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[Other Sport] Cycling geeks









1066familyman

Radio User
Jan 15, 2008
15,185
Yeah, but under 50 metres down the road on your first ride back out you'll be realising it was money well spent.

Regarding next week's stage, ages ago [MENTION=10856]1066familyman[/MENTION] I think it was suggested a meat up to ride and then watch the pros belt past. I was up for that. Gone a bit quiet, so thought I'd better suggest we all pop down to the Mrs first. Amazingly, she's okay with it. So we'll be in town. Where might be a decent view point and is it worth attempting to coordinate a peppermint latte?

:safeway:


I hope to ride over from Hastings, probably via Eastbourne and up towards Beachy Head/East Dean Road for a suitable spot to view from. I'll look to see if anywhere will have a big screen up (maybe Eastbourne?) and ride back to there to try to catch what's left of the stage. Sketchy plans at the moment but I hope to sharpen them during the week. Happy for any company along the way. One thing I won't be doing is going anyway near Brighton itself as it'll be rammed, and I'll have enough of that on Sunday up in London with the kids.
 


Hamilton

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 7, 2003
12,506
Brighton
Great ride thanks. Off for a long soak in the tub. :D

A wonderful ride. Ended with a couple of Hopheads with [MENTION=19321]Pogue Mahone[/MENTION] in The Southover.

I will leave [MENTION=435]Stat Brother[/MENTION] to give any breakdowns on average speeds etc.

Great to meet you all.

BHA 4 Man City 1 (those on the ride will know what this means. I can report that Man City is safe and well.)
 


1066familyman

Radio User
Jan 15, 2008
15,185
Glad the ride went well. Look forward to hearing a ride report soon.

I had a strange nagging feeling from last night that Uran will win today's stage. I could have got him at 66/1 as well but chickened out as there's no evidence whatsoever to suggest he will do much. Anyway, should be a good finish to today's stage with a big GC battle guaranteed.
 




Pogue Mahone

Well-known member
Apr 30, 2011
10,750
Glad the ride went well. Look forward to hearing a ride report soon.

I had a strange nagging feeling from last night that Uran will win today's stage. I could have got him at 66/1 as well but chickened out as there's no evidence whatsoever to suggest he will do much. Anyway, should be a good finish to today's stage with a big GC battle guaranteed.

Glad you didn't waste your money!

What a stage. Again. It's days like that that prove my opinion right, that there is no sport that can touch cycling. This Vuelta is an absolute belter.
 




1066familyman

Radio User
Jan 15, 2008
15,185
Glad you didn't waste your money!

What a stage. Again. It's days like that that prove my opinion right, that there is no sport that can touch cycling. This Vuelta is an absolute belter.

Yep, cracking stage again!

I've only had one bet so far this Vuelta - stage one, £1 e/w on Jens Debusschere. He was so far off the pace I've been scared off ever since :lol: I don't know what made me think of Uran for today as all evidence suggests he had no chance. Glad I did a Froome and stuck to what the numbers where telling me rather than allowing myself to get carried away with the emotions. PCS and other research is my very own betting power meter :wink:

I will be getting in on Jungels though for that last stage.
 




Pogue Mahone

Well-known member
Apr 30, 2011
10,750
A wonderful ride. Ended with a couple of Hopheads with [MENTION=19321]Pogue Mahone[/MENTION] in The Southover.

I will leave [MENTION=435]Stat Brother[/MENTION] to give any breakdowns on average speeds etc.

Great to meet you all.

BHA 4 Man City 1 (those on the ride will know what this means. I can report that Man City is safe and well.)

Yeah, but has he got home yet?
 




Stat Brother

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 11, 2003
73,870
West west west Sussex
A wonderful ride. Ended with a couple of Hopheads with [MENTION=19321]Pogue Mahone[/MENTION] in The Southover.

I will leave [MENTION=435]Stat Brother[/MENTION] to give any breakdowns on average speeds etc.

Great to meet you all.

BHA 4 Man City 1 (those on the ride will know what this means. I can report that Man City is safe and well.)
Well as for Strava, it would appear [MENTION=16159]Bold Seagull[/MENTION]s North to South Coombes is sadly still intact, by about 30 secs.
Hamilton you've bested my Whiteways climb by 10 secs, a nice little project for me over the next few weeks.
Obviously [MENTION=23986]Glanders[/MENTION] 'geek record' doesn't count, as he can do the climb twice over.
Worthing seafront and Coombes took a bit of a hammering, from all of us.
I got my Strava 'climb' PB at the second attempt.

Great ride, great company.
Not that he'll believe me but I think your friend Jono did a good job keeping us all in check.
I can't help thinking it might have got very very messy, otherwise.
 




Stat Brother

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 11, 2003
73,870
West west west Sussex
I've created a monster, jnr having a look at the Vuelta:-

Me - Apparently the final climb is massive and very steep.
Jnr - We should take our bikes to Spain.

:facepalm: :lolol: :lolol: :facepalm:
 




Ninja Elephant

Doctor Elephant
Feb 16, 2009
18,855
Hello Geeks,

I've set myself the target of cycling to Norwich for our match in November. A friend of mine lives there, and my housemate is a proud and keen cyclist who recently came back from cycling through Germany. He's massively up for the cycle, and I am up for the challenge of riding there in two days.

Training started in earnest today, I hit a 62 mile cycle from East Croydon train station;
Strava map.png

I am riding the following, and his name is Boris;
Boris.jpg

I'm feeling quite wonderfully car parked at this point, the legs are feeling like lead and at various times I had issues with my back, right groin, back of the left knee (the only one which forced a temporary stop) and right shoulder. Work to be done on fitness, and my housemate is very keen on getting me there - but I'd like a second (third/fourth etc!) opinion on how I should build up to a cycle to Norwich. In November.

