Forgot about silk liners – ta 🙂

I think the problem at the weekend was that it was cold, damp and windy with probably the latter making things worse or feel worse.

For taking with you (him) on a ride or to use at home?

Multitool for the former, get decent tools for the latter – buy cheap, buy twice. Maybe a set of Allen keys and a Tork spanner or two to start with.

Some of the waste tips above Honister have been ridden – saw a shot in one of the comics a month or two ago, although it’s slate waste it’s not like the stuff in the south of the Lakes but more like shale. Might still be a bit steep though.

There’s also a shot of the area in munrobiker’s mega posting, the Warnscale Bottom route.

Except for the huge gap you introduce to the middle of the block you mean…?

Some people I know notice this but for the most part I haven’t. It might depend on the gradient and/or your cadence when you are on the cogs to either side. For me it’s not really a problem, sure it’d be nice not to have it there as a potential worry but without a specific 10sp 11-40 block it’s probably the best compromise.

I doubt Shimano would produce such a block as I’m sure they’d rather produce and sell a standard 11-36 along with a triple front ring and mech.

I was told (but can’t verify it’s true) that you shouldn’t use whole ratios for singlespeed as they cause wear at the same point on the rear tyre. So 32:15 or 32:17 for example.

Small saddlebag containing:
1 x spare inner tube
1 puncture repair kit
1 CO2 cylinder and valve
2 x tyre levers
1 x multi-tool

Pump is on frame (attaches under bottle cage)
2 x water bottles (summer only, just one in winter)

In pockets:
Gilet, usually wear in winter
Waterproof, in winter this is usually in the second water bottle
Waterproof pouch with debit card, cash and mobile phone
A gel or two for emergency

Water bottle gets refilled at cafe stop.

Anything, and I mean anything, by the cosmetics industry. “Makes your hair come alive” Really? It’s deader than a Norwegian Blue Parrot from the moment it leaves the follicle, nothing is going to “revive” it.

Something else to consider is strategy. Not sure of the ‘Ardrock course but the biggest climb round there is Fremington Edge which while longish has easier sections where you can recover so rather than blast all the way, put in an effort on the steeper bits then when the gradient eases off you ease up and let yourself recover then you’ve got more to put in to the next effort.

My comments about hill reps earlier apply both on and off road, just find a hill and get training.

You don’t say what weight you are but unless you are a whippet then losing weight will have an immediate impact.

Hill reps are best done on hills that you can ride in 2 to 3 minutes when pushing it. Go for a warm up ride of 20mins or so which should get you to the foot of your chosen hill. Now blast up the hill as hard as you can, don’t give up the effort until you reach the finish line. Now coast slowly back down the hill and as soon as you get to the bottom turn round and do it again. Repeat for a total of four efforts and then go for a warm down ride.

To begin with you’ll only be able to do one set of four but after a month or so you should be able to add a second set but leave ten to fifteen minutes between the sets. If you do them correctly you’ll feel like throwing up, it’s that level of intensity you should be looking for.

You should only do one session per week otherwise you’ll overtrain. Try and find several hills with different gradients as training on just one gradient will get you very good at that and not much else – there’ll be one or two gradients that you just can’t get right

Is this a southern thing? Don’t seem to have the same problems up north.

Might be down to high concentration of recreational users of a small amount of space.

A nice day out from about midday which was about the time my hangover wore off. Unfortunately I forgot my sunglasses, really needed them with the sun so low at this time of year. A bitter wind though, you didn’t want to hang around anywhere exposed.

TBH most carbon road frames within a given price range are very similar in ride/feel. Some are a bit twitchier than others, some might be a bit stiffer in the back end (ooer!) but unless you’ve ridden lots of different ones, there’s actually very few bulk manufacturers of bike frames, then you aren’t going to notice it really. The ride quality will be determined by the wheels as much as anything, even high end bikes tend to come with stock Shimano RS500 wheels as the manufacturers know that they’ll be swapped out for whatever the buyer prefers.

Have a look at Dolan or Ribble, a mate got a cosmetic second Dolan frame for £80, the only possible thing we could see “wrong” with it was a small snot of paint.

I’d get a standard rucksack and use an Exped Drybag, you can get them with some padding though I’ve not used those.

As @jamiep says panniers (or saddlebag) are better – you don’t get as sweaty on your back, not much of a problem at this time of year but in summer you’ll appreciate it. Carradice do a wide saddlebag that looks like it would take a laptop as well as clothing – looks a bit weird but hey, it’s not as weird as sitting in a tonne of metal and being miserable about everyone 😀

Given that “work” is being done within the shock then it is likely to heat up but since the shock has a small volume relative to its surface area then this heat will dissipate quite quickly.

I think you’d need to look at a bike through a thermal imaging camera shortly after it’s been ridden down something like a World Cup DH course to see anything significant change.

