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Looking at the question”do helmets save lives”,is it a question that really has an answer.You’ll never be able to prove conclusively that a seatbelt or airbag actually saved someone’s life.
So you get into the realms of possibility,and that is generally down to peoples personal interpretations.
If the question was “can helmets prevent non life threatening injuries” then I’d say yes.
It would be great to live in a utopia of safe and careful vehicle drivers,but we don’t,and it won’t be happening soon. In view of that I will continue to wear a helmet but won’t denegrate people who decide not to.
I always wear a helmet, but I don’t want it to be made compulsory, and I argue with non-cyclists who get arsey about people on bikes without them. I say there’s as much chance of you falling over in your bath and hurting your head than of you doing the same whilst riding your bike.
However, I have had 5 crashes on my bike in 4 years, and every one of them included banging my head on the deck. None of them involved any other vehicle or any other person. I broke a shoulder in one, a wrist in another, scraped most of my leg off in the third, and had lesser injuries in the remaining two. Maybe if I hadn’t been wearing a helmet I would have performed some astonishing manoeuvre to stop my head hitting the road, maybe not, but it saved me having hideous headaches to add to the list of injuries.
Nick JP, great info, thanks!
Nick JP, great info, thanks!
More info here – https://www.cycling-challenge.com/the-best-road-bike-climbs-in-central-switzerland/
I bought a Giant Neostrack
I bought a Giant Neostrack from Ribble recently, 109 of your pounds. Claimed battery life is 33 hours, which is what sold it to me, along with the cost. The equivalent Bolt or Garmin will cost double that.
Do you already have a HRM? If not you need to add around £20 to the cost of most devices people will recommend.
I also have an Amazfit Pace watch, it’s a bit of Chinese Applewatch alike. It has a hrm on the inside of the strap, it will track a lot of different activities, but you couldn’t use it to navigate by. They are £80 at the moment but I think I got mine for nearer £50.
Haven’t done it yet, but
Haven’t done it yet, but might be organising something similar next year.
Weather can be an issue, I had planned to ride the Stelvio from Prato in 2017 at the end of August. They always close the road up (and from Bormio) one Saturday, either the last in August or first in September. In 2017, the summer was fantastic, I was staying in central Italy on the beach with over 30 degrees. A friend said “Have you seen the forecast for the Stelvio region at the end of the month?” Somewhat disbelivingly I checked, and it was predicting rain and about 4 degrees. I had booked accomadation so had to go, and the forecast actually got worse. We arrived the night before, and it was grey and rainy and about 6 degrees. I got up early anyway, still raining, and temps at the top were zero and it was snowing. They closed the road at Trafoi to all traffic.
Last year I planned the Gotthard pass, but crashed off the bike and broke my shoulder. Again, it was all booked, so had to go that way anyway. Switzerland is beautiful but it isn’t cheap; pizzas were 19-20 Swiss Francs, and in Abruzzo similar or better were €6. Accomodation is also more.
The Col Collective did a route involving Gotthard Nufenen and one other, I think there is also Susten Furka Grimsel. There are plenty of routes, but you may need two bases or do a bit of driving.
Here’s a suggestion for some climbs –
http://www.granfondoguide.com/Contents/Index/1560/10-ten-swiss-alpine-climbs-for-road-cyclists
The driving isn’t bad in Switzerland. They have more speed cameras than we do, and they aren’t always clearly signposted. When you get near road tunnels on the motorway, they expect you to drop from 130 to 100 kph. If the locals seem to slow down randomly, best follow suit.
Following on from what
Following on from what Stoopid says, have you thought about a Kinesis Aithein? Much more of a racer but if you like going up hills…don’t know if you can have discs or mudguards but they are light and a lot of fun to ride. Keep the Arkose for winter riding, or longer rides when you want an armchair. I last bought a bike four years ago, and the whole endurance bike thing was gaining momentum. The difference between endurance and racy is very minimal in a lot of cases, can you actually feel the difference in a 5 mm longer stem or 2 mm wider tyres?
