I took my chain off at about 300km on the road bike and dropped it in boiling water, the small amount of dirt on it just lifted off.   (each time I rode on Strava I private noted the cumulative distance since last wax)

Then dried it and popped back in the wax.

I don’t think it needed redoing, but I was cleaning and waxing a couple of extra new chains and thought while the wax was hot, why not.

Once the initial cleaning factory grease faff of the new chain is done, this was a really easy thing to do.
2 bikes (one on a turbo so no real dirt there) and 4 chains between them.   Even swapping out at 300km each is a big time saver over actually cleaning, drying and lubing a wet lube chain when it gets dirty.

And the rewax can be done at the same time as other things, inside.   Pop it in, leave for 10 minutes doing something else, come back, swish around and then swap for another in the wax.    Instead of labour intensive chain cleaning, usually outside in the cold and dark (and rain).

So far, I’m a convert!

I’ve just bitten the bullet on this one for my road bike.  Literally first ride on it today after waxing at the weekend.
After the intial ‘badly adjusted derailliuer’ noise it then quietened down and was lovely for the rest of the ride.

Have also put a waxed chain on my turbo bike with the prospect of 5 extra watts of friction released from the drivetrain…   Marketing BS, but as I get a breakdown of my power at the end of every race I thought I’d try.   Each race is different, but my sustained power over 3min to 30 minutes was in the region of 3-5w higher than my previous 30 day best.   But, each race is different so we’ll see.
There was a pile of wax under the bike though after the first ride…

I used a crock pot.  Initially I started off thinking I had white spirit, alcohol, meths etc in the shed.  But even on a new chain I wasn’t sure if it was actually clean of the factory grease.  So when you factor in how much it costs for multiple baths of the stuff, vs the Silca chain stripper (and the fact that will do 15 chains) I went back to the shop and got some and was up and waxing within half an hour.

Long term, interested to see how it works over multiple rides.   If the road bike works well, then next one will be MTB where rides are shorter but conditions harsher.

Have you cleaned out all the contacts on the battery and applied some dielectric grease?
https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/43858/shimano-steps-ebike-e010-and-e012-errors-diy-fix-possible

Gen 1 kickr here. Bought second hand a few years ago and gets thoroughly abused in the winter. Been through a few belts, but otherwise seems sound.

Hopefully yours has had enough use to show any issues, such as the overtightened flywheel (which I think is the cause of the click on every revolution mentioned above). A warranty issue Wahoo were quick to replace units on (if you were first user).

Not sure at which point they sorted this but my resistance decreases with temperature. So much so that if I don’t bring it in to the house to warm up when it’s below 3 degrees out then the first 15 minutes of a workout need to be on slope mode to build up enough resistance to use ERG. Subsequently I have an ipad running Sufferfest getting data from power meter, and then SF actually controlling the kickr from a laptop which I can then boost or reduce the resistance to get what I should be getting, shown on the ipad. Faff, but it works for me and doesn’t involve buying a new turbo!

This week has seen an uptick in idiot passes. Last week was 0 submissions on the 3 days of commutes. This week has been 4 submissions out of 2 rides with a few not submitted as I’m out of time. They all seem to happen around the same roads as well.
Have even set up a little script that does the donkey work of entering my details into their website.

Dash cams are useful as well. Colleague got a FPN for speeding on the motorway. Viewed the footage and the sign changed literally as he went under it. Appealed and got it cancelled.

Occasionally on the worst ones I’m asked for the actual footage rather than a youtube link. That means they’re actually being prosecuted rather than just a warning letter. Nice feeling as those are the ones that have very nearly taken me out. Will pop them over to NMOTD once it’s clear of court.

Sometimes I drive the boys to nursery/school instead of riding the bikes which is a 1 mile round trip. When it’s not even raining.
But I take the bike in the boot to school so we can ride home (and it looks like we rode in the morning too!)

I’ve emailed Specialized about a Venge I saw on ebay that didn’t quite add up.
Guy there looked at the advert, confirmed it was a fake and reported the sale.

