How’s your swimming? Front crawl 400 metres non-stop and that’ll give you a gauge of swimming fitness. Join a club as others have suggested – at least for the swimming alone, whichll give you broadly structured seasonal work-outs.

I haven’t had any issues with mine in two years of riding my HT at trail centres, local trails and multi day XC touring. Prior to that I had a Charge spoon – which was the most uncomfortable saddle I had used. A things to consider: have you got the correct width Phenom? Have you got the pro or standard? Does the phenom have a recommended rider weight range and are you outside of that? Or maybe just the way it’s fitted on your seat post?

I presume there are generic stw ads as well as targeted ones based on cookies in your browser cache. I cleared my browser history and cache and then browsed random websites. The targeted ads then started reflecting where I’d been. Latest have been shirts that look like they’ve had tubs of multi-coloured paint poured over them.

Happy New Year, folks. Being another local, it would be rude to ignore this, so I will be there. However, if necessary (knowing the area), I would also be happy to lead an early returning group back to the cafe for cake and stories of heroic bravado and unwavering courage on the trails.

“it’s open to abuse”

snigger…

The facility was available back in the day, but I recall the mods couldn’t keep track of the trolls as they kept changing their usernames. Or something like that.

When bike touring, what’s the situation with taking bikes on trains in Europe? Can you just arrive at any station and take your bike on? Or is it like the UK where you have to book it in five months in advance and you can’t take it on between 7 – 9 in the morning and it has to be folding bike and … etc?

I’m planning riding/train from Cherbourg to Saas Fe next summer but would quite like to hop on/hop off trains along the way if it’s straight forward.

In my mind I’m a pro race mechanic with the ability to fix any issue with my bikes using just my Allen key combo tool, a spanner and a can of lube.

However over the last few decades I’ve had mixed results mainly ranging from “it’ll do” to “hopefully that won’t break.” Regrettably I have had a few of the latter, usually in the middle of nowhere.

This summer I resigned myself to the fact I don’t have the time, energy, patience or ability to do a decent job of fixing my bikes. Same applies to scouring the Internet looking for the correct length cables or washer or some other thing.

So I took it to the lbs and they bled the brakes (never been bled in six-ish years), fitted new headset, swapped in the dropper post, cut the brake and post cables, replaced the tubeless tyres, sorted out the shifting, got rid of the screeching brakes sound and trued the front and rear wheels. Yes it cost a couple of hundred quid (parts and labour) but I got the bike back after just a few days and it rode like a dream.

The only things I’ll do now will be replacing the brake pads and chain and keeping the bike clean.

“Never had a problem with them riding around the New Forest for 20 years but maybe they are the nice ones.”

Did they ride two-abreast and wave politely when you passed?

“I got surrounded while crossing a field with my canoe”

Must’ve taken ages to cross the field, particularly if the grass was choppy. Unless of course it was a shark-infested field, in which case cows were the least of your worries?

Having been chased by a platoon of blood thirsty cows while doing an ecology survey at 2am in the pitch-black, I then asked the advice of our Welsh dairy farmer-turned ecologiston how to deal with cows. His advice was to stay calm, not run and also not look at them in the eye. Don’t ever eye-ball a cow. It won’t back down. No, it won’t back down.

It would have been a *lot* quicker to simply write “One causes people intense psychological pain but not the other.”.

in the interests of decent forum debate, there is no reason to deny a person the right to record a detailed account of their opinion – especially where it appears well written and reasoned – rather than attempting to capture it in easily digestible bites for the baying crowds.

Had nach just written the short comment, we would not have the benefit of its basis of opinion on what is clearly a deeply upsetting topic of conversation for some people. Perhaps, oob, you could keep your responses to less than sixty characters so we don’t have to wade through the chaff.

This thread is nothing without jujuuk68. That was a hark back to the stw forum of yore. I was just getting my deck-chair and thermos out, settling down to some entertainment.

