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[i]Drop barred bikes should not handle badly. Mine's superb[/i]
Bu, bu, but Shirley, its just the rider !
😉
[i]and am struggling to breath through one nostril...[/i]
Try using both.
HTH 🙂
[i]but a win is a win, surely?[/i]
Calm down. You'd be surprized how quickly you become accustomed to [i]winning[/i] In the end, its not news. Its just business as usual.
😆
With the point system, do you get extra points for wheelying past someone?
Sometimes I accidentally overtake another cyclist which seems to be a prompt for them to go hell for leather to over take me and start some kind of race.
You sure they're not just offering you a wheel? After you pass them, they sit on your wheel for a bit, then come past to take their turn and expect you to do the same?
Certainly that's how it seems to work on the rural parts of my commute - if you come across someone doing a similar speed you work together. Can really cheers things up when slogging into a head wind.
Drop barred bikes should not handle badly. Mine's superb
Bu, bu, but Shirley, its just the rider !
Road bikes handle dreadfully; reluctant to turn, yet twitchy - a real achievement that as those characteristics are usually considered opposite ends of a spectrum. Might be easy to assume it's ok if you've never ridden a two wheeler with good - or even average - handling! 🙂
(And it's not as though "uncompromising quest for speed" makes sense as an excuse, as the diamond framed bike is an also ran in those stakes. Recumbent streamliners averaging 50mph - now THAT's what you call a "Tour de Wherever"!)
Road bikes handle dreadfully; reluctant to turn, yet twitchy
Seriously, mine is not like that. Check your setup!
pdw - MemberCertainly that's how it seems to work on the rural parts of my commute - if you come across someone doing a similar speed you work together.
That [i]definitely[/i] doesn't happen in this London!
Road bikes handle dreadfully; reluctant to turn, yet twitchy
^^^ CAUTION : TRIATHLETE ^^^
I notice nobody picked up on the rubbish brakes comment, though.
since he cant ride a road bike i doubt he can set up a brake.
Big fan of the Hollow Victory sprint. I passed a guy yesterday for the simple reason my pace was higher, gave him a cheery wave and hello. Half a mile later he comes passed me, inching ahead chewing on his bars, seconds before turning right into a cul de sac.... Well done you, able to finish your 6 mile commute at a higher speed than I'm trying to maintain for 16....
blimey, the stench of second-rate testosterone round here !
😆
Please can some of you start riding from Belper to Nottingham. I only ever meet a few people on the 1km of the a608 that I ride, and very rarely someone coming from Nottingham to Ilkeston or vice versa, and those people always seem to turn off at Ilkeston, just before it gets hilly and when there's still 10 miles to go.
I did once, a couple of years back, get a proper fast guy hop on the back then take turns for the first 8 miles, got back pretty fresh, but at least five minutes early thanks to that. If only that could happen every day.
It's fun, trying to reel in the guy just up the road, especially in Bristol, where there are so many about. Important never to look like you are trying too hard though, nonchalance is all.
And my drop-bar track bike handles brilliantly for commuting too, tyvm* 😉
It does make it awkward trying to drop cheeky wheel suckers when you've only got one gear, though
*I don't run it fixed though, I'm not daft
Racing every other person on my commute is far more entertaining than proper interval training
Just attack every one
Even when I ride my big bike to work I still try and chase all the others
Much loling at the tiny incline past Badshot Lee Garden centre compared to AdH
You lol all you like, I had to climb it twice today, once in each direction. And I was blowing pretty hard second time, I can tell you. Fortunately I found an empty bag of quavers that was discarded, probably from a clapped out Skoda, and managed to get enough fast carbs by licking the inside of the bag. I guess it cost me about 20 seconds, but compared to the amount I'd have lost if I'd blown completely that's a penalty I have to take.
But did you pay the fine too
As in the car I always stop at lights during the day, when someone else is about and waiting doesn't seem utterly ridiculous. Commuter racing- never do it, get out on an evening and weekend for that sort of thing, I try to avoid sweating on the commute.
Anyone who races on their commute is a little sad.
If you've trained and raced properly you see it in a different and fairly sad light.
But we've all done it.
My commute or more accurately the school run used to involve me riding a Genesis Day One Cross SS, with a kid in a bike seat and two kids in the trailer. Used to get a lot of folk wheelsucking that one. They did not like it at all when they were dropped.
Passed a fella on a proper road bike the other day on my fixie, with a cheery hello, then out paced him for half a mile or so till I felt my back tyre going flat.
I'll admit I made sure he could see the pump being pulled out of my jersey pocket as he came back past me, just so he knew that it was merely my bike that had failed and not my body...
Although technically he will have crossed the imaginary line first, so maybe we were both winners... But slightly more Me than him of course.
