Something like an Nvidia GTX 660 would be able that price second hand I’d guess. Checking now, there’s even a few GTX 670s for that sort of price.

Buying a mid range card from a few generations ago definitely seems to be a winner.

Bizarrely I hide my commutes and Zwift warmups, yet leave my Zwift races and events. Making things private stops them adding towards the leaderboards in groups 🙁

I don’t mind seeing all the Zwift updates, I can see it being a pain for non-Zwifters. Given they’re flagged as “Virtual Rides”, is there no way people can filter those out of their feeds?

Indeed, but its unlinked as its only got data from Strava, no data from Zwift. The extra 4 mins will be the slightly broken start times, for me the race didnt start until 20:10 or so. All a bit weird.

If they are indeed running on AWS servers they’ve certainly considered scaling up, Id assume they just need to pay a bit more!

I show as unlinked and it claims my time was 58 minutes, even though my Strava has it listed as 54 including cool down. Seems a bit broken.

Never mind, had fun 🙂

Both.

The login server died at the start, I managed to get in earlier, but couldnt connect via my mobile. The race seemd to start fine. About half way through people started vanishing. Evidentally everyone thought they won.

I’m spotting a theme here, I thought I won D, eheh. Mine didn’t auto upload at the end either, had to manually upload the fit file and name it.

Such a shame, that was the most I’ve caned myself so far. Gutted it didn’t seem to count.

Wow, the login server is dead, it’s fine once you’re in. Thought id forgotten my password :/

I got in early for a warm up, on the line now.

I’m up for tonight – “Alastair Graham STW KISS (D)”

Feeling pretty knackered and fatigued at the mo, combination of work and 6 month old toastling in the house. Should be able to get middling though with any luck. Definitely seem to be improving gradually.

Really not up for trying to reach new bounds tonight, always say that though then half kill myself 🙂

Or get few feet shorter, if that’s any easier?

I’d have thought weight was just as intrusive? 🙂 Definitely would be good to see, purely for comparisons sake, when it’s clearly a factor.

I’m amazed it’s that big actually, going by what I posted above, a foot extra height is similar to 10kg weight at my sort of figures. It also looks like at 400 watts the weight difference tapers out, I’d assume height continues to apply, if not more so as you’re going quicker?

I must say, when I used to ride with a local cycling club people did used to queue up behind me. Got very used to either riding solo or at the front 🙁

6’6″ and 100kg here, definitely a bit overweight but not to a degree where I can be bothered until the clocks change and I can start doing some endurance rides outside.

My last race 20 min power was 246, which gives me 2.46w/kg, the maths is easy at 100kg! If I were 70kg that’d be over 3.5w/kg, I think I’d look a bit hungry though, about 80kg is the lowest I get away with.

Might try a ~50 miler or so on Saturday, the furthest I’ve been on Zwift was the 31 mile Specialized Roubaix competition rides.

On the weight note, there were some interesting bits on here:

http://zwiftblog.com/tests/

The taller you are, the slower you’ll go. The test laps we’ve done show that it works out to ~30 seconds longer on a full Richmond lap for each 15cm (approximately 6?) of height added. Or to put it another way: a 5? rider will be ~1 minute faster than a 6? rider (all other things being equal).

If we look at the lap times for a 250w lap for riders of 100kg and 83.3kg weights, we can surmise that in this weight and power range, each kilogram of weight you lose will cut 5.8 seconds off your Richmond lap time.

Boo! 🙂

I like Dropbox for that, chuck the picture in a folder. Right click and “Copy Public Link”, paste link in here. Literally takes seconds and no faffing with websites.

The KISS D cat races generally have a massive spread of riders, the last one I did the last guy was at 1.3w/kg, there’s quite a few averaging well under 2.0.

I found the FTP test an absolute slog, it’s by far the worst performance I’ve ever had. I’d just skip it and go to races, it’ll auto adjust your FTP after any race you improve anyway. You’ll know very quickly where you stand!

Cheers! I think I went through those recently, only really peeping as the wife quite fancied joining in. I bought a Vortex only a month back. The idea of having to warm up the tyres and recalibrate every day didn’t appeal.

It’s a shame things like the Wattbike don’t seem more common. Quite a ridiculous cost, but it’d take up less space than 2 road bikes and turbos.

