As most have said road enables you to do specific training rides easier than of road. I know for myself it is almost impossible to do a steady rate heart rate ride at my local wood but on the road no problem. Another advantage is during winter it can be slight less hassle as not so much filth or mud to clean of.

Personally I feel if mountain biking is what you enjoy then best to use your current bike on road but possible with a different wheel set with slicks fitted (so you do not trash your off road tires). It also enables you to stay accustom to position and set up of the bike you are going to race on.

The one issue can be gear range (depending how fit you are), single ring front often does not offer a high enough gear so double at front can be useful.

Althought I am a big fan of lower carbon eating and obtaining them from whole food sources for health and potential performance it’s important to find what works well for the individual as some people do not do well on really carb compared to others. Some people may kind full keto does not work great for them, a higher carb (but still low compared to typical western diet) may work better.

Also for pure performance using cards during an event and after can been useful. It appears that there is a general direction in sport of consuming less carbs overall but increasing during training or races.

Tim Noakes has spent most of his professional life researching and supporting high carb for performance but in recent years, after reviewing more recent research ,has changed his view. A pretty massive turn around and one that has brought him a lot of grief.

Unfortunately when there’s lots of money involved it muddys the water.

Poah – yes your body works a certain way and the term fat adapted can be misleading. But you can influence the % of fat burned at any given level of effort with the right diet approach and thus sparing your valuable glycogen stores.

At low efforts fat should be the highest % of fuel but this figure changes depending on you overall diet. So for example a hight carb diet person cycleing in zone 2 may use 50% fat 50% carbs they then change to a lowered carb diet and higher fat and then 6 months later at the same effort it may be 70% fat and 30% carbs hence they are more fat adapted.

Can use gas analysis which shows this.

From what I have read the most important aspect in becoming fat adapted is diet, you need to reduce carb and replace with fat. Training in a low zone helps to burn greater % of fat for calories used but does not help that much to become fat adapted where your body uses fat for most of its engery all the time, especially if you are consuming a lot of carbs

If interested, check out Phil maffetone as some good info on there or a book that covers diet and training quite nicely is ‘primal endurance’ by Mark sisson

Can take quite a lot of effort and time but the pay of is you can ride a lot longer requiring less food during the ride. Oh and it appears to be genuinely quite healthy as you produce a lot less insulin but that’s a whole other topic.

Thanks for all the feedback from people who have used the fork both good and bad views . I suspect i will probably give some a try, especially after cleaning my 2 month old reba of 12 hour use and already marks on uppers! Reason intetested in this fork is i only ride xc, unlikly to get more than 1 foot of the ground (unless something goes wrong!) And planning to ride bike about 6 to 8 hours a week in all weather. As amazing are normal suspension forks thats a lot of potential required maintenance so it seems this fork for the my intended use could be quite good.

Thanks rob, if i ended up getting this fork would most likely be used in a simular fashion as yours. If i get air then something has normally gone wrong! Will have a look at the blog.

Quite a lot! About £750.

Thanks for feedback so far, nice blog write up bikerbruce. If i got a pair it would be for longer regular rides instead of using rigid, maybe a few xc races. Nothing against normal sus forks just do not like the regular maintenance if used a lot.

From the above sounding like they may still need a bit of developing before worth considering. Any positive experience of them?

Flange, thanks. I belive they do have a 4 week full refund policy if you do not like. I am about 70kg so not that heavy (or light by some cycling standards!) And would only be used gor xc type riding.
Ideally would like to try one before buying, but may just end up staying with rigid fork.

Shifters going to be a problem on drop bars with xt rear. Only one i am aware of that will work is gevenalle, Charlie the bike monger stocks them. Jtek or other company might to a adapter you could use on more normal brifters, or change derailleur to road one.

Have ridden both, 29+ is fine for smooth/gravel baths, not much difference between the two. When it gets bumpier I find sus fork enables me to go a bit quicker (not that much but noticeable difference). The big difference I found is you do not get as fatigue with the sus fork.

So it really depends what your after, if you want to go a bit quicker and not fatigue so much then sus fork, if not bothered by that then Plus tires can be great fun.

