Wrong thread

I have a Petzl Actik which I’ve used on the bike mainly as a backup to an Exposure Toro. Been pretty impressed with it. I’ve not much experience of other quality head torches but it’s plenty bright and can be had for about £35 I think.

Edit: mine might be the Actik Core actually, which is a bit more expensive.

No comments on today’s stage yet? That was the best battle of sheer will and pain faces I remember seeing for a long time. Absolutely brutal.

A decent phone will almost always take more impressive shots than pretty much any camera in the hands of a complete novice. Much of the reason for that is all the clever software manipulating those images the second you press the shutter.

A decent camera will have better optical quality, but you’ll generally not get the best out of them without a bit of knowledge and post-processing.

Polaroid isn’t a bad idea though. It’s not always about the quality but capturing memories, and the ability to snap them and put them straight into a photo album might appeal.

If public health is the priority, then the focus should be on vehicles.

of course, I agree with that, but using it as an argument not to do anything about smoking is just whattaboutery.

Is it? I’m not so sure.

To me, it’s a matter of resources. It’s similar to wasting time talking about putting number plates on cycles, or ramping up police operations to target cyclists for minor offences that pose little threat to anyone but themselves. Meanwhile 3,000+ people killed and seriously injured by motor vehicles each year, and a further 100,000+ injuries. Which one should we actually be spending time talking about if we want to make real change to people’s lives with a finite amount of resources?

There’s an argument that it could further stigmatise smoking and reduce it further overall, and that might be a fair argument. If we’re to look at what people are consuming into their bodies though, I’d rather see that focus placed onto our diet which is currently causing a health epidemic similar to the one caused by smoking in its heyday, yet is being largely ignored.

One of the best finishes of the Vuelta so far.

I was a smoker when the indoor ban came in. Was probably against it initially, then I realized going outside pubs to smoke was actually a really good opportunity to socialise with complete strangers. I quickly seen it as a positive thing.

I’m not a smoker now, so can see both sides. I don’t really see any point in an outdoor ban unless there’s any actual evidence of harm, and I’m not aware of any. The risk from passive smoke in outdoor spaces must be tiny in the vast majority of settings.

If public health is the priority, then the focus should be on vehicles.

Any brand reduced sugar. Add your own flavour.

What kind of bike? I think it’s ferry only on any reasonable kind of surface. There might be some hike-a-bike option.

PEM is a result of mitochondria dysfunction  according to the science

Science doesn’t know for certain what causes PEM. There are competing theories and mitochondrial dysfunction is one of them (which fasting could help with through mitophagy). It could also be neurogical, immunogical, or metabolic. It could be any or all of the above. There’s a lot of complexity through the interconnected systems that is not well understood.

I’d question the OP’s assessment that it’s low blood sugar:

Given I have the same symptoms on day two after my fast as I do after a long cycle ride, then I am beginning to think it could be a low blood sugar issue of some sort.

You mentioned you did a zone 2 ride on day one. This is much more likely to be the culprit, fasted or not (fasting could add some extra stress).

Reading between the lines you don’t think this should trigger PEM, but sadly the pattern for many is the window of activity gets smaller each time you trigger it. As mentioned in the other thread, avoid it at all costs!

Doesn’t the garmin measure stress from HR? After 16 hours unfed I’d expect the HR to move a bit when it gets some food.

One of their main metrics is HRV (if supported by the device you’re using). People with Long Covid or CFS have a tendency to develop all kinds of sensitivities as their body is thrown out of balance. Anecdotally, the lowest stress levels I’ve seen this year were during a fast, and they stayed pretty low in the days afterwards.

interested to see some of this evidence. Last I looked a while back there were a couple of fairly low quality studies that were interesting, but not what I’d call ‘evidence’.

There’s certainly more than a couple. None of it is entirely conclusive, but it’s about as strong as the evidence for anything else we have, so if you’re stuck with Long Covid, what do you try? We’re yet to establish the exact cause and mechanism of Long Covid and without any treatment it’s probably a life long disease for many.

Fasting has been, and still is, a common practice for many cultures and civilisations throughout history.

Hmmm … this is about the same money as my Fenix 6 Pro Solar was 20 months ago. The magpie in me asks … would this be a **cough** upgrade **cough**?

