You tried reading any Joe Friel material and self-coaching? It’ll save you the £100 a month proper coaching is likely to cost you (at a minimum)

I’m as big a fan of the Training Bible as anyone, and for sure you can gain a huge amount of knowledge and make yourself a pretty good plan. However, it takes a few seasons of trial and error to really understand some of the principles, and also to learn how your body responds.
I like to think i’ve done a pretty good job of self coaching given a somewhat defective body as a starting point, but there’s definitely times when a coach would have (and still could be) a benefit. I just personally can’t justify the ~£100pcm for the level i’m at.

But there are some ways in which it can’t replace a coach:
It doesn’t cover training for endurance events well.
It doesn’t have a great workout library, and also doesn’t explain training multiple energy systems within the one workout (something you see pop up fairly regularly in power analysis of pro’s training).
It doesn’t have the ability to monitor your progress and make alterations.
It can’t use years of experience (until you’ve done them) to identify patterns that may be going right/wrong.
It won’t give you a phone call at 8pm on a Thursday night to tell you what a slacker you are and to apply Rule#5 if you want to make progress.

Is it worth getting training peaks/ strava premium to be able to quantify work volume from zwifting?

Yes and No.

Yes if you put in the time/research to understand what all the charts are showing you and understand any limitations they may have.
No if you just want to use training zones to get fitter.

Do you have a power meter or willing to get one?
Do you need face to face time with a coach, or remote/online ok?

There’s a coach finder option on Training Peaks.
Dirt School do private consultations where you can get them to some skills coaching and give some training advice, and also a range of full blown options in both skills/fitness departments.

So forgive the noob question, but is there a way to make it work starting out small(lets say £200)? Seems to me like the buy/sell fees (£12.50 typical?) will eat up a massive proportion of any likely growth?

Am i missing something, or do you really need to make larger investments for it to make sense?

I use the Fluxient 1xU2 as a helmet light off road, and think it would make a pretty good budget road light, quite a narrow beam so not too dazzling for drivers.
http://www.bikelightsuk.com/front_bike_lights/fluxient_1xu2_xml2_led_single_1000_lumens_bike_light_2015_model_P595.html

Absolutely, not much point going out working to earn money if you then feel guilty about using it to make life a bit better. And if a bit better is getting someone to do a brake bleed then that’s just great.

Now come spring I need to take my own advice and get someone to do the garden!

Won’t Brexit put pressure on employers to increase salaries, once the flow of cheap migrants dries up?

Possibly so, but no employer will be willing to take that as a hit to profits so we’ll just see it reflected in increased price of goods and then that salary increase was all for nothing.

650b FS: Hans Dampf 2.35 / Rock Razor 2.35
29er HT: Xking 2.2 F/R
B+ rigid SS: Trailblazer 2.8 F/R

I feel totally out of place amongst everyone else posting gnartastic tyres.

Well, i complain about the never ending cold overcast weather here in Fife, but the one thing i do have going in my favour is there’s loads of quiet roads, and outside rush hour even the main roads arent that busy. I really do feel sorry for people that have to ride in cities – i’d hate it.

My only tip as mentioned by others is to avoid the busier routes at rush hour as it instantly turns 90% of drivers in psychopaths.

Afraid I like the taste of £5 notes too much so will have to stick to my carnivorous ways.

Yes, I went passed my target last night 🙂
Wasn’t really a strict target, but wanted to increase my hours by 10% which gave a target of 361hrs (which has also taken me just over 5000mi). I should easily make 365hrs to give me an hour a day average before the end of the year.

Next year will be looking for +10% more again which may be slightly harder.

most people who meet me would probably describe me as a bodybuilder (i don’t like the term as I’ve never got on stage and competed) but with visible abs and veins all over my arms and shoulders

Like I said, horrific!
Cut down on the calories and get on the exercise bike, we’ll have you down to a normal size in no time 😛 😆

seiously what brand makes an adult shirt with a 36 inch chest?…are you still 12 years old?…perhaps eat more and get to a gym if you look like that, horrific.

I could ask the same about making shirts for 44+” chests – perhaps eat less and get to a gym if you look like that, horrific.

A more road orientated year in store for me in 2017.
The main event of the year will be a 5-day NC500 with a charity group, however with the bulk of the group being new cyclists, there will be a fair few day rides and sportives with them to try and get them in shape and do some team building.

In addition:
I’m trying to work up the courage to enter DR200.
I’m hoping to do my first 200mi road ride.
Once I see my fatigue levels after NC500, i’ll most likely do Relentless again either pair (if tired)/solo (if fresh and motivated).