Is there a serial number? Couldn’t hurt to email them about it.

If we’re looking 10 years ago, were they using fact11 layup or earlier version?

And, if 11r would the cables not be routed internally?

Depending how long you want to spend looking into it, have a look on the cycling time trials website – https://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/ – and look for courses near you. Have a look at the average results for the ones nearby to see which ones are fastest and have a look.
Alternatively look for a long downhill section, or one with the wind. Maybe missed a trick a few weeks ago, would have been really fast to get over to Maidstone! Then some form of motorised return journey!

Would recommend decent mud running shoes over road running trainers (if you’re doing this in anything other than a scorching August). When I did one a few years back people were sliding all over the place, holding on to trees and each other and I just jogged past them.
They’re much slower though, so do a bit of training in them to get used to the extra effort.

Course was made harder by high winds, loads of rain and temps around 3 degrees. Not sure it was even second degree fun by the end…

Small rant. Had an e-mail from our child’s nursery at 10 saying they were closing at 12 and could all parents come and collect their children by then.
Where we are the storm is peaking right now and it’s seriously windy out there.

If they were worried about safety of parents, children and staff surely then wait out the storm and close at 4, meaning that parents could see what damage had been done and plan, rather than be out while the damage is happening in the middle of a red warning.

And kids in pushchairs in 74mph gusts. No thanks!

Wife had to drive from work to pick up as small branches etc falling around her, couple of trees down but not quite blocking the road. Potential there for serious injury.

I’d say don’t buy a nicer bike just before the worst of winter.
Though bargains could be found as people realise the winter isn’t nice for riding in.
Then work on fitness and weight through the next couple of months and when you’ve got your average up 2mph on the current bike and weight down to ‘x’ then get the new one as a reward.

I kind of did this with a MTB a few years ago. Went from a 26″ Stumpy to a 29″ S works stumpy and it felt fantastic. It was the end of the spring and I’d been on the turbo all winter and felt good. On the new bike I just smashed it. It felt good.

Have just retired the aero road bike for the winter, now in the loft, and I’m on a 3kg heavier non aero aluminium bike. Average hasn’t dropped as much as I would have thought, though it is without doubt much slower and harder work. Haven’t done any longer rides where fatigue kicks on. 10-15 mile commutes at the moment. It makes me look forward to spring even more!

You probably have googled the method for bleeding as well, but it’s important to angle the levers up and down and flat. I think there are marks on the levers themselves to line up with the ground to ensure the correct angle. Did a mates like this after he had really spongey brakes and after doing it all level lots of bubbles came out when it was tilted.
Much better braking now…

My sons school occasionally sends out an e-mail saying a child in year group X has got it and has gone home. So looks like they are quite under control. Parent whatsapp seems to reflect this. Dorking.

My boss at work, he now has it having been given it by his daughter. Apparently, almost half of her year group have it and are now out of school. They’ve combined what’s left of the 2 classes into one. Assume due to teachers also getting it. I think his daughter is about 6 or 7. Woking

So it appears to be very much down to the area you’re in.

First time I’d ever even heard of wireless droppers was a year or so ago.

The controller pinged off the handlebars somewhere on a trail and the whole group spent 15 minutes riding up and down slowly looking for it before admitting defeat.

On a cable/hose it would remain hanging off.

Expensive ride for him…

Can you get a camera mounted on your bike?

I use a GoPro Hero3+ which is pretty old now, so probably quite cheap to pick up.
Battery lasts about 90 minutes, so have a spare. Image is good enough to see number plates in daylight. Not done a night ride yet, but assume it won’t be.

Now when I get close passed or cut up I add a mental note of where it happened and then upload to report when I get home. Have had the police ask for the original file once in 4 submissions (I’ve only just started)

Just feels like a bit of revenge for them. Plus, the more people that have cameras and upload the more it will be assumed cyclists have cameras and may raise the level of courtesy.

