That was fast. I’ll post full results as soon as I see them. Partial results are looking very good indeed, though there are two timeslots still to come late tonight.

I did this successfully when we moved house, and I’m rubbish at stuff. Cougar is right that pre-made cables are less faff. But if you want/need to terminate your own it only really takes 20 minutes to learn. Just make a couple up of practice ends up with a cuppa.

CAT5e is fine. Don’t get CAT5 without an e, it won’t work properly, but there’s no advantage in CAT6 either (and there are potential disadvantages).

I bought unbranded cables, wall plates etc from kenable, and used a kit just like cougar linked to, plus a draper punchdown tool off amazon, for fitting. Those tools are plenty good enough for an occasional hobbyist (they lasted and worked for my whole house, 20 odd cable runs, and I still have them for any modifications I make in future).

Actually, my numbers above were for a race on GreatEST London Flat, wrong course. Tonight will be a few minutes quicker than that. Based on last time (14/11/19) looking at 40-45 minutes for most teams in our category.

Oh, and how long will it take?

I’d say 45 mins will probably win the category. 60 mins will probably come last.

Last time it was on this course (= 19th March), 27 out of 42 teams in our category were between 46:xx and 49:xx

Edit – also beaten to it.

Yes zilog6128 – the zwift system supports the event only partially – so we have to time our own start.

We must stop pedalling at 6.29 to make sure we’re stationary at 6.30, otherwise we’d roll over the line, then stay still until our start time. There’s a workaround – you can safely pedal in the pairing screen without moving – but you might find that trickier to get in and out of than just sitting still…

Who took charge of the timing and countdown last week? Can you do it again?

It’s looking good. We have 7 riders on the start sheet. Our STW tags are all OK. That leaves time for one more person to join I think.

We must be in the pen by 6:30. Our start time is 6:42:30 (it’s 30 seconds gaps between teams because busy).

Last week we rode as bumblebees. Do that again? Or mix it up so each rider is more identifiable in the group?

I can see all 7 riders in the discord server. If an 8th does sign up, here’s the working link: https://discord.gg/uRuQp7 – Voice in the STW Voice channel, text chat in the #general channel.

The seven names so far are:

weeksy
phil56
savoyad
IvanDobski
dangeourbrain
dknwhy
zilog6128

See you later.

There are still spaces to join us in the Team Time Trial on Thursday at 6.30. I think we have 5 riders signed up so far, so 3 places left. (I can’t actually see for sure until the start list goes live nearer the time).

Joining instructions are just up above, in my previous post.

I think that mooman, piemonster and dknwhy have all been tempted at some point. Others welcome too…

Don’t give up and assume you need a dongle too quickly. What is your phone? Lots of android phones have built in ANT+
https://www.thisisant.com/consumer/ant-101/ant-in-phones

Even better, some work but don’t even advertise the fact. e.g. mine isn’t in the product directory on that link, but works fine.

Fenix 3 will happily broadcast the data from the built in optical HR sensor over ANT+.

The guidance on exercising whilst isolating because of symptoms or symptoms in the household changed.

Initially (until at least 7 April), it said “If possible, you should not go out even to buy food or other essentials, other than exercise, and in that case at a safe distance from others.”

More recently (since at least 10 April) it says “If possible, you should not go out even to buy food or other essentials, and any exercise should be taken within your home.”

Our team is entered. 6.30pm on Thursday, 2 laps of Greater London Flat.

Now you each need to sign up as individual riders. We need between 3 and 8 people. Here’s what to do:

1. On zwift, enter the event. It’s here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/655732. Enter CATEGORY A (it’s not done on w/kg, ignore that. Just enter Category A). Do this asap.

2. On zwiftpower, tag your name with our team name, which is STW. Put it in brackets. So login to zwiftpower.com…zwift profile…settings and change Rider Name to “[yourridername] (STW)”. Do this any time before the race starts. If you don’t yet have a zwiftpower account, be warned there’s some hassle involved in setup.

3. Discord worked well for voice comms last week. The STW server is here https://discord.gg/UP6kv6. Check you can get in.

Exact start times (it’ll be shortly after the 6.30pm event time, riders sit in the pen waiting) will be published later in the week. I’ll post again when that info is available.

I don’t mind doing the entry again. Consensus seems to be for a bit earlier than last time. There is more choice now as well. It looks like 6pm, 6.30 or 7 would be best for most people.

Unless there’s an outcry in response to this post, I’ll put an entry in the 6.30 race later today.

piemonster and dknwhy – what category does zwiftpower say you are?

I’ll confirm which pen and, assuming there are riders who didn’t ride last week, repost the step by step joining instructions later.

I got left behind after one lap. I watched the rest, impressive teamwork.
Interim results are up now.
Overall 55:04.964, 37.25kmh
General classification 227/359
Frappe category (for teams with best rider an A) 122/141
with 6 of 8 time zones completed, so the positions/totals will change slightly overnight.

