As many others have said, my go-to bike is a cyclocross bike (Crosslight). It mostly runs on 32mm road tyres. I also have some CX tyres and some 35mm Small Block 8s.

It is a bike that is non-specialist.

It is used for on/off road commuting, wet road rides and general errands. Fat (Marathon Supreme) tyres are great on the road and cope well with rough, stony stuff.

Cassette, chain and he big chainring changed approximately a year, about 2000 miles on a mixed route involving a muddy/dusty farm track and dirty roads.

chain is wiped down and lubed once a week or so.

The route is flat so the small chainring is never used on the commute. The small chainring lasts a few years.

9 speed, so cheap bits.

1 tube + puncture repair kit

32mm Marathon Supreme tyres @70psi. Far better comfort and pinch resistance than narrower tyres.

Punctures are very rare, although when I did suffer a puncture the other week (farmer had cut his hawthorn hedge and left the cuttings on the track), I had left my pump at home…..

Gravel bike = bike

I’ve recently found that I much prefer quick-ish rolling 32mm road tyres @75psi on my road bike and cross bike than either 23mm or 25mm road tyres at their higher pressures for metalled (and un-metalled) roads, even/especially on long rides.

For early morning bike jaunts around Anglesey I have ended up doing road rides. The road riding is really good.

Newborough forest is good for running, not really for mountain biking, although quite fun on the short sandy, rolling, twisty bits of the coastal path.

ps. CYB is actually quite a long way from Anglesey.

Local to Liverpool, not really, although there is some pleasant road riding.

As others have said, there is a lot of good mtb riding within an hour or 2.

“The race of truth” is the race of aerodynamic kit and positioning and many hours on the turbo trainer.

Time Trials?

I’ve been dabbling in them for the past 2 summers (road bike with clip-on bars and DIY positioning by experiment) and they provoke a range of emotions in me.

I “enjoy” (get some satisfaction) from pushing myself for the duration, but find my lack of speed and a lack of improvement this year extremely frustrating and post-ride I am often disappointed. I look forward to doing them, though.

I’m a reasonably fit & strong 40 year old man, but get beaten by skinny, small boys and old, rotund men.

The people who are best at it appear to tend towards the introverted, have excellent mental focus and are not easily distracted.

I’ve found the scene to be quite social. The TTs I’ve done were run by my own club and other local clubs and I got chatting to people before and after the events.

There is some staggeringly expensive kit for TT. I suspect that I would rapidly see diminishing returns from any investment in a properly fitting bike of more than about £1000.

Some people take it very seriously and focus all of their training efforts on the TT season. It doesn’t interest my enough to do that.

I’m in two minds about next year: Either buy a used TT-specific bike, having a proper fitting, train and concentrate on it more next year or just sack it off and do 5K, 10K & trail/fell running races instead…..

Given the choice, though, there are better alternatives.

Uniroyal Rain Sport or Rain Expert, depending on the car.

Great grip wet, dry and shallow snow.

Ideal for year-round use in Manchester.

Gatorskins, no. Poor in the wet.

Durano 28mm are tough, grippy (wet, dry and frost), hard-wearing and great for road and bumpy tracks.

Durano 25mm are similar, but smaller. Really good on road.

Durano do a very good job of resisting piercing from glass shards on the road. Picking them out every couple of weeks if riding on debris-strewn roads.

If you want even more volume, Schwalbe Marathon Supreme (not the other Marathons, which are massively heavy) 32mm are like slightly bigger Duranos and excellent(they do 37mm ones too, I think).

As above, lighting is an arms race.

Despite what people say about it ‘flattening’ the terrain, I use just a helmet-mounted (using sticky-backed velcro) Solarstorm X2 with a better 6-cell battery pack (the original 4 cell pack was garbage).
It might sound obvious, but helmet lights illuminate where you are looking and bar lights only illuminate where your bars are pointing. On twisty trails, the helmet light is far more useful.

I’ve used it in woods and on rocky, technical gritstone trails and not felt hindered.

