The Fretboard Cycling Club

drofluf

First club (and outdoor!) ride in about 6 months yesterday and I’m a broken man today. 

80k with about 500m climbing. My wife thought I was having a heart attack when I got home, I could barely speak. One of the joys of living atop the steepest hill in Oxford. 

Just shows that thrice weekly turbo sessions are no substitute for regular long rides. 

Jaycee

That's a long first ride, I usually aim for 30 miles with a coffee stop ,  well done

drofluf

Jaycee said:

That's a long first ride, I usually aim for 30 miles with a coffee stop ,  well done

Thanks; it was around the 30 mile point that I thought I’d bitten off too much. 

drofluf

drofluf said:

First club (and outdoor!) ride in about 6 months yesterday and I’m a broken man today. 

80k with about 500m climbing. My wife thought I was having a heart attack when I got home, I could barely speak. One of the joys of living atop the steepest hill in Oxford. 

Just shows that thrice weekly turbo sessions are no substitute for regular long rides. 

60k today and much less climbing. I “cheated” by meeting at the top of the hill rather than riding down to the normal meeting place. Still knackered though. 

m_c

Oops.
I appear to have bought a new frame.

littlegreenman

m_c said:

Oops.
I appear to have bought a new frame.

Ohlins shock?

m_c

littlegreenman said:

m_c said:

Oops.
I appear to have bought a new frame.

Ohlins shock?

Yeah.
Not that fussed about the shock TBH, as most modern shocks are pretty decent.
I actually preferred the simpler Marz coil over the Fox coil on the Dune, and as they're the same size, I might experiment a bit at some point.

littlegreenman

m_c said:

littlegreenman said:

m_c said:

Oops.
I appear to have bought a new frame.

Ohlins shock?

Yeah.
Not that fussed about the shock TBH, as most modern shocks are pretty decent.
I actually preferred the simpler Marz coil over the Fox coil on the Dune, and as they're the same size, I might experiment a bit at some point.

Does look nice though, matching the orange flash on the top tube. And that front end looks lovely.

TBF I know bugger all about bouncy bikes, only ever ridden one once. A Merida 140 rental in Australia. Did a guided day tour downhilling on Mount Lofty. Lots of fun, but my switchback cornering was rather pants, haha. Did OK on the straight sections and sweeping bends though, managed to keep up with the group.

I'd seen a lot of YT'ers raving about the Ohlins stuff, possibly just because it's spendy (not that Youtubers are paid shills or anything ).

littlegreenman

Did a 50Km training ride on Zwift earlier, ouch my legs hurt! Mix of Z2 with Z3-5 intervals (10 mins Z3, a Z5 sprint and Z4 3 minute effort, twice).

Not exactly my idea of "fun", but all part of the prep for Ride London at the end of next month

Jaycee

Keep at it @littlegreenman , wish I could get out on my bike, I am still out of action

m_c

littlegreenman said:

Does look nice though, matching the orange flash on the top tube. And that front end looks lovely.

TBF I know bugger all about bouncy bikes, only ever ridden one once. A Merida 140 rental in Australia. Did a guided day tour downhilling on Mount Lofty. Lots of fun, but my switchback cornering was rather pants, haha. Did OK on the straight sections and sweeping bends though, managed to keep up with the group.

I'd seen a lot of YT'ers raving about the Ohlins stuff, possibly just because it's spendy (not that Youtubers are paid shills or anything ).

Officially it's Deep Yellow, not orange
(there's a bit of in joke with mates around the colour orange, as I have one mate who will buy pretty much anything as long as it's orange!)

One of the things that puts me of brands like Ohlins, is they kind of dabble with mountain bike suspension. They'll have a big push for a couple years, then seem to give up for a while again, which leaves that doubt over long term support.

It is however good kit, but probably not worth it over some other brands, which is why I have a set of Fox 38s to go on (price of them was too good to consider anything else!)

I still need to decide on what other parts I'm going to build it up with, but I'm in the middle of rebuilding my old Devinci Django for mile munching duties, so I'm in no real rush to get this one built up at the moment.

littlegreenman

m_c said:

littlegreenman said:

Does look nice though, matching the orange flash on the top tube. And that front end looks lovely.

TBF I know bugger all about bouncy bikes, only ever ridden one once. A Merida 140 rental in Australia. Did a guided day tour downhilling on Mount Lofty. Lots of fun, but my switchback cornering was rather pants, haha. Did OK on the straight sections and sweeping bends though, managed to keep up with the group.

I'd seen a lot of YT'ers raving about the Ohlins stuff, possibly just because it's spendy (not that Youtubers are paid shills or anything ).

Officially it's Deep Yellow, not orange
(there's a bit of in joke with mates around the colour orange, as I have one mate who will buy pretty much anything as long as it's orange!)

One of the things that puts me of brands like Ohlins, is they kind of dabble with mountain bike suspension. They'll have a big push for a couple years, then seem to give up for a while again, which leaves that doubt over long term support.

It is however good kit, but probably not worth it over some other brands, which is why I have a set of Fox 38s to go on (price of them was too good to consider anything else!)

I still need to decide on what other parts I'm going to build it up with, but I'm in the middle of rebuilding my old Devinci Django for mile munching duties, so I'm in no real rush to get this one built up at the moment.

