40 sounds terrible, why don’t you change your gearing?

Out of the saddle on a 25% gradient it’s about right for me, there’s a certain gradient steeper than which spinning just doesn’t work for me. I certainly wouldn’t want to be doing that when sat down unless it was on the flat and I was just pootling along and putting very little force in to each stroke.

How old are you?

Your natural cadence slows down with age so the simplistic “you should pedal at xxx” needs to be adjusted in line with this.

It might depend how you have the recorder set up – on Garmin units you can set the cadence meter to only log when you are actually pedalling so long downhills don’t lower your average.

If you are on Strava (other bike nerd sites are available) then click on your ride and click the analysis tab. This will show you your cadence over the whole ride so it might be that just one or two hills affected the overall figure.

I did a 64Km ride with 1500m of ascent: avg cadence 69, max 110. For most of the time I was spinning away between 80 & 90 rpm even on the long hills but there were three steep hills where I’ll have been pedalling at 40 rpm and those twenty minutes will have brought the average down a lot.

Sounds like there’s some reaction going on to cause some precipitation of the PVA like substance. I don’t know if the bladders are coated with some form of lining or not but you say that the tube and bite-valve don’t show this problem and I would have thought that all parts of the system would be treated identically.

What happens with a full clean and rinse and then leaving the bladder to dry out?

It needs to be a campaign against bad drivers which would get away from the “you are picking on me because I’m a motorist, what about those cyclists/horse riders/pedestrians?” style of whining.

And …..

Relax.

Cheers for making an excellent light with a wire that doesn’t need replaced after a couple of years

What the **** are you doing that requires replacing the wire at regular(?) intervals? I’ve had a vision 2 for six years or so, it gets swapped between four bikes; used for night-time fell running and on and off the charger and I’ve not had to send it for service or replace/modify anything.

This is the Daily Express – they “forecast” the same thing last year. I was fortunate in that I’d bought myself a snowblower and 20 tonnes of road salt otherwise I don’t know how I would have got out of the drive 🙄

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/17/daily-express-worst-winter-in-100-years_n_4291699.html

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/jun/15/daily-express-weather-forecast-jonathan-powell

The BMC is organised in to local areas such as The Lakes; Peak District; Yorkshire; etc. (they don’t cover Scotland) so the issues discussed are likely to be reasonably local. Meetings are quarterly and, like all such meetings, aren’t exactly rivetting 8) but it’s that sort of humdrum stuff that needs to be done continually to make sure things don’t get out of hand.

Most of the local reps know their equivalents in other user groups so can chat with them and agree a cohesive argument to present to “the powers that be”. It doesn’t always work of course, some times one group wants one thing while a second group doesn’t but that’s life.

Might be worth getting on board with the British Mountaineering Council. Quite a few climbers also go mountain biking

+1 for the cateye tld 1000 probably the best rear light I’ve come across.

Also the Moon Comet is decent, USB rechargable and visible from a good distance, small enough have with you at all times.

As others have said having two (or more) rear lights is useful in case one fails – you don’t want to find out that you’ve no rear light by someone running in to the back of you 8)

South paw 🙄

In a dry bag in the camelback or leave at home/in the car.

Yep.

I smile a lot these days 😆

Good on you!

It does surprise me about the number of road users (motor vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians) who use the roads without lights or reflectives in poor visibility. IME a lot of the cyclists who don’t have lights tend to be those who aren’t *into* cycling as such, but just use a bike to get around. Their bike is probably a £99 special from Aldi or Lidl and as such they regard spending £60 on a decent set of lights as an extravagance (sweeping generalisation I know) but then motorists lump all cyclists as a group who don’t follow the rules despite a significant proportion of drivers driving a tonne or more of vehicle around without lights.

mattjg: Ta, it’s here – http://www.notubes.com/help/tirepressure.aspx obviously in pounds as the US don’t use stones.

Re pressures: is it still weight (in stone) times 2 then +1 for rear, -1 for front? PSI of course.

The first thing is your body – it’s impossible to keep hands and feet warm if your core temperature is low.

True, though perhaps that is an implicit assumption by the OP? Regulating core body temperature whilst exercising in potentially hypothermic conditions is a whole thread/thesis of its own. 😕 Of course when biking not only are you out in bad weather you are moving quickly through it thus increasing things like wind chill: biking in to driving rain gets you much wetter & colder than riding with your back to the wind.