I don’t understand the TONY. I thought it would be an entirely new course around New York, but it just seems to be loops of existing zwift courses. So i entered one the other day, started out in 600ish position out of 650ish, then started jumping up through the ranks to get to 1st out of 650ish but I only ever saw two other riders, those being the ones I was riding with. Then my position dropped down to about 80ish but again I never saw more than those two riders. Dropped out after a lap because it was pretty dull.

WBR 3 laps of the ‘flat’ course yesterday. First zwift ride after two weeks knocked out with person-flu. Hung on to finish 60/110 or thereabouts (thanks weeksy for the ride-on), but would’ve gladly climbed off after one lap, had it not been for the fact I knew I had to get back into the regime again and shake off the feeling of post-illness lethargy.

Drop this company an email, as I asked the same question and got nice shorts for riding but also don’t look like cycling shorts, so good for general wear. Then got another pair of the denim cycling shorts.

https://www.swrve.co.uk/collections/shorts

Yep, since reading a similar forum thread on this a while ago and a discussion on 6Music I realised it was about me and my interest in music and not being put off because friends who don’t share that interest don’t want to go.

From November last year I have indulged in solo gig attendance, seeing Royal Blood and then Iron Maiden. I was due to see the Idles tonight but an unforeseen event meant I had to cancel. So Will from Solihull – who bought my ticket – if you’re reading this, hope it’s a great gig.

Funnily enough, since going on solo gig adventures, friends now want to join me. So we’re off to see The Prodigy in Birmingham next month and Metallica next year. Looking forward to Placebo starting their next tour. Old skool rocks.

So anyway, in answer to the subject query, I haven’t but many years ago, whilst on my walk back from work through the town, a street was cordoned off whilst someone on the roof of a three storey terraced townhouse was hurling tiles off the roof at passers by down below, in broad daylight. Don’t think he hit anyone though.

Was wondering about that. Did a race Thursday evening and the graphics were quite jerky. Did an 8.30 race this morning (Jungle loop, 3 laps) when the game world was quieter. Graphics were smooth and flawless.

One bugbear I do have is these races where the first lap is the warm-up or lead out. There’s no warning up or leading out! Everyone is out the blocks in 150% race mode and there’s no let-up and do it becomes a race of x laps + one extra.

I was the STW competition on the 3.15 in group C. Out the blocks and settled in at around 40th out of 83. @weeksy you seemed to be doing about 3.4-3.7 but I couldn’t get on your wheel and those in your group. Our chasing group scattered apart and I broke away in the second lap. Almost bridged the gap to your group (passed ‘A,Weeksy’ (relation?) who looked to have stopped and given up).

Got two laps in, couldn’t quite catch @weeksy, then an oven engineer turned up an hour early, so put the race on hold. I think he was a bit surprised to be greeted by a person streaming with sweat. Anyway, transpired the clicking noise in the induction hob was it power balancing each heat ring.

Returning back to the race, I rolled in last place obvs, but completed it just for the sake of it.

Other side of the argument here. Either a spoof or stw coincidence.

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/people-complaining-about-some-traffic-lights-ive-had-put-up/

@tinglesrack:

”Specialized and Trek probably get 30-40% of their UK sales through Evans“

Source?

Had a crack at the 8.10pm EVR 5 laps of the hilly route tonight and moved myself up to group C after my solid performance in group D earlier this week. Holy cra…. that was fast. Most of group C were over the horizon in the first quarter of lap 1. By the 3rd lap I was on my own, adrift from the next group C rider by 2 minutes and the rider behind me, also a C, by 3 minutes. The group A’s lapped me near the end of my fourth lap, hauling out 11 – 12 wkg as I watched them catch me on the leader board.

I finished 9th, 5 mins adrift of 8th place and 9 minutes down from the top 3 C’s. At 33 miles that was a long ride and a bit tedious towards the end. Good to get it done though.

