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A huge yes for that Stayer, I've been looking at that for months and contemplating getting one as my next road bike. Columbus XCR looks great with the custom seatpost/tube

Just for pricing reference, I used to have one of these frames but with celeste forks. I bought it brand new for £600 and after a couple of years I sold it for £400 which I was happy with. GLWS

I want to say thank you to all the recent donations, it really means a lot and you guys have been incredibly generous.

I'm currently on the turbo drinking a monster and vibing out to disco tunes, having done 55km with my commute today. So I'm pushing for 115km today

You should try the GU chocolate/nutella mix, it's Palm Oil free and it's like crack. Not sure on the political issues of it though as I just buy it when it's on offer. I always check for PO when buying peanut butter not never looked at Nutella, I'll swap that out for the above permanently now. For a long time i thought rapeseed oil was palm oil so was avoiding that too. Well until I mentioned this to a colleague and he pointed to all of the fields we can see from the office and said what do you think that is.... Embarrassing

I have the same with one of my cousins too, most of my side of the family went and had a allergy/intolerance test and it all came back negativity. They still limit their gluten content though because of it.

It's massively individual, I meant to say I don't eat cheese not dairy fully as I do eat chocolate. There seems to be a lot of nonsense on the internet/socials/netflix about how a diet suits all and why everyone should eat one way or another but in reality it's individual trial and error.

Those croissants were a just to try ... My GF bakes each weekend so I get either peanut butter cookies or flapjacks, these normally last the working week. My 'bad' snacks are soreen loaf, chocolate fruit and nut mix, occasionally peanut butter and nutella sandwiches

That's interesting about the hand hygiene, I've been carrying a little sanitiser bottle in my saddle bag since covid. I'll keep that then, I never thought about that but if you're eating on the go and stopping at various places then the risk of picking up any germs is very high.

Also love that story below about gaining 10 places just to get some chocolate milk!

I was waiting for someone to bite at that photo.

Granted my snacks are bad in order to have some body fat... But I do eat a very good diet, I had shingles a few years ago when trying to trial with rowing so started taking vitamins since then and I don't eat meat or dairy so eat a huge amount of veg and grains, well that's pretty much all I eat.

I was just interested in knowing how you guys manage your health while doing a large amount of volume with racing etc.

Thanks, it's definitely a challenge but I'm enjoying it. Well at the moment I am...

It's the plastic use which is why I swapped to making my own, using a soft flask is actually better as you can modulate how much you take. I make it for my GF too and she much prefers them as she never uses the full shop bought gel so she can have as much as she needs. I'm definitely not that accurate with my measurements, I follow the grams but just pour the salt in and hope for the best..... Also maybe test try the homemade ones for the TTs, you could definitely put the flask down the front of your skinsuit which could have some aero benefits depending on your body shape. One of my mates who's pro-conti does this and swears by the benefits although he never does 12hour TTs.

@frank9755 i'm definitely a fan of making a batch up for the weekend for the 2 days but now that I've got a multi day ride coming up I will stick to solids as you and hippy have mentioned. I've only done gels for a few hours at a time and not multi day races like you have and found my mouth is less than desirable.

What do you guys do about staying well? I'm the vitamins below and cold showers which has been working but I'm interested in what a lot more experienced people do.

My breakfast looked like the below today with a glass of OJ and a double espresso, does this mean I'm an endurance cyclist....

People at work have been trying to push me to cycle to site, the only issue with taking a change of clothes is that it's full PPE included steel toe cap boots and a hard hat...

I guess it's going to be more trial and error as at the moment, I have a very controlled environment with my riding so can plan everything with my nutrition. I'm going to do some long days in the run up to LEJOG so will test the shop bought nutrition then.

Challenge update:

I'm on day 84 now and I'm a bit behind from the knee injury but I'm very motivated to hit day 100 at 10,000km, as this feels like the first big milestone of this challenge. I'm definitely predicting life getting in the way more in September/October with a house move and potentially living between two places so will make the most of this summer by getting some miles banked then!

That sounds like a fun challenge though. Like you said being busy with work makes things difficult, I've had a few days where I'm having to do site visits that are 150 miles away so miss the morning ride and feel exhausted from the driving. I have used and enjoyed trainerroad in the past but I'm doing various 'Active recovery' sessions on Zwift as keeping a consistent power seems to help my current injury. I'll move onto those high calorie foods, as you're right in saying you need to fuel on stuff you can buy. This will be very important for when I'm doing big multi day rides as I won't be able to make my gel/buy when out on the road.

I make up a maltodextrin based gel : https://theplantedrunner.com/copycat-gu-gels/#wprm-recipe-container-3063 I find it works really well but I make 8 or 10x the recipe and use soft flasks to store it, makes me feel more PRO... I find too much sweets or a monster ruin my mouth, I jump off the turbo and brush my teeth as I don't like the feeling.

I do have a Friday rewarded, my GF picks up fish and chips which is always a great after a long week. The weekdays are where the challenge really exists, as it kills my spare time and I have to be super efficient with all my tasks otherwise I end up going to bed too late and won't recover. I always have a 2kg bag of maltodextrin so will start putting added it to my bottles with a bit of lemon juice/squash. I have used SIS Go Energy in the passed too which I liked.

It's mental the cost of doing a lot of miles, I've already got through 2x chains and 1 set of GP5000s

No eggs sucked here, my GF is a peadiatric physio so does occasionally make some blunders... K tape was one, ended up waxing the hair off around my quad and knee. Her response was I never need to shave my patients before using it on them.... (They're children). So advice from an experienced cyclist as yourself is amazing, thank you. I'll get her to measure my knee angles tomorrow and we can keep a note of it like you suggested.

