I rate it and use it a lot for mostly long 2-3 day gravel adventures. A couple of points to note. Its only as good as the info taken from OpenMaps which allows users to add quite a bit of detail, such as if a section is pubic byway, bridleway, permissive etc. and then surface type on top of that too. If doing MTB type stuff it 95% of the time keeps you off footpaths but you can override this by adding way points. If you select the gravel riding option it seem to favour Sustrans routes. I also went over the Pennines the other weekend and it opted for the Trans Pennine Trail and stayed off the main road. Use the the little highlights icons which usually have user added pictures, this helps to see what that section is like.

My usual way I use it, is select a place to go, let it route, change to the OSMCyle Map layer, then add some way points or drag onto sections I want to do. If there is anything I’m unsure of, usually sections I’ve added, I’ll check it against Google Map Satellite view or OS maps. The komoot map layer also seems to have stiles on it so its good at avoiding them. I’ve found most routes its done for me have been excellent and kept me on the quieter roads when I haven’t been off road.

DT Swiss GR1600 are what I’m looking at, a little over budget. I think they can be had for about £370 ish at the moment from some of the european sites.

As surfer said ‘shinsplints’ covers quite a few muscles injuries in the lower leg. I had a recurring anterior tiba strain which both times came from overuse. Annoyingly they need large amounts of rest to heal, although cycling is fine. If your serious, see a decent physio, one I went to see identified weaknesses which caused imbalance in strength in my hips and muscles around that area and gave me exercises to address this which has so far stopped it reoccurring but are ones I continue to do. If they start talking about ultrasound therapy find someone else.

@tonyf1 Living very close to the Bathurst Estate myself for many years and received my share of bollockings for either riding in there or running in there after hours including from Bathurst himself. I am fairly sure alot of the estate is not public footpath but actually private estate which is merely given access to the public during certain hours. There are a few certain sections which are bridleway (near Sapperton) or footpath but the majority is neither.

If you do go and meet her have a **** first, might stop you thinking with your dick for a change.

That is genuinely quality advice. Applies to more than just these kind of situations too!

On the time calculation your not adding in the cleaning of all that hard black shite from the jockey wheels, cassette, front chain rings and occasional proper chain clean down. You don’t get that build up with wax.

Freehub or rear derailleur issue I’d say.

Putoline or any kind of wax isn’t a degreaser so if your chain is covered in oil, I don’t know how its going to strip it from the chain? Sure the wax goes on, the issue being its not going to stay on as well or as long.

I have to agree with what the Oz Cycles chap says and you should fully degrease your chain (even if its brand new) the first time before waxing as he quite rightly says, wax won’t stick very well to something that has an oily film all over it. I did, petrol, degreaser, white spirit (twice). After that the Putoline does do a remarkably good job of cleaning your chain when re-waxing or should that be stopping dirt from sticking to it in the first place.

Unfortunately so. I started out with a base model 2 years ago, loved it. Just recently upgraded to the Comp Carbon. Incredibly capable and comfortable bike. But like you say, a little pricey. No new stock of some models till December now!!

Diverge? Stock of the Elite E5 in a 56 at the moment.

As @Nobeerinthefridge says, to avoid injury you just need to build up the volume slowly, trust me I know I’ve been there. Its perfectly doable, I’ve managed to build up from 30km to 75km run weeks now. This is then on top of a couple of gravel rides a week usually 50-100 km. Most run programs tend to have you do one slower long run a week. So perhaps look at getting that into your routine somewhere.

@donncha

If your finding them too small I missed out and would happily take them both off your hands.

Something else worth noting on the HR zones front is that there are a few ways to calculate zones. I believe Lactate Threshold HR% is generally regarded as the best way, more so than purely just going off % of Max HR. You can change how zones are derived on your Garmin and you might even be able to do a guided lactate threshold test too. As already said more slow miles seem to help, there is a lot out there and 80/20 is common, 80% easy and 20% hard. Training in mid zone 3 neither helps recovery or helps improvement.

I’ve found training to zones helpful as a way to help me to run slower which takes some discipline.

