Pedal Power Thread

Ok, bit off topic but still about bikes - I see lots of people cycling (normally aged 15-30) without holding the handlebars. I remember kids doing it to look cool when young but how? Is it just a case of lightning the bars so they don't turn? Still baffled how it doesnt turn? Also I would be paranoid that I would not be able to react in time to prevent coming off. What i find really strange is that I have seen a few people with their hands in their hoodie pockets... crazy!
As Comfortably Numb said, the bike basically doesn't want to turn.

In my experience the ease of doing that varies quite a lot by individual bike. Someone with more frame knowledge please correct me if appropriate, but a part of it relates to 'trail', which is the difference between the front of the wheelbase (centre of front axle) and the point you would get by drawing a straight line down the steerer. The larger that is the more stable the bike is, and the easier it is to ride no-hands. Conversely the bike resists turning, and so is less nimble to ride (there's many other things involved in stability, including wheelbase itself, BB height etc, and all affect how stable a frame is). Some bikes you can easily ride no hands, others will be a near certain face plant....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_dynamics#/media/File:Bicycle_dimensions.svg
 
Where did you get that from? I'd love to post that on a cycling group I'm part of [emoji1]

as with most of those things, it popped up in a link on Faceberk...

there's a whole raft of those "bugs vs daffy" meme gif's out there... at the moment I'm torn between the Sex Pistols/Ramones one and the Campag/Shimano...
 
Well I showed a pic of my 'pain cave' (shed) a couple of pages back and after some modernisation here is what is looks like now.

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Changes ? well I have upgraded the Tacx Vortex smart trainer to a Tacx Neo and installed a TV c/w Amazon Firestick for entertainment.

PC driving Zwift and Tacx Trainer software.

My long suffering wife just scratches her head and looks puzzled :rolleyes:

And here I am in ZWift attempting to sprint !

Cut me some slack here I am 69.

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Great fun and it keeps me off the streets when the weather is crap.

Some serious kit there! Loving the set up. Just a couple of things, do you have to duck when you walk in and out of the door - or does fan move easily? And I assume you have some good locks and/ or and alarm to protect all that lot?

Really must get myself back on Zwift, managed a 2x20 min session on the turbo tonight.

:)
 
Some serious kit there! Loving the set up. Just a couple of things, do you have to duck when you walk in and out of the door - or does fan move easily? And I assume you have some good locks and/ or and alarm to protect all that lot?

Really must get myself back on Zwift, managed a 2x20 min session on the turbo tonight.

:)

Thanks Dalton,

The large fan is suspended on two small open brackets and I just lift it on and off as required.
Yes I have a good padlock, I also have tamperproof screws in the door hinges and I have an alarm.

Probably overkill as we do live in a pretty crime free area of the country but I'm a belt 'n' braces man.

Good luck with the 'Zwifting' motivation.
 
Samuel my middle child started ridding for the first time. Didn't really ride with stablisers at all so its pretty new to him. Modded a bit from standard with SLX brakes, new lighter discs, seat post and saddle.

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Hi all.

i was on my way home cycling near central London on a quiet street.

There was a car that was driving the opposite direction on a fairly wide road and as we both approached this little junction he immediately turned on me (to his right to turn into the right side road from where his facing) without indicating and went straight into me.

Apparently i flipped mid air and i landed on my left side.

There was another driver that was behind him and he had a dashcam and recorded the whole thing. The driver that hit me didn't stop after the collision and ran.

Thankfully the other driver chased and followed him on a dead-end turn and told him to come back etc and he took his licence plate.

The guy never came back but i have all the video footage and registration .

Another thing to add that there was a off duty officer that was in the area too when it happened! He took my details plus the witnesses details and called the police to fill in a incident report.

I thank my lucky stars because looking at the footage i am lucky im just bruised. nothing broken when i saw the doctor.

I was later that evening planning to go to the emirates and watch arsenal play as i had tickets. So thats a bit of a bummer and my bikes wheels are screwed up.

In terms of whats the next step. what can i do for compensation etc? i would need to repair my bike and i spent £20+ quid on taxi's to get me to hospital etc.

I know that the police will call me again or i will give them a call sometime today to follow up on.

It was a pretty crap evening for me but could have been worse.
 
I managed a short shift on Zwift earlier today http://zwift.com/

In keeping with Halloween all the riders were skeletons :)

I cycled part of the London circuit and managed 'Box Hill' in 10.37 mins, just missed my previous best 10.34 :mad:

This is me:

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Descending Box Hill.


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Garmin Connect stats for this ride

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You may think my heart rate (HR) is commendably low ? but my max HR which is age related is only about 160 bpm


My current Zwift stats


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Great fun Zwift, highly recommended.
 
this afternooons bash on Zwift - via Strava - https://www.strava.com/activities/778905244 - this has got to be the only time you'll see me with a lower time on the board than Russell Downing - though, in fairness, I'd got another 1.5km of the hill remaining at the time, and it took me best part of 6 minutes more to finish the bloody thing!

15107353_1148042958583610_3566446036158879460_n by The Big Yin, on Flickr

(don't nag me for taking it easy, just because my HR is only 113... The beta-blockers I'm on after last years heart issues pretty much mean I'm redlined at 133, and 113's pretty firmly in my "tempo" zone... worse still, my RHR's somewhere below 40!)
 
