Yes, we’ve had no summer here, so it was a year of training in the perpetual greyness for months on end, and then my ‘holiday’ for the year was NC500 which was not only grey, but wet too. Came back injured and disinterested in biking – hardly ridden in Sept/Oct, and when i did, it felt like a chore.

Just signed up for a holiday in the dolomites next year though which should be good, so pencilled myself in a ‘prep’ period (no structure and no serious volume, just getting back to riding 4 times a week) starting Mon 13th, and will begin training proper 01/01/18.

Ime dragging yourself out when you really CBA is usually hugely rewarding!!

I tend to disagree – forcing yourself to ride when you don’t want to is quite often the disciplined part of training, but there’s only so often you can do it in a year. Trying to do it when you are already feeling a bit low and out of love with the bike only makes things worse.

That seems a very elaborate and complex way to achieve it.

Yes, no doubt the 9spd MTB mech and 36t cassette is both the cheapest and easiest way to get the results I want – looking at ~£100 and can re-use the cassette on the MTB afterwards. I was just exploring more options to see if there was a ‘better’ solution as the 36t cassette is no doubt rather gappy.

Deore XT Touring (48/36/26) with a 5703 left shifter and new front mech combined with my existing 11-28 cassette and rear mech is probably the best option i’ve found so far.
New crankset, shifter and front mech looking a bit pricey for a 1 off trip though as i’m really quite happy usually with 34/28.
Guess i’ll keep an eye open on black friday, and failing that speak nicely to father christmas

They’ve all said it but 9spd Mech and its a 36T on the back and 34T compact upfront.

Can’t think you’d need anymore than that??That’s borderline, but yes think its the gear i’m aiming for. If I can hold 4W/kg on the hard 5km section in the middle of Zoncolan it should give me 60rpm

I had quite normal levels of kit – until I suffered badly with heat regulation during a long event, and decided if I was going to do hardcore events, i needed some proper kit.
So I now have:
Base layers: 11
Padded Shorts: 17 – some saved for long days, some relegated to turbo duty
Baggy shorts + liners: 2
Summer jerseys: 11 (i think) – not for use in Scotland obviously….
Short sleeve windproof front jersey: 3
Short sleeve weatherproof (gabbaesque): 6
Gilets: 2
Long sleeve jersey: 4
Long sleeve windproof front jersey: 1
Softshell jacket: 6 – one for each month of winter!
Waterproof jacket: 3
Waterproof trousers: 1
Waterproof shorts: 1
Arm warmers: 4
Leg warmers: 2
Knee warmers: 2
Tights: 4
Shoes: 6
Helmets: 3
Winter Gloves: 3
Long finger gloves: 2
Mitts: 5

I’m Andy, and i’m a cycling kitaholic

So after some further googling and calculating of gear ratios, there really is a frustrating lack of gearing options.
Thought I would like a closer range cassette, so looked for triples – can pick up the (very expensive) chainset, but the shifters are like hens teeth and also very expensive.

What do older/heavier/less fit riders use if they want to go riding in the mountains? Or do they just resign themselves to cadences like climbing an escalator or riding beside canals?

As many people above said – had a similar problem, resolved by a few 90°C washes and leaving the door open.

We moved provider (to BT but on the same cabling) and that fixed it.

That is quite a common fix for rural locations, the problem is other ISP’s effectively buy their bandwidth from BT and don’t buy enough. Was exactly the same for my parents – went from 0.5Mb to 5Mb by switching.

To all the people suggesting beans on toast – how are you proposing to do ~15-20 slices of toast and keep them warm to serve at the same time?

Bangers and mash
Easy to make in industrial quantities (apart from your spud mashing arm getting a severe workout!), and definitely satisfies the “something normal” criteria.
Also fits in with sausage week.

For example if I wanted to do a couple of sessions a week outdoors without the ability to measure virtual power, can I still follow the workouts or are they all power based intervals?

It requires a little bit of knowing your stuff rather than following numbers on a screen, but for longer efforts (5+ mins) you can map HR zones to Power zones, and for shorter efforts you can map power to RPE (takes a little practice)

Edit: Above obviously applies to any power based interval, not just TR workouts

This thread has made today go rapidly downhill.
After I saw it, I decided I was going to go to Morrisons for lunch and get one of their cumberland spirals from the hot counter and insert it in a sandwich.
By the time lunch came around, I was even contemplating having two.

So jumped in the car, and off I went.
Strolled through the store, selected a loaf (Warburtons toastie), and arrived at the hot counter.
To find a lifetime supply of chicken drumsticks, and an empty container where the sausages should have been.

Gutted!

Seems to show that the UK is some combination of:
A) drastically overcrowded
B) bike mad
C) stravaholics

I’m also a little concerned about drainage after wet periods given the apparent popularity of swimming down roads…..

“skinnier and harder the better”

Is that really still a thing?
Even XC riders ride low pressures these days.

On the road I find these wide cassettes give too much of a jump between gears

Yeah, it’s certainly going to have compromises, but it should be very much a one off.

And no, its not touring, or gravel related – i’m going somewhere where even the pros break out the compacts and 32t cassettes

Afraid? You bet I am 8O

Thanks chaps, how about spacing for the cassette?
Can I just whip off my existing road cassette, leave the spacers on, and stick my usual 11-36 SRAM MTB cassette on?
Ideally the cassette would only see ~750mi or so on the road, and could then be moved over to the MTB at some point in the future.

Edit:

@Moses – kind of holiday where i’ll definitely be needing the 50t! What goes up, must come down and all that :D

Just because no-one has said it already:
Both!

just go to uniqlo instead, they’re much better.

