The biking thread

Who here really tracks their fundamentals? IE, power, cadence, heart rate, etc. I don't have a bike computer, but when I'm at the gym I try to shoot for 220 watts for about 20 minutes, usually at around 80-85rpm. As a rotary guy, I'd like to increase my cadence to around 100rpm for the same power. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as throwing on a header and doing a street port! :lol:

Kidding aside, I did not realize (until doing some reading) that a lower cadence will drain your muscle energy more quickly for the same power output. Time to crank up the speed?

My eventual goal is to get my FTP up to around 250 watts (I believe I'm around 205-210 now), but I don't know if I will be able to achieve that based on the limited amount of time I have for training.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
Who here really tracks their fundamentals?
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I certainly do mate, not necessarily against others but against myself.
A cadence of around 90 is a good trade off compared to grinding or spinning too much. Just keep in mind everyone is different.

Also FTP is very useful but mostly as a start point for training zones. There are a few other metrics like VO2 max and watts/kg for example that tell the complete story. My best riding buddy has a higher FTP than me by a decent amount but he's also 25kg heavier than me. On the flat stuff he motors along but as soon as we hit a gradient of 5% or more for a decent distance he has no chance of sticking with me as my watts/kg is higher.

I'm currently doing some structured training with this event in mind and will decide if I want to enter nearer Xmas. It's a pretty brutal ride and I'm thinking if I can get my watts/kg up to around 4.2 (pretty close now) I should manage pretty well. The trick is to lose a couple kg and gain some watts at the same time.
 
Shaun
I certainly do mate, not necessarily against others but against myself.
A cadence of around 90 is a good trade off compared to grinding or spinning too much. Just keep in mind everyone is different.

Also FTP is very useful but mostly as a start point for training zones. There are a few other metrics like VO2 max and watts/kg for example that tell the complete story. My best riding buddy has a higher FTP than me by a decent amount but he's also 25kg heavier than me. On the flat stuff he motors along but as soon as we hit a gradient of 5% or more for a decent distance he has no chance of sticking with me as my watts/kg is higher.

I'm currently doing some structured training with this event in mind and will decide if I want to enter nearer Xmas. It's a pretty brutal ride and I'm thinking if I can get my watts/kg up to around 4.2 (pretty close now) I should manage pretty well. The trick is to lose a couple kg and gain some watts at the same time.
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I'm down to about 70kg...not sure I can or would want to lose much more weight than that. Hit the stationary bike yesterday with some intensity - FTP up to ~220w giving me a fairly decent 3.14w/kg. Also managed to hold about 95rpm through my session, and it actually didn't feel too unnatural. My "comfortable" or "natural" cadence is 85rpm I think. Also encouraging was my heart rate for that power level is less than before by about 10 bpm. Getting there!

That event looks like something I never want to do. :lol:
 
Had a great ride on Saturday, approximate route.

I think my saddle position is almost right. I think it may need to be lowered a few more mm, but it's so much better than before. After ~75km I was still feeling good. Could have pushed to 100km I think. I wanted to experiment with a higher cadence during a real ride, so I left it on the small front ring for almost the entire ride (shifted to the large on some downhills) and and spun...and, according to Strava, I was as fast or faster pretty much everywhere compared to previously grinding on the big chainring...but way less tired. More importantly, no numb nuts!

I think 54cm might be one size too small for me (I'm 5'10"). I have to push my saddle back basically as far as it can go to be in the proper position (horizontally) over the pedals. In the future, I will probably opt for 56cm bikes. That being said, with the latest adjustments, the bike has become far more comfortable.
 
After adjusting my derailleur and indexing my gears and still having no luck with the clunky 8th gear I got my bike looked at by my LBS to see if they could figure out what was going on. They seemed quite excited to see the Eagle XS system as they had never seen one before as they're still quite new but nothing they could do could fix the catching on the cassette. They advised me that the cassette may be slightly bent from the factory, something they've seen before with the NX (the cassette on the SX groupset is an NX) and that I should contact my bike manufacturer to get a replacement. Luckily Bird seem to have a really good warranty and they've already said they will swap it out but I'm going to send them some evidence before I arrange the swap.

In better news though I'm now in the top 10% of all time riders in the downhill bits at my local trails according to Strava, so that's cool. I don't try and go for best times I just ride as hard as I can and then have a glance at the results when I get home but it's good to see my times improving. I also managed to overtake some people on full suspension e-bikes on a downhill section despite being on a regular hardtail :lol: Despite the cassette issues the Zero AM is an absolute blast to ride!
 
