Road cycling has a safety problem. The motorbike crashes, ventoux, cars hitting riders and bad course design, several riders were vocal about ridiculous finishes in the TdF due to having to do what the local tourist board wanted.

Certainly won’t here me disagreeing about the cars/motorbikes. In many cases there would be no race without TV money to pay for it, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of the riders. Have seen some cases this year where the motos outnumber the riders which is madness.

Anyone who thinks/or is they are riding at the same level of commitment as pro rider in a pro race on the public highway is an accident looking for somewhere to happen. I hope they are carrying a donor card!

Actually, it seems very common for amateurs to ride at that level of commitment, sadly without the same skills much of the time. They have had to neutralise one of the descents in La Marmotte as riders kept throwing themselves over the edge of the mountain…….

So we should ban mountains then, and cobbles?

Maybe crosswinds too? (See Alaphilippe’s TT crash in this years tour)

Would love to sit down and chat with CB about it, he clearly has been quite vocal that he had a problem with it, but would love to hear his logic how its different from what riders deal with on a day to day basis.

For me the only difference is the lure of an Olympic medal caused several riders to abandon any caution at all. Maybe we should just ban the Olympics?

I really have to wonder if anyone complaining about that descent actually watches road racing. Go search for Bardet’s descent on youtube, the penalties of getting it wrong there are a sheer rock face or a 1000ft drop, makes the dangers on this weekends course seem bland. And i just used that as an example, there’s any number of mountain descents with life threatening consequences for getting things wrong.

Totally disagree with people criticising the decent. All the athletes knew the risks and made the choice to ride at a speed that was ultimately beyond their limits. The descent was perfectly safe ridden at a more sedate speed.

Fingers crossed all the crash victims from both races recover well, as regardless of whether the descent was or wasn’t dangerous, no-one likes to see athletes getting badly hurt.

I really don’t see how anyone that watches both can claim DH is more dynamic to watch. You spend an hour watching the first 20 go just waiting for the top 5 to find out who wins.
The riders themselves are hidden behind full face helmet, goggles, pads and pyjamas. Not to mention that between poor camera coverage and time between runs you probably spend less than 50% of the time with no rider on screen.

Whereas XC is action right from the gun, riders sprinting shoulder to shoulder. You can watch the top guys literally sprinting up every short climb lap after lap. You can see the expressions on their faces, thighs bulging etc.

I have a pair, generally dont like to wear them, but have come in handy a few times for cold, wet mountain descents.

Oh, she’s going to be gutted

Ooooft, that looked nasty.

PFP looking strong. Do we think after a poor year she’s finally going to be on form for the XC?

It was scheduled to come on BBC1 – not sure when – watching MTB XC WC first. Hopefully timings work to swap to the end of the RR after, then swap back for the mens MTB.

Don’t know exactly how he did it, but a work collegue used to fit a 26″ bike in the back of his polo.

@mikey74:

XC is a 90 min format, does not require the same high endurance required for a 230km road race.

Road does not necessarily require strong climbing, recall London Olympics, course was flat enough team GB rode for Cav. Likewise with descending, not all courses require decending skill.

XC doesn’t require tactical awareness, its a war of attrition, and often boils down to man vs course.

I think what you really are trying to say is they both wear lycra and require pedalling, so therefore viewed through enduro blinkers are identical.

Enduro in the olympics? Has to be a troll thread.
Given the increasing technicality of the courses and short course format, XC has virtually nothing in common with the road race.

@Scotroutes, when/where will official cycle variation be posted? And 23c compatible?

I’m likely to be doing NC500 in a supported charity ride next august, so guess we’ll know daily stopping points and start creating daily gpx files etc by June(ish)

Stick with chest strap, massively superior during exercise.

RBTV app not working on android, but interestingly the Samsung TV version is working fine

Brilliant race, and a worthy winner in GVA, great performance from him staying with the climbers on a climb as long as that.

Holy crashtastic!

Yes, never claimed punctuation as one of my better qualities.
1 Irish, 1 Greek and 1 Moroccan athlete out.

I run cold, live in Scotland, and haven’t seen the sun since May, hence i’ve been buying up weatherproof kit whenever its on sale for the last year or so.

I’ve got a Gabba, Louis Garnaeu Powershield, Endura Classics jersey and Gore Oxygen Windstopper.

Gabba is a without doubt a quality bit of kit, materials are nice, looks good, fit is superb and comes in a range of colours. I wear it with a SS base layer and its good for a temperature range of around 10-17. Windproofing is excellent, breathability is good, water resistance is a disappointment. You can tip water from a jug onto it and it runs off as if 100% waterproof, however flick water off your fingers so its moving at speed (like rain) and it wets out quite easily. Have purchased some nikwax to see if this can be improved. It should however be noted due to the perfect windproofing you remain warm whilst pedalling even when wet.

Garneau powershield is not quite as good a jersey from a design viewpoint, in that the pockets aren’t great and the tail flap is a bit meh. However from a technical viewpoint, i find it better than the Gabba, better breathability, and better water resistance.

Not worn the Endura classics jersey yet, very strange rubbery stretchy material. Expecting very good wind/waterproofing, but maybe not so breathable? Looks good, fits well, seems good quality. New version out now, so last years is heavily discounted at the moment.

The Gore Oxygen jersey is a bit of a different animal in that it has no water repellancy claims. Part windstopper, part normal jersey. The concept is great, and for me at least makes traditional summer jerseys redundant in Scotland. Good from around 13-21 degrees, and if it gets warmer just unzip the front a little. Fit, as with other Gore stuff isn’t perfect, bit baggy round the shoulders. Oh, and 5 pockets is epic – will be buying at least one more of these if i see a good deal on them.

