@brant are you still planning on doing a more XC orientated 100mm alu frame?

I’m looking at doing a more steady away 29er too with like a 100mm 29er fork too.

Yes please. 69.0 HA, potentially 69.5, keep the top tube long enough for mid length stems too pls, boost and not 27.2 seat tube.

This isn’t too controversial. Had some similar issues and stopped using them. Physio (cyclist and fitter too) was very against them. The basic explanation he gave was…

You’re increasing the load at the most powerful point of the pedal stroke. At that point, the hamstrings are doing a lot to stabilise the knee. However, now you’ve increased the work they’ve got to do to stabilise the knee at an even more localised point, since you’ve increased the load vis-a-vis the ovalised chainring.

What’s likely happening, is that by using the ovalised chainring is that you’re loading the knee beyond the point at which the hamstring can stablise it. The result is knee pain.

There’s a long, long list of world tour pro riders who use ovalised chainrings, got knee injuries and never used them again. Never seen a solid peer-reviewed study that supports the idea they actually improve performance.

According to absolute black, I needed to retrain my pedalling style as I was adapted to round rings. They do appear to work for some people, but not me.

Also, really?

That’s just an admission that ovalised chainrings do not naturally align with the bio-mechanics on the body. I mean, I agree, but amazed they’d actually say that.

First I’d stop worrying about your rivals are doing and start worrying about self betterment. What can you do to make yourself faster, find what works for you and be honest with yourself.

Second, 11 hours is more than enough. I got to some very good power numbers this year on about 10 hours a week with lots of structure, but then I got tonsillitis and was then hit by a van so I never really got to use it.

Oh and definitely 10 hours of structured work over 20 hours of just riding – you’d burn out if you just did 20 hours of riding unless you really limited the intensity and then you’d be wasting your time, as you’d have poor anaerobic capacity. Anyone who is training more than about 15 hours and has a job isn’t doing it right, there are guys with world tour contracts who put in less than 20 hours a week and they get to spend the rest of their time resting…

Rotor LTs are impressive, as is the dual leg option but a bit expensive.
New stages seem to devoid of any problems that plagued early models.
Quarq Riken/Power2Max well worth considering, both appear to be problem free and not significantly more to get a reading for power from both legs. My P2M has been faultless, would happily buy again.

I wouldn’t touch the latest Powertaps due to a lack of reliability or Vectors – over priced and have seen some really dodgy L/R data which is their USP.

Regarding the 4iii, have we not all learnt yet that 1st gen power meters are generally a bad idea, or at least not giving them 3 months to sort out software?

I missed the Junior Tour of Wales through illness a couple of years ago, but from I heard that power meters were used lots and the numbers were big.

Saddle fore and aft adjustment is about getting the rider’s weight balanced on the bike, this is often around where the Tibial tuberosity is directly over the pedal axle, but not always, sometimes way off.

Basically you shouldn’t be adjusting this to get your reach correct, that comes from stem length, bar reach etc (though changing this can lead to needing to adjust fore/aft and therefore saddle height adjusting too). So if you are over reaching, shorten your stem.

Also worth considering that a defy or domane etc would suit you better, latter in 58cm would should work.

Given that I’m both a republican and an atheist, i’d rather sh*t in my hands and clap than sing ‘god save the Queen’.

This is easy.

One is pretty much futureproof to all bottom bracket standards, measures power from both legs and hasn’t had a myriad of issues when it comes to water(though this has been fixed for most, not all).

The other one is a bit cheaper.

So you regularly crash your road bike on corners in the dry?

Of course not.

If a road tyre does corner better, you can do things on that tyre which would otherwise lead you to crash on the inferior one. What’s so hard to understand about one tyre offering more grip over another?

How does a road tyre corner better – does the inferior one have you off on corners? I mean you can’t know the grip until you reach/exceed its limits?

Obviously…

I was already a little pissed off when the bike was built with the gear cable outers too short and so wouldn’t turn ‘full lock’ so to speak. So that’s dodgy steering and now a wheel with about 20mm of lateral float

To be fair to the Evans guys, the cable routing design of the cannondale is fairly shocking for non-euro brake arrangement.

Another +1 for Bonty R3s, they feel nicer than the fusions and corner better. Not had personal experience, but schwalbe’s offerings appear to be a bit too thin for anything but nice days.

Had them down to 70 and 80psi in a wet bumpy, technical crit, I had a frankly disgusting amount of grip. I am sub 60kg though, 80/85psi are normal pressures.

Biggest advantage, IMO is that during the winter you can run nice supple grippy tyres that you can take off with your hands, rather than gatorksins or similar, which frankly are not inspiring in the corners on wet winter’s day.

