Utilities, not really sure, but don’t really care if my electricity keeps coming without getting more expensive.
Mail, didn’t really notice when it was privatised, so doubt i’d notice the change back either.
Rail, can’t get any worse so nothing to lose.

Life is a very long time to be banned for. 3 years in prison and 10 years trying to find work with a criminal record and no driving license is plenty of time to realise the error of your ways.

Given the cyclist had previously kicked in her wing mirror and antagonised things, then yes 3 years is probably reasonable.

3 years and 10 year driving ban would have been better.

Nutella pancakes, not exactly healthy but make sure carb stores are well topped up for evening ride 😀

Still waiting for someone to explain to me how a capitalist society is better for the average person.

Its better, because its based on a principle that actually works (albeit with flaws).

I wasn’t very familiar with Marxism, so I unleashed the power of google and started to educate myself a little. Didn’t take long before I came across this little nugget of joy:

Marx explained his belief that, in such a society, each person would be motivated to work for the good of society despite the absence of a social mechanism compelling them to work, because work would have become a pleasurable and creative activity

Now using myself as your average person, i can tell you for sure that work isn’t pleasurable, nor do I (or would I) do it for the good of society.
I like riding my bike, playing computer games and watching the odd TV show with a triple measure of Highland Park, and if our current mechanisms tying us to a NEED to work (home ownership, pension, utility bills etc) didn’t exist, then I just wouldn’t work.

So lets assume that 20% of the population just really can’t be arsed with working, but thats all good, bacause its societies job to provide for us because they all REALLY like working. How long do you suppose before the other 80% get bitter about the 20% of folks watching netflix all day in their underwear? And when the injustice really settles in and more people decide they’ll not bother working? What percentage of slackers before the whole thing falls on its head?
And then what? Use the military to compel us to work? At that point the idea has pretty much failed already.

So lazyness has already broken the ideal, but what about when our enthusiastic workforce realises they all get the same regardless of the work they do?

Marx intended the initial part of his slogan, “from each according to his ability” to suggest not merely that each person should work as hard as they can, but that each person should best develop their particular talents.

At what point does Jimmy the cyber security expert responsible for fending off those terrible capitalists think ‘well maybe i deserve a bit more’ than Bob who’s sole responsibility is not letting the fries burn at the fast food joint?

So whilst i’ve got a lot more reading to do to educate myself on the subject, i’ll summarise: Marxism – great idea if it wasn’t for those pesky humans.

Sometimes they shit kittens at the mention of an Apple Mac on their networks.

Not even cute furry kittens either.
Hissing, scratching little monsters.

At this time of year, I’ve had enough of riding in the dark, full moon or not. Evening rides in full sunshine ftw!.

Indeed, I still had the sunglasses on at 9pm last night. Will take that over a night ride anytime.

So the IFS came out today and said the Labour budget balances and all pledges can be paid for based on thier proposed tax changes.

JC’s got more chance of giving up politics to open a unicorn petting zoo than a Labour budget balancing so I wouldn’t spend too long speculating on that scenario.

Although to be fair, its much easier to make your budget balance when you’re only paying policemen £30 a year….

Only thing wrong with the toast diet is the lack of pizza.
So many pizzas to choose from and so few days of the week.
Thin, deep, stuffed crust, pepperoni, chicken and bacon, meat feast, mmmmmmm

Nice write up CH, definitely got a feeling points are coming soon.

I went to the local APR training ride again tonight. Found myself in the unusual (for a 60kg climber type) situation of doing the bulk of the work for my group on a windy flat ride 😐

Fast group caught us with about 2 miles to go – sitting in was pretty easy, but 6 or so guys just wanted to sit on without rolling through to the front. Not much into jostling for position for a training ride, so just sat at the back. Final half mile or so was an uphill finish and the ones not going through predictably exploded and blocked the whole road.

Pretty sure i could have gone with the moves up front if i’d been in position, but like i say, not worth risk taking for position on a training ride.

Next time that route is used, may try to force a split earlier so less traffic at the end.

