I don’t see that – Premium only??

VOECKLER ATTACKS !!!!§§§§…

…Not really that exciting…

Y’all know that the stage has already started, yes?

Looks like it’s going to be a very long day for Fonseca: One-man break that the peloton have let go with over 8 minutes! Apparently the stage goes through his hometown today.

Photo of cav in green on cyclingnews tracker suggests he’s up for it today: skinsuit…

Edit: I think the 3km rule didn’t apply yesterday (uphill finish) which would be why Froome was up there

Tough 3km climb at the end. Contador crashed early on, couldn’t stay with the main group on the climb, Porte punctured a few km (4?) out and didn’t get back on.

Froome, Quintana, Aru, Rolland, Van Garderen all still on the same time. Nibali and Pinot lost a bit.

Sagan’s just been saying that he thought it way the sprint for third place so he waited for someone else to go!

Thanks Mike!

Looking forward to watching this – should be a good final 20km. Bit early for the big contenders to try anything I suppose, unless one of them goes for it and the others have to respond. Not sure who the last km suits, or who’s going well, actually I’m not even sure who’s riding this early in the race: only just noticed that Kwiatkowski isn’t there!

Also looking forward to seeing how much yellow Cav will be sporting: Full custard, just the jersey and bike or something in between?

Edit: For anyone who hasn’t seen them, the stage previews at inrng.com are always excellent http://inrng.com/2016/07/tour-de-france-stage-2-preview-cherbourg/

Patience
Adaptability
Boxes. Lots of boxes.

Nice choice to have!

From the marketing descriptions, they’re not quite the same type of bike – the Roubaix is orientated more towards longer endurance riding over dodgy surfaces and th Emonda is more for faster rides and climbing. Although I’m sure either would do really well for the type of riding you describe.

I think the Emonda looks nicer, and would probably be ideal for the majority of your riding (1hr lunchtime rides). Appears to have tubeless ready rims too, which could help if you’re feeling a bit beaten up on longer rides, although don’t most Bontrager “tubeless-ready” rims need their special rimstrips?

I guess the choice comes down to which you prefer the look of, and how much you want to have discs.

I recall getting out of the tent every morning and looking up at Frendo Spur and thinking I would do it one day. Never did. Big wus really.

From what I can see from ampthill’s photo above, if that’s a typical summer view these days then the Frendo Spur is only going to be possible in winter now – looks very bare and fragile.

For the Aiguille du Midi, do you still have to pay extra to get right up to the top deck? I still remember the guy I went up there with paying that bit for me, just so he could tick the peak!

Unless you mean a Trek. The Domane has a “decoupler” there which looks like a damper

I’ve got Prizm Trail which are great for overcast days on the road and sunny days ducking in and out of woods, but I was recently looking at other lenses for sunny road days. Here’s a list of Oakley lens colours ranked by % of visible light transmission:

Black Iridium 10% (grey base colour)
Fire Iridium 16% increased contrast (orange base colour)
Grey 18%
Sapphire Iridium 20% (grey base colour)
Prizm Road 20%
Clear Black 23% to 69%
Prizm Trail 36%

I don’t find the “Prizm” contrast effect as amazing as some, so I’m hesitating between Fire Iridium and Road Prizm. Will probably come down to special offers!

I’m about 5 weeks in on c25k, and getting a bit nervous after reading the stuff above!

I’m not doing for weight loss, just because I really enjoyed running about 20 years ago and fancy doing it again – I stopped due to odd tendon problems that I never got diagnosed properly.

The c25k progression seems really good so far, but seems to be ramping up now. I think it’s necessary to be very careful with pace. I’m deliberately holding back on effort to complete the running in terms of time periods. It’s something I’ll look into when (if!) I get to the final week, whether to try and increase pace over 5k or distance.

Before I started I did a few weeks of stretching classes, which have really eased off my tight hamstrings. Might be worth considering especially if you’ve got typical cyclists flexibility.

The other thing that c25k doesn’t address, but that people above have discussed is technique.I’m trying to run with shorter strides to limit impact through the heel, but I feel that I should really get some proper advice.

It’s impressive how they persist when all the comments seem to be “Oh, XC actually looks good” / “OMFG why don’t they have droppers” / “OMFG some of them do have droppers”

I really enjoyed watching the men’s race (legitimately, for free on the internet.. Not sure how that’s economic, but thanks Redbull.tv)

There’s a good picture round-up of both women’s and men’s races on pinkbike : http://www.pinkbike.com/news/a-nations-pride-xco-finals-round-3-la-bresse-2016.html

And I’m not sure how I missed this – perhaps the best, least informative and funniest course preview ever : http://www.vitalmtb.com/videos/member/Rob-Warner-Rides-XC-and-Makes-a-Meal-of-It,31576/iceman2058,94

Oo, good tip deadkenny. At least the first two CDs are on soundcloud, so I’ll be listening to them later.

