Shed/Garage/Gazebo

http://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/sidi-screw-in-studs-for-mtb-shoes-4-piece-162045

I couldn’t find any local or on the usual UK shops.
I’ve used rugby studs before but wanted something a little more subtle.

I’ve always thought that the Glue and Tape method originated from back when racers used narrow unsuitable road rims that have a deep concave rim bed, which doesn’t get enough purchase on a wide CX tyre… it fills the void up and contacts more of the tyre with greater consistency.

Not an issue with more modern wider shallow bed rims, specific to a wider tyre.

I was duped into Glue and tape on my first set up, but have since just used glue and been fine. I dread the thought of removing those glue/taped tyres. I actually would remove them today and sell the tyres on if I though I wouldnt tear them to pieces in the process.

Gourdon, every day of the year

http://www.bricklanebikes.co.uk/velocity-major-tom-700c-black x 2 = £104
Pair of Novatec disc hubs for under £90
Sapim race spokes 52p each from sdeals = £34 for 32h wheel build
Use the money saved to buy 2 of these magicians:
http://www.hargrovescycles.co.uk/clement-crusade-pdx-33c-tubular.html – £140

Total cost = £368

https://www.gumtree.com/p/bicycles/cannondale-trigger-4-27.5-650b-2015-mtb-mountain-bike-brand-new-boxed-unopened-rrp-%C2%A32-700-/1136748778

Why are you all riding these? Could you not try and flog them on gumtree for a profit?

Enquired about this last summer when a Sheep dog bolted out of the back of a landrover parked outside a house on the driveway, I was going downhill at a decent speed, it missed my mate somehow but broadsided my front wheel bringing me down with a bang.

minor damage to bike, cosmetic only thankfully. Large portion of skin off my hip and shorts torn to shreds. Owner got in the landrover and drove away to look for his dog and never returned.

I was told that I would have to prove the dog had a history of this to prove that the animal wasn’t under control. As you will know from previous threads on such topics, under control doesn’t have to mean on a lead apparently. I just sucked it up and let it go. I still b*tch about it constantly.

tpbiker – Member
Not sure its the frame or the entire bike, but it just doesn’t excite in any way. Riding it feels like a chore..

For a 21lb race bike it feels cumbersonme and heavier than it is. I came from an anthem which was a great bike, something to enjoy. The Canyon feels like a tool rather than a toy..

I’ve only ridden it about 300 miles in 5 months which says it all…plan is to strip and try to source a carbon anthem frame in 29er variety, or push the boat out for a carbon tallboy.

edit…maybe I just don’t like 29ers!

And what size is this free canyon?
:lol:

I may even be willing to part cash for it :?:

fadda – Member
Google how to stretch your piriformis muscle – what manifests as ITB pain is often helped by this.

This.
Every knee pain I ever get comes directly from there and a block of heavy training where I neglect stretching and recovery for too long.
Wife is the same.

You can only answer it by working out what you want most, and more importantly – what your strengths and weaknesses are in relation to your key events.

Annoying click from steering end of my CX Commuter, for about 6 months.
Replaced headset which didn’t sort it. Checked Quick releases, fork for cracks. Decided to grease up all the stem bolts when I realised the faceplate was cracked and held on by a bolt less than it should be.

Never mind.

I’ll take the faceplate off the stem on the Singlespeed commuter, its the exact same stem and funny that bike has also been making a similar creak for 3 years now…

Oh right then

Planet-x superlight stems.
Light, cheap and crap. Faceplates cracked on 3 of them, and I even own a wee torque key so I know they weren’t done up gorilla tight

How big is the child?
I got a Bobike junior last week. Our almost 5 year old is over the weight limit for most kids seats but this one is rated up to 30 or 35kg i think it was.
If you can handle the bike ok with the weight on, I would recommend it.

Got it from the Holland bike shop on sale and with a weak euro. Think it came in round the £45 mark. Was worth a punt at that price and with 3 commutes this week on it already I am pretty happy. If I get 6 months out of it before she gets even bigger it will be a sound investment.

IMG_20150525_200318234 by barry_kellett99[/url], on Flickr

“massive shit eating grin on my face”

Is that supposed to be a good thing?

Glad you like your new bike though :)

http://sdeals.com/index.php/home/wheels/hubsandparts/product/443-novatec-f172-hg-rear-hub/category_pathway-150

Matching front on there too for £17

Measure your rims, workout spoke lengths and buy hubs and spokes from those guys and either build them yourself or get Luke to do it

Novatec, you big shimano hater

I run them on the CX bike, and also on my wee cheapy tubular road race set.

About £50 for a pair. Which is the only reason I tolerate the non shimano-ness ;)

kerley – Member
I am an XC type rider and always have been (mainly because where I live is totally unchallenging technically). I tried 685 for a month and and now back to 620.

