The Fretboard Cycling Club

ESBlonde

ESBlonde said:

I don't have a fancy road bike, it's a 10 year old crossover jobbie complete with racks so I dare not even weigh it.
That said I've been trying to improve my health since stopping work at Christmas. I've had a few rides and I'm working up  from 9 miles to 15 and 17 more recently. I seem to recover better now and plan to get above 20 miles each time. Come the better weather the opportunities will be more frequent. Watch this space.

I weighed my bike this week 38.7 lbs. road ready.
Anyway I managed a ride of 24.22 MLS and a height gain of 983ft. I think my longest ever ride since teenage enthusiasm 45 years ago.
My older brother has persuaded me to take part in a sponsored ride in a few weeks with options of 25, 50 & 100 miles. I think the 25 will do me nicely.

PVO_Dave

I've recently joined the cycling club. Bought a Halfords mountain bike late December so we could go out on family bike rides, but it's been great for me to get out of a lunch time for fitness reasons (working off the biscuits from lockdown 1).

But.. like a lot of my hobbies it got out of hand quick, after meeting up with a friend of mine fora ride who's cycling mad, I got bike envy. much scouring of eBay and FB Marketplace later I ended up collecting this:



GT Grade Carbon Expert Gravel - Love it, pedals have been replaced with non clip ones, shorter stem fitted and a bike computer arriving today - Longest distance is 13.5 miles on a ride so far, but the stamina is building up, my main issue is spare time really!

Next job is tubeless tyres, just waiting for the ones I want to come back in stock.

Oh and I've also experienced my first bit of road rage from an idiot in a Volvo estate who I held up for around 2 seconds, whilst I stuck as close to the curb as was safe to do so, beeped when he went past and started pointing to the path for me to cycle there, I pointed back with my middle finger. 

Brio

I weighed my bike this week 38.7 lbs. road ready.
Anyway I managed a ride of 24.22 MLS and a height gain of 983ft.

Respect! My BMC hybrid weighs less than half that and thats enough weight to push around.

jonnyburgo

PVO_Dave said:

I've recently joined the cycling club. Bought a Halfords mountain bike late December so we could go out on family bike rides, but it's been great for me to get out of a lunch time for fitness reasons (working off the biscuits from lockdown 1).

But.. like a lot of my hobbies it got out of hand quick, after meeting up with a friend of mine fora ride who's cycling mad, I got bike envy. much scouring of eBay and FB Marketplace later I ended up collecting this:



GT Grade Carbon Expert Gravel - Love it, pedals have been replaced with non clip ones, shorter stem fitted and a bike computer arriving today - Longest distance is 13.5 miles on a ride so far, but the stamina is building up, my main issue is spare time really!

Next job is tubeless tyres, just waiting for the ones I want to come back in stock.

Oh and I've also experienced my first bit of road rage from an idiot in a Volvo estate who I held up for around 2 seconds, whilst I stuck as close to the curb as was safe to do so, beeped when he went past and started pointing to the path for me to cycle there, I pointed back with my middle finger. 

Great stuff, I've got a cheap Carrera Cross bike which is dead good for riding trails etc. Re. The road rage, soon you'll be doing the no handed double wanker sign. 

Teetonetal

PVO_Dave said:

I've recently joined the cycling club. Bought a Halfords mountain bike late December so we could go out on family bike rides, but it's been great for me to get out of a lunch time for fitness reasons (working off the biscuits from lockdown 1).

But.. like a lot of my hobbies it got out of hand quick, after meeting up with a friend of mine fora ride who's cycling mad, I got bike envy. much scouring of eBay and FB Marketplace later I ended up collecting this:



GT Grade Carbon Expert Gravel - Love it, pedals have been replaced with non clip ones, shorter stem fitted and a bike computer arriving today - Longest distance is 13.5 miles on a ride so far, but the stamina is building up, my main issue is spare time really!

Next job is tubeless tyres, just waiting for the ones I want to come back in stock.

Oh and I've also experienced my first bit of road rage from an idiot in a Volvo estate who I held up for around 2 seconds, whilst I stuck as close to the curb as was safe to do so, beeped when he went past and started pointing to the path for me to cycle there, I pointed back with my middle finger. 

Very nice!

Finally fitted my new 200mm rotors last night night, off for a test spin before weekend on our flow trail (1st day of the season on Sunday)

m_c

I've had quite a good week for biking.
Managed 4 rides, over 3600m of climbing, and 124km. Only 1 road ride this week, but the trails have been 99% dry and dusty, so the mountain bikes have been getting lots of use. I say bikes, because I finally realised where the creaking has been coming from on my big bouncy bike, so it's waiting on some new linkage bearings getting delivered, and the short travel bouncy bike has been getting some abuse the past couple of days.

Teetonetal

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.

@Brio ;;

Well I finally fitted them this weekend - did a loop of my local flow trail.

