Fun fun fun

Quoted message said:

Thanks for the offer M... I'm starting to think of doing
what Simon does and use it as the permanent security for
home, buying a smaller one for the bike - the Magnum is
really heavy!

WHAT?!?!?!?

<view, reveal thread, reads previous posts>

phew.

I was persuaded into cycling, so then persuaded my better
half to try the route to my parents (I thought it about 10
miles away, turns out to be more like 8). I knew I was
capable of the distance, but the terrain was a slight
concern - uphill all the way there to varying degrees, with
virtually no let-up - as were some of the roads/traffic
combinations.

In the event it went really well, despite me having major
headache with cycle computer whilst at parents and losing
all the settings in the process of getting back it's ability
to tell me what gear I'm in (very necessary feature of it).

Need to instill in parents the idea that when a cyclist says
'ooh it's traditional to have cake, you can be our cake
stop' that generally means they need refuelling with more
than just one slice ;-)

Got the urge to raise the saddle so next time out should be
a little easier on the knees. Managed to spin more, and
managed to cycle up a small and not as steep as I thought
hill whilst still keeping the cadence up nice and high,
which I've not managed before (I run out of gears and the
rpm is waaaay too low normally).

Need to get better at stopping and getting started again
quick at traffic lights, wished I had just one toestrap
fitted, I'd be able to just pull the pedal up if I had, yet
not have the panic of having to remove other foot from pedal
on stopping. Need to signal, still relying on following
t'other half and him doing the signalling for the both of
us. Need to learn to change down sprockets and brake at the
same time (should be possible in theory, but in practice I
can't quite get the fingers to do what they need to do to
make it work).

Cycled down a hill I'd balked at before (down hills are
scary). Cycled almost all the way up it on the return, which
I'd never managed before. Cycled a long steady gentleish
gradient that got steeper at the end (why do hills always do
that?) - that was a relatively narrow country road, fairly
well used by traffic as the alternative is a 40mph and this
is a NSL, and wasn't bothered overly by the traffic.

Bounced over a very nasty trench badly filled in across the
road, so no avoiding of it, and discovered bike wheels are a
lot stronger than I thought (no sign of rim distortion
though I've not pinged spokes yet, and no snakebite puncture
either) - and managed not to wobble enough to fall off bike.
Managed an extended downhill gradient (gentle) at around
20mph average (previously this was Scary).

For some reason didn't feel quite so 'as one with the bike'
but putting that down to mixing with traffic and being more
tense from that, so hopefully that'll improve. Was led
around the dreaded one-way system in the middle of Purley
and wasn't splatted, so that was a major acheivement too.

Returned hot and tired but not exhausted, and rather pleased
with myself
- relieved that the NSL road was actually fairly pleasant
and not resembling something you'd find at Alton Towers,
and a bit amazed that I was actually capable of cycling to
my parents and back and only being defeated by one hill in
the entire ride (and that was only a 50% defeat!)

Velvet

Velvet [email hidden] opined the following...

Quoted message said:

I was persuaded into cycling, so then persuaded my better
half to try the route to my parents (I thought it about 10
miles away, turns out to be more like 8). I knew I was
capable of the distance, but the terrain was a slight
concern - uphill all the way there to varying degrees,
with virtually no let-up - as were some of the
roads/traffic combinations.

In the event it went really well, despite me having major
headache with cycle computer whilst at parents and losing
all the settings in the process of getting back it's
ability to tell me what gear I'm in (very necessary
feature of it).

Need to instill in parents the idea that when a cyclist
says 'ooh it's traditional to have cake, you can be our
cake stop' that generally means they need refuelling with
more than just one slice ;-)

Got the urge to raise the saddle so next time out should
be a little easier on the knees. Managed to spin more, and
managed to cycle up a small and not as steep as I thought
hill whilst still keeping the cadence up nice and high,
which I've not managed before (I run out of gears and the
rpm is waaaay too low normally).

Need to get better at stopping and getting started again
quick at traffic lights, wished I had just one toestrap
fitted, I'd be able to just pull the pedal up if I had,
yet not have the panic of having to remove other foot from
pedal on stopping. Need to signal, still relying on
following t'other half and him doing the signalling for
the both of us. Need to learn to change down sprockets and
brake at the same time (should be possible in theory, but
in practice I can't quite get the fingers to do what they
need to do to make it work).

Cycled down a hill I'd balked at before (down hills are
scary). Cycled almost all the way up it on the return,
which I'd never managed before. Cycled a long steady
gentleish gradient that got steeper at the end (why do
hills always do that?) - that was a relatively narrow
country road, fairly well used by traffic as the
alternative is a 40mph and this is a NSL, and wasn't
bothered overly by the traffic.

Bounced over a very nasty trench badly filled in across
the road, so no avoiding of it, and discovered bike wheels
are a lot stronger than I thought (no sign of rim
distortion though I've not pinged spokes yet, and no
snakebite puncture either) - and managed not to wobble
enough to fall off bike. Managed an extended downhill
gradient (gentle) