On all four? If so what have you been doing to them ?

I’m in, after last years summer never really happening, last winter being an absolute washout, and 2 bouts of COVID this year and a really crappy year of unachievable (in a sensible workload) schedules my weights nudged back into triple digits and this time round I’ve not got the weightlifting numbers to justify it!

Thankfully work has settled down and I’ve moved offices so can get back into some sort of routine.

Plan from here until Track SQT starts again next May/June is

Monday – Lunch ride + Free-weights in the evening

Tuesday – Track (on road bikes, so more like a chaingang but without cars, potholes, corners, hills etc just pedal till you get dropped)

Wednesday – Lunch ride + Free-weights in the evening

Thursday – ~35miles Road group to the pub

Friday – Lunch ride + Free-weights in the evening

Saturday – MTB

Sunday – Road (either this or the Saturday MTB will need to be a longer/slower recovery ride)

One thing I did find though, was that I was exercising for the sake of it. Which sounds a bit odd but I’d end up doing 3.5 hours of sometimes mediocre exercise spread over 7 days when I’d rather do a solid 3.5 hour ride in one go on Saturday or Sunday.

As above, you have to do both.  But have a plan. Just absent mindedly doing some random stretching / yoga / weights won’t keep you motivated through the winter*, . Also depends on what you count. To me it had to be something with exercise as the purpose so walking the dog, commuting or Livingroom yoga didn’t count.

e.g. take up a gym routine of free-weights Mon/Wed/Friday, do your normal big ride at the weekend, do a shorter recovery ride the other weekend day, then you’ve only got 2 days left to fill with something else.

*depends on your brains wiring. I can’t motivate myself without a routine. Some people can, some people do it with a goal, I just like to know at at 6:00 on a Monday I’ll be in the gym doing Routine A, same as last week, same as the next week.

Why is the bike industry like this?   Why even pretend that it’s a “standard”?   Why not just call it proprietary.  “Hey, this is Trek/Cannondale/Spesh/Giant launching our new bike, we’ve made the BB completely new and called it BB548 after the number of D20 dice rolls it took to define it’s dimensions but for clarity we’re calling it BB-Dave, and got SRAM/Shimano to make it but no one else will adopt it so it we may as well have called it BB-Trek”.

BB’s and cranks especially, so many brands have come up with so many solutions to their own problems that they’ve had to go full circle back to threaded BB’s with 24mm  cranks.  The only one that made any sense as an upgrade was T47 because it gave frame manufacturers the larger space they needed without all the issues of press-fit.  BB30 can have a “highly commended” 2nd place because it was at least simple and cheap, even if there seems to be a minority of users for whom it just makes their frame creek. In theory it should be fine as long as the frame is machined after welding/heat treatment/painting.

At least with chainrings you can solve the problem by just going back and fitting shimano cranks like you should have done in the first place ?

Dammit. I can’t post my contribution now.

I’m just bitter than as a Millennial I am now the establishment against which young people are going to rebel ?

Converse are pretty narrow fitting, in my experience.  I bought some to try but had to send them back :(

I think my feet are on the wide side, but mostly “high volume” as they’ve a tall arch and midfoot (so I tend to wear wider fittings. I’d say they’re wide enough to give normal feet room to spread out properly, but perhaps not objectively wide for wide feet.

It’s a shame Ryanair don’t do flights to America, it could be cheaper to bring one back in your suitcase and enjoy a little holiday.

I knew someone who “paid” for a holiday in Whistler by buying a Yeti whilst he was out there. This was back when the exchange rate was $2:£1 but bikes and components were pretty much parity $:£.

Converse?  The choice of weightlifters as a low stack, wide soled shoe before barefoot shoes become a thing.

Flat-ish

Thin-ish

Wide-ish

Don’t make you look like a wierdo-ish.  Gen X will look down on you for not wearing brogues from some double barreled name in Northampton.  Gen Z will look down on you for trying to be cool and failing, especially if paired with trainer-socks.  They also do various backed-out and leather versions if you want to blend in a bit.

My fiesta ? I remember turning up to pitfichie and going up the hill in reverse in my fiesta the first year it was reintroduced and taking one of the few dry pitches at the top of the hill and watching chaos ensue. I recall taking one look at the AE bog and deciding to move on to an actual campsite. A By product was my bike wasn’t stripped for parts while I slept like many others.

I did have some friends pitched right next to me on a sodden campsite on Skye where our tent footprint was waterproof and theirs……well it wasn’t.

Not sure a tent box would have helped as we were cycle touring.

Similarly a friend brought a light weight north American tent to sleepless in the saddle. It was an equally bad decision as the bathtub and fly just didn’t have enough overlap for the driving rain and wetness ensued

So in summary, for all except cycle touring the roof tent would have solved the problem just as effectively as luck / judgement / choice of ground based tent.

I predict the number of ‘twist and go’ type e-bikes will increase in the coming years, doing nothing to increase the amount of exercise taken/ decrease strain on health services. Lazy will keep being lazy.

But if cycling infrastructure improves for self-propelled cycling, then I’ll take that thanks.

TBH if it was policed adequately I’d probably be OK with an unlicensed / unregistered 15.5mph “electric moped” class that encompassed E-scooters etc.  The current “you have to pedal it” rule is pointless anyway with the existence of “turbo” modes on most bikes rendering the pedaling effort minimal anyway.

The thing I’ve still not got used to on Tacx is junctions. I keep wanting to slow down, change gear etc

I once tried to ride rollers with a sufferfest video, it didn’t go well!

The problem for me comes with product life and plain old price, it’s not cheap stuff (it may become cheaper of course) but I just don’t trust either of the big S’s not to us leccy shifting to drive forced Obsolescence or incompatibility (Shimano sort of already did it once with Ultegra Di2 6770 to 6870) via firmware and/or just not supporting compatible spares for more than a few years at a time…

That’s my gripe with it. Surely there’s nothing really to stop them being compatible, even if it needs a little widget box for the interface.  Especially the 11-12 speed compatibility. Sure they could have said the old stuff won’t work on 11-34 or something, but they could at least have patched the firmware with 12 clicks!

Hence why I like the L-Twoo setup. In principle the same system can work with any cassette because you can input the number of steps and the spacing. Anything from 12s Transmission, to 13s Ekar, to an old 8s retro build on the same kit.

There’s a few niggles like reviewers bricking mechs doing clumsy maintenance, and they had to remove the auto-trim feature. but on the other the whole groupset is cheaper than some mechs and it seems to ‘just work’ just as well as the big brands. And it takes AAA batteries!

I know you said not in ear, but my Google Pixel Buds Pro are the only ear buds I’ve had that don’t fall out of my ears and yet I can barely tell they are in. great sound quality both ways.

I bought a pair of Pixel Bud Pro’s as they seemed like the first pair of earphones I could actually wear when I tried them (I have very narrow ear canals) but nope they don’t work for me for more than about an hour.  The touch/gesture control is pretty cool though and the noise canceling / transparent modes are actually useful.  e.g. transparent mode in the gym seems to cut out the noise of the fan, play music and let you have a completely normal conversation at the same time, witchcraft.

If anyone’s interested I’ll swap them for something on-ear or make me an offer?

tjagainFull Member
I do find this interesting.  to me the idea of electronic shifting marks a big split in cycling between those for whom its a simple machine and want to keep i tthat way and those who want every latest gadget.

For me its a deal breaker in that I will not buy a bike with it.  I believe in KISS Its an expensive complex solution in search of a problem

I agree with the philosophy, but we’ve all seen the explosions in a spaghetti factory that were your e-bike conversions ?

iaincFull Member
On the battery discharging when in/on car, I have found that if the bike is lying flat inside the car it doesn’t deplete at all, however if upright on towbar rack it can lose half its charge in an hour or 2 driving,

How is 2 hours in the car using 12h worth of battery?

Garmin Instinct if she want’s something slightly chunky like a G-shock. Does the simple smart stuff you need, but nothing clever that makes you go ‘oooohhhhhh’.

Garmin Forerunner (the entry level one) does slightly more in a slightly less bulky case with a nicer color screen.

OH has a fitbit, I’ve got an instinct.  A few years on I still wear by instinct but her fitibits in a drawer somewhere as it fundamentally failed as a watch by being un-readable in anything other than a dark room.

Or is it more of a suggestion that Zwift is more of a structured workout/intervals?

