I’ve taken a much looser approach to everything. I am planning 1 block at a time, 3 weeks of progressive overload and one easy week. At least 1 recovery day a week. If I’m not ready to start the next block for whatever reason it doesn’t matter. Periodisation for a single goal event just doesn’t seem right to me for a plucky amateur and the level of training doesn’t warrant it imho. However I will add quality closer to ‘needing’ it and step back if I don’t need it. Being totally flexible with each block. Example my FTP is 84.5% of Vo2MAX I know my FTP cannot get any higher than that so will dedicate a block to raising VO2MAX before reverting to FTP type stuff. Or when I was doing team time trials on Zwift having to do a 1 minute pull was killing me so I put some effort into improving FRC for a block.

I’ve also done very varied interval training doing FTP, FRC and VO2MAX efforts on back to back days. Even at 46 I was able to do this for a while but I have huge amounts of time to recover because I pretty much just sit or sleep the rest of the time 🙂

why do you need a training app if you know so much already?

This. Determine your meso cycles and methodology and have at it and if you want someone to prescribe intervals buy WKO5 and do whatever it tells you for whatever it is you are working on.

This must explain why I feel so scared on my bike all the time. Short reach for my height although 67 head tube angle doesn’t scream steep to me.

Looking at the angles on it fitting a higher front end (either 27.5 MX or big travel) will make teh geometry more like the BFE I’m riding.

70/74 ht/st might become 68/72 my BFE with 140mm is 67/72. I’ve thought about going MX or even just putting a 27.5 fork in. More as a sneaky way to upgrade and eventually move to a full 27.5 bike at some point when a frame appears at the right price. I think just putting a 27.5 fork of the same length on slackens everything by 0.4 degrees.

Bike looks superb. Love the colour, congrats.

Power meter?

Look on Mywindsock.com to see what weather impact was.

I’m not complaining just using it as an excuse to spend money 🙂

Yeah the thought of learning to drift crossed my mind. I did end up locking it up and trying to control the skid for a while, actually found it really hard as the bike just wanted to go in a straight line at that point. Everytime it went when cornering I bricked it, seemed really snatchy and uncontrolled.

Our dust is nothing like that, it’s proper dry fine dust. The ground underneath is rock hard smooth clay.

Been doing this pretty much everyday. I’ve realised I’d much rather ride 6 minutes and do mini downhill than drive anywhere for anything else right now. Got way better at berms, more confident everywhere, and am glad to have this. Shorter stem and wider bars ordered, im only pushing the bike up so grown up bmx type feeling is ok.

The how tough is Harris is part of the reason I’d go as easy/cheap as possible. You have no idea what the right bike is. The question about new vs old, or fs vs HTC can be answered with demo days or hire bikes. I think that’s better done with q recent memory to compare with though.

FWIW I’m on a really short by todays standards bike. It is sort of slack though. The point is that confidence is built. If I try and ride it on stuff way outside my comfort zone, that’s bone breaking territory. If I push the zone just a bit, it’s fun, safe and rewarding.

I probably give up a fair amount of speed and ride stuff way easier than I would on a longer bike but that’s OK. It’s the same as the fs vs ht argument or anything else really. At some point you’ll want something different to progress, but that progression could easily be going the other way to a gravel bike.

Not ridden MTB for 10 years, I’d be inclined to throw something together and see if you are actually going to do it. Use the pace forks, cheap wheels and groupset off ebay and ride it.

Just say OK and cycle round him. You’ve expended way more of your life on this than you needed to.

My 28s measure 26.5mm inflated to 80psi on 19mm internal width rims

Rode to my local woods on Saturday, spent a bit of time hitting some berms and some of the more gentle/rollable jumps. Then Blean woods on Sunday. Did a LOT of peddling and got pretty muddy considering how dry the weather has been. I’m feeling like I’m enjoying MTB way more than road at the moment. I am however really crap at MTB and my local woods are very hardcore for me.

Do most people use uplift there? Looks like we might be going to the area in August and I’m tempted to go.

I went to Blean today. Didn’t have a clue where I was going, Found a couple of decent bits but it was really wet. I think a bit more investigation needed.

Just for info the 2018 bikes had the same reach as the 2016 bikes, which was about 20mm longer than the ‘classic’.

In other news there are still plenty of 26″ tyres around, can’t use that as an excuse just yet 🙂

I’ve barely ridden in the past year for a number of reasons. This situation has allowed me to explore the local bridleways that go across the golf course. Now I know the route I don’t feel bad about riding there when the golfers return. One stretch in particular is about 50% dusty single track, it’s not very far to do an out and back in half hour or so and there are bits of it I currently can’t ride up and bits I ride really slow down. Just being able to ride that over and over is great for me to get back in shape and learn to ride some of the more technical bits.

The patient zero is the nicest looking to my eyes, absolutely not the one I would want though.

I have looked at the geometry chart for my bike but I’ve no idea if it is modern or not so I think I’m better off not looking again to work it out. It really could do with a dropper post and I often dream of forks that weigh less than the old coil pikes it has, but it’ll have to do.

Loved that, those bikes have me GASsing too

My only bike is a shed bike!

Boom, thanks all.

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Carlos has posted his one out to me (super fast), will report back. Really appreciate the help.

Thanks for checking.

Carlos, I’ll give that a go bud thanks. If it doesn’t fit I’ll just buy new forks.

Yes, I you do that would certainly go someway to stopping my over thinking.

Long time ago
along the canal
and back again

Our current DPD driver is Pawel.

My bfe is a large not medium. Gah

So, here’s mine:
Bike: 2016 Cotic BFe 26″, Medium
Rider height: 6’1″
Crank centre to top of saddle: 30.5″
Saddle rail clamp centre to centre of bars: 27.5″

The mix of metric and imperial measurements broke my head.

For what it’s worth I’ve never been comfortable on any bike other than my MTB. I think I really need quite a short reach that just isn’t really easily achieved on a road bike without all sorts of other issues arising.

Look for cheap frames and build up from there I reckon. that’s what I did with this and ended up with something perfect for racing and knocking about on if need be.

Glad my 26″ bike has tapered headtube, stealth dropper routing and a sensible sized seattube.

Food for thought. To be honest in the things that need changing the brakes are probably number 1 being Hayes 9 that are so loud I can’t use them near horses 🙂

Also a dropper would be awesome but failing that a qr clamp that stopped the seat post slipping.

Oh and something to stop the headset coming loose (using the hope thing that came with the frame but might buy a star washer instead).

All that being said I’ve imposed a ride credit system where any bike purchase requires 10 rides to happen first. To deal with my GAS.

Also could do with some shorts and knee pads.

Interesting. So given the new Pikes are better what about something like the x fusion ones?

Not really looking to spend money, just like to get some idea where my stuff sits in the modern world and dream of having enough money to upgrade.

Will go and look at Push too.

What a doofus. With some research it was an Axis deer I saw. Quite worryingly from the map it appeared to be in the carnivore section.

I’m not sure I quite fit in as I didn’t take anything with me, but as a way of trying to get out on my bike and enjoy our new surroundings (lived here 13 months and rode 3 times) I decided to follow the canal until I didn’t want to anymore then follow it home again.

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I saw some sort of Ibis or Impala in the wild animal park. I waved, it stared.

14 miles, 2 hours, 157ft of elevation gain

I recently upgraded my 456 to a new Cotic BFe. My reason for buying it was that I basically live on the side of a wooded hill, so I ride up the road then blast down the trails. What I didn’t expect was how much nicer it would be for general riding. Even riding the canal footpath was nicer (arguably this is a better bike for every non paved situation than any of the others I’ve owned).