Big guns look pretty, but they are sweet FA use for climbing hills on a bike, and losing them is going to be more beneficial than a different bike.

Need to decide if you’re a gym bunny or a cyclist.

@OP, yes 29er rolls a good bit faster, especially over bumpy flat sections

Because he’s not actually answering any of the questions in the 2nd round. Wouldn’t need to shout him down if he just gave honest answers.

Agree, he did quite well in the first section, although maybe more the demeanour of a friendly old bloke down the road than a PM.

Not doing so well with Paxman however.

29er, XC tyres, whoosh!
85kg will definitely be holding you back more than the bike though.

@ MKII – Depends what surfaces you are riding and the width of your rims. On ‘normal’ width rims the side knobs are so far down the sidewall they are useless, and on hardpack they have no surface area so are sketchy as hell.
Very much a soft conditions tyre imo, and they are fairly good at that.
Opposite @Northwind on HansDampf, i find it quite versatile and works well enough for me in a range of conditions. I’m happy to trade a bit of grip that a Mary or something from Maxxis would give for better rolling speed.

Is there anyway you can undo whatever it is you’ve done to make yourself so badly overstretched?
It sounds like you currently have a very healthy combined income, so spent carefully you should be able to live comfortably with some left over to save for retirement/rainy day.

If not, and you’ve truly got yourself into an irreversible mess then go for it imo. If you can stick out 3-5 years without getting sucked into spending the extra money on extravagant stuff then it can get you well back on track whilst being a bit of an ‘adventure’.

I’ve done my own real life water proofing test – it failed and I’m on my second unit.

Ditto

Yes, cycling, and especially training is really not good for getting stuff done.
When I first moved into my own place, my health wasn’t so great, so I had loads of free time = house was clean and tidy.
Roll the clock forward to 2017, and riding (or knackered from riding) every hour outside work hours and house is a shambles 😳

Need 30 hour days!

whether you need flats or SPuDs to watch the downhill on the telly

Flats obviously, don’t want to run the risk of not being able to unclip fast enough when you need another beer.

Not a recipe exactly, but:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Power-Hungry-Ultimate-Energy-Cookbook/dp/189110554X

Got dad a copy of that for XMAS, and he seems to like what he has made so far.

Working fine for me at the moment

Getting there. You aren’t expected to do them all in the same race though!

You could though, bridging to a break and winning ticks off all 10 in 1 🙂

The biggest problem with using infrastructure spending as an investment vehicle is any payoff is going to be a long term thing, but with the current state of our debt/defecit, we need much quicker results.

Plus its a gamble, and trying to gamble your way out of a sticky spot is extremely dicey, and the results of it going wrong would be extremely unpleasant.

Womens race excellent this week.
Good to see a new winner.
Langvad crashing is becoming a bit of a habit though – being the strongest is only so good if you cant stay rubber side down.

MvdP surely made an impact on the Mens race. I thought he’d be too big for a climbers course, but guess not. Looking forward to watching him for the rest of the season!

Castelli is pretty true to the size chart with the exception that they are perhaps a bit short.

If you are average height for UK or tall you’ll want to go + 1 size on shorts/tights.
If you are a stocky build also +1 size on tops.

For reference i’m 5’9, 30.5″w, 60kg and i’m a medium in their shorts/tights and a small in tops.

I’ve been the first to say its mostly Wiggles fault for putting the wrong description on the site, and they should definitely be giving a refund.

But it also doesn’t take a genius to figure a puncture belt isn’t a very likely or useful feature if they actually were tubeless.

Every time i watch a WC i find myself wishing i had a course like that locally.

Pure power course imo, and TD has ~100W more to play with

About a million xc racers before you say Ralph is fine on the front.

However for a bit more bite in mixed conditions a Rocket Ron, Conti X-King, Bontrager XR2, Vittoria Barzo, Maxxis Ardent Race.

Had similar with mine, resolved by overnight charge.
Not only is the charge port a bit dodgy on the hudl, the battery mis-reports its charge level every now and again.

Edit: if its charging properly it’ll get warm in the top right corner near the volume rocker.

I’m with wiggles. A cooper s or one of the aftermarket tuned versions are fine.
Regular cooper very much what you buy the mrs for a runaround.

I suspect their entire stock are ‘faulty’.
Might be best to open communication with Schwalbe direct

Very well done to guys above on 9 laps, that’s properly quick!

My X0 wheels died after around 2k miles which i didn’t think was too bad.
Replaced them with some Hopes, 500mi in and no complaints so far.

Same as others, 2x30min sessions with physio for diagnosis, get exercises and possibly an IT band torture session, then just do exercises and voila, working knees!

Go CH!
I even detect a hint of elbow bend 🙂

Don’t forget that team looks much weaker as they lost his best domestique to the motorbike.
But i agree, he wouldn’t have signed without some commitment on buying in some more support.

@scaredypants, reported on Eurosport TD has signed with sunweb until 2021 this morning.

Good finale today, and keeping some interest going into the TT tomorrow

@Northwind, thats just how it goes for a 7hr, too short to hold back. 3 laps feeling great and 4 of purgatory hanging in there!

How did the cobbled together XC bike go? Preferred it to the fat bike?

Yay, go Landa.
If only Sky would allow their riders out to play more often.

Hope TD can hang in tomorrow and smash the TT.

Take a mtb with knobbies next time – spent the first half of the year doing exactly the same thing myself. Can have a nice social ride without it being a total waste of time.

Seriously, i don’t think you can make a judgement on a few aches and pains after a couple of rides.
You just need to get out and ride the thing, you’ll get fitter and you’ll get stronger.
When you’ve done 50mi a week on it for 3 months then if your still feeling beaten up by it at least you know you gave it a good shot.

Depends how heavy you are, and how fit you are, and how many climbs over 10% you are going to find in ‘all round use’, and perhaps if you want to do big gear work on a non-smart turbo trainer.

For 90% of people the 50/34 11-32 is going to be the correct choice imo.
For me, i’m light, and therefore climb quite well, so would probably take the 52/36 11-32

Sure is 😯

Best of luck with that everyone!

So your looking for a bike that allows you to stay seated over drops then.

Also – 40miles is ~1-2 rides, hardly time to get used to anything (or not)

I hope Froome and Team Sky are paying attention to the lack of sportsmanship and underhand tactics from some of the teams on show this Giro, seems like the unwritten rulebook has been thrown out the window.

I suspect the book of grudges has a few new entries.
NQ better hope he has no problems at the TDF, as I can see Sky, Orica and Sunweb all being quite happy to put the hammer down.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/the-giro-thread

Been a long time since I was any sort of runnerist, but 5.00/km isn’t that quick imo, if it feels good go with it, your stamina is likely going to increase in line with any distance increases on your plan.

If its above the neck, go riding but take it easy imo

It freaks some people out, especially now as it’s getting pretty beaten up, but it’s really a “ride straight down it” and it has a chicken line anyway. So it’s mostly about trying to carry warp speed out of that section into the flat bit after

The bombhole doesn’t even freak me out, the deep loose stuff on the approach to it is harder imo.
Chicken line is actually ~1-2s faster than the main line which is a bit wrong, but I take the main line cos its fun anyway.