@mountainrunner —I feel like you should retitle that video from “chasing MTBs” to “Catching and Passing MTBs”. Love the girl with the horse — she must have been riding bareback in the woods, that’s just a bb pad.
@HLaB Wow- nice!! You are so fast! ! Imagine how fast you will be when your arm is all better!
Three day weekend so decided to go for a drive and make a day out of it. I got to ride some easy fun new (to me) singletrack today. So nice to ride something new!
Well yesterday was the inaugural Essex bound version of the RideLondon 100, normally I’d get the fast bike out, but as I’m nowhere near usual fitness (September bike accident, air ambulance, coma for a week, turbo from January, outside on bike in March), I decided I had to do something mad or I’d always compare it to my other times. So the Brompton it was! Had no expectations of times and no plan other than “all out”, so just went for it.
Was stopped for a major accident, but otherwise non stop, completing in 5:21 moving, which would be a reasonably respectable time on a road bike, never mind a Brompton!
Such a mix of reactions, a lot of encouragement ,“good effort mate”, a smattering of disbelief “you’ve got the electric Brompton… right??” (no, I don’t !), but plenty of conversations involving the word “Brompton” started as I passed… !
Excellent I decided against using a Brompton for my hilly 11 miles post train commute as I thought it would be to slow and squeeze a full size road bike in the train; perhaps I should reconsider
Great go on the Brompton. Didn’t they limit the speed for RideLondon this year so it wouldn’t have mattered?
The Brompton is great, but a plug for a bike I bought my wife for her Boston (USA) commute is a derivative of the Brompton, the Austin. It’s carbon so it’s lighter for her and has a belt drive, which I wanted so she didn’t have to clean the chain, wouldn’t have to listen to a dirty chain, and wouldn’t risk getting chain grease on her. It is obviously more expensive than the Brompton, though…
They walked back on that one within 48 hours after a backlash, it was a “misprint” apparently, there were ~300 people <4 hours (25mph+) so no one was held up at all.
Actually, whilst it’s heavy (unless you drop £4k on a Ti one) the Brompton can be turned into a reasonably decent, if a little twitchy, “road” bike with a few mods… Yeah you’re about 20% slower and you’re gonna suffer when the road goes up, but I think their reputation comes more from the normal type of riding (slow short commutes) they’re seen doing.
The Midweek Paceline for me tonight, not that its mid week but folk are away on Wednesday, I have a 50 mile (circa 80km) TT on Thursday so the move suited me anyway. One of my mates though who likes to ride fast everywhere predictably blew up but did so earlier having ridden hard every day since Friday. So it was quite a relaxed Paceline (only 0.63 IF for me fo 90 mins). We were pretty lucky with the weather. It bucketed at 4pm but dried up for the ride. It started again as we left and we thought we were going to be soaked but it never got any heavier and after circa a third of the ride. It was the same route as last week meeting in Yaxley for a ride through Folksworth, Polebrook, Great Gidding, Winwick, Old Weston, Alconbury Weston and back up the old A1 to Stilton.
There’s some kind of problem with my road bike. I think the problem is with the rear hub. The noise only starts after about an hour of constant pressure, like riding my flat-ish loop around the lake, and didn’t appear (I don’t think) when doing my road climbs (like the 18mi w 3300’ ascent), but perhaps that’s what caused it? No way. Anyway, here’s a video with the noise. Note that the GoPro capture makes it sound more like a chain clink (or whatever) but in person, it’s more plastic-y or carbon-y or something. At first I thought it might be a seatpost-frame issue, or bottom bracket, but once the noise starts, getting the saddle made no difference, weighting left or right pedal made no difference. It seems to cease when I stopped pedaling, though the ratchet is quite loud. Once it starts, it continues like it’s heat-related (from friction?). Stopping to inspect the bike and then restarting, it doesn’t come back immediately but within about 5min. It’s both annoying and concerning, as in, what if the noise is ahead of catastrophic failure? I dropped off the bike with my LBS after today’s ride. They’re good but this…
I had intended to get out yesterday for a lake loop, but my son’s schedule in the morning and the rain plus high wind in the afternoon meant a punt. This morning it was clear-ish with rain starting now in the afternoon.
The ride was notionally Picuris+2 sweet spot. Excluding the descent from home to the lake-side road and excluding the climb from the lake side to home, it’s 38mi with 770’ of ascent, so pancake flat for me
Bike sounds can indeed be weird; I get a click, click sound at a certain cadence and power/resistance and IMC its nothing to do with the bike, rather a slight play in the cleat/pedal interface.
Black was in my calendar tonight. The TR outside workout is just one big interval so I thought I’d recreate the indoors one in Training Peaks to break it up.
Had no expectations of times and no plan other than “all out”, so just went for it.
I decided against using a Brompton for my hilly 11 miles post train commute as I thought it would be to slow and squeeze a full size road bike in the train; perhaps I should reconsider 
