Recent Posts

1

The Pub / Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

« Last post by perpetual dan on Today at 06:00:29 pm »

Depends if you are a youngster jumping on the train after a night on the town (before you've gone to bed), and not arriving until lunchtime.

Even now i am no longer young, the 830pm boarding of the sleeper to Scotland doesn't really count as "after a night on the town", and the 615am arrival isn't a lie in for my body clock!

Sent from my SM-S911B using Tapatalk

2

The Pub / Re: The "I'm Such a Fecking Div" Thread

« Last post by phantasmagoriana on Today at 05:55:55 pm »

I'm still a div, but fortunately, Kryptonite aren't - replacement keys (the spare will be kept in a safe place with the other keys rather than some super secret safe place that remains unfound) arrived from the USA today. They work!

And...what turned up today? Why, the original key. Just casually hanging out in my backpack, that I'd looked in umpteen times.

  

At least I've now got two spares...

3

The Sporting Life / Re: County Cricket 2024

« Last post by Wowbagger on Today at 05:52:47 pm »

Durham 358 all out. Now I think we'll see Essex's first proper test of this season. Their previous three matches were pretty one-sided and I think its fair to say that Kent's escape with a draw was rain-assisted.

The Graun's pundit gave a pre-season prediction of the county championship ending

1st Surrey
2nd Durham
3rd Essex.

4

The Pub / Re: Confessions of a tool junkie

« Last post by Jurek on Today at 05:52:07 pm »

I'm on the Niwaki website...

No surprise there....

5

Further and Faster / Re: New bike for Audax from Halfords.

« Last post by Kim on Today at 05:10:38 pm »

There is a massive difference between 1-1.5 mile rides and even the shortest Audax ride.  Build up slowly, enjoy riding your bike, develop strength and resilience.  Don't launch into buying a new bike until you know a bit more about what you want from it.

This.

I'd suggest that, irrespective of how fast you actually go, there's a point at around 2 hours in where it stops being about stamina and more about things like ergonomics, hydration and digestion.

On that basis, I'd suggest that you need to be confident doing >2 hour rides before making informed decisions about bike ergonomics, as most people can ride anything that vaguely fits for an hour or two.

Going faster is another kettle of fish entirely...


(FWIW, I find that riding on tracks like Cyclopark^[1] is very different to road riding.  Speeds are much higher, even though that bottom corner is a bastard, as you don't have to deal with poor surfaces and motor traffic.  The real world has more Scenery^[2] too.)



_{[1] As occasionally visited by the BHPC.
[2] May be a euphemism for 'hills'.}

6

Further and Faster / Re: New bike for Audax from Halfords.

« Last post by citoyen on Today at 05:07:03 pm »

...I shall ride 25 Km in the cyclo park first...

Another 2p.  As a training goal you could see if you can eventually build up do 25km in 1hour.  Not that I've done an Audax at an average speed of 25km/h before, but over 25km - if have reasonable potential fitness, may be a challenge to try.  Training on the same track could be 'boring' though, so after a while perhaps take it to a decent handful of diff routes...

Varying the routes isn't just a nice thing to do to make training less boring - as per previous post, experience of road riding is essential.

There's too much well-meant-but-misguided positivity in this thread, and focusing on daft stuff like inner tubes instead of what actually matters. As an organiser, I wouldn't be happy about accepting an entry from the OP - for their own safety.

7

The Knowledge / Re: Bikepacking Bags - what's your favourite/hated and why?

« Last post by vorsprung on Today at 05:06:20 pm »

I have a Restrap framebag and a Restrap saddlebag

The framebag is not absolutely audaxing-in-wales-waterproof but it is waterproof enough that I have not actually had any problems with damp stuff in it.  Despite riding in the rain in it.  It must be more than 4 years old now and it is still in excellent working order

The "saddlebag" isn't a Carradice idea of a saddlebag.  It is a holder for a tapered dry bag which is attached to the saddle.  The holder is very good, light and quick and secure to fit.  It is slightly newer than the framebag but again it is a few years old and still good to go, no signs of wear

Prior to this I had various homemade dry bag based things

I still have a large double ended dry bag that I can strap to the handlebars, that worked as a thing

I did at one point try using an Alpkit Stem cell but it wasn't a success.  It got in the way and didn't shut effectively.  Alpkit don't make them now so i guess i wasn't the only one not using them

One of my mates has a Apidura saddle bag (same design as described above) and this seems to be reliable etc

8

The Pub / Re: Confessions of a tool junkie

« Last post by Mrs Pingu on Today at 04:53:44 pm »

I'm on the Niwaki website...

9

Health & Fitness / Re: Prescription glasses

« Last post by Kim on Today at 04:52:36 pm »

I need glasses anyway and the tinted lenses anyway so they only pay a proportion towards the lenses. My boss isn't daft, so she wouldn't fall for a blag either.

Possibly if you had a computer-use-specific prescription, which in your case you have not got.

10

Racing / Re: RATN 2024.

« Last post by Frank9755 on Today at 04:49:42 pm »

Good luck Jonah!

I've just eyeballed the rider list and the only guy I think I know in real life is Jan-Willem Bobbink, who I met in Australia on IndyPac.  He injured himself and couldn't walk but could ride reasonably ok.  I recall he told me that he had to crawl across the floor, dragging his bike, in a deserted hotel with a 24-hour automatic checkin!

Is the Tom Jackson who is riding the org from the Oasts and Coasts?