Road Cycling

Impressive stuff, not sure I'd ever want to do 17 hours a day for 5 days.

Had my first puncture today in the just over a year I've had my road bike. Annoyingly it was a pinch flat and I knew I'd slightly under inflated my tyres.
 
It's a bit of a pain using that to charge a Garmin unless you've got a pretty big capacitor/battery in the way. My friend really struggled when using his (good) dynamo setup for touring.
 
Did a fair bit of riding the last few days, rude not to with such glorious weather.

Friday's quick blast. 40m

Then had a leisurely (profile wise) 50m on Sunday morning.

And then today's pre-planned, my first, imperial century. Had just never happened before but more than capable :) :cool:

Sorted out the majority of the issues I was suffering from the rather excessive and detrimental adjustments at the BikeFit from the other week. That said still got some gammy grip from today's ride but the other two were totally fine and for almost 7 hours riding that's not bad going...

Actually had to change the batteries in my P1's as I went to set off as it wouldn't pair for me to zero-offset. Right pedal 2%, left pedal 0% :p quickly threw some fresh AAA's in them and off I shot. Got about 75 hours out of a set over 2 months so that's pretty reasonable I think...

Was riding the 100+ today with a friends brother-in-law but he's had some reoccurring back/hamstring issues and was in agony by the time we reached Brill so threw in the towel and peeled off back through Aylesbury while I motored on out to Winslow.

There were also some other casualties, namely my left knee having a twang towards the medialis/patella. Did a little roadside flossing which helped as did being on the drops and more hamstring dominant. Surprisingly after the steepest gradient (20%~) it felt quite good but this was around 40m in so unsurprisingly I've got some nursing to do as the 66m on top has taken its toll... need to get my wheel tension checked so don't plan on riding again until Thursday which will allow my fatigue & form to recover :cool:

The other casualty... is... errrr...
my coin purse and pelvis crease on my left side. I felt a little chafing from around mile 50 and no amount of adjustment or rummaging seemed to cure it completely and it came and went so I rode to minimise it where possible. I've worn those bibs before for 75m without issue but turns out Rapha put a label in this region and rather than pointing up it was pointing down so was in that area. /tmi :p

Generally it was quite windy today with a wonderfully typical headwind for the last 10m home. I'd set off with the aim of a 16-17mph average and despite the headwind and getting caught at more or less every set of lights, managed to get the 15.8mph I was carrying from mile 98 to tick up to 15.9 as I came through town and literally about 200m from my door up to 16mph :)

Nice and sunny, one water stop and a nice tan line top up. Open jersey flapping in the wind up the last climb :D The last 40m or so probably would have been more enjoyable if they weren't solo and quite so exposed, my knee niggle wasn't looming and if my left side nether region didn't feel like it was on fire.

My usual metric at the weekend including the club run lasts about 4 hours averaging 17.5mph and around 2,500-3,000ft all in and another 30-45 minutes on top of this is the golden zone for me I think. Much longer and it just feels like 'for the sake of it'. That's not to say I won't be getting more imperials in, it was good prep for Majorca in October after all, but the more company the better for them I think :cool:
 
Got a response on garmin forum about my SD card problem - suggested an indexing issue and to try removing the SD card then power up and off again then refit the card.

Didn't get chance to try this before today's adhoc ride where the unit then started continually switching itself off after the first couple of hours. Would power up again, start route for about a minute then off again etc :mad::mad:

55% showing for battery life so that wasn't the issue - finally at café stop I took the SD card out and it behaved itself for the trip home and now having refitted the card it's back to loading up routes off the SD card etc.

Not a happy bunny, especially yesterday losing the route midway through the WWC - if I wasn't riding with a group I'd have been totally lost not having the route loading up any longer.
 
Yeah solo imperials can get pretty boring.

Ended up doing 101 miles today myself, but both accompanied rides and both at a pretty relaxed pace which was nice considering my leg buster on Saturday.

Finally got over to Ditchling Beacon, although from the East, rather than the typical Londoner North! Nice little climb... I really can't imagine it being fun on the London to Brighton with thousands of other riders struggling for space though... quite narrow! I'm glad I said no to my workmate trying to get me to do that in June.
 
New to cycling, have been out a couple of times with standard pedals but will be first time tomorrow with cleats, I can see myself falling over at a red light but other than that I am looking forward to it. Any advice or experiences to share of first time with cleats/ clip in pedals?
 
Slinkie said:
New to cycling, have been out a couple of times with standard pedals but will be first time tomorrow with cleats, I can see myself falling over at a red light but other than that I am looking forward to it. Any advice or experiences to share of first time with cleats/ clip in pedals?
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Just judge when you're going to have to stop before the event, unclip one side, easy.
 
Slinkie said:
New to cycling, have been out a couple of times with standard pedals but will be first time tomorrow with cleats, I can see myself falling over at a red light but other than that I am looking forward to it. Any advice or experiences to share of first time with cleats/ clip in pedals?
Click to expand...

Lean away from the side you remain clipped in to :p

Unclip in good time and make sure the pedal tension isn't set too high/stiff making it difficult to unclip :)

Stop in a low enough gear that you can pedal one-sided if need be to get going. If I struggle to get the second foot in on the first stroke, if at lights, I'll get up to speed and just treat it as a standard pedal until it's safe to try again.
 
My advice is firstly to just have a ride around the block and clip in, clip out, clip in, clip out..... both sides just keep doing it until the muscle memory starts to kick in. To be honest 10 minutes or so should be plenty. Then just make sure to unclip early and get a foot unclipped if there is even a sight chance you might have to stop until you get confident.

Most people have one 'incident', I've had three :o Each time it was when I was caught out and had to stop suddenly. Now it is second nature for me to react to something by simultaneously hitting the brakes and getting my foot unclipped.
 
First long ride I did after moving to SPDs I was so tired going up Mam Tor (or thereabouts) that I didn't have the energy to unclip and just fell sideways. Fun times.
 
i have a video somewhere of me going over sideways while trying to start off on my mountain bike. Back wheel was on some loose gravel and it all just spun out from under me when i tried to pedal. No forward momentum, boom, over sideways

handlebar end hit me in the ribs, i had the ritchey "shield" logo scarred there for about 3 months
 
First time I did the Rake I got a bit stuck at the part where it hits 25% and just barely managed to unclip before I fell over. It was a close one. I had similar happen to me on another awful climb when my rear wheel skidded on some gravel and I nearly lost control of the bike but just about managed to get out in time.
 
Went out to attempt a circa-100 mile effort yesterday. Managed 52. The last 10 were slow. The wind got up and was in my face all the way home from the halfway mark. I r sad.
 
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