Road Cycling

Shadowness said:
I was always under the impression if you turn up to an audax with a full carbon bike, race fit clothing etc, no beard, you would be laughed at.
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I turned up on a full carbon bike with clip-on areo bars :D but I'm not really one to bother if I'm being laughed at.

To be fair, the aero bars were only there because we had ridden to the start the day before and camped in a field and they make a brilliant mount to hang a bag of camping kit from. I left all my bags at HQ whilst I did the audax so nobody else riding would have known that :p
 
Shadowness said:
oh I see it's like that is it! ;)

Most of them were outside in the rain and sub-zero temperatures! And when was 137 miles on a turbo not considered a 'real man' ride!? ;)
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I didn't debate that but 137 miles at 170w for 21 mph isn't exactly realistic is it :D Let alone here in Britain at this time of year. I averaged 193W for 4:15 yesterday and hit a whopping 16mph average speed! :D
 
Hmmm.... bit of a dilemma. I can get a shiny new Garmin Edge 520 for £160 but should I bother? It seems that most people here have swapped to the Elemnt units and I hear of reports of current Edge units crashing and losing data, that would cheese me off big style!

The reason I'm drawn to the Garmin is mainly due to the fact that I'm already entrenched in the Garmin infrastructure as I religiously wear a fenix 3HR every day and use it for tracking walks, gym stuff when I'm working away from home etc. and at the moment my rides as well. For navigation I have my trusty old Edge 200 which has never let me down and the basic breadcrumb style navigation has never lead to anything more drastic than riding a few hundred yards past a turn I should have taken.

What are your thoughts?
 
I run an Edge 520. I did have a spell back in the summer last year where it froze or locked up several times and I was starting to look around for alternatives, I think it's had one (or two) updates since then though because it's been rock solid since that bad spell.
 
Comparing average speeds, power and indoor/outdoor is a very poor comparison we all know that! :p

Anyways, both far too slow, keep pushing! (tm) @grudas

touch said:
From my experience, an audax is more of a distance challenge whereas a sportife is more of a speed challenge.
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Still good info, thanks! I maybe wrongly assumed the Trans Scotland & Highland Trail stuff you've done classed and where run as audaxs? With reading in your report about taking pictures of landmarks and times as proof.

Impressive ride around the Loch on the weekend, conditions quite good? I just assumed there would be snow & ice!

topgun06 said:
Well my ride yesterday was eventful.
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Wow that is eventful! Lucky with no more damage after falls and slides like that! Two guys from a club here had a smash up on the weekend, one of them wrecked his Trek frame which must be less than 2 years old! :o :(

Shadowness said:
from my experience, 4x4 drivers, and I mean the pointless 4x4s like X5s, RR, Q7s, Cayennes etc, are usually nobs. Not all, but most are.
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Big majority yeah. I mean around here they tend to be ok in the really rural places (as are most rural drivers), but as soon as you get near the city & traffic they go through some kind of change.

I've also found proportionally that the amount of bad drivers I see & experience close passes/idiot overtakes from are French cars?! Peugots, Fiats, Citroens & Renaults lol :rolleyes:

Lethal` said:
His rage face:
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Quality! Get it printed on a mug. Oh someone already did... Fnar fnar

lordrobs said:
I'm already entrenched in the Garmin infrastructure as I religiously wear a fenix 3HR every day and use it for tracking walks, gym stuff when I'm working away from home etc. and at the moment my rides as well
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You're storing it all and using it all within Garmin Connect or using something else like TP/Strava/etc?

If the answer is the latter then obviously it doesn't matter what device/system you're using to record the data, if you're using another system to store, read and compare it. If they all upload to Stava and you use that for example, then you can use almost anything to record cycling...

More than happy with my ELEMNT and will probably never use a Garmin again unless there where some features to draw me back. I don't miss the touchscreen, poor battery quality or instability.

