Haha, wouldn’t work here about 300+ days of the year.
Wierdly, most of those days are probably clear but freezing days in winter.
‘Summer’ = 3-4 months of overcast.
I’m all for innovation, but think I might pass on this one.

Only around 500mi for me too on 9 speed and 10 speed unless weather has been unusually dry, then a bit longer.

@mike chains do indeed stretch, the last one i took off my 29er was almost a full link longer when placed side by side with a new one

Either A) use a turbo trainer, or B) stick the bike in the car and take it somewhere flat, its the only way you are going to get an accurate result without paying for a lab test.

You ride in the remaining (outside) lane, but go eyeballs out to minimise disruption to other road users.

Not bought from Torchy, but the Fluxient stuff he sells is quality.

I’m 5’9 and size M cooker fits just fine

PVA will work just fine. Silly cheap so can use loads

Never really got on with deadlifts – great exercise, but not worth the grated/bruised shins imo.

Yeah, had two stinging incidents on the bike.

First was a wasp that got beind my sunglasses and stung me in the eyelid. Not funny, and i’ll gladly murder every wasp i see since then.

Second was last year in the alps on the Col de Vars. Got attacked by around 5 wild bees. Really didnt know what to do at the time, so sprinted up hill legs spinning at 120rpm whilst beating myself with my helmet. Fortunately they left me alone after about 1km. Was then left wondering if my heart rate was maxed due to some allergic reaction or from sprinting 1km up a mountain.

Yeah, its a bit wierd, but quite impressive. Must also take incredible dedication with diet too.

And like i said before, even if they did review the safety they would still conclude the possible risks are no worse than any other race of the year. Richie Porte who was one of the crash victims in the olympics said much the same when interviewed.

32:18 on B+ here, need to try it in some hillier terrain, but from first 100mi or so i’m thinking 32:17 might be better.

Too many events concentrated in one area, and not enough in others. Would love to do a 12hr at Hadleigh, but not doing a 9hr drive each way to get there.

Where are the 12/24hr events in Yorkshire or Cumbria? Much bigger catchment area.

Also agree with point made above that some folk that would usually have made a half arsed attempt at a 12hr team are now making half arsed attempts at enduro instead.

I was a bit late starting with a pension as i wanted to save everything for a house deposit – perhaps not the most efficient long term use of money, but has left me with a relatively small mortgage that i have a realistic chance of paying off by the time i’m 45.

My company match 100% of my contributions up to 5%, so its a bit of a no brainer as no other investment is going to give me what is effectively 100% growth before taking into account any potential growth of the investment fund.

Rainy day fund is in place (although needs moving somewhere more efficient), and starting to look at options to fund early retirement.

On MTB’s with correct clothing i’d probably give it a crack too. Damn long climb on full knobbies though!

LTHR calculated by 30min test as usual. Confirmed by numerous european mountain climbs. I find anything over about 6% gradient offroad forces me out of zone on the trail bike.

Might not be the last of your snow troubles before Nice. Bonette is even higher, and izoard is high too, although further south.
Would be a shame to miss out on the Iseran, as its a lovely climb after the tunnels, but tbh its not somewhere i’d want to be on a road/touring bike in the snow.

Yeah, calorie counting can be a bummer, doesn’t matter how high i try to make the number i never seem to make it above 60kg…..

It’s an AGM, its supposed to be boring.
Growth/drop in numbers
Coaching availability
Noteworthy race performances
Upcoming night rides
Proposals for next year

Yawn

edit: even the thought of an agm slowed my typing to the point kryton beat me to it

@vdubber67, yes thats about what i thought, but i’m not fit enough to do the climbs at GT or Comrie all in z2 i’m afraid – to be fair to myself, i doubt many people are.
Also, whilst i think the Training Bible is a great starting point for anyone and would always recommend it, however like to keep my mind open to other ways of doing things. If you read his blog even he conceeds that some elements of the bible may be out of date.

@cookeaa, definitely endurance events for 2017, GT7, 10under, Dragon Ride Devil distance for example and the big goal likely to be Relentless24.

