Cheers folks. Food for thought!

Appreciate the detailed responses

Cheers for the input.

Decided upon staying near Dalbeattie, doing some of the Stanes across a few days.

Best order some “skin so soft”

Anything else keep midges at bay near a tent?

Cheers for that, I didn’t mean as well as wales. I meant one or the other.

Not going to do lakes as I get lost too easily so want waymarked trails.

I’m leaning towards driving a bit further and doins some of the 7 stanes I think- just could do with knowing if this is possible with midges this time of year and camping? I don’t want to be mega munched by insects as that won’t be any fun at all!

Done Coed y before- really like it and would happily go back.

Not heard of cadaid, idris, mawdacch and scethin. will look them up.

Ta!

Currently toying with the idea of doing glentress and innerlethen and hamsterley on the way back… possibly a bit too far and am I right in thinking it’s midge season up there?

Terry- drop me your email mate. I’ll send you a free 3 months trainer road trial.

Rone are you on about assos or Pactimo?

How race fit are the t-equipe? £105 seems pretty good for premium shorts on the site whyterash posted (cheers for that)… but I’m worried I’m not a stick thin climber type

Then it’s a big jump in price to the t-cento, and worried if I size up in that they will be too big

aggghhhhh

I’m 78kg 5ft10.5 32 waist. Fairly broad in the hip and back.

mrb123- how do the pactimo’s size up?

I’d do a big ride like now so you’ve got nearly 2 weeks to recover from it. Then some smaller rides. A mid length ride 1 week before the big day then rest for the week before doing small easy rides regularly that week.

Eat really clean, don’t drink and keep salt to a minimum and you’ll likely lose half a stone (lot of water weight).

Lower your sugar intake.

I had exactly the same- read an article about how raised blood glucose lowers immune system function dramatically as the white blood cells bind to glucose rather than vitamin C – they use vitamin C to bind infections but when blood sugar is elevated this mechanism screws up big time.

If your sleep is broken you are way more insulin resistant and chances are your blood sugar is elevated (not to diabetic levels but more than is optimum for health).

Cut out refined sugar and lower your carb intake- completely transformed how often I got ill when I was experiencing the same thing 2 1/2 years ago.

Seriously don’t mess about with EPO. People have died in their sleep with that stuff and that’s riders with team doctors. Blood turns to sludge when your hemocrit level rises too much and when your HR and BP drops at night the system can just grind to a holt.

Dangerous drug- if riders with a Team doctor can die using it then an amateur can very easily!

Thanks for the responses all-

Next question….

Now I have a 4iiii on the bike it will read differently to my tacx vortex on trainer road sessions.

How do I mate the two so when using trainer road it takes my wattage from the crank but controls the power using EGR?

Is that even possible?

Continental van contacts here.

I rate them a lot- no squirming and plenty of grip.

That’s on a Vito long wheelbase 163bhp

I did an mtb century about a month ago. Rode from Nottingham across to Cannock chase, did a lap of the dog and rode back.

Mostly canal path with a bit of road.

I was on an xc rigid 29er and a mate on a gravel bike.

North of 15 mph the drop bars become very apparent he was in an aero position, I spent the road bits sat behind him as the different positions means holding 20mph on an mtb for a period is a lot harder work as you are like a sail sat more upright with arms out. I run thunder burts on my xc bike so tyres rolled pretty similar.

Also a lot of gravel and canal paths have those annoying horse gate things that are narrow. You can ride straight through on drop bars maintaining speed- with an mtb you have to stop and waddle through with your bars at 45′

So they make sense if you aren’t gonna get too gnar and ride on gravel and road.

Cheers for that- I have been wanting to look at HRV. How does the app work- does it link with a Garmin strap etc from your phone or something?

I’ll have a download of it, cheers for that!

Just thought I’d revive this- felt alright for a bit and now it’s back.

Haven’t ridden since Tuesday as am knackered…

one of you mentioned Crickles- I’ve been having a play. One thing I’ve noticed is a massive difference between the Crickles fatigue/form data and the one Strava Summit produces from HR data (I’ve been using the Strava one). That has currently got my fatigue figure so I am actually just falling into positive form today- where as the Crickles one has me still heavily fatigued and on a pretty negative form.

I’m guessing from the way I’m feeling that the Strava analysis is way off and should now use Crickles- but anyone able to tell me why the two calculations have so much difference in their summary?

Ta!

As has been stated above… bloody hard with 100 miles in your legs and 10,000ft climbing already in the bag.

Fred Whitton Challenge- hard day out!

Yeh pissing in shorts a massive no no on a sportive. In a road race or triathlon race fine. But the whole thing about a sportive is it’s not a race.

You’ve never ridden a century and have aspirations for the first one to be sub 5 hours…

I’m struggling to get my head around that.

Sub 5 hours or sub 5 hours when strava has taken the stops out are two different things- the latter is MUCH easier.

You’re probably gonna need to stop to fill bottles once at least and have a piss. So you’re probably talking riding at 21 average for 5 hours with a tiny stop.

Big ask for someone who’s never ridden 100 miles before.

Guess it all comes down to how many hills and how much draft is available at the right speeds and places on the day.

Trouble is later in the miles the riders get spread out and readily available 22mph+ draft gets harder to find.

If I was a betting man I’d say no. I ride solo at 18 regularly in the hills and have done plenty of centurys- could I do an actual sub 5 hour 100- doubt it unless it was pan flat!

Best of luck though, have fun trying and if you do it then well done!

Cheers guys- at least I know I’m not on my own.

