The Cycling Thread

Yeah, ramp tests are something you need to mentally prep yourself for (and rest the day before ideally) but only the last few minutes really hurt. A massive improvement on 20/60 minute efforts which are a nightmare to pace anyway. Whatever FTP you get, console yourself with the fact that it’ll actually be a bit higher outside.

I’ve really used them all now and think Zwift is good only if you struggle with motivation to train. It’s exceptional there actually. Xert, Systm, TrainerRoad, etc are all much better training systems if you want to follow a program and get the best results, with Xert by far the most sophisticated and complete, but with all of them, you need to be OK with staring at a load of bar charts coming at you for an hour. You’re absolutely right gamecat, in my opinion Zwift workouts are about not boring customers rather than being efficient.

I wanted to economise this year and have gone with the combination of intervals.icu/ for data collection, planning and all that guff and then the TrainerDay app to generate ERG workouts I can follow. £4 a month, winner. 

I think i have hit a mental plateau with ramp tests, i'm sure i can go a bit further, just seem to always hit a wall at the same point for the last few i have done.

Once the erg mode slows and it's difficult to turn the pedals i seem to decide i'm done, when if i gave a bit more effort to get going again, it'd probably be ok for at least one more round.

Tl;dr, i need to man the fuck up.

Or wait for the better weather to get a bit fitter before the next one. Time to hang with the pace partners & push a bit more i guess.

Still, it's 50W more than when i started a year ago, but i think some of that is knowing what to expect now as well as being a bit fitter.

That might work, but you'd need to be doing races to push hard, maybe that's what i need.

I need a carrot & stick to push. Or else it's cafe ride pace! 😀

Start firing into the shorter crit city races to get the 20min average sorted out.

Definitely a winter beater day

Good news, the turbo has arrived. Bad news is that the user before me put an 11-32 SRAM cassette on there and my bike currently has a 11-30 cassette.

Will I need to buy a new cassette or will my chain be OK on the 2 extra teeth?

The chain might be long enough, just try and enter the gear pedalling very very slowly by hand, if it jams then stop and remember never to use 50/32 on the turbo

It's ok, it rides pretty nicely and the fit suits me. Not sure I'd recommend this particular frameset as it isn't particularly well made but it has a threaded BB and I had a 31.6 seat post laying around so it works for my intended use. Not so great is the front brake bosses slightly off perpendicular to the axle so had to shim the calliper, and the rear mounts were domed top and bottom so they needed careful facing. There's no cable routing for the mechs, routing is internal so there's an alloy tube bonded in between the BB sides, if you're going electronic that's fine but mechanical cables just wrap around this tube apparently, I had to put some cable liners in but it seems to shift without issues despite the lack of a guide. Also the paint chips off whenever you look at it.

Cinelli seems like more of a lifestyle brand that does bikes now, all their frames are so different they've clearly just picked each them from some factory catalogues so I've no idea what the build quality of their other frames are like. If you're able to fettle it does ride pretty nicely for a disc frame, fairly lightweight, I'd expect better QC for a grand or whatever the frame cost though

OK, maybe not the cinelli then! Thanks for info.

I'm still window shopping anyway, since my wife is planning lots of renovations etc in the house this year and this is eating into my possible bike budget atm. ;_;

Well I was stupid and decided to try it without bringing the fan near by. Sweat a lot is an understatement.

Think I am going to buy a 105 11-30 cassette. Changing the lower gears the derailleur was clicking and sounding like it was skipping. Probably could play around with the screws but then I'll have to do that each time I move between the bike and the turbo.

It was good fun though. I'll enjoy it more with a fan on me!

I'll give that a go tomorrow. I realised it actually came with a 11-28 Shimano cassette so I may try and install that as well.

Unless there is zero difference between Shimano and SRAM cassettes that it's better to just tweak it?

I think I'll install the 11-28 cassette just in case I do need to use the lowest gear and if the clicking continues, I'll adjust the B limit

What fans do people use? We've got one of those tall Dyson ones which I'll probably use the next time I get on it but wonder if there is something a bit more fit for purpose. £150 on that Wahoo Headwind is bit of a big pill to swallow

At this time of year, anything.

In the summer? Everything.

Seriously though, I have a massive industrial fan that just about does the job, and a couple of carpet dryers that help move air to places the industrial fan can't get directly. This one looks pretty good with the remote (I have the non remote version): www.cleva-uk.com/products/vacmaster-cardio54-fan

I ended up going for the Wahoo Headwind. It was on sale at Canyon for £150 and I felt like treating myself.

Once it turns up I'm going to start doing some workouts. Just been doing the free rides for now

I bought this weird exercise towel of Amazon years ago when I used to dip in and out of the gym. If you run it under a tap it stays really cold for ages. That around my neck was a godsend yesterday. Feels much more comfortable