I tried endurance bikes and more racy bikes, and without a doubt, I preferred the way the racy bikes rode. I then looked at my riding, the vast majority of which was between 1 and 2 hours, with maybe a 4 hour ride once a month, and an 8 hour ride 2-3 times a year. I decided that comfort wasn’t much of a priority for me, so bought a Giant Propel. I still pine for it when I haven’t ridden it for a few days, and the comfort can’t be too bad because I did an Everesting on it that lasted 27 hours…
I’d have a look at a Kinesis,
I’d have a look at a Kinesis, but they may be a bit too “all road” rather than road specific? Designed in the UK for UK roads has a lot of appeal to me.
I’d want full mudguards – I have a Propel which is an aero bike and have spent a lot on maintenance having ridden it through the winter. I don’t mind getting wet myself, but it knackers chains and cogs and rims. For that reason, I would probably choose 105 over Ultegra, it is cheaper to replace parts, and it works almost as well.
No extra reason needed, the
No extra reason needed, the OP already has supplied enough
I think that variety is
I think that variety is important. If you only do one type of training, you’ll get very good at that specific thing with enough time, but if you mix it up you’ll improve other aspects of your cycling too, won’t get as bored or frustrated if progress is slow, and overall get more out of it.
I’d try and get the weight off too, that will make a huge difference, so long as you don’t try to get to 80kg in a couple of months. Try one fasted ride a week, for me this is get up and go straight out on a ride without breakfast. Do an hour at first, maybe 90-120 minutes with practice, whatever tempo you like. Take a gel or small snack with you in case you bonk, but I find it made a difference for me.
Lezyne Mega XL …. I’ve got one… decent enough navigation… too me through France and Belgium…maps onboard with arrows to follow and turn by turn guides….usual hook up to many sensors bluetooth and ANT+ from all makes…di2 and Etap etc and power meters if you are into that stuff….claimed 48hr battery… and I still hadn’t used 1/4 battery in 2 days use… like on for 8hrs a day… Maps are easy enough to create/download and can cover a fair whack for little memory….That does look good, and at 150 quid!
I’ve used Garmin Forerunners
I’ve used Garmin Forerunners for about 10 years, with very little problem. The first one became unresponsive about 2.5 years after I got it, I told Garmin and they sent me a replacement unit. The second one, a 310 is still going strong, and it hasn’t been 100% perfect, but I don’t believe any bit of tech is. I like the Forerunners because they can track runs as well as rides, the 310 is meant to be useable in the pool if you are mad enough to do triathlons, although I have never tried it in the water.
The reason I wanted a new unit was the navigation. The Forerunners I had only had breadcrumb nav, and so long as you stayed on the right track it was ok, but if you went off course, apart from the message that said off course, nav was impossible. There’s no map, just a line where your course is, so if you stray off that, there are no other landmarks shown on the screen to help you get back on track. Running was better than riding, as the pace of running meant the screen better matched where you were; on a bike on a fast downhill it was easy to miss a turn a mile back and the thought of turning round, going back up the hill to search where you should have turned was a deal breaker.
I then saw that Ribble Cycles were selling the Giant Neostrack for £109, 65% of normal retail price. I have a Giant bike, so read up more. It has the features of a Garmin 520/Wahoo Elemnt, but significantly cheaper than those two units, so I bought one.
Negatives – wahoo products you set up using an app on your phone, but the Giant requires you to use buttons on the unit, which is very time consuming and a bit frustrating, but normally you only enter your personal details and your bike details once. The website and app are very basic, although actual route planning on the website seems a little better than Strava or Garmin – it’s a bit less likely to plot a point 50 meters off the road, which can cause confusion on a ride until you realise you don’t have to slavishly follow every instruction it tells you. But once you have plotted a route and sent it to the unit, I can’t seem to find it on the site, don’t know where it goes, but it would be nice to be able to send the files to mates, or even just a screenshot so they can see roughly where we are going.
