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Can you drive part of your
Can you drive part of your commute and ride the rest? That’s a great way of slowly increasing your ride length, and you can also build in some variety to your routes which will help.
Well done on the 46 – I started in a similar boat to you 5 years ago and a 46 seemed like going to the moon and back.
Based on the fact you were dead with 15 miles to go I’d do one ride a week of 35 miles and tack on ten miles if you feel good after 35 (looping around home in a cloverleaf is a good way of doing this as you always have a bail out option within a few miles)
General rule of thumb is if you can get comfortable doing 50 miles that’s all you need to be able to do 75 as a one-off. When I did my first 75 the longest I’d ridden previously was around 50 miles. The last 10 miles were horrible but that was more to do with the profile of the course than the distance. Check the route and see if there’s any climbing towards the end, you’ll need to pace for that. Being the Broads I guess not – so it will be about finding a pace that suits you and sticking with that.
My preference has evolved
My preference has evolved over time. When I first returned to a drop bar bike I rode on the tops most of the time, only swapping to the hoods when I needed to change gear (I had crosstops so that probably contributed to using the tops). Next bike I mostly rode the hoods, and on my current bike I spend a lot more time in the drops – mainly because I’ve discovered the lever throw adjustment screw.
So different bikes, different geometries, different positions. All the same nominal frame size so I think the point is that minor differences can change where you feel most comfortable. If a 56 is an average frame size for someone who is 6 foot tall, the most comfortable position for a bunch of 6 foot riders on that bike is still going to vary based on flexibility, age, strength, hand size, and body proportions (i.e. longer arms/shorter legs vs the opposite)
The right position is always the one where you feel most comfortable, because discomfort is going to rob you of power faster than any gain in terms of aero.
Likely to be a bike fit issue
Likely to be a bike fit issue – too much weight on your hands. See if you can match the fit between the two bikes:
Same saddle height above bottom bracket
Same reach to bars
Same hood position
Are the cranks the same length on both bikes?
I’d expect that the CX bike has a taller front end (longer head tube & top of steerer higher off the ground) and it might be that you can’t get low enough on it. Possibly you’re riding with your arms braced, that will transmit a lot of force to your hands.
If you have the flexibility try a long ride on the CX riding in the drops and see if you get the same hand pain.
They certainly don’t hold the same glamour and sense of freedom as they did when I were a lad. Maybe it’s because nowdays all you do is pay the monthly rental and put fuel in, no chance or really any interest in building a relationship with a machine that you need to fettle and care for.I’m still trying to do basic spannering but as I recently discovered with a Mini, some stuff needs to be calibrated or coded by Mini if you replace the parts yourself. Auto stop start switch from gearbox went but only Mini can code up hardware. 5 minute job apparently but no doubt more expensive than 5 minutes with a high class escort.
I guess in general cars are more reliable and that combined with more complicated general stuff just means people firstly don’t need to be as savy and even if they try, they need to be ultra savy. Now your car will seemingly grass you up to the MOT station anyway and leave a xmas tree trail of errors on the dash that will fail you, I can see why people are moving to leasing new stuff.
At least my 90s Honda motorbike was built well with nothing that it didn’t need. I’ll try and it keep it running as long as possible.
I’m currently spannering my battered Mk3 Mondeo because it’s failed the MOT. £400+ for the garage to do it, £120 for parts and tools to DIY. It’s good fun and I’m rediscovering skills from my boy racer days. The quality of info is so much better out there now but sadly if your car is less than 10 years old I guess there’s pretty much nothing you can DIY. I’ve been teaching my son whilst fixing it but it’s a bit pointless really – when he reaches driving age he’ll be buying transport-as-a-service and if something breaks he’ll just get a replacement. I certainly have no desire to own anything post-2005 so I’ve probably got ten years left of driving my own vehicles.
brimstone wrote:
I wasn’t a cyclist back then (in the ’70s); was driver aggression to cyclists just as rampant?
Nope, but the death rate was higher. There’s a BBC archive clip from the 1973 oil crisis that’s a good insight into urban conditions. It was grim up North for sure. Mostly grey and brown and filthy
Here it is https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1064503560623325184?s=19
Modern cars are full of
Modern cars are full of distractions and require very little effort to drive. Hardly surprising that driving standards are dropping. When I started driving there it was rare to have power “anything” – certainly no ABS, and usually drum brakes, wind up windows, no power steering. Everything demanded your attention. Car safety systems are there to insulate and protect the occupants and to hell with everything else.
Re the long drop vs discs
Re the long drop vs discs discussions – bear in mind that Shimano standard drop brakes (105 and above) will clear 28mm tyres. If you’re mainly doing road riding do you need to go above 28s?
For mudguards there’s also the new option from PDW to clear 28s. I don’t know whether it will clear 28s plus mudguards on standard drops though.
If you do need long drops then there are options from TRP (RG957) or Velo-Orange. The Shimano long drops are good too – I’m well north of 100kg and they haul me up good enough with standard pads and aluminium rims. Not as sharp as a short drop brake but I ended up concluding that I didn’t brake much (no commuting now I WFH) and long drops would be fine.
Get the right size GF_Ti and it will be the last road bike you need. From memory they do 7 sizes so you can really tune the fit on it, loads of flexibility there.