OK to confirm
– bumblebee jerseys and road bikes (NO TT bikes, we need to draft!)
– in the pen for the event start at 7.40
– no pedalling from 7.39 until our start time at 7.48
– communicate if we can on the STW discord channel (https://discord.gg/UP6kv6). Let’s use the general channel for text, plus push to talk in the STW voice channel). I can’t type, others might not be able to talk, we’ll just get by between us.
– time is taken 4th finisher – so we need to get at least 4 of us to the end

See you in the pen, or shortly before.

We have a start time: +8 minutes (i.e 8 minutes waiting in the pen from the 7.40 event start).

Our STW tags are all correct on the start sheet. Well done us.

There’s still one place in the team. I think trail_rat is eyeing it up.

Yes, kelvinshuffle, your ftp builder success will push us up a category. It doesn’t really matter though.

I didn’t know there was a stw discord. DO you have a link to share IvanDobski (so I can avoid hunting through that thread)?

I’m not worrying about categories for now. It’s auto-upgrade on zwiftpower rather than a DQ, so we’ll get a result regardless, latte was the most likely choice, and I figured better to just encourage sign ups and see where we land. Optimally competitive can wait!

We have six or seven riders (declared in this thread as entered). So there’s still room for one more if anyone is tempted.

kelvinshuffle A
weeksy B
mooman B
phil56 B
savoyad C
IvanDobski C/D
dangeourbrain D

I’m just waiting for the data to show on the organisers’ site to do the “tag check” (although everyone says that’s done too).

We’re on at 7.40 tomorrow evening. Our exact start time (sometime shortly after that) hasn’t been published yet. I’ll update this thread as soon as I see it.

Any volunteers to be road captain? I don’t fancy that.

And how ambitious can we be with comms? headsets and discord (they’ll lend us a channel) will surely be a car crash, but maybe an entertaining one? just text chat on the main screen?

I might be wrong on this but I’m sure you can link any Bluetooth sensor to the 245 which should include modern power, cadence etc.

No power on the 245. It does have ANT+ and Bluetooth, but the sensor type limitation is one way Garmin differentiate their “running” watches from “multisport” watches and edge units (there are a few others, even more niche than power – like electronic groupset stuff).

It looks like they are planning on looking (somehow) at more than just ftp in w/kg for their categorisation – so taking into account 5 mins as well, and also pure watts. I wonder if they are aligning, at least partially, with whatever zwift’s new anti-sandbagging feature is doing in the background – I think that looks at 5 mins as well.

Our team is entered. 7.40pm on Thursday, Astoria Line 8.

Now you each need to sign up as individual riders. We need between 3 and 8 people. Here’s what to do:

1. On zwift, enter the event. It’s here: https://www.zwift.com/events/tag/wtrl/view/594453. Enter CATEGORY A (it’s not done on w/kg, ignore that. Just enter Category A). Do this asap.

2. On zwiftpower, tag your name with our team name, which is STW. Put it in brackets. So login to zwiftpower.com–>zwift profile–>settings–> change Rider Name to “[yourridername] (STW)”. Do this any time before the race starts. If you don’t yet have a zwiftpower account, be warned there’s some hassle involved in setup.

That’s it for now. Once we have a team assembled we can figure out the detail.

What day is this?

Thursday 23rd April for now.

I’m in the system now. It turns out that there’s no 6.30 race in the registration system. So our choices are:
10.20am (almost no-one else entered)
6.15pm (busy)
7.40pm (not busy)

I have no preference at all, I’ll just enter whatever a consensus seems to suggest. One difference between busy and not busy is how long we’d have to do the “don’t pedal in game yet” thing in the start pen.

I’m happy to handle the fiddly bit of the sign-up process if people are interested.

I could ride in the morning (10.20) or evening (6.15, 6.30 and 7.40) slots next Thursday.

So far, tentative noises have come from:
Garry_Lager (category?)
kelvinshuffle A/B
weeksy B
trail_rat B
mooman B
savoyad C
IvanDobski C
dangeourbrain D

So if the faster ones (B+) don’t mind riding with us slower ones (C/D) we could enter a mixed team into “latte” or “mocha” depending on who is available / wants to ride / how many we are. It’s forgiving of exact category choice (i.e. the rules re-categorise you rather than the usual zwiftpower dq) so there’s some flexibility depending on how it pans out. Alternatively if fast people want to go fast, and pretty much everyone is up for it, we might need two smaller teams.

You can do it with the flickr map.
Zoom in, and hit the refresh icon for geotagged items.

Not trail specific, but if you look where there are trails, enough pics are of those trails for it to be worth it. Base map is rubbish, so I use satellite view.

I’d be up for entering as part of an stw TTT team as a cat c/d if anyone else wants to give it a go.

I’d be happy to have a bash if times work, can’t promise I’ll be any good mind but TT would do me the world of good.

I’d be up for this too. It looks mighty complicated to enter (the first time? probably makes sense after that). I’m a C.

It depends what data you want to pass to the Garmin.

