Reply With QuoteThose pedals look lethal. I use Odyssey Svelte Ti pedals and carry permanent scars of both shins from them.
No pain no gain 😁
I can imagine the potential carnage caused by the less aggressively serrated edges of an ordinary steel pedal, because I suffered said carnage in 1973. I very well remember sitting there, having a look at my tendons through the bloody gap that had appeared just below my left knee and wondering why it didn't hurt (it definitely did a few minutes later).Originally Posted by higham5
Eight stitches and a tetanus shot followed. Still the only time I've been injected in the bum (feel free to make up your own jokes here).
So yes, I don't think I'd favour pedals like those myself.
Those pedals look lethal. I use Odyssey Svelte Ti pedals and carry permanent scars of both shins from them.
No pain no gain 😁
A great first ride on my new Enigma Escape...absolutely perfect for a muddy canal path.
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Looks good ^^^^^^^^^^^^ and those mudflaps do a great job of keeping crap off anyone riding behind you plus keeping the bike clean. Have a quick google for gravel tyre pressures, if you are from the road scene they are often lower.
This is a good resource, you will be amazed how dropping a few psi improves both comfort and grip DAMHIK
https://silca.cc/en-gb/pages/pro-tir...dfQgnrGXJPBKa_
Thanks...it rides as good as it looks. Re mudguards, a few years ago I'd have laughed if you'd suggested I'd ride with them on ... "not cool"
Fast forward, and I'd not ride in Winter without them. No more wet feet or a soggy bottom, and like you said keeps the bike clean too.
Re tyre pressures, yes 50 psi is more than enough.
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Talking about mudlfaps as you do, these are the best aftermarket ones available.
https://rawmudflap.uk/
Agreed ^^^^^^^^^^^^^I have one of their rears on my gravel bike, I should get a front too.
Steve
Those are the ones I use, front and back. Extra long.
For those of us who like a bit of mud‘n dirt with their cycling the Cyclocross season is underway in Europe. The indomitable Matthew Van der Pol entered the race below as his season opener. He’s in action on the 26&27/12 plus a number of days early in the new year.
Im sure I read in a few of the races he will butt heads or should that be elbows with a certain Wout Van Aert. Cant wait
https://youtu.be/29-mO3y1G9s?si=r5FJhn3B_vM3sThl
Steve
^^^ I do enjoy a bit of cyclo-cross.
Agreed. Fitted to 3 of my bikes
I've now completed ten years of regular cycling and I've been looking over my statistics. Every ride I've done since January 2015 has been documented in a spreadsheet - date, distance, which bike.
I've done 80,082 km in that time (49,761 miles), over 1530 rides. Very roughly, 7% of the time I've been awake in the last ten years has been spent propelling a bicycle.
Greatest distance cycled in a month: 1302km, August 2016. Shortest monthly distance: 29km, December 2018. I'd injured my knees.
Longest ride: 324 km, June 20th this year. That was the most enjoyable one, as well. Lovely day out in warm sunshine (mostly - I was up and away before sunrise). Least enjoyable ride: 25th June 2022, when I was nearly knocked off my bike by unforecast aggressive torrential rain and hailstones.
The following graph shows number of rides per year - I had a bit of a manic cycling habit by 2016. I was going cycling most lunchtimes weather permitting and most of those 303 rides are less than 30km.
Since my knee injury in 2018, my average ride distance has increased steadily (next graph). For sure, early retirement at the end of June this year has helped to improve the 2024 statistic (85.65 km).
The last graph shows the total distance in km for each of the last ten years. 2024 was a personal record year (10,621 km or 6600 miles).
Impressive, (if a touch anoraky on the spreadsheets, but in a good way), I guess I could get my data from Garmin Connect, but too lazy!
I must admit that one of the great pleasures of this ten year (and counting) cycling habit has been the indulgent joy of nerding out over spreadsheets. I started recording rides in a very simple Linux terminal-based spreadsheet called sc, but within a few weeks I'd transferred the data to Google Sheets. Over the years I've gradually refined and developed the spreadsheet so that it calculates various statistics at a glance - monthly distances per bike, monthly targets based on distance already done in a given year, number of fondos per month, average distance, median distance, the distance I'm ahead or behind of the same date in previous years, number of km I've done on each bike since it was lubed and some other stuff.Impressive, (if a touch anoraky on the spreadsheets, but in a good way
It's very easy to get graphs out of Google Sheets.
Retail therapy has been another cycling indulgence - I've bought seven bikes (and sold one, the old Halfords hybrid that I started 2015 with). A large quantity of cycling clothing and cycling parts. And lots of gadgets. I have a few GPS bike computers and seven or eight GPS watches. I must move some of them on.