Me and a few mates (usually between 5-9 of us) have a weekly game using Pokerstars along with Zoom at the same time. Works really well, great laugh, far better than a quiz and just do a £10 buy in. Pokerstars charges you £1 each for the privilege.

I’d say a lot also depends on the practice. I started off going to a Pets@Home vets, the practice was part of the shop. Place was an absolute con. My cat had two teeth left and they wanted to charge me cleaning of the teeth before removing after she went in for a check up and boosters. Decided against it and got a second opinion from my local independent long standing practice. Still ended up having the receptionist(!!!) ringing me up with scare tactics to try and get me to bring the cat in for the work about £400 worth of work. Local practice said leave them, they’ll drop out and don’t worry.

Since then I’ve had two visits to the local independent where they have charged me nothing and another where the cat had to stay overnight, (at one of the vets houses!) and including him getting up twice during the night to give the cat sedatives. Total cost less then £200.

Hostels are pretty cheap in the more remote parts of Europe so are the Airbnbs. Other options would be Couchsurfing which is free, get the app. Young lads? Tinder?

Thanks to @sockpuppet for the Oxford Half entry this weekend, so felt I should do a little race report. Was a minor logistics operation getting the ticket collection sorted as I couldn’t make it to Oxford on the Saturday but a little search of Instagram of others doing it and some messages sent off and I had a willing (if somewhat random) volunteer. I had ran Cheltenham Half 2 weeks previous and it had been going great till 16km when I blew up spectacularly (bonked), I have put this down to a night of boozing the night before and not enough food/fueling. Very poor preparation and I was annoyed with myself even though I managed a 1:30:40 PB.

Slow parkrun done Saturday as a warm up. Weather for Sunday was looking less than ideal. Got to the rather muddy venue and had to hang around longer than anticipated as the person who had collected my ticket was running rather late. It also turned out that you could collect your race number there even though all info I found said this wasn’t possible. After a minor panic she turned up and it was a long ish dash to the start pens. Thankfully @sockpuppet had put himself in the 1:30 pen however I spotted the pacer in the one infront so I covertly nipped under the tape and joined the B area.

I set off and dodged through a bit of traffic and plenty of puddles and started to settle into my 4:05 pace, I managed to find another runner to sit with who was doing the same pace which I always prefer vs running on my own. One idiot came running up the inside at one point and seemingly splashing through every puddle possible and soaking quite a few of us. The race was really well supported considering the conditions. Half way in and the heavens really started to open while running along a closed section of carriageway, absolutely torrential rain. It didn’t really bother me, I was fairly zone’d in by now apart from the sleeves on my running top needing the occasional squeeze out of water! At this point my unintended running partner started to drop off so back running on my own. 16km came up and I was still feeling good as this was where I had blown up previously, I did my best to restrain myself and not get carried away. I said to myself I can start uping the pace at 18km. Legs still feeling fine I rain a 3:51 and continued with sub 4 kms to the end and finished with a sprint to the line with a chip time of 1:26:02, 138th overall of about 6750 finishers and 24th in the 30-34 category.

Just avoid ‘Pink Street’ as that is a little bit Stag/Hen do centric. Plus you’ll get hassled to buy fake drugs every 30 seconds as well.

Time out food market as suggested.

Go and visit one of the Cemeteries (Dos Prazeres Cemetery, also has a good view) they are really quite strange over there, all the coffins are visible!

Go and visit one of the wonderful beeches (Praia de Carcavelos, my favourite) they are all easily accessible by train.

The famous tram which goes up the hill, I think there are two. And just generally wonder around, its very easy to get off the main tourist routes in Lisbon. In the evenings there are usually many great streets music performers which are worth a watch/listen.

One of my favorite cities, hope you enjoy it!

Yep I live in Cirencester.

The gates are a bit mental but you get used to them and learn to enjoy the challenger of opening and closing them without getting off your bike. For the kissing gates you soon learn the technique of getting the bike onto the back wheel reverse in spin round push open gate and down again.

Shimano PD-EH500 are good. They are what I have put on my Diverge so it can be used for cycling in trainers to the gym, around town, pub etc. And also for road rides in SPDs.