Yeah, sorry I didn’t spot it was a dodgy seller until after posting. I’ve seen them doing the same with Haibikes, as mentioned before. I’m amazed Amazon don’t pull these things down sharpish.

How much are people spending on Tacx Neos? I noticed there’s some on Amazon for £450, are these an older style or something?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0112VE4NO/

Also how do they compare to a Kickr?

Edit: Oh, ignore that, random scam Amazon link. Seen a few, Haibikes listed silly cheap. Apologies, it was the first thing that popped up when I tried in Tacx Neo 🙂

My mk1 Scandal was lovely, I bought a mk2 one, it was less lovely. I don’t think my Swift is as comfortable as the old Scandal. It does have much more tyre clearance though.

Could well be rose tinted goggles.

Steel is real, big tyres are big liars. Or something.

My weight isn’t doing anything, since they started selling those Giant Crumpets I’ve been struggling. I think the weight is going to sit there until spring/summer when I can start doing long outdoor rides. Used to do 40 milers a few times a week and the weight just fell off.

What happened with imported frames when the CEN stuff kicked in, did frames like the Niner Sir9 immediately get a chunk heavier too? Was there a magical year for the last load of (relatively) light steel frames?

So real they made a film about it.

I worked briefly in a bike shop when I was much younger, one of those old Cinder Cones came in and I hankered for one from that day. I’ve got a Swift at the mo, seems a bit hefty but it’s a nice frame.

I got pretty trashed in the EVR race, first 20 minutes were great, then everyone zoomed by. Need to figure out recovery better I think, my recovery ride was almost the same as a normal one :/ Literally came 45/50 in C cat, out of the finishers.

Normally ride cat D so it wasn’t too bad, 2.36w/kg, 246w 20min power. -15% FR is a bit crap, but I need to figure out how to pace myself. Bizarrely I thought that track was really flat before the event, those last 3 miles each lap were right buggers.

Had Zwift about a month now, near 300 miles done. Most delighted for January. On par for my best year ever.

I don’t see why not, we’ve upgraded everything to Windows 10 including an old Surface Pro 2 which is a similar spec.

On which note, you can still upgrade for free using:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/accessibility/windows10upgrade

Madame Gazelle is 63 and used to teach even when Daddy Pig was at school.

Also tempted with the EVR race tonight. Presume the race info on ZP is incorrect and should read: C group 3.1 W/Kg or lower?

The Zwift app on my phone has it down as “AVG 2-3.1 W/KG”, I can comfortably average just over 2. Expecting to come near the back, which is fine by me! Quite enjoying chasing people to be honest.

I think I’m doing the EVR race tonight at 8, thought out I was out of luck but realised the category ranges differ per race series. I can comfortably sneak into the C cat. I spent last night warming up my tyres and properly calibrating the turbo, I’d always calibrated cold and I’ve upped the pressure to 110 from 100.

I’ll stick a STW tag in there too from now on (although I’m keeping my real name, which is “Alastair Graham”).

Does anyone ever join races, then go easy, as a recovery ride? I raced yesterday but quite fancy something a bit more entertaining than blind spinning tonight. I’m in cat D, so I can’t see it hugely mattering if I trundle along slowly.

Tall people have longer arms? For the same body position, tall people can reach lower.

Do we? You’d think it would all be in scale wouldn’t it? Longer arms, but a longer back? hehe.

Not sure, I know I’ve had years of bikes with ridiculous bar drops. I found I got on better with trail bikes with big forks, as it forced the bars up to a vaguely sensible height. Even then.. here’s my Meta for example, with 3 spacers and an upwards pointing stem:

My hardtails are all much sillier, my Scandal had a tiny headtube. It’s great if you want a low down XC racey position, you don’t generally want that on everything though.

Lower heart rate, so I’d assume someone older (or just not trying?)

Had a race yesterday, did my normal thing of arriving 2 minutes before it started to find my heart rate monitor didn’t work. Rushed and grabbed the wifes one, paired it, also didn’t work. Swapped the battery on mine, still no joy, went back to mine and it finally kicked in.

