@ernie – when I was usign TR regualrly, I felt that the ramp test was quite inconsistant and much more reliant on mentality than the 8 minute test. I also found all their ‘encouraging’ text really annoying! On a dumb trainer I found that changes to cadence to match power messed me up too; probably not an issue if you have a smart trainer that is changing resistance for you.

Its 20 odd years since I rode there; I remember that the climb on the minor road from ashford past the island being a steep little start. I used to go up the road and then down offroad through the hangers, glorious when dry, less so in winter!

@n0b0dy0ftheg0at – that is a lovely climb that, especially up through the woods past steep.

I’ve just ditched TR in favour of Zwift. TR is I think fantastic if you are really motivated, but you need to have a focus and with racing at any point this year seemingly dubious, I couldn’t see the point. I am loving Zwift at the moment, just going for the race yourself fit adage. Take today, hungover with little time, jumped on a twenty minute crit race and my legs are caning now!

I’m always of the (uninformed) opinion that if otherwise a building would fall down, so long as the outisde is sympathetically renovated, then whats inside doesnt really matter. At the end of the day, whether private house with modern internals, or boarded up derelict site with original and rotting features, the general public can’t see what’s inside.

The millstone tables were silly in my mind though.. mainly because they loooked highly impractical

13thfloormonk
Full Member

You forgot G) cyclocross

But when you’re not between the tapes, isn’t G) really just C)? 😉

Depends on whether your normal c rides invole cycling to a grassy area with a bunch of cones and trying not to vomit as you taste iron :-)

Yes, but then arguably WvA only won Bieles because of the MVDP flats.

Re. the rivalry, I don’t follow the cycling gossip to much, but it seems that they have a healthy respect for each other (contrast to the Pidcock – Iserbyt shit talking, squabbling dislike)

You forgot G) cyclocross

which would have been my highest along with E) commuting pre-covid.

Currently is exclusively B)

In Lockdown one, when the roads were empty and the sun was shining it was predominantly A)

Well if you believe the government we’ll all be vaccinated by autumn 😂
So CX season should be fine, at least later in the season. I’m not sure I’d want to race ‘alternative’ formats, so fingers crossed the vaccination does go well.

Literally in some cases I suspect

Actually, I am sure that uci regs say you have to enter a sand section on the flat… although I guess there was a couple of metres Of compacted sand before the loose stuff 😂

I thought the course was quite good, but I love sand riding, it’s a unique sensation and watching people do it well is so impressive. I thought they could have made some of the grass sections a bit wider, quite a bit seemed bang on 3m; reducing line choice and over-taking.

Whoever didn’t carpet the stairs before Saturday needs a bollocking. I don’t think that would get past a local league course inspection!

Looking forward to it, not 100% about the course but sure it will be great racing.
If we are doing predictions then MVDP, WVA, Toon Aerts for the ME with Lars van der Haar as an outside chance purely based on him being my favourite pro and I just saw a short vid of him flying in the sand.
For the WE, I think Betsema will be on the podium with Brand and Alvardo battling for the top spot (brand edging it).
Women’s u23 is wide open, not sure about the men’s u23 bar Kamp likely to win.

@mrmonkfinger – WalesOnline was just that article re. the bomb. For numbers, I look at:

https://public.tableau.com/profile/public.health.wales.health.protection#!/vizhome/RapidCOVID-19virology-Public/Headlinesummary

If you follow that link then thre are a bunch of tabs along the top and you can get deaths, hospital admissions etc and drill down into health boards and MSOAs

I read on WalesOnline that a suspicious package was sent to a vaccine processing (pacakging I think) plant in north wales and the bomb disposal team had to come to diffuse it. It’s not the most reliable news outlet but if true suggests militant anti-vaxxers???

Looking at the Welsh numbers we seem to be well onto the downward slope of hospital admissions (reducing for 6 weeks excluding a minor 1 week blip on for weke ending 10th jan (christmas?)); but still higher than the peak in the first wave. Deaths still seem constant or rising though.

I spent a long time looking into this for Christmas as wife wanted to buy new. My initial thought, like you, was it seemed to be either crazy expensive or cheap bso; but after guidance here went for a wild bikes 14in. It’s really good, my 4 year old daughter loves it (it helps its pink!). I’ve put stabilisers on it for now.

One thing I will say re. Wheel size; my daughter was on the cusp of 14/16 based on guidelines but we went with the smaller as figures something too big would be more off-putting. I’m glad I did as I think she would have struggled to turn over the pedals on a 16in wheel, she sometimes needs a bit of a push to get going on the 14in.

@tomlevell, no I haven’t yet. I’ll get to grips a bit with things before signing up for add-ons. Zwift gave me a w/kg estimation of 3.7, which would have put me out of the category, but I’m sure they have that wrong (I’ve not done an FTP test in zwift yet). I have no real desire to go up either as it was hard enough in C!

Based on what I ahve in the garage, I am planning on running a MAxxis Forekaster Front, vittoria mezcal rear when it dries up this spring/ summer for xc/trail duties with (hopefully) some racing. I’d normally use rocket ron/barzo fr and racing ralph/mezcal rear; to be honest I’ve never had an issue with that combo, but I’m hoping the forekaster will make tings a bit more fun

Well I overdid the advice yesterday, went for a cx style full sprint at the start and think was right at the lead for a second before going into oxygen debt and holding on for the next 20 minutes, ended up just above mid-pack. Great fun though, I hadn’t worked that hard in ages.
Annoyingly, I guess because of internet issues, all the writing the laptop was coming out weird and blocky, and the companion app kept dropping out so I didn’t really look at it. I did notice it said ineligible for draft though?