Or unstructured I guess.

Zwift tends to have a lot more gradients / bends than the real world, which keeps it engaging.

I guess it depends on the aim though.  If you’re following a workout then it doesn’t matter and maybe the “real” world actually works better because you wont get the avatar surging on each change Over the winter I tended to just ride routes though and it’s the constant clicking up and down the gears that keeps me awake/focused.  And most routes tended to feel like a varied workout with either long draggy climbs or short / hard intervals or mixtures of both.

I can see why Rouvy, RGT etc exist, but by the same token Zwift, Mywoosh etc aren’t realistic for equally valid reasons.

That puffed up parrot outfit has made my day. It’s absolutely brilliant and funny – WANT.

We help out with a puppy socialization class which involves exposing adorable 2-6 month old puppers to an avalanche of weird s****.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion… I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. I’ve dressed up in an inflatable parrot costume and chased sprocker spaniel puppies around a village hall. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain…

total whattaboutery [rolleyes emoji]

I agree, but whatabout it?  It’s like me as a 37year old male with no kids boycotting Nestle.I’m not the target market for infant formula (but have just eaten a kit-kat so I’m a bad person).

will be irrelevant anyway once they inevitable start charging for it

Yup, although given the number of hours people spend on Zwift I’m surprised they haven’t figured out a non-subscription model yet.  All those advertising hoardings, pre race warm-up pens, bike upgrades, etc.  Just make it free, crowbar in adverts, charge for bike upgrades, have a Dr with a Clinic at the top of the Alpe-du-Zwift who’ll give you a 20% ZwiftPO boost in FTP for £20, or a shot of OZwiftempic that lowers your in game weight for 30 days.

I’m with 13thflormonk on this one.

I don’t really disagree that electronic groupsets are better than mechanical.  But it’s the shear cost of spares and lack of cross compatibility that’s putting me off. My Dura Ace 10s is almost 20 years old, and I can still keep it going with generic cables, any (old) 10/9/8speed mechs etc. Once Shimano swaps to an integrated battery how many years do you think you’ll be able to buy the seat tube mounted one for?

At least the L-twoo version lets you (in an app, which maybe makes it’s own future problems with the inevitable march of OS updates) configure the number/spacing of the sprockets so it’s completely agnostic of any future cassette spacing.

Dropper posts I’ll begrudgingly accept even though they don’t seem all that durable.

But it’s incrementally reaching the point where it seems like the average MTB needs more TLC post ride than a motorbike. Maybe more durable than a decade ago, but the mid-to-late 2010’s were IME an low point for crap half developed products that didn’t last, which is a close run race with Fox’s 2000’s pre Kashima stanchion coatings. 20+ years ago I could spend time nursing a cheap bike with unsealed bearings, soft rims, v-brakes,  front mech, etc, through the winter.  Now my bike has less derailleurs, the rims / brakes are durable, the hub bearings last forever with zero maintenance, yet every weekend there always seems to be something that needs a strip down or a service or some sort of tinkering.

Whats the attraction of riding in a virtual world though?

Rouvy offers similar experiences but on ‘real’ roads, but for some reason doesnt appear to attract people

I think it’s twofold:

Because in the absence of other stimuli the real world is actually really dull. I could go on a “real” simulation and ride up a “real” hill for 20 minutes, but it’ll have only a handful of changes in gradient, the view will only actually be notably nice intermittently and the corners are mostly just a few gentle bends.  Whereas Zwift will have me switchbacking my way up an alpine pass with dinosaurs and repeated punchy sections.

Also there’s only so much you can do to suspend belief that you’re looking at a screen in a shed. It’s not the same as riding outside, so why pretend?

Would also be interested to hear any thoughts on the funding/sportswashing issues…

Mehhhh, are they also going to boycott watching the TDF?  Or do something meaningful like boycott oil and gas?

Saying you’re going to boycott a free videogame seems like peak virtue-signaling.  Are the USA’s tax breaks sports washing their gun violence problem?

But boost front by not rear.

What cranks/chainline does it have? I’m guessing that means non-boost MTB cranks?