The extra width almost feels like it slows me down with a wider stance. If I rode other styles I would no doubt see the benefit.

oliverracing – Member
yep, I’m also an xc rider, tried and hated wide bars (700mm) and have now gone back to my trusty 640mm with bar ends!

I was always moving my hands inwards while riding with the 700 bars, while also feeling less confident on techy climbs.

What wheel size out of interest?
I had 685 on my old 26″ wheel anthem, nice carbon MT Zoom bar. So when I got my 29er I took the stock 720 bar off it to save weight with the MT Zoom. Christ it felt ridiculous trying to steer the big wagon wheel where you wanted it to go.

So naturally I didn’t put the 720 back on, I bought a 740 flat bar to go wider again and go a little lower.

I think its just what you are used to and what feels right from person to person but the only trouble i have with wide bars is the gridding and having room to fit them in alongside the other riders!

I’m with Hels

Used to do warm ups.
Figured I am better off holding onto my glycogen now. I’ll spin the legs easy for a while just riding about an open area if i can after doing practise laps earlier and having a bite in between. If its cold or I am feeling like I need a warm up, I’ll do some static jumps beside the bike and attract funny looks from opponents.

What’s funnier? Warming your muscles up to contract and release quickly in the minutes before the race or burning through half an hour of precious energy on a static trainer and then getting cold waiting on the race to start?

If I am sure the race will start on time I will do a couple of high power 30 second bursts if I can with good gaps in between in the 10-20 mins before the race start. Gets a good flow of blood to the legs, but again, if you then have to stand getting cold for ages for a late race start, it could conceivably be worse for your performance.

Don’t underestimate the power of Sleep and a good Diet. You will never improve without both, and if you keep trying, you will keep feeling poorly when you over reach.

More sleep. More rest. More good food. Less Bad food.

Enjoy getting faster!

What age are the kids?
How far is it and how are they progressing with riding their own bikes?
I have one who is probably still ok to go in the trailer, just about, but her new wee sister is going to take that spot in a few weeks when mum goes back to work and I am doing the morning runs.

She is on an intensive training programme at the minute, but doesn’t know it. She has completed 5 mile spins with tough uphill sections at a decent enough pace for a 4 1/2 year old. She only needs to do just over 1 mile at race pace.

This is more important than kiddy racing, but i reckon she will mill the field once I let her loose at that in a year or so.

:twisted:

I’ll have a set of rivals for sale soon
You’d want those =P

after 12 pages, I have some new ground for you all…
Always used a powertap Pro+. Always happy with the data. When the torque tube went, you were under no illusion something was up.

Ended up getting a G3 wheel on the replacement scheme. Fair enough. If it lasts the same length of time I will be happy enough with the outlay for that amount of training time. Everything in life seems to be a consumable now anyway.

BUT

after 4 weeks riding the new wheel, the calibration number started dropping. It was always well within the 512 +/- 12 for those first few weeks until sundays ride where it was 480. Recalibrated several times mid ride and it dropped into the 470’s and then the 460’s

Eventually it settled on 448

It is away back and the support has been good.

but the point of this story is that I have been told NOT to calibrate and auto zero the hub using my Garmin Edge 500, it interferes with the hubs slope. WTF is that all about?

How am I meant to calibrate the thing or check the zero offset before a ride unless I shell out and buy a Joule?

Anyone else had this?

Just used my RobertAxle for the first time at the weekend, very happy with it. Finally nice to take the MTB out for trailer spins rather than be tied to the road or CX bike.

I couldnt drill out one of my croozer hitches to mount as I’m using a Syntace 142x12mm axle, the head of which is recessed in the frame. Not sure if other axle formats differ

Croozer for one trailer BTW

cloudnine – Member
Cut right down on sugar… Or any of its derivatives. Refined suguar and hydrogenated oils are the Devils work. Cut out booze too. In a nutshell…. Your diet will determine your weight and exercise will determine your fitness. Someone else will probably be along to tell you something else shortly.

As well put as I have ever seen.
Give this man a medal for the first right answer ever on STW.

They should have got Greenscape in for that fence…

Updated mine. Thing is working far better now after getting a bit slow of late prior to the upgrade

Sounds like you possibly can’t be bothered with eating dinner the night before either?
Or if you are, what exactly are you having for your dinner?

I did palisade last night – Its over under. Pretty tough. But once you are back up and fighting fit its a really good session. My average for each 9 minute block was deliberately just above FTP, so the overs are hard. But its only over for 2 minutes, so mentally, very doable.

Why not just do some basic Sweet spot work? If you are feeling strong, raise the intensity of the last effort or the last sections of each effort?

Personally, the first turbo session after a long break away from it, even if its not a break from the bike and training, is always tough. I usually forget how tough, but when i don’t, I try to ease in with something that looks easy on paper

Right, will give retensioning the derailleurs a go.
I used a regular mech but never got round to disecting it at the start of the season, dropped the chain once in a race and again the next weekend but in practise that time.

As crispycross says, so much less to bung up in there with a single ring, neat and tidy. So much to love.