Couple of thoughts, none of which might be relevant!

1) You may be cycling to hard to often (over training). Try using a HR monitor to stay well with in your aerobic zone, simple formula: 180 – age = Max HR for your rides (yes this will probably mean you have to slow down a lot but can make a big difference in how you feel, Google phil Maffetone for more info)
2) Extra protein may help but also check you are getting enough nutrients that sometimes are reduced on vegetarian diet such as B12 and vitD (there are others, Google if interested). Does not mean you have to start eating meat! but some supplementation may also help.
3) Best one yet get an ebike 😉

Yep, will be there, think I can just about remember where Dave’s is.

The Light Blue ‘Darwin’ is quite nice, £550 frame and fork and weights about 4 lb (or the Robinson but can not fit quite as big tires0.

Not a cross frame but good for gravel riding (has long head tube so can get bars bit higher)

yep, will be there.

Have not read all the posts so sorry if I repeat anything. So long as nothing medical wrong (sounds like it has been investigated) it may be you have been working at a to much for to long (easy to do on a bike) and may well just not getting enough recovery. Problem with to much work/intensity is you can manage for so long (sometime couple of years)then it suddenly hits you.

Also sounds like you could prioritise speed a lot more as has massive impact on recovery (at least 8 hours, possibly more is often required if active, which you are)

If your interested check out ‘phil maffetone’ he has some great info for heart rate training and importance of not working at a to high rate for prolong periods which is what a lot of people do, has loads of other great stuff which might help as well.

I use his formula to calculate my max aerobic heart rate (for me it is less than 139) I stick to it or less when commuting and it has made a big difference in preventing me from getting to tired, basically stops me working to hard to often.

Another great place to look is a book: primal endurance by Mark Scisson, again some great info, although more geared towards competition.

Again as others have said it might be worth taken a decent break, maybe at least 4 week of and see how you feel. If feeling better slowly build back up again

Anyway, hope you find something that helps resolve your problem.

Found a picture of lordswood mid summer (the last one not the first!)

No ride, there for drink.

No ride or drink for me, at home ill 🙁
Back next week.

I will be there.
It was only a little fairly insignificant bone, don’t understand why he is not out! Lets all make sure we give him a good firm handshake latter.

Yep.

For some reason I read as just calf looking like twig, but if whole leg I would still do the calf advice above but add in sit to stand which works pretty much the whole leg, just slowly increase reps and make sure you are not leaning over to your none injured side(this only applies if you are 50% weight bearing)

If unable to do sit to stand then Can also try isometric hip extension, flexion and abduction, 5reps 5 sec hold several times a day using just above knee as contact point on to wall, heavy table, ect.

Can do same thing for quads and hamstrings, depending where the injury is.

Partial weight bearing normally means 50% weight through the injured leg(you would need to check that is the case for you)

So if I was in your position this is what I would be doing:

In sitting, single leg calf raises, and to increase the load I would lean onto knee with upper body weight a bit.
5- 10 reps 5 times a day, but not to to much fatigue, with progressive load increase (but staying within partial weight bearing limits)
and then progress into standing double leg calf raises as that would still bee 50% of my weight on injured leg. I would then do this two times a day with slowly increasing reparations.

Not saying that’s what you should do but That is how I would start.

yep

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yep.

yep

yep

Google ‘Warrior Diet’ by Ori, can work well as you only have a 4 hour window to eat, the other 20 hours can be hard to start with (you can eat a few things but sometimes easier not to bother0.

If you can tolerate it will make it bit / lot easier to maintain weight or even loss a bit especially if your unable to do much physical activity at the current time.

will be there.

I am not paying for beer when I drink cider

However I will be handing over my normally monthly subscription to the cider fund tonight

Well done for doing a bit of clearing.

I will be there tonight.

Yep

yep

As above, unlikely to work very well or not at all as the 9 speed chain thicker than a 10 speed chain even know the actual inside profile is the same. So a 10 speed chain will work fine on a 9 speed cassette but that does really help you.

Try it an see but suspect it will either derail its self or rub the above and below cassette cog

yep

Maybe, if not will be there for drinks.

yep.

Me to