You have the advantage in that you have the perfect winter bike, you could fit ice tyres on it and go anywhere. The tollerance of the rider to cold is more the issue ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by J4MIE
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You have the advantage in that you have the perfect winter bike, you could fit ice tyres on it and go anywhere. The tollerance of the rider to cold is more the issue ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by J4MIE
This is true. People ask why do you bother having a light bike, if you want to get fit having a heavy bike is better, but a light bike is so much more fun to ride, and that's the important thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by janneppi
I have no tolerance to cold sadly :( Will probably be doing a lot more tennis indoors...
J4MIE, Iain, that event looks like a lot of fun! I wish had something similar in our neck of the woods (pun intended :p: ).
Ran a timed city of Calgary corporate challenge 10km race on Sunday. Bib no. 2208. Quite pleased with my result, especially considering it was my 48th birthday! :D
http://www.startlinetiming.com/races/2013/ccc/oall.txt
Get a heavy road bike. Cyclocross is all the rage in my area and there are a lot of people on slightly beefy road bikes with 32c tires and mountain bike brakes.
Or be a hipster and get a single-speed. With bonus points if it has no freewheel and no brakes.
If I had the cash, and the space in the house (two are connected!) then I'd have a cyclocross bike too; and they don't need to be heavy, you can get a carbon one :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Gregor-y
Or I could get an electric bike to deal with the hills :bounce:
Bicycle hipsters don't ride fixies anymore, they ride gravel griding bikes (slightly beefy road bikes with 32c tires and mountain bike brakes). I kid you not :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Gregor-y
I'm already speccin up my next bike project. It's time to put the road bike to rest and get a cyclocross bike with disc brakes. I propably could use my current road bike as a donor for lot of parts. It really depends if I find a good price for a On One dirty disco frame.
Did some riding today, I went to my nephew's mtb club ride instead of my brother who had other kid duties. Those 10-13 year old kids ride pretty well, after almost two hours I was pretty tired myself. :)
Got in twenty some miles today, with about 4 offroad on some rooted up single track. Some of the trails were challenging with a lot of ruts and drops. Part was so rooted up that short of a good full suspension bike all you were going to do by trying to go quickly was break something on yourself and/or the bike.
As a side question, does anyone know if Endomondo will "switch on the fly" and properly calculate for different sports or conditions? As example today I biked about 11 miles on roads to the trails, switched Endo to "mountain biking" and when I got back to the bike paths switched back to "sport cycling". Looking at the calories I think it simply calculated based on the last entered sport, so my calorie count was fairly low as the average speed was way down. But I'm not really sure either.... almost.
No it won't. You can switch mid workout but that's only for if you've realised you've selected the wrong sport. eg a walk but you ended up running.
Been on holiday over the weekend so no chance for cycling. However I did have my first go on an exercise bike. It did random difficulty every 10 seconds. I found it hard work at first as effectively there's no down hill constant pedalling, when cycling on the road there's always bits of freewheeling. First 10 minutes were hard but was ok after 20 minutes but was glad when the half hour was up, quite a workout.
I have to adjust my strategy for bike camping after this weekend. Rain started at five in the morning just as my aching neck woke me up for the nth time. I was able to get everything packed and dry other than the tent's rain-fly, but my plan of wearing fast drying rather than water repellent clothes doesn't work so well when it rains the entire morning. Forty miles later I got home, wiped off the bike, spent nearly an hour in the shower (with warm water) and slept for most of the afternoon.
Before my next trip I need a big waterproof bag to replace the garbage bags I normally carry, some proper rain gear and a larger pillow. The little alcohol stove is great for tea and anything else that needs boiling, and the tent I rented is far better and more practical than anything I used fifteen years ago.
Plus, this morning on my way to work the bike felt positively athletic without the extra thirty or so pounds of weight. Having a 20 mph tail wind didn't hurt, either.
That's what I suspected. I guess I've screwed myself a few times on calorie counts, not that it really concerns me. I would think that a fitness app should be able to shift on the fly though... makes life a lot easier.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
When ever I'm bothered bout calorie consumption I strap on the bluetooth heart rate band. With Sportstracker measuring me, I've done stuff like this:Quote:
Originally Posted by airshifter
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11791273/hr.jpg
The engineer in me like datapoints. ;)
I may eventually look into one of the monitors. In my case I have difficulty getting my heart rate up, which may lead to having to adjust diet more to lose weight usually. I did a heart test and maxed out the treadmill, they had to inject me to get my heart rate up high enough to take the test.
It's next to impossible to really track all activity, which would be the best way to figure out what levels maintain weight, allow you to gain, lose, etc.
Not done anything this week as I fell over tennising on Sunday morning and badly grazed my arm and leg :s Hopefully will be healed for the weekend as it's looking dry and slightly warmer :bounce:
I never would have thought I'd get a worse injury from tennis than mountain biking :s
Injured playing tennis?Quote:
Originally Posted by J4MIE
Whatever you say Juan Pablo.... errr... ok J4MIE! :D
In all seriousness, it can happen to any of us. I tend to get messed up doing safe stuff, and go through the stupid unsafe stuff without a mark on me.
I remember that :laugh:Quote:
Originally Posted by airshifter
Started feeling ill last Thursday and I still feel ill now. Went out for a ride on Tuesday but had to cut it short as I was feeling horrid. I just hope I'm better for the weekend as the weather is nice and I want to go for a long ride!
