[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

4 minutes ago, NotSoBigBen said:

Can't advise much on the gearing issues but just 2 comments ....

The right tool for the job (a road bike in a road bike race) and in the first half don't be an idiot, in the second half don't be a wimp!

Use it, don't use it as my boet would say to me 😜

Thanks 😊 

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

3 minutes ago, ChrisF said:

 

We have all paid these school fees at some point or another

 

SO easy to get caught up in the moment ....

 

Burning too many matches too early ....

 

Forgetting to drink ....

 

Forgetting to eat .....

 

@Emazing best wishes on your next race. 

 

 

PS - Your Garmin should have a function to set an alarm to remind you to eat, and another to remind you to drink.

I ate well and drank well.  I still think not was high cadence. lets see this weekend normal road bike.

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

20 minutes ago, Mountain Bru said:

This 👆

No amount of gearing is gonna help you if the tank is empty. General advice is to eat between 60g to 80g of carbs per hour during a ride. If you're just drinking water, that means eating at least 3 of those green Farbars every hour, for the entire race. 

My guess is that you probably went out a bit too hard, but then didn't eat nearly enough, and then went pop (we've all been there). At high intensity, it's hard to eat and drink enough, and this is made even harder if you're in an unfamiliar group and are also worrying about not crashing. Your gut might also not be used to absorbing fuel while your HR is high. 

Best advice I think is to train your fuelling by reading the labels of your bars, gels, and drinks, and making sure you're getting at least 60g of carbs an hour on every training ride. 

And then.... Just enter gravel races and forget about keeping up with the roadies. Much more enjoyable experience 👌. 

hahah,   you could be right! 

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

3 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Also, how much did you eat and drink while out riding? 

I did eat well but the tell tell sign of the high Candace now that I think back is how my legs were burning and “legs sweating”  😓 yip I was thinking to my self I did not know legs can sweat “

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

31 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

You appear to have started really hard an then blew spectacularly. 
too high a cadence could be a factor but it appears that you just rode too hard from the start. 
your gearing range doesn’t seem to be too  much of a factor but that’s just based on the max speed you could ride .

 

what is your age? You have heart rates zones set very high

60 years old. I was working hard but managed my pace. I will try a proper road bike this weekend and see what’s the story. 
also the front wheel was binding and I suspect that was also a issue see clips 

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

7 minutes ago, Martin PJ said:

For a fast race you need a road bike. I used to battle with 50/11 on one bike, also 53/12 on another in normal races just keeping up. I think you did pretty well to do 42 km in an hour.

Yes, I’m pretty fit and I’m able to do 82 100 km without much stress. It may be my gears. 

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

1 hour ago, Koos Likkewaan 2 said:

I am no expert on this, but this is my takeaway from all the stats provided

1) With your gear ratio, 42km/h ave. is only an average cadence of 84. Not terribly fast, so can be managed if you are fit.

2) The info provided shows a fairly low heart rate and only zone 2 & 3. Was this a training ride, or the actual race you are referring to ? Not seeing a reason to pop with these.

3) Have you ever considered that, like me, you might have fast twitching muscles and just not build for long endurance efforts at high intensity ?

I can do efforts on the gravel bike at 45km/h average (42 x 10) for about 20 minutes then I am done, but this is due to me being a "sprinter" and not a "long distance" type.

Yip crossed my mind. I’m going to do two things and that is a proper Road Bike and other thing is to go out slow and hammer the last half 

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

21 minutes ago, Me rida my bicycle said:

I think it could just be pushing to hard to keep up with the bigger geared bikes. Could also be why it's easier to keep up on the hill's as they have to work harder. Gravel bike is never really going to be able to sit with road bikes, you have most likely more weight and rolling resistance and not big enough gearing. 

I don't think it's your fitness but if you want to mix it up with those people it would be best to have similar equipment. 

Absolutely, I think you’re right because I fly up the hills and it’s only really on the straights where my cadence is high and there should be no reason why I can’t keep up with the bunch. 

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

10 hours ago, DieselnDust said:

you heart rate and calorie data would be good coupled with speed over terrain

 

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

23 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

can you pot the ride data?

You could have blown for any number of reasons but the most common is just not being fit enough for the effort exerted....

I generally get dropped on the open flats and the down hills but on the uphill, there is no issues.

 

 

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

52 minutes ago, RobertWhitehead said:

So what's your cadence to average 42? I can just imagine very high. If it was me, and this is just my opinion: I would increase the ring size upfront but also increase the cassette size at the rear. The reason for the double whammy: bigger gear upfront means harder in the climbing department with slower leg speed. So going for a 46 or 50 at the back will help (I know what you're going to tell me , you're going to tell me that the SRAM is going to give issues to make this change) but alas, this is what I would do 

Yes my cadence is high. As soon as it is “long open road flat or downhill”  I get dropped!! Uphill I am relatively fast with no real tiring issues. 

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

16 minutes ago, Frosty said:

https://www.bikecalc.com/archives/development-meters.html
 

use this website to put your gearing into. This will tell you how many meters you will cover with each full rotation.

https://www.bikecalc.com/tables/index.html

the second link allows you to calculate the speed at a specific cadence.

