Well that went pretty well.
Glad of the advice to avoid the M6 and M5 as much as I could. Getting around Bristol and on out was horrific enough.

Maybe I will investigate the alternative route.
I must admit I am dreading spending that much time on motorways.

Edit – Yea Ok, I think I’ll be doing that shrewsbury – Kidderminster -M5 route. It looks like a much happier experience!

Holyhead – Shrewsbury – Kidderminster – Worcester Woods stop off – M5 – Taunton Stop Off – Last leg to Ivybridge

Job Done
Thanks!

Cheers for the suggestions. Worcester woods sounds the ticket bsims.
Snowdonia is for the way home, staying for a couple of days biking and a stress free run to the boat home. I just want to get us down to Devon as quick as possible tomorrow.

I am way up north jacksonwwirl, but one to consider in future. We have done the rosslare morning boat a couple of times now and stayed overnight down there after a good 4 1/2 -5h drive down.
Either way is a load of driving. Hopefully worth it!

banana

Rene has it.
If a cooker breaking down is the sum of your lifes problems, count yourself lucky.

Why would you bother riding tubs if you use Vittoria Rally or anything by Tufo?
The ride is horrible. The rolling resistance is massive.

I carry a Rally as a spare but if I puncture and use it, It will be coming off as soon as the new tyre goes on.

I don’t ride tubs on the road through the winter, I could maybe see a job for a Tufo tubeless tubular there.

The fastest clinchers are faster, but I picked up a set of light 4ZA Tubular wheels very cheap so the rolling resistance/£ ratio is the winner for me

Fat leaves the body as CO2 and H2O

From the pictures in the OP – Big ring? And chain over the top of the cassette? I will assume that the chain is in there from after the failure. But Big/Big combo is bad in cross, as has been already posted, debris gets in the cage.
Once something stops the chain moving your powering on means the fate of the drivetrain is decided by which has more resistance to the force… the blockage or the hanger.

Good point above about never backpedalling. And to the extreme, freewheeling is something to try to avoid even if you are just coast pedalling, glass cranking to keep that chain in soft forward motion

Step one to weight weenie projects – strip it down and weigh individual components before even considering changing anything.

I moved to the Vittoria range a while back when Schwalbes went very expensive all of a sudden one year, never looked back.

franksinatra – Member
I live about 1km away from my kids school. Easily done on foot or by bike. They are driven to school most days. It is not that I am driving them to school but more the case that I drop them off as I drive to work. I would love to ride them in but I don’t have time to ride them in, ride back home get changed then set off to work..

Home to get changed? Into what?
Most of the time there are ways and means to do it, if you really want to do it.

Love mine
But its now broken

I’ve killed every single rear light I have ever had.
Apart from these.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cycling-Bicycle-Bike-Front-Rear-Tail-Light-USB-Rechargeable-3LED-Lamp-4-modes/253087949620

£4.99

Buy half a dozen if you must spend the budget

The measurements on the sizing guide on the items on site is pretty spot on.
They’re a pretty local company to me so I may be a bit biased, but I haven’t had any issues with anything from them. They are always my first stop for new kit.
The dark colour patterns on a few items are my only gripe as a commuter.

Yes, and Yes.
All their gear is great IMO

Hoy Bonaly – Eldest got one in August. Fantastic bike.
https://www.evanscycles.com/hoy-bonaly-24-inch-kids-bike-EV203132

My 7 year old just got these in neon yellow
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/100-brisker-cold-weather-glove-aw17/rp-prod121141?gs=1&utm_source=google&utm_term=&utm_campaign=Chain+Reaction-UK-PLA-PLA-All-DT-SE-Shopping+QLB+Generic+Desktop&utm_medium=base&utm_content=mkwid|sIyOVc6ic_dc|pcrid|161850070953|pkw||pmt||prd|489180UK

Got that Worx Hydroshot after another Mobi died on me.
I haven’t actually used it yet, but my Pit man at last sundays CX race says it was brilliant!

It cleaned 3 bikes for me, and I don’t know how many for other riders in the club coming in, but the battery faded badly during the 2nd race period of the day.
I’d estimate 8 or 9 bikes washed. But they were horrendously muddy bikes to start with.

Will invest in additional Batteries for it at some stage.

How many watts are you doing for 16h on the power curve Andy?
:-)

Built up a Superfly recently, geometry optimised for 51mm offset. Thought about spending money I didnt have on new forks too, but decided to just lump the old Fox 32s on and it rides fine. I might opt for 51mm offset SIDs or reba sometime in the future, but only because the white fox forks look terrible on a black frame with black wheels and black decals, and I only have crown lockout which I keep forgetting about mid race.