My feet rarely get cold, even when wet, but my hands chill quite quickly when damp. Which is slightly unfortunate as having manual dexterity is much more useful when things go wrong than having cosy feet 🙁

The main things to consider are not constricting blood flow and stopping movement of water. The first is most easily done by either getting a bigger shoe or using thinner socks (daft as it may sound). The second is a bit trickier: if you try and keep water out then you have to ensure that you do so as any water ingress will impair your insulation. The other way is to accept that some water will get in but then don’t allow it to move, this is how wet-suits work – once you’ve warmed the thin layer of water between you and the material it becomes part of the protection.

The plastic bag/sandwich bag system is the old Vapour Barrier Layer developed by the US military and is very useful in really cold climates as it’s designed to stop your body sweat affecting your insulation. You need a very thin pair of inner socks inside the VBL otherwise it does feel a bit weird. These get damp from initial sweating but once the humidity reaches a certain level your feet stop sweating so they don’t get any wetter.

With SPDs you also need a thicker insole in your shoes/boots to insulate you from the metal of the cleat mounting mechanism, another reason to have a bigger shoe size.

Basically friends.

Competitively I mostly compare my own results usually to see how I’m declining 🙂 I’ve a few top tens on climbs but I’m nowhere on descents (big girl’s blouse syndrome!)

For the record, my gen 1 Solaris in large weighed 4.9lbs

Is 4.9 lbs 4lbs9oz or 4lbs14.4oz?

Just easier to use metric really 🙂

tomaso:

Agree with you regarding the light test, quote: “We’ve picked six bar lights and six helmet lights in various price categories for this test”. So what price categories are those then? £125 – £400 for the bar lights and £70 – £270 for the helmet models, sounds like expensive and very expensive to me. C and B Seen have a full page advert in the back of the magazine.

The route cards used to be interesting but after a while you see the same routes but called a different name so there’s less incentive to buy the mag for ideas as to where to go.

Did any body weigh their Large frame before they built it?
How much was the real world weight?

I doubt a few grammes here and there is going to make much difference. According to Cotic the 19″ weighs 2.2Kg, for comparison the 17.5 Soul 26″ weighs 2Kg so 200 grammes less for a smaller wheel size AND frame. Assume that the large Solaris is an extra 100g (at most). My large frame built up weighs 12.7Kg and I went for usefulness when getting the components rather than the lightest as I’d rather things lasted than willy-waving about weight.

Why would knee warmers fall down? You put them under the leg of the shorts so that the hem of the shorts holds them.

It would be useful for this to appear in the mainstream press.

I think they were waiting for planning permission or something like that. Not been there for a couple of years so it may have been rebuilt but quite possibly not.

Mark them down as a miserable git then and get on with riding your bike!

For me it’s a mixture of town, rural, road, off-road, on a road bike/tourer/hybrid/MTB. Some riders say hello, some don’t. Most do. I don’t worry about those who don’t.

Depending on what’s going on traffic wise they might be concentrating on not getting struck by the driver brushing her hair or squeezing a spot on his nose (I’ve seen both in recent days!).

There’s a couple of riders I see regularly on my commute that never (and I mean never) acknowledge my hello/nod, both are on mountain bikes. Does that make MTBers miserable so-and-sos? No, it just means those two don’t want to say hello or don’t realise that people on bikes are communicative.

No real reason other than having the prevailing wind on your back for the Outer Hebrides, there’s not much shelter and pedalling 40 miles in to a headwind isn’t fun. Actually there isn’t any shelter 🙁

Do pyramids, providing the weight used in the smaller sets isn’t too big you’ll build strength AND stamina. You need a set of dumbbells of varying weights. Start with 20 reps at a light weight, then do 15 reps at a heavier weight, then 10 then 8 then 5, each time using a heavier weight then finally 3 using the heaviest pair of dumbbells you’d decided on. Now go back down the weights while increasing the reps. By the time you get back to the final set of 20 you’ll be screaming!

Be careful with the Royal Marines press-ups (I assume that they are the version where you push hard enough that your hands leave the floor) as they can seriously damage your shoulders.

Terminology:

reps = repetitions. This is the number of times you do the exercise so pressup – 20 reps means do 20 pressups.
set: one group of repetitions so 1 set of 20 reps means do 20 of whatever. 2 sets of 20 means do 20 then have a rest then do another 20.