Robbo, got your follow request. Maybe you join me in a C group race and see how you fare? Didgby2, thanks for clarification on the wkg. Has anyone here done the zwift Academy or other group training sessions and found an improvement?

OP, in a similar situation to you and glad you asked the question about quitting to get a low paid job as a stop-gap, just to get out. Some useful replies ^^^ doing enough to dissuade me from doing that. I too am in environmental consultancy and noticed the last 18 months or so has gone nuts with stress affecting a lot of consultants. It is positive to read about others here who took the pay cut and got a better work/life/health balance, so just need to get the confidence to move.

@robbo1234biking – I’m ‘skywalker’. That KISS race was my first zwift ride after suspending my account in May, to ride in rl through the summer (in fact I did bugger all). But I was nearing the top end of group C when I stopped zwift in May, so did the group D KISS race last night to benchmark myself for the coming months.

At the start of the race I launched out the blocks, forgetting the first lap was the warm-up! I saw ‘r.b. (Stw) and wondered who it was, so good to make that connection. You held on for a bit but then eventually we formed a break-away of about five riders.

To give you an idea of what it was like in the lead group, we were pushing out between 2.2-2.9 w/kg on average. I led a lot of the time at around 2.9-3, but eased back to control the pace a bit more. I was pleased that I hadn’t lost much power since May, but I definitely noticed a loss in stamina as I was flagging by the second half of the second lap.

In the last half a lap, someone jumped and pulled away, at over 3.5 w/kg, to get a lead of 20ish seconds but we eventually reeled the rider in. Then ‘Trigo’ (?) broke away at well over 4 w/kg and won by quite a big margin. I came in around 5/6th and noticed the peloton were about 3 minutes down on us. Suffice to say I’ll be moving up to group C now I know where my fitness is.

@nemesis, how are you creating 7 w/kg? I heard a podcast (think it was a TrainerRoad episode), where it was mentioned that 5 w/kg is around pro level in real world and that a fully doped up Armstrong would’ve been doing 7 w/kg. Looking at the power charts, that would make sense for 1 min and 5 min thresholds. Were you pushing 7 for shorter bursts?

https://cyclingtips.com/2017/06/just-how-good-are-male-pro-road-cyclists/

Stocked up on mince pies yesterday (nomnomnom) after my usual winter overdose and subsequent spring/summer ‘cold turkey’.

Zwift is my go-to winter ‘training’ software, having signed up last winter. It’s still clunky and has some annoying functionality, but it is immensely immersive and ime very easy to engage with some form of preset training plan. You can mix things up with the zwift ‘races’ to periodically check your ftp. Whilst some mention it is better to do structured training or set their own sweetspot etc, it may be so for those that have the time/inclination to do that. Zwift just lets you get involved. Plus it seems good enough for pro TdF teams to run training academies on it.

Here’s the stw Zwift group. Read the first page then flick to the end to keep abreast of who’s doing what:

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/zwift-my-journey-my-weight-and-my-fitness/

Never been ‘into’ their music but figured they must be worth seeing before they retired. So had a look on the web, discovered they were touring, then saw there were tickets available a week before the Birmingham gig on the 7th. Arrived to discover I had a front row seat on the first tier, about five metres from the stage, on the side Bruce mostly sang from.

It was an incredible gig, easily the most energetic band I’ve seen; amazing that Bruce was 60 years old that day and was singing so well and running and jumping from stages to speakers. The stage backdrops were like something out of a theatre show: the spitfire hanging above the stage, the trooper sword fight, the spot light on Bruce during ‘Fear of the Dark’ and his silhouette; when he was roaming around with the flame thrower. The guitar solos were immense. The crowd singing ‘Happy Birthday’ and Bruce’s intro were also a nice touch.

I have these for listening to lounge music, whilst chilling. Longest I’ve had them on is a couple of hours and they were comfy. Can usually leave them a couple of days while switched off and still get a few more hours use before needing to be charged.

https://rover.ebay.co.uk/rover/0/0/99?loc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fp%2F16011261976%3Fiid%3D173421115285

Someone stole the New Forest? That takes a lot of gall.