Its an XC race 29er. Its made for going real fast up climbs and on flat straights, you are over thinking it on technical descent stuff. Adapt to ride the stuff on a less forgiving bike and accept it just won’t feel as capable as a more trail bike kind of set up.

mrBlobby has touched on it there with the mechanics of pedalling.
I’ve owned a mediocre turbo trainer which was ok for the job of indoor training, but the difference between that and the Kurt Kinetic fluid unit is remarkable
My power indoor and out is identical.
Most people I know who have real reservations about indoor training are using cheap Magnetic turbos.

For me, Inertia is key. Temperature control 2nd. Motivational tools (TR/Sufferfest etc) 3rd.

EDIT – Its also only one experience? You need a wider test period!

I have a one up high direct mount guide I purchased a few weeks ago for my race bike, raced once, changed frames now and it’s not compatible… Step this way Sir

For anyone in the market:
https://www.westbrookcycles.co.uk/cannondale-caadx-apex-1-cyclocross-bike-2017-p304752

Plus 10% off using the Tour10 code making it £899! Unbelievable!

MTB-Idle – Member
sweet, can you change a tub in the same time?

far quicker

but only once per ride :?

11mins 37 and 11 mins 45

I am off my game big time

first day on clinchers in 2 months today – punctured – twice
:roll:

The carbon wheels video above is worth watching.

Bez – Member

My daughters frog has a 1:1 ratio as her top gear.

Bottom gear, surely?[/quote]

Maybe – But its top of the block, and 8 is a higher number than 1 soooooo…. :lol:

9 speed?!
My daughters frog has a 1:1 ratio as her top gear.
She has an 11sp set up coming.
32×32 to 32×42 – her wee legs will be loving the extra mileage she will be able to do.

Twice the air volume flow of the screw fix one, never did I think I would have floor fan envy

zilog6128 – Member
I got an 18″ floor fan from Screwfix a couple of years ago. It’s very powerful, but loud (although I’ve never found that a problem!) Just had a look as I fancy getting another one. The one I bought (for £50) is on clearance for £20 although out of stock everywhere near me. There’s a newer model for £30. Can’t comment on it but it looks pretty similar so I’ll probably take a punt on one for myself.

I just purchased the new model and did a 2h indoor ride on monday with 17c temps outside in relative comfort.

Having a floor fan blowing up over your whole body makes a huge difference than a desk fan positioned in front of your face.

I was surprised at how quiet it is tbh, my turbo generates far more noise.

A lot of the time I am similar so usually base the week round my day off, saturday in that case.

ferrals – Member
I’ve cancelled my trainer road subscription so can’t find out, but does anyone know if there is a scientific reason why TR tended to put the higher intensity intervals work in the week and then the weekend is longther threshold intervals etc.

The only reason why they schedule anything in a weekly format like that is that they (probably rightly) assume that most people have more time at weekends and are more time constrained every other day. Monday off to recover from increased TSS over the weekend and/or from races.

Personally – I commute monday to friday with the odd day WFH, so I fit the workouts into the commute, and will either do trainer work outs on the WFH and weekends, depending what suits. The only important thing is to be consistent and understand that the bigger TSS workouts usually have an easy or off day prescribed before them for the reason that you need to be rested and ready or the quality may suffer, or worse, the session may get binned.

Just finished the last big week on Sweetspot base phase 1. Would echo the above statements about the difficulty. Two 130+ TSS rides in two days is tough.

First block of training I have ever made conscious decisions about fuelling training rides before, during and after.

Just to be annoying…
How long was this marathon race? round 4 hours I am guessing?
How much 4h race training had you done?

In my experience you can get away with Time Crunched sort of training on anything up to 2 hour races, but once you go above that there is no substitute for actually training longer durations.

Time crunched training doesn’t do anything for your core, arms, shoulders and Mental state which all come in to play hugely. If you’re core is done and you still have half the race to go, you are going to feel beat up regardless.

Lock on grips?
Get rid, superstar silicones.

Look at the stem too.

On my first weight weenie campaign on a budget I shed a ridiculous amount of weight changing a Thomson stem with steel bolts, lock on ODI Grips and an Easton EA70 bar to MT Zoom flat carbon bars, KCNC Wing Stem and ESI Silicone grips.

But a back heavy bike has a heavy rear wheel and cassette tbh

What cranks are on it? Some of the lower range stuff is a serious anchor in the middle of a bike

First rule of weight loss purchases though… always weigh the part you are replacing before replacing with a known weighted item.

http://www.superstarcomponents.com/en/26-rim-clearance-2017.htm

C18-123 XC Carbon, with code, £70 for a pair :!:

Using 7up bottle for years but just ordered the new Giant one:
https://www.giant-bicycles.com/gb/giant-control-tank-black

swiss stop blue or green, hard to beat

You know the saying, “Abs are made in the kitchen”?