@bikebouy

There are sites like bikeroutetoaster.com that will convert the GPX files in to TCX files which contain the turn by turn instructions and will be accepted by the unit and Garmin connect.

I’ve not had any serious problems (other than user error) with the 510 but have had a few niggles. I updated the firmware, not sure of the version, about four months ago. Prior to that it wouldn’t load courses but the update fixed that. Not lost any route data when following courses (which are much better for on-road courses than off-road). Not really tried live tracking so can’t comment on that. I’ve found that the unit needs to be left in one position for five minutes or so after switching it on and before starting a ride but this isn’t too hard to arrange.

My unit consistently gets the total altitude gain wrong: on a ride with mates our distances will be within a Kilometre or so on a ride of 150 Km but my altitude figure will be 30-40% different. Running it through Strava’s correction code sorts it out though.

I was trying to send a link to this thread to the Daily Mail but for some reason they’ve blocked all hyperlinks to STW

We are not angry enough or dislike enough of the right minorities for them 😛

Not good 🙁

There’s a piece today on the BBC about such scams – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30079063

people are coming along and saying if you do anything on the road on them you are in the wrong

Not at all – I only start to spin out using 30-11 when on a slight down slope so at that point I might as well enjoy the benefits of gravity as I’m quite happy with the speed I’m going at.

With ten gears I spend most of my time in 3 – 8, a little time in 2 & 9 and somewhat less in 1 & 10, in percentage terms: 90%, 7%, 3% (roughly).

Well the railway doesn’t really run much outside the “season” as it’s very much tourist led though as in other areas the season has become longer over the years. There’s a few pre-season runs after each winter to check that the track is OK, etc. and a few after the season has ended to do maintenance work. Paying handsomely might not be enough – a one way ticket was £20 during 2014 so I’d imagine a special would be a bit more 😳

Since the railway is a private company I wouldn’t have thought that the Park Authority had much say in the make up of their trains.

Ed’s pretty straightforward in his approach, little showboating, quite humorous. You push yourself as much as you want there’s no forcing you to do things (might be different in a group of solely young lads) .

Like all these things, you get shown things but it’s up to you to go away and practice, practice, practice.

But it’s not the manufacturing process that we use, it’s the end product. Now if SRAM can keep selling those XX1 cassettes fair play to them (I’ll admit to finding them stunning from a production point of view) but as soon as someone comes along with a “traditional” plate style cassette then they’ll lose sales as that will be considerably cheaper.

Well I had a wander round a local (and large) shop at lunchtime and out of maybe 150 mountain bikes on show only a handful had a 1x setup. I was actually looking for 1x bikes so was paying attention to that aspect. Not sure if they were 1×10 or 1×11.

I do agree that the 1×11 cassettes are a ridiculous price though for what is essentially a consumable.

The ten minute rule sounds good.

To the OP: were your rides always the same? I.e. local trails or trail centres with little variation? Maybe try something completely different, doesn’t matter what it is (well cycling wise) but it might kickstart your interest.

You need to figure out how much time you spend at the limits of your current gearing, i.e. small chainring to largest sprocket and large chainring to smallest sprocket. You aren’t going to get quite the range with a 1x setup, typically you’ll lose the equivalent of a gear or maybe two at either end of the range.

I’ve a 30T NW on a 29er, at first it felt hard work but I’ve got used to it so for general XC hacking I could go to 32T but for the steeper stuff in the Lakes and Peak 30T feels right for me. I’m not too bothered about spinning out – by the time I get to that speed I’m happy for gravity and momentum to do the work 😆 By the time I’m struggling on the climbs I’d be wanting to get off and push. I reckon I only spend about 5% of my riding time in either of the extreme gears and another 5% in the next pair in so it’s probably right.

To get equivalent ratios for 27.5 wheels I’d need a 32T and for 26″ a 34T. It just so happens that the ratio between the wheel sizes is close to that between the chainring sizes.

I think that was the point we were trying to get across to him. I find 15miles each way to be hard enough, any more and I’d spend the weekends in bed! (being old and fat doesn’t help :lol:)

Don’t think there’s a catch, I know plenty with Ribble bikes/frames and there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with them. Really good value for money IMO.

Rule #18 http://www.velominati.com/the-rules/

😆

I’ve a few top tens both on and off road though there are much fewer who’ve ridden the off-road segments. In general I reckon to add 50% to the KOM time and that will put me in the top third to quarter.

I tend to be competitive amongst my friends and club mates who use it, little point in comparing yourself against a pro rider or the national hill climbing champion who’s 30 years younger and 20Kg lighter 😳 Other than that it’s a way of measuring your inevitable decline as the bus pass approaches 😥

My commute can vary by 10% just due to wind direction so I’m not particularly bothered by being “held up” for a minute or two if I can’t filter past. Some parts of my commute are narrow two way streets and it’s not safe to filter past (on either side) but other parts it’s fine.