I think i’ve definitely neglected short efforts in the past in favour of endurance and threshold efforts. I think if i was tested i’d have an exceptionally flat CP curve. Would be nice to pull up 10s power without sacrificing elsewhere.
Descending is definitely a weakness, that has just come from coming to mtb from road and not having access to technical singletrack close by.

I’m about to have to put the heating on 🙁

Bump to see if evening crowd have any wisdom to bestow.

Apologies, not read the whole thread, but going to have my 2p anyway.

I really can’t believe we are even considering going ahead with Hinkley. Given that there is a track record of being unable to actually complete construction of the design in question makes it a total non-starter for a project so expensive imo.

Not at all against Nuclear energy, although hopefully long term we continue to get more and more investment in renewable energy sources.

Seems to be plenty of biking, just none of it on your doorstep.
http://www.trailforks.com/region/pitmedden-15951/?lat=39.72443147334095&lon=2.7772668287964253&z=11&m=trailforks

10 days to go before a 1000km/6day tour, so last chance to beast myself before a rest/taper week. Can almost taste the suffering already 😈

Amnesty?

Vittoria are running a tyre Amnesty (there was a thread about it last week), however their marketing department have neglected to tell anybody, and their web based dealer locator says they have lots of dealers – just they all seem to be located in the realm of imagination.

A bit hit and miss for me.
Sometimes fine, other times taking an eternity for pages to load and twice as long to get the full features (bold, quote, etc) for the comment box

I’m not sure if there’s a moral to my story. All the applications I did came to naught, then this job basically dropped in my lap with almost no effort.

Exactly my experience too.
No responses to any applications, then one day randomly ran into a man that knew a man. A few weeks later i’m the sole interview candidate for a job, and the rest is history.

No. I read a Cyclist magazine supplement all about gravel bikes, and I was still none the wiser about why they are different from cyclocross bikes. Is it just chunkier tyres? Different geometry? I scan read all that up there ^ and I’m still unsure.

A gravel specific bike will tend to have bigger tyre clearance, more relaxed geometry, and possibly a slightly slacker head angle.
The gravel bike is to a CX bike what a sportive bike is to a race bike.

Can’t say I really see the point in the whole gravel bike thing here in the UK. 29er with fast tubeless XC tyres rolls along plenty fast enough, and is far more versatile.

For what it’s worth I’m currently running 700 x 35 Rapid Robs.

Not a bad choice at all – come with a kevlar puncture guard, and roll faster than the knobs would suggest. Wear out REALLY fast though – I weigh nothing and mine were pretty much down to the carcass after 500mi.

Small children.

I wouldnt go with the mountain king 2 for wet rock, its a soft conditions tyre. 2.2 would be too narrow for you, and 2.4 has very widely spaced knobs with not much surface area. 2.4 xking or 2.2 trail king are going to be better options.

Not tried it, but the ardent race should in theory be a good option too, with lots of surface area and 3c compound.

Not tried one myself, but rarely seen anyone have anything bad to say about XR2.

Or if you weigh nothing.

I’m thinking when this can happen on a UCI legal bike, then one that is just a giant sail is a recipe for disaster.

I bet that thing is awesome in crosswinds 🙄

If you’re actually after proper gravel racing then yeah, you’re probably right it is a bit lacking, but in no small part because we simply don’t have the miles and miles of gravel roads like other big countries, nor the space to do multi-day events without coming close to civilisation on a too-regular-to-be-worthwhile basis. The only exception to this perhaps being Scotland, and even then, it wouldn’t be an easy event to run…

I think that pretty much sums it up.

I found Crossmarks a bit crap, for a tyre thats supposed to be fast, they are really slow. Can’t fault the grip for an XC tyre though – performed much better than expected in that regard.

If looking at Maxxis i’d look at the Ardent race over the Crossmark2 as the former comes in 3C compound and a better casing.

I find Conti X-king Protection a really versatile tyre that is super fast and has acceptable grip in a fairly wide range of conditions.

If I ever give in to my disturbing desire to buy that bright pink Charge Plug it will probably be from Evans

I think I may be indulging that urge tonight [/quote]

Mission complete 🙂

My parents have a fairly new Dyson one – its ace.
Would have one myself, but keep spending all my spare cash on bikes/kit

As others said, could be the alignment.
My first car was an old rover 214 and it needed alignment redoing every year without fail.