“Fat Roadie Kicks Off” – lol seeing as I’ve won a number of hill climbs and am accused of having a toast rack instead of a chest.

Here’s another go at the OP

“A bloke came on one of our rides the other day, it was quite a tough one. Most of us worked together to make it easier for the weaker riders and ensured that we would all get home together. However, he insisted on disrupting the ride and showing off. I wasn’t too happy about that and we had a polite word with him but he carried on anyway. Near the end of the ride he could not keep up, mainly due to his showing off which had depleted his energy.”

I actually meant it as humorous piss take Viz type rant not a troll post, but there you go. My MTB forum guidelines are 100% vindicated, in fact I think I’m going to do some more work on them this weekend to bring them up to date with current practice.

I’m very proud of my road club, they do loads for the community and new/old riders alike. They are all incredibly sociable and patient and only ever ask that new riders **listen** to advise when joining rides for the first time. Sadly many don’t.

“That’s fast going on an MTB slipstreaming or not. “

He was on a road bike.

Roadying is probably a bit like gay sex, only the committed practitioner can understand the pleasure, from the outside it just looks like purgatory.

black socks, and “mountain biker right leg” all major no no’s

Don’t any of you read viz?

ARGGG HE SAID TRIATHLETES

blog – how dare you – it’s a showcase for my published work.

I try to explain the difference between roadying and mtbing here if you can be arsed.

ianc – I think the hand signal on this thread is a closed fist waved up and down in a rhythmic manner and directed at me

CaptJon – thanks ..made I laugh

Well that’s not so good ton. My lot will even fix my punctures, the knack is to fumble about long enough and one of the old boys will step in and take over. Our lot know every road within a 40 mile radius and most rides are planned on a GPS and they are all good riders. I joined them as a MTBer and did exactly what matey boy did on my first hill. They had a word and now I spend time on the front and give it some on hills as well, you get some grudging respect for that.

Yep, you’re probably right so I’ve got the rigid singlespeed out for a quick spin to chill out.

I have ridden his route many times, a while back I rode it on a road bike with 2 mountain bikers on slicks

They struggled with the distance but made it.

Report here

Ok, I’ll try and explain it a bit more rationally and see if you get it then.

On a long road ride the group tries to cover distance well by taking it in turns on the front. The front is where you push hardest against the air and wind. Therefore the riders on the front do more work than the rest. The general idea is that if you all take turns to do a bit, you spread the effort and the group moves faster as a whole. This works to a lesser extent on the hills but keeping the group together as much as possible helps.

Some riders are not as strong as others and consequently can’t do as long on the front. Being a nice bunch, we kind of accept this and the stronger riders will spend longer on the front to compensate.

So, it’s a bit galling when you have one person who is happy to not help AT ALL but clearly has the energy to sprint up hills. We could chase him down but we don’t ‘cos we know we need to conserve effort to help everyone home. It’s worse when you try to have a civil word and they ignore you. So then you get desperate and rant over the internet at his brethren .. always a mistake. In my mind, he reminded me of how I feel at MTB events when I hear “elite rider coming through”.

Don’t think we’re that miserable at all tbh in the club. Road cycling at speed (20mph+) does need some discipline and proper behaviour. Think of a bunch on the road as a huge communist collective all working to a common goal, apart from the single fascist who has infiltrated :-)

Oh the irony mookiebaylock!!!!! :-) :-) :-)

What does my house have to do with this?

The Camelback thing was the joke/irony/fail bit of the post…but ..it’s STW isn’t it

trail_rat, my peak put me in hospital, fell off and jammed front wheel.

sc-xc – you have to point out holes in the road, use brakes sparingly, stop and help for punctures, carry enough food for the ride and money for the cafe. Quite simple really, not a lot to it.

lunge..babelfish never works that well does it

We spoke with him loads, nice and friendly at the cafe. So why oh why did he feel the need to prove something on the hills? It really pisses you off when you’ve done 30 odd miles on the front without a break and instead of offering to help he decides to expend all his energy attempting to show total mastery of the hills. We even spoke to him about it, calmly suggesting that it might be worth doing a turn, his response was that he couldn’t go on the front as he didn’t know the way, which seems odd as the rest of us listened to the guy with the GPS and went left/right/straight on when told.