I’m not going to filter past on the left or right to get in to the ASZ if I think the lights are about to change – it’s not worth the hassle of trying to figure out if a vehicle is going to turn left or right without indicating.

There’ll always be some idiot road users, just let them go their angry little way.

On road, head out in one general direction for twelve hours then turn round and ride back home.

Off-road, do one of the self-supported http://www.selfsupporteduk.net/ rides. Though they are intended as ITTs there’s nothing to stop you riding one as a group for a personal challenge.

Replace slide-in brake blocks on road bike and put left side holder on right hand side and vice-versa.

I’m 5’11” and have a Large Solaris but could have gone for a medium as I’m probably just on the boundary between the two sizes.

Feels right for me, done 70 mile plus cross country routes on it and not had any problems like back pain which I’d expect if I was stretched out too much. Handlebars are 720mm, stem is 70mm.

@daver27: It’s limiting the risk, my commute is a mixture of side roads; main roads and cycle paths. It also happens to be pretty much the most direct route when you look at it on a map but that’s more by chance than anything.

People confuse risk with danger, if there’s risk then it simply can’t be safe. Risk is simply the likelihood of a danger happening not the absence of safety: you could get hit by a car – that’s the danger but the risk (probability) of it happening is small, very small. In over forty years of cycling I’ve had exactly one accident due to a car – there was no contact well I had the choice of riding in to the side of the car turning left across me or biting pavement and chose the latter.

This weekend I did around 200Km on the roads and had just one “incident”, pretty well every other driver hung back if I indicated that it wasn’t safe for them as I could see vehicles coming the other way then I’d wave them on and we’d acknowledge each other with a wave of thanks.

Some people (and I use that word rather than motorists) have little time or patience for anyone else. When driving they see anything that gets in the way of their inalienable right to drive how they see fit as something to bully out of their way, any accident is always the other person’s fault as they can’t possibly be in the wrong. Fortunately they are a very small minority.

Quite a stark graph that one.

When I learnt to drive in the 1970s, the roads were empty compared to today, most houses if they had a car just had one. There were fewer supermarkets and most people did their shopping locally, usually within walking distance, country areas had grocery & butchers vans doing weekly or twice weekly rounds. Our village used to have a shop but now the nearest one is four miles away but because of economies of scale (buying power of supermarkets) it’s cheaper to drive the extra ten miles to the nearest town even for quite small amounts of groceries and food.

Lots of little things all add up.

@GavinB: Too true, in the main it’s just entrenched views on both sides shouting out “la la la, I’m not listening”.

I learnt long ago that those who shout loudest have the least to say.

Just seen this comment on the BBC article –

All cyclists MUST (and there can be no argument on this, its not possible to argue with such patent fact): Be Insured. Pass A Test. Have Their Contraptions MOTed. PAY TAX.

Despite assertions on this site 99% of cyclists commit crimes for 99% of the time they are on a bike. Crime is the number 1 use of bicycles.

You really couldn’t make it up …

When you look at the Dutch example you need to realise that in the 1970s the situation then was similar to the current situation in the UK. It began to change with the “stop the child murders” campaign (I may have got the translation wrong but it’s roughly that sentiment). It took several decades before things got to their current state.

It will take that long in the UK as our politicians at all levels of government from local councils to parliament have such short term interests that it isn’t something they will sign up to as it will be their successors or (heaven forbid) their political opponents who will be in office when the benefits are realised. Look how long the drink-drive campaign took to really grab hold, the first act prohibiting being drunk in charge of a motorised vehicle was introduced in 1925 (Yes you read that correctly!) though the drink-drive limit and associated breath/blood testing wasn’t introduced until 1967 and there are still new laws/regulations being added to deal with drunk drivers.

This is probably one of those things that needs to be approached on several fronts:

better infrastructure – it’s been shown that spending money on increasing road capacity leads to increased congestion. These invariably rely on huge capital expenditure so you have vested interests such as the government department spending the money because the treasury won’t give them money next year if they don’t spend this year’s allowance and the construction companies who are the recipients of that money.
driver attitude: aggression to other road users, in particular so-called vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders, needs to be associated with social irresponsibility in the same way that drink driving was.
public campaign: It’s not a “war on drivers”, it’s a “campaign against bad drivers”. Of course everyone thinks they are a good driver, calling someone (especially a man) a bad driver is tantamount to calling them a paedophile.

No easy answers, certainly no short term quick fixes.

Hmm, just checked a ride from a while back (my cadence meter seems to be on the blink at the moment – zero or 95) and for the big climbs it’s an average of 62. There’ll be a mixture of in and out of the saddle. However on something like the steep bit of Park Rash I am down in the low 40s – this will be using either 34/28 or 34/25 gearing.

I don’t think I could maintain 60/70rpm out of the saddle, will have to try once I’ve got the CM sorted.

Just checked on a hill that I’m not far off the KOM – it’s 1.5Km at 9% and my cadence is 66rpm and I do all but about 100 metres in the saddle.