MrSparkle – Member
Done it!
Seemed appropriate to wear this jersey to finish and to go up the Rake (site of National hill climb competition)on the last ride.

Chapeau to anyone who has completed this challenge and who rides up the rake! I’m working up to it, last couple of rides I’ve gone up to the turn-off, but stayed left and headed back down towards Nuttall.

Matt

Agree, the Sky team have been immense. I’ve been more impressed with Richie Porte than with ‘Vroom’. He has wrecked the peleton so many times over the last couple of weeks.

Essentially Brad has followed Miguel Indurain’s ‘How to win the TdF’ manual to the letter, and look at the result.

I’d love to see Brad attack and win the stage, but as above I can’t see ‘incremental gains’ Brailsford allowing it. In his position I would be the same.

Matt

I agree with jota, you simply could not eat enough before you turned vaguely tomato coloured and the world fell out of your arse.

They are just not dense enough in calories.

[Edit] About 18-20 calories per 100g, 2000 cals is at least 10 Kg

Matt

BrickMan – Member

** same has happened ahead of the olympic torch, every road its travelled on has had emergency repairs, even when some of the holes have been there for 6months+ and received a lot of complaints, and the verges cut etc. Magic eh!

Way of the world these days it seems. Have you seen how much beautiful new tarmac the Tour de France is riding over!

Matt

Zoolander – Member
Might just be me but I can’t imagine ‘slow’ ever being something they would say in a race!

I don’t know, there’s no point in belting along when you don’t have to, particularly when you want to win in Paris. It all costs energy.

The idea is to finish first in the slowest time possible!

Matt

Molgrips,

I’ve read this thread from the start, yes I’m that tough!

You post a lot on the threads that I read, so it is clear you are a smart bloke, but you have a real block on this issue. The people posting on here obviously care about you, otherwise it would have stopped after 2 pages.

Firstly, change your goal, it’s stupid. You cannot control who enters a race and so you have no control over the result.

It is clear that you are not willing to make the sacrifices you would need to make, in order to have enough training time to perform at the race winning level. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. I work all week and so see my daughter for an hour in the morning and two in the evening. I never go running or biking when she is awake at the weekend, as I am not prepared to sacrifice that time with her. Work out what you can be given the resources you have, set your goals and plan how to acheive them. Do this now (even before typing ‘but that’s what I am doing’) and make them realistic.

Weight loss and liking food are hugely difficult to reconcile and I speak as someone who probably has bigger issues and worse eating habits than you. People have already said that it’s about what you want more, do you want to lose the weight or do you want cake. I wanted cake (well Haribo, Crisps, Chocolate and Chocolate actually) more than losing weight until I saw a photo of me with my daughter and realised I was a fat pig. Now I still want cake (see above) but I want to be slimmer more and so I don’t eat it.

As Emsz has suggested in her posts, I plan, I prepare food when I can (no trips to TESCO, how easy is it to rationalise a 200g bar of Dairy Milk when you’re going wild in the aisles!), I am on STRAVA so my mates can see (laugh, cry or be impressed at) my running and biking times, I do whatever I can to take away excuses (prepare kit in advance, maintain my bikes, tell people I’m going running/biking so they ask about it the next day). I’m more honest with myself now than I have been for years, but I’m only 7 weeks in.

I’m bigger than you, I run more slowly, cycle more slowly and produce less power (it would be 50:50 on a downhill!). Having said all that, I only live in Bury, so if you wanted to do an hour on the bike one evening give me a shout (it would have to be after 1900, before that is story time).

Now I’ve got to this point I’ve realised this isn’t about you, well not solely about you, so I’ll shut up and go back to lurking. However, if any of you see a ‘somewhat’ out of shape bloke trailing, 3 shandy drinking (true in this case!) southerners at the Big G sportive next weekend, give me a shout, or some Tangfastics!

Matt

philconsequence – Member

less than 2 months til my wedding… can i survive on protein shakes and tins of tuna until then?

Yes, but you’ll smell pretty rank by the time you walk down the aisle.

Matt

chewkw – Member

matt_bl – Member

What a depressing existence you must lead!

I will bet you 50GBP that we win Gold in the Mens Triathlon. Assuming you think that the Brownlee brothers are ‘hyped up’.

Matt

I bet you £200 they cannot win a Gold medal in Badminton or ping-pong.