Drafting for 100 miles is easy, he will never kick butt.
I’m sorry but you just don’t wear a Camelback on a road bike, in the same way that you don’t wear a peaked helmet or stop every 30 seconds to take a photo.

Turning Japenese – The Vapours

Turning Japenese – The Vapours

Magnolia

I got the Bianchi today, went for Shitmano in the in but the bike rides loverly anyway

Dead tempted by the Bianchi

I looked at the Kinesis but became confused as they don’t sell full bikes direct, however, my LBS (Red Planet) is listed as a dealer so might pop down there at lunch!

Kaffenbach dismissed as I am looking for a pure roadbike really

“why don’t you like ribble? i only ask as i’m going through the same thought process now and i was goping to have a look in there? “

Three reasons:-

-sizing
-service
-snobbery

I know a lot of people who have ended up with a bike that is the wrong size as they do not size their frames conventionally

I also know people who had real problems with their customer service

And finally, everyone in our road club has one and being a total snob I want something different

I’m not keen on a cross bike as I have a Pompino already that sort of fills that gap.

One problem with most of the above is Shimano .. as I’m a bit of a Campag fan on roadie bikes. Problem is that Ribble seem to be the only firm who spec lower end models with Xenon/Veloce

Tsk..no cable ties in jersey pocket?

I run Tracklogs in Parallels on a Mac and it worketh a treat

http://www.pchell.com/support/safemode.shtml

Samuri.just rub a balloon up and down it and static does the rest

My Dad flew a few of the planes in this thread.

Guess which one he used to tow targets past navel ships for them to practice gunnery at…nutter.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/247492/seh-myutn50.html

My Mum always asks St Anthony where things are. Only works if you believe in God I think?

sharki – I know Rob Lee, he’s a decent enough bloke so I don’t know where you heard bad things about him from?

I won’t be celebrating after Thatcher dies..I’ll be sharpening sticks and stocking up on garlic

you’ve obviously never heard of the “climb de mort”, by a strange co-incidence its also quite close to the UK center of extreme freeride, the fabled “woods behind nationwide”.

only for the brave [;)]

I presume you mean the Col’ d’Ladder Lane. It’s doable in summer when very dry.

“I get stuck behind muck spreaders and other farm vehicles all the time – it happens when you live in a rural area – those folk pull over and let you past.”

Hahahahahahahahaahahahahahaaahhaaahhaa.

That was a great joke, the bit about how the tractors pull in. Not round here they don’t me lad.

If you want a real challenge..do the welsh fifteen peaks in under 24 hours. Doable if you are fit (we took 16) then you can gaze in awe at the record which is 4 hours something.

The Book Thief – Marcus Zusak ..again nothing to do with bikes but an essential read.

I need a top notch PHP programmer in Swindon. Needs 3+ years commercial experience and must be prepared to work in a lively office. Email me with CV if interested.

One note of caution.

Last night I planned an 80 mile ride and downloaded it to my Edge 705
Today I road 40 miles without incident and stopped for a nice cup of tea in a cafe near Broadway, never been there before.

On leaving the cafe, my GPS suddenly decided that I was pressing the “In” button which zooms into the map. It zoomed in to 20 ft and then beeped..continuously. At this zoom level I could not see the plotted track. So I tried to turn it off, but no buttons would respond. It would not reset, it simply beeped.

Of course, being an ex-cub scout I’d left the back up map at home. And so set off in roughly the direction of home hoping to come across a familiar village or town name. Thankfully I spotted a sign to Stow-On-The-Wold and took a long diversion to get there and back home via a route I knew. The **** Garmin just beeped, and it would not switch off.After a mile it was annoying, after ten miles I actually stopped and shouted at it. After 20 miles I had completely lost the will to live and just concentrated on dictating a pointless but arsey letter to Garmin. The only thing that stopped me destroying it with my pump was the amount of money I’d paid in the first place.

I’ve owned every generation of Garmin bike GPS from the first Etrex models up to this one. In my opinion Garmin’s quality is going backwards and the Edge is full of bugs and stupid user interface/protocol decisions.

Sat here I can still here the bloody thing beeping from the garage and given its 12 hour battery life it will be bedtime before it final shuts up and gets sent back to Garmin..again.