£1500 bike with a £1400 headtube badge.
Total bargain for £2099 🙄

Also, come to think of it, no-one stops for 30 minutes on a two hour run at 5.42m/mile pace. It’s a ride.

No-one stops for 30mins on a 2 hour ride either!

Easy way to check.
Click on the ride from the leaderboard and check the pace chart. If they’re doing 2min/mile downhill their unlikely to be running.

Great, mixed with the 3’s there’s no pressure for you to ‘do’ anything. Just sit in the pack and unleash those watts in the last 200m! 😀

Here in Fife, we had a week of on/off rain last week, but mostly its just been depressing overcast. I know exactly how you feel.
Wouldn’t say its been particularly worse in that regard than previous 3-4 ‘summers’ though. Pattern over the last few years seems to be that what little sun we do get comes between 10-3, and by the time its time to get out riding in the evening its overcast and cold again. Whilst threads pop up on here going “oh noes, i’m melting”, we got a day time high of 12°C earlier this week……

It tends to really get me down if i’ve been on holiday somewhere sunny, then come back to weeks on end of grey. Tried a multi vitamin with vitD which seems to help a bit.

A £250 saving.

Exactly my argument, but thanks for doing my maths for me.

If you don’t really care, and just want a bike – great.
If you can get the bike you want – great.
If you want a specific bike, then i’m not going to get a different one just because I can save £250 on it. Especially when that £250 also incurs the price of having to jump through C2W hoops to get it.

To be honest, for the fairly small saving you make on a £1k bike, i’d just get the bike I wanted rather than using the C2W scheme.
The C2W scheme is only good value if you’re getting something you actually want out of it.

the flip side is that i rode road forever in mtb gear and as such wouldnt ride outside of summer hot days because living on a hill i was always frozen by the time i started peddling. in desperation i posted on here in the autumn and, i still canmt believe i didnt know this, was told about gabba which has probably been one of the biggest revelations in my cycling life.

so until someone tells me about mtb stuff that is good as castelli kit i’d say whats the issue?

See you’ve made a fundamental mistake here.
You’ve assumed that weather conditions should be overcome with technical fabrics, but when you are shredding and the roost is flying, your level of stoked can overcome anything the weather gods can throw at you.

Sadly, i’m too inept to shred, so I too use a gabba 🙂

He sold the dead midges

Seems there really is a market to sell just about anything.
Except 26″ wheels obviously 😛

Lol @ fifeandy, you’ve been watching too much reruns of tomorrow’s world! Almost as good as your big heated fan to dry out the woods on FW DH !

I’m sure most of the best ideas seemed mad to begin with 😆

Anyway, I was prompted to do a bit of googling, and came across an estimate that the midge costs the Scottish economy £286mil/yr

And then I came across this:

Which is supposedly the output of 1 weeks ‘work’ for a midge trap.

So what if the government spent £1mil per year installing 1000 traps like that. So in 10 years time we’d have 10k traps? Maybe even include some sort of subsidy for homes/businesses in heavy midge areas?

Probably ravings of a madman, but seems like a decent idea to me at least!

Maybe dispense with mirrors completely and replace with monitors

This is very much a thing, and can be expected to be rolled out fairly widely in the near future.
Not only does it offer much better visibility and safety, it provides truck operators with a significant boost to fuel efficiency.

http://www.stoneridge.com/news/mirroreye/

Would be interesting to know if any studies have been done on if its possible to do some sort of mass midge cull, and what any possible consequences of them all being culled might be?

So guys that rode Giro all look cooked before they start – not the best for them.

Aru looked very impressive.
Shame G couldn’t hold on, he’s been playing down his form, but thought it may have been a bluff.

Very simple approach to beard maintenance here.
Hair and beard get a #1 all over, then are left to grow until one morning I wake up and there’s a hint that hair may need combing. Then its time to start the cycle again.

Don’t mind a nice bimble from time to time – especially on rest week (every 4th week), but t-shirt, shorts and flat pedals are taking things a step too far.

Not to mention that with the current weather conditions if I tried to do anything low intensity wearing only a tshirt i’d be found curled up shivering at the side of the road.

Bit confused about not liking wearing a strap unless you had a terrible one before. Never actually notice i’m wearing one after the first 10 seconds.

Suggest as a lean improvement that the temperature is set to 21 deg C as studies show that people work better in cooler offices.

Depends on the study – this one shows that in an environment that involves typing (most offices) highest productivity was at 25°C.
http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2004/10/warm-offices-linked-fewer-typing-errors-higher-productivity

I worked with a woman who would set it at 25 every day, no matter what the weather

Yes, thats how thermostats work – the weather outside makes no difference.
In fact the recommendation is if anything to turn the thermostat up on warmer days to reduce the temperature differential.