Seriously though, the over-arching concern is the lack of security as a whole. The management company for a campsite of this type should not be shrugging this off.

+1 for Sabotage, but director Spike Jonz has done a few creative pieces.

windowlicker by Aphex Twin (warning: adult language from the beginning) and anything else by Chris Cunningham:

https://youtu.be/UBS4Gi1y_nc

So on that theme of cycling when ill, here’s my story: a few years ago I attempted to bikepack the Offa’s Dyke/Welsh border over a few days. In the train up to Prestatyn I had a bit of a sniffle but figured it was just hay fever.

Didn’t feel too bad for the first couple of days. Day three, somewhere near Montgomery some kind of illness started to kick in. I set up my tarp and laid low for a day. Dragged myself out as I had run out of food and aborted the trip as I was feeling nauseous.

Made it to Clun about four hours longer than planned, checked into a B&B and stayed there for two days. During that time I couldn’t stand up without the room seeming like it was spinning and couldn’t lie down for the reason. Subsequently I felt like vomiting but couldn’t. Couldn’t eat. Could hardly drink fluids. Eventually managed to book an emergency doctor appointment in Craven Arms.

Booked a cab which was a tortuous journey with me stopping the driver, to dry retch every few miles. Finally got to the docs who he said I had contracted labrinthitis and gave me emergency antibiotics and lots of meds to take to recover. Since then, I don’t do exercise if I feel the onset of illness.

Somewhere new, south west of Salisbury Plain; hot, dusty and empty. Lots of climbing. No flies. Dry and stony descents. A pub lunch, a post ride pub dinner then headed back home after a great day of xc.

Thanks. I’m in (Allotment All-Stars). It’s not coming home.

Headed up north to go hill walking on the Pennines. From Dufton we headed up to High Cup Nick, then over the moors to the reservoir, bit of swimming at Cauldron Snout, before retracing our steps back to the ‘Nick. Then headed east to bag Murton Pike before dropping down and back to the pub at Dufton for a refreshing pint of Westmorland and to watch two smashed locals attempting to have a fight on the village green.

Whilst up on the moors we saw a few mtbers negotiating a bridge and sensibly pushing their bikes across it. Then saw one lone mtber on our way out and again on our return to the Pike and got chatting. It transpired he is an stw forumite, so @garethc, as promised …

That was very useful. Thread closed?

Most recently I used the skillz of a mate near Devizes. Very good build but not ideal in terms of convenience (although that said, Pete Matthews built me some good road wheels and he’s up north). Prior to that was Graham F @ slam69, who did a very good build. Prior to that was Colin Gardner @ Total Fitness but I don’t know what happened to him. So locally, I’d be giving Graham a call if he’s still wheel building.

Shave your pits and bits?? Is this for show when you stride down the poolside in your under-trunks or, a genuine need to keep control of over-enthusiastic, rampant hair growth?

Houses? No chance. Too many heavy-hitting planning designations as well as historic building setting considerations. Camp site would need to be off-grid unless you can get services in and foul out (as well as the planning designations to deal with).

Are the cycle paths primarily used as a cycle commuter link? Would they be willing to stop? How busy is it on weekends? It would likely need to be a very low key building given the AONB and GB planning and design requirements.

I’ve got my black cotton SITS t-shirt from 2004, still in great condition.

Afaiaa, the issue with wool is that it requires heavy handed shearing which leaves the animals in a shocking state afterwards. So whilst there might be attempts at making it sound like a sustainable source of material, it is as the expense of the animals producing it.

I’m impressed that some of you have that level of commitment to recording all that data and analysing it. It must presumably mean you need consistency in the riding conditions/weather etc to get meaningful trends? Otherwise it’s the luck of the draw in terms of getting the best out of each measured component?