Can’t remember how long my first took (only time I’ve done a 100 mile sportive, but with a lengthy stop at the feed station) and most of the rest have been untimed club/training rides. Only two properly timed 100 mile TTs – 5.23 for my first attempt and 4.58 yesterday for my second.

One of the comedy highlights of my year is watching the bike mount point at Leeds ITU triathlon. It’s on a hill. The pros mount on the flat at the bottom and usually one or two of them fluff it and don’t get their feet in before climb. Earlier in the day it’s the amateur race and the transition area is in a different place, so they have to mount on the hill. Shoes on the bike and bike in the wrong gear means a lot of them fall off because they don’t have the momentum to get their feet in their shoes. At least two lost about 5 minutes this year due to jamming their chains in the process. I’m meant that be racing it next year and it will definitely be MTB shoes!

Yes – the food is great. Usually we struggle in Spain because my OH is veggie and ends up eating tortilla and cheese sandwiches but there was loads of choice for him.

My garmin recorded the temperature as single figures on last night’s ride…

We were there last week and there were plenty of cyclists out but several people did suggest that it was coming to the end of peak cycling season and the cyclists don’t really go over summer. We had a couple of days over 30 which were a bit on the warm side. I was ok with plenty of cold drinks, ice cream and slushies but my OH suffered a bit more. Lots of the climbs are relatively shaded compared to other places i’ve ridden (canaries etc).

Lots of people seemed to be riding in the evening – you’d get people coming back from rides at 9pm etc.

Wonderful place – I really want to go back now!

Tonight’s TT got cut from 15 to 10 because it was cold and windy and no-one wanted to be out for too long. Can’t say I disagree with the decision after riding it but FFS it’s meant to be summer!

I have Rudy project rydons with transitions lenses from Rx sport. I only got them this year (prescription relatively weak so I used to ride in non-prescription glasses) and they’ve been great.

I’d vote wheel on trainer and swop bikes – it takes seconds.

Yup, got covered in them on this morning’s ride.

I’ll be out there today. Technically I’m working but I’ve been invited to a bike networking event so I’m riding over to Harrogate, watching the race then riding back. A hard life… I’ll watch the women come through north Leeds before I set off.

Yesterday looked grim – I was stuck inside all day but could hear the rain hammering down.

I wear Specialized because it works for my hair. If I’m wearing a cap etc under the helmet I still need to go with a low pony (below the helmet) as the cap covers where the hairport is but if I can I’d always rather put the hair through rather than under – much more comfortable. When I used to do triathlon I used pigtails because it was less faff in transition to just put the helmet on rather than pulling it through, but I was younger then and it’s starting to look a bit silly as I get older…

We were up there walking with family yesterday. A walk in the morning then lunch at the cow and calf and we could see the smoke as we started to walk back down to Ilkley. By the time we came out in the town there were lots of fire engines heading up and much more smoke. It was very dry up there.

My dad tried to phone at 10pm. Both me and my OH were already asleep and slept through the phone ringing. Woke up to an answerphone message. Even worse we’re actually on holiday in Brussels (but had an early-ish start to get to some cyclocross this morning so took it easy on the beer yesterday).

We were there, brilliant racing and atmosphere. Will have to watch again when we got home to see some of the bits we missed!

I have the 1.2 petrol Partner and yup, rocking horse droppings would describe it well – our old car (petrol Berlingo) died on us and we wanted to get our hands on one quickly – the guy at the dealership described it as like looking for a unicorn. We did get one though and I don’t think it’s too bad (but then I’m not a car expert by any means). £30 tax is also nice when the old Berlingo was £260ish!

We’ve got a fair amount into the Berlingo but the most impressive feat was 4 adults and a bike in a Citroen c1.

We were woken up by some at 3am…

I feel sorry for the staff in my local store who are pretty good.  It’s close to work and tends to be my favoured spot for popping and getting bits and pieces when I don’t want to faff around ordering online (or using click and collect).  I bought a bike from them about 10 days ago and they did me a decent deal combining trade in/price match/BC discount and some free fitting of accessories and a couple of freebies (tubeless valves etc).  I do have other options (Cycle Republic a similar distance away from work or Cycle Surgery a bit more of a walk away, and another couple of shops nearer home) and suspect I’ll use those more in future particularly if the business model starts to change or the good staff leave.