I previously used a generic DX/”magicshine” lamp which I bought years ago and has now been relegated to bar-mounted commuting duties -The 4-cell battery pack that came with that was excellent, and is still going.

Do I need to get a cover for it when driving down the motorway in the rain?

They are not allow to be used on motorways.

I would hope that the seals are good enough to be used in the wet and to cope with the occasional soaking.

It sounded good to me, but this year they seem to have fallen off the radar. But I guess that’s just marketing. Last year’s hot thing is this year’s old-news.

That’s why I change all of my bikes every year, binning the old ones to prevent somebody inadvertently using one.

thomthumb – Member
3 times the price here. makes a difference to a lot of people.

It would make a difference. The shorter lap/smaller footprint of CX courses possibly helps keep the price down.

Midweek Madness XC entry wasn’t much different price-wise to NWCCA races, if I recall.

I do quite like that…

The bike for everything? (but why not a 29er?)

I removed the rack, mudguards and road tyres from my trusty V-braked Crosslight 5T commuter, fitted a set of cyclocross tyres that had been lying in my shed for the past 13 years and headed to Hoghton Tower for a first attempt at cyclocross on Saturday.

The Vets race was well-subscribed.

It was great.

Ok, disc brakes would be better, lower gears for the climbs might help and tubs might give more traction, but the actual bike wasn’t the limiting factor.

…my rear wheel came out of the dropouts (QR not tight enough) half-way through the race and pedalling/pushing became “difficult” -I thought that the axle might have snapped and carried on, discovering at the end that the wheel had been retained in place by the V-brakes :)

It is a pity that XC racing through the summer isn’t as popular as CX seems to be nowadays.

In the real world, people buy bikes, keep them for quite a long time and some even ride them. When bits break the owners replace parts and some people like tinkering/mixing parts before they break.

The pace of change is now extremely quick and there are so many variations these days, there is arguably far too much (unnecessary, false?) choice.

It is the same with cars -look how many permutations and slight variations of similar vehicles the likes of BMW or VAG produce.

Obsolescence drives new sales.

What I have noticed is that there is a tendency for good riders to be good riders whatever they are riding and vice versa ;)

I’m not quite sure what your symptoms are, but having suffered from various leg issues over the years, suggestions:

Rest (ease off)
Ice
Couch stretch Couch Stretch Youtube video
Hamstring stretch
Use a foam roller on the quads, hams, ITB and calves (find tight spot, then flex leg whilst resting on the tight spot)
Skipping rope for dynamic leg conditioning (especially calf muscles. Don’t bother with calf raises)
Practice balancing on one leg (and ball of foot)

Hamstring, lower back and quad strengthening can be beneficial too, especially for the (downhill, for a cyclist, ouch) running.

Faster and more comfortable:

Even more comfortable:

I run Schwalbe Marathon Supreme (not the heavy, solid touring version) 32mm tyres on my commuter ‘cross bike.

I generally run them at 80psi and have used up to 95psi

I’ve been really impressed by combination of rolling speed and comfort on normal (i.e rough and potholed) roads and on farm tracks. They certainly don’t feel draggy and I’ve taken the ‘cross bike for a few longer road rides whilst my road bike has been set up for TTs.

The previous tyres on the cross bike were Schwalbe Durano 28mm, which were not actually that much smaller, although didn’t feel quite as supple when run at similar pressures.

I have sets of 23mm tyres and 25mm tyres for my road bike, but the 23mm tyres don’t appear to offer me any noticeable advantages and give a fairly harsh ride. I’ll probably go for 28mm for the road bike when I replace them.

…but the descent to Haweswater is great,the ride & hike-a-bike back up sorts the men from the boys ;)

I’ve done Nan Bield Pass twice -Once via High Street and once via Haweswater.

I enjoyed it both times.

If the weather is good, I would recommend Nan Bield. You can ride forests in many places.

Caveat:

One one of the Nan Bield rides I rode with 2 other people who really enjoyed it.