The Edge Explore will take HR, speed and cadence data from the Elite unit, but not power data.
(It can’t control trainer resistance either, but that doesn’t matter here because the Misuro plus isn’t a controllable unit anyway).

Decathlon are fine. Don’t get the 100s though. 500s are good.
There seems to be a new 900 MTB version which is weirdly cheap (£25) compared to the rest of the range. I haven’t tried them though.

tyres are different…

Are you sure you need a coach? There’s a mismatch between the problem (boredom/staleness) and the solution (being told to ride in a structured fashion on your turbo).

You can obviously get yourself in shape for a 200km audax (your riding history suggests). I get that a coach might help to make improving fun (again), or help you improve faster. But it’s not doing either at the moment is it?

You main bugbear seems to be:

Agreed, but I was also beginning to find the same with just going out doing the same 3 or 4 different 30 mile loops and 40 mile weekend one. When you have cycled the same routes and you start remembering where the pot holes are …

Just thought a coach would break that and add some structure so I wasn’t just cycling in the so called “no man’s land” aimlessly and without really gaining much benefit.

What’s stopping you mixing it up for yourself? I don’t think a coach is necessarily the solution to this problem. You need a route planner and a little imagination. Think of some new loops/routes for yourself. Vary their length and then ride them at different intensities with less structure than a coach might impose. It will be fun again, without the hassle you are now experiencing.

Of course it’s worth it. At the very least, find the cheapest deal which meets your requirements and demand that your current provider match it. (they will.)
It’s hard to suggest a killer deal without knowing – in particular – how much data you need.

I think the lakeside bridleway is a bit much for a gravel bike. (Listen to anyone more ambitious than me though!)

If you’re coming into Ullswater from Penrith it might be better to craft a loop using the various roads North of the Lake between the lake and the A66, and the smaller lanes between them. So turn right before Glenridding, depending on the total distance you want. It’d be a (hilly) road ride rather than gravel ride, but surfaces aren’t great at the moment.

It even has a one-prong plug, earth only, so bypasses the safety features of the UK socket.

I’m not leaving the house wearing lycra. Simple as that.

Trans. I will only wear lycra on the turbo to start with.

@binners the roads around Rammy are not great for road biking right now – not just the degraded surface, but more the 18 inch wide strip of deep leaf and runoff goo in every gutter narrowing the road and the clearance for traffic. Let Spring come round before you judge.

And the answer to your title question is “yes” (assuming you are asking whether everyone who gets a road bike and swears off lycra caves in eventually).

@muddyjames

If (big if) an air source or ground source is 300% efficient then in theory that levels the cost per unit of power playing field? Day 1 cost then is the deciding factor.

Not quite. At the moment, taking efficiency into account, GSHP are still more expensive to run than a gas boiler: https://nottenergy.com/resources/energy-cost-comparison/ That will surely change one day, but the gap isn’t closing and certainly much slower than the industry (and the guy promising you big financial gains) have been predicting for years. (And don’t forget: gas spend is way easier to predict than heat pump spend. It won’t be better than that table; it could be much worse).

And day 1 cost is returned over 7 years under the RHI. So even if you break even the break even point is years away. That’s a long time to be thousands out of pocket, even in an era of low interest rates.

RHI can work financially but I think you need to be in a weird house (in a way which adds up to big subsidy) and off-grid (so the comparison is to something more expensive than gas). There are good reasons to look for alternative heating arrangements. Money isn’t one of them (for now).

I’d stick with the G-ones if you like them, just get tubeless ones. Unless the ones you have already will go up tubeless. Have you tried?

I like my Panaracer Gravelking SK. I should have got 35 in hindsight, but I have ridden 32s on terrain like k1100t’s picture (a few times, never entirely intentionally) and they were surprisingly OK. I had the opposite experience to StefMcDef though – the Panaracers slipped pretty easily onto a rim which had been a knuckle-destroying nightmare with the stock tyres I was replacing.

Mesh is the second best way to do this.
The best way is a cabled connection to an access point.
So seeing as OP says that a cable can be run, that is the best solution.

Do not use wifi extenders for this. That will just half your wifi speed. That was really appalling advice.

Cougar’s is the best idea: if you were satisfied with the old router, have you tried just using that? If it’s not locked down you should be able to enter your JL credentials and stay as you were.

We went for a week on a ski package (Crystal to Ruka). Great holiday, and similar price to a much shorter Santa themed trip.
Excursions can be booked in resort – either independently (to do as a family, or with strangers from all over the place) or via the holiday company (i.e. with other UK families). We did Santa with Crystal (booked in advance to be absolutely sure it wasn’t fully booked, but this worry was unfounded) and other stuff (huskies, snowmobile, skiing etc) directly in resort.
We were there late December, so not much daylight (and even that was “daylight”) and v cold. But everything is geared up for that and it added to the adventure.

@superfli what region maps did it come with?

The uncomfortable noise an open car window makes is “hubbling”.