I really missed the top cog though at the nationals last week. Most mountainous CX race ever.

I train with a stages PM off road. I got it to persuade me to spend more training time on the MTB than the road bike. It succeeded. I ride out to the trails so can ride a steady long aerobic pace and measure it.

You can use it for Intervals on the trails surely.

Break an XC race down into what it is. Our racing scene is usually several 1-2minute high power efforts per lap with little recovery. You can do this easily on a road bike but… A) Your MTB position is different B) It doesnt replicate being able to ride a downhill competently when breating through your arse.

You don’t have to ride “to a number” but you can track your avg power on the last interval on your garmin for example so you can still use it to figure out when to call it a day or whether you have another wee bit in you.

One of my favoured sessions when getting closer to races is to do my short intervals on a steady steep fireroad climb which has a singletrack descent back to the bottom. Forests the world over are littered with them.

I’ve used it for CX and XC training by “racing” myself on race simulation sessions on a set course. Hit lap every time you complete a lap. Check how your power maintained or tailed off afterwards.

Incredibly useful tools for training.

I find a lot of people have power meters lately, since they have become really fashionable to have, and just ride around collecting data for no reason.

EDIT – I found it really useful, in CX racing especially, to determine just how well or badly you performed. The gut wrenching of a race situation clouds your judgement badly so you are only guessing in truth when you cross that finish line.

What do you mean by “how do you use it?”
In the same way you would use any power meter?

Running an XT double on my race bike, so just plonked it on where the bigger ring goes.

Think I am going to go back to a double set up though next season.
I had to have some assurances so converted to SRAM Double tap shifters and a Type II mech. The chainline is poor and struggles to ever get the top cog on the cassette. Which isn’t that much of an issue. But Double Tap is. For the proper cold races. Shifting becomes very vague and uncomfortable with cold finger tips

SORT IT OUT SHIMANO AND MAKE ME A CLUTCH MECH FFS

Kurt Kinetic + Trainer road again

Cheap Turbo’s are a horrible experience.
A good fluid resistance Turbo trainer with a small range cassette is perfect. I have an 11-21 for turbo use, makes a lot of difference.

binners – Member

You’re wrong

Yea, Glympse is good.

Whatever you do, the most important part to any training schedule is consistency.
Talking about it on an internet forum won’t have any (positive) impact on your fitness. Make a plan. Follow it. Read some stuff around training and specifics as you learn more about your fitness and then adapt and change your plan.

You’ll hear lots of different approaches and methods. Only way to really work out if they are best for you is to try them out over a sustained period and try to weigh up the pro’s and cons yourself.

One other thing – Z2 is not a bimble. It should be pretty hard, maybe not on your CV system and maybe not in the first hour, but as the time ticks on your wee legs should definitely be feeling pretty tired and not really up for “racing for 30’s”

Very true Nick.
Which is why I have invested in a 2nd hand SRAM road shifter to get a clutch mech on my CX single ring set up after much faffing round.

You actually have 7 very usable gears out of a Dynasys rear mech on a non dynasys shifter/cassette. It wont go near the top 2 or 3 cogs though.

In saying that…

You could use the cable tie arrangement to get the thing working and then decide where to drill the cable hole like this guy has done:
http://www.ridemonkey.com/threads/anyone-using-9-speed-sram-shifter-with-shimano-10-speed-derailleur.257028/#post-3876561

This actually works:
http://www.pinkbike.com/u/SupraShin/blog/How-to-convert-SHIMANO-Shadow-Plus-RD-into-9-speed.html

Wee update.
Seen this:
http://www.pinkbike.com/u/SupraShin/blog/How-to-convert-SHIMANO-Shadow-Plus-RD-into-9-speed.html

And decided to test it out. Stuck a Zee mech on with some cable ties as shown and low and behold, it does actually seem like it could work. Very fiddly and the cable ties I have on aren’t really super strong – but I managed to get the thing covering the full 9 cogs out back and reasonably good shifting across the majority of them. A bit of fine tuning using stronger ties and I reckon it will work.

I can’t decide whether its a suitable set up for racing though! In my mind it is risky, but are the ties actually under much load?

I discovered that blog entry while looking further into the drilling method linked to earlier in the thread. Perhaps working out the pivot point for the cable using ties could show you exactly where to drill the hole for a more permanent fix?

You didn’t mention what trainer you are using yet?
I only ask as in my opinion, it makes more difference than you could imagine.

I’ve known several people to jack in turbo training because their magnetic resistance unit turbo had one setting that was a tiny bit too easy but the next level up was intolerably hard.

I use a Kurt Kinetic Rock and Roll. The rock and roll aspect is quite nice. However, the big difference is the resistance unit and fly wheel.

Read that article I posted up above, particularly the section on Inertial Load. If it isn’t right in your set up, no amount of big giant fans are going to make turbo training a goer for you.

An article you may find interesting and worthwhile:
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/turbocharged-training.html