Moglet
After adjusting my derailleur and indexing my gears and still having no luck with the clunky 8th gear I got my bike looked at by my LBS to see if they could figure out what was going on. They seemed quite excited to see the Eagle XS system as they had never seen one before as they're still quite new but nothing they could do could fix the catching on the cassette. They advised me that the cassette may be slightly bent from the factory, something they've seen before with the NX (the cassette on the SX groupset is an NX) and that I should contact my bike manufacturer to get a replacement. Luckily Bird seem to have a really good warranty and they've already said they will swap it out but I'm going to send them some evidence before I arrange the swap.

In better news though I'm now in the top 10% of all time riders in the downhill bits at my local trails according to Strava, so that's cool. I don't try and go for best times I just ride as hard as I can and then have a glance at the results when I get home but it's good to see my times improving. I also managed to overtake some people on full suspension e-bikes on a downhill section despite being on a regular hardtail :lol: Despite the cassette issues the Zero AM is an absolute blast to ride!
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Speaking of Strava, I really enjoy the names given to various segments on Strava. There is one slope near me (I haven't ridden it) on dirt that is something like 25%. It's titled simply " **** " :lol:. I've been able to crack top 10% or even top 5% all time on a lot of segments, but man there are a lot of riders. I can be in top 5% and still have hundreds of riders ahead of me. I try to go for fastest splits of the day instead. :lol::nervous:
 
Eunos_Cosmo
Speaking of Strava, I really enjoy the names given to various segments on Strava. There is one slope near me (I haven't ridden it) on dirt that is something like 25%. It's titled simply " **** " :lol:. I've been able to crack top 10% or even top 5% all time on a lot of segments, but man there are a lot of riders. I can be in top 5% and still have hundreds of riders ahead of me. I try to go for fastest splits of the day instead. :lol::nervous:
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There are some amusing ones near me, my favourite is "Plumbuster", named so because of the numerous jumps with flat landings that are scattered around the route. Other highlights:

"Rock Garden of Doom"
"Start with a twisted egg finish"
"Repeat to make stronger"
"Mason, peel your face off"
"...and feed it to the dogs"
 
I had a really good ride out today, Managed to do 58.5 miles(:crazy:) that's my highest in a single ride so far. I got a new bike GPS (Garmin edge explore) so I can go places where I am not familiar with the roads. I was flagging badly in the last 10 miles with some straight roads and a head wind:banghead:, also due to some bad route plotting I had to get off and walk down a grass/gravel track lol.

I have been getting some bad knee pain on my longer rides but my saddle is correct height(set in shop), I was at a loss as to the problem. But I think I have found what was causing it, looking at where I have a tan (lol) it was right around my knee and the cycling shorts I had were pretty tight. I just got a new pair of cycling shorts in the amazon prime sale that are shorter, And after my big ride my legs don't have as much pain as the shorter rides I did. So I'm thinking the other cycling shorts were too tight and too close to my knee, will go on a few more rides with the new shorts and see how it goes.
 
@bluemoon_19 Due to the state of our roads I always recce potential new routes in the car to understand the condition. I got caught out too many times in the past ! Well done for the distance :)
 
MrCrynox
@bluemoon_19 Due to the state of our roads I always recce potential new routes in the car to understand the condition. I got caught out too many times in the past ! Well done for the distance :)
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Thanks, Luckily I have only been caught out once with a road that looked rideable (other than the one yesterday) and even then a proper road going to the same place was a mile down the road. Sometimes I use google maps to give an idea what the road is like it's especially helpful if you use street view to give a rough idea what the surface condition is like, still it's better to do a proper recce.
 
Anyone here into bike touring? Checked the last 10 or 20 pages and I've seen great posts but mostly about mountain and road bikes.
 
zzz_pt
Anyone here into bike touring? Checked the last 10 or 20 pages and I've seen great posts but mostly about mountain and road bikes.
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I don't think there are many mate but I know @W3HS has had a few touring type of rides and @ExigeEvan rode across Australia (well mostly).
 
I have done a few short tours, the longest being 5 days in total with about 3 and a half of it spent in the saddle racking up somewhere between 450-500km, I can’t remember the exact distance but it was an intercity tour in China through some amazing mountain ranges.

More recently I’ve done some weekenders that have been just under 300km and a few long distance days, but that was last year and this year I’ve hardly rode anything more than my daily commute. Last time I put my kit on was the Festive 500.

I am desperate for another weekender through the mountains but now that I’m a father I don’t want to give up time with my daughter so between parenting and work I rarely get time to head out on the open road and do any touring. Saying that, I did just last night order a new bar bag with the idea of getting in a weekender once a month if I can.
 
@Shaun well remembered!