I’d 2nd the idea that all the O-rings and rubber hoses are going to be knackered by now.  It probably sits in an antique-stove no-mans-land somewhere between the pyromaniac steam-punks who want to use a petrol powered primus that live for the drama and danger it adds to brewing a cup of tea whilst running it on vintage leaded 2* to give it the full brain rotting terroir, and everyone else who would just buy a new one from Go-Outdoors.

The people who might be interested are the ones in VW / Bedfords / Mercs and other retro campers.  But I’d sell it with a warning that it’s 50 years old and almost certainly needs a service.

Because everything is better with pictures.

Top – small pipe, big pressure difference along it

Middle – big pipe, small pressure difference

Bottom big pipe with the top removed.

P1 and P2 have to be moved for the last one because otherwise you’d be measuring 0 differential pressure because the slope of the surface is in effect a line of equal pressure (an isobar).

If there is a discharge point you will have flow, it doesn’t need to slope to have flow.

Yes it does. [edit: excluding external forces like a difference in atmospheric pressure)

Is the water in a bath sloping when it discharges out of the overflow? Water in, and water out = flow.

In a liquid filled pipe that would be correct, and you would have a pressure drop along the length of the pipe.

In a  bath (or a lake) that pressure drop means there is more pressure at the in end than the out end (it’s after all, just a pipe with only 3 sides).  If you have more pressure then you have more static head, if you have static head you have height, if you have a difference in height you have a slope!

My bike just has the stock brand-x cable, no sure how much more room it has at the BB though (carbon FS so it’s a chunky part of the frame).

I think it’s a lot more flexible than standard cable outer though, comes practically folded in half in the box.

Isn’t Nokon thicker than conventional outer? It steps down into the ferrule at the end. IF you can get it in the frame though it makes sense.

Yes, otherwise you would have no flow.

But the pressure drop along the length of the lake is tiny because the velocity is so low (tens m3/s spread over tens of thousands of m2)

If you could be bothered to calculate it then I suspect it’s of the same sort of order of magnitude as the surface tension.

They all mention who the original idea came from. As did everyone who used an FSR Rear end for 25 years.

Sorry, my irony meter just went out of calibration due to the needle bending off the scale.

There’s a whole lot of controversy around who actually originated that idea between Horst, Dave, Tony and Mike, and the answer is Mike has the best lawyers, Tony throws the worst tantrums, Dave gave up begrudgingly and joined up with the other Dave, and no one talks about how it all looks like Mert’s design anyway but he was working with Yeti, motocross bikes and para-athletes and too cool to get involved in the arguments.

Mate, I have a 68 plate Mk4 Focus that nobody sells the oil for. Or filters. Or most other gubbins. It’s an utter shit show at the moment.

That sounds bizarre?

Not wanting to teach you to suck eggs but it’s not simply a case of that grade of oil has been superseded? e.g OILGRADE3.6E is now OILGRADE3.6F?

And filters are normally just a thread size, diameter and height (and maybe a non-return valve depending their orientation and location on the engine).

Energy usage, recycling and lights.

I’m the tree hugger in our house when it comes to energy usage, the boiler and rads are optimized, the house is insulated, we’re doing pretty well.

My OH though will sit in the dark and turn every (LED) light off whereas I keep trying to point out that every bulb in the house together still costs less than TV she has on and ignores whilst she plays games on her phone.  She will also leave the conservatory inner door open all winter which must cost a fortune. And then not open the outer door in summer so the house slowly cooks.

Same with recycling.  I’ll recycle 90%.  She’ll fish through the bin to find a discarded yogurt pot which should have been rinsed and recycled.  But she won’t rinse it, it’ll just sit on the side festering until I* do the washing up.

*yes, I. She for as long as I’ve known her has never actually washed up.  She believes that anything non-dishwasher just gets magically cleaned and put away if left on the side long enough.

I assume it’s so that when Scotland gets Indy there’s a way to easily export electricity to England and continue to have them “subsidise us”?

You do realize that little / none of the generation is owned by “Scotland” or “The UK”.  I would assume that post independence that the national grid would need to continue to exist in a slightly more complicated way to distribute energy generated by private companies to private individuals..