I ran tubes for 1500km, with two punctures, tubeless for 10500km and no punctures.

Cables….

Yes, though I only have one mtb event file, but plenty of road. Again, email in profile.

Go to a bike shop with a bike fitter (a specialized dealer that does bg fit will be good for this) and have your feet assessed to determine arch support and whether you are varus or valgus in the forefoot. Your foot type can make certain brands completely unsuitable.

I think if you only got sit bone ache, then you were on your way to a winner anyway – that’s where you should be supported

+1

If this is a new saddle, it could well be the first time you have actually sat on your Ischial Tuberosities properly. It is completely normal to find this uncomfortable, for a while. If it doesn’t improve for a couple of months, then pop to your local spesh dealer and get yourself a saddle with some science behind it.

I doubt very much glycogen levels will fall to almost nothing following a 12 hour fast, but will need to check my science.

They won’t unless they are used, maybe it has something to do with availability? Can’t be insulin because it doesn’t take that long to fall. Like I said, I not sure!

The other thing to consider of course is that you look f*cking good when you glide up a hill at 90rpm.

I think it’s more to do with insulin than anything, if you’re fasted insulin is v low, if insulin is v low a higher proportion of energy used will come from fat. More fat used means your fat utilisation will improve. Could be wrong though.

this is what my thinking is, a lot of the climbs locally are short sharp 10-15% and less than a km in length – rather than long draggy 6-10% – and im avoiding them because in 39/26 im spinning what – 60-70rpm, sure i can get up, but id rather spin up

im aware i would need spider/chainrings, i have Cannondale Hollowtech cranks so thats easy, all parts available

FWIW I run 52-36 but if I wasn’t racing I’d be on a standard compact, the UK’s climbs are characterised by their gradients, not their length, big gradients require loose gears.

but was thinking of cobbling together a 11-30 cassette for the Dragon Ride

I fitted 4 11-30 or bigger cassettes when at work on Saturday in prep for the dragon ride!

There’s a saying, match the pros’ cadence, not their gearing.

Useful. Is this based on how long it takes to metabolise food and how long you can store glycogen before it’s deposited as fat?

Not 100% sure, it’s just something someone I know with a phd in sports’ nutrition told me. Basically the idea is that your glycogen stores are empty or nearly empty when you start the ride, so that it gives you no option other than to use fat as a fuel. Therefore there’s no actual need to fast if you want to improve fat utilisation, you just need to control intensity properly and do it for a long time. The efficacy compared to shorter, more intense efforts in improving performance is very low though. They’re a thing for endurance/ultra-endurance athletes really where fat utilisation is v important.

Just because you can get up it with your standard, doesn’t make it right.

If you have 53-39 you will need a different cranks/spider to run 52-36. If I go anywhere remotely hilly I’ll put on at least an 11-28, and it’s the alps I’m reaching for a compact or an 11-32. I’m not slow, neither am I good, but I can do 5w/kgish for 20 minutes.

There are plenty of world class bike riders who will run an 11-28 and a compact for an alpine col, if you don’t think you need that sort of gearing to get up [insert name of decent UK climb] with a modicum of efficiency, you’re kidding yourself!

Unless you have a specific reason to use them, i.e. you need shimming to deal with a leg length discrepancy, diff axle length or massive amounts of float, I would not touch them.

Found them harder to clip into that my looks too, higher maintenance and cleats cost a lot.

Fasted rides are seldom executed properly. You should have fasted for at least 12 hours before doing them, they need to be longer than an hour really. Having your usual 700kcal+ dinner, going to sleep a few hours later, waking up and riding, fuelled by your dinner is not a fasted ride. If you don’t need to eat when you get back, you’re not doing them properly, either that or you’re kidding yourself. Then if you are doing them properly the issue is that it is really easy to make yourself ill. Unless you have a coach who is monitoring what you are doing including an overview of what your are eating, they’re probably not a good idea.

Remember, the proportion of fab metabolised at z2 is far higher than in z4, however the absolute amount is about the same. To word that differently, 2×20 minute z4 efforts will probably have about the same metabolic use of fats as an hour ‘fat burn ride’ with far higher use of carbs as fuel, in addition. If fat utilisation is basically the same and carbohydrate utilisation is higher for the z4 efforts, it’s obvious which one is going to have greater efficacy in improving performance and will have a greater calorific expenditure. Fit your diet to your training, not the other way round. Carbohydrates are good things, just keep ’em low g.i. !

Use the 171/172, the bearings are a good size and they’re aren’t too difficul to change.

Easily done, I’ll be running it this coming season.