She sent me a copy of what she had sent and I also would have put more emphasis on the consequences of riding off with no QR.
To a non cycling CEO this part may be lost on him without further explanation of what it does and the danger of it being removed.

Quick update.
Online form has not worked. Stuck on submitting.
Email sent to CEO of Southern Railway detailing issue along with photos instead.

“Whilst at the window I heard Mr X telling another employee with some delight that he had removed the quick release lever from the front wheel of a cycle parked illegally. I did not realise at the time that this was my bike or I would have said something.”
“Mr X replaced the lever but was rude and aggressive. He would not stop talking: he said I was lucky that he hadn’t broken the lock/ removed the wheel completely / impounded it. ”
“What would Mr X have done with the quick-release lever if the station had closed by the time the cycle user returned? Would that have counted as theft?”
“There is no sign whatsoever on the fence to show cycle parking is forbidden or that cycles could be impounded”

“I would also like a written apology from him and an investigation into the legality of what he did and threatened to do. ”

If we hear anything back I’ll update the thread…

Thanks for everyone’s input

Spoke to her since writing the post.

Whilst waiting in the queue she heard someone say they had taken a qr. Didn’t think it was her bike as it wasn’t in any way in the way.

On the safe side, she checked, saw it was missing and took it up with someone working there and they got the person who did it to come out.

They said she was lucky they hadn’t cut the lock and confiscated it as they have done that with other bikes.

Photos confirm there are no signs anywhere as warning that there is no bike parking.
Irrespective of that, immobilise or confiscate, don’t make it unsafe!!

We had a new guy at work fall this in a fairly big way. Several hundred pounds worth of Amazon vouchers were e-mailed to a senior partner, who was in a meeting and needed them to give out as a thank you to people in the meeting.
Only they weren’t e-mailed to her, but another spoof e-mail.

Because he was new he didn’t realise this was very out of the ordinary, and as he was new he was eager to please.

Now every e-mail that originates outside our organisation has a warning on it. This was such an easy step to do that I’m surprised we (I) didn’t do it sooner. Haven’t had the need before as it’s been drilled into people here to be super careful and if even the slightest thing feels odd to let me know and I’ll check it out.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think as a secret santa present he got amazon vouchers…!

Two friends of friends have both reported that they have had positive test results come back, but on looking at the time the test was taken it was showing as well off from the time they were actually done.

Both told to treat it as if it was positive anyway and self-isolate. One of them has had an antibody test done and it’s come back negative.

One is a vet, one is a nurse. Nurse was actually on her second time of catching it, so should we be thankful that this isn’t evidence you can get it twice, or worried that results are given out on a bit of a random basis.

Anyone else had results back from a test? Do the times align, do you even see the times?

We use a Wansview camera for keeping an eye on our littlest.

App works on smartphones or ipads, in or out of the house – so useful if the wife is out and I fancy a night ride…

Eldest decided one night that the IR lights on it looked like eyes and that was the end of it in his room!

Useful to know if the noise from the baby’s room is him snuffling about and settling, or if it’s him preparing to kick off. It saves on unnecessary journeys up the stairs, plus just opening the door to check can change it from option a above, to option b and they’re awake…

Also have a Blink Mini from Amazon which is a bit rubbish for baby monitoring. Which is ‘ok’.
Connection to other wifi is quite easy, so we use it when visiting friends (or did) again to save going up the stairs every 3 minutes.. Switch between IR and normal has an audible click, but that won’t happen often…

Oh, one things with the Wansview one. When it powers on it makes a very loud beep. So if you have a small power cut in the night it’ll wake up everyone when the power comes back on!

+1 for Sufferfest.

They’re currently doing a whole month free, on top of the usual 2 week trial. 6 weeks, for nothing. This will be long enough to start seeing results.

I did use Zwift for a while. Mainly for racing, but I found it hard to get online at the correct time without equipment glitches 20 seconds before the start! Have looked into it again and there’s loads more on zwiftpower, so I may sign up for a month and see how it goes.

