I like the Troy Lee / ODI lock on ones, on my second pair.

I love my 2017 Smuggler, use it as my ‘fun’ mtb. It’s done the Megavalanche, lots of bike part uplift days, long trail centre days, enduros, you name it. I got mine as frame only and have a 140mm Pike. The newer ones have a slightly slacker head angle and a designed around a shorter stem, but if you aren’t used to that new type of bike geometry it would take some getting used to. Even my Smuggler was very weird to ride at first coming from a HT.
oh and it always feels like it has way more travel on the back than is actually does, which is a win.

and therefore a wider tyre like 28mm helps create the optimum aerofoil shape.
Likewise, with modern tyre construction, a 28mm tyre had lower rolling resistance than a 23mm once of similar construction.

This. They will be more aero and faster than your 23mm tyres. But don’t forget, the least aerodynamic thing about cycling is the shape of the human body.

I’m planning on a 140km sportive in it in Belgium

Well the word ‘sportive’ says a lot – about your current riding style, whatever about your desires and ambitions that I’m not sure. You’ll be able to complete it and should comfortable provided it’s set up properly for you, but I’d get frustrated at the gears spinning out, and annoyed at the riding position on the descents – in fact the riding position in most areas really. That’s just naming two of the issues.

I do ride my 29er on the road for short spins, 1 hour max… but that’s only if its extremely bad weather or for a recovery spin or something.

Multiple tyres/rims on a 29er HT.. all we need 🙂

So many things wrong with that, I’m going to 100% presume or hope you are joking.

I’ve enjoyed reading every reply so far.

I’d also point out that bike sales are (mathematically) a differential of what’s actually being ridden. i.e. they’re the gradient of the graph not the area under it. They could sell a gravel bike every day for a year, and still not make a dent on the Sunday morning roadie clubrun numbers

He did also say in the shop that maybe a lot of roadies just know what they like and want, and stick to buying their gear and bikes online now, as they’ve all progressed from being the newbies years ago. But he doesn’t personally see that many new ones coming in to the sport – taking road as mtb as two different sports.

I think the improvements in mountain bike design has actually alienated a lot of the casual riders as the stuff you have to ride to get that fun factor on a modern mountain bike is a lot more technical than twenty years ago and it can be quite intimidating for a lot of people who only ride off road occasionally.

This is a good point to be fair, although every time I go to a smooth trail centre loop there are people on 160mm travel or more enduro bikes.

I have an all black Transition Smuggler with orange callipers and blue rotors, and some blue pinstripe bits on the bars (Chromag). I like it, but might not be for everyone.

Yeah, skinny tyres, rim brakes. Designed for lightness, not durability

Actually – the movement now is much more towards aero frames over lightweight, aero is faster over most terrain apart from very hilly. Get with the times 😉 .
Might have opened another debate there in itself though.

Creatine has no effect on hypertrophy

Yeah I should have made the emphasis more on resistance training. Although, I have noticed myself that when on creatine, my weight increases by about 2kg when training heavily on the bike 6 days a week with maybe 2 light body resistance workouts and I do look bigger (some people argue this is pure water weight). Some of this weight drops off the week or two before a big event as I’ll lower the creatine a bit then. But I’ve heard and read support that creatine can also help for longer distance and endurance athletes as it helps store more fluid in your muscles and throughout your body. Although the main use for most people has been for power.

clearly I will be gaining some muscle while training a little more,

Not a huge amount, unless you’re on creatine and doing heavy resistance training at the same time. Usually I would say you build muscle in the gym before hitting the bike hard, the two don’t go together so well when full on.
Also – Most of the long term muscle mass you develop up until your early 20s, so depends on age.
Common misconception that training equals muscle mass. There will be visual difference in tone from fat less but not a massive amount of muscle gained (from my experience, and body testing on fancy equipment throughout the season).

Just to add it really depends on your own body type and natural ability on flats versus hills etc. Some power riders will never be great in the hills but they can churn out a high wattage on the flats hour after hour. Goes back to the 300 figure you gave… it’s a sub threshold figure for me and a lot of riders, so you should be able to stay in that zone for quite a long time. But hard to know with little to go on.

Could someone answer this for me please?
If a rider is putting out 300 watts and weighs 90 kg, how much faster would he be (all other factors like hills/aero etc disregarded) if he lost 15% of his body weight?
Assuming the loss is all fat, and the power output would remain the same.

Just quoting so I can reference.

