The Fretboard Cycling Club

Hurling_Fruitmig

All this sunshine tells me it's time to look forward to another year of fair-weather cycling. New tyres and tubes ordered to replace the long in the tooth ones on last years' second hand road bike.

Logie

Lovely day today. Flattish 20 mile but I'm definitely upping the pace. Only a mile or so average mph less than May, June last year so it's coming along. Need new shoes though  

jonnyburgo

Mines nowt special but its steady workhorse, theres a reason why Dawes bikes are often rentals, solid and reliable. It can go pretty darn fast, gearing not the best for hills but I managed, got mine offf ebay as an absolute minter for £120

https://www.southwatercycles.com/smsimg/5/46783-59899-full-giro500-5.jpg

Brio

Just had another fun pootle. Only 2000ft of climbing and it was over 28 miles but I drank a lot of water and a tin of rather nice Polish lager when I passed through Didcot on the way home...
right, back to work.

Logie

@Brio ;

I must remember the lager for my water bottle next time.

Some good hills around there.

Jaycee

Done a couple of 30 milers this week, 2500 ft of elevation and my legs nearly cramping at the end on todays ride.

Brio

Excellent work. I just did a long ride round to the shops. The weather was better than I expected but the only decent hill on one 9of my routes home is closed for another couple of weeks due to fibre cable laying so fairly flat stipulated today,

m_c

Having managed a decent after work spin on the mountain bike on Monday night, I had planned to get out on the road bike last night as the forecast was good, but I woke up yesterday hardly able to stand due to a sore back and sciatica :-/

Having spent the past couple days rolling around doing various stretches, I'm hoping the back will be good enough to get out on a bike tomorrow, since it's supposed to be the best forecast of the weekend.

Logie

I did a bumpy 20 miler a couple of days ago and although it hurt I'm starting to derive a masochistic pleasure from struggling up the hills.
 Hopefully get a good 50/ 60 miler over the weekend weather permitting. I've managed about 300 mile since the middle of Feb so I'm getting out on the bike but it's short bursts and my mate is making noises about going back to Mallorca next year to tackle some big hills!

drofluf

Doing my second Zwift race now. 

Got my pace wrong initially but now working steadily through the pack. At this rate the lantern rouge should pass me in about ten minutes. 

drofluf

...and then Zwift decided my subscription had expired and by the time I’d got it sorted the broom wagon had passed so my race was over. Try again on Monday 

littlegreenman

Anyone else doing Tour of Watopia? I'll be doing the long and shorter rides as usual.

drofluf

littlegreenman said:

Anyone else doing Tour of Watopia? I'll be doing the long and shorter rides as usual.

Yes, those were the races I referred to upthread. 

Teetonetal

Kicked off my bike summer this week. 4 road rides.

Nowhere near the times I got to by year end last year, but way better than I was at the start last year...

Bought some 200mm discs for the MTB this year as well, as my 180s feel a tad underpowered for my weight.

Brio

Bought some 200mm discs for the MTB this year as well, as my 180s feel a tad underpowered for my weight.

I’ll be interested to hear how much of a difference they make.

littlegreenman

drofluf said:

littlegreenman said:

Anyone else doing Tour of Watopia? I'll be doing the long and shorter rides as usual.

Yes, those were the races I referred to upthread. 

Muir and the Mountain today for stage 2, with a hangover! ughh, not a good idea

Men's and Women's Ronde Van Vlaanderen afterwards with a few beers and pizza? Much better idea

Bit of a shocker for the men's result, not so much for the women...

How the fuck did MVDP lose that one!?

m_c

Brio said:

Bought some 200mm discs for the MTB this year as well, as my 180s feel a tad underpowered for my weight.

I’ll be interested to hear how much of a difference they make.

Generally increasing size will result in more power, but it can also reduce modulation aka the brakes can fell a bit more on/off.

Personally, unless you're fairly heavy, or are riding somewhere with either long descents where you have to drag brakes to control speed or do lots of braking (don't mistake this for dragging brakes because you've got rubbish braking technique!), then 180mm is good enough for most people.
I've ridden the alps with 180/160 on my old hardtail, and they were fine, although they did get quite hot at times.

Currently my more XC orientated full sus has a 200/180, and I think my big bike is 200/200 (it may be 220/200...), but it was built up to replace my DH bike and for doing the Megavalanche, so I wanted good brakes on it. Both those bikes regularly get abused on 3-400m vertical descents which can be quite steep in places.

TTBZ

The biggest mistake I made was thinking my 160 rear disk would be fine for Whistler  

drofluf

drofluf said:

...and then Zwift decided my subscription had expired and by the time I’d got it sorted the broom wagon had passed so my race was over. Try again on Monday 

And success! Better paced today so slowly moved up the field ending up at about 480th out of a field of 680. Did the A group ride and I firmly expected to be spat out the back so happy with that. 

Teetonetal

m_c said:

Brio said:

Bought some 200mm discs for the MTB this year as well, as my 180s feel a tad underpowered for my weight.

I’ll be interested to hear how much of a difference they make.

Generally increasing size will result in more power, but it can also reduce modulation aka the brakes can fell a bit more on/off.

Personally, unless you're fairly heavy, or are riding somewhere with either long descents where you have to drag brakes to control speed or do lots of braking (don't mistake this for dragging brakes because you've got rubbish braking technique!), then 180mm is good enough for most people.
I've ridden the alps with 180/160 on my old hardtail, and they were fine, although they did get quite hot at times.

Currently my more XC orientated full sus has a 200/180, and I think my big bike is 200/200 (it may be 220/200...), but it was built up to replace my DH bike and for doing the Megavalanche, so I wanted good brakes on it. Both those bikes regularly get abused on 3-400m vertical descents which can be quite steep in places.

Based in the Alps, so almost all of my riding on this bike involves long descents. I'm pretty heavy at 95-100 kg and  on the longer runs 180s can just get too hot. One thing I am not a fan of is soft, squishy breaks mid ride