And what do you expect the target[/u] is in Badminton or ping-pong? After all, that is the point you were making previously.

You could choose any country and find an event where they have shag-all chance of winning.

Personally, I would think there is an outside chance of a medal in the Badminton mixed doubles.

Matt

chewkw – Member

Sport and medals: They will fall very short of their targets because they are all being hyped up recently. Normally, they are only good at one or two events consistently.

What a depressing existence you must lead!

I will bet you 50GBP that we win Gold in the Mens Triathlon. Assuming you think that the Brownlee brothers are ‘hyped up’.

Matt

Timing aside, the French police are not shy when it comes to investigating their own riders.

Chapeau I say, if some other countries took the same attitude the peloton could be clean in no time.

Matt

For me, just the physical difficulty of merely completing the tour means it is by far the biggest acheivement of the two.

Matt

I think the trouble with red light jumping ‘safely’ is that you set up a grey area in your own mind. This will range from the ‘perfectly safe’ (you are the only creature alive after some type of apocalypse) to the perfectly unsafe, where the child’s face is on the tarmac in front of you.

There is a limit to what is safe, which will invariably be different for each person, depending on their risk/hazard perception.

A single instance of RLJ may well be ‘safe’, but saying it is ‘safe’ to RLJ is completely wrong. All in my opinion.

Matt

molgrips – Member
Get your bike fit sorted out. Running is famous for knackering knees, cycling is famous for not knackering them.

Molgrips, is there any hard evidence for this? I have not managed to find any reputable papers, but would be keen to read some.

Thanks
Matt

Water polo, toughest sport in the world, simple as!

Matt

None, best I’ve got is 3rd in a flat sprint outside Tesco!

Judging by the times on the road ones, I’m not likely to get any either.

Matt

GJP – Member
That’s nothing compared to the guys as SigmaSport in Hampton Wick nr Kingston. Yes bespoke is a little more niche but sigma sport does niche and scale

SigmaSportShopTour

I love the sign on the front of the shop.

ROAD[/u] cycling and Triathlon

might as well add, no MTBs you muddy scumbags!

Matt

Indiana Black Snake?

zimbo – Member
You know, people always bang on about the greatest story ever told being that one about that kid born in a barn, became a joiner, good at working up a buffet with limited bread/fish resources etc.

Is there a book, or will I have to wait for the DVD?

Matt

It’s just childish, it will probably be on the first page all night now!

NJee who posts on here had one.

From what I could tell he rated it and there was at least one thread. Might have been pre-hack, but worth a search.

Matt

I can completely recommend the Garmin 210. Well in your price bracket and an absolute doddle to set-up and use.

Matt

I’d second pretty much all of what hmanchester has written, I am now very good friends with legumes since I went GF five years ago.

I still miss bread and god I would love a proper pizza, but it’s just not worth the after-effects.

I feel better in a whole range of ways, I realise that some of the ‘normal’ was actually not normal for my body and seems to have been due to grains!

Matt

hora – Member
hora junior loves that turd. His eyes light up when the ads come on

+1

My daughter now dances (in reality, sort of wobbles a bit) whenever the Hawaii 5 0 music comes on, she doesn’t even need to see the turd thing.

Personally, I love ‘electric dreams’ so more of the same please creative people.

Matt

You pay them X pounds a year to look after little Johnny. Five days free, 10 days half price etc., is all rubbish.

Just use the one number, then if you want to work it our per week divide by 52. Easy.

Matt

Carlsberg export contains SO2 at a higher level than most of your fizzy lagers, pretty close generally to the 10 mg/L labelling level.

In comparison cider will often be many times higher, but I guess that depends on the brand.

Matt

Damn, double post

Matt

The more I read of this, some of it is a bit dull, the more I come to the conclusion that MBoy is her gay friend.

Matt

rockhopperbike – Member
some people are better off keeping their clothes on ! one or two easy on the eye though….

I guess Victoria Pendleton isn’t a typical cyclist after all :cry:

Matt

He turned it in apparently.

Until he was aware it had been returned the DS got a right tetch on!

Matt

TandemJeremy – Member
Matt – sorry – no its not. Citronella is not the main repellent ingredient in Smidge. Citronella in any concentration is ineffective agaisnt midge swarms.

http://2010.midgeforecast.co.uk/images/uploads/Smidge%20January%202011.pdf

TJ

No need to be sorry, I am perfectly well aware that the active in Smidge is Icaridin.

