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I went through a lot of knee
I went through a lot of knee pain issues in the last couple of years, with lots of red herrings along the way!
I thought it was cleat position, pronation, seat height, crank length, riding singlespeed etc.
After wasting a lot of money on other solutions, I eventually paid for a bike fit (Dougie Shaw – Edinburgh Bike Fitters). He identified that I was ‘twisted’ in the saddle, and showed me this using a really cool saddle pressure mapper. The twist came from my hips, tight glutes, hip flexors etc. The result was that my right foot was always overreaching, which in turn stretched my left IT more, result was (different) pains in both knees.
He showed me the stretches and strengthening I should be doing, also some tricks with a massage ball, and also general advice on how to ‘hold’ myself on the bike until it became natural (basically being conscious of correcting the twist).
Long story short, I would never have figured this out by myself, and would have continued to waste a lot of time and money fiddling with other solutions.
The other thing I was doing wrong was just riding too much! I was training for a long distance event and was trying to keep to 10-15% extra mileage a week, but was ignoring intensity, e.g. 100km easy is very different from 100km as fast as possible. I didn’t build in any recovery time either, just kept increasing distance week after week. Once I started taking every third or fourth week off, maybe getting a sports massage at the same time, I started feeling a lot better on the bike.
Good news bah17!
Good news bah17!
Suspect you’ll be given lots of theraband exercises for the shoulder, I’ve been doing them on and off for a couple of years to treat an impingement issue I have. The good news is that if you do them dilligently I believe they help you hold a lower/more aero position with greater ease.
I’m at 8 weeks now, couldn’t convince hospital to put a plate in, although they did (finally) show me some evidence of new bone growth, so a 12 week heal isn’t out of the question. I can bear weight on the handlebars whilst on the turbo, so hopefully 1/2 hour commutes won’t be out of the question soon, as I’m going stir crazy spending 2hrs a day on a bus during a heatwave!
Mid-September start to the CX season looks unlikely though, especially since at this rate the courses will still be dry, hard and fast!
Fair points, I’m a relatively
Fair points, I’m a relatively recent MTBer turned roadie (5-10 years ago) and even more recent follower of the races (after my wife ill-advisedly insisted on the Sky family pack, not realising this gave me access to virtually un-interrupted cycling on TV!).
The impression I had of the historical racing was gruelling mano-a-mano, tit for tat attacking and counter attacking on the slopes, not attritional 8 man team efforts. I guess also the issue with grand tours is that there are competitions within competitions, Sky might be going for GC and I’ll bet Quickstep are happy to let them have it so long as Quickstep get enough stage victories/KOM, similarly Bora and the green jersey?
I think ultimately I personally just get bored of the same people winning all the time, found the CX season started to pale slightly as Van der Poel just kept motoring away on the first lap, at least the CX World Champs provided some relief!
Aye true, I guess my dis
Aye true, I guess my dis-satisfaction isn’t entirely with Sky, it’s with the overall state of the racing, in the same way that a lot of my fellow Scots complain about the Scottish Premier League being a bit ‘mickey mouse’ because no-one can compete with the top 1 or 2 teams, so also are the grand tours becoming a bit predictable. It doesn’t help Sky’s cause that, let’s face it, the Sky brand is hardly squeeky clean and loveable, no matter how many cutesy Orcas they put on the back of their tops…
So you end up with massive powerful team sponsored by a billionaire megalomaniac who just happens to own most of the British and American right wing press vs. some teams sponsored by Dutch flooring manufacturers, German kitchen manufacturers, Italian bottled gas distributors etc. It’s almost a big Dodgeball-esque with Global Mega-corp Gym vs. Friendly Joe’s Gym (I’m not bothering to google the actual names of the teams from the movie, you get my point…)
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I don’t know why so many people get upset/unhappy about Team Sky. There is simply no other team that operates in the same way Team Sky do to achieve the same goals.That’s just the fundamental psycology of sports fans though isn’t it, there are those who revel in watching the biggest/best teams thumping the smaller teams and who would take great pleasure in watching Man City defeating a second division team 8-0, and there are others who enjoy a bit of spirited competition and live for the prospect of the underdog doing well/surprise results (e.g. why this year’s World Cup was considered such a success).
Seeing Team Sky en masse at the front of the peloton all day, so sure in themselves that they can comfortably ignore the attacks from their rivals (see Kwiatowski when Valverde attacked yesterday, just telling the other guys to sit tight, no need to react) just doesn’t make for a very exciting spectacle to my mind.
How’s everyone doing with
How’s everyone doing with their various broken bits?
I’m about 7 weeks in now, healing seemed to be going OK, but in the last two weeks or so it seems to have taken a step backwards, there is a new and very sharp pain occuring at the back of the collarbone, right at the top of the shoulder blade. If I poke around where the pain is I can definitely feel something ‘loose’ that sort of slides back and forth. Feels like it is at the edge of where the break occurred.
Worried I might have been using the arm too much, trying to help wife out with the baby and a couple of days driving to meetings that I couldn’t practically use public transport for.
Have another follow up on Tuesday, if X-Ray doesn’t show good bone growth I think I’ll be (respectfully) demanding surgery. I wouldn’t mind a slow healing process if I KNEW it was healing properly, currently it doesn’t feel like it’s healing properly.
Wish I’d seen that Giro kit a
Wish I’d seen that Giro kit a year ago!
