Poxy weather. I stood in my driveway this morning considering if I should cycle or take the train. As each cycle commute saves me £10, and because I am hard, I rode in. Soaked.

you do start thinking a bit like that and then just brave it. i'm fine with getting soaked, but not day after day after day. that's just annoying. so i'm taking the tube for now.

Going out to get pissed on now

If you're averaging 20mph on a route with hills (and presumably traffic) on a MTB you are going pretty well indeed. What tyres do you have on it?

Muse,I know you were looking at silly money to get someone to teach how to change a tyre,heard about this on a podcast,might be worth looking at if it's near you.

http://www.56a.org.uk/bikeworkshop.html

thank you.

there is a new bikeshop that opened here in shoreditch. it's a company called tokyobike and it's their first store in europe.

the bikes are so so SO fucking awesome. i think i might buy one for myself for my birthday.

http://tokyobike.co.uk/bikes.htm

http://veloroutes.org/hillgradecalculator

I like this. I was looking for something to help me do some hill training, and the above link allows you to put in 2 streets, and it measures the length between the 2 points and the difference in elevation.

Yesterday I added Belgium to the list of countries that I have cycled in. Later today, I hope to add Luxumbourg.
I'ts not too big, 10 at the moment.

Was it you who mentioned Strava a while back? Cos that'll give you a rough elevation for any route you ride (although some of the readings seem a little off at times...)

No. I use Runkeeper, which also shows the elevation. However, it's the planning of the training I need, rather than knowing what I did.

The Ditchling Beacon is a 10% gradient over 2 km, while the best I can get in my local area is a 3% gradient over 500m. The Essex mountains are not helping me here.

Just hit the nearby Chilterns!

How about Mott St?

http://100hillsforgeorge.blogspot.co.uk/

Wanted so desperately to have a 'blue on blue' altercation with a cock cyclist yesterday, not just because he passed me at a red light and went through the next as well, because of what he did at the third. He had the gall - having just broken the law - to grab the passenger side door of a taxi at the next red light and seemingly yell at him for having one tire in the bike lane (yet there was plenty of room for a cyclist to get by). In defence of the cabbie, it looked as if he was going to turn right, but got stopped by the light. He gave up trying to open the cab door, got in front and again looked to be yelling, waving his arms. He then shot through the light and as I was catching up, it looked like he passed another bike in the bike lane without really checking that cars were coming up beside him. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, but I kept running into red lights.

Again, it's no wonder drivers give cyclists grief.

The trouble with twats who run red lights is that it's very hard to catch them without running reds yourself. Sounds like a total pillock.

Grippy ones for off road - and I don't think I am averaging quite that as when I say it is 8 miles each way it is actually only 7.62 I err rounded up!!

For hill training where you have no big hills, you just have to break things up a bit. For a long climb you need a good power output over a sustained period, and you need to cope with sudden ramps in elevation.

For sustained power output, you can just ride on the flat, on the rivet. Obviously you need to do bad things to yourself, but it will work.

For really steep stuff, you need to do laps on the steepest hill you can find. Go out with the intention to hurt yourself, and focus the whole session on it.

Once you get to the big climb, don't go at it like a bull at a gate. You need to get into a rhythm in the first third to a half. You should be spinning a nice light gear, focusing on your breathing and definitely not going into the red. As you get further up you will start to settle into it and might feel like getting up out of the saddle for the occasional flatter section or short sharp ramp. Once you're in the final third you can give it a bit more but leave enough in the tank so you can go over the top out of the saddle. Don't forget to spin the legs a wee bit on the descent to keep them ticking over.

Thanks for the tips

Nice one Wommers! Lippets Hill has a very nice pub called The Owl at the top, and High Beach is a nice area...you might have sussed it for me.

Bought some SPDs today. Anyone got any shoe recommendations. Don't want to spend too much.

I have wide feet so the Specialized lineup works well for me. I know this sounds obvious but get something that fits well and is comfortable, you'll not regret it on longer rides

I completed the Houston to Austin MS 150 a couple of weekends ago; it’s one of the largest charity rides in the US with approx. 13,000 cyclists taking part. The route takes you through the rolling Texas countryside and many small towns that really get in to the spirit with live bands, etc. and plenty of people to cheer you on.

