If ebikes make cycling more accessible then so be it. For the vast majority of the population what we might consider a gentle trail feels like a mountain and is a turn off.

I gave my neighbour my old rockhopper, he doesn’t ride it much as he gets out of puff going up a <3% gradient on the road outside the house, let alone doing anything remotely off road.

I suspect had I given him an ebike he would be using it a damn site more.

ebikes will always be heavier and light bikes feel so much nicer
ebikes will be more expensive for a given weight

There will always be a market for the pure, non electric cycling experience both on and off road.

Look at it this way, have gears resulted in the demise of single speed and fixed wheel bikes? Has suspension rendered hard tails and rigid bikes redundant off road? Of course not.

Ebikes will attract more people to cycling but think about why people cycle… There are as many reasons as there are types of bikes and that will continue to be the case, ebikes or not.

Anybody seen any benefit to glucosamine, cod liver oil etc? (I know the science is sketchy so placebo is fine )

Both my physio and knee surgeon say no, assuming you are already eating a balanced and healthy diet and if not then now is the time to start.

First, find out what’s wrong with your knee. Your GP may just take a wait and see approach (often all that’s needed) but go and find a good sports physio and pay for an assessment.

Oh and be prepared for it to be normal wear and tear and not covered under your warranty, getting old sucks :-)

used to use White Lightning Clean Ride, was OK but occasionally would see rust on the chain when getting it out of the shed. Easily avoided by cleaning and lubing more often but sometimes it I just wasn’t in the mood.

Swapped to Fenwicks Stealth. Worked well for me, only downside was a bit more time consuming to apply.

Then tried UBS, my current favourite. Decanted into a little pump spray so I can be more accurate on application. Not strictly a dry lube but gives me similar results. After ride I just hose the chain and cassette, then apply a couple of pumps onto the chain/cassettes while spinning cranks, wipe excees from side of chain and am done cleaning and lubing in less than a minute. Longevity seems to be better if applied after ride rather than before ride. periodically I’ll do a deep clean off the whole bike with bucket of soapy water and use UBS to wipe bike down.

Last week tried a free sample bottle of Squirt, admittedly on road bike, didn’t get on with it. Chain was much noisier than with UBS, Stealth or White lightning. Swapped back to UBS after ride as the noise was bugging me.

UBS for regular rides, Stealth for extended rides.

How about a Rab Vaporise vest

http://rab.equipment/uk/shop/men/vapour-rise/vapour-rise-flex-vest

Not waterproof but as other posters have pointed out the rain will come in through the arm holes and you will get just as wet as wearing a windproof.

I love vapourise kit, it keeps the wind off, is very light and most important it makes use of denier gradient which very effectively moves moisture from the inside to the outside, no really it does.

Yes you do get wet under really heavy rain but it manages to keep me warm and comfortable and dries out very quickly as well as helping dry out what ever I am wearing underneath

I use Vapourise kit all the time, walking, skiing,sea kayaking and mountain biking and hardly ever have to wear a waterproof these days, apart from sea kayaking in the winter where I where vapourise under a drysuit.

Bar ends, I remember them, back in the day when mountain bike riders used to ride up long climbs and being able to change hand positions made going uphill more bearable. Now they just push uphill or worse still get a bus. The world has gone mad!!!

Fingerless gloves, stinging nettles. Not a problem on the road but definitely a problem offroad round here.

How about

disc brakes
electronic shifting
tubeless tyres
endurance/TT/race sub classes of road bikes with different geometry
11 speed
Carbon compliance layups

29er’s are cumbersome on short people.

My 5’6″ wife would disagree, she swapped from a 26″ Rockhopper to a 29″ Jett and loves it. She is faster more confident and better able to keep up with me which means she enjoys riding with me more.

I have just switched from an old Alu defy 4 (2011/2012 maybe) to the advanced pro 1. I cant really compare to many other road bikes though but its safe to say I am very happy :-)

The advanced pro feels alive in comparison, push the pedals and wants to leap forward, its particularly noticeable on climbs. It also nice to have discs, just feels right compared to my old Defy callipers. Its a looker as well, love it.