You say hills disregarded? Hills are probably where that kind of change would be noticed the most. If it’s not hills and flat, then what kind of conditions? An ultra? A time trial? A road race where you can sit in the bunch?
My guess is you weigh 90kg and are trying to lose 15% fat while training. This is fully possible and you should be able to keep pretty close to the current muscle mass you have if you follow a diet with protein in every meal and eat 5 or 6 times a day (we’re not being bodybuilders here but protein is very important).

In the training process you will likely (obviously) gain more power, so wherever you got that 300 figure from I don’t know ….FTP? It will likely rise a bit anyway over a few months.

To give an estimate, I weighed 68kg last year at the start of heavy training. With good training and diet my weight went down to 64kg over about 4 months, but I only lost 300g of muscle mass. My times on all out climbs that would have taken me about 8.5 or 9 minutes went down to about 7.5 minutes at about 400 – 440 watts , about 550watts max.
There was a big difference on long climbs too (25 to 30 minute climbs), but for ultra road races it made a big difference for me. I’d be curious to know what you’re training for.

This is how we do it in the UK

Just so many muppet drivers about. At least it was a small sh!tty car.

Why dont you just ignore it?

Because there’s a chance the whole event could be scrapped. The organisers weren’t very pleased when I crossed the line last year at the attitude of everyone and seemed very fed up.

The White Stripes – Elephant or Icky Thump.
That Jack White fella is good on a guitar!

Yes how long did you put off typing this thread for??

And how can a book be a number 1 best seller when it’s only been released?

Just trying to get the mix to appear in the cool box like Mister P . Failing at life.

<a

href=”https://soundcloud.com/hasino/avicii-essential-mix-11-12-2010″>https://soundcloud.com/hasino/avicii-essential-mix-11-12-2010<a

href=”https://soundcloud.com/hasino/avicii-essential-mix-11-12-2010″&gt;

https://soundcloud.com/hasino/avicii-essential-mix-11-12-2010

https://soundcloud.com/hasino/avicii-essential-mix-11-12-2010

• https://soundcloud.com/hasino/avicii-essential-mix-11-12-2010

Just to add, I know there might be some snobbery or whatever towards Avicii or Tim Bergling from the pureists and some people might of looked down on him as he had some mainstream songs in the charts which might make him instantly not cool.
But his mix is really out of this world and different and worlds apart from his radio music. It really shows his talent.

On a different note, I also really like the Coldcut Essential mix (don’t remember what year but not recent), I play that regularly too. And also Felix da Housecat mix is very good too, right up my street anyway.

I have just discovered this thread now, and pretty sure I read through every single reply.

But I can’t believe how nobody has mentioned Avicii and his 2010 Essential mix

It was his only Radio 1 mix I believe on his short and fast rise to world wide fame before his relatively recent suicide.

I can’t listen to the Essential mix as much as I used to as I don’t live in the UK anymore, but I listen to a lot of house / electronic/ techno / drum n bass / whatever on the radio (mostly various forms of house). Can we just call it all house unless it’s clearly not?
But for me, the 2010 Avicii mix was just way ahead of it’s time and I have listened to it over and over again, and it’s a total banger from start to finish. If no one agrees with me then either clearly you are all wrong or I am wrong, not sure which. Every track on it has been cut or hash or mixed or created by him himself.
Download it though, lot’s of torrents for it, I think the one on YouTube is marginally different.

Get back to me!

Recommendations, I meant 😀

If you want one get one, as above. It sounds like you are doing the kind of riding that warrants one. No point in waiting until it’s too late and then thinking ‘if only’.
There’s no requirement to be doing huge gnar drops. The way I see it, if you have one and wear it, you won’t need it. If you don’t wear one, it won’t be long until you have a bad crash where you should have been wearing one.

I got a TLD D3 on sale two years ago, well worth it.

Just take a 2nd battery if you’re worried, they’re not exactly very big.

Thanks. Only problem with that is the battery sits inside the seat tube.

If you are familiar the Di2 charger you’ll know it’s not a straight forward Micro USB connection, so I had thought of that, but the Shimano charger / cable would need to sit into the charger port under the stem first, with a battery pack then plugged into that.

I will ask my bike shop to look at the new diagnostic hardware as that’s a bit beyond me 🙂 .

Apart from this issue, I really recommend the other poster to get Di2!! Totally flawless.

Well I’m usually headed out the west of Ireland so a busy day over there is probably equivalent to one of your quiet days in Devon anyway lol.

