A good start is posting a side on view of you pedalling on here. Whilst saddles can be implements of torture, the truth is you should be nicely balanced. Not tilted forwards taking weight on your arms. Once the saddle position is nice and neutral over the bottom bracket, with the fore/aft set depending on leg proportions, only then is it worth thinking about reach, handlebar drop and so forth.

saddles come in different designs, but you should be resting on your sit bones on the wider part of the saddle. Too wide will be uncomfortable, too narrow will take weight inside your sit bones on your perineum. Also bad. Could lead to numbness in men. The saddles with a channel help with this. But it’s normally due to saddle too narrow. It’s impossible to gauge from what you’ve said. I don’t do formulas, but I know how to make people comfortable. And basically it’s about saddle position first, right width, nicely balanced with weight through the legs (not arms) and then, as much or little reach and drop as you can muster from your inherent flexibility.

saddle height is not so important. I rode 100 miles today with a saddle more than an inch too low (hire bike with slipping seatpost). Too high and too far back is always bad. Too low, not so bad. Lemond’s is a good start fore/aft is set properly. Its not just 0.883x inseam as setback matters!

The Boost is the same diameter as the Axis and Joystick and is a direct replacement. I have two and they sit under the Garmin for every ride except proper night rides (Strada and Joystick then).

Birkenstock slippers. Wool lining is optional. I don’t.

Clerical error. Plead not guilty and state that your license details were provided previously as your defence.

MTB Eastern Region is trying for a resurgence

offer to help run the events. Do the BC Commissaire course. It’s not always about racing. Speaking as someone who had three years off and still very variable long covid. And a summer off with more fatigue.

And ride some gravel. Apparently that’s a good form of recovery. Mentally if not physically.

Electric blanket. Or a down gilet and fingerless gloves.

I’d be checking the draught excluders first for leaks and cold. Then look at tinder.

I had a driver beep their horn a lot, shout and complain loudly as I rode across Waterloo bridge yesterday. That I chose not to use the segregated busy cycle lane upset him. That I was doing 22 mph on my folder in the middle of a lane with large 20’s painted on the road seemed to shut him up when I pointed it out politely. Normally I catch the buses at the Waterloo roundabout and they’re left in a queue showing the futility of their moaning. Makes for a good workout before the train home!

Tomorrow I’ll get the same along more 20 mph zones as I ride all the way into town.

You should have seen the baby face who was flying my plane back from Belgium this spring…

The COMBINED age of the youngest EasyJet Captain and first officer to fly together was 47. Yes you read that correctly. 

Really sorry to hear that. Been there and have the socks (literally the F##k Cancer pink ones)

Employed? Ask for compassionate leave and get to Belfast. Work as you can remotely. To be honest, when I was in your situation I was little use to work anyway. Compassionate leave isn’t just for after someone has gone.

couple of basic online courses

My badges cost a lot more. But I don’t charge ;-)

Position over the bottom bracket matters. If you are too far back then a lemond or other formula will lead you to be over extended. Can lead to exterior knee pain and ITB irritation. I like to see how the weight is taken when pedalling to set fore and aft position, together with saddle height. If it feels to stretched, lower a cm and move it forward half a cm. See how that feels.

To be honest, we fret a lot, but humans aren’t THAT variable. In general. There are exceptions, but they are relatively few.

Lemond works for me with 74 cm saddle height and 84 cm inseam. But I ride my TT bike 2 cm lower than this.  Always are on the side of lower is better and it’s hard to do damage from under extending but not vice versa. There are other variables like reach but it’s a decent starting point.

I have on multiple people occasions opened the wrong door to drive the hire car abroad. I have positioned on the wrong side at a residential junction without road markings. But after being abroad for three months and coming back as a passenger, I shouted to my mother that SHE was on the wrong side of the road. She wasn’t.

cycling around residential areas is much harder. There is a visual cue for a hire car that you sit near the middle of the road. Assuming there are markings. On a bike that visual cue is not there.

Presumably the same approach will apply to our proud pavement riders on here

No. The law and the reasonableness about safety are appropriate for pavement cycling. The police rightly will not prosecute for appropriate cycling on a pavement where a cyclist (or their parent) has a rightful fear for their safety. This has been stated multiple times, including to my son when he was younger and cycling to school along a very busy road. But riding an unlicensed motorcycle on a public highway without a helmet or insurance is a much more serious offence.

And my children always rode with appropriate insurance thanks to the CTC/CUK family membership policy /halo

It’s pretty easy to police. Riding without a helmet, but wearing a face covering? Not pedalling but the “bike” is moving at a rate of knots. Illegal. Crush it. Find me one example where the above two phenotypic descriptors do not hold. The correlation I have seen is remarkable.