I recently bought a Boardman ADV8.9 with the intent of getting back into cycling and doing a few big rides next year (Ride London and CarTen). There's pencilled in plans for another tour with my mate around the UK of about a 1000 miles.
 
Anyone have rain/wet tire recommendations? My Mavics are going to be hopeless in the wet I can already tell. Rain season approaches....
 
Eunos_Cosmo
Anyone have rain/wet tire recommendations? My Mavics are going to be hopeless in the wet I can already tell. Rain season approaches....
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Continental 4 seasons are good though now I just run Vittoria Corsa's all year round and don't really have an issue. Vittoria also have a Corsa control which apparently have more puncture protection so would probably be better than the regular Corsa's for the wet.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
Anyone have rain/wet tire recommendations? My Mavics are going to be hopeless in the wet I can already tell. Rain season approaches....
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My current set up has Continental Contacts 28s which aren’t super fast but grip very well in wet and gravelly situations due to the tread pattern. They aren’t even a premium tyre so are fairly inexpensive for their durability.
 
In other news, I did my first 100km ride over the weekend. The route was something like this, but about 8 miles longer. Strava counted 63.2 miles and 3100ft elevation gain.

I have to say the first 50 miles felt good. Great even. But the last few miles I had a lot of pain in my shoulders and upper back. I think I might be reaching too far. I'm going to look into a shorter stem. My legs and cardio held out admirably. I wasn't really pushing too hard, but I still averaged about 14mph which I think was pretty good for me.

Here's a picture from the top of Hawk Hill, which is 600ft above the deck of the Golden Gate Bridge, which is just below. Annoyingly, there was so much fog that nothing could be seen.

ThSQege.jpg
 
Eunos_Cosmo
I did my first 100km ride over the weekend.
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Well done. Now get back out there and do 200km! ;)

Seriously though, when I first started riding big days up to 100 and over my back and shoulders used to ache like mad after I’d done the majority of the ride. I shortened my stem and realised that, while it helped a bit, any long distance is always going to cause some pain. I think it’s just from sitting a certain way for an extended period.

Ways to avoid the pain are to get a perfect, professional bike fit which is expensive and as rare as unicorn **** for the average cyclist, get a custom bike made to fit like @shuan did, which is much more expensive but definitely the cooler option, or, the easy way — Tylenol and/ or a beer every so often.
 
Fair to say my toast wouldn't be too brown, my power curve on Garmin Connect shows I would have been done around 12 seconds at 700 watts.

The guys thighs are only just smaller than my waist size. :lol:
 
First decent ride today in a while. 80 something km with a chum. No mountains and halfway coffee shop stop. Neither one of us realised were going a good pace until we got back. I bonked a few km from home, took a rest, found a man selling coconuts (I don’t like actual coconut) which managed to get me to 7 Eleven for some much needed sugar. Legs are burnt and sore but it was a good ride.
 
Finally my body got used to the distance between my house and job (here's my *almost 3 years old* Jafi Powell 27.5)... Still running as new :D

Only thing I don't like is it only has front suspension... MTBs should have front/rear suspension as standard IMO!

20191213_090840.jpg
 
girabyt3
Finally my body got used to the distance between my house and job (here's my *almost 3 years old* Jafi Powell 27.5)... Still running as new :D

Only thing I don't like is it only has front suspension... MTBs should have front/rear suspension as standard IMO!

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Hardtails rock for climbing though!

Weather has been dreary and cold (relatively speaking here :lol:) here in California. Haven't been on the bike much lately...:guilty:
 
Eunos_Cosmo
Hardtails rock for climbing though!
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They do, but that's about where the positive arguments end. I'd say a hardtail is the AWD SUV of the biking world - it can go anywhere, including places where it probably shouldn't, but there are much better options available for those places. Excellent for gravel roads and all round less than perfect surfaces though.

Having said that, of course I have one too. :lol:

stumpjumper070519.jpg
 
Eunos_Cosmo
Hardtails rock for climbing though!
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Greycap
They do, but that's about where the positive arguments end. I'd say a hardtail is the AWD SUV of the biking world - it can go anywhere, including places where it probably shouldn't, but there are much better options available for those places. Excellent for gravel roads and all round less than perfect surfaces though.
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The only problem about hardtails are the pressure they put to the rear tyre, you never know when it might blow up due to a hard landing... That's where the softtail enters, apart that softtails also vibrate less since there's suspension for both sides softing the vibration led to the frame :D. That's actually my brother's bike (my mom bought it though but he doesn't use it due to his job), hence why's a hardtail, had it been mine, it would have been a softtail like all my previous bikes (perfect for the surfaces i usually take to get to job or to college) :D
 

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