On the other ride I rode with two people who really, really disliked it.

It depends how much you enjoy/cope with carrying your bike on your back up steep tracks/rocks and riding down ‘technical’ terrain.

-I enjoy both. I like mountains/mountaineering and I like bikes.

Brilliant. A great adventure.

Has anyone biked the lower route from Rowardennan north and know if it’s any good?

If that is path along to the north end of Loch Lomond, yes.

In my opinion, that track is fine if you are familiar with non-trail-centre riding and not carrying a load of camping kit -We travelled light and had our bags couriered between hotels.

Before we did the WHW I had read terrible stories about the “many hours” of rock scrambling with a bike on your back required to reach the end of Loch Lomond. In the event, there was some great singletrack, a bit of pushing, and very little actual bike carrying, albeit a small number of steps and a fairly shallow angled ‘ladder’. There was no misery.

It probably took us (blokes in our 30s) abut 1.5 hours in good weather and we weren’t racing along.

I really liked it.

Not easy, but this season I was either similar to or slower than last year, despite more experience, more 10s and trying to concentrate on it.

recent TT photo

I don’t have a turbo or power meter

Thanks for all the advice and ideas.

This TT season hasn’t gone as I’d hoped at all.

For next year I’m thinking of buying a TT bike, having a proper bike fitting and training more specifically from much earlier in the year.

If I’m still rubbish, I’ll call it quits

Thanks chaps.

The rebound might be an issue if it isn’t allowing the fork to rebound, but it does feel as if it is the compression is causing the issues on small bumps.

I might mix up some lower weight oil to see if that helps.

No then?!

I do efforts of different duration on the road on different days.

I’ve recently improved cadence by spinning lower gears which I think is one of the keys to it for me, along with sustained efforts.

I find it easier to sustain effort up hill than on the flat.

Thanks for the ideas, folks.

Garry Lager, thanks for the offer, but you’ll need to arrive earlier!

First task is to buy Garmin strap then see how consistently I am working and to try to work out threshold

HR data would be helpful. Pushing
And trying Hard isn’t something I’ve had issues with in other sports (often making up for a lack of skill), but time trialling is quite specific.

10 miles is quite short, similar to a 5k run race in intensity so not really something that should require 200miles a week riding.

I haven’t got a Hr strap for the Garmin, but I will buy one. (My Hr meter is an old basic one)

I don’t think that bike or kit is limiting me at my current performance level. I should be making big gains! And I’m just not improving

A club road ride might be a good call.

Ps. Wheels are Cosmic Elite with 23mm Vittoria tyres -shouldnt be a drag issue.

Cheers for the ideas.

I will try a harder warm up.

I have lowered the stem slightly since the photo and intend to lower it further and push the aero bars forward a little now that I’ve improved my flexibility.

Seatpost is a Thompson layback that ive spun around to be forward.

I’m not sure how much difference it will make.

I’ve been using an aero helmet (and keeping my head up) this year which appears to have made little/no difference.

I have been doing some practice in Aero position on longer rides and shivered intervals and riding the drops on my commuter at every opportunity.

I warmed up tonight for about 13k. Mostly spinning the pedals rather than hard efforts.

I try to go hard, but don’t feel as aerobically flat out as I do during a 5k run race, but I have pushed myself to the point of dizziness on occasion.

Course mostly flat-ish. Gearing, I’m mid cassette, so could change up or down if necessary.

I have been trying to increase my cadence (and deeper, diaphragm breathing) to use aerobic system rather than just mashing, but times are the same.

For comparison I have ridden the same course 13 times and one other course once (last week, with a very similar time).

I am near the bottom of the non-pensioner men -I’m almost 40, but behind people older than me.

The be safe be seen sock combo is great ;)

I’m capable of reading a map and of following my nose, which is what I did when I went to Cornwall and had some good rides.

There look to be some potentially good roads near the coast and inland, but I thought that somebody might be able to suggest some routes that they knew were good.

Bump