dexterdent

I think this has good intentions and cyclists on the road need to take some responsibility for our own safety. So it is good to get called out when we do something wrong. However, after seeing the comments on the video of that person who got mowed down by a drunk driver around the spot where the cameraman was taking pictures, I feel like a public post like this (somehow) gives justification to the mob who see cyclists as less than human, and makes me feel just slightly less safe next time I will be out on the road. My experience is that the bulk of road users are rational, safe people (count the number of cars that pass safely and count the number that don't) and the less ammo we give the small amount of crazies, the better. That includes safe, predictable behaviour from cyclists of course.

Also using PSN due to the price and taste, much cheaper and still tastes better than most of the others I tried (as long as you stick with the chocolate ones, the other flavours are just ok to me). It makes it much easier to get my total protein for the day up without pushing up the calories too much. I even mix it with milk for my lunch cheerios I'm not that big into supplements and prefer just eating healthy and varied, but getting some extra protein in after cycling sessions on zwift definitely improves recovery for me.

2.12 annoyed me so much that I exercised a lot to get a good seeding just to avoid the muppets blasting Kurt Darren up Chappies. So thanks I guess.

Doesn't help that we all keep calling it the Argus - title sponsor doesn't seem to be worth much then

I fear John is correct, one superhuman guy with a pure focus on the tour and a great team will be VERY hard to beat. But jeez, with that team UAE will certainly not make it boring.

It boggles the mind that this is even possible in a City that wants to remain a tourism hotspot - it's not THAT big an area, and there are not THAT many muggers. Maybe we should get that angry guy from the other thread to come sort it out for us?

Just ordered most of those ingredients and will try it out - do you use anything for flavour? Also it might be good to get some potassium and magnesium in there, will see if there is an easy way.

Cool, I've put my results here https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/road-bike-reviews

I have gone through two major upgrades to my road biking experience, and I felt the need to check if they made any real-life difference. I figured it might be useful to share. Noting that while I tried to go about this with some level of science, there are obviously lots of faults in the methodology. Equipment Old: Giant Defy Endurance road bike with standard wheels Aero bike: SRT Aero 1.19 with Bontrager Affinity TLR wheels. It's not the most aero bike out there, but at least this bike has integrated cabling Aero wheels: SRT as above but with Lun Routte SE wheels (45/55mm) Methodology Take average power meter readings from all rides on a flattish Strava segment as well as log the time for the segment. This includes data over a period of about 3 years and conditions that vary significantly - wind, rain, drafting, smaller gear changes (like helmet / jersey), rider weight fluctuations, potentially some improvement in posture, etc. Throw out any clear outliers like punctures or other stops. The segment I chose is https://www.strava.com/segments/9082414 - it's one of the flatter ones I ride often enough to have a good amount of data. Run a trendline through the data in Excel to see if there remains a meaningful difference nonetheless. Try and quantify this difference for the two major upgrades at different power points. I stuck with exponential trendlines as that is closer to how it should increase with speed and therefore power (in a perfect world). Results The scatter plot is below: What is this telling me? 1. There is significant variation at the same power point, even with the same gear (you can see this in the relatively low R-squared values). This points to the fact that obviously it's not just the gear that determines the speed. Knowing the conditions much better in the Aero Wheel dataset (because they are recent), I believe the most significant contributor by far is wind. 2. Following this point, I saw some quite significant variations at the same power point on the same day, where you would have expected wind conditions to remain very similar. I chalk this down to the inherent gustiness that happens next to the mountain, you can be lucky or unlucky over the 4/5 min. 3. The Aero bike advantage is significant enough that it matters. Weird that the trendlines get closer together at higher power, but I am sure that's just a limitation of the amount of data. 4. The aero wheels are a much bigger advantage, and diverge a bit more like you would expect. Just because I have been excited to test the wheels a bit more, I have probably gone out on more windy days than I would normally have which means the difference is potentially understated What do my trendlines predict at different average power? Watts Old Aero bike Lun 100 06:09:39 06:00:41 05:50:14 150 05:43:06 05:34:57 05:21:13 200 05:18:28 05:11:04 04:54:36 250 04:55:36 04:48:53 04:30:11 300 04:34:23 04:28:16 04:07:48 325 04:24:21 04:18:32 03:57:19 350 04:14:41 04:09:08 03:47:16 At 300W I am already seeing a potential 26 second gain over a ~4min run - that is a crazy improvement! I have done 325W for this segment before (on the old wheels), and it looks like just the wheel upgrade would have gotten me below 4 mins on that day. Limitations There are lots of issues with this analysis, as I did not plan on doing this when I started "collecting" data: Drafting - some of these data points will include drafting, but I estimate that to be less than 5 of the total, and definitely none in the Aero Wheels set. Wind - Hoping that with enough data points this starts canceling out, but it has such a large effect that we won't really know without tracking it, and tracking it is very hard due to the gustiness next to the mountain. Rain - this also makes a bigger different than you think, even just a wet road makes a difference as some of your energy goes into throwing those drops into the air. Weight fluctuations - While I tried to look for a flattish route, there is still a small amount of elevation change. My weight has fluctuated between 82 and 89 kg for most of these data points. The newer data is around 85 kg. Other gains - Over the time period I got a better helmet, better jersey, moved to tubeless GP5000 from tubed GP4000, and have probably improved my position a little bit. Of these the position should be the most impactful, but I tried keeping it pretty standard for the newer data (riding in the drops). Power plot - it does make a difference how smooth your power output is. It seemed like smoother power output gave me faster results. Statistical analysis - there is some more statistical analysis I could do, but I've gotten enough out of this already so will stop here. Conclusion (TL:DR) Upgrades do make a measurable difference to a normal bike rider (it's not about the bike, but it is a little). You can buy speed! Upgrading wheels makes a much bigger difference than upgrading the rest of your bike. I can finally justify buying that power meter some years ago Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

This is pretty cool, but without the ability to choose how much time I have available, I would not be able to use it. A function where we can select the timeslots we can ride and the training plans adjust to that would be beneficial.

