Double delivery at the Surfr household. Fair play to Summit Cycles for turning around the Fuse order in under 3 days and getting it to me before the close of business on Xmas eve!

Untitled by Dan Field[/url], on Flickr

Entered. Now the bike dilemma. Thinking XC hard tail at the moment.

First outing in proper mud yesterday and the otherwise brilliant ground controls did lose the plot a little in deep wet forestry mud recently churned by harvesting operations.

I’d ride Nant and ClimachX (with a quick pre-ride visit to The Holey Trail in Mach for latest route info).

Conti is 3 hours, Summit 1 hour ish, Pendam 40 minutes ish for the average rider. Unless you are planning on getting off and walking up everything that points upwards. I live a couple miles from the Conti trail and do a door to door loop in around 3 hours and I’m a fat singlespeeder. Its a lovely mix of trailcentre crafted trails and bare rock bridleway and double track.

I thought something was weighing me down on the climbs recently.

.my first mtb 20+ years back sounds similar only it’s first ride was down v. steep technical chutes with drops and jumps

This is different terrain to that I ride my CX bike on how exactly?

Dyfi Forest World Cup Descent

Bont Goch Ascent – Nant-yr-Arian trail centre

Hyddgen approach on Joe’s back Garden

Cx bike is not mountainbiking, you’ve given up mountainbiking not reverted to a simpler way

When I started mountain biking, my bike was rigid, geared and with canti brakes. And the tyres were not much bigger than 35mm to be honest. so if Flat bars and 26″ rims define mountain biking then so be it, but my origins in mountain biking were strikingly close to Cyclocross bikes. Indeed, my first thoughts when riding CX for the first time were “wow this is just like the old days”.

So, you covered 18 miles in over an hour, and yet your average speed was faster than 18 miles an hour?

Good point. I’d not noticed that. It’s not even calculating moving time v total elapsed time so no idea what Strava is up to there. I just blindly pasted the figures into the thread.

Yesterday in to work: 18 miles, 1 hour 3 mins, 685ft ascent, 18.3 MPH http://app.strava.com/rides/8129597
Yesterday home from work: 32 miles 2 hours 1 min, 2428ft ascent 15.9 MPH http://app.strava.com/rides/8129608

http://www.swallowfallshotel.co.uk/ in Betws y Coed have been good to us for club training weekends.

I’ve not had any problems with boredom in the saddle. Even when riding up and down the same section of road multiple times. I’m content enough for 12 hours at least. Not tried going any longer yet.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the numbers. Just ensure that you are comparing something useful, like your own times over the same course with other peoples on the same course in the same conditions. Strava goes some way to helping with this and I’m addicted to it now.

But comparing your training figures with someone elses on different days on different routes is pretty pointless.

You can safely ignore average speed. 

25 miles in under an hour as discussed above http://app.strava.com/rides/5696485#108609160

230 miles at 19.6 MPH http://app.strava.com/rides/3331484

Normal road hilly commute at 16 MPH http://app.strava.com/rides/7296360

I’m a crap roadie. I’m too fat and I’ m off the back when climbing on club runs. I managed to scrape 4 BC points in a 4th cat crit last year but there were only about 10 in the race! however, I’m an average time trialler. I finish top 10 in club events and top half of open events generally. 

Ignore the averages, get out and ride with friends. Join the local club time trials for a laugh and measure your performance from there. Chain gangs are ace for developing speed and skills. Club runs are great for getting the miles and cake in. It’s all good. Stop worrying and start enjoying :)

Decided I can’t be arsed to do it. I’ve hit the end of my season and I’m well into rest month now.

Can I sell my place to someone else?

MD Golf was a good budget buy when I bought mine about 4 years ago. Bought a set of Superstrong Tungsten Ti Irons for 250 quid, Putter for 22, wedge for 25, stand bag with straps for 45, and a trolley for 25 al from pricebustergolf.co.uk.

MD Golf were getting very good reviews at the time for a fledgling British golf company.

I’m no golfer though. Cycling takes up all my time and I get out about 5 times a year now and don’t have a handicap of club membership.

Looks like those older Chinese open mould frames with a different fork.

http://dengfubikes.com/product.asp?id=13&classid=21

Fairly stock last Winter:
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Jake the Snake in the snow[/url] by Surfrdan[/url], on Flickr

Now wearing some tub wheels and awaiting some nice grey Tufos for the 3 peaks.

Camelbacks are great for those 5 hour+ or overnight rides but they really have no place in a 3-4 hour local ride where 2 750cl bottles will more than suffice and tools, tubes and CO2 all go in pockets or a saddle bag as usual.

I’m in

34×28 for me. 34/46 up front and an 11-28 out back. I’m hoping this will suffice.

Good effort. Crit racing is one of the few sports where you have to be good to be crap. There is a relatively high level of ability even in 4th Cat races compared to many other disciplines. Try a 3/4 race and the pace will generally be a bit higher, and may involve attacking groups. 2/3/4 races are HARD and will generally have even more breaks often splitting the field into multiple pacelines/chaingangs with riders attacking from and dropping back between groups.