Ah sweet thanks @savoyad – makes sense, especially the time
It takes for me to get going 😂

@tomlevell – thanks, I can only hold 300w for about 30s 😂 so basically just start pedalling 10s before the official start? I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it eventually

Tried Zwift for the first time on Sunday, lack of motivation to train means I’ve not been making the most use of trainerroad. I’d always assumed it was a gimic but I really enjoyed it so think I’ll get a subscription when the 7 day trial goes. Going to try the BC race this evening, kind of excited. I reckon a couple of races a week for a month and I might be motivated enoguh to think about training again. fingers crossed anyway

Something like a Maxxis Beaver or Bonty Mud is probably best for proper mud plugging, anything with well-spaced small square knobs really.

I am currently running a Maxxis HRII fr Forekaster rear combo and I’ve liked it up until recently as it is a bit more ‘trail’ friendly. THye were overwhelmed recently though with the rear struggling to grip. With more rain forecast I’ll probabl put the beavers on.

I’ve had a pair of muck boots for about 10 years, really comfy, use them a lot, they just started leaking over Christmas. Replaced with the Chore 2k muck boots, which are the new version of what I had. They were about £80

@ceepers funnily enough I saw that on your Instagram story and the next story was a gloating post about how good croyde was from someone I know from Plymouth. 🙄

I have a Fabia estate. It’s lasted really well with minimal attention and has a lot of space inside. I race cx and, front wheels off and seat down it can fit two bikes, bike washing and maintenance stuff, bag of race clothes etc etc. Really roomy. Also fits 1 mtb / cx inside with wheels on. It’s quite narrow so not sure about four bikes on the roof but I’ve never tried.
Economical with petrol too (1.2l engine

I’m still trickling on but barely using it. I really like it and rate it but I’m not doing anything structured at the moment so am picking a randon work-out once a week or so when I havent done any other exercise for a while.

I tink I’ll start a low vol plan soon, but I’m unsure whether to spend a month doing some higher zone work as I’ve doen nothin but base stuff all year as i’ve been ticking voer wondring if/when we’ll race again. I’m dubious about any mtb so guess am aiming for cx september 2021 but half the time think that is optimistic!

@wonnyj – I wondered about this in the past and was suggested low cadence high force intervals might be just as good if not better… good training for cx mud plugging too!

As some point I’m going to start training again.. but each week I seem to put it off!

edit. I have really struggled with the ramp test beacuse on a dumb trainer with a 9sp bike the changes in cadence throws me off as i try to keep matching power. However I think I under test using it because I mentally quit way before my legs do

Couple of questions:

I’ve seen a few online articles saying more younger people this time in hopsital: is this just beacuse there are more in general so necessarily will be more or has the new variant meant that younger people are being affected as badly as old people?

Secondly, whats the science now on infection from surfaces? i recall in the summer some things about it not really being a route and airbourne bein overwhelmingly the main problem. We are still being super cautious and wiping everthing down with an antibac wipe after post/shopping (appreciate may not be anti-viral but at least should physcially remove stuff) and if possible not using till the next day. No idea if this is overkill or not!

Thanks as always for all the insights on this thread.

What about just switching to the Epic Evo?
Seems like there are a lot of XC bikes that have been tweaked towards fun recently so may be quite a few that fit the bill better than the lux?
Also a dropper post might transform confidence on your current bike, getting one made a world of difference to my confidence

thanks @thecaptain

@thecaptain – do you have working or a link for that? I’m not disputing as I think you work in this area, but its the sort of easy soundbite that people will pay attention to if shared with something to back it up

@airvent – reported in Guardian – one level higher than the spring lockdown alert level

@lunge – I agree; I think the semantics matter. I also hope that the recent news articles about how hard things are in hospitals will make people cautious through fear. It seems like self-interest is the only motivator for many.

Wales has effectivly been locked down for a while and number are starting to fall by the looks of things; however compliance seems to be a lot lower than before and I think that some of it comes down to not being ‘locked down’

No. But (aside from the last 10 days) I have cut down drinking a lot recently as it wasn’t agreeing with me; and I have got to the point when I look forward to a non-alc beer in the evening. The brew dog Punk AF is pretty nice, though not as nice as the Hazy AF which I can’t seem to find at the moment

I saw that earlier but only just read it. Going from 60% to 35% when the EU suggested 25% is quite a capitulation.
Sounds like as has been previously suggested, BoJo will go with what the EU will accept and spin it was a great victory.
I Was surprised to read that Starmer wasn’t pushing for an extension when he was asked.

Question for the more informed:
If I understood the earlier post correctly, less of the virus will make you catch it in the new variant; what does this mean in practice for social distancing etc? Presumably we have to keep further apart (e.g 3m not 2m)? And for less time? Previously they were saying it was very unlikely you’d catch off surfaces, is this still the case?

I missed a ‘dont’t’ from my previous post. Agree with Mattyfez and others. Assuming a deal gets done, saying if it’s not ratified it’s no deal basically forces Labour to vote it through

Re. That pippa crear tweet- Is this not just so the MPs have to time to scrutinise the deal and will have to vote it through so BoJo gets to be the hero?

I see that the new strain is causing 60% of cases in South Wales so I guess that explains why Wales have done quite so badly (although personally I think we unlocked too much after the too short firebreak). If you look at the maps the increases in the SE are similar magnitude to the S. Wales increases.

I also think I read that a similar mutation was found in South Africa

My child’s Christmas present had been sitting in some distribution centre in the Netherlands for days so I was getting a bit worried. Thankfully it got delivered yesterday even though tracking had it still abroad. I was getting a bit concerned about have to explain to a toddler that even Santa has been hit by brexit