And if for a moment we think of it the other way where somehow the rUK and iScotland become socialists utopias and nationalized all their generation.  Scotland would be ******.  It might produce more renewable energy than it uses on a longer term average.  But renewables are cheap, and if Scotland was selling that energy to England, it would likely be at a time when England also had lots of wind, so wouldn’t want it, so the price would be low.  Then because Scotland has vetoed Nuclear in it’s own backyard, it’s going to be reliant on some very expensive energy from England on windless days.

All that’s moot and hypothetical though, because neither side actually own the infrastructure.

Protecting English countryside at the expense of Scottish countryside?

The Scottish government could have followed the Tory’s, they didn’t.

Arguably if they had then it might have driven even more investment into offshore generation and then we wouldn’t have to listen to the SNP bleat over how Labour halting new oil and gas licences is bad for Scotland rather than good for the whole world.

Alternatively we could encourage more generation closer to the consumer instead of dealing with transmission losses. Let’s see the South Downs and New Forest have as many wind turbines as the Highlands or Dumfries and Galloway. It would maybe focus more minds onto energy use reduction if everyone was dealing equally with the consequences.

What? Like the Gunfleet, London and Gabbard windfarms?

Begrudgingly I’d agree with the Tories, the de-facto ban on onshore wind development in England was probably a good thing as whilst every little helps, it’s pissing in the wind of the problem. Offshore development can be and is of a completely different scale.

I don’t mind wind turbines in the landscape.  But it pisses some noisy people off and that energy and money is better put into big projects that can actually deliver. Not on fighting nimby’s over the small stuff.

The lack of a similar ban in Scotland was a devolved matter anyway.

It really does come down to trying hem on, especially in XXL as it’s not like you can just go up a size to make room for a head shape other than the exact one it was made for.

661 / Bell / Giro (all the same company) do at least two different shapes, one is much longer front to back, more like a Schuberth motorcycle helmet. POC are almost circular meaning they won’t even begin to go onto my head.

One thing to note is it’s tempting tk pull them down at.the front to feel like they are covering their jaw, it’s not meant to work like that and the edge above your eyes will dig into your forehead or put pressure on the front part of your scalp.  Most helmets fit tilted back as far as comfortable, you should get at least two fingers width above your eyebrows, i.e. there should be room for some goggles and some room for airflow above them.

I’ve just switched from putoline to a DIY wax.

Chain cleaning, yes it does seem to work better with a degreased chain. Give it a good wash in white spirit, then in degreaser, then in meths (or boiling water). It (IMO) doesn’t need washing again, just drop it in the wax, sure some grit might get recycled back into the chain, but it’s diluted into insignificance.  Probably worth cleaning if you’ve added wet lube though but I’m not sure either way (it’s only something I’ve had to do so infrequently that I couldn’t be conclusive about it.

I hate to be that guy, but doesn’t this sorta defeat the justification for hot wax treatment? That it lasts without having to do top-ups? I mean if you’re going to have to do this in between the faff* of chain removal, treatment and refitting…why not just skip that part and drip apply more frequently..? Plus the fact that high-end 12sp SRAM chains are recognisably insanely long lasting –  even with just regular drip lubes, hasn’t this [expensive] bubble been burst now?

You do and you don’t.

The wax outlasts everything else. That’s not up for argument, it just does. Which means on almost every ride it’ll last to the end, whereas oils or drip waxes wash off before the end of at least some rides regularly and I’m sure it’s those last few lube-starved miles that wear out the drivetrain.  And for most people it’s 5-10 days out between applications, not a top up every ride like bottle lubes.  If someone finds wax to be a faff then I’d question how effective their current lube is in the conditions that make wax a faff.

Does that mean it’ll do the Dirty Reiver in a bad year with no top ups? Possibly not. But:

1) that’s once a year for some people, and never for most people.

2) you’ve still probably made it to the 3rd feed stop without having to top up, whilst your friends stopped at 10miles to begin the ineffectual topping up with finish line gold. And at that point you’re battling against a soaking wet chain so anything you add is just going to form an ineffective emulsion* that lasts minutes.

*Or worse, it’s so hydrophobic that it just doesn’t cling to the wet metal at all.

It’s like saying “what’s the point in inflating my tyres, if I get a puncture anyway I’ll just have to re-inflate them anyway I may as well just ride on a flat tyre (or with a dry chain)”. You’d still run an inner tube / tubeless. And I’d say I probably have a ride (or weekend biking trip) where putoline washes off about 1/5th as often as I have to plug a puncture, but punctures aren’t an argument against owning a pump.