FWIW, we had lots of complaints about the AC in our office for a while, and I was our departments representative trying to sort it out.
Best results came by moving cold people away from the AC vents, moving hot people closer to the AC vents, and making sure all the thermostats were set to 23°C and fan speed 1.

It’s also not exclusively a man/woman divide, also a fat/thin divide.
Happy to admit i’m cold blooded, if our AC was at 19°C dress code would be abandoned and i’d be working in a softshell

Any other recommendations on road stuff suitable for a fat lad

https://fatladattheback.com/

Why can’t I stop buying things?

Because that’s the way of the world.
We go to work to earn money
Which makes us miserable
So we buy things to make us happy
So we need to go to work to earn more money
Which makes us miserable
So we buy more things to make us happy
So……….

You get the picture.
And yes i’m as guilty as anyone else

But onto the question, I’m kind of of the school of making justifiable purchases, and if you’ve only ridden 30mi in 2017, then i’d be saying n+1 really isn’t that justifiable – need to address the reasons you aren’t riding first, and then treat yourself once riding has become a regular part of life again.

Expect G to keep yellow today.
Porte was looking super strong the other day though, wouldn’t surprise me if he takes a few seconds back.

Missed the stage yesterday, but caught some highlights this morning after seeing the news of Sagan DQ.
Seems a bit harsh to me, DQ’d from stage and -1000 green jersey points would have been adequate.

Proper mtb clothing is road kit!

Furious….what is that

Dunno, but someone put toy sized wheels on it

Disturbingly, after a bit of a google, £6k isn’t enough for a ‘dream build’.
But i’d probably go with one of these:

You won’t die, but it’ll be unpleasant off road, and you’ll struggle to keep HR down on the road.
The boardman cx team is blessed by stock wheels that weigh as much as some peoples bikes. Think mine came as standard with a 34T inner ring and 32 cassette and wouldn’t want to go with a higher bottom gear personally.

I do ride TT for myself though, what would i sign on as?

Obviously you do it naked and sign on as a privateer.

Possible, but unlikely.
Usually these sort of results are when someone signs up for the long route, but then does a shorter one for whatever reason.
Since these things are non-competitive, no-one ever bothers to check.

Wrong time of year to be buying summer jerseys.
Can usually find them in the winter sales around £30

EDIT: DHB usually good value – don’t know how good these are, but they are cheap:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/dhb-short-sleeve-jersey-1/

Got a few goals in mind, but all medium term.
I primarily get myself fit to get the most out of holidays in the mountains, but combined with a competitive streak, this opens up opportunities for me to have some adventurous goals.

So, in no particular order.
1) Go back to Solo Relentless 24, but not just to finish, aiming for a top 25%. Was sitting top 3rd in 2015 before my wrists packed in.
2) LEL/PBP. Going long appeals, despite not really being built for it.
3) Gold standard at La Marmotte – probably the most realistic target, couldn’t design a course better suited to me.

As a partially riding goal, i’ve a growing itch for an Ironman that may need scratching before too much longer.

Meh, tbh its not that bad if you’ve got some quick XC tyres on a 29er. The only time you notice a real lack of speed is on long shallow descents, but that’s actually a good thing as it makes it easier to keep HR/Power in desired zone.

Took a nice easy spin to Dunkeld with Dad, had a nice giant pancake with bacon and maple syrup. Tagged an extra hour or so on at the end to make up the target 6hrs for the day.

@CH, are there any normal size people at these races?
From the photos looks like an entire field of 80+kg monsters

Its there, i just watched it.
Wasn’t in the usual place on the screen, i went along to tomorrow’s live feed and accessed from there.

Yes, i do believe the statement is true.
As already covered, the main reason for riding road is its rare to find a mtb route where you dictate the effort 100% rather than the terrain.
Unless you are doing a group ride where you need a road bike to keep up, i’d also argue for doing base training on the road on your MTB too.
A) Gives you even more scope to keep power on on the downhills.
B) Gets you used to pedalling in position on your MTB, which will always be subtly different and use muscles slightly differently to road bike.

Reverse tan line, good look

Yes, plenty of options finish at a 12.
Think maybe some cassettes for junior racing stop at a 14.

You’re supposed to be time crunched, how do you find time to watch Love Island ffs 😕

Also, aero bikes are not exclusively for flat riding, 28 really isn’t that big for a rolling course. Especially if paired with a semi rather than full compact.

Valverde looking like an inspired pick for my STW fantasy team. 😆

Go G!!