And I’ve seen people riding electric bikes without helmets, and they pedal, not normally feeling the need to cover their faces. But I’ve seldom seen non-pedalling riders wearing helmets as the converse. Makes you think.

When will we see a pedestrian killed by an unregistered e-motorcycle (i.e., adapted e-bike)? Look what happened last time a pedestrian was killed when a bike that fell foul of the law was involved. Riding in London yesterday was a bit of an eye opener. It is only a matter of time.

https://strava.app.link/B9lco4lxoNb

Took one for a spin. Gearing on the demos is 52×20 and I needed 6(/8) on the flat. It’s heavy but rides well. You won’t be happy carrying it up stairs.

or 3) run external cables under their self-adhesive cover.

I do this on the steel trike with 10 speed Di2. Looks fine and works well. By contrast, I just had all of the cable stops and shifter bosses removed from my steel TT bike frame so it is wireless electronic only – I run SRAM eTAP on that.

Mavic was wireless in 1992.

James smith. Right next to our office too: Something at every price point and style . Inside is as a lovely as outside.

Indeed. Try throwing your bike around the bends rubbing elbows with your team mates. Half a wheel from the rider in front. At 30 mph. Great fun. Racecraft can save you a lot of effort. Some of the pros have rolling rest days and will average about the same as a second cat rider over a whole stage. Until it goes uphill :-)

Remember you don’t have to out run the bear, just out run your mates. Anything around 3W/kg will make cycling much more pleasant. Above that and it’s skills that will be limiting not power. On and off road.

I’ve paid on several occasions. Work out at about 50p/week. I have very small ear canals and it is always fabulous after. It takes an age for water to clear from behind even small wax deposits in my ears. I also have very acute hearing, so really notice any blockage and pressure.

If you will use the TT position of the Atom, get that, otherwise I prefer the form factor and rapid adjustment of the Proton. That Atom X price looks too cheap. It’s £2600 for a reconditioned one on the Wattbike website. I’ll be waiting for a reconditioned Proton to replace my Kickr 3.

Reconditioned Wattbikes

With regards to Sinner in particular, notwithstanding hand washing before massage, Paragraphs 83 and 84 are notable for geography;

The Trofodermin Spray is focussed on the Italian consumer market and over 50% of anti- doping proceedings relating to Clostebol involve its detection in Italy. It appears there is now a recognised issue for Clostebol cases involving Italian athletes. The Player submits that it cannot be the intention of the TADP or the WADC to disadvantage athletes from certain jurisdictions, yet that is the impact upon the Player. It is notable that the Player’s attention has never been drawn specifically to the risk to him of Clostebol.

This spray is OTC in Italy and widely available – hence one would a priori expect more cases of testing failure. There is a process in place to obtain a TUI for legitimate use of medications (Sinner may have one for other topical steroid use for his plantar psoriasis – which I also suffer from). I suspect that WADA are appealing the “No fault” part and would like a ban of two years due to the athlete bearing some fault or negligence, not the four years for malicious intent.

The administration of Clostebol must have happened around the time of the Event since the Player has been tested, on average, once a month over the 12-month period between April 2023 and March 2024, and none of the previous tests gave rise to any AAF for Clostebol (or any other Prohibited Substance).

Normally, one of the best defences supporting contamination is a very recent negative test preceding the positive. There are TWO necessary pieces of information; TIME and DOSE – was it a big dose a long time ago (doping), or a small dose recently (contamination)? A single drug failure is only one piece of information. A second negative test a week before means that one can put a bound on the DOSE – and hence infer contamination. Which is part of Sinner’s defence. Some athletes I have worked with submit weekly voluntary drug tests.

BTW, I linked to it before but that increased threshold for diuretics came in part from this paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8635962/pdf/fspor-03-692244.pdf . Figure 1 is notable as it shows that nobody taking the drug legitimately has a value below 100 ng/mL. It’s a matter of time before such statistical reasoning is accepted for other classes. And those of a more mathematical persuasion will note that doping science has yet to discover the semi-log plot.

I haven’t read any suggestions that drug testing is routinely returning adverse reports?

You won’t. If they are explained by contamination, they remain confidential and are not released. The only reason for me to ever get started in this field was that someone leaked Chris Froome’s ADR and I offered my assistance to Sky, I was an expert in inhaled beta-agonist pharmacokinetics. I didn’t work for Lizzy banks, but I have worked with the lawyer who helped her.

That you can fail a drugs test for taking a contaminated ibuprofen and ruin a career, is outrageous (and now recognised). Professional athletes are professional (gasp) and record everything they take. Retaining supplements and batches of any medicine is sadly often impossible. There is a geographical distribution for clenbuterol failures; you are vastly more likely to fail a test in countries where the drug is routinely (and legally) used in meat production.

To be honest, beyond lab drug testing analytics, some of the science and statistics underlying WADA leaves a lot to be desired.