You don’t say what wheel size but I reckon that for 29ers you probably want a 30T or 32T chainring; 32/34 for 27.5 and 34/36 for 26 inch wheels. These will give you roughly the same range. Choose the lower size if you mainly ride in a hilly area, the larger if you are particularly fit/strong.

I’ve a 1×10 and find I spend most of my time in gears 3 – 8; some time in 2 & 9 and a little time in 1 & 10. If I spin out then usually I’m going quick enough that I’ll be freewheeling anyway.

I went straight from 3×9 to 1×10 and thought I’d struggle but it hasn’t been a problem.

Like others have said, the simplicity is great: start to struggle then click down a gear; too easy – go up a gear. No wondering if you should change at the front as well.

I’m 5’ll” and find that large is right for me even though Cotic’s sizing puts me in the middle of the medium size. Stem is 70mm.

The Gold road is quite lumpy – some 16% climbs – but they are short, it’s different to most of the other roads in that it feels like it’s connecting communities rather than just getting from A to B as fast as possible. I’d agree with scotroutes that the road on the west has better scenery (beaches), Luskentyre is a short detour.

I’d do the length of the western isles, they really are quite special. The ferry to Barra arrives fairly late in the evening, 8pm from memory. so:

Day 1: go round the western side of Barra, it’s not as hilly as the eastern road, get ferry to Eriskay. Possibly include out and back to Vatersay or out to Traigh Mhor the airport on the beach. Stop somewhere on the south end of South Uist. Distance about 15 miles or if you get as far as Lochboisdale about 25 miles.
Day 2. Head up South Uist and across Benbecula to North Uist, lots of things to see just off the road so plenty of chances for stops. It’s basically flat so you should be able to go forty miles.
Day 3. Across North Uist to Berneray
Day 4. Ferry to Harris (can be tide dependent) then take the Gold Road on the east side of the island. This is quite hard work but only 20 miles or so to Tarbert and will be much nicer riding than the main road. Possibly get the ferry to Uig depending on your timing. If you get the afternoon ferry you can get to Portree quite easily – it’s one steady pull out of Uig then a long downhill most of the way to Portree.
Day 5. Portree down across Skye. TBH this isn’t particularly pleasant – you’ve one road that’s used by all the traffic on the island or you’ve the hilly western side, though once you are past Sligachan there’s only the one road. At Broadford head down to Armadale and ferry over to Mallaig. There’s a great hostel in Mallaig.
Day 6. Train to Ft William then coast road down to Oban.

Almost the same as your route. About 160 miles in total to Mallaig plus whatever from Ft William to Oban.

I’m not sure about bikes on the Mallaig to Ft William section but you definitely have to book them for the Glasgow to Oban and Glasgow to Ft William sections. You could divide the route up a bit more so that you leave the train at Oban and pick it up at Mallaig. Actually this would be better as the A82 between Ft William and Ballachuilish is not nice on a bike as it’s the main road in to the west highlands plus the train journey over Rannoch Moor shouldn’t be missed.

Edit: If you drove to Tyndrum you could leave the car there and get the train to Oban then the train back from Mallaig/Ft William.

I want a Soul now, anyone want to swap theirs for my ’08 456?

That’s like wife swapping your Nora Batty and wanting Elle McPherson in return 😆

Does anybody keep a tally of how much they spend in the pub or on going out for dinner with the Mrs?

Well nowt obviously. I make sure everyone else gets to the bar and a round in before I do – I’ve got to have enough money to feed my bike habit 😆

wl: Birkside and Wythburn are the same descent – had me confused for a moment until I looked at the map. The track goes *over* Birkside and down to Wythburn church.

A commuter simply doesn’t (or rather won’t unless you commute across Coed y Brenin or similar) get much wear and tear. My commuter is three years old and has had: one new tyre, one new chain and two sets of brake pads, total cost of about £70. The bike cost just over £1K so let’s say the total is £1100. Biking to work rather than using public transport saves me roughly £30 per week.

So in forty weeks, let’s call it a year to account for days when it’s icy, etc, then I’ve recovered the cost of the bike and my commute is basically free plus I’ve got the health benefits and don’t have the stress of being part of a traffic jam.