Jury is still our for me as I need to do a full on downhill downhill day, but these are my first impressions (I should point out that I am quite a heavy rider at 97kg)

1) Increase of stopping power, it's noticeable how much more oomph you get from less effort with a single finger.
2) Proper weighting of the bike under braking required to ensure you don't skid (frowned upon here), especially the rear wheel.
3) Silent, I run SRAM trails, so prone to sounding like a wailing banshee when they get hot. No noise so far.
4) Decrease of modulation - but I think this is a good thing as squishy breaks encourage dragging the brakes (imo)

Most painful part was sorting a 40mm Post mount adapter for the fork, which is why it took me so long to install. One I had all the bits, installing and setting up was very easy. 

TTBZ

Today I went out on my MTB properly for the first time in absolutely ages, I hadn't even ridden it without a child seat since we moved here 2 years ago and I'd forgot how fun it is. Even on our tame East Midlands trails I had a lot of fun just popping off little lips and roots in the bridleways, and there's slightly more elevation than where we moved from! So definitely not too concerned about selling my road bike now as this was way more enjoyable - I actually didn't want to go home where usually on the road bike I can't wait to get home by the end of it. 

Jaycee

Well done for getting out guys, I put in 140 miles two weeks ago over 3 rides, that took me a week to recover and did 40 miles on Saturday, we had a 20 mile headwind on the way back.

drofluf

Trying to ride more outside and increase my distance with the aim of a 100 mile ride by the autumn. 

There I’ve said it! 

Did 40km on the singlespeed yesterday morning. First half felt really fast and then, like @Jaycee, I discovered the headwind that had flattered my outward leg. 

Jaycee

drofluf said:

Trying to ride more outside and increase my distance with the aim of a 100 mile ride by the autumn. 

There I’ve said it! 

Did 40km on the singlespeed yesterday morning. First half felt really fast and then, like @Jaycee, I discovered the headwind that had flattered my outward leg. 

I knew we were going to have a headwind on the return leg, just after the coffee stop. Ended up just over 14mph av sp, would have 15 + if it wasn't for the wind , it picked up with 10 miles to go, and my allergy to hills did't help.

What I do hate is being on a flier, getting halfway through the ride then turning into a headwind  that you hadn't realised was there, then you know why you were flying 

crunchman

I'm gradually getting fit again after doing almost nothing for a year.

I managed two laps of Richmond Park on Saturday, albeit pretty slowly.  My ambition now is to overtake somebody who appears to be under 70, under 18 stone, and on a road bike.

Jaycee

crunchman said:

I'm gradually getting fit again after doing almost nothing for a year.

I managed two laps of Richmond Park on Saturday, albeit pretty slowly.  My ambition now is to overtake somebody who appears to be under 70, under 18 stone, and on a road bike.

I was struggling up and incline the other week and we passed a couple on thier mountain bikes,  when we were out of earshot I said to my mate

"I don't care how old or young they are, the type of bike they are riding, how may wheels it has it allways feels good when you pass someone"

Logie

I've managed over 520 miles and 21 rides since the middle of Feb with some bumpy 40 milers thrown in and I'm slowly but surely getting rid of the accumulated lockdown backfat

Jaycee

Logie said:

I've managed over 520 miles and 21 rides since the middle of Feb with some bumpy 40 milers thrown in and I'm slowly but surely getting rid of the accumulated lockdown backfat

Nice . have you got a yearly milage goal?

Logie

@Jaycee ;

I'd like to see if I can crack 3000 miles this year. I normally alternate between squash, gym and cycling so I don't normally have the time to get the mileage in but my squash partners have either died, retired or moved away and the days of a gym honed 6 pack are long gone

Jaycee

Logie said:

@Jaycee ;

I'd like to see if I can crack 3000 miles this year. I normally alternate between squash, gym and cycling so I don't normally have the time to get the mileage in but my squash partners have either died, retired or moved away and the days of a gym honed 6 pack are long gone

I'm looking at 2500, my mate has just got into road cycling,  is really keen and we used to play squash.  So we both have a bit more time. I bought a new racket 12 months ago and havene't used it.

TTBZ

Well my bike sold already, got the £250 I was asking with no haggling down, which I thought was optimistic. But now thinking it was too low as had quite a bit of interest! The guy wanted a "fixer upper" so didn't mind the slightly seized rear brake and rusty bolt heads so maybe just found the right buyer for the right price.

Quite nice that this will now force me out on the MTB though and I'm excited to explore some new local routes. Will have to get out to some trail centres over summer, want to get my son off his stabilisers so we can try some family routes too.

Jaycee

I played 5-A-Side on friday so went for a recovery ride today (sunday) legs were a bit stiff at first but I managed 30miles 15.5 mph avg, and now I am pooped. A few Stellas will help ....

littlegreenman

Just discovered that they've built a new cycle path I can use on my commute. So apart from a few quiet roads at the start the majority is now on this. And it finishes about 100m away from where I work!

No cars, pedestrians or traffic lights, and it's not full of broken glass. Nice