Search results for:

fuck! I clicked that as i realised its reddit...

Whats in there??? Whats now on my history?!

YES! People don't understand that bicycling is a war and it's us humans against the grams.
Shoes weigh a lot - the S-Works shoes I had were almost 250 grams. I stopped wearing shoes. I use a 2-part airplane epoxy to glue a carbon fiber plate to my feet and attach my cleats to that. I save almost 130 grams. (Edit: this also let me get rid of socks, which saved me almost 80 grams!)
I was running 16 spoke wheels, but I was thinking about it and why do I have so many spokes, right? Spokes weigh almost 4.5 grams each! So I got rid of about 1/2 of them, which saved me almost 70 grams, and I drilled small holes into the remaining spokes.
When you look at your bike, there's probably a lot of other parts you don't need. Like the hoods on your brifters? That's extra grams. How long are your cables? All the extra length sticking out is extra grams. So are the little plastic things at the end. Look at how fat your brake pads are. I shave mine down.
I exfoliate with steel wool every single day get rid of unnecessary skin grams.
I am thinking about trying something instead of water - something less dense. I found out alcohol is 21% less dense than water, so if we have a 1 liter bottle, we could save 210 grams by switching to pure ethanol.
It's also important to get aero.
You can make your water bottles extra aero by flattening them with a clothes iron.
I found a plastic surgeon who is going to re-shape my head this off-season, and I think it will make me 1.4% more aero.

My legs are gone, but I dont have anything better to do tonight, so count me in

Carbon repair?

Hah ok, although I must make clear its something I'm not particularly proud of.

Saw Hovis this morning trackstanding like a boss at the traffic lights on the jamacia sprint section

ORLY?? I didnt see you. To be honest I don't even remember riding in this morning. Except for the part where I nearly got taken out by a last minute change of direction van that sent me into a pothole thus snapping one of my spokes :(

should be sprinting then not track standing... hovis doing it wrong

The last time I did that through a red I got chased by the Po Po and ended up spending 4 hours in the slammer!

I have received this email from a driver along the route:

"Dear Alex,

I had to follow a large number of cyclists for a 7 mile stretch. Over taking was extremely difficult and to be honest due to the sheer numbers rather dangerous, on fast winding country lanes. At one point as a courtesy I stayed behind a group of riders on one of the many S bends only to find other cyclists over taking me!. There appeared to be no prior warning of a cycling event.

Shock horror! A difference in speed between cyclists. And even worse, a bike overtaking a car!

Wtf does he expect, us all to line up single file the whole way??

You should have seen the looks we got when Chainbreaker was yelling about vag cream into the walkie talkies....

Haha, oh dear. I was an unfortunate victim here of being a walkie talkie bearer too. Some poor lady had a look of horror when mumblings of vag cream came through. I tried frantically to turn it off but did not know how, so I ran away instead.

ring ring

Puuuuut a ba na na in your eaaaaaaaaar

I just had a fitting with the Bike Whisperer, have posted my thoughts on the specific thread!
http://www.lfgss.com/thread21125-6.html

Wow that was long, sorry about that.

I had my fit with Scherrit a week ago now but wanted to get a bit of riding in before I gave my feedback and having just completed the Dunwich Dynamo, thought it was a good time. Before I describe the process I'll quickly explain why I got the fit.

I started cycling properly about 3 years ago. However in the past I suffered from lower back pain, which at one point had gotten so bad I couldn't get out of bed, or even roll over without excruciating amounts of pain. I ended up missing days off work and subsequently required the services of an osteopath. Whilst cycling wasn't the cause of these problems, it certainly exacerbated it.

I don't wish to toot my own horn but I'm only 26 and consider myself pretty damn fit. I used to box (thai box) at a professional level which requires a hell of a lot of training and physical conditioning. The osteopath explained that I had muscle imbalances between my front and back, most likely due to all my training (the irony). He gave me exercises which I carried out diligently and got to the point where I could box and cycle again.

However any ride over 30/40 miles would still trigger it, so every time I hop off the bike I have to do these stretches that relieve tension and crack my lower spine, the osteo tells me when I'm older I will pay the price for all this cracking. I also get knee pain which is a result of previous injury.

All of this culminated into a massive world of pain when I cycled to Rotterdam and back a few months ago now. By the end of it I was a corpse on wheels. Every bump would send shooting pains up my spine to the point of which I came to tears. My left knee hurt so much I could no longer pedal with it, instead I dangled it to the side and pedal with my right. I had just about had enough of cycling and considered calling it quits as it was just too much pain to bear.

Instead I gave Scherrit a call and got myself on the 6 week waiting list.

And finally last Monday I had my session. He is massively enthusiastic and really cares about what he is doing. As he went through each stage of the fit he explained everything that was going on as though he hadnt done so a thousand times before. Incredible that he keeps that level of interest after all these years. Its always a real pleasure to meet someone who loves what they do. I'll describe everything that I can remember below, the order of which is most likely jumbled up.

He spent a few hours examining my feet, measuring distances between joints and observing my movements as I did a series of motions such as squats, knee bends etc etc. We did some neuro-muscular stuff to. He also spent some time observing my flexibility and stability. We also discussed my previous injuries and what might be affecting my cycling today.

