2010 Jake the Snake has been awesome through the winter

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WAGs ride 19122010 017[/url] by Surfrdan[/url], on Flickr

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

And with 23s on it’ll be good enough for all road work. I did TTs, Sportives, Cross races and hill climbs last season on it. Here it is will full guards competing in an end of season club hillclimb event.

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Me on Primrose Hill Hillclimb[/url] by Surfrdan[/url], on Flickr

Hoping to be a bit quicker this season on a racy new carbon crit bike though :)

See last nights Kierin final at Manchester for details.

We’re very lucky in that as well as being blessed with mountains for awesome road and MTB biking we also have a Uni with a great Sport Science dept for testing and a Gym who’s spin instructors include an ex pro duathlete and a current BC Premier Calendar rider for magnus backstedt’s UK Youth team.

http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/sportscentre/staff/alastair-rhodes/

http://www.teamukyouth.co.uk/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=14

Sessions for the club run once a week and I’ve started adding in a 45 min warmup spin in the gym beforehand to really get the most out of the evening. Intervals are the order of the day usually but things get mixed up pretty well each week so we’re always on our toes. 5 min sets last night some sprints, some climbing, some on-of short sprint efforts, some flat TT work above threshold. Love it and will be a bit sad when the TT season starts and the classes stop until winter.

Any more out there guys and girls? I’ve got a lead on a Raleigh Winner which might just do the job.

oh I forgot..

4) The clutch appeared to have a different bite point for each gear and I *never* mastered it.

had one for a year matt. I had the 192 BHP version and although it drives beautifully with a 50/50 weight distribution, I found it a real ballache as a daily driving car.

1) You can’t just start the engine and shut it down again without waiting for the engine to fully warm up (at least 5 minutes). You can perform a procedure which involves holding your foot on the accelerator at 4K RPM (quite loud) then turning off the ignition whilst foot still on accelerator. This reduces the chances of flooding, but I still had the RAC out once for this. You can’t just swap the cars around on the drive way, and letting someone else drive the car whether it be friends, valets, mechanics etc involves giving them the above instructions (queue blank looking faces and calling out the RAC again).

2) 20MPG if you are really careful. a 65 quid tank of petrol will get you 200 miles if you are lucky. There is an elite group on the owners club forum who have somehow managed 300 miles from a tank. God knows how they ever managed this. London to Edinburgh at 55MPH perhaps.

3) Litre of oil every 1K miles or less. They actually give you a bottle to keep in the boot for emergencies it’s that much of a drinker.

I’ve a 1.6 Diesel Focus now and a MUCH happier driver.

If you want a drivers car, get an MX5. I had 2 before the RX8 and they beat it on every single point except top speed and acceleration, but they are plenty fast to get into trouble on welsh roads and a smile a minute. Get a good mk 1 for 2K and never look back.

RX8 was one of the few cars I regretted buying. MX5s I regretted selling!

Miss both of these. Timeless really, and could still sit alongside their modern equivalents such as The Simpsons and Futurama I feel.

Flintstones
Jetsons

Flashes, the white and blue Raleigh is the sort of thing I’d like to build. Keeping an eye out for an old Equipe, Banana or Team frame now :)

That’s just the sort of thing I’m after Flashes. Any hints on where to pick up a bargain of a frame?

Tiffany Lucida 4mm platinum. Nicely battered now so not bling at all. Suits mer perfectly. Hate gold.

Rocks are no problems. Neither is a little air.

Ta for the reminder. Once upon a time (15+ years ago) I was a BOF instructor, but since then I’d let myself go a little. Just found a local event in a couple of weeks time and fancy having a go at the POW couse in a couple of weeks now that I can actually run more than 1K with out dying.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/swnygwy/pow/

Leave the muddy bike in the back of the car for up to a week then maybe move it to the shed bouncing it on the driveway to knock off the big bits of mud along the way.

Then when next ride comes around, retrieve bike from shed, bounce a couple more times and maybe clear out the worst of the mud from the moving areas with a gloved hand and head off on the ride. If chain goes brown, then I might rub it with a WD40 soaked cloth and lube with finishline (rare).

I’m utterly rubbish at keeping bikes clean. The MTB is now a singlespeed so doesn’t require much at all thankfully. The cross bike is screaming for a new chain but to be fair it’s lasted all winter and all last summer on the current one as my primary bike for weekly club runs, time trials, sportives, cross races and commuting!

Hairy lycra is NOT a good look. get them pins shaved!

Is there a bug in the form then? Surprising that 2 of us have entered females accidentally. Luckily we both actually are singlespeeding it, so that bits fine.

Managed to register martyntr as a female but we’re in! Luddites for the first time this year after a trial run at the Dyfi Winter Warmup.