Thank you for these calculation graphs, but I’m not able to understand the answer in correlation to what’s happening to me

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

8 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

can you pot the ride data?

You could have blown for any number of reasons but the most common is just not being fit enough for the effort exerted....

I don’t have much data because I just have a  basic Garmin and it doesn’t have cadence or power.  My first hour and bit at around 40-48 km/h average my legs were burning 🔥 and then from around 52km my speed drops to 30km/h and from 70 km-115 around 23km/k. 

[Expert advice on gear ratios needed for an amateur!]

I have a super gravel bike it has a Sram XX1 set up and the cassette is 11speed 10-42 and the chain ring is a 42 teeth. 
 

Today we did a fast race and for the first hour I averaging around 42 km an hour. At around 50 km my legs felt absolutely exhausted “ blown “and I had to pedal slowly the whole way home another 70km! I also had some cramp in my thigh. 

can someone tell me if the cadence is too high for this gearing or is it OK and basically I’m just an unfit old fart? 💨 

I climb up hills well and generally on rides around 40 to 70 km my averages around 28 to 30 km an hour, dep on elervation. 

do you think my gear races are correct or do you think the cadence is too high and this is what’s causing me to blow? 
 

Any good input will be welcome thank you so much

 

[Ebike Rental - JHB]

Any one know where to hire Mtb  EBIKES in JHB asap 

 

thank you 

[Breedtsnek Pass]

Evening Breeds -How’s the trail- is it rideable from the one side back over to the café and then back? Has anyone done this recently with all the rain I’d like to know if it is possible to ride this route? 

[Looking for groups in Atlantic seaboard]

I’m looking for mountain bike groups that ride trails anywhere from the Atlantic seaboard and around Cape Town. It would be great if you could share the contact details and groups name and area - in order to get onto the WhatsApp group to know when the rides will be so we could join thank you so much. 

[94.7 shocking stadium security!]

Today I heard some friends went to a day concert at the FNB Stadium and there two cars got broken into and some of their friends that drove to the stadium in small tour bus actually got mugged walking from the stadium to the parked cars- so this seems to be pandemic I will never go to FNB Stadium for anything That is related to my sports and leisure there are other SAFE venues and other races. 

[94.7 shocking stadium security!]

I completely disagree with you thank to FNB Stadium is going to Third World venue with vagrants crime difficult to park just an unpleasant situation not worth enduring ever again.

[94.7 shocking stadium security!]

11 hours ago, Me rida my bicycle said:

Security will be slow to respond as they most likely get a cut from their buddies. 

yes it seems that way - I talked to the victim of the mugging and he said the security were careless and did not even want to deal with thiS. Citizens were helping more the USLESS LUMPS OF WAST called security did nothing- I am not riding this race again if it's at FNB.   FNB BANK SHOULD SHOULD NOT PUT THIER NAME TO THIS VENUE 

[94.7 shocking stadium security!]

NOW THATS A GREAT IDEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!    SAFER AND SENSIBLE 

[94.7 shocking stadium security!]

MOVING THIS TO THE NORTH IS THE ONLY HOPE TO AVOID A CRIME SPREE OF NOTE ! 

[94.7 shocking stadium security!]

Yes its no appealing venue at all - the venue is real a drag- run down full of vagrants and crime ridden , poor parking area miles from the start , difficult to get into the stadium f all police doing there job - way way to risky. why should anyone fell unsafe on a race day!!!!! 

My club will not do this ride again- to much at stake with getting there , parking and then the chance of mugging. 

[94.7 shocking stadium security!]

This was posted on a bike group  - Heads up, chaps*- today at the 94,7, after receiving your medal and coke and walking 20m out where non-riders are waiting for you ( there are lots of people as you pass the turnstile pillars) a big chap grabbed the riders bike’s front wheel and lifted it said “nice  wheel or something distracting “( rider was walking) at the same time his partner in crime from behind remove his Cell Phone from the back of his jersey, fortunately, he felt it. He gave him as best he could. An accommodating fellow gave him a few slaps, and the 6 (six) security guards , some who were fatter than fat, all walked around in circles with their walkie-talkies and did absolutely nothing and sent him on his way. The rider went back a hour later except for the fellow that was caught the other criminals were back! It is hard to believe.  
 

He call security six times, but no one ever called him back. He takes to Sipo and Mogla. Note this seems to be common practice as you finish a race and you tired and you’re not concentrating, so please make a note as soon as you finish to move your cell phone to the front of your bib. Several people also got pickpocketed of their wallets, and I believe 20 vehicles were broken into. The security at this event needs to be addressed; please be very careful in the future.

The security company needs to be fired or expect a big crime spree at the next 94.7. The people witnesses said they have never seen such gross incompetence why they had paid these people to do security no one can understand what were they actually doing? 

I urge everybody to share this so they can be improvement and people don’t get their possessions and cell phones stolen and the security company takes it more seriously and hopefully it’s another security company altogether!!!  
 

Please if other people have had their cell phones stolen or other positions stolen to post on the Hub on this thread  as important to understand how many people fell victim to these criminals due to the poor security service! 

[Lost Thule long arm with clamp Lonehill area]

Thank you so much you’re a real champion. What a very nice thing to do very grateful -it gives us all hope when we have wonderful things like this happen.