Really wish we had some climbs in the UK. Would love to get stuck into some racing if some 30-40 min climbs were included. Don’t see me ever generating the raw power to be competitive on typical flat to rolling UK routes with dire road surfaces. 🙁

Been very dry here too. Think i saw on the news this morning that fife only had 15% of its normal rainfall last month.
Wierd weather all year really. Winter was tame, and spring so far has been dry but feeling like winter due strong (and cold!) winds.

Had never heard of a RADAR key, definitely need to look into getting one of those!

The consultant is right.
Chances are she’s tired and run down from poor absorption of nutrients – the liquid feed should fix that, and in the 2nd month in particular she should be feeling great.
It can be mentally quite tough though not eating for such a long period though.

Hope things go well now treatment has begun.

What’s the planned use for it?

If its going to see a lot of road use i’d go with a race king 2.2 as the black chilli compound seems a bit more resilient? than pacestar.

If road use is going to be minimal ralph front, burt rear

Maxxis Aspen?

Sky or movistar to set a hard pace from the bottom of the final climb, we’ll see who is a real contender and we’ll see a few GC hopefuls lose time already, but a largish (8-10) group of favourites coming to the line together.

Most folk will manage 2 hard and 2 easy workouts and 3 days ‘off’ (not really off because they are spent gardening or general DIY around the house).
The more exercise you want to do, the more seriously you need to take your rest.

If you are really pushing yourself, you probably want to take an easy week once a month too.

No gas for me, and i’m ~£50pcm on E7 with old crappy storage heaters.
Anything over £100pcm and they’d have to be hair drying the cat 8 hours a day imo

Give him a week or two to offer cash, if none forthcoming, just end arrangement with whatever excuse you see fit.

I was diagnosed with Crohn’s when I was 16 – i’ve had some properly rough times (weightloss, malnutrition, 2 bowel resections and months chained to an NG feeding pump 12hrs a day), but often its also under control and i’m able to lead a normal* (some people disagree that endurance MTB racing is normal) active life.

Various different treatment options depending on the severity of the disease.

A dietitian may well be involved to start with, which may involve experimenting with a liquid diet (to give the gut a rest) and an elimination diet (to look for food that causes flare ups).

Various options for drugs too, immunosuppressants are pretty common, as are short courses of steroids to get a flare up under control quickly. More powerful biologic immunosuppressants are becoming more common in extreme cases, but not a first choice due to cost and risky side effects.

Currently i’m doing well combining Azathioprine and Humira, and the worst I have to put up with is that my visits to the loo are a bit unpredictable.

Indeed, most trail bikes are also coming in a bit on the porky side unless spending big ££ for top of the range models.

Its all compromises at the end of the day though – the component choices that make a bike stable, grippy and fun to ride downhill also make them lethargic misery wagons uphill.

+1 for a 29er, stick some nice xc race tyres on it and it’ll be as fast as a hybrid and far more versatile.

1) Garmin Premium HR strap
2) Pretty much the same as running but you need to do the LTHR test for both disciplines as the zones will be different.

Bit of a mixed bag round here. Some days everyone gives a friendly gesture, others everyone coming other way is a miserable sod.

Can’t say its changed noticably though, always been like that.

Just watched highlights of stage 2.
Fabulous job by Katusha getting organised quickly and getting their man back on the bunch.

A) indoor ftp is probably bollocks, there’s nothing to distract you from the pain, so unless you are super strong mentally you don’t get everything out.
B) not sure about what if anything you can derive regarding ftp from a 23min race effort.
C) it doesn’t actually matter what your ftp is, or if its different with different equipment, just so long as its repeatable.

Cant really see past Quintana for the win, but potential for a great scrap for 2nd/3rd.
Going to be cheering Thomas as i’m a big fan, but tbh don’t think hes got the consistency needed for a GT.

I assume it’s the 4000 ones that I want?

Depends, its a choice between:
GP4000s – Very fast, supple, grippy with moderate puncture protection
GP4Seasons – fast, bit less supple, insanely grippy, with high puncture protection.

Can’t go wrong with either really – they are both extremely popular for a reason.