Personally, I got a huge amount of pleasure out of building my bike. Very similar to you, I cobbled together parts from various bikes and built up a Bowman Layhams with a mix of Tiagra & 105. Took me a weekend, learnt a lot, and now if something does break or go out of adjustment I know how to fix it. All the stuff I used to go to the LBS for (gear adjustment, bar tape) I DIY and the only thing I got them to do was chase and face the frame and cut the steerer.
The only thing against the GF_Ti for me is that the widest tyre it will take (in rim brake form) is 30mm. I don’t foresee a need to go above that because I’ve got a tourer for rough stuff but that might be an issue for an N=1. Ultimately if you’re happy with rims there’s nothing this side of something with canti bosses that will handle fast road duties on a 32mm tyre.
Nope, it’s a cracking bike
Nope, it’s a cracking bike and usually Decathlon service is excellent so you’ve got good aftersales support for adjustments/warranty.
Couple of things though – can’t remember, did the 540 come with a compact chainset? The 920 is 52/36 and easiest gear is a 36/32. Might be an issue?
Also, no mudguard or pannier mounts for commuting.
No probs. I have no need for
No probs. I have no need for a gravel bike (my Fairlight Faran does that duty with 42mm knobblies) but if I did I’d get the Mystique as a frameset and build it up.
There’s also the One One Space Chicken if you want to go full gravel – 1x only and proper lairy. Basically a rip-off of the Open UP at a third of the price.
XLS was always a race-focused
XLS was always a race-focused CX bike so probably not suited to full-on gravel riding.
The Mystique is (relatively) long and stable, XLS short and punchy, and the Full Monty is in the middle.
Mystique will be the closest match to your Orro I’d say, depends on what your use case is. Personally I’d go with a Mystique for practicality – no mudguard and pannier mounts on the XLS and it’s also pretty long in the tooth now – they’ve been selling them for at least 5 years. Nothing wrong with that per se but frame requirements and tech have moved on.
I had a Dirty Disco (a slacker version of the XLS) and it was awesome fun, only sold on because I needed something more practical and didn’t get on with SRAM shifting.
SRAM derailleurs should be
SRAM derailleurs should be interchangeable – they all use the same pull I believe (SRAM call it Exact Actuation)
So just stick one of their large capacity derailleurs in and you should be good to go. You’ll also need a new chain
Each to their own, can’t stand loud road hubs myself – apart from the actual noise and the ‘look at me !!’ element, it upsets the engineering part of my head. Useful on shared paths and tracks mind, especially early in the morning…Useful on towpaths when you encounter anglers with Ultegra reels 😀
Interesting to see what the
Interesting to see what the amateur fatballer gets for running over a dozen or so – convicted on Friday but sentencing isn’t for a couple of weeks.
Having driven speed-limited
Having driven speed-limited vans long distances, and spent hours of my life going through average speed enforced motorway roadworks, I wonder if it will have a negative impact on a driver’s attention to the road. Driving at a fixed speed is monotonous and you can easily get sucked into driving to the brake lights of the car in front. Too much automation leads to too much trust in the vehicle, as evidenced by people doing stupid stuff because they’re following satnav directions.
I also worry that it will discourage drivers from slowing down to pass cyclists because they’ll feel they won’t be able to make up lost time (I know that in reality it’s literally seconds but that’s not how some drivers perceive it). Potentially it will enforce the attitude of the speed limit as a target. The roads near where I live in the New Forest are mostly 40mph limits but they’re certainly not safe at that speed in bad weather or at night. Interested to see how the sign detection is going to work, given that so many are in poor condition or overgrown in rural areas.
Hopefully the telematics will be a positive enforcement technology given how often police appeals after collisions are interested in how the car was being driven leading up to the accident. Don’t think you’ll be able to draw conclusions in court from long-term data unless biometrics are also used – how could you prove who was driving otherwise?
On the plus side it’s got the car lobby foaming at the mouth and a bunch of otherwise upstanding members of society bleating on about freedom to break the law. I particularly love the “I need to speed to get out of tight situations” muppets. Yesterday morning was good fun “Ah well, it won’t apply because of Brexit” through to “Bloody EU” and ending up with people moaning at the UN.
As a reformed boy racer petrolhead I can’t believe I’m in favour of this but I wholeheartedly support it. I’m currently pootling around in a 90hp Mondeo Estate which is probably the slowest car I’ve ever driven and yet still I could routinely break the speed limit everywhere I drive. That’s why speed limiters are needed.
Perhaps we can introduce a market for speeding? Have telematics record speed vs limit and invoice the driver after each journey. Hell, we could even use blockchain for it and people could buy speeding credits like carbon credits.
Also expect to see End User License Agreements & Privacy Notices popping up after you turn the key but before the engine starts (the German privacy lawyers will mandate that so it will end up being implemented by Bosch who provide these systems to most car makers).
Mungecrundle wrote:
My car has adaptive cruise control which is fantastic on motorways and an elective speed limiter, set manually, which I use quite a lot for urban driving. One less thing to worry about and allows more attention to be paid to what is going on outside the car.I wouldn’t say I enjoyed using it on the Merc I hired a couple of months ago, but I could see how it would change behaviour if enabled by default. On Mercs it just needs a double tap of the accelerator to disable it which works well when you pull out, forget it’s on, and call for “more powaaaaah!”
Sign recognition seems impractical given how many signs are obscured but I’d say that once there’s a, erm, critical mass of cars using the technology speeding will become impossible.