Pre- Long covid, racing every week or so, I was at about 4.3 W/kg. Enough to get a second cat race license and “do something” in races. However I’m a diesel engine, and what wins races is your sprint part of those curves. Mine was always rubbish. But my 12hr FTP was 2.9 W/kg. Now I’m down at about 3.3 W/kg (and climbing, still 72-74 kilos though), but the longer distance efforts are still good. I did a 100tt fixed and just missed 4h, and a couple sub 2h 50’s, including one on the trike.

I never tested on Zwift, I prefer either a circuit race or a 25mi TT, and see what watts I can do. The much shorter algorithms are helpful there. Riding pacer rides at fixed W/kg on Zwift, measuring heart rate for effort, is all you need. That and Eurosport on a big TV above the iPad!

That was seriously expensive when new. I recall the rear from distant memory. S&S couplers add to the expense. And fabulous condition. I think it’s a one off. Obviously it predates disc brakes. I’d say early 90’s.

Bin. I had one explode off the rim in the dining room all over my trousers. The stains never came out. Sorry.

Drug test failures are reported as adverse analytical findings. They require an explanation from the athlete. If contamination is one such explanation evidence is required. For the case of the physio, this explanation is one source of contamination. What matters is whether it is biologically possible. If so, does that introduce reasonable doubt? The standard of proof is at the criminal level.

Anyone who,s taken a steroid cream has absorbed drug through the skin (i had a lot of betnovate as a kid). i’ve not done any detailed sums to look at dose, but i imagine his urine levels were in the picograms per mL.

Hair Samples are now used routinely to establish or rule out past drug taking history. tricky if you are male and take as No 2 all over. Not seen testing of “other” hair.

EDIT. ITIA judgement says 121 and 122 pg/mL a week apart. those are about 1000x lower than doping levels. para 47 https://www.itia.tennis/media/yzgd3xoz/240819-itia-v-sinner.pdf

The Russian hurdler Shubenkov was acquitted for crushing diuretic tablets to dose his 3mo baby. In fact, the amounts needed for detection in urine are in the tens of nano grams range. For some perspective, that’s about a million times less than your clinical dose and you will not be able to see it. Hence such a source contamination in a kitchen is possible

https://www.espn.com.au/olympics/story/_/id/31685690/russian-hurdler-sergey-shubenkov-cleared-genuinely-exceptional-doping-violation

Exchange of bodily fluids with someone who is doping is enough to cause you to fail a drugs test. You’ve been warned and I will give no details but don’t swallow anyone else’s bodily fluids. Any of them.

The Daryl Impey case is interesting, because it is now well-established that capsules and over-encapsulation/coating of some medicines can have diuretic contamination. It helps to be able to provide the offending capsules, however. There have been multiple failures for ibuprofen, for example (coated due to taste – it’s about the worst tasting medicine ever and you are welcome to crushing before swallowing to test this).

For me, and this is my hobby as an expert witness in some notable cases, Floyd Landis wins. His explanations were both fanciful and laughable. But my what a performance on that day. Professionally, I would not be surprised if Contador was innocent and if you are an athlete and travelling to South America, don’t eat the meat! I mean that. About 1/200 meat samples in a study were sufficient to fail a doping test in a WADA sponsored study.

Skipped velodrome with a tummy bug. Decent walk with Henry dog through the deer park to listen to the bellowing. Ride tomorrow. If I can get up early enough

I’d second the Mezzo, until you lift a T-line ;-) . The seat post on mine has a habit of getting stuck (unlike the Brompton, the seat tube is not lined), and the front wheel unclip doesn’t always unlock (the frame has no hinge, but you fold the front wheel assembly instead), but after I upgraded to the Continental tyres, it rides MUCH better than a Brompton (longer wheelbase and reach). But it is not light, my i4 with hub gear is 12 kilos. Spare parts are available by buying another for spares or repair. I paid £150 last Christmas for one of the original demo versions from the supplier. I use it all the time. It won’t carry luggage, Rucksack only. They made a rear bag, but 1) I’ve never found one and 2) it has to be removed to swing the rear wheel under to park/fold. Loved it since I first rode one at the Bike Show at the NEC in about 2005.

Brompton is still a better fold/luggage option, but Mezzo wins on ride quality by a long way. The thinking man’s folder is an Airframe. You’ll be thinking just how much the bottom bracket moves when you pedal!

I’ve owned:

Airframe

Airnimal Rhino

Brompton M6

Tactic Panache

Btwin Tilt 100

Mezzo i4

and will own a Brompton T-line single speed next

Others for a full list might include……(Dahon/Terns obvs.) and

Birdy – great ride, getting cheaper used.