Ed2001 – Member
Cav, Eisel and Renshaw all going to sky.

^ Just this, basically. Cav going to Sky is cyclings worst kept secret and the rest seems to be a given as well.

I’m in! Just settled up the bill now. This will be my first time. The South Wales ‘cross league kindly provided a gap in their race schedule to allow for the 3 peaks so it seemed rude not to have a go.

I’ll be rolling on 35mm Speed Kings I think. Pondering upgrading my brakes to some Avid Shortys as I’m intending to ride as much as possible of the course.

Bigger question for me is what shoes for running/walking and riding? My current Shimano ones have seen better days and I’m in line for an upgrade.

Yeh that was a monsterous performance by Wilko. Fair play!

Well I climbed off after 200 miles with saddle related pains which developed after 180 miles. It was a brilliant event and I’ll be back next year to try and record a 230+ distance. I spent 90 minutes off the bike this year and was averaging 20MPH for the day before that so I know I can do it. I just need to tweak the bike setup a little and try an Adamo saddle I think to relieve perineum pressure.

Decided that I quite like the long distance TTing and am filling in my entry form for the Welsh 100 as we speak. Who knows, I might even attempt the national 24 next season!

Official recorded distance was 201.314 miles. Winner was 267.62 miles. Many packed due to heat stroke but that didn’t seem to get to me luckily.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/96648818

I’ve been racing a FM015 road frame direct from Deng Fu all season and it’s bloody brilliant.

There was a new cocktail bar last time we went. And I’ve always been a fan of the St Tudwels opposite the curry house and the Vaynol down by the corner

It’s lovely just out of season when the scousers have left and the Welsh language returns to the pubs and shops.

Is that Renshaw or Cav? I can’t quite tell if it’s either of them but if it’s Cav, he wears long socks so his team mates can pick him out in the mele approaching a sprint so they can form the train. Maybe he only brought 1 length of sock to the tour?

I’d be getting some 50mm Carbon tubs for that sort of Money. I’m sure you can buy some from Planet-X for that, or Feurto Bici if you don’t want to run the China-direct route (which would only cost around 300 delivered)

The bike is a great fit in my mind.

On the drops
Me at the front

On the drops, me at the back from the side

On the hoods

Hardly a flat back for Lance either and yet he was OK at TTing somehow.

It is more important to bring the arms inboard than be down on the drops or horns dragging your arms through the air.

I’ve got the most aggressive ROAD frame that I could find but my stem has a slight rise on it and I could lose 3mm of spacer to slam the stem right onto the headset. The tri bars as mentioned above lack any vertical adjustment so that’s as good as it gets. As for the reach, I feel it’s right and may become illegal if I was to move the bars further forward. Finally, I don’t think the angle of the photo does any favours. I might try and film myself in perfect profile to get a better idea of my position.

Well done trickydisco :) I know exactly how you feel, having just picked up my first 4 points yesterday at Shrewsbury Circuit. It was a 4th Cat only race but to me, it felt harder than last weeks 3/4th Cat race at the same venue even though the average pace was 1MPH slower overall. Perhaps caused by the small field (10) yesterday meant that the race was basically a single pace line and eventual bunch sprint for the points. I could have just soft pedaled my way around the circuit for a couple of laps and stumbled across the line for 10th and a virtually free BC point, but wheres the fun in that!

Somebody has put a nice little video together of yesterdays race too :)

Scratch, fancy Pembrey tomorrow evening? 2/3/4 handicapped 1 hour + 5 laps

I’ve got the Token bars above and use them for all variety of time trialing and triathlon as well as long solo rides. They’re great for the money and only lack vertical adjustment. This is only really an issue when you want to tweek your aero tuck position slightly without altering the base-bar height by adding/removing stem spacers.

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Pwllheli Triathlon Bike[/url] by Surfrdan[/url], on Flickr

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Boda[/url] by Surfrdan[/url], on Flickr

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Barcud Coch[/url] by Surfrdan[/url], on Flickr

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Barcud Coch[/url] by Surfrdan[/url], on Flickr

Good tips so far. Thanks. What about entertaining yourself? Not allowed music and you can’t talk to other riders as you can’t ride alongside or draft.

And yet the Solar system is just one of billions of other star systems out there. Many of which are found to have their own planets (I think they’ve found over 600 other planets now and they’re finding a couple a month it seems).

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Crickhowell Cyclocross[/url] by Surfrdan[/url], on Flickr

Yeh but he’s a clubmate who is also competing :)

Don’t go off too fast. Your HR lags behind your perceived effort. Spend the first mile getting up to speed. It will feel like you aren’t trying hard enough but a quick glance at the speedo will confirm that you are flying along nicely (unless a headwind :( ). After the first mile, try to be at threshold. Final mile ramp up above threshold so you have absolutely nothing left after the line.