This stuck me a couple of minutes behind everyone else, which made for a really fun race. Ended up in 17/30th in the D cat. Constant chasing and overtaking for an hour, loved it. Random “Ride On!” from Nathan Guerra at the end, which I normally don’t see in lowly D cat, then realised he’d left the camera on me while he nattered on his stream for the last few minutes 🙂

The fact it’s XL is the very reason it’s got such a silly amount. Quite why all XL bikes always have miles of bar drop, while the smaller models have none is beyond me.

I’ve seen some of the guys do that, and I’ve started doing it myself, but it’s the unexpected situations that freak me out!

Yeah, there’s a definite learning curve to it as well. My last pedal related fall was a good few years back, it was just after buying a brand new set of pedals/cleats though, wheel slipping going up a slow technical climb and not managing to get my foot down in time 🙂

I think all the SPD related falls have been super slow motion to be honest, all my flat falls are due to bouncing off the pedal and losing my footing, generally far less comical. Genuinely feel less safe when I’m on flats now, it’s odd how used to it you get.

If you’re worried, just unclip before you stop. I can only comment on Shimano SPDs, but all the shoes/pedals I’ve used, I’ve still been able to pedal lightly using the area just in front of the cleat.

I just went with mountain bike pedals/shoes for everything, I use Shimano A600 touring pedals on my road bike, nice and light. Didn’t get too many comments and I can walk around on paved ground without sliding around. I commute in with a pair of Bontrager mtb shoes too, which are just about casual enough to get away with, the cleat is recessed enough to stroll around the office or to the shop.

I don’t know about extra efficiency, I just like being able to pedal over rough stuff. I find on flats I’m investing too much effort in stopping my feet fly off to be able to get the power down. I’m sure there’s a tiny benefit to when you spin up really quickly as well.

Swapped to a shorter stem at any point?

I had a driving instructor pretty much drive into the side of me while I was on a motorbike, in walking speed traffic. I sounded my horn and shuffled out the way next to the curb. She totally blanked me so I chucked her an email and got this response.

I am absolutely mortified that I missed you. I did not see you at all. As for driving aggressively that was not my intention. I apologise profusely for cutting you up. I did hear a horn and even then I didn’t see you as you must have been in my blind spot. I was conscious that something may have happened and I kept my eye on you all the way into town.

There is no excuse, I simply didn’t see you, I obviously didn’t look enough. I can assure you that this has never happened before and, having just returned from 2 weeks off owing to illness, I seriously need to think as to whether I’m fit to drive following this incident.

Again, please accept my utmost apologies, I am embarrassed in the extreme.

Very weird, I’m 6’6″ and I was riding a bike green supermoto bike. I was directly in front of her as she moved forwards. Much better response though, I actually apologized for having a rant at her, hehe.

Make the world a safer place. Dynasafe, a global market leader in the disposal of unexploded ordnance

Could it have been a Note 7 they were transporting? He could have been checking the temperature on his cheek?

Even though it’s really expensive and doesn’t seem to offer much over just riding it myself, I was quite tempted by – http://ratrace.com/thecrossing/%5B/url%5D My folks also live in Scarborough which seemed mighty convenient.

Normally do stuff like Mayhem, feel like a bit of an adventure this year. Not sure what other explorey stuff there is.

It’s definitely more of a power through things sort of bike. I’ve got the same one.

Wheels wise, I swapped the wheels out, then realised the stock ones are actually really wide and had a reasonable weight. I actually quite like them if I’m honest, so I stuck them back on. I’m also about 16 stone and they’ve not exploded, I’ve not ridden them much to be fair but they definitely don’t flex like a lot of cheap wheels.

My Stumpy also has 142+ and has no issue running standard 142 wheels, so I wouldn’t worry.

I’ve seen a few people running 650+ on them, it’s quite versatile. The stock BB is pretty high and there’s scope for offset bushings to shift things around.

On that note, the bushings can be a pain to replace, but seem to last a respectable amount of time. My only point of reference really is single pivot Meta/Fives, which seemed to eat them much quicker.

Can’t really comment on PF30, bizarrely I’ve totally avoided it and always used adaptors of some sort. The Stumpy was bought as a frame and the Enduro had already been swapped to a standard BB.

I was once in Currys and the assistant just walked off mid-conversation for a fag break, we were looking at a Samsung TV at the time. Bloody Samsung, they should be ashamed.