I’ve just got an arkose for this. Only picked it up this week but initial signs are promising. I’ve got 32mm road tubeless tyres and mudguards on it. Turned up for this morning’s club run to realise that everyone else had cried off due to the weather so went to play on some tame bridleways instead. It didn’t put a foot wrong all morning.

Picked mine up today 🙂 need to get the slicker tyres and guards on, but a quick ride this afternoon felt good 🙂

I have those bontrager ones on my current commuter so I may give them a go on the arkose too then – thanks!

Hello! I’ve just ordered an arkose 3. The women’s version is down to £1012 and i’ve got something in the garage i can trade in to get another £100 off. I’m planning to run it with road tyres (28s?) and mudguards for now – any recommendations?

I have the amdro bootjump – used it in my old Berlingo and my new partner. Two of us can cope quite nicely in it for two week camping holidays although we do use an awning for storage/extra space. You can definitely feel the weight when it’s in, and we struggle to get bikes and two weeks worth of camping stuff inside the car so when the bootjump is in we use a towbar rack instead unless it’s only for a night or two.

We also don’t use it as a daily driver as we both cycle to work, and only really use the car for bike transport/camping/moving bulky stuff so handling etc is less of a concern.

I’ve got rim brakes on mine which works for most of the riding I do and means I can use my existing collection of wheels.  I haven’t had a major issue with them other than them getting a bit warm while descending Covadonga the other week (carbon rims).

I’d actually also be interested on feedback on the brakes – I want to get a disc braked avail as a winter bike and was hoping that the 2019 would have a full hydraulic/105 option but it doesn’t, so I’m trying to decide whether to go for the hybrid version or look at other options.

I have a Langma Advanced Pro 0 (2018) so can’t comment on the brakes, but I love the bike.  I managed to write my first one off in a crash and bought an exact replacement as soon as the insurance money came through.  I’d definitely recommend giving it serious consideration.

My OH and I are both cyclists and we both spend what we want. We have separate finances so once the bills are covered it’s up to each of us what we do with the rest.  Recently I was working out how much insurance cover we needed and had to ask him how much his new bike cost. He’d built it up himself and hadn’t actually added it up until that point…

I am just moving onto the Coventry 5 year fix mentioned up there – already set up for a start date of 1 October (signed the mortgage deed yesterday).  The interest rate might not be super low but it’s way lower than my previous fix/the SVR I’d move on to, and my circumstances mean that I am in a position to make decent overpayments (I’m waiting for a probate house to sell and will then get a share of the proceeds, so I know that I should be able to pay about 50% of the new mortgage off within the next year).  That means that although I’ve technically taken it out over 10 years (with 5 of them at a fixed rate) I should be able to pay it off before the deal runs out.

Great cars.  We bought a bootjump as we don’t have the time or skills to do a DIY version but it’s been well worth the money – we’ve done 2 week trips to Ireland, Belgium and the Alps in it, and we’re off to Northern Spain this year.  We use it with a bike rack rather than trying to get the bikes inside on the longer trips – although they do fit in for weekends it’s a bit more faffy and cramped.  We’re onto our 2nd (although technically the new one is a Partner) and everything could just be transferred to the new one with no fuss.

I’m another one in the “one of the risks you accept on a group ride” camp – and I say this having recently written off a £4k road bike in a crash on a club ride.  If you want to ride in close proximity to other people you accept that there are risks of doing so.  For that I claimed on my insurance rather than blaming anyone else, but it wouldn’t be worth an insurance claim for a mech I wouldn’t have thought.

I love my Liv langma*, but it’s going to be above that budget and I think most of the carbon Liv’s will be similar. I was surprised how much difference female specific geometry made for me (although to be fair now I know what I’m trying to replicate I have got my other bikes much closer in fit with a few tweaks).