Quite a good year of cycling for me witg over 3,200 miles ridden.
2024 also marked my first child which has had an ever growing impact on the time I can spend on my own fitness.
That said, I spent 20 minutes this afternoon running some errands on my 1980s Rossin with my trusty Blancpain perpetual keeping my company so with a bit of effort, the small distances really add up.
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Two classic examples, well done, congrats on your first child , ride now as soon your hobby will change as everything subordinates to the young un :)Quite a good year of cycling for me witg over 3,200 miles ridden.
2024 also marked my first child which has had an ever growing impact on the time I can spend on my own fitness.
That said, I spent 20 minutes this afternoon running some errands on my 1980s Rossin with my trusty Blancpain perpetual keeping my company so with a bit of effort, the small distances really add up.
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I found cycling to be a pretty good option with my kids when they were babies, easy just to find an hour or two and get some miles in so long as I was prepared to be carpe diem about it.
Thanks gents, it helps that I commute to work, so I get a minimum of 2 hours on the bike per week.
Around 5 hours a week would be great to keep me in decent enough shape to race in the spring, but we will see how we go
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My firm intention was to do a fondo over to Eastwell and back today. Sure, it was going to be very cold. But the wind speed was forecast to be very low and it was going to be sunny all day.
Well, when I got up, I changed my mind. Looked rather frosty out there. But I set off at about 1100, thinking I'd do maybe 50k or so.
The road surface looked a bit precarious (icy in other words) over the first few hundred metres, but fine once I hit a well-travelled road. I wasn't too concerned about the surface I was pedalling along, but it was Baltic out there. My fingers were painfully cold after a couple of km, even in my thickest gloves. I genuinely considered turning back and if I'd known the conditions were going to be as cold as that, I wouldn't even have set off.
But I had set off. So I pressed on. And after about an hour, with the sun out and the air temperature having climbed a bit, I'd started to enjoy myself slightly. I still wasn't going to do 100km, though. I'd set off too late for that and I had the uncomfortable thought that changing an inner tube with icy fingers would be a nightmare, if I got a puncture.
By the time I came to the junction with East Road, I'd decided I was going to turn back soon. So I took the left along there to do something a bit different. After another km or so I came to another junction with a left turn I'd never tried before. So I went along there. Quite a nice road. Well surfaced and quiet.
And I was gliding along quite happily in the sunshine when I noticed a car in the ditch, with two police officers in attendance, about 80 metres up ahead. In the same instant the bike gave way under me, and it and I both collided with the road. We both slid spectacularly along the ground for about three metres, like aggressively propelled curling stones.
Fair play to the two police officers, a young man who looked unsettlingly like Harry Maguire and a young blonde woman. They came running the second they heard the bike clatter against the tarmac and saw what had happened, but I already had a hand raised to indicate that I was OK, I think before I'd even slid to a stop. I think the sheer frictionlessness of the road surface, despite having caused the incident, had prevented an injury. Nearly all of the kinetic energy inherent from the momentum of the bike was expended on sliding along the road.
I took stock. The two coppers were creditably attentive but I assured them I was fine. The bike (my Planet X) looked alright as well. For a moment I thought I'd buggered the rear mech (again, I only replaced it last year) because the chain was hanging loose but once I'd threaded it back onto a chainring it appeared to be working satisfactorily.
The road surface didn't even look icy, or frosty. But it had a very thin, transparent layer of ice that was incredibly slippery. My clothes weren't even scuffed. My bum does have a bruise put apart from that I'm unscathed. I realised when I changed into the easiest cog at the back that the bike didn't completely get away with it - the rear pulley rattled against the spokes like a ruler dragged along a set of railings. All the other gears are fine, and it was even changing up and down nicely. But the rear hanger is slightly bent inward. Just enough to shift the indexing by exactly one place, possibly. In any case I made a mental note not to resort to the granny gear on the way home.
I think I just need to bend the hanger back into alignment. Probably the best approach is to take it right off and straighten it in a vice or something, rather than pulling on the mech. I'll think about that when the garage is a bit warmer.
No more mishaps on the way back. I came a slightly longer way back after Belton, only because I thought the roads stood a better chance of being clear.
Back on 67.81 km. Be careful out there. 243 km this month now.
Last edited by monogroover; 11th January 2025 at 00:16.
That's ^^^ a decent effort given conditions today and glad you survived relatively unscathed, as my concern is always that an off coincides with something big coming the other way!
Glad you are OK. But nuts to consider cycling on icy roads.
Why is that? I cycle all through the winter and most days its icy.