I’ll use it as an excuse for a neck massage from the Mrs 😂

Paton- cheers but about 3 or 4 bottles across a 5 hour ride isn’t over drinking.

I couldn’t even shift a Solaris Max frame on there… was practically giving it away. Put it elsewhere and sold it in 40 minutes.

Used to love the old classifieds. Was like a permanent bike jumble that would real me in on a daily basis.

It’s more the front of my head and top so I don’t think it’s a neck tension thing… although I won’t rule that out completely!

Definitely not taking on too much fluid.

Cheers for responses so far

I was wandering if it’s an electrolyte inbalance.

Swigging loads of water with electrolyte tabs etc- taking on too much of one and not enough of another. Is that even possible?

See I thought this but urine is clear. Surely if I was dehydrated to that point I’d be pissing yellow?

I always have to laugh at the fact it’s called Garmin Connect app- half the time it won’t flipping connect!

Nope not in warranty, bought used forks to save cash as I went £800 over budget on my frame… false economy that turned out to be!

Jakehinton… mind if I ask what spring weight set up you chose/how heavy you are and how you find it?

Poah, it’s packing down over a course of an hour or two until it’s sitting further and further into it’s travel. Means on a long ride I need to reset it 3 or 4 times. Or generally at the end of a very long decent.

There’s definitely an air migration. You can pull it back to the equalization point and it sucks and goes back to normal.

Having changed the air spring I can only assume it’s a scratch on the inside of the stantion… unless there’s anything else can cause this?

Grease in the equalization port is bollocks, might cause an isolated incident but this is consistent.

Just had a look at them. Thanks!

Is that that French bloke basically working out a shed?

I like the look until I read “keep your top cao for progresivity”. I might be assuming wrong but basically is he saying you can preload air into the chamber to have an air spring as well?

If that’s the case then the lower slider on it needs a seal, completely negating the point of a coil to remove the friction from that seal?

Or have I misunderstood the badly translated gumpf?

How have you done a simple coil?

I’m baulking at the price of these and a cheaper solutuon would be ace!

Rego farts are real!!!!

It’s terrible stuff, based with soy. Soy is a phytoestrogen… e.g. in large quantities it mimics female hormones. Just what you want for recovery (insert sarcastic tone).

What is good is it has electrolytes. Mixing a whey protein shake and a pint of electrolyte would be a much better recovery drink imho

It’s three of the six little.ones are completely seized. 2 others feel slightly gritty too.

It’s had some.winter use and a bath using soapy water from a sponge periodically through the winter, but never pressure washed it.

Cheers for replies so far. Kinetic bikes want £12 each. That’s £72 for six little bearings, way more than im willing to pay.

Bearings this size should be £3 a pop and I wouldn’t mind replacing them 4 times a year at that price. It seems like these are a bespoke size manufactured for Evil?

Scotroutes… has FTP suffered for it?

Costco was a right good shout. STW comes up trumps again here- Dualit Classic for £149.

Right what kettle for £51!!! I’ll have a read of the other thread.

Cheers folks!

FTP is set through a zones chart based on lactate threshold. I’ve tweaked them slightly based on what I’ve been able to hold for periods of time/ when breathing deepens etc.

Knowledge of when I blow up /what I can hold. I have my LT threshold pegged at 172. Done tests etc looking at HR for last 20 mins of a hard effort etc.

I used tables from various different methods, mostly stuff by Joe Friel books and ended up settling on the one based on LT.

Something definitely not right. I did a 30 minute leg primer last night and my quads feel like they are beasted today- little cramp spasms driving to work.

I’m gonna do this ride Saturday regardless as I’ve taken sponsorship for BHF and feel obliged to honour the event for the people that have coughed cash up.

After that I’ll rest.

I still think its Monkey AIDS

Hi Rob

Some really helpful comments folks, really appreciate the input.

I said I’d upload some of the data

I’ve moved from an sb6c to an offering this year.

The Offering is a bit of a lump in comparison, doesn’t spin up as fast and feels less efficient pedalling.

However, point it down and despite being a lower travel bike it absolutely blows my old yeti out of the water- that might be more down to the 29 wheels over the 27.5, but for me it’s confidence inspiring.

It’s cliche but the evil does really feel more of a fun bike that pops and wheelies/manuals better etc. The BB feels noticeably lower on the Evil and as a result rails corners way better, it does however suffer from pedal strikes a lot.

I love mine. Hands down the best bike ive ever owned.

If I was lighter and less powerful I’d choose the yeti every day though, that switch link really does make them pedal extremely well.

Not a direct comparison but it’s my experience going from an sb6c to an Offering.

it sounds like you are just beasting it all the time.
Yeah, I’m surprised that anyone should be feeling so bad after only 5-9 hours riding per week but I guess that depends on work rate etc. Talk of TSS etc is way over my head as I just ride for enjoyment.

Yeh thats really what I thought and doesn’t correlate with last year and why I’ve asked about it.

Form is supposably -7 today so not bad really on the scheme of things. I’ll post the data later when I’ve got chance to take screen grabs etc.

I use HR for every ride/run- for thi fitness/freshness/relative effort data.

Not really magic though are they. Time at heart rate multiplied by time with factors etc. Arguably pretty consistent. Ok hydration etc and power is more absolute but it’s a decent guide.

Shows a week relative to the next for comparison doesn’t it which it’s intended for.

Sorry, those are relative effort scores. Not TSS- same sort of thing but im guessing scaled/scored differently.

Thise numgers are based on time at HR from summit