Camelbak used to do one, but they appear to have discontinued it.
iirc someone used one in a time-trial to make them more aero

sunny, but not too sunny? I assume you’re doing it? Can you do a write-up, I might be interested for next year

No, no write up – i’m already half committed for next year, so don’t want to read about the world of pain/midges/headwind/rain that it’s likely to be!

http://ratrace.com/citytosummit/

A few special athletes can now post content in the feed, other than activities, like photos, adventure reports, and gear reviews

Time to remember my password for Garmin connect 🙁

I don’t think you can suddenly overtrain by accident

Doesn’t work like that.
You start off feeling tired, but your performances aren’t suffering.
Then performances start to slide a little, but you man up and ignore it, maybe even try to do ‘extra’ to get back to where you were.
Before you know it you are smashing yourself every ride to hit Xmph ave because you know you ‘can’, it feels hard, but your HRM is telling you you are slacking.
Keep persisting with it a little longer and lo and behold you have totally F*’d yourself up.

And its not always just from training volume/intensity, other factors in life can make it about under-recovery due to poor sleep, nutrition etc.

I am at a stage where i want to ride my bike

That sounds pretty promising at least. Just need to keep the intensity down, and eventually the legs feel fresh again. Once there, you can start building up gradually again.

Are a lot of these things actually banned in amateur comps though?

When I hear doping I think of steroids and ePO, but a lot of the stuff banned in professional competition is perfectly legal for the public and found in all sorts of supplements and medicines.

Are you lining up against Ben Johnson who’s buying an using illegal drugs or just someone with an unhealthy addiction to Holland and Barrett 2 for 1s who isn’t actually breaking any rules because he’s not on le Tour or going for Olympic Medals.

Might be wrong, but I thought if you hold a BC race license and race in a BC point scoring event you could be expected to be subject to random testing. Only difference for the pros is they have the whereabouts system and have to be available 24/7 more or less.

IANAD, but:

“you completely overdid it you plonker”

Not quite what you want to hear, but there’s examples of people that have taken a year or more to recover from extreme cases of over-training.
As for doing Dirty Reiver when you are already screwed

“you completely overdid it you plonker”

Advice: Continue pestering your GP for any tests that can be done, and limit your rides to short (1hr max) zone 1 bimbles 2-3 times a week. You’ll know when you are ready to start riding properly again as you’ll stop feeling gubbed and actually feel motivated to ride.

You may be on your own
4 days of uninterrupted sunshine forecast for most of the UK.

Sounds fun

In a leg burning, hyperventilating kinda way 😀
Definite highlight was getting gapped slightly at the top of the last climb and the full gas 40mph chase down the other side to get back on before the flat.

Goal setting – something around 6 months away, ideally with a couple of intermediate goals.
If you try and set goals too long term they have a habit of either being put off or burning yourself out on them.

Not gone super wide yet, but liking the 38c’s on my Plug. Main problem is that most tyres that size are a bit commuterish – would love to see something like a giant GP4000s.
Will probably go for marathon supremes when(if) the stock kendas wear out

@matts, afraid my scales and measuring tape disagree about the efforts not being close enough to maximal to build muscle. Up about 1.5kg and 2cm round each thigh since end of last season.

Decided to go for the apr tonight, and glad i did, showed what i’ve been doing has been working. Went with the middle group which wasn’t? working very well, but felt super comfortable. Fast group came past at the bottom of a shallow climb and i just latched on and was able to stick with it and do some short turns on the front.

What do you mean by “strength work”? Track starts / 10s sprints?

Force may be a more accurate description than strength.
I took a look at Friels triangle of abilities 2 years ago and decided I could do all the muscular endurance work in the world, but it wouldn’t help if I couldn’t push hard enough on the pedals.
Saw some gains during winter 2015/2016 by adding big gear work and delaying move to 2×20’s etc.
This year I decided to take it to extremes and do nothing but rides designed to build force or z1/2 rides, and i’m delighted with progress so far.
Trying to keep it mixed to avoid adapting to only one session.
GCN 40 min strength session (1,2,3,4,3,2,1min 60rpm pyramid) has been a favourite when weather is poor.
(5×1)x3 @ 60rpm
Some standing starts (on a hill)
Hilly (and windy!) singlespeed rides.

Probably not a program that will work for most, but being built like a stick man and spending a few years seeing very gradual improvements doing more traditional intervals I decided to risk a year trying something different.