I've also had lots of different issues with my TICKR, replaced one under warranty, but the other one randomly gives many of the things others have described. It does seem to help to wash the chest strap after every ride, but does not solve all problems. I'd say it's very hard to recommend the product really.

Yeah I think that was more UAE money talking than anything else, but if it gets them lots of people it will be great to have a racing alternative

Does anyone other than Zwift have nice racing? On Zwift you can find a race with 100 people in your cat every hour and that (at least for me) makes indoor cycling very far from boring.

Some new road bike wheels (Lun Routte SE) that I finally got to test out after having to wait for two weeks due to stupid covid: Unfortunately the wind was crazy jerky coming down next to the mountain so got a bit scared, but they felt pretty great most of the time. Not sure it would have been different with my old shallow wheels.

This website should help you figure out relatively objectively what the best option should be: https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/road-bike-reviews?orderby=pr That list is sorted by puncture protection score. Seems to point to this one: https://mellowvelo.co.za/products/pirelli-cinturato-velo-tlr-700-x-26c-1 but the conti options also work well (just hate the grip of the gatorskin). I would also seriously consider tubeless (there is a good thread on here somewhere) - once I got my GP5000's sorted (TL and S-TR mix due to reasons) my punctures went right down. There is a bit of admin as you need to regularly top up sealant (I find every two months seems to work) but that also gets easy with practice. Also, one person's opinion means almost nothing, which I why the website above is a good guide. EDIT: OK, maybe @The Ouzo's opinion means more than nothing becuase he beat the website to the same answer

Look, while out on my MTB I tend to always greet, and when passing on the road as well. I'll even greet the person on the other side of the road with a taxi and a red bus between us for what it's worth. So at the risk of sounding like a boks to some of you, I think having an expectation that other people greet back is probably not fair. Who decides what is common decency / good manners? Perhaps someone is deep in thought processing the week's work drama (I sure do that sometimes). Perhaps someone is outside, tired of people, and wants a break from social expectations? Maybe the person has had a screaming / demanding baby in their ear for the last 7 hours and just wants some peace and quiet for a while in nature? Could it maybe not be "bad manners" to interrupt that? So my opinion is go ahead, be your friendly self, but as soon as you start getting annoyed by people who might not feel the same as you about things (and whose lack of response certainly has no negative effect), then that's on you, not them.

Check @Furbz post history - the site was done for maintenance and you can PM them for orders - although this was in June.

All of the climbs are available all the time during July (or during the TDF, not sure). Just use the challenge banner to select. I've done 5 out of the 8 and planning to do all - did the Tourmalet twice today as it was too wet outside and I'm tired of punctures. I don't care about the lack of scenery as I watch youtube on one half of the screen anyway

It was for significantly less time though, so not sure it's comparable. Looking at the spreads on the graphs in the lanternrouge article I would rather say that both were closer to exceptional but not top 30 all time (like Jonas was on stage 5). On another note, the JV domestiques are just incredible so far. They are destroying the peleton at will at the moment, and UAE have no answer other than relying on Pogacar being magical.

Interesting reading: https://lanternerouge.com/2023/07/05/jonas-vingegaard-skyrockets-on-marie-blanque-tour-de-france-2023-stage-5/ That was an all-time great climb from Vingegaard (estimated at 6.92W/kg for ~21m). Pogacar beat his previous bests on that climb significantly, which to me indicates more that Vingegaard is on a completely different climbing level right now to everyone else, rather than Pogacar being off his best. Disclaimer: Very hard to compare GC climbs between different days/years, as there are so many variables, but interesting to look at nonetheless

Hopefully Pogacar riding away from them

To be honest any of those would be cool, but I went for the Karoo 2 for my own very specific (and probably not even 100% correct) reasons: 1. Predictive climb, whereas on Garmin you need to be following a route 2. Free global maps versus Garmin only with one area 3. I like supporting smaller brands and find value in having something different than the rest 4. Garmin ecosystem is a bit like Apple - once you get in, it tends to be amazing as long as you stick inside the ecosystem 5. At this special price, the Karoo is cheaper than all the Garmin offerings, while being comparable in many ways to the top spec Garmin units (except for battery life, where Garmin wins hands down) 6. Supposedly the screen is amazing, but not a real differentiator for me

Hammerhead Karoo 2 on special for 259 USD (+30USD for delivery to SA, +~R950 duties fee). Getting mine early next week after ordering Tuesday. EDIT: just received it- modern logistics is legit magical. https://www.hammerhead.io/ Looks like you can use the referral program to get a free HRM included (https://www.hammerhead.io/pages/refer-a-friend) which I unfortunately did not see before ordering.

This thread has made me very glad that I have a 4iiii power meter - at last some proper customer service. I really liked the troubleshooting tips, simple steps yet detailed enough to cover any easy fixes. Well done 4iii.

Loved how yesterday was basically De Plus Vs Kuss vs Vine, with the leaders hanging on mostly. Is Roglic still slightly off his best or have G and Almeida just stepped up? Hoping that the looming TT does not damper the action today, there are no comfortable gaps in the top 3.