Overall, fabulous bits of kit that largely dispense with the need to carry an emergency waterproof and/or gilet. Have also helped me ‘man up’ and go out on those iffy days where i may previously have opted for a turbo session.

Just a few hours to go before the opening ceremony.
Australian team have been robbed and 3 athletes down already (2 for doping, 1 for groping).
#lolympics

Maybe X is the best option, they pretty much have to give you a new frame if they’ve lost the first one.

Pretty much all the SRAM shifters/mechs work together

https://www.sram.com/sram/road/technologies/exact-actuation

Edit: Force 1 is probably what you want
https://www.sram.com/sram/road/family/sram-force-1

Repayment for me, currently fixed at 1.99% for another year.
Hopefully paid off in 8-10yrs (mid 40’s) then either rent it out to pay mortgage on somewhere bigger, or use money previously assigned to repayments to aggressively grow the early retirement fund.

Another one with the 8am farce here.
If you REALLY need an appointment need to go actually get in the receptionists face at 8am.

Loads of mistakes with some (admittedly unusual) prescriptions, not recognising symptoms are related to long running medical condition etc etc.

Overall find it hard to understand. You need to be really smart to be a GP, but sometimes you are just left scratching head.

Only 6 days for me.
Wouldn’t really consider trying for more as i’d end up with overtraining pretty quickly. Even 6 days was for a holiday, 3 days max under normal circumstances.

Used it this morning and it was fine.
The guy only has a license to display so many OS map tiles per day, quite often runs out early evening.

Just found newsletter from No Fuss in my inbox. Seems we are getting treated to an extra hour this year!

Relentless 24

The UK 24hr championships are set to see course records smashed this year. With the clocks going back one hour at 0200 this will mean that riders will get 25hrs of racing plus one hour to complete their final lap.

Really hoping the MTB will be a great event and we’ll get some good camera positions to really highlight the technical rock features on the course. (and watch the back markers bounce down them on their heads obviously!)

Can’t see past Schurter in the mens. With Neff having a habit of melting when it gets hot and PFP being off form all season, Langvad may well romp away with the womens.

Whilst i have no problem with hardtails in general, I always have similar thoughts about agro hardtails. If you are ploughing into stuff hard enough to need a 140+mm fork then the back end is going to be kicking like a mule. Maybe someone can explain them for me, cos I sure as hell don’t get it.

Welcome to planet earth 2016.
In a society where it is now socially and politically unacceptable to discipline children are we really surprised when they produce this behaviour?

Its a depressing state of affairs for sure, but its what we are now stuck with.

The answer is that most people have too much bike most of the time.
Look at how fast the XC world cup guys are able to ride some properly gnarly features on 100mm bikes.
The rest of us spend most of our time on trails half as gnarly and ride them half as fast, but the media have persuaded us we all need enduro sleds, which despite weighing as much as a small ship and climbing like a hippo, they really do have no drawbacks right?

Pretty sure if they threw away their preconceptions most people would find the sweetspot at around 120mm. We see 140mm bikes show up under top riders at EWS on a fairly regular basis and they hit stuff a lot harder than average joe.

To be fair, 99% of the time the racing community are right

Pretty standard response for something deemed to be only cosmetic damage. Had you noticed it on delivery you’d have had an easy time getting it swapped, as it is, think its a case of take the tyres and move on

Avg speed for rides unsurprisingly heavily influenced by terrain and quality of road surface!

Now that’s the truth, bet I average faster up a 2% grade on a smooth road than I do on some of the flat glorified cart tracks that fife council like to call roads.

In my own defence, people on this forum were saying that 15mph average, over an hour, on a 26″ MTB with nobbly tyres was an easy feat last week

There may be some that can do it, but would probably beyond the vast majority of forumites, and of those that could do it, a sizable proportion would probably be going eyeballs out.

so 22mph average on a road bike didn’t seem like a big deal

Its pretty damn quick for solo riding even riding hard. Definitely in road racer territory rather than casual rider. You’ll be able to find a goodly number of race pace training rides up and down the country where the middle groups only manage what you can do solo.

Would I be worth investing in chamois cream?

Yes

If you do 100-120mi/wk you should be in fine shape to complete your ride.
How long it takes depends on how hard you push and how fit you are.
Somewhere between 7-8hrs would probably be the norm at a steady pace.

I’ll try again.

The borders.

Done a fair bit of the roads west of selkirk already – in many ways its like further north in that theres very few roads = lots of time on A roads (granted not all A roads are that busy).
A bit further east looks like it has potential though

I did the Cairngorm 100 a few years ago, cracking route with a mountain top finish. Can’t find the route for that online though. The roads are generally quite small round those parts so make sure you zoom in on the map

I did follow up on that a bit more – looks to be ~200mi of great riding north of Aviemore. Some spying with google earth looked like it might not be the easiest place in the world to find cafe stops though, and at training pace i’ve only got a range of ~45mi before cafe/bottle fill stop is mandatory.

On a related note, spent ages searching through hotels in various areas – wtf is up with tendency to serve ‘posh’ food. I’m sure it tastes nice enough, but not what you want when you are riding bike all day every day.

That looks a much bigger discrepancy than i’d expect to see just from poor recovery over a 2 day period. More like the kind of thing you find when you’ve totally overcooked it for a prolonged period (like hilly 100 milers ridden in a ‘spirited’ manner every day for a week).