I live in the Chew Valley, just south of Bristol. 15-20 mins drive to get to either Ashton Court or the Mendips. Quantocks, Cwmcarn, Cotswolds all with in about an hours drive.

These days I ride the road bike more than the MTB, mainly because I can ride it from the door, without the faff of loading a bike into/onto the car and driving somewhere. That means I ride more often, not just on weekends, which means I am fitter and faster when I do ride my MTB.

I don’t have any decent MTB trails I can ride from the door but I do have plenty of quiet country roads, fantastic pubs and some stonking hills to ride on the road bike, its anything but dreary.

Judging by the amount of roadies (I’m one of them btw) out last weekend around the Chew Valley and Mendips I would say its pretty damn popular. A bunch of racers and team cars swooped past me in Burrington Combe on Saturday. No idea who or what though.

Googled it: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/events/details/122707/Junior-Tour-of-the-Mendips-

Heart rate training can be a bit of a minefield.

While its true that working out in the fat burning zone burns a higher percentage of fat compared to glycogen, working out at a much higher heart rate simply burns more of both. So rather than sticking to a fat burning zone try riding before breakfast, as hard as you can for 30-45 mins daily. Have you ever seen a fat cycle commuter?

I lost 15kg over 18 months doing this.

Last September I did a walk (loop Laga Bay, up to the summit of Ben Laga and then back down to Glenborrowdale.

The track up from Laga (south of Loch Laga) is a good but loose stony track mostly but its steep and wouldn’t want to go up or down it on a fully loaded Tandem. Actually it would be a push on anything but a XC bike.

We returned back to Glenborrowdale via the Castle and the top part of this track (SW of Loch Laga) is very boggy in places. You might regret tacking a fully loaded bike on it.

There were also clegs the size of Marbles eating us alive whenever the wind dropped.

I see this lock not as an unattended lock but a lock you use when you stop at a cafe or pub.

If the mechanical aspects are decent enough then any thief is unlikely to defeat it on their first attempt especially if they have not come across it before and may give you enough time to get back before they do.

My only real concern is the price.

ride but listen to your body.

A ride does not need to be full gas to be fun. Enjoy the views, take the wife, stop at the pub, ride somewhere new. Before long you will be enjoying your riding again and not worrying about your heart.

The Twrch climb, is a little tricky but not impossible to clean but to clean it fitness helps big time, its not that the technical bits are super tricky but more about how wobbly your legs are when you get to them.

If you are out of shape don’t expect to clean it one and there is nothing wrong with taking a break or pushing the trickiest parts. I have cleaned it all, just never on the same ride :-)

The Cafal climb is less technical but again a good level of fitness helps.

With the right bike both climbs are enjoyable in a challenging sort of way.

I think I might be becoming one of those guys. I am in fast approaching 50, as fit as I have ever been and seem to fly past young uns on the climbs, just like I remember being passed by old blokes when I was young.

My road bike I think has a big part to play in this as it lets me get out and ride way more than if I just rode MTB at the weekends.

I am in a similar situation with the MRI showing a medial meniscal, posterior horn tear and patella chondral damage. The consultant talked about surgery (debride) and I asked about recovery time and he said it varies between individuals but suggested the following

two days bed rest
two weeks of limited activity (no driving etc)
up to six weeks of taking it easy, so easy short rides, physio. strengthening
then its down to how much pain you can tolerate but it may take up to a year for the pain to go

I think the key here is everybody is different, depending on the nature of the original injury, age fitness etc

5 months since the original injury and I am still working with the physio after having had one relapse after I thought I had got on top of it with strengthening exercises.

I make use of what ever is around me, usually no shortage of these around here..

managed to find a pic of me with my heavily tricked out proflex and wearing my SuperB gloves. September 1997 it says in the album and by that stage I had been mountain biking for 10 years already!

No elastomers here.