8-9MPH this year so far, 6-7 last year (improved fitness, lost weight and moved to lightweight singlespeed)

Just went to look for some fast boys GPS records. This is Matt Page (mtbmatt from here)’s race output for 50Km (30 miles) of Salisbury Winter Challenge. 800m of ascent in total and a shade under 15MPH average and he probably had gears. I’m calling shenanigans on you being anywhere near 17MPH. I doubt you are over 12MPH to be honest.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/61625297

Can’t believe it took this long to get Burton on Bass. Shame on you all.

Getting a hankering for a singlespeed pompetamine for commuting duties. It’s hilly around here so singlespeed with discs rather than fixed seems to make the most sense. Recently moved to singlespeed on the MTB (Scandal) and this seems like an obvious next move. Leaves me to put the Jake the Snake into permanent cyclocross mode or winter road bike for club runs when singlespeed will not cut it for speed.

That’s my favoured kebab option anyway. Always figured it was probably pretty decent food given that pita is low fat, chicken is lean and grilled and how bad can salad be? The sauce I figured was probably not great but all in all, it’s not a bad take away.

Mine just arrived courtesy of the next door neighbour who took them in first thing this morning. Great service. I notice that a few lines (Jawbones for example) are now not showing on the site so stocks are obviously dropping.

Oops just dropped 32 quid on a pair of nice brown TWITCHs.

Wear mine all the time and never had a problem until I lost 18Kg in weight and went down 2 full ring sizes. Got it re-sized for 50 quid and it came back polished up and good as new. A few weeks later it was back in it’s bashed up state but stayed snug on my finger when riding instead of falling into the finger tip of my glove all the time. It’s a platinum 5mm band from Tiffany’s

We started doing the full wii fit experience but now I just use it for weight tracking.

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Almost there! -5lb over the weekend somehow! #fb[/url] by Surfrdan[/url], on Flickr

Great day out in the Dyfi forest. Trails were running really well and the weather looked kindly on us all, albeit a little chilly on the first couple of miles down the road. Brrrrr. Thanks to everyone who played a part. Hope a good amount was raised for the Ian Pryce Memorial Fund, whatever that’s for.

Can I just echo the wish that this be continued next year and thereafter if at all possible?

I’ve got Rubber Queen 2.2s on front and back and they did perfectly for the full Enduro last year. I’m sure they’ll be great again this year. Seems a perfect tyre for local conditions.

I raced cross in the winter on my Jake the Snake and raced crits, TTs, hillclimbs, sportives and circuit races in the Summer on the same bike with a wheel swap. I’d swopped the 46 chainring for a 50 but I ended up keeping this arrangement for the cross season anyway as I spent most of my races in the 36 ring. I’m not that great a racer. mid field in cross league races and struggled to keep in touch with the bunch on the circuits and crits but most of that was down to me and not the bike.

this year I’m building a carbon road bike for the summer season and moving the JTS back to proper cross duties.

Get that stem flipped and remove those spacers if you can.

Looks good thoguh ad welcome to the wonderful world of cross.

Red White and Black Giro Atmos for both road and MTB duties.

Not much in the way of evidence in this thread. I regularly hit 45 MPH on the road bike but I can’t seem to get much faster.

This was last sundays club run on my cyclocross bike with slicks.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/62650299

Hope to hit a recorded 50MPH this season and I’m sure it will come with time. There was a great descent on the Tour of Pembrokeshire last season which would have been perfect. Too many bends or poor quality surfaces on the descents around Mid Wales to really hit those speeds though.

Regarding confidence on 700c 23mm tyres. I felt the same originally but you soon grow to trust the road bike and the drops. There’s probably more rubber in contact with the road on a 700c road tyre than there is on a 26″ 2.2 MTB tyre.

Anyway lets see those GPS logs for these silly speeds :)

Might get one of these fibre flares to accompany my Exposure Flare. Could be the perfect 2 light setup, thanks for the heads up.

Exposure Flare has to be the winner for me.

sorry, Mine are Endura Humvees rather than Singletracks I believe. My mistake. Mine have/came with liners.

same as woody including measurements. I think mine are XLs as I used to have a gut but I’m now a 34″ waist and they still fit well due to elastic and belt.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/shopping_cart

That link is full of win. Awesome :)

I find the 500 gives plausible results. 60 mile 4 hour hilly (1500m) club run with 16mph avg and around 165 BPM avg came in at 2500. I have hrm and cadence

Fancy joining a few clubmates on the Bonty 12 solo singlespeed this year but it’s the first week of School holidays and we may want to book holiday then. When does Bonty tend to sell out of solo spots?

Baggies over 3/4 bib tights to keep the worst of the crap from soaking through the lycra and for added stowage opertunities (finally shed the horrible camelback in favour of a small saddle bag and bottles (spot the roadie convert))

have you seen the urban dictionary definition of Singletrack? I think it suits this place perfectly? olOOLOLol11!!11!eleven