xcstu – Member

2 words.. chain guard…

and he would still be in yellow? simple

Saxo fit chain devices to all their bikes.

Contador doesn't run one.

And I spooled through ITV's coverage of the TDF tonight and I'm pretty sure Schleck wasn't on the shifters when the chain jumped off. He looks like he moved his fingers from under the hoods to shift after the chain jumped, probably to sort it out. The side shots showed a rear mech under light tension (ie small rings front and back) that then flicked backwards further as the chain suddenly unloaded. Schleck's drive on the pedals as it locked lifted the back end up a good 6", as Contador would've seen as he was behind when it happened. In fact, Schleck was barely pedalling when it happened.

I bet there's a ton of footage on YouTube now. Go have a look.

Both are on Specialized Tarmacs with SRAM Red, so I couldn't blame fancy electronics, either. 🙂

Boardman's wrong – it's Contador who doesn't run a chain watcher. Saxo fit them to all their machines. Just spent 15 minutes scouring Cyclingnews to make sure I'm right on that as they ran a Tech article on Contador's bike the other day.

What's it locked to? Can it be unbolted so that you can move the bike to a place where you can use an angle grinder?

I've got a 456 Summer Season I built around a pair of 2002 Marzocchi Z1 Dropoff forks I bought for another project that didn't happen. The forks cost 75 quid. The bike cost £1000 all up.

Cycling on the road is a right as is the space and consideration given to you by other road users. Car driving has become a scourge as most people believe that it's their right to drive as fast as possible, unimpeded by other road users so that they can get to their destination in the minumum of time, usually because they've left only that amount of time (or less) to make the journey. Their woeful lack of roadcraft, ignorance of the Highway Code and failure to modify their speed or driving style to cope with weather or road conditions is lamentable.

Slower, older or less experienced car drivers, learners, bicycles, horses and scooters are all threats to your average driver's ability to get to their destination in time so they're all targets for agression and campaigns to get them off the road so that journey times can come down because, hey, every one of these retards believes the ads that says they're "busy mums" or live in a demanding world where everything has to be done at the speed of light to stay ahead.

So I say ride. OK, there are roads where it might be happier all round if you took alternate routes that are more fun for you and avoids the wrath of these self-obsessed to55ers but you don't have to if you don't want to. If it's legal to ride, carry on.

Ahh no you missunderstand me – post here under different names i.e. Foxyrider and Vixenslayer = same person

Oh, right.

Schizophrenia?

Because, after I've blathered on about my carbon this and brand new that, they would shortly no longer be mine. Also, there are a few nutters on internet forums who would happily turn a disagreement on something menial into a war of words and threats against person and property. Imagine what these loons would do if they had your name and could find out your home address or where you worked.

I used to post on a motorcycling forum under my own name and got into a disagreement with another bloke over something trivial. My girlfriend picked up a phone call at 3am one morning and was told, in no uncertain terms, what a c**t I am. This may be true but I had no other enemies at the time and he'd found my home number and was now talking to my other half. I didn't sleep for a while after that.

Halfords sell huge spray cans of brake cleaner especially for cleaning brakes. Look in the car brake section. Also degreases just about everything!

How do you contaminate a rotor?

Hesjedal's calorie count is much lower than his team mates' for the same course, possibly because calories are being calculated from heart rate and his barely tops 100bpm when he's riding on the flat. Here's the Garmin Transitions uploads for the whole team on Garmin Connect.

If I ever crash and injure myself badly somewhere remote, the air ambulance will have no trouble finding me.

I'm not being a typical bloke here, just wanting to shag you, but I'd like to entertain the possibility of a sensible grown-up relationship where both parties are nice to each other

There's your chatup line, right there! 😀

I'm 5'11" with a 32" inside leg and ride a 56cm Roubaix

Nice bike. I like the silver cranks. I have an orange 456SS and love it to death.

Have fun riding it.

Ian

Tuna steak cooked medium rare on a bed of noodles or rice with stir fired mixed vegetables.

Wrong website. Try here.

mtb_rossi: look for companies like Sweatshop in your area. A proper running shop will usually have a treadmill and video system so that they can do gait analysis. They will also stock a wide range of shoes. Go along with no fixed budget (if possible) and no limit on time and test as many pairs as it takes to find the ones that work. If it costs 100 quid to buy the ones that fit best, do it – the cost of a cheaper but worse pair may be greater in the long run as you'll be back to replace them before they're worn out.

And ignore the "don't run because it injures you" comments. They're made by people who have chosen not to run and are justifying their own decision by turning it into advice for others. Running is an extremely rewarding form of exercise that is very easy to do.

Enjoy!

A friend of mine just hired an entire YHA youth hostel for a weekend for his 40th birthday. I believe he paid what they can expect to earn from a full hostel for the duration you book it so, for a hostel that sleeps 10, he paid 3 days x 10 x the normal per person rate.

I beg to differ on the "running will injure you" stuff as I think it's profoundly wrong. Running is more likely to highlight any problems you might have stored up as a result of a sedentary lifestyle but there is no higher incidence of knee problems in runners than non-runners. Runners are more likely to visit doctors and physios with knee problems because it stops (or hinders) their running whereas a fat bloke driving a van in London 8 hours a day will have a dodgy knee from heavy clutch work and might not do anything about it for years.

Running is a weight bearing activity which promotes higher bone density. Cycling, being non-weight-bearing, can actually cause osteoporosis and osteoarthritis in men and women who cycle a lot without doing any other activity. For this reason a lot of professional cyclists do at least some running or weight bearing exercise.