I've also been using Strava for a few months to track my cycles.
 
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Motogull

Todd Warrior
Sep 16, 2005
9,880
That's a fair old ride. Good luck. I'd suggest get in as many consecutive rides as possible so your legs 'know' that day 2 is not a rest day. Mix up the training (hilly, flat and mixed) as much as possible too, but gradually build it up. I have add asymmetrical aches and can't work out why. Training will see them off.
 


Bad Ash

Unregistered User
Jul 18, 2003
1,900
Housewares
I'm feeling quite wonderfully car parked at this point, the legs are feeling like lead and at various times I had issues with my back, right groin, back of the left knee (the only one which forced a temporary stop) and right shoulder.

A lot if not all of these pains could be due to the setup of your bike.

For example, I had knee pain and so I switched from SPD-SL pedals to Speedplay pedals and now that pain is completely gone. I possibly could have sorted it with lots of tweaking of the SPD-SL cleat, but I took the easy/expensive option.

Back pain could possibly be sorted by adjusting your stem (handlebar) height or length. Length requires a new longer stem, height may be gained by flipping the stem (if it points downwards), or by adding/moving spaced below the stem.

Or maybe these pains will sort themselves out with more miles.

There's plenty of guides online to help with the correct setup, or you could get a professional bike fit.
 


Stat Brother

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 11, 2003
73,870
West west west Sussex
Hello Geeks,

I've set myself the target of cycling to Norwich for our match in November. A friend of mine lives there, and my housemate is a proud and keen cyclist who recently came back from cycling through Germany. He's massively up for the cycle, and I am up for the challenge of riding there in two days.

Training started in earnest today, I hit a 62 mile cycle from East Croydon train station;
View attachment 58326

I am riding the following, and his name is Boris;
View attachment 58327

I'm feeling quite wonderfully car parked at this point, the legs are feeling like lead and at various times I had issues with my back, right groin, back of the left knee (the only one which forced a temporary stop) and right shoulder. Work to be done on fitness, and my housemate is very keen on getting me there - but I'd like a second (third/fourth etc!) opinion on how I should build up to a cycle to Norwich. In November.

I've also been using Strava for a few months to track my cycles.
Why aren't you in the Geeks Strava club? (link in my signature)

If your aches and pains aren't teething trouble, you might want to have your bike 'fitted' to you.

Don't worry to much about doing the distance, if you can comfortably get within 20 miles you'll be fine the rest of the way.
As moto says keep at it but get plenty of rest.
On the ride eat well, drink every 15 mins or so.
 


Pantani

Il Pirata
Dec 3, 2008
5,445
Newcastle
Just caught up with the Vuelta. Superb stuff all weekend, and set for an even better one today. I'm not too sure about Froome's power meter training around Spain, at some point he has to accept that he is in a race and cannot just time trial the whole thing.

Well done on the ride guys, sounded like a lot of fun. Hopefully I will be able to make the next one.
 




Pantani

Il Pirata
Dec 3, 2008
5,445
Newcastle
Hello Geeks,

I've set myself the target of cycling to Norwich for our match in November. A friend of mine lives there, and my housemate is a proud and keen cyclist who recently came back from cycling through Germany. He's massively up for the cycle, and I am up for the challenge of riding there in two days.

Training started in earnest today, I hit a 62 mile cycle from East Croydon train station;

I'm feeling quite wonderfully car parked at this point, the legs are feeling like lead and at various times I had issues with my back, right groin, back of the left knee (the only one which forced a temporary stop) and right shoulder. Work to be done on fitness, and my housemate is very keen on getting me there - but I'd like a second (third/fourth etc!) opinion on how I should build up to a cycle to Norwich. In November.

I've also been using Strava for a few months to track my cycles.

On your aches and pains a good rule of thumb, especially for muscular pain, is how quickly does it stop hurting once you finish riding. When unfit (most of the time these days, sadly) I get a pain in my right Abductor Longus muscle (sort of front groin muscle area) after two hours without fail. If I stop for five minutes it gets better, it will start hurting again after an hour or so though. As I get fitter the time for it to start hurting gets longer and longer until eventually a four/five hour ride is no problem.

Your knee and back are probably the ones to be most careful with. It is definitely worth getting your bike fit checked if you can, as a poorly fitted bike makes life so much more difficult. A useful example here is saddle position, it seems like a very simple thing but so few people actually bother to adjust their saddle (horizontally rather than vertically) from where it is when they buy the bike. The first ride after I adjusted my saddle I was considerably faster than I had been before. The distance I had moved the saddle? Less than half a centimetre!

If you want to get a book on bike fit the best I have read is Medical Guide for Cyclists. He helped Lance Armstrong at some point in his career but ignore that as he does not tell you to take loads of EPO in this book :lolol:

I'd also like to echo Moto's suggestion of doing consecutive days riding as that is what you are training for. I'd say you would be better doing two shorter days rather than one longer whilst training as the second is much much harder. Not sure how fast you want to go but if it was me training for this I would probably do one day training really hard, one day training really easy then two days off. Increase the DISTANCE (important, not time, you will get quicker) by no more than 10% for the next set of rides as this will take you too far out of your comfort zone.

Good Luck and enjoy it. I'll be in Norwich and will buy you a pint if our paths cross.
 


Stat Brother

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 11, 2003
73,870
West west west Sussex
Just caught up with the Vuelta. Superb stuff all weekend, and set for an even better one today. I'm not too sure about Froome's power meter training around Spain, at some point he has to accept that he is in a race and cannot just time trial the whole thing.
It seems to be working well for the Froome-a-tron, so far.

He's also providing valuable instruction to Jnr about explosive climbing v consistent effort.
 


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