Refering to the 45p expenses rate, it’s only meant to cover the incremental costs i.e. fuel, tyres, extra depreciation etc.

Anything new-ish will cost more than 45p to run if you include depreciation. But it’s depreciating whether you drive it or it’s sat on your driveway doing nothing.

I bought both my previous cars “for work” and both turned a very healthy profit for me at 45p/mile.

Having said that, if he doesn’t want the car for personal use as well then if I were him I’d be suggesting to his employer they give him a company car/van that’s left at work overnight (i.e. not dealing with BIK). There’s no point effectively paying the company to employ you, may as well get an office job.

If making a profit off the 45p is the goal, then go as cheap as you can without looking like you’re asking for breakdown trouble and annoying the company. Think £1200 1.6 NA petrol focus. It’ll do fewer mpg, but enough to be profitable, and there’s very little to go wrong with them.

My take was that they were probably “appropriated” by someone working at the factory in Taiwan. I think this kind of appropriation isn’t uncommon (Shimano have factories in China, for example), but you need to read the comments on the seller’s website to get a feel of how genuine a part is, and even then it can be a lottery.

I doubt it’s going out the factory door like that these days, the big brands wouldn’t stand for it and the factories won’t want to lose their big customers for the sake of a few frames. It might be the case with small brands doing one off batches though where the factory has to make a few extra to cover their own QC. But not for the likes of Shimano or Manitou.

More likely it’s just Chinese domestic market products that haven’t been through the hands of multiple distributors and shops.

I had a Shimano c/l rotor from a reputable shop* via eBay but it was made in China Shimano not Malaysian Shimano & was warped/much lower quality than one I had so I sent it back.

That’s just their cheap “for resin pads only” rotors. They’re not usually bad, but they’re not as good as the more expensive ones which are cut and then ground flat which is why the cheap ones have smooth rounded edges.

I used to take it regularly and it does seem to do what it says in the research. Lifting heavier feels easier and you progress quicker. You recover better between sessions. You’ve got more energy/endurance.

And yep the downside is you put on ~2% bodyweight. But even as a cyclist you will get more than 2% benefit from taking it (and you can always cut it a fortnight before a big event).

There’s also research that it improves brain function.

So the usual caveat about consulting your physician* before taking any supplements or starting a new exercise regime aside, there really isn’t any reason not to.

Current thinking is that you should take the same consistent lower dose every day rather than the old school approach of cycling it.

*It won’t play nicely with kidney issues but there’s no evidence AFAIK that it causes them.

 (gurning poo face for demonstration purposes)

Mine had the full length fabric sunroof, you could have had a poo with a view and avoided the cricked neck.

I wouldn’t bank on any of them having much POWAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH.

If you want to feel glad for the limited amount they do have, try the old Berlingo 1.9 diesel (non turbo). 0-60 is 30s.

The rear brakes are difficult to bleed due to the design of the resourvoir and the brake proportional valve hidden above the rear axle has a steel spring that rusts and reduces rear brake bias. Not many MOT testers pick up on it apparently and might explain yours?

Sounds plausible, if the rear brakes produced even effort between them then I guess that would be an MOT pass. And it was very rusty on the axle. The pedal was nice and firm, it just didn’t do much.

If it hadn’t been for the axle, and a leak that flooded the drivers footwell, and a few other issues before the clutch went I’d probably have spent some time fixing it up as I loved it’s practicality.

Re. the potential loss of gas supply to Europe. The only countries that are getting any meaningful volume of Russian gas or other petroleum products are the likes of Hungary, who’s leaders maintain sympathies with Putin. I don’t reckon the destruction of that terminal would have a massive effect on the important allies resolve.

Makes little difference though, it’s a global market. If you cut off their supply from Russia they’ll just buy it from elsewhere, so the net effect is the same on the rest of the EU.

Also they’re in the EU so politically if they’re pissed off they’ll make life awkward for the rest.

It’s naive to think Russia isn’t getting around energy sanctions. They’re just selling to the Middle east at a cheaper rate to run in their power stations. Who then sells us their own oil/gas at an inflated rate on the global market.