bikemonster

A small person in a back pack is a recipe for disaster. If you fall and the baby is strapped to your back it will not be good! I would hate to see that too.

Oh stop being such a big girl's blouse! You should up your training to 16-18 hours a week, which would would allow you to finish midway down the bunch. Or perhaps not.

If you really want to save weight, crankset and pedals are prolly where you can make the best value changes, and they are rotating parts, as a bonus. That said, your bike is at the level where weight saving is more about bragging rights than performance improvement. Diminishing marginal returns.

BBJSportGuy I have done many Sub-3:30 Argi, and four of them under 3:10 (but never cracked the darn' sub 3:00). Off the bike my "athleticsm" sees me running the Knysna 1/2 in just under 2 hours. I mention that to make it absolutely clear that I am no born athlete. My training programme sees me riding up to 3 times a week. Twice on the week for around 90-120 minutes each and once on the weekend for around 3 hours. Weekend rides are usually Pedalpower races (funrides...hah!) of 80-100km. As a weekend warrior with a job and a family I really do not see any benefit in (or probability of) doing more. The one thing that I have found to be key is to include training at racing intensity, either through having fast friends or weekend racing or training at Killarney racetrack on summer Tuesday evenings. Many cycling coaches talk about riding a lot slowly to get fast. It does not work. Speed does not miraculously arrive - you need to train for it.

So Homer, all of your success must therefore come from avoiding being overtrained!

So just where the **** does the asre expect somebody to exit a vehicle??? "Why was he overtaking on the left" is the real question. (And no, neither the colour nor gender of the of the person exiting the vehicle is relevant.)

There can be no truth in the rumour that these are what Team Astana will be riding next year...

There may be some useful info here: http://www.velonews.com/tech/report/articles/11164.0.html Check out the item towards the bottom of the page.

What TNT1 said! "Under resting" is a much more informative term. And now that we have ascertained that tooHot!!! is deffinly not too smart, he doesn't recover sufficiently from training and parties too hearty to race properly...there's the issue of natural talent vs. training. I think the best example here is the difference between what we know of Jan Ullrich and Lance Armstrong. I have no doubt that a chunk of what we "know" about Lance Armstrong is PR, but his attention to detail is widely documented. Whereas Der Kaiser, often referred to as "the most talented cyclist of his generation", what with reversing his Porsche over motorbikes and being best for E seems (or perhaps seemed) to have an approach uncannily like that of tooHot!!!.

I recall seeing an ad for an aerosol recently, could be made by Vittoria, that works on the same basis as the flat fix in a can that you can use on cars/motorcycles. Pressurised goo that seals the leak from the inside. As a weekend warrior I will happily remain on clinchers. When I have a team car with a roof full of spare wheels and bikes, and a domestique to tow me back to the action I will worry about tubbies, but not before.

I think you will mostly get people telling you that whatever they ride is the best. I also think that you would struggle to find a truly "bad" frame from any of the reputable manufacturers. I also think that you will get a lot of received wisdom dressed up as truth (aluminium is harsh etc.). How much are you planning on spending, what are you riding now and what do you want from the new frame? What do you want the next bike to do that the present bike does not do?

Who really gives a rat's if a CYCLIST battles with an answer in their non-native language? If you admire a top cyclist, is it for their ability to ride well or their grasp of languages?

I have only done one DC, and that was enough for me, but I can say... Variety is good. After 8 hours I was in danger of puking blue Powerade over my shoes. Renew your childhood love affair with the PBJ sandwich. It's a good mix of high and low GI's, carbs, polyun fats and protein. As ever with an event, this is not a good time to try anything new, regardless of how much the blurb on the packaging promises.

From what I have learnt this week the term "Ladies Racing" is wrong on both counts.

Don't stand too close to a naked man.

That's bikemonster you're quoting, not bikemax! Anyhoo... "Adverse" effect is prolly overstating. For me, I had a really pleasing summer of cycling last year, so I was reluctant to change my bike set up. The new bike arrived with 172.5 but I did not worry too much 'cause I knew I was planning on upgrading the gruppo anyway. I rode maybe 300km with 172.5, and always felt sluggish with it. There were no issues with discomfort or lack of flexibility. When I duly upgraded and went back to 170 the pedalling circle felt "small" at first, but I have been pleased that I did. My cadence came back up (usually average around 100 rpm according to my Polar) and I am satisfied that I made the right decision. Like everything in cycling, there is a hefty dose of "fashion" in crank length size, and some of the references that I googled gave me the impression that 10 - 15 years ago cyclists were riding 2.5mm shorter cranks across the board than they now do. The prevalence of MTBing may have something to do with that, as MTB cranks are typically longer than road cranks for increased leverage. I guess (and it is just a guess) that people decided that they would prefer the same crank length for road and dirt. The effect of the chainring is negligible. If you are looking at the difference between a 53 and 52 tooth ring, that is a difference of less than 2%. If you're a spinner, I do not believe that you could feel the difference between spinning at 99rpm and spinning at 101rpm at a given road speed.

Talking to animals is very easy Nellie. It's understanding the replies that gets a little tricky.

The difference is erm, 2.5mm. That makes for a 5mm difference in diameter, and a 22/7 * 5mm increase in radius. FWIW, when my latest bike had 172.5mm cranks instead of 170mm, my cadence dropped. I am 1.7m tall. Pro of going to longer cranks is that you get more leverage. The cons are that you may make your knees and hips work a bit more to accommodate the larger radius that your feet will be travelling. Neither pro nor con, but a difference, is that cadence can be expected to go down with longer cranks. If you are a spinner, you are prolly better off with the shorter cranks, if you are a power rider you are prolly better off with longer cranks.

Not to be blunt, but I see really is lead in your pencil!