On the Saturday we faced 20+ mph headwinds, which made for a challenging day. We set off at 7:00AM and 5 miles into the ride a piece of glass cut my front tire and caused a puncture, so I improvised a boot on the inside of the tire with a $1 bill to stop the inner tube bulging through the tire and I was off and running again. Obviously I’d lost my team by then so I spent the remaining 95 miles joining various other team’s pace lines to help fight the wind. After a further two planned stops to refill bottles and take on food, I was very glad to arrive at the overnight stop in La Grange. My Team had a great setup at La Grange with food, showers and massage (much needed), then a bit of R&R around the huge tented city that had been set up.

After a pretty good night’s sleep (for camping) I got up at 4:40AM on Sunday to start preparations for the day’s ride. Again we set off at 7:00AM but the weather was much kinder to us with only a 5 mph side/head wind for most of the 75 miles. No punctures this time and day two went pretty much according to schedule with two planned refueling stops. We got in to Austin at 11:10AM to a fantastic reception from the crowds at the finish line. All in all a great experience!

I'd post photo's but I can't figure out how to. Any clues?

Upload them to imgur and link to them via the img tags

Last day of work! No more daily 10-16km (if I go to rugby after work) commuting....

Taking the touring bike to the first game of the season tomorrow, which will be a 60km round trip. Pumped for it as it'll be our first nice day since that weird week in March where it was over 20 degrees.

What's with all of the extremely cheap shitty full-suspension mountain bikes around?

Loads of people seem to be cycling them into work with knobblies on them. Dunno if the suspension can lock out but half the owners haven't discovered how anyway. See them bobbling on hills the whole time. I lifted one locked to same lamp post as me the other day. Felt like 20kg+.

Hard work!

We had one of them, got sunburnt in March in Ireland, that was a first

Supermarket specials, usually a case of buying on impulse or with absolutely no research.

Madness. If you're buying a cheap bike the last thing you want is any form of suspension.

But it looks cool, dunnit?


(My brother has one - gave him shit for not asking me first!)

Whenever I see people on those bikes, I'm always reminded of the softmints ad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaTRCHbG_IA

Just back tonight from 3 fantastic days cycling in Chiba in Japan.. 1st day 160k coastal ride which was great as not a cloud and a nice tailwind the whole way.. Day 2 was mountains.. 180k with about 4 pretty decent climbs thrown in there.. Day 3 180k of pretty nice flat rolling countryside.. Awesome weather for it all but am shattered now. Will post a few pics tomorrow maybe once I have downloaded them from my phone.

Did the 30kms to the fields in 1h 6mins ... head-wind nearly all the way home (and a detour which added 2.5kms) made it a 1h 36min ride! Had a good long shower and a stretch and feel fine today. I might just end up liking this 'long' distance cycling lark.

Congrats, that is some impressive mileage, especially with the climbing thrown in on day two, assume it was with a group so you could share the work.

I for one needed a cheap MTB bike (got one in Halfords on the cycle to work scheme) for the trials that I could also cycle to work on (only a secondary consideration). So there's that.

Got into the garage this morning to discover a flat front tyre, no time to sort it out so had to ride to work on my bloomin' MTB, complete with 2.35 nobblies, ridiculously wide handlebars that are totally unsuited to weaving through traffic, and of course, no mudguards. Quite good fun though, the racing ralph on the rear seems to make a bit of a difference compared to the last time I rode it on the road, and I was able to rinse a few of the slower roadies along the way. Wasn't much slower than normal, which just goes to show the extent to which traffic lights are the limiting factor.

Note to self though, get in habit of checking bike in the evening.

Trials?

Surely you'd be better off with a MTB without suspension or with front only unless you have a grand+ to spend?

Jeez HK that is 3 Ironman distances back to back - you must be fit as, at the moment.

btw Waht saddle do you have as mine is shredding my arse and I hoped I would adapt but don't seem to be doing so, the first 15 minutes in the saddle kill me

I have actually chosen to use my MTB as it is harder work so I will burn more calories.

I can't really decide whether the reasoning behind that is sound or not (had a bit of a mini shitfight with Apposite on the issue ealier in this very thread in fact, IIRC), but anecdotally I only lost weight as a result of cycling to work once I moved onto a road bike. There may be other factors involved though, I was being pretty competitve with this app called Strava at the time (it records your ride using GPS and then ranks you against other users on various segments that users set up) so was probably working harder than I previously had.

I am riding country lanes and like the robustness of the MTB - I just feel more vulnerable on a RB with cars passing you at 60-80 (I kid you not) on a single lane road!!