Orange is the new Purple! Twas the same for Purple in the 90's if you're a youngster and weren't around then, anything anodised purple was automatically "cool".

I understand that Ohlins are motorsport sus experts, wasn't aware that bike sus was a "hobby" of theirs, understandable to be a bit wary of support in that case. Probably why the likes of Brink, etc do their support and tuning for them.

Fox however have been in the bike sus game for a long time now, so I'd think are a more reliable option (and still orange, lol). I still can't look further than RockShock, but then I haven't done any proper MTBing since the 90's. Was made up a couple of years ago when I bought a Trek Marlin 7 HT to finally own a bike with a set of Judy's.

Alas, I am old and slow and pretty much only ride road now. Still love to nerd out on the kit and watch the youngsters risk life and limb on YouTube though

MagicPigDetective

Finally getting out, done 3 small rides this week. I’m thinking about a wheel upgrade. My Giant Defy came with stock alloy wheels and tyres which are sturdy but over 2kg. Been looking at Hunt and Zipp wheels. Would rims with 40/50mm depth really help me, or are they only marginal gains for serious riders? Not sure about dealing with crosswinds either. 

Any advice or recommendations? Plenty say there’s a big improvement… others say lose some weight instead! 

thermionic

I have always been of the opinion that lighter wheels with shallow rims are better for normal riding, unfortunately the bike industry has decreed that such wheels are not fashionable any more. I had deep section wheels when I was racing but they only came into their own when you wound it up to 40km/h. Fulcrum wheels are worth a look, if only to see what you can get in terms of weight/cost.

littlegreenman

Wheels are generally the area the bike industry skimp on to sell bikes "more cheaply". For example, my £4k Cinelli Pressure came with Vision Team 30 wheels with Tektro rotors and an HG cassette which are £149 a set. Perfectly usable but heavy for the rest of what is a lightweight carbon aero bike.

I got a new set of Hunt carbon 40's for about 800 quid with 105 cassette and GP5000 TLR tyres. Is it night and day? No. Is the bike now faster/ lighter? Lighter, yes. Faster, marginally so on the flat until you're above 40 km/h when the areo gains really kick in (as @thermionic says above) but still a bit quicker, and being lighter they do go uphill quicker. They are stiffer though so more responsive when you kick. No crosswind issues as not really that deep. The important part though, they look cool and make a whooshing sound, lol! As you may have guessed by now, I don't race bikes.

My lightest wheels are on my "cheap" bike, set of Fulcrum Quattro 5 I think, 35mm with only 16 spokes front, 20 rear, rim brake. In fact my Cannondale CAAD8 alloy bike with the alloy Fulcrums is actually about a kilo lighter than the Cinelli and cost a quarter of it. If I was going on a holiday to somewhere with a lot of hills I'd take the 'Dale!

Best upgrade to start with though would be better tyres and latex or TPU inner tubes.

TLDR? If you can afford some nice wheels and want them by all means get some, but it's not going to sudddenly make you MVdP.

littlegreenman

Also, Paris-Roubaix!!!

Van der Poel is a fucking beast when he's on a day like that. And Lotte Kopecky yesterday, just wow!

pt22

In terms of wheels, wider is much better than deeper IMHO. I always rode 28mm tyres, then moved to 28mm on a 25mm internal width rim. This made the effective width of my tyres a few mms wider, made for a more streamlined tyre/wheel transition for improved aerodynamics, and allowed me to run pressures down in the 60s which helped to increase the ride quality significantly. I also transitioned to tubeless.

I won't go back to thin rims. The benefits of wide rims are too great. I opted for 45mm depth, which gives some aero benefit without adding a ton of weight. In fact, I lost nearly 300g total (wheel set & tubeless tyres) from the bike.

I would look at LightBicycle wheel sets. I have the WR45. During the pandemic I had them custom built with CarbonTi hubs shipped for under a grand. 

gubble

As my wife and I are starting to cycle for longer and further away from home we are thinking about getting a sat nav head unit for one of the bikes.

Has anyone any (budget) recommendations?

Obviously we both have phones but running a sat nav on those for hours won't be good if we have an emergency and no battery.

drofluf

gubble said:

As my wife and I are starting to cycle for longer and further away from home we are thinking about getting a sat nav head unit for one of the bikes.

Has anyone any (budget) recommendations?

Obviously we both have phones but running a sat nav on those for hours won't be good if we have an emergency and no battery.

I’m a big fan of the Wahoo units. Very reliable and easy to use. 

pt22

drofluf said:

gubble said:

As my wife and I are starting to cycle for longer and further away from home we are thinking about getting a sat nav head unit for one of the bikes.

Has anyone any (budget) recommendations?

Obviously we both have phones but running a sat nav on those for hours won't be good if we have an emergency and no battery.

I’m a big fan of the Wahoo units. Very reliable and easy to use. 

Agreed. My older Wahoo is a simple and reliable bit of kit. 

I think it's more about the ecosystem you want to use. If you have any other Garmin products, or want them, a Garmin head unit will likely be just as good or have better interconnectivity. Lights, watches, etc... 

I should say I use my Wahoo with my Garmin rear radar unit just fine.