So:
Sram 10speed doubletap shifters, I’ll gut the left had one, or you can leave it. You can even buy brake lever only units too.
Sram 10 speed type 2 rear mech
Absolute Black, Woolf Tooth, Race face or similar 110bcd NW ring
Choice of 10 speed casette.

I reckon 38ish with an 11-32 would work well.

Had this a few times, I generally tell the customer politely that you pay more for our advice and for us to fit the stuff for you, now if you want that, pop down to the Co-op grab us some munch and we’ll have a good chat about getting the best components for the bike. About a 1/3 of people get really nice bikes at the end. Another 1/3 timidly re-appear to book their bikes in to have stuff fitted. The rest, well, who cares?

My favourite bit was where one of the sportive riders claimed he was part of the race.

The Eastern Divisionals had a triathlon going on in the opposite direction on Sunday on part of the course, they all obeyed marshalls, and kept well left – not that they needed to, Joe Perret had us all in the gutter… We give Triathletes are hard time, but at least they can act upon basic instructions!

Have you considered a Giant Anthem? The 29er in particular is a disgustingly good all-round bike.

Wasn’t Nigel great last night? Classic moment right at the end, the rest had been arguing about the Government and its ability to intervene in the Pfizer acquisition and only Nigel made the point whilst illustrating the lies from LabConLibDem..

Except what he said is basically untrue. As long as the take over bid is nice and transparent, as the Takeover Directive requires, the Commission can do nothing. Even then, the Takeover Directive has been consolidated into the Companies Act, so it would be dealt with in courts in the UK. So yeah, Nige was misrepresenting the facts.

The vast majority of what UKIP/Farage says relies on you not understanding the EU and its institutions. Fortunately most people don’t know the difference between a Peer and an MP, let along a Commissioner and an MEP. So they just take what the ‘anti-establishment’ party says as fact. Ignorance is UKIP’s best friend.

You should all probably know that Magna Carta of 1215 was never implemented into law, since it was declared uncanonical by Innocent III. I think it was the 1217 version that actually got implemented which was vastly stripped back of the significant clauses (e.g. security clause) but kept the clauses that talk of slavery of the Welsh, oppression of the red heads and ownership of the Jews. Irrespective of that, Magna Carta was basically an aristocratic protest riot, in response to John’s paranoia and despotism, calling for the re-imposition of his father’s style of government.

Ride your bike really hard, recover, do it again. Repeat ad infinitum.

Boundstead road, you’ll find a car park on the left if you’re heading south. Park up, ride around, you’ll find some alright stuff!

So I work in a bike shop. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve dealt with PF/bB30 and similar. However the other day I was asked to strip down a bike and rebuild it. It suddenly dawned upon me that I’d never touched a hollowtech II bottom bracket in my life, despite having a hope one my MTB for over 5 years. I worked it out of course, it’s a simple job. But it’s a good exemplification of which standards is better.

I’ve been converting my bikes with praxis works BBs with good success, though.

About 3 months (maybe less) after recovering from snapping his leg at the olympics, he got hit by a truck and broke his pelvis and maybe his femur too. He’s pretty much retired from competitive XCO now. He was a world class bike rider with some terrible misfortune.

general consensus amongst scientists is that cramps are caused by pushing a muscle(s) beyond its neurological capacity, i.e. you pushed the muscle harder than it had been before and you lost motor neuron control and the muscle contracted really hard. I’ve had cramps that have caused tearing in the muscle, one so bad it caused a tear in my calf. They’re not 100% certain though. I was told the other day that’s there’s not been a study ever with a control group that has suggested electrolytes make any difference to exercise induced cramps.

Rest it up until it feels good again!

Talking as someone who gets to sell both the Stumpjumper and the Trance, Trance every time. It’s a really good bike.

10-15% in three months is definitely doable. Obviously you’ll want to check the variables, as above.

Two days after a crit race, unless you absolutely emptied yourself should not leave you with much residual fatigue, if any. Basically, you should be able to get within the acceptable parameters of your training session’s power targets. Have a couple more goes, if not re-evaluate your FTP.

Remember, training by power is not about setting PRs every session, you only need to see a trend of improvements, that doesn’t necessarily mean you get faster every day. One or two sub-standard sessions aren’t worth worrying about too much.

Hammer and screwdriver, just be careful (not too careful you need to get it out and hitting things with hammers if fun)!

I’ve tried the ultremos, Hutchinson Fusions and the Bontrager R3s.

The R3s were best by miles, the Ultremos cut too easily and the Hutchinsons just are a bit crap. 25mm R3s are outrageously grippy too.

I didn’t learn until I was 12 years old, I won the U18s East on England Mountain Bike champs 5 years later.

There’s some hope.