I've been a bit lazy the last couple of days. I put in about 60 miles over the weekend, but then lost motivation to even take a short ride on Monday or today. Hopefully get back on the bike and get some miles in before the end of the week.
I saw this fellow on my ride to work this morning. It looked as if he was getting a good workout.
http://imageshack.us/a/img802/5454/c1sf.jpg
Those xc roller skis are lethal, no brakes and the ski binds make them less sturdy than on roller skates. Lot of roller skate people use ski poles here when doing long exercises, you get a pretty good upper body work put with them and it's goot training for xc skii-ing.
First bike ride in two weeks, I'm not sure if it's the break in training or the first cold air ride after summer (7C ) but I felt thoroughly trashed from the first uphill onwards. Technical trails didn't help either.
Did my last cycle event of the year yesterday the "Hell of Hexham", 52 miles up steep hills and into the teeth of a gale.
I've done 7 events this year, starting with doing the sportive in Leeds at the end of February.
I'm looking forward to doing more next year; hopefully a bit more spread out throughout the year, as this year all but two of them were in August & September. Would be nice do be doing an organised ride once every 4-6 weeks as it gives you something to aim for.
This year I literally could have done one every weekend (sometimes two in a weekend) during August/September but earlier in the year it's a bit more sparse.
Was that Leeds sportive that long ago? That day was bloody freezing! You even have a new bike since then. :)
I invested in a turbo trainer yesterday :D I am NOT going to loose all my fitness over winter this year.
Yeah it was a long while ago now! Apparently Evans have got 12 extra events lined up for next year so hopefully there might be more local ones towards the start of the year.
Think I'm going to get a turbo for Christmas help build up some fitness again especially if Spring is as bad as it was this year! But it feel very much like end of season yesterday.
Did my first half marathon over the weekend with a time just over 1 hour 45. Not bad I suppose but fell into the classic beginners trap of going too quickly at the start and not having anything left at the end. There are some scarily fit people out there, including a guy pushing a pushchair with a five year old kid with Downs who left me behind at the halfway point...
Looking forward to doing it again next year though with a few lessons learnt and a longer training period.
Thinking about getting a cheap mountain bike to trash about at lunchtimes at work as I'm being forced to take hour long rather than half hour for lunch soon. Any recommendations as to what sort of thing I should be looking for?
Not just lunchtime of course, I've fancied getting a MTB for a while, as a counterpoint to having a skinny tyred road bike!
There was a lovely Nicolai Ion tested at Pinkbike.com, but you're not looking to spend 2000Eur on frame alone, are you? :D
I may have one available for you? :p:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
Good for you Malbec! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Malbec
Define "cheap". :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Mark
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
Fair play. Between £200 and £500 depending on what I would get for it.
I've also been looking at the likes of the Trek DS 8.3 which is more towards the hybrid side of things but with front suspension.
You may be happier with a hybrid and some wider (35-37) tires. I'm riding some improved trails on 35s (granted on a touring bike) and they're quite comfortable over the rough stuff. Also don't forget to look at used bikes.
TBH I'd just pick up a cheap used bike to see if it fits your use first. Then you can decide what fits the use better before spending any real money on the choice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
At the end of the day, exercise is exercise. An old mountain bike with fat tires won't do much to help your mileage count, but it will still build your legs.
So far I've been slacking this month. I did around 300 miles last month, and have just been really busy this month and as such haven't hardly gotten on the bike. When I did I didn't have time for a real ride, so just a couple short rides.
I wouldn't get a hybrid if you already have a road bike and are looking for something that can be taken to trails. The suspension forks in Hybrids aren't good, just add weight. For 200-500£ I might even look for a fully rigid mountain bike, although it's harder to find decent second hand bikes with a rigid fork.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
I took a quick look in a Finnish used bike forum and for 450Eur, you could get a 2011 Trek 6000, which has pretty ok parts.
Well it's for dual purposes really. I want a bike I can ride at work, both on the tarmac cycle paths they have around here, and a bit on dirt around the river. I could use my road bike tbh however I don't really want to bring that to work, and I want to be riding it all through the winter, my road bike can't take tyres wider than 23mm.
Are you sure about not being able to fit in a wider tyre?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
I can fit 28mm Vittoria Randonneurs in my road bike(they are closer to 26mm in real life) I use them after winter when the roads are in bad shape.
Not even close. There's on a couple of mm between the chainstays at the edge of the tyre as it is. Besides I'm looking at any new bike as a 'winter bike', so keep my good bike in good nick away from the salt.Quote:
Originally Posted by janneppi
I just looked t my road bike, with 25mm tyres, there's about 4-5mm of clearance between tread and frame tubes. with the Vittorias it's less than that, but I've had no problems with them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
Extra bikes is always a good thing. :DQuote:
Besides I'm looking at any new bike as a 'winter bike', so keep my good bike in good nick away from the salt.
I found a strong candidate for my next bike, there's a used One One cyclo cross bike with disc brakes for 1200 Eur, just the size I'm looking for. The good thing is that I've gone through this months budged already so I won't have to concider it. :D
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/2190/5kyy.jpg
I just finished a five day, 340 mile trip between Pittsburgh and Washington DC following a canal and a few railroads. I felt good about it until the canal crossed paths with the the Appalachian Trail, where hikers spend six months walking 2,200 miles.