So yeah, it’s definitely all just having fun in the water. And I only feel a little bit superior😂 but I mean it when I say don’t get bitten. Honestly a crack habit would’ve been easier to handly.

Aaaah see now there’s some perspective on it 😂🙈 . Oh dear.

Main things are to not jump to que or the lineup if there is one and wait your turn – and to not drop in on anyone else. This is more simple on wedge and A frame type waves but can sometimes get confusing on beach breaks where a few groups can form and sometimes it feels everyone is spread out everywhere.

Dropping in on someone else includes if they are trying to paddle for the wave and they are closest to the barrel then they have priority, although some people seem to work off a first come first served basis 😌😏😂

My old board was a bit too stiff for cold waters so it didn’t flex all that well. My new one has much greater flex and recoil and just a good springy feeling in the bottom turn of the wave., which is what I wanted. It also has a better / faster / more durable slick bottom. New boards these days are a bit more narrow width wise which mine is, makes it much easier for paddling out, less cumbersome. It also has less depth and overall slightly less volume ( nearly one inch shorter too), but means it’ll be better on bigger waves. Will use my other board for smaller waves as it has a bat tail 😁 . My new board also has nose and tail bumbers which are a feature on more expensive boards. I’m less convinced by them though. Generally the core of the board is what you pay for.

Johnx2 don’t get me started on the severe LACK of surf etiquette that a lot of surfers have towards bodyboarders 🙄🙄😡 .

but watch out that you don’t get properly bitten like I did. It’s really not worth it.

Clearly you want to sound very superior 😂😂 . No need to say that.
We are all just enjoying the water.

I wouldn’t advise you “trim some off the end”. I don’t think this is generally done by anyone, ever. When you look at it, bodyboarding is generally pretty inexpensive compared to most other activities, biking anyway. In the Spring I bought myself an NMD Base pro, it was about 180 pounds with the leash, but that’s a mid to high end board. What would that get you in biking world, a decent rear mech maybe? If you enjoy it, you really will get a lot value and enjoyment in buying a 50 or 60 pound board that fits, and fins. Ring a bodyboard only shop and talk to them (stay away from surf shops would be my advice). Enjoy!!

Bumping this up as there was definitely a photographer on there on the WC!

I thought that was a possibility too, but no.

Hmm no compression at all while riding. They don’t sound like the worlds best bib shorts to me.

Cool! Where is the Marin trail? Park in same place as Penmancho or completely different?

Me the girlfriend and a few mates will be there from Friday evening until Monday morning. Big blue Vango tent. Looking at a chilled social pace for me, no hot laps or anything. Be nice to have the chats and take in the atmosphere for a change.

I’m about 90% sure that’s a 2001 model, the reason being I bought an Adroit race 2001 model around that time on discount, and was looking at the Attitudes but they were sold out in my size. There was an attitude that was a mix of fire orange and red colour around that time too, so that was either a different range within 2001, or I’m possibly getting them mixed up and one was a year 2000. Anyone else remember this colour?
Pretty sure they also came stocked with Manitou forked though, and Thompson finishing kit, not the specs as shown in the photo.

And regards the comment of what you get in a 300 quid mp3 player that you don’t get in a 50 quid one, comparing a 900 pound mountain bike to a 150 pound one isn’t a bad place to start 😉 .

So…
I don’t like the idea of just using my phone for music as sometimes I’d be on a 10 or 12 or 14 hour training spin, maybe a bit more. And I don’t like the idea of maybe draining my phone battery, if I was to end up needing my phone in an emergency.

I’ve looked briefly online for a replacement X5 2nd gen and haven’t seen any on eBay or Amazon or anything! I don’t want to be waiting around long as training has started.

There was a brand mentioned by someone I hadn’t heard of before, with really long battery life. I’ll have to look into that thanks! And the idea of getting an amp has also sparked a thought, hadn’t considered that before.

That’s a lot of money for an MP3 player!

Actually, it’s towards the modest / budget end of things, believe it or not! You can quite easily go into four figures.

Never been a fan of Apple! Had their ipods before.

I read up a bit on this page – it shouldn’t be that you have to be a semi tech geek and be adjusting cookie settings just to be able to post on forums. Not that going into the settings and ding all that is that difficult, but it seems daft. Never happened on another website before to me, must be a glitch or a tecanical fault. And its certainly very off putting.

Can this just be fixed now please, really wrecking my head. It popped up mid way through typing this reply, so I had to copy and paste the link at the top and open a new tab (sometimes it just doesn’t go away for me).

Just taking the p!ss at this stage….