I ended up getting the G8 Performance Insoles, 5 different levels of arch support, and the ability to micro-adjust the position of the arch within the insole. £80 though. At least you know that if you can’t get the right position/support with the G8, then it’s not the insole that’s the problem…
https://www.sigmasports.com/item/G8-Performance/2620-Shoe-Insoles/8LDZ
Thanks, it wasn’t brought to
Thanks, it wasn’t brought to my attention to be honest!
However, despite me talking myself round to it (didn’t like the prospect of future complications/misalignment of shoulder etc.) the consultant finally took a decision themselves and decided it wasn’t worth it for me and that healing naturally would be fine.
It almost feels like this has forced me to pull my socks up and get on with it, as I’m already feeling more improvement, can hold handlebars (on the turbo trainer) if I engage the right muscles in the shoulder to protect the collarbone. Obviously this isn’t a long term solution so I’ll continue with one handed turbo-training for another 3 or 4 weeks. Actually the turbo training is going so well I honestly think I’ll come out of the whole thing a bit fitter…
Anyway, hope you’re feeling improvements!
I think a big factor would be
I think a big factor would be the choice of brakes, I don’t mind cable operated discs if they’re good, e.g. TRP Spyre, but anything cheaper is a bit disappointing and more awkward to adjust.
The Boardman has bona-fide Shimano hydraulics which I think is a big plus, I think Shimano disc brakes are the least prone to squeeling in the wet, I’m certainly planning to upgrade my TRP Spyres to Shimano rotors and pads to try and reduce squeeling.
I think the differences between CX bikes and Adventure/Gravel bikes are quite subtle, bizarrely ‘gravel’ bikes seem to come with more tyre clearance, as everyone is now accepting that 38/40c tyres are a good thing, whereas in CX racing you are still limited to 33c if you really want to compete (UCI rules) so the frames are designed for this, even though this means more clogging with mud! Also I think bottom brackets are a bit lower on Adventure bikes which is nicer on the road but apparently can be an issue if you’re trying to pedal in deep muddy ruts or something.
Oops, I take it back, Diverge
Oops, I take it back, Diverge has space for 38s too. Looks like a racier position though, good for road but less so for CX, and spec is much lower than the Boardman, probably because of that Future Shok thing in the headtube.
I’d almost certainly go with
I’d almost certainly go with the Boardman. I think the geometry of adventure/gravel bikes is better for the road (lower BB) but still fine for CX. I also think the bigger tyre clearance of an adventure/gravel bike is advantageous in CX, I’m still racing an MTB with CX tyres on it, and I think it is a big advantage having that extra mud clearance, the number of mechanicals I see every muddy race makes me wonder if CX bikes are actually a bit badly designed…
Not sure what the tyre clearance is on the Diverge but I got the impression it was definitely a tiny bit more road biased than standard adventure or gravel bikes. I could be wrong though.
This is all depressingly
This is all depressingly relevant, I’m almost four weeks into my healing after breaking my clavicle near the shoulder when I hit a speedbump I hadn’t seen (in my defence it was unmarked, unsigned and in the shade of a tree).
Mine has never been very uncomfortable and I’ve retained a lot of function in the affected arm, but my most recent X-Ray barely looked any different from the 1 week X-RAy, and the consultant mentioned there wasn’t as much callous formation as he would have liked to see.
The first consultant I saw was quite blase about offering surgery, and my physio (deals with a lot of rugby players) seemed to think it would be worthwhile. I’m now of the same mind as I didn’t like the look of how the bones were overlapping, and I would rather everything healed with good alignment. Waiting to hear back from them today.
On the plus side I’m two sessions in on my cheap turbo trainer, one session with just my headphones for company, and one with a GCN video. They’ve both been brutal workouts and I can’t help but thinking I could come out of my broken collarbone fitter than when I went in!
Agree with much of what bike
Agree with much of what bike.owner says about the Zonda hubs, I got Racing 3s for that reason (i.e. I wanted Zondas but also to run Shimano on the bike, useful what a change of stickers lets you do!).
That said, if you’re a rim killer, would it not be worth considering Record Hubs handbuilt on to relatively decent rims (I hear DT R460 are a good choice for winter trainers as relatively cheap but decent sidewalls etc.). That what you have a great wheel but can replace the rims relatively easily in future. Don’t know how the Aussie pricing works out but in Scotland I think handbuilt records only worked out slightly more expensive that the Racing 3s…
I would have done this but have the luxury of a winter bike with super cheap wheels that does the bulk of my wet and gritty miles…
I’m not too familiar with
I’m not too familiar with other models of SRAM brakes, but my experience with some SRAM Level brakes (an MTB brake, but I was using it almost entirely on road on a slick tyred commuter) was pretty poor. Initially they were great in the dry, but horribly screechy in the wet. Changing pads to sintered (at the shop’s advice) made them screech in the dry too… Changing rotors to Magura Storm SL and pads to Uberbike Kevlar made them screech slightly less in the wet, but still screeched quite badly.
Eventually gave up and changed for TRP Spyres, which still screech in the wet… new Shimano rotors and Swisstop Green pads on the way!
Sorry I can’t give any more constructive advice than that. Your problem (if screeching in both wet and dry conditions) definitely sounds like a manufacturing or warranty issue, but be warned, a lot of people, including shops, will tell you that screeching is normal for disc brakes and you should just accept it as a trade-off for better braking…
Not typical of any Sportive I
Not typical of any Sportive I’ve ridden. Mind you, the Etape Loch Ness is relatively flat and short, and closed road, so probably attracts folk more intent on a good time.