He then popped my bike up onto a turbo and measured up my current set up. He took me through every measurement and how to replicate it at home. His methods are very practical for people without specialist tools which was nice.

After that I hopped on the bike and he began noticing things straight away. My left foot was whipping at the bottom of the stroke, a sign that my saddle was too high. My knees were tracking funny too which he said he would remedy with cleat wedges and arch supporting insoles. He also noticed my deltoids were overactive which was wasting energy and restricted oxygen intake.

I think at this stage he tinkered my cleats (look keos). My right cleat ended up moving back about 7mm and my left only a couple. He also rotated them to make sure I had equal float left to right during my pedalling.

There was some other stuff too that I cant remember in detail, but regardless, he then set about tinkering things on the bike. My final setup had my seatpost move down 15mm (!!) which he tells me is the opposite of what 80% of his customers end up having (normally posts go up). My saddle to BB offset moved a bit and he also rotated the angle of the saddle so it was at 4deg pointing down. Luckily my bar and stem combo was ok, he just rotated the levers a tiny bit around the bars and kindly rewrapped them far better than I had done myself.

As he made changes he would put me back on the bike and iteratively move towards the final result.

As for my feet, he has a very clever system for determining appropriate cleat wedges and arching requirements. I ended up having two wedges on the left and one on the right. He then put insoles in, a high arch supporting on my right and a low arch on the left. Its shocking how different my insole requirements are considering my feet look the same.

After a bit of trial and erroring and him observing, we were just about done. He measured up the new setup and gave me a sheet with everything. I had told him I was intending to replicate it on my fixed gear bike when I got home as I was doing the Dunwich Dynamo the following weekend. He warned me that it usually takes upto 3 weeks for the rider to get used to the new setup if it is a drastic change, which i believe mine was, but regardless he hoped i would be a lot more comfortable anyway.

After the fit, I cycled about 10 miles to get a feel for it. It immediately felt right. My feet felt planted, I could smash down on the pedals with all my might without the feeling of impending knee failure. The arch supports in the insoles and the wedges is what did it I think. I can really feel them supporting my feet as I stroke.

When I got home I replicated the measurements onto my fixed bike and then patiently waited for the dynamo. I didnt ride anything over 20 miles that week so it was impossible for me to tell if my back issues were going to come.

And now its a day after the dynamo and i am shocked to say that i have absolutely 0% back pain. Astonishing, I literally couldnt believe it. I am usually quite sceptical about this sort of stuff so as the miles poured in I was just waiting for it to come but it never did. The man is nothing short of a genius.

My knee issues were also largely non existent, with only a tiny twinge remaining which I felt at the end, but is just a mere shadow of its former self. I fully expect this to disappear completely in the coming weeks as my body fully adapts to the new position.

So there you have it, for me the service he has provided was absolutely priceless. There were times during my Rotterdam ride where I would have gladly paid someone thousands to make the pain go away, and now that wish has come true.

Am thoroughly looking forward to many more years of pain free cycling!

massive bowl of pasta in the system. planning on a 2-3 hr nap later on, but also wanna watch TdF on tv....

nap + TdF. Go hand in hand.

Meh, hate that stem head tube combo. Looks like a giraffe

I bet it was a shit show tonight, I think its best to avoid the park in weather like this.

Yep, I went out for 8, and had a roadie train up my ass for 5 of them. I tried my best to let them pass but they refused and insisted on staying put.

I even did the old wait at the lights after they have gone green trick hoping they would go, but they were too smart for that and waited. Worst thing was at the end one of them pulls up a long side me and says "you are a quick rider, but you should push a harder gear, it will make you stronger and you will go faster".

Mr response?

Im gonna head out there now for 8 laps. Feeling antisocial. If you see me, keep calm and carry on

I might show up tonight dependent on how much work is pissing me off.

I'll be doing this on S/S at 72.7gi (47x17) which for me will be perfect for cruising between 15-20mph.

On a separate note, my food of choice for this will be 4 malt loafs, and a tub of utterly butterly.

CB, which colour combo did you decide?

^^ is it a one off? There appears to be zero adjustability for fore aft and angle.

Hotpants on a dude??? What is the world coming to.

... must be a nice cooling sensation for the bits though

If you can't find anywhere, I'm happy if you want to get it delivered to my office. They are used to me ordering massive things by now.

Reynolds blue are widely regarded as the best pads for carbon tracks. Very good modulation. I have a set and feel their performance isnt much different than my swisstop greens on alu rims.

Another top tip. Stick your cereal/energy bars onto your top tube, good way to carry them and easily accessible. Pre tearing the wrappers is a good idea too, can be a right pain in the ass to open them whilst on the move.

I like the concept of this and the discipline involved in doing it. Have done similar things during my trans European adventures, although usually with 10+ riders. In my experience it all starts to fall apart with sub groups being formed due to there inevitably being riders which are stronger than others.

But as you guys have mentioned above, its a a public road with pinch points and generally populated with agitated rush hour drivers, my concern is that such a disciplined rotation system requires a lot of concentration, and could make people make some brash split seconds decisions in order to keep it flowing, which we all know can lead to disaster.

Having said that I wasn't there last night so you guys are much better qualified to comment on it.