Sufferfest has workouts from 20 minutes up to 3 hours. They have various videos with the GCN staff on turbos chatting through. Workouts are quite good, but after the first watch I put on some netflix. Otherwise there are ones with no videos (see below) or the classic race simulation with plot and on bike footage from races all over the world. Even some MTB.

Ability to have a mini player for the workout, so you can watch netflix in the background with the graph and stats (power, heart rate etc) visible over the top.

There’s also yoga and strength workouts too which will work your core and upper body. I’ve found that after a winter of turbo my legs are good, but on the mtb my upper body gives up long before legs are tired!

It’s worth a go for a few weeks and try different videos. Once you’ve done a few do their Full Frontal test to get stats on sprint, 1min, 5min and 20min. Future workouts will be tailored to those numbers. (sprinters will want a much higher sprint power than time trialler, and a sprinter could’t hold the 20min numbers of the TT so it’s all customised to your type).

Thanks for the input.
I guess the first thing to do it get up there and take a look.

Tricky, as I don’t have ladders or a head for heights. Might have to suck it up and pay someone…

Cracked tile or flaunching is sounding the most likely.

I made the mistake of engaging in one of these threads last night.

Seemed that arguments for cycling were well written, grammatically correct and contained very few spelling mistakes.

Ante ciclist had lds f txt spk, barely understandable english, swearing, a general ignorance of the law and VED/road tax and total disregard for anyone else’s opinions or rights because they once saw a cyclist go through a red light…

Fun engaging for a short while, then lost interest and looked at videos of bikes….

I have one…

Took a fair bit of effort installing it as I needed to clear the loft space to access from above to create a bracket as it would be sitting between joists. Didn’t uprate the lighting circuit. Sparky has signed off the house and advised me on the rose wiring so guessing that’s ok.

One of the best house mods I’ve done now it’s in!

Just sits there quietly spinning away. Has a remote as well which controls the dim of the light as well as the 3 speeds.
Generally for sleeping it’s on 1. Last night it was on 2.
When I get in from a hot ride it’s a cold shower then stand under it on 3…

Is very big in the room though.

Giro Scamp here.
14 months old, xs.
Is very light, good all round protection.
Straps are a bit on the long side though. Need to get them all correct and trim it as they flap about, not good for aero…

I’ve just bought a Giro Scamp. Comes quite highly recommended, is light and has protection around the back of the head like an ‘all mountain’ type lid.
A quick check seems to indicate a good fit, but will play with the straps tonight/tomorrow when there is an extra adult to entertain him while I fiddle!

I would second the Ron De Jeremy

Met a cardboard cutout of him at Rumfest once. He was there on the other day…

Out of all the rums on offer we decided it was up there with the nicest, and we did our level best to sample all of them, as many times as we could.
My mate bought a bottle there and then, and promptly left it on the stall as we staggered off. Realised later on the bus/tube/train* somewhere. “did I actually buy a bottle of that rum?” “I’m not sure…” says we
Reciept in his pocket would indicate he had… :(

*unsure of exact method of arriving home

GF bought me a bottle for my birthday, and a sober tasting would indicate we were right.

Just anecdotal, for those coming up to hill climb season in a few months maybe?

I went vegetarian a couple of years back.

Prior to then I was 74kgs, and had been for 20 years (+/- 500g)

Nothing changed other than giving up the meat but I’m now 72kgs, again +/- 500g.

No drop off in power, just more PBs on climbs… :)

Easy way to lose 2kg!

Walking Bottom car park in Peaslake.
Demo day for Specialized the other weekend.
Trying out one of their e-bikes.

I could leave it there, but…

Rode a short distance, just 10m or so, up the track then turned to come back to wait for my mate that was getting set up. Managed to clip a log hidden in some grass and because of the angle I was turning at I ended up flat on my back in front of all the Spec staff and waiting punters…

I know of two companies affected by this.

1 reverted back to previous nights backup. Lost half a days work.

The other paid up and got a decryption key. It worked.