Positives – price, I don’t know of a comparable unit within £100 of these. Battery life is a claimed 33 + hours; when I next charge it I will try and check this out. My Garmins were meant to be 16 hours or so, but unless you keep track of when you last charged it, it was easy to set out on a 4 hour ride with a lot less than 4 hours run time left.
I have found the navigation ok. It isn’t like a car sat nav, but it does indicate a distance to the next junction with a turn arrow too. It also indicates distance to plotted points, which confused me the first time as I stopped at one of these looking for a turning, but it was just somewhere I clicked the cursor when doing the route (!)
The Giant blurb says it has a focus on training, I can see there are pre-programmed workouts in one of the menus, and I have programmed a simple interval routine of my own. I have yet to try out any on the road though.
I’m pleased with it after a month’s use, hopefully it will continue to grow on me.
I did Winchester to
I did Winchester to Eastbourne in a day on a Specialised Hard Rock hard tail back in 2010. It took me over 13.5 hours and I was proper knackered at the end of it! I remember thinking if I ever did it again I would want to do it on a full susser, the extra weight worth it for the comfort.
A friend of mine tried a Wiggle event a few years ago on his cross bike; the route was meant to be 60% road, 30% gravel and 10% proper off road, on the South Downs. On the flinty sections near Bignor he shredded his tyres and had to abandon. I suspect they weren’t very suitable for the terrain, but will ask him if he can remember.
I still have the Hard Rock and am thinking about trying it again next year, as it will be 10 years since I did it before. It has 2.3″ Specialised Ground control tyres, which are better suited to muddy conditions than the dry ones we have at the moment, but I can’t be bothered with the faff of having two sets of tyres, I’d rather be out riding than swapping them over.
As others have said, the weather on the day and the week before can make a huge difference. I live about half way along so know where the boggy bits are going to be; at the moment it is pretty dry on the bits near me so should be ok on most tryes.
There’s a cafe and bike maintenance point at Sullington Barns now; you have to descend off the top to get to it, but there was a reasonable selection of tools there last time I looked. This is around the half way point, before Steyning.
Mate, I cannot advise you on your glorious choices, just get the one you love most.I can however offer a bit of knowledge on keeping her. Unfortunately universities are are hotbeds of bicycle theivery. So be very careful. You might want to have something tough, second hand and for a couple of hundred quid, just for easier getting about. Very good locks, and use them well. Young people have not always learned much about security and the local scrotes know this. Your housemates will not care about your bike as much as you do. Get proper insurance and follow it’s many clauses, you don’t want to pay the money and get nothing if you lose your beloved bicycle. And it’s difficult, but let her get dirty, clean the drivetrain of course, filthy bikes do not look as good, and there will be a lot of shiny, badly locked bikes around, for a while at least.
Couldn’t agree more! I bought my son a secondhand Specialised Allez for less than £300 a few years ago, which he got quite into and I was hoping I could spread the message about road cycling to him. I secretly had my eye on it as a winter bike.
But he took it to uni, and although it was locked in the locked bike store at his hall of residence it got pinched. The lock on the bike wasn’t great, but it was the nicest bike in the shed…
Unless you can lock your Emonda in your room I just would not take it to uni. The grief when it gets nicked will be off the scale.
Can we have more info on the
Can we have more info on the actual route? It looks like the lady that took the bus had to get a bus to the start, so she was later than the others? Is that fair?
The losers also polluted the Environment.The winner arrived fitter, better mental attitude for the day and nothing to pay for parking.
The winner may have arrived mentally scarred though, as he realised that some of those lovely normal folk in cars actually might want to kill him…
If you’re patient you can
If you’re patient you can find a Spesh Allez/Giant Defy/Trek something or other on Ebay, maybe 2 years old for your £300. That’s where I’d put my 300 quid