There’s a comparison on DC Rainmaker. The short version seems to be that the Epix has a far superior display at the (quite great) expense of battery life.

I really don’t understand what led you to think undertaking a bit of “manorexia” would translate to sorting ‘PEM’ (actual Malaise or just lack of energy/exhaustion after exercise?). I can’t see how a water fast treats anything especially low energy/Malaise…

There’s a fair amount of evidence that fasting is beneficial for Long Covid because it promotes autophagy and healing in the body.

There is very little else available to treat Long Covid so these are some of the best tools we have.

On the OP’s original question, I would say going from a high carb diet to eating nothing is always going to be a struggle. I’d suggest intermittent fasting to begin with and cut carbs. From a low carb diet you’ll transition into longer fasts quite easily, and most of us eat far too many carbs to begin with anyway.

Long Covid reactions to fasting differ for everyone as well. Some experience a flare up in symptoms. That’s sometimes considered a herxheimer style reaction before they see improvement, but others can have less tolerance to the stress.

I’ve been finding it hard to get into the Vuelta this year, and the first day I don’t watch it, this happens!

It certainly changes the dynamics a bit.

There was a real touch of something special about Top Gear when it was still a car show with a bit of humour injected into it. Classic BBC. After years of formulaic repetition of the same jokes, I just find it hard to find any of it funny any more. And since it’s all centered around the humour, it doesn’t have a lot else going for it.

I might give it a go still but I don’t think I managed more than 15 minutes of the last season.

It’s pretty daunting to get into,, especially if your favourite food is bread… But once you’re in, it’s not bad.

How did you make it work, while still being healthy (i.e. getting your veggies in)?

This is probably worth touching on because keto is different things to different people. For me it’s mainly unprocessed foods, so meat, and vegetables. Lots of diverse salads soaked in olive oil. I eat vegetables that I never knew existed until recently – they tend to make up most of my plate. If there are some you don’t like, chop them up small. Lots of eggs. A little bit of yoghurt. Loads of nuts and seeds. A small amount of berries. Learn to make curries and stuff if you haven’t already. Probably sounds grim if you’re used to pizza and chicken nuggets but you develop a much greater appreciation for these things.

If you eat like this, you’ll be fairly close to how people have eaten for thousands of years. It’s exactly the stuff we’ve evolved to eat, so pretty healthy.

At first I was worried about transitioning in and out of ketosis if I took on too many carbs but I’ve not found it a problem whatsoever. I can have a cheat day and feel no different to the day before. There is definitely a transition in the first week or two though.

Might also be worth looking into intermittent fasting too, or even short water fasts.

How exactly it this better than individual PSAs

The clue is in the title.

I think Ford sell Thule roof bars. The price was reasonable last time I checked (although that was for a Focus) and at least you know they fit if buying from there.

Then Thule carriers from wherever you get the best price, would be the standard answer.

Otherwise maybe suction cups, as above.

sugar in the bread?  I know thats the case with subway  Ham is highly processed as well usually

Read the ingredients on a loaf of bread in the supermarket. Most of them you’ll have no clue what they are, or ever likely to find in a household kitchen. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘freshly baked’ stuff on the high street is even worse.

Very rarely bread you buy is just ‘bread’.

I am not that dumb. I carefully control my carbon intake but still need some cards to maintain energy levels for exercise.

Again, it’s not a comment on your diet, because I don’t know what that is.

It is applicable on a population level as the general guidance around what a balanced diet should be, is increasingly considered to be one of the reasons for our poor health, even if you exclude UPFs.

Hyper-palletable UPFs full of junk ingredients filling the vast majority of our shelves are still the main problem for most people.

I have a vegan diet, which is mostly home cooked, don’t eat fake meat or cheese, don’t eat sweets cakes etc and drink less than 4×330 ml cans of beer a week and drink no soft drinks.

There is some more nuanced stuff around this and the points in your post.

Sometime around the 70s we decided fats were bad and carbs were good, so we switched from high fat diets to high carb diets. There’s a growing consensus now that it’s potentially the overconsumption of carbs that is driving so much disease, including diabetes. Reducing or even completely removing refined sugars doesn’t necessarily make you safe if the majority of your diet is made up of carbs.