Have only just retired my superBs, literally just a few months ago. A couple of fingers now poking out through the ends and a bit smelly. Still, they must of lasted for the best part of twenty years! I got the reds ones to match my red Proflex 856!

+1 for the Defy

I bought a bottom of the range Defy 4 as my first road bike a few years back. Looks and feels way more expensive than it was (about 500 quid if I recall correctly).

Still riding it today, 3 times a week.replaced the chain a couple of times, been through a fair few brake blocks in the winter, a couple of gear cables and some minor fettling to tighten the odd bolt.

It seems to take the rough and pot holled roads round here in its stride.

To be honest I have not ridden anything else in that price bracket but its hard to see you going wrong with a Defy.

Stretch! Back pain is sometimes caused by tight hip flexors, mine was. Also make sure you stretch the hamstrings, quads, glutes and calves And do pilates, it’s ace

yep, stretches are the key.

after riding my road bike I would get pain and spasms in my lower back.

I now do lower limb stretches before and after rides and am completely cured but if I skip a couple of stretching sessions I feel it coming back.

There are right and wrong ways of stretching though, so its well worth getting some advice from a physio but after that its something you can do on your own.

As I get older stretches seem to be getting more and more important

Have recently started using UBS and have decanted some from their spray bottle into a small ex cosmetics pump spray. Makes application more precise and saves on wastage. far better than the supplied spray bottle or dropper.

this sort of thing, using this I can see it lasting ages

Ride
Quick hose down just with water
Spray on to cassette while turning cranks until chain covered
spray on to front and rear mech
spray onto SPDs
On MTB spray around suspension pivots/shocks
Spray onto rag and wipe frame down
Put bike away

All done in a couple of minutes and the drive chain looks like new and ready to go again.

Its so quick to do I and now even doing the above after a 30 min cold and mucky lunch time road ride where as previously the bike would of been just thrown in the shed dirty until the next ride.

Not tested it on any long wet rides yet

Abernethy, a few weeks back.

The UBS big bottle has a wide spray and, 180 degrees away, a narrow spray, if that helps?

wasn’t so much the spray pattern as such but the volume that comes out when you pull the trigger, seemed very wasteful

I think, given scottoilers background is that UBS works best when applied often. Their motorcycle chain lube system is based on a less tacky lube applied as you ride so it does not need to be super tacky.

if its less tacky it wont attract as much dirt and if its easy to wash off (hose it off with garden hose) getting rid of any dirt that does stick is easy. making the whole process of cleaning and lubing a chain far quicker making you more inclined to do it on a regular basis.

I have not used it for long enough to verify the above yet.

From their website

Application

After a long ride wash your bike with water and give it a quick spray with UBS. Just leave it on and your bike is ready for the next run. Pay particular attention to the chain set and chain. If you can’t access a bike wash, spray with UBS as it will protect your bike and make it easier to clean when you can. UBS is safe to use on all bike parts EXCEPT brake pads and discs. If you get UBS on the discs or pads don’t panic! It easily washes off with water.

Have just started using UBS on four bikes, 2 MTB and 2 road. too early to tell yet but fingers crossed.

However I don’t like the supplied spray bottle as it goes everywhere, onto your braking surfaces and onto the patio so I have decanted some into a smaller pump spray bottle that used to contain some cosmetic from superdrug so that the spray is more contained and I don’t waste so much. I tried the dropper bottle but its a very expensive way to buy it and it does so much drop as gush out being water based, so just use my little pump spray now which has the benefit of being just as portable us the UBS dropper bottle.

I have used FS365 in the past for protecting bikes, in particular stanchions from road salt on long drives up to Scotland in the winter and my guess is UBS is a development of FS365 as it shares many of the same properties.

What was nice about FS365 and therefore I presume UBS is its safe to use around suspension linkages and seals. Its water based, so no penetrating solvents to wash your grease away.

So with UBS I spray the chain and cassette using my ex cosmetic pump spray, spray around suspension linkages, fork stanchions and SPDs, then finally spray a small amount onto a cloth and wipe the frame down.