Why? Because you could fall off and break a hip or collarbone…
I cycle all through winter but not if I consider it an ice risk day, I have fallen previously exactly as described above and I have no wish to do it again.
Well done for cycling in the ice, hope your run of luck continues…
Edit. I note you are in Finland so probably have studded tyres. We don’t have that here …
Well, yes, that's the trick. I run two wheelset, others with gravel tires and others with studded tyres. Before the ride I just choose which wheels to ride depending on the weather. The studded tyres are super good, you can often cycle where people can not walk.
That’s a different situation to here … skinny rubber tyres on icy roads is not a happy combination.
Finally bit the bullet back in December and picked up this to explore the gravel hype - my 2nd Canyon and really impressed, have parked the CFR until spring and using this as a road winter bike also.
Highly recommended
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Hope you're okay Mono. Do you have an alignment tool? Easy fix if you do, or just order a new hanger assuming it's replaceable.
Nice Canyon Spoge.
I think off-road is the safer bet in these conditions.
I just cycled to the train station to get to work yesterday and was taking it very steady. You just don't know on a bike and pretty much have no chance of recovering it once you've gone.
Will fire up the Zwift this weekend!
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Last edited by xxnick1975; 11th January 2025 at 09:17.
Nice Canyon, always fancied trying one but if I buy another bike I think a divorce might be on the cards😁
I use the WattBike in the gym when the winter weather gets too bad. Have the app on my phone which the bike links to. There's loads of different workout sessions so keeps me happy. Looking forward to nicer weather though so I can get back out on the roads (hopefully next week🤞):
I stay on treated roads and ride away from the edge (this on the commute) i remember coming off and my head rattling on the road (my thought was glad I have a helmet on) and another time thinking I'd broken my shoulder. Keep going straight if possible. But a thin invisible layer of ice with ordinary tyres and you are down. not worth going out if its like that
I rode the week before last. Bike computer showed minus four.There were six of us out, I was running 35mm road/ gravel tyres. We had been out for about 90 mins when there was a thump behind us. I then realised we had ridden straight across a 30 m section of black ice! Goodness knows why we didnt stack it , but the lad behind went down hard. We turned to walk back and couldn’t keep upright! Water had run across the road from a field and created an ice rink for the unwary.
Last edited by higham5; 11th January 2025 at 15:00.
Believe it or not that bike is already on its second hanger. Fitted it in November '23, it had a short life. A pothole was to blame last time. I ordered another one just in case but I've ordered an alignment tool as well and it's likely I think that the present hanger (the black one, pictured just after I bought it, with the one I'd bent out of shape) can be retained.
I'm not a frequent hanger pranger. Twice in 80,000+ km of cycling. It's not a habit.
Sounds like you have it all in hand. Amazing the difference it makes, especially with the modern 11/12/13 speed set ups.Believe it or not that bike is already on its second hanger. Fitted it in November '23, it had a short life. A pothole was to blame last time. I ordered another one just in case but I've ordered an alignment tool as well and it's likely I think that the present hanger (the black one, pictured just after I bought it, with the one I'd bent out of shape) can be retained.
I'm not a frequent hanger pranger. Twice in 80,000+ km of cycling. It's not a habit.
Replaceable hangers have been a great development. No doubt manufacturers will come up with something different and worse soon. Also see bottom brackets!
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Already have with 'SRAM UDH', and in turn this will dispense with hangers altogether so the rear mech bolts directly on to the frame.
https://www.sram.com/en/sram/mountai...e-transmission
Interesting. I guess it's backwards compatible as you would just remove the hanger.
Looking at the website I'm not sure quite how it improves resilience to hitting rocks
Currently, I like the fact a £10-20 pressed aluminium hanger is sacrificed to save a £50-100 rear mech. I've gone through a few and it works.
I can see the RRP on that mech is $480!! I know it's electronic but goodness me.
I guess I'm an analogue guy in a digital world. I like the simple mechanical utilitarian element of cycling.
Do like SRAM dub bbs mind. Think they are a good improvement
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Last edited by xxnick1975; 12th January 2025 at 12:35.
Nice Orro, i have the Venturi STC and prominently use it as my race bike. I've had it about 9 months and like it!Nice Canyon, always fancied trying one but if I buy another bike I think a divorce might be on the cardsðŸ˜
I use the WattBike in the gym when the winter weather gets too bad. Have the app on my phone which the bike links to. There's loads of different workout sessions so keeps me happy. Looking forward to nicer weather though so I can get back out on the roads (hopefully next week🤞):
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Can anyone recommend a torch for cycling?
Mrs Right-Force wants to do some evening rides in unlit woodland tracks.