This may or may not be true for you, I’ve no idea, but I mention here because I know from my own experience, especially if you follow a vegan or vegetarian diet, it’s very easy to over rely on carb dense foods (which also tend to contain few nutrients), and can put yourself at risk even if you’re following a diet made up of mostly natural foods.

That’s partly a messaging problem in my opinion, and the fact we’ve been putting out the wrong messaging for the best part of 50 years.

I have not lost any weight.

Again, high carb diet is generally a factor here. All the sugar gets stored straight to fat.

The media is selling a narative that type 2 diabetes is your own fault as you have had a poor life style, but I believe it’s as a result to changes in your body.

Diet and lifestyle have a direct and very powerful influence on those changes in the body.

There needs to be better reseach around type 2 diabetes other than short term diet interventions and any diet intervention study needs to be followed over several years to see the long term results.

Short term dietary changes are definitely not the answer. Only long term cultural ones can possibly work.

The evidence for diet driving the increase in diabetes is conclusive, but there is also growing evidence that diet can, at least partially, reverse diabetes. That needs to be studied a lot more.

The public need to take some personal responsibility as well, why do people still deliberately choose full fat Coke when there are excellent sugar free alternatives as an example.

This comment and the responses to it so far highlight one of the problems. There are many perceived healthier options which aren’t actually healthy at all.

Sweeteners have been shown to spike insulin and contribute to diabetes just as sugar does.

Fact is, 90% of what’s on our supermarket shelves is junk. Eating healthy in our current environment takes a lot of knowledge and discipline, which can only suggest there’s something wrong with the environment.

If you want the general public to eat healthily, then it needs to be easy.

Forcing people to exercise is going to be tricky

We don’t need to force anyone to exercise. Most people have no interest in ‘exercise’. All you need is for the average person to incorporate a modest amount of activity into their day.

See the active travel thread. Make it easy (and appealing) to get people moving in their daily routine.

We don’t need a large scale cycle network. We need quite side streets and roads linked up for cyclists, and we need short bits of dedicated cycle paths to quickly and easily bypass pinch points and bad junctions.

What we really need is something that’s safe for a child to use. Whatever it is, we’re currently a long way from that.

We also need convenience. If we’re to encourage people to cycle (and reap the supposed financial benefits) it needs to be the most convenient option. I’m a big fan of using sidestreets from the options we have, but it often takes a lot of planning. People should be able to get onto a bike and intuitively get to wherever they need to without much thought.

There also needs to be proper prioritisation at junctions and crossings. I’m lucky to live in a place with some good networks, but there’s no way I’d let my child cross any of the roads on them – some of them I avoid myself.

There is a huge amount of work to be done if we want to enable cycling for the general public and not just ‘cyclists’.

Contemplating trying a 3-5 day water fast.  Some people have said that can potentially help.

I did think about mentioning fasting in my previous post. Many people have found it to help and there are some studies supporting it. Definitely worth a try. 24, 48 hours is thought to be enough, and you can repeat every couple of weeks or so.

PEM is a classic sign of long covid

It’s the hallmark symptom of chronic fatigue syndrome. There is debate around whether CFS and Long Covid are the same thing, but based on symptoms alone, they can be identical. PEM is virtually exclusive to the condition and a big giveaway.

You basically need to avoid triggering PEM at all costs – if I was in your position I would take 4 months off all exercise then try build up extremely slowly again if you can manage with no PEM afterwards. PEM is normally delayed by 24 or 48 hours, sometimes even more so it can be hard to work out what’s caused it at first. Pacing, sleeping well and eating well were they keys for me but still an ongoing process and has taken years already.

This is pretty much key and can’t be emphasised enough. Nobody wants to stop riding and lose fitness but it can be the difference between feeling a bit off for a few months, or potentially making yourself much worse and being ill indefinitely.

Don’t do anything to trigger PEM. Eat good nutrient dense foods and cut out the crap. Sleep well. Reduce stress as much as possible.

There’s supplements available, and some experimental medications with debatable and inconsistent effects, but the above comes way above any of that.