It's all about keeping the Ego intact Normally I'm being passed on the fixie which of course means I am riding my excuse and they will have noticed the lack of sprockets from the rear, making their victory somewhat hollow, and means any passes I make carry double points for me... Yay
I rarely see another bike (or many cars) on my commute, but I've always tended to race the bike computer then the Garmin Virtual Partner and lately Strava. Sadly I seem to be getting slower every ride as I get older. 🙁
Leafy SW London's Richmond park has a 20 mph speed limit which means cars become fair game for both drafting and overtaking. Makes you feel like Jens Voigt.
I built a 23 lb carbon bike, hoping to blast on my commute to work. Then I put 2.4 tires on it and now I am steam rolling instead... But once I get my second set of wheels with slicks on them I will teach those roadie basterds a lesson!
Leafy SW London's Richmond park has a 20 mph speed limit which means cars become fair game for both drafting and overtaking. Makes you feel like Jens Voigt.
Jens doesn't draft cars. They get caught up in his front wash and get pushed along, unable to escape.
Although having watched the tour this week, I suspect even Jens is slightly in awe of Richie Porte.
turboferret - Member
Much loling at the tiny incline past Badshot Lee Garden centre compared to AdHI cycle to work pretty much every day here in Hyderabad, India (video for amusement) I often start off taking it easy, but inevitably within 5 minutes some ignorant moron cuts me up and the red mist comes down. From that point it's a major interval session/obstacle course/hazard avoidance ride
Frequently involves significant contact with vehicles, the ground and loss of skin/broken bones, but probably good for overall fitness
Cheers, Rich
kinell! 😆
^^^ CAUTION : TRIATHLETE ^^^
Outside, now! 😆
Have you not realised by now that in my opinion (and in fact, in fact) road riding and road bikes are the epitome of suckage? Adding the equally tedious tasks of a long run and swim would not elevate the experience.
it's ok mate, not everyone is cut out for road riding!
For proper fast riders, commutes are usually easy recovery rides. Overtaking them is like 'dropping' roadies in january when they're sticking to Z2 and not at all interested in the sweaty mountain biker who just about managed to pass them )
Riding through richmond park on my way in the other day on the singlespeed folder i got passed by a guy on a expensive ish looking road bike who said 'you're going quite a pace given you've got tiny wheels'. Never before have i wanted gears so badly so i could change down a couple and engage in 'the race'.
Could be an urban myth but wasn't it victoria pendleton that used to commute around town on her bike and when other cyclists sat on her back wheel she just gradually upped the pace to eventually break them.
been our of work for 6mths but back commuting for a week now 10 miles each way
I am massively unfit!!! but ill be darned if ! let anyone beat me on the climb up notting hill of a morning
trouble is all that time off has taken its toll- yesterday cycling home i got overtaken by a lady of advanced years on a shopper and I just couldnt catch her
i stop at red ligts 90% of the time-i like the challenge of catching the naughty cyclists who cruise through the reds and take pleasure in dropping them, even if I have to do it agian at after the next set of lights.
Im a trackstand demon, try to never touch the ground on my commute, at the moment im trying to nail it with my other foot leading though so im wobbling all over the place
For proper fast riders, commutes are usually easy recovery rides. Overtaking them is like 'dropping' roadies in january when they're sticking to Z2...
it doesn't matter. it's still a race. and they've still lost.
^ : )
You can't really race in traffic anyway, or you can if you're one of those prats that overtakes as they head towards and then jump a red (but often still gets passed between lights without effort?).
And if I can hear you breathing as you pass, you've lost just like the wheelsucker that can't make it past.. casual commuting is good. Red-faced rush-hour 'racing' is for noobs.
Ah, I love London cycling.. !
this evening I will be riding two bikes home (riding one and pushing the other). I'm looking forward to the challenge and seeing if I can overtake anyone.
Haha .. I don't mind being overtaken on the commute, maybe I should get my testosterone checked. I like to feel its encouraging the mtb/hybrid mob to enjoy cycling and maybe do it more.
Had an altercation with a chap this morning. He rode his bike into mine from behind off the lights as I was turning left, he felt it appropriate to call me a rather salty name. Turns out he didn't want to continue with his bullying ways when I caught up and confronted him about his behaviour and asked him if he would like to pursue the matter off the bikes.
I feel a bit bad now but I won't be bullied.. On the plus side I found out it's quicker and smoother to cross Putney bridge and not Hammersmith, so every cloud.
it's ok mate, not everyone is cut out for road riding!
It's not that I dislike capuccino, I'm just not fussed. But put the capuccino at the other side of 50 miles spent staring point blank at the back of the tumbling spuds inside a pair of hotpants stretched over a middle aged man's bum and I'll do without. Especially after the recent thread about 'less than perfect opacity' in some such garments. 😯
methinks the lady doth protest too much 😉