I had an evening to myself last night so decided to see if I could ride out to the local big hill. Well it was a bit of an adventure riding roads I don't know, what felt like miles from anywhere, in rapidly plummeting temperatures and roads covered in mud, leaves, water and even snow.
Made it to the top though!! Felt epic arriving back home, although the stupidity of doing that sort of ride alone without telling anyone has not escaped me.
The obligatory Strava link: https://www.strava.com/activities/779202232
 
Speaking as a rider who wouldn't tackle this in the dark/wet etc this is very impressive. I am not overly familiar with the area, did you ride up Sutton Bank ?
 
Speaking as a rider who wouldn't tackle this in the dark/wet etc this is very impressive. I am not overly familiar with the area, did you ride up Sutton Bank ?
Thanks Roy, I'm not normally one for this sort of thing either. It's not Sutton Bank itself, which is on a main road, but it's basically up the same bank by another way. It's number 56 on the UK's top 100 cycling climbs here: http://cyclinguphill.com/100-climbs/white-horse-bank/ it was almost terrifyingly steep, I think I probably went down it slower than I went up :LOL:
 
Looking for some help guys.

I did a chain and casette change on the cube today.
Now the new casette is 2 rings out of sync with the shifter and derailleur.
I believe the issue is due to a missing spacer.

There was no spacer in the bag that came with the new casette and for the life of me i cant see anything that may have fell of the hub or hold casette when doing the change.

So now to the question. I have an 8 sped casette but i dont know what size the hub is.
Is there a way i can find out what size spacer i need ?
 
a spacer wouldn't cause that much of an issue being 2 cogs out (assuming its not a huge thing and the cassette isn't rattling around on the freehub?)

what is the rear hub and cassette you are using before and after?
 
a spacer wouldn't cause that much of an issue being 2 cogs out (assuming its not a huge thing and the cassette isn't rattling around on the freehub?)

what is the rear hub and cassette you are using before and after?
The casette is tight with no free play.
The old casette was a shimano HG41 or 50.
The new casette is a shimano HG51.
The hub is just cube branded. With an SG7 freewheel is SG7 (i think) if that helps.

The casette slid on the hub perfectly and tightened up no problem but i am now 2 clicks out on the rear leaver. Top two rings cannot be used (derailleur is to close to them anyway)and i am 2 clicks to many after the last ring.

It really has me stumped.
 
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Techy question..... I am trying to set up Zwift at home and have a Garmin 520 with the speed, cadence and Hr monitors. Do I need an Ant+ dongle or is there a way of connecting via Bluetooth which my laptop is capable of?
 
Maybe this photo will help. I think the cassette is to close to the spoke that the frame.
Im pretty sure on the old cassette the last ring was so close to the frame that the if the chain slipped it would jam. Now if the chain comes off there is room for it to still spin freely.

2016-11-20_06-39-04 by Stuart Pardue, on Flickr
 
Stand down the advice i have solved the problem.
The axle was undone slightly which caused the cassette to be too far from the frame.
All sorted now!
 
Techy question..... I am trying to set up Zwift at home and have a Garmin 520 with the speed, cadence and Hr monitors. Do I need an Ant+ dongle or is there a way of connecting via Bluetooth which my laptop is capable of?

As far as I 'm aware you'll need the ANT+ dongle.

The only other way would be to link the sensors to the Garmin and then link Zwift to the Garmin but I've never seen an option to link Zwift to a Garmin GPS and I'd be surprised if the Garmin could act as a relay.
 
That's what I suspected. Oh well it was worth a try. I didn't fancy forking out for more stuff. Any recommendations for a cheap reliable dongle?
 
I use the Tacx T2028 dongle but wouldn't describe it as cheap. Although it was for me, Tacx sent it me free when I asked if the dongle from my old Vortex would work with their I-Genius [emoji846]
 
Until I bought the tacx TTS4 upgrade that came with it's own dongle (the above mentioned T2028) , I used the Suunto Mini USB one with great success... Generally needs to be on a USB extension cable and positioned near to the Trainer (or between the trainer and the cranks if you're running a power meter....)
 
Techy question..... I am trying to set up Zwift at home and have a Garmin 520 with the speed, cadence and Hr monitors. Do I need an Ant+ dongle or is there a way of connecting via Bluetooth which my laptop is capable of?
The Zwift IOS ap is in beta-testing, and should be released 'real soon now' - that runs on bluetooth, so might offer the connectivity you need?
 
The Zwift IOS ap is in beta-testing, and should be released 'real soon now' - that runs on bluetooth, so might offer the connectivity you need?

There is an 'Anself' usb Ant+ dongle on Amazon for £10.29. I use this one with no problems. I also have a Garmin 520 with cadence and a Hr monitor. As per the previous reply you may benefit from a usb extension lead so you can position the Ant+ dongle for max benefit.
 
IMG_1480176643.788536.jpg

New toy - also got HR strap and cadence sensor. Pretty pleased with it although I did nearly hit a post when I was changing the screen lol
 
There is an 'Anself' usb Ant+ dongle on Amazon for £10.29. I use this one with no problems. I also have a Garmin 520 with cadence and a Hr monitor. As per the previous reply you may benefit from a usb extension lead so you can position the Ant+ dongle for max benefit.

That's the one I bought with a 2m extension. Works really well [emoji106]
 
This old man (70 in jan) is chuffed cos he got 3 new Achievements on Zwift while riding London today.

1. Hit 50mph

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2. Hit 600 watts (603 actually) on the Mall sprint .

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3. Held 500 watts for 10 secs.

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And my wife wonders why I fall asleep in front of the TV in the evening ?
 
Excellent achievement @badlywornroy :)

How's everyone getting on with their yearly mileage?
I was hoping to hit 4000miles this year - and I've already got to 4145 with 4 weeks left of the year :banana:
 
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