I’ll also be looking to fit in at least 3 rounds of SMBO as they are great fun.

Post above speaks much wisdom.

‘turning me into a 24hr racing machine’ isn’t really what turbo sessions are best used for. Unless you envisage yourself doing 3-12hr endurance rides indoor 😕

42 sounds like xl to me

S-36
M-38
L-40
XL-42

Impossible to estimate how you’ll respond to the training plan. Someone relatively untrained can make huge jumps just by riding regularly, whereas someone already well trained has to work much harder for a smaller gain.

And thats before factoring in like sleep, diet, genetics etc.

I know its not quite the answer you are looking for, but after a couple of years at it, you start to learn what works well for you, and which types of workout generate what type of improvement for different target areas.

15.34 here and doesn’t change to 15.35 until the 19th, so if you lot can keep the enthusiasm under control and let me focus on my misery until next week it’d be much appreciated!

I think @PeterPoddy has it.
It sounds like you’ve already seen conditions as bad as it gets and yet in the end you got there safely in one piece.
So if the worst scenario works out fine, then by extension an average trip shouldn’t be anything to worry about.

Depends on what you are normally riding imo.
If you are doing lots of drops (even small ones), rock gardens or braking bumps, i’d stick with the sus fork.

On the other hand if its mainly what i call trail chatter (small roots, large pebbles, embedded cobble sized rocks) then a +tyre really does soak it up quite nicely

Yes, miles slower.
Have nearly always destroyed myself with some late season challenge followed by a month off and the resulting loss of fitness.
Combine that with cold air, frosty/wet surfaces, slower bike etc.

It all adds up to a loss of ~2mph on road rides.
Very depressing having been going so well in August/September, but the logical side isn’t worried as i know its part of the nature of periodisation.

And you came to this conclusion because?

Yeah, it wasnt a good day to be a turtle or a piglet 😥

Software/Firmware engineer
33 days (25 i can choose, may day and the remaining 7 bank holidays rolled into a compulsory xmas holiday).

OR is the wrong word.
They are both within their rights AND showing poor PR

Also got the cycleops one, but it came bundled with trainer years back. Wouldn’t pay what they are asking for them now.

Another +1, love mine.
Has only failed me once when i was too impatient and tried to do a tyre straight out of the box without giving bead time to straighten out a bit.

Wasn’t expecting much from cities, but pleased to say i was dead wrong.
Monkeys have mad skills 🙂

Beginning to think this is actually a troll thread and we’ve all been suckered in.

To the rest of us mere mortals, no-one cares.

Not true at all, when you’re on a long day out, still 50mi from home and know you’re going to be grinding into a headwind for the next 3 hours then making yourself a bit smaller makes a lot of sense.

gnar-rad-shred skater brigade

I like that description 😆

Use the neck rule – if all symptoms above the neck go ahead and ride, otherwise recover.

Slightly left field bur my fat bike with 4.0″ jumbo Jim’s rolls faster than my mates Scott Genius with 2.4″ advantages.

This is hardly a surprise.
Its not easy to find rolling resistance data, but what there is available shows that Schwalbe and Conti are light years ahead in rolling speed.
In my experience i’ve found ‘fast’ maxxis offerings to be more grippy than expected, but not actually fast.

Terrain
Conditions
Distance
Then the bike ….

Weight is a falsity in some cases,

I get the feeling you’ve never actually ridden a fast MTB.
Give me an XC race bike and i’ll knock out faster times over any kind of distance than a trail/enduro bike with burly tyres on regardless of the conditions.

Legs->Tyres->Weight->Aero

A proper fast XC tyre makes a world of difference – especially to lighter or less fit riders that really don’t have an extra 50w to spare on rolling resistance.

The Ikon 2.35 is good if you want proper-fast treads, also a really big casing compared to most 2.3 labelled tyres.

Yeah, the Ikon 2.35 is a monster and a pretty good choice, but thats a choice of 1, whereas in B+ you’ve got quite a range of options.

I’m surprised no-one has mentioned it, but one major advantage of B+ over large 29er for a bikepacking application is you can get B+ in fast rolling XC tread patterns. If you want a proper big 29er tyre you are generally looking at an allround or enduro tread which is too draggy for bikepacking imo

Someone got out of the wrong side of bed this morning 🙄

Nice pics. I notice you selected a bunch of photos were they are all shredding the gnar on the downs, either consciously, subconsciously, or just because that’s all there was since the photographer(s) also consider it more photogenic than slogging away on the climbs

Conscious choice.
There was actually some choice (not a huge number) regarding climbing pics, but by and large they don’t manage to portray the same dynamic nature.