Bike Friday – foldable rather than folding

Airnimal Joey – commuter

Montagu – full sized wheels

Hummingbird – CARBON BLING MACHINE – lightest production folder

Helix – TITANIUM FOLDER – and folding monofork

Xootr Swift – frame only, decent ride

STRIDA – still in production, A frame fast folding walking stick like.

Panasonic made a titanium folder some time ago

Fold-it 20″ wheel, rare now made by Pashley

Micro – before Brompton as above

Mobiky – super fold, heavy but I like them

And my Spanish favourite the Ossby – nearly brought one home!

Head to the now defunct foldsoc website for some nostalgia

Personally, I’d crush them. There are perfectly good electric mopeds that require insurance, come with a number plate, and have CBT licence requirements. That they are not being used by food delivery riders is flagrant law breaking in the absence of enforcement. I have no issue with law abiding E-cyclists, nor do I think compulsory insurance for such riders is necessary. But these “riders” have nothing in common with cyclists, other than the source vehicle they started from. I also have no issue with the E-scooters of the non-hiring variety, and think the law needs amendment for such a sensible personal mobility device. But food delivery is not personal mobility.

It will take a few more deaths from house fires before existent legislation is enforced properly. We can’t bring scooters into work and we can’t charge E-bikes at work. I would not have one of those delivery contraptions charging inside a building. Greater enforcement of already sensible rules (and extension to scooters) would help the law-abiding cyclists, and would-be law-abiding scooter riders.

I assume its a tad harder zwifting when the boat is moving around vs a nice comfy garage.

Rocker plate and a few buckets of seawater. And I had previously assumed the keels were human powered :-(

To play devils advocate, since it’s pressurising the hydraulics, why do they need to be on board at all? Could do a Zwift sailing option, and have them landslide on turbo trainers and just feed in the watts via a motor. Or just make it battery powered like the foils ;-)

No. Based on last year’s studies, the XBB vaccines were about 50% effective (NEJM: “During this period, the dominant circulating variants changed from EG.5 and XBB.1.16 to HV.1 and then to JN.1, and the prevalence of the XBB.1.5 subvariant decreased from 10% to less than 1%”). This was backed up in another healthcare provider setting study. So not ineffective if you are one or two steps behind the emergent strain. Of course evolutionarily, it is possible that the vaccination pushed the emergence of newer strains, all back in the original BA.2 fold (scroll down to see tree). But I’d expect broadly similar results.

Last year’s Vaccine was XBB1.5. This year includes JN.1 https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory-overview/public-health-threats/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/covid-19-medicines . Novovax was finally approved in the US under an Emergency Use Authorisation, the EMA and UK as the first protein (not mRNA vaccine) and targets XBB1.5. MHRA have approved JN.1 from Pfizer and more recently, Moderna. Which is what you’ll get. AZ withdrew their vaccine from worldwide registration.

Combined COVID/flu vaccines will be single shot mRNA vaccines for both viruses. There are no approved mRNA flu vaccines (yet). Next year – everyone is chasing them. Not my area to be honest. therapeutics, however…

Turns out legs can put out more power than arms. Who knew? This came after they changed the rules about how the winch cranks can be human-powered. I’ve never put my power meter on the recumbent trike, but I won’t be troubling the 1800W brigade just yet. You can press into the back of the seat, but it’s not the same as standing on the pedals to get full bodyweight onto the crank whilst pulling up on the bars in track sprinter style. Recumbent will fit into the hull better though I guess, so aero gains there. On a recumbent my heart rate is lower as it’s easier for the blood to return from the legs without as much effect from gravity.

I suspect that the longer you are without your sense of smell the more olfactory training it will require to get back,

Well I get chronic inflammatory sinus pain with the slightest hint of an immune reaction (e.g., post exercise). I think the damage was done to the nasal passages and sinuses and there is no going back. Taste does return after each infection. Vicks has no effect, nor does fresh lavender or rosemary. I have yet to order my sunflower lanyard, and picking up the dog poo is no hardship ;-)

To be honest, the fatigue is much worse than loss of smell, and the not infrequent pericarditis.

Youngest might get flumist sprayed up the nose. Combined mRNA flu and COVID vaccines have passed Phase 3 trials but are not yet approved. Protection agains influenza B has not been forthcoming in the combined vaccine – Remember, beware the dreaded Pharma X provides “update” on Y press release…But Moderna may have cracked it with B/Victoria:

The immune responses from a single dose of mRNA-1083 were found to be non-inferior versus the co-administered, routinely recommended, licensed comparators. In both age cohorts, mRNA-1083 also elicited statistically significantly higher immune responses against three influenza virus strains (H1N1, H3N2, and B/Victoria) and against SARS-CoV-2.

Next year will likely see combined protection and possible Influenza B protection as well. I’ll still be too young (just). Might be ready when I am!