Prefer to be able to try them on.
Did actually find a couple of pairs of 30″ in another shop, but the supposed ‘regular’ fit were almost painted onto my stick thin legs, and gave myself a wedgie trying to pull them up to get the waist somewhere higher than mid-arse.

Really, who would have thought a task that should be so simple could be so hard?

Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard. Still worth it though

+1

just wasn’t feeling good at all even on lap 1

Is that otherwise known as “tried to single-speed it and was hiking from lap 1”? :P

If not, well, you must be a bit gutted. Takes a fair bit of preparation to do an event like that, so to have to bail early is a real downer.

M&S re-added themselves to my list at the weekend.
Have been having trouble with the simple task of finding a new set of jeans, so in an act of pure desperation I decided to give M&S a second chance.
30 colour/style combinations, and 20-30 pairs of each on display, so somewhere between 600-900 pairs.
And out of that, a grand total of 1 pair in 30″ waist which obviously didnt fit cos they had a leg length designed for someone 6’5″.

I’d have been well sorted if I needed 42″ skinny fit though.

FFS! :|

Winter bike(s) are all ready.
Not mentally ready to go out in the cold and actually ride them though.
After 3 years of ever increasing miles and fitness, I foresee a winter of lying on the sofa eating Tunnocks tea cakes.

Spending money in the local economy is actually easier said than done in some places on the route.

One tea room wanted to come to tables and take orders, but after 15mins still hadn’t taken my order, so just squeezed a couple of gels down and was on my way.

Another day a couple from a motorhome popped into the hotel i was staying in and asked if they could get breakfast and were turned away.

And similar experience for a couple of members of our group – they wanted to get an early start, so left before breakfast with the intention of stopping further up the road, but were turned away at two places.

If you’ve got a more suitable tyre for winter anyway, now seems as good a time as any to switch over.
Once the tyre is off you can then patch from the inside at your leisure.

My recollection of being 13 was that I was more or less a walking, talking food consumption machine. I’d very much doubt a protein shake is needed as he’s probably taking in a huge amount of protein each day just through pure volume of food.

There’s nothing magical about protein shakes though (provided you avoid the ones with other stuff added), so not going to do any more harm than downing 2 pints of milk for example.

Sorry, bit late to the thread, as not spotted it until now.
As per @munrobiker, expect mostly trail centre hardpack with the odd bit of off piste slipperiness.
I’ve used Conti XKings both times with no regrets, and last year my partner went with Ralphs front and rear. Imo anything more than an XC race tyre (in a protected sidewall variant) is overkill and just wasting lap time.

Microwave egg poacher. Amazeballs.

This is true, but don’t try it for the first time at work. Fairly likely to have a messy explosion or two before you master it :D

Our microwaves seem to have a lower power output than my legs. Cooking times need to be doubled at least. Effectively means the limits of workplace culinary masterpieces are tea and toast :(

I’d be looking around the 9kg mark, once you go over the 10kg mark, there’s not much to justify the compromise of a rigid front end when you can pick up a hardtail at the same weight.

Just wondering if others who’ve gone tubeless still bother carrying a spare tube.

I don’t have a fat bike, but yes I still carry a spare tube, and yes I still would on a fat bike.

Have we done foglights yet? Foglights.

Visibility less than 4000m?
MUST BLIND OTHER ROAD USERS!

You’re making the ridiculous assumption that they’re trying to achieve something. There isn’t actually any purpose at all to it, they’re not trying to achieve anything – apart maybe from not having to think at all.

Wouldn’t surprise me at all to be honest – the number of zombies is frankly frightening.

It’s highlighted quite markedly when you indulge in online gaming (which as i’ve said on other threads, I think has a lot of transferable skills to real life). Currently got back into World of Tanks – its target market, and biggest demographic are ‘Daddies’ = most will have driving licenses. And most are TOTALLY oblivious to their surroundings.
When capture is going on, a massive banner flashes on the screen, and a siren sounds, and yet apparently 75% somehow don’t notice.
Watched a bloke on Sunday sit 2m outside the circle – if he reversed 2m he’d have A) contested the capture, and B) been in cover – but instead, he sat in the open fixated on a bush he got shot from 5 mins ago and according to minimap, occupant of said bush was long gone.
Anyway – back on topic – these are the people we are sharing the roads with. It’s frankly a miracle that there aren’t 5 car pile ups at every junction every day.

Watched the first episode last night.
Quite educational – i’d never heard of execution by squishing before.

I call these 40mph’ers. A constant 40 mph no matter what road they’re driving on

Me too, can never figure out what it is they are trying to achieve? Is it some ultra frugal fuel saving measure?
They should have their cars crushed anyway.

There are some spin class type ones, but they are the worst ones.
The better ones are more like a guided ride up iconic climbs with structured intervals in.

At least in the trolley they aren’t running around terrorising all the other customers.

I’m not in any way an expert, but I got a ~£150 sound bar free with my TV, and its FAR superior to the TV sound. Any visitors that have been round for a movie have also commented they were impressed with it.

GCN videos are pretty good, and enough of them to give some variety.
Wouldn’t worry too much about structure and/or a master plan if the main goal is to offset pie intake.

Decent rule of thumb is two proper hard sessions a week with everything else made up of fairly easy riding (which on a turbo is as boring as it gets).

gt red/black are mostly hardpack, so closer spaced knobs and high surface area will provide better grip than some of the more toothy options. Also, if looking for something to cover less than ideal technique, consider something with either a strong edge and a very square profile (hits the edge sooner) or something with transition knobs.

There’s a new menu item under the “+” menu to create a post.

Please feel free to forget you ever saw it. If we all forget it exists hopefully we’ll keep the strava we know and not end up with stravabook

Not sure about the new ones, but iirc the old leons have no roof bar mounts, they have a special kit that clamps inside the doors I think – not good since the OP is specifically looking for roof mounted.