Kinda related, anyone seen & played with www.wattsboard.com yet? Lots of chatter about it being a 'free Training Peaks'. I'm still waiting for it to draw in more than 50 of my activities (there's a limit so as not to overload their server) to have a decent play around but I like it so far.
 
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Roady said:
Wow that is eventful! Lucky with no more damage after falls and slides like that! Two guys from a club here had a smash up on the weekend, one of them wrecked his Trek frame which must be less than 2 years old! :o :(
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Sheeshhh! Its not worth risking the ice really.

Should have stayed in, but in hindsight I'm glad I got out and got home okay with a story to tell. just need to straighten up my shifter a little and the father needs to find a new bar end cap but that's all!

We get up, wobbling down the bank and some guy on a MTB just tootles on up the other way with no issue!
 
Roady said:
Still good info, thanks! I maybe wrongly assumed the Trans Scotland & Highland Trail stuff you've done classed and where run as audaxs? With reading in your report about taking pictures of landmarks and times as proof.
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I suppose they are very similar to audaxes, but with less organisation. Probably referred to as "self-supported" races - you get a GPX of the route and thats it. There's no entry fee, no HQ to get changed, no emergency contact number, no feed stops or anything like that. You're entirely on your own.
There's a site called Self Supported UK which maintains a list of the routes and fastest times. I suppose this is the off-road equivalent of permanent audaxes, you can go and ride these routes whenever you want and submit a time.

Roady said:
Impressive ride around the Loch on the weekend, conditions quite good? I just assumed there would be snow & ice!
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There was a bit of snow around but I was off-road on the mountainbike so not much of a problem. I struggled a lot more than expected - I think just due to a lack of training. Getting back into it now though.
 
topgun06 said:
What's happened to you? :eek:
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cars, donuts, kebabs, pizzas.. milkshakes.. cake cake cake..

but seriously, moved out of london and took a break from commuting having covered nearly 20k miles cycling in london! now to be fair I cba getting on the bike, might do in the summer again just for pleasure.
 
grudas said:
cars, donuts, kebabs, pizzas.. milkshakes.. cake cake cake..

but seriously, moved out of london and took a break from commuting having covered nearly 20k miles cycling in london! now to be fair I cba getting on the bike, might do in the summer again just for pleasure.
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Arrrr that's a shame. Did you ever really get out on your bike for just pleasure before, when you commuted in London?
 
merlin said:
I run an Edge 520. I did have a spell back in the summer last year where it froze or locked up several times and I was starting to look around for alternatives, I think it's had one (or two) updates since then though because it's been rock solid since that bad spell.
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Ah, ok. Sounds a bit like my fenix 3. Reading up on it and the negative stories would really put you off but by the time I got mine the big issues were all sorted.
Roady said:
You're storing it all and using it all within Garmin Connect or using something else like TP/Strava/etc?

If the answer is the latter then obviously it doesn't matter what device/system you're using to record the data, if you're using another system to store, read and compare it. If they all upload to Stava and you use that for example, then you can use almost anything to record cycling...

More than happy with my ELEMNT and will probably never use a Garmin again unless there where some features to draw me back. I don't miss the touchscreen, poor battery quality or instability.
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Everything goes to Garmin Connect which I then have synchronised with Strava. I guess I shouldn't really be that bothered because IIRC that works both ways so a ride logged on Strava by another device should still show on Garmin Connect. Maybe I'll track a short ride using my phone to test the theory out.

The big feature I want but I don't think either the Elemnt Bolt or 520 offer is the option to just say I want to ride ## miles and then have it generate a route for you on the fly. That one feature would get me off the same old roads that I ride time and time again because I can't be arsed plotting a route and uploading it to my Edge 200 in advance.
 
topgun06 said:
Arrrr that's a shame. Did you ever really get out on your bike for just pleasure before, when you commuted in London?
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yeah, not often :) I only had 1 day a week of the bike if that so riding out of commuting was a rare thing.

we did do an OCUK ride with the guys, ended up being like 95miles for me! good day out.
 
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