In one of the instances the culprit was a macro enabled word document e-mailed in. Downloaded and executed code from the internet on opening. It then encrypted every file on any share that was connected.

I feel for the NHS on this one. Going to be very painful to recover…

I work in Cobham and commute once a week (all I can manage, as other days I need to take miniAnt to childcare).

In terms of the Chelsea end school I can see why there aren’t many cycling in. Have seen some sketchy overtake manoeuvres on adult cyclists, let alone kids. They could cycle along the path, dodging pedestrians heading toward the station, but would still need to cross the busy road to get in the school gates. I don’t often come in that way because people are too much in a hurry to get past and squeeze through where there isn’t space…

There’s an international school at the other end of town as well, and I often see kids on bikes heading there or back again. I think it’s the difference in road – Fairmile lane is wide, open and has a cycle-able path (though not a cycle path). Every day if I’m sat in traffic I’ll see a couple of bikes go past.
Or could it be the children are international and have more of a cycling heritage?

Zipp recommend using acetone on their wheels for cleaning glue off.

When your helmet light passes a leaf which makes a shadow that rushes from the bushes towards you…

My mum did the same to me when I was young. Clipped my ear with the scissors.

I think I’ve turned out ok.

Occasionally wind her up about it, but I have no memory of it. If she hadn’t told me about it I’d never have known.

Is this along the lines of the first scratch to your new bike is always the hardest, then you realise it’s going to get scratched and all you can do is clean it up and let it carry on being a source of joy?

If you’re outside of 28 days then you’ll need to use paypal instead of ebay.

It’ll kind of work but not very well.
A) Your example is linear – most trainers have a resistance curve
B) Each model of turbo trainer has a different curve
C) Different trainers of the same type that should be the same also have a different curve
D) And to cap it all off, the curve alters (sometimes dramatically) depending on the temperature.

All good points…
Hence buying a controllable turbo (and feeling the pain like nothing else. I realise how much I was ‘cheating’ when on one that just output an estimated power to my ipad)
But that’s a lot of expense for a couple of months use.

Even toilet paper has issues.

Had a lodger with a cold, off for the day.

Basically an entire roll of toilet paper in the bowl and then flushed ‘to save water’. Meant it wedged around the impeller and wouldn’t actually get mashed.

Had to pop the unit open and give it a clear out. Not the most pleasant of jobs… Just lucky it was just toilet paper really. Though there was still ‘debris’ in there…

I really like the sufferfest videos. Nice sense of humour in there amongst a serious workout. They do a subscription app which has all the workouts on now so £8 a month instead of £8 a video – much more variety.

If you’re going to do any training, try to work out your FTP so you know where your zones are.

If you have no access to a power meter, it might be possible to ride as hard as you can for 20 minutes and take a reading of your speed at 1 minute intervals. Take the average of this and use this as a FTP replacement.

Assuming your FTP is 30kmh then that is the 7.5 amount.
0. 0 0%
1. 11 35%
2. 14 45%
2.5 15 50%
3. 17 55%
3.5 18 60%
4. 20 65%
4.5 21 70%
5. 23 75%
5.5 24 80%
6. 26 85%
6.25 26 88%
6.5 27 90%
6.75 28 93%
7. 29 95%
7.25 29 98%
7.5 30 100%
7.75 31 104%
8. 32 108%
8.25 34 112%
8.5 35 116%
8.75 36 120%
9. 37 124%
9.5 40 132%
10. 42 140%

This will then give you zones to train in, without a power meter.
(will also give you a baseline to see improvements on. I really don’t look forward to my monthly FTP tests)

I’ve just made this up btw, so someone shoot me down if it’s not going to work!

Other than that I use Zwift but it needs power (or a trainer they have a power curve for). Have just started racing on there and it’s very hard.

I second the ventilation.

It’s been around 1-3 degress in my shed recently and there is a puddle after I’ve been on for an hour.

This is with just a single fan going, but I have 3 in there, ready for spring time… :)

I wouldn’t make the area too small either, for when the walls start closing in on you and the lights start to dim…..