The point I was making is that ‘Smidge’ is designed to be an isect repellent, with an appropriate concentration of the active ingredient. It will be diesigned for efficacy.

Avon SSS is desgned to soften skin, but happily for those who have used it, it also, by containing a active repellent, has some efficacy in keeping insects at bay. The conscnetration of the active ingredient, in SSS case citronellol most likely, will be lower as it is designed to soften skin.

I’m not aware that anyone in this thread has suggest SSS is better, for the vast majority of people it is unlikely to be. I am just trying to stand up for SSS which may be an alternative for people, since there is good anecdotal evidence and a sound scientific basis for its properties.

Would I used SSS in a malaria area or in the hieght of a midge season, probably not, I would go for a product designed to be an ‘insect repellent’.

Matt

TJ,

The difference is that one is designed from the outset to be a repellent product, the other has it as a happy side effect.

Citronellol is very well recognised and characterised as an insect repellent. Concentration is the key difference.

Matt

TandemJeremy – Member
avon is nothing like as effective. it works by drowning them, smidge works by getting them to loose interest in you

Skin so soft contains citronella which is also likely to have a repellent effect.

I suspect the concentration of ‘active ingredient’ is higher in the ‘Smidge’.

Matt

Thanks again, I’m liking the look of the Garmin options, they really get some good feedback, especially the 210 it seems.

The 610 is really tempting as a do everything piece of kit.

The DC Rainmaker reviews are incredible in the amount of detail they provide!

Matt

Thanks all, after trying simple things in Excel itself, I actually didn’t think about googling it.

Appropriately chastised

Matt

Thanks, I’ll have a look at the 405, I don’t mean to start swimming just yet.

Running was enough of a shock to the system!

Matt

the teaboy – Member
Down is definitely my strength in the fells and this seems to translate to downhill on the roads. I try to point my toes downhill and land on the balls of my feet. With a high cadence and relatively short stride length is doesn’t feel like I’m overextending or braking too much with my quads. Oh, and planning where to put my feet 3-4 steps in advance.

This, plus i use a deeper knee bend. It means I can take short strides at really higher cadence, without pitching forward. I often find using this technique I am one of the quicker downhill at the local parkrun. I’m sure it looks a bit odd though :oops:

And Phil.w: is your point with that graph that if you’re running barefoot you should never land heel first??

I find when I’m tired, my form goes and I start to drop my heels harder. Not a pleasant sensation but it’s another good mechanism for preventing you from going too mad to soon.

If you try a genuine heel strike without shoes you’ll soon find out that it’s a bad idea. One or two strides would be enough to convince you.

Matt

It’s a standard box, that’s always been there, but when they fitted infinity another part almost as deep was added.

I just wonder whether the two ‘layers’ are required or whether it’s designed for ease of engineer fitting?

No cable so Virgin is not an option.

Cougar, you could be right, they told me to ditch the other microfilters when it was fitted.

Matt

I started to develop problem after problem when running. First it was ‘runners knee’ then a hip niggle/problem and finally a calf problem that I just could not shake, despite three different pairs of shoes.

I took the plunge and went barefoot/minimal from that day onwards.I used Barefoot Ken-Bob’s book to change my running style. Now I run 2 out of 3 runs a week completely barefoot and the other in five fingers. I took it steadily and I have had no ‘top of foot pain’ or achilles and only ‘growing’ pains in my calves, which now, three months on, are barely noticeable.

Personally I think it is the style change, that barefoot forces on you, which is the greatest difference. To me it’s all about being ‘lighter’, shorter strides, quicker cadence, absorbing the landing. I am not ‘light’ by the way 16st +.

In short works for me.

Edit for Urban Hiker: The majority of barefoot texts and ‘experts’ do not reccommend significant distance without touching down the heel. I found I had to change one part of my style at a time and think about that one part exclusively until it was second nature, then add another. I think it is a long slow process for some, but it does mean that you don’t go too far too soon and injure yourself. Keep pluggin away.

Matt

I’ve tickets for Saturday. Application of sun-block has already commenced!

Looking forward to seeing Cooky putting the Windies bowlers to the sword.

Matt