I'm definitely in a good routine with my nutrition and recovery but I've found when I'm tired I get lazy, which means I don't make gels for the following days so end up eating sweets. What was your challenge? When I was working from home, I was there with 3 showers a day and I would agree. Occasionally I do 100+km after work as it gives me quite a buzz, shows how much time we have after a working day. I'm planning on doing LEJOG in July which will be amazing but after that I will need to set mini goals, probably mini training camps so I can take advantage of the fitness gains for when the challenge is completed.

@Tallboy that would be amazing :) I've replied, thank you so much

Thanks and well done to you too! That's a huge amount of time you've put in. Are you training for anything specific?

About 50/50 but i want to be closer to 100 road in the summer. I don't mind a turbo session, i used to row so spent a lot of time looking at a concept 2 screen.

I'm trying my best to rest, I'm lucky to have a physio girlfriend who helps with all my various sporting injuries. I've pretty much been doing all of that, I've got historically tight quads/calves so it's been an ongoing issue to stay on top of this. I had a diy bike fit on Sunday and lowered the saddle and swapped to speedplays which is nice but now I only have 1 set of pedals....

I've found the most important thing about this challenge is staying fit and healthy. Well over the equipment and average watts/speed.

Thanks everyone for the messages of support and I'm really taken back with the generosity with the donations so thank you. I didn't expect that at all, I was posting on here to tell the story of why I'm doing this and to have another way of logging the challenge to a bunch of cyclists.

So some facts of where I started in January and other miscellaneous ;
Weight was 72.3kg - now 71.8kg
FTP 310 - now unknown as I don't fancy testing this until I've finished
Biggest week so far was 25 hours 55 minutes (Would love to do a 30hour week when the weather is better)
Bikes: Isen all season and Caad 5 USA
I've lost count of how many local legends I've got and seem to top all Strava club leaderboards - Who even looks at these though?

Also @hippy I should of spoken to you before doing that as you couldn't be more correct. I've ended up with a slight knee issue, it's fine for me to ride slowly but I can't ride hard/fast which is what I enjoy.

Definitely 2021... I just wanted to relive 2020 as it was such a great year

Yes, I've linked that above now. Hopefully that works

Well my food bill has gone up by 50% a week but I'm not calorie counting at all. More weekly weigh ins and my weight has plateaued, which is nice.

Cheers Greeno, well I'm trying to do 150km each day over the weekend to allow for a day off in the week but this really depends on free time and fatigue. I'm also going to do LEJOG in August, to gain a buffer. That's why i'm doing 36,500km in 365 days and not 100km a day, gives me some leeway as a year is a long time.

Yes to desk job which does help but not from home so I can't incorporate a turbo session while working... I do commute though which gets between 40-50km in a day

I've undertaken a fairly large challenge, as the subject suggest I am cycling 36,500km in 365 days. As a long time watcher/occasionally buyer of this forum, I thought some of you may be interested in this.

I started this challenge on January 23rd 2021, which means I am currently 81 days into the challenge. I'm doing a mix of outdoor and indoor cycling to cover the distance, all in aid of CALM charity. I've attached the link to the justgiving page if anyone is interested in this as this has all of my strava activities uploaded on, plus the reason why I'm doing such a challenge which I'll briefly explain below;

So, why am I cycling roughly 100km a day.. (Roughly by the fact I'm trying to ride more some days to allow for rest days)

In December 2015, I was struggling massively with depressing and attempted to take my own life. I completely cut myself off from family and friends, which made everything worse. I moved back to my family home after being in London for 3 years and started again. It's taken me 5 years to gain the confidence to talk about this period of my life, so I wanted to take on a challenge to help not only raise money for CALM but also awareness of men's mental health. The idea of the daily suffering that people go through when they're in those bad places is attempted to be replicated by the physical suffering I am going through when cycling each day.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/joel-mcallister

If you're interested, please have a look and follow my instagram account (Joel.J.McAllister) as that's where I post the most about this challenge, with the day to day total etc. I obviously am very limited with times so don't have any fancy youtube videos or newspaper articles as yet. Essentially it's me and my bike, as the most important thing for me with this challenge is to raise awareness of the struggles of mental health and to get people to talk. For me I am ashamed that it has taken me 5 years to talk about my struggles, it took me 2 years to tell my girlfriend so to get more people talking, this will be everything. I've already had 4 separate friends reach out to me about what they have been through/currently going through, which motivates me more.

SO the elephant in the room, yes I am using Zwift to clock up the indoor kms which does lighten the load but working a 8am - 5pm job and having pets, this does mean that I have a spare half an hour before going to sleep at night. I'll tell you now, doing 10 hours on the turbo in order to catch up the distance lost after a crash and being severely concussed.. Wasn't easy..

I could go on about this for a while so will stop here for the first post. Fire away any questions and I'll try and regularly update this conversation (as I can do this at work :) )

I thought they were PDWs but was hoping they were a cheaper alternative. One day I'll invest in a set but riding indoors on a turbo is much more appealing at the moment.

They look really neat on the caad though..

That's bad ass, can't work out how they have attached the mudguards though. What mudguards are they?

Eventually I'll upgrade mine as is quite a parts bin built, still one of the coolest paint jobs Cannondale have done IMHO

Too much winter for the winter bike today, does make for a cool pic though. Classic English person, snows once and phone out to take a picture

So I've noticed a slight bend/fold in my Kalo uno stem, do i need to replace?

That is absolutely lovely! Would love one of those frames

Made this, was great. Thanks for the recipe