you occupied? If so you'll need a smart (FE-C) trainer. I mention this as one of the hardest thing on a turbo trainer is keeping focused and distracted. It's a very monotonous activity and without specific goals/targets (And enough distraction) the majority of people struggle. The 'indoor cycling' market is huge these days with many trainers and even complete bikes dedicated to giving you the best experience possible on several different software driven training platforms. Zwift and Trainerroad are probably the biggest but there are many others like The Sufferfest, Peloton, BCool, RoadGrandTours to name a few... All of these require a monthly subscription so that's another cost to bear in mind.
Recently lost my btwin helmet lol, which was fairly comfortable of 3 years, looking for a new one, preferred blue, anyone have good links or places to get one that's affordable?
Good price on the
Purple & Blue Giro Foray at the moment.
DHB options around the same price. Depends what you mean by 'affordable'. Lots of choice around the £50-60 range.
I’ve seen some trainers that just raise the wheel? I understand there won’t be much if any resistance so maybe those aren’t any good.
They do more than raise a wheel, there's a roller which the rear wheel rolls against adding resistance. You can get manual control ('dumb trainers') which have various ways of controlling the resistance,
fluid being better 'feel' than
magnetic with generally a better 'power curve'. Upwards from that are the
'smart' trainers which are able to control resistance for you, those with FE-C able to be controlled by software on a PC/ipad.
What tyre size will your frame permit? I'd recommend GP 4 seasons too, you can get them in 28 and 32mm
Where are you seeing them larger than 28mm? The only time I saw them & tried to order I could never get them.
My elemnt bolt locked up 4 miles in and stopped responding. I had to give it a hard reset. First time I've seen it do that. Bit odd.
BT enabled on phone & following a route? Mine will do this if I have BT on and have sent the route from my handset and then left BT enabled. I don't sync with the app on my handset very frequently so when I do it has 20/30 or more rides to sync & upload which takes a while. When it's doing this the ELEMNT will act as if it's 'frozen' and my handset will prompt that the ELEMNT app is not responding and needs closing (I choose to 'wait'). I'm not sure if this is related to my ELEMNT freezes/restarts but easily work around it by having BT disabled most of the time on my handset and not having the app running when I do enable it for other reasons.
Pretty rare! Don't think I've ever had to. Few bugs with the recent firmware and companion app so possibly related, when did you last update?
Not sure about you guys but with my ELEMNT linked to home & work wifi networks I never get prompted for updates, it just does them itself!
Rode with
@Lethal` yesterday.
I think he's hiding a motor in his frame, effortlessly fast!
He's a machine if his Strava rides are anything to go by! Good work sticking with him & congrats on the awesome pain face!