The spec:
High illumination
Broad beam of light rather than a spot.
Budget - £70?
She would prefer a head torch rather than one fixed to the bicycle so it can be used for other purposes as well.
On a related topic: we`ve seen some torches advertised on t`internet at having 90,000 lumen.
I used to work in the LED lighting industry and know that 90,000 lumens is a huge amount of light intensity. Unprobably huge, probably.
An average ceiling light emits around 1,000 lm for example, a car headlight (LED) 3,000, where the hell do they get 90K lumens from out of a torch or is it marketing BS?
I've had great service from a couple of CatEye 800s.
Comes with either handlebar mount or helmet mount, and can just be used as a hand held torch if walking about.
Reliable, good battery life, bright, a few settings and easy to use, the brackets and interface are all good. Recommended.
That's said there are loads out there so you might well get other good suggestions
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You’ll get a lot of opinions. I use Lezyne. Exposure are supposed to be the best for unlit night rides. I’d say 1000+ lumens would be necessary to safely ride on unlit forest tracks. Check the battery life as well.
Her choice of course but I’d choose a handlebar or stem mounted light. To get a decent brightness and battery it might weigh 200g which I wouldn’t want on my head.
Last edited by alfat33; 13th January 2025 at 21:07.
Agree with the comment above to prefer a handlebar light. With only a helmet light you get no shadowing as the light is aligned with your eyes and you lose depth perception and will be harder to see rocks, washouts and uneven terrain. Ideal combination is a flood light on the handlebars and smaller spot light on the helmet but if I had to choose one it would be handlebars everytime.
Plenty of high budget options but something from knog, cateye, lezyne are decent quality and should do the job and be readily available at a reasonable price (brands listed in order of my personal preference ignoring the higher cost premium brands).
The brands offering the massive lumens are generally cheap and nasty and to be avoided, certainly not delivering that output and are low quality with poor battery life, beam patterns etc etc.
Also pay attention to how the light is attached to the bars/helmet and charging method. Good quality solid clamps/attachments go a long way towards the enjoyment of the product as does simple charging. You want them to be simple to attach and charge and not rattle/wobble as you ride.
Happy shopping.
For properly dark, off road rides the best option is to have both head and handlebar lights, one to illuminate the track and the other where you're looking but I appreciate that ups the cost significantly.
I've used an Exposure Diablo for many years (forget which version) and it's been absolutely bombproof. Pricey but you get what you pay for.
Nick its not just the rear mech the breakable hanger is protecting its the frame. My pal dropped his Specialised on ice, rear mech bent but stayed on went into the wheel and cracked the frame! Cue new bike!
Regular woodland night rider here…
I’d suggest using both handlebar and helmet mounted options together. Far better depth perception.
Personally I use Exposure lights. A Diablo on the helmet and Maxx-D on the bars. Great combination but very expensive. Fantastic backup from them as a company though, should anything go wrong.
At a lower price point, I’ve previously used MagicShine and other Cree based solutions. Quality can be variable. My last set used to make an interesting hissing sound when being charged….
If your budget can stretch a little (£100ish per light), Mark at MTB Batteries is a great guy and his Luminator lights are very good.
https://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk
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Thanks, they are great bikes. I use this as my do everything bike, race, training, out with mates on easier rides. Find it quick but comfortable on longer rides so a win win😁
Re lights I have the Moon Meteor Storm Pro with an alleged 2000 lumens, it's certainly very bright with good focus and has good battery life. I quite regularly do my club's mid-week evening pub run and certainly wouldn't want anything less good, and that's a road ride albeit we do rattle along pretty quickly. I'd recommend it.
I'd say a handlebar mounted light is a must, with the helmet mounted light optional, just be aware there is potential added risk of having a light on the helmet.
I also have a CatEye 900 lumens as my back-up and for what it is it's pretty good.
Thanks very much for the advice on illumination, plenty of research to do there.
The problem these days is the choice is enormous........
Indeed. Sounds like your friend was bloody unlucky. Was it a CF frame?
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I felt the same at first when I bought mine, but if you start with a couple of brands at the most from those recommended, and look only at the high lumen ones, it will narrow down pretty quickly.
Last edited by alfat33; Yesterday at 21:46.
No a Specialized Allez, the mess of the derailleur wrenching the chain plus the fall put a crease / kink in the alloy frame. He was pretty beat up too, including having to ring his missus for recovery. However since then its been Carbon all day and no nighttime dancing on ice.
In fact he’s just few weeks before Christmas picked up a Specialised Tarmac pro 105 di2. £4600 down to £2400 at Evans. So he has two carbons now :)
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