There’s also this, which I really, really like: “The End” https://soundcloud.com/unkleofficial/james-lavelle-presents-unkle

I’d spotted the stem, but not the saddle!

I wonder how much is really looking for improvements and how much is gamesmanship with Juju Abs.

“I’ve gone FS”
“So have I”
“I’m National Champ (again)”
“So am I (again)”
“I’m European Champ (again)”
“I’m World Champ (again)”
“I’ve got a dropper”
“I’ve gone 29er”
“I’ve got a new girlfriend who has more stripey jumpers than you”
“I’ve got an impressively manly 36t chainring”
…and so on…

I don’t imagine for an instant that it’s like that – they both seem like pretty good lads, but maybe, just maybe…

Knocking when unloaded? Really? I’ve just noticed this on a pair of very well used three-year old XC32 air forks and assumed that it showed the start of terminal bushing wear.

Bit surprised as I was starting to look at recent Rebas as a replacement!

I like this kind of thing a bit too much

For otherwise boring commuting riding (on fireroads and quiet tarmac) I actually prefer wired headphones. The earbud kind that sits in the ear instead of being rammed into the ear seem to be well held in place by helmet straps, and don’t block out too much ambient sound. Plus I only ever use one on the non-traffic side, so I can easily hear what’s overtaking.

Cosmo Catalano for roadie stuff (although he stopped regular updates a while ago, and semms to have started again for CyclingTips but only on Vimeo)

GUGUG for ukelele versions of everything (not many recent updates)

OnBouldering for World Cup bouldering highlights (although no more finals coverage, boo the IFSC)

I’ll be looking at the others in this thread to try and subscribe to some more lively channels!

By an amazing coincidence I fitted a pair of these last night to replace a R501 back and older OEM front, saving almost exactly 400g (measuring old and new wheels). They’re just under 1500g on my kitchen scale.

Didn’t really notice huge increases in acceleration on this morning’s commute, or big times differences (apart from two Strava PBs..), but they roll much better (new bearings I guess), corner MUCH better (stiffer than the old front?) and are a bit scary when braking but I’m expecting this to change as the braking track wears in.

Still not sure about the white rims, but the freehub’s not too loud.

You mean like the clearance Stans/Switch 29er wheelsets that were at £159.99 last week and are £199.99 now? :D

Not quite as classy as some, but the roundabout at the start of this is about 100m away from my house

Oh, and I ride round here as well

And I work near some of these places

For a moment I thought you might be me!

I’ve been trying this out for a few weeks and had similar experiences with respect to the first three days of epic urination and only traces on the sticks. I’m primarily doing it for energy levels, but wouldn’t say no to a couple of extra climbing grades.

I seem to have dropped a couple of kilos, but climbing strength, power and endurance don’t seem to have declined. I haven’t tried any project-grade routes yet, but onsighting and bouldering comp performance is probably near my best level – impressive as I’ve not been doing enough training to normally justify this. Heartrate seems to ramp up quickly unless I’m properly warmed up though. That’s a bit weird.

A couple of other things:

I’ve been looking at the recipes on ruled.me – all of them look great but seem to include artificial sweetener, almond flour and a few other difficult to find products so I haven’t tried anything yet, except Bulletproof coffee, which is better tasting than I expected. Might try out cauliflour rice to go with curry.

I’ll be very surprised if you get the kind of linear grade increase you’re planning for. My previous experience is that weight loss can give an extra grade or two, but beyond that I need to make gains in technique, power and endurance (in that order).

Macadamia nuts are 74% fat and Lindt 99% chocolate is acceptably low in glucides. Yeah.

The Trainingbeta podcast is pretty good on keto for climbers – there are three that cover the subject: the first where Neely describes her own bad experiecen and concludes that climbers need carbs, but then the second and third (Dave MacCleod and Neil Gresham respectively) balance that out.

I seem to have ups and downs of weight and Ketone traces related to carb consumption (not a surprise) and the amount of cardio-type exercise I do. Still working this out.

My folks have some in their back garden

Good:
Low maintenance
Looks good
Springy to walk on

Bad:
Doesn’t smell like grass
Expensive
Having to clean cat/dog poo off it
Friction burns? Not sure as it’s not a big enough patch for the kids to build up any speed on

Weird:
It’s hot under bare feet in summer – there’s no “cool fresh grass” feeling

Have you tried it on road wheels/tyres?

My old track pump is on the way out and I like the look of these. But all the reviews just talk about how easy it is to seat mtb tyres and not really how much of an annoyance it is to have to pump up the whole chamber if you just want to check the pressure on 100psi road tyres.