*Technically I don’t have one at the moment because I wrote it off but it will be replaced like for like once the insurance payout comes through…

I am in the process of taking out a remortgage on a fully flexible deal with no ERCs – the interest rate isn’t as much higher as I expected and much lower than my current lender’s SVR (although admittedly there are fees involved to set it up).  In my case it’s because I’m expecting an inheritance in the next six months or so (currently waiting for a property to be sold and the proceeds divided up) and it made more sense to remortgage then pay it down than to wait, particularly if rates rise in the meantime as I’ve locked in a 5 year rate.

Northern Spain in late August/early September, as the Vuelta passes through

I rode the Holmfirth 10 – £10 for first female V40.  Very windy – strong tailwind out and strong headwind back.

On Thursday it was our club 25 mile championships.  Tom Pidcock turned up and took 40 seconds off the one lap (12.5 mile) course record which has stood for years.

I’m with Pedalcover – going through a claim at the moment.  You don’t need to specify each bike and we have an away from home accidental damage limit of £8k which covered my almost brand new £4k bike without needing to tell them about it when I bought it.

Slight niggle at the moment is that I’m chasing for updates on my claim and not getting calls returned, but I think it’s because they’re struggling to get an answer from the manufacturer – they’ve confirmed it’s covered, the delay is working out whether the replacement will be a frameset or a full bike.  (And it hasn’t been that long to be fair, I’m just impatient when I look out of the window and see sunshine!  I have other bikes, but none I like as much as that one)

I haven’t been on this thread much this year but still TTing.  YRC 50 for me yesterday – I paced it really nicely to pick up a PB and a prize for 2nd lady.  Not a huge field admittedly, but I realised that I also rode at a faster average speed than the 2nd lady in the 25 which pleased me greatly.

Theotherjonv – was about to point that one out. Asshats as the triathletes may have been, noone is ever FORCED to overtake into traffic.

I’m a member of 2 clubs.  One is a club which has been around years and while the old hands know the ropes, and there is coaching for juniors, there wasn’t historically much in between.  Around the time I joined they set up a new “social” section of easier rides than the traditional club rides, but no-one coming through those groups ever got any real training in group riding and all the established riders stuck to the sections they’d always been in so didn’t pass that knowledge on.  I rode with the traditional sections and got told to do by the 70 year olds (our Old Ken was a Bernard ;)) but there has been some muttering about the riding discipline in the newer groups (as well as people muttering about why rides need to be listed on facebook etc because surely everyone knows that you just turn up at 9am on a Sunday morning…).

The other club didn’t exist when I joined my first club, but then started meeting basically at the end of my road.  I waited to see how it developed but have joined it this year – it’s now big enough that it can get 100 riders out on a Wednesday evening.  They are a *lot* more disciplined on group rides, with proper ride briefings explaining the calls and how to ride as a group, they manage numbers by getting people to sign up to events on facebook and making sure there are enough ride leaders to split into groups of about 8-10 (and if there aren’t enough ride leaders to make more groups they declare the ride full).  They also run step up rides for people wanting to move to the next group up.  You can really see the difference between the two clubs when you see them out riding.  Having said that, when I crashed last weekend it was with this club…

No law that I’m aware of.  Last night I did 50 miles in a group of 12 which is about as big as my club goes.  Beyond that it splits into smaller groups, and last night there were a couple of sections where we split into two groups of 6 with a gap between us to make it easier to pass.  I actually crashed on a ride with the same club on Saturday (9 riders in the group) when two riders touched wheels but I understood the risks before I started doing group rides so it hasn’t stopped me getting back out with them.

Hmm..

Flats – MTB – 1 pair of shoes

SPDs –4 bikes (commuter, cross bike, fixie, old commuter). Each with their own set of pedals permanently affixed. 2 pairs of shoes.

Powertaps – 4 bikes share one set of pedals (good road bike*, old good road bike**, TT bike, bike that’s at my Dad’s house in Spain). 3 pairs of shoes (old road shoes, new road shoes, tri shoes which I use without socks on the turbo). I do have some spare keo pedals but don’t use them as it’s so easy to switch the powertaps.

*recently crashed and awaiting insurance replacement

**i.e. what was my best bike until I bought the new one, and which has now resumed that position while it is out of action.

Yes – going down the accidental damage route