I'm a runner and a cyclist and have a lot of problems when running due to achilles and calf pain. These come directly from cycling as the leg never fully extends at any time during a cycle ride so muscles and tendons shorten. This makes any sport requiring full leg extension, such as running, very painful unless the damage is undone by lots and lots of stretching and some physio work.

While I respect peoples' decision not to run for whatever reason, I believe that using their own personal justification of why they've chosen not to run as discouragement to others is unhelpful at best. And the OP is already a runner so the run/don't run thing is not in question here.

I don't think it's the amount of exercise you're doing but the quality. You need to get good advice on this but I think you need to look at speed and hill work alongside endurance. This builds heart and lung capacity which will allow you to ride faster for longer.

Running might make it easier to do speed or hill work (because you don't need as much space or such a big hill as you run slower than you ride). You could look at triathlon training schedules for pointers – there are some at runnersworld.co.uk – but please, please don't take my advice. Go to professional cycling or triathlon fitness experts and get some good advice from them.

I bought a Roubaix and love it – it's a race bike but with slightly fatter tyres and flexible zerts things in the frame to soak up a bit of chatter from rougher roads. But I never asked myself whether, having bought a road bike, I might get into longer trips where I might want to take some luggage along. The Roubaix has no pannier attachments and a carbon seatpost prevents seatpost attached luggage racks from being used. I'm looking at swapping the seatpost for an alloy one to use my Topeak QR rack when I go on a couple of 100 mile+ rides later in the year.

When was the last time you went out for a ride and saw a whole group of women riding together? I'm all for more women riders and, if this is what it takes to get them on a bike and riding more, I'm all for it.

I would much rather direct my ire towards all of the TV adverts selling their product on the back of an anti-men message or Boots' insinuation, through their "Here come the girls" adverts, that only women know what they and their family need and that Boots is the shop to supply it.

Rob, having tried and failed to do the South Downs Way in one day with 3 x 9 and full suspension on my side, I'm in awe of your ride.

What were the worst and best bits? I did the route Westbound but the climb Eastbound up Old Winchester Hill seemed nasty, the cobbles either side of Jevington were interesting and, going back to Winchester, the short uphill along a field edge from the A27. But the rewards when you're riding high on the hills with valleys filled with cloud and views for miles is well worth it. I hope you had got to enjoy the route a bit.

For those that are interested I could include a little bit on what I ate, as this is a BIG thing for me as I've really struggled with this in the past? I now have a rucksack FULL of wrappers!

Yes, please. I'm struggling with nutrition. I've got it sorted for running but that doesn't seem to translate to rides that are very much longer in time.

Ian

My Stumpy with its dead brain shock and a diamond encrusted Fabergé egg have a lot in common. They both cost a lot of money, are made mostly of carbon and are of no use at all other than ornamental.

Seems to me that if the designer can't be arsed to use the minute or so he took to respond to your post to give you the facts you need, instead of slagging you off, then you should look elsewhere.

My physio tells me not to stretch cold muscles – warm them up a bit first – and to stretch them for 20 to 30 seconds in sets of 4 or 5 stretches with 20 to 30 seconds recovery. So I do one leg, then the other, then back to the first.

And you never ballistic stretch, just constant pull on the muscle, as bouncing, kicking, etc, can overextend the muscle and cause damage.

You'd think so but I can't find any evidence of the "or 1 year, whichever comes first". I was wondering what other Spesh owners were being told by their dealers.

+1

Lots ordered – big boxes arrive – everything good.

Soreen's new Go bars got me all the way along the South Downs Way. 143 calories in each one.

Northern lass, is she, with a name like Batty?

I love my Montane Featherlite jacket.

bakes – Member

has anyone said Cheryl Cole yet?

There was a Mr Terry in earlier who said just that.

This is very much worth a read. It moved me as much as Lance's book.

I live very close to the Devils Punch Bowl and Hindhead hills. We did a 10 mile loop on Sunday afternoon and, apart from the 500m of trails around the Hindhead cafe car park, we didn't see another living soul.

People in the South East drive to a well known spot, park up, pull the bikes/kids/dogs out the back of the car and go no more than 500m in any direction. If you're prepared to buy a 1:25000 OS map and park somewhere different, you can ride XC all day almost entirely alone.

Watch the game then go for a ride later to cheer yourself up. 😉

I'd say it's when body fat is within or slightly below average and where heart and lung capacity and muscle strength and endurance are above or significantly above average.

Fitness for a specific sport or activity is a different thing. Which is why Armstrong is a very bad name for a TdF cyclist.

Here's what I don't understand: We live in the country with Greenwich in it. We use Greenwich Mean Time in Winter but change it by an hour in Summer. I could understand it if we were on GMT in the Summer but went back an hour in the Winter so the kiddies could go to school in daylight, but we don't. So, why don't we just stay on GMT all year?

But the country with Greenwich in it has to use Greenwich Mean Time for at least a bit of the year or all the clocks in the world will implode!

Give these people[/url] a bell. They organise a load of charity bike events every year and should know exactly how big a vehicle is needed for 34 bikes.

An overdraft of bikes?

I just did the SDW on a Stumpy with 3 x 9 and used everything from 22-34 to 44-11. There are some quite fast road sections I needed the big ring for and I was on the granny and 34t rear going up Butser Hill (from the Eastbourne end) in 25 degree heat.