I’ve been using a pair of Radar EVs with the Prizm Trail lens. The EV bit (similar to the Jawbreaker) is great – I really notice the top edge of frames when I go back to other glasses now.

For the Prizm lenses I strongly suspect that how amazing they seem depends a lot on the colour perception that your eyes already produce. Unfortunately I’m on the underwhelmed end of the spectrum, but I guess that means that my eyes are already evolved for trail use… I also find the Trail lenses a bit lightly tinted for really bright conditions, but the field of view is so good that I’m using them for the road as well at the moment.

A Fistful Of Dollars

Last Man Standing

Both based on one of Kurisawa’s i think… [/quote]

Yojimbo. Fistful of Dollars isn’t so much a remake as a carbon copy – even down to the standoffs and the escape scene where the lead character crawls under boardwalks.

Repeated punctures pushed me to trying ghetto tubeless with split tubes. I wouldn’t go back, as the secondary benefits of lighter weight and better grip were really noticeable.

I’m sure I’ve read that the Giant own-brand rims are pretty easy to tubeless. Gorilla tape is cheap and works well (if you never plan on taking it off). The “to-go” rolls were the perfect size for the last wheels I did.

Is it wrong to ask why this is a problem?

Cooling your testicles down will increase fertility and unless yer old feller is getting so cold that frostbite, gangrene and loss of inches is imminent then arriving at work in a white-cold shrunken state shouldn’t be a problem unless you work as an adult film performer.

Wow…

…Harold Ramis is dead? I missed that.

Film looks OK.

OK, thanks.

Fortunately I have a spare light, as I don’t think I can cycle any faster after this morning’s commute of fury.

Go for it – just by lining up at the start you’ve already stepped up
Don’t worry about kit – use what you’ve got
Don’t worry about results – it’ll be faster and harder than you think
Don’t be a dick
Do enjoy it – it’ll be a great experience

Having said that, Geneva airport is only 3h15 to Ceuse and only 4h45 to the Verdon :lol:

Chamonix has a lot of choice on both sides of the valley in the Aiguilles or the Aiguilles Rouges for long routes, but a lot of them are rather adventurous sport climbing – unless things have changed a lot you’d be wise to take a lot more than just quickdraws. If that doesn’t put you off then places like the Peigne slabs are amazing – this is still one of the best routes I’ve done anywhere : http://www.martial-granite.com/article-le-ticket-le-carre-le-rond-et-la-lune-dalle-nw-du-peigne-108169280.html

But it’s proper mountain terrain, with potentially biff weather. Around Sallanches is supposed to be a good alternative, although I haven’t done much there. Have a look at places like Col de Colombière on climbingaway.fr for multipitch sport.

Didn’t want to start cannibalising other bikes so bought a cheap set of spacers from Decathlon (nearest bike shop to work)

All finished and ridden!

I think the air pressure in the fork might be a little high and the saddle might be a little hard, but we got all the way round Lac Salagou on the first outing with only one minor hiccup – one of the crank bolts fell out and vanished just before we got back to the carpark… oops. Glad that it went at 26km and not half way round.

Moving on… received the Hope adaptor and managed to fit the crown race onto it and then both bits onto the fork with a combination of bits of wood, heat, plastic tubing and a large hammer.

HS136:

I’d forgotten how light the fork was (not resting on the table, promise!)

I haven’t weighed anything else. Most of it’s together now

After this photo I also chucked on the cable lockout and put the Kore seatpost back in. Need to set up the gears properly but there’s an unexpected problem to solve before it’s rideable.. the fork steerer is exactly the same length as the full stack of headtube, headset bits, stem and all the spacers I possess that aren’t on other bikes!

I either need to cut 2mm off the steerer, but I don’t have a useable hacksaw.. or buy a single 8mm spacer. Lunchtime ride to the shops tomorrow I think.

and no – it’s monochrome all the way (might have to replace the red chainring bolts and fork stickers…)

Nearly everything ready to go – not many of the parts were original on the Rockhopper, as I’d replaced bits with bargains, including a Durin fork (in a bag as it had just come back from a warranty repair), MT55 wheels (cheapest tubeless wheels I could find when the ghetto-tubelessed OEM ones gave up) and a Kore carbon seatpost and I-beam saddle

What I don’t have yet, but is ordered, is a crown race. I waited to see what the headset would come with. It only came with a 1.5″ race and it appears to be 36 degrees so I’ve ordered a Hope adapter so I can fit the supplied race to the straight steerer forks.

Couldn’t resist doing the headset cups, Octalink bottom bracket, chainset (with 2×9 conversion) and the seatpost though

It’s been a mixed year for me. Not that much cycling, but I’ve had some good times

Distance 1,123.3 km
Time 67h 22m
Elev Gain 15,804 m
Rides 69