PEM is way more than simply being tired/fatigued – it’s quite hard explain…

There are something like 200 different symptoms associated with LC. Fatigue is pretty much universal for most but I think everyone has their own unique experience. Its one of the reasons CFS was dismissed for so long – Doctors simply couldn’t find any plausible reason for people to present with so many symptoms and not have any biological markers indicating any type of disease. I think all too often the conclusion was that it was all in the mind.

Garmin Instinct if she want’s something slightly chunky like a G-shock.

It definitely has a rugged look, probably a bit marmite for girls, but I think they do some girly colours. I went from an Instinct to Fenix and the difference is night and day. Looks and feels much nicer. Costs a fair bit more but you can get some good prices on older models. Just the ability to choose your own watch faces is a big plus, the Instinct is very basic in that regard.

The Instinct does a decent job at being what it is, but imo it’s probably more the kind of practical and robust (not very exciting) utility device the average STW male would gravitate to than the average woman would.

I bought the other half a cheaper Vivoactive thing as she really didn’t need any of the extra features. As a watch it’s much smaller and more feminine, and does everything she needs, which is mainly steps and recording activities.

The connect app is OK. Does what you need. But moreover, the amount of people using it and studying the stats makes it very easy to find any information around how to get the best out of it.

That was a bit of a surprise. Short TT for Tarling to be fair but I bet he’s gutted.

pistonbrokeFree Member
Local time is UK time, it’s Portugal

Ah, that’s confusing.

Interested in this. The problem I find on an ebike is you’re often using the bigger gears / smaller cogs, which wear faster.

Not read the thread so not sure it’s been mentioned but I think Aldi had some in recently.

If I was buying again I think I’d definitely go for gas just for the convenience. Pellets are all well and good but it’s a bit of an effort getting it going.

I think Josh Tarling starts 18:32 local time today, so 17:32 UK time? WvA last person just after 6.

Good opportunity for Tarling. I’m going to call out Adam Yates for the GC although I’m not sure the TTs might scupper him. There’s a ridiculous amount of climbing overall.

Chest strap for best accuracy.

The comments above cover my experiences. The Fenix does an OK job of measuring over a period of time. It’s completely useless at recording sudden changes, and on the bike it makes it up completely. 

I think it only connects to external monitors when recording activity.

Shout out to the (fellow) oldies in the skateboarding!

I thought Andy Mcdonald put in a good run. He’s not typically a park skater and the new generations are a step above, even the older of them like Pedro Barros (who very much is a park skater!). To put a good score on the board at the age of 51 amongst those guys is impressive.

Pog would still have won it with a solo break from 75km out though /s

Could have been an interesting race between Pog and Remco but I fear he might’ve just rode away with it like you say, as he usually does. Then again he wouldn’t have had WvA working for him.

Some ride by Remco, and what an achievement after the TT. He’s really coming into bloom right now.

I want Julian Alaphilippe to win the RR, just to watch the crowd go absolutely mental!

Have to say I got a bit excited to see Alaphilippe in the mix and going on the attack. He’s obviously back in good form. He looked super happy for everyone else at the finish as well though.

Madouas needs a mention as well, I thought he was getting caught. He pulled off a big ride.

My experience is that price is no indicator of quality and some of my best t-shirts have been less than a fiver.

Indeed my gut feeling is that so many modern cars have more problems!

They’ll also often alert you to their problems so you can get them fixed before they become bigger problems.

You’ll get some issues with unreliability in older cars, especially with particular models. I wouldn’t be worried about anything less than 10 years old that’s been well serviced and maintained. You’d be unlucky to have a proper breakdown.

It was one of those races where it feels unfair there can only be one winner.

It’s there an age limit? Or is it too dangerous for adults to take part in?!

Don’t think so, there’s a 50 year old in the park event next week.

Street is a bit harder on the body, but there’s definitely people out there pushing the limits still well into their 40s.

The young kids are so good now though. It’s a new generation. Women’s skateboarding being at the level it is now is something entirely new.

It’s only costing me £2.99 for a month

Where did you get that deal. It’s costing me £3.99 until Jan and that’s because I got a code from Eurosport ending?

Realistically, it’s hard to see a way past it. Car dependency is so ingrained in the UK (even worse in North America) that it would take a huge shift to push people to even considering other modes of transport

It is happening though. Just far too slowly. It needs to gain more momentum.