I spent a winter season in Nethy Bridge near Aviemore a few years back while in-between jobs so spent plenty of time going up and down the A9 visiting mountains to climb, bike and ski.

Went up recently and the A9 was indeed much calmer and a much more pleasurable experience to drive.

Its worth noting that the speed limit is a maximum speed, not a target or a minimum. Nor is it a wide open road free of danger. Ok, so as UK roads go its on the straight side but it has its own dangers that might not be immediately obvious such as deer running out into the road, trust me you don’t want to see the aftermath of that!

Have they actually reduced that speed limit overall?

20 mins longer is not a big deal, if it means that much leave 20 mins earlier
Chill out, calm down and don’t be in such a hurry, there are few things in life that warrant trying to save 20 mins of time over.

see http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/anyone-doing-zwift?

Yep, I got accepted last week. Software loaded no problems onto my windows 8.1 Sony Vaio S laptop (2 years old).

I have done a couple of sessions on it and its strangely compelling and I find myself drafting someone on the run in to the finish, trying to get a jump on them and cross the line first. Despite them being strangers.

I am still setting up my trainer at the moment, experimenting with using my road bike or an old mtb with a trainer tyre on. The road bike feels right but I dont want to wear down its expensive tyres or fanny around swapping tyres/wheels each time I want to train. So thought an old unused rockhopper hardtail fitted with a trainer tyre could sit on the trainer semi permanently and save my road bike tyres. Its just the mtb doesnt feel right on the trainer and I can see me running out of gears on a big effort

I use the Velez but only for cold weather mountain biking, when its around freezing with just a Helly Hansen base layer underneath.

Works fantastically and the side zips let you dump heat quickly if need be. Above 5C its getting too warm for me to use it though.

Above 5C or so I use a Rab Vapourise Lite smock. Technically not waterproof but amazingly keeps you comfortable in all but the very worst rain. I will also carry a Montane Featherweight smock to throw over the top if it does get really wet or cold, again not waterproof bu the two combined is as near as dammit

My LBS is Bass Ass Bikes and they seemed to understand where their value add is and have recently moved their workshop to front of house, presumably to highlight that’s what they are about.

For example my Anthem 29er, needed a new chain. I counted 116 links on the factory fitted chain but could only find 114 link chains from the internet stores. So I ring bad ass for their advice, they were surprised it needed 116 but if I bought the chain from them they would throw in any extra links if required to make a 114 up to 116. Their chain was about 30% more expensive than the same I could find online. To be sure I got the correct length chain fitted I called in with my bike. Ten minutes later was walking out with a new chain, fitted and with the extra links required just for the price of the chain. Saving me time and hassle making it worth the extra cost even though I am perfectly capable of fitting a chain myself.

Every time I use Bad Ass they do something to add value that I cant buy on the internet.

Contacts for me. Daily disposables. Riding in my prescription glasses just seems wrong to me, they feel heavy and fragile compared to me contacts and bike sunglasses.

I prefer glasses for work computer and electronics stuff and then for my lunch time bike rides I put in a pair of daily disposables just for the bike ride, swapping back to glasses when I get back to work. Although this is to use up my stock of single vision dailies.

Recently I have another issue that my near sight has dropped off a cliff and now have a new supply of multifocal contacts but don’t ask me how they work but they do. Using a Garmin or reading a map while out in my older single vision contacts got increasingly hard work. So the multifocal contacts get used at the weekends and when on holiday.

But sooner or later I will run out of my old single vision contacts and will need to make a decision about my lunchtime bike rides

1. Use my multifocal contacts just for an hours bike ride. seems a waste
2. Buy some prescription sunglasses just for riding. Sounds expensive
3. just put my regular single vision glasses on and squint :-(

BTW, I have sea kayaked and white water kayaked in my contacts and have never lost one when capsizing. I might not be ale to see for a while as the lens gets washed around in my eye but so far its always stayed in.

I have had good results with

buh-bump heart rate monitor cream

you use such a tiny amount one bottle has lasted me years and the fact I have lost it somewhere :-(

its most likely overuse, nothing to worry about but your GP is the man to ask but odds on he will just recommend rest and ibuprofen.

I’m into my third month of knee pain after twisting it badly climbing. Initially I had swelling and intense pain down the inside of the knee where it joins my lower leg, medial ligament apparently. When that eased I was left with pain under the knee cap (Anterior knee pain). It locks out when I straighten my leg meaning I cant walk normally and it feels very odd.

Doctor is still saying just rest it and take pain killers 3 months in :-(

Loads of health benefits & no negatives*

I would put drowning down as a negative…

And lets face it you are much less likely to drown when not in water. :-)

If you want dry feet, avoid neoprene ones. Neoprene is what wetsuits are made of. The clue is in the name. They get wet, and use the layer of water trapped between the neoprene and your skin, which is warmed by your body, to keep you warm.

Partially true. Neoprene itself is completely impervious to water but like other waterproof materials the construction is key. Its possible water can get in via the seams if not taped/sealed/glued. However none of this matters as there is likely to be a dirty great big hole in the top where you stick your foot in and a dirty great big hole in the bottom for your cleat.

Neoprene can be an excellent insulator in its own right as in most cases it has bubbles of nitrogen within it that gives excellent insulation and buoyancy.The thicker the neoprene the more nitrogen bubbles it contains and the warmer it will be. If it was purely about warming the water between the skin and the neoprene then a thicker wetsuit would not provide extra warmth, but it does.

In a wet suit the water gets in through the holes you stick your arms and neck through mostly and to a lesser degree the seams. Neoprene wetsuits are design to be tight fitting to minimise the amount of water next to the skin, cold water flushing into a loose fitting wetsuit is not nice as it will conduct the heat away from your body but the insulation mainly comes from the nitrogen bubbles in the neoprene. If you are constantly flushing cold water past your skin then the insulating properties of the neoprene are fighting a lost cause.

Neoprene is therefore an excellent choice of material to for making overshoes, its tough, has some stretch, its warm and the neoprene itself is 100% waterproof.

BTW, I use neoprene diving boots, neoprene wetsuit and a membrane drysuit sea kayaking all year so have gained a fair amount of experience of being wet and cold.

I got a rab vaporise this year after reading the reviews ,& so far i’m very impressed . It’s has been a bit warm to wear so far because of the unusually warm weather , but this last week at 6 in the morning it’s been exactly what i need .
I was beginning to wish i’d bought the Montane dyno , but happy now the temperatures dropped a bit .

Its worth mentioning that Rab Vapourise comes in 3 versions

Lite
Regular
Guide

The regular and guide version for me are winter only garments. The lite gets used autumn through winter to spring and is the version best suited to mountain biking if you run hot. Go for the smocks (lite and regular) that have the stretchy side panels.

The outer material is Pertex Equilibrium pertex Equilibrium

Rab Vapourise

If I could only keep one piece of outdoor clothing it would be my vaporise

Rab Vapourise lite pull on

I use vapourise for everything from mountain biking. winter walking in the highlands, to skiing and sea kayaking. Last time I checked I had about 8 vapourise garments in the “gear room”.

it excels in those damp drizly conditions where you would boil in a hardshell or traditional softshell, especially if you run hot. Yes if it rains hard you will get wet but you will be surprised how long you stay comfortable for.

Its light,not overly warm, but warm enough packs down reasonably small, works well next to the skin or with a fast wicking base layer like a helly hansen. Not so good with merino as the inner face of vapourise catches on the merino when trying to put it on or take it off, the merino will also tend to saturate when working hard, where as polypropylene as used in a helly will move any sweat to the vaporise better.

I usually carry a lightweight shell as a backup if expecting conditions to worsen, goretex paclite smock or Montane featherweight windproof.

http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/rab-vapour-rise-lite-pull-on-p289396

don’t use a wash in reproofer though, only the spray on stuff. washing in tech wash is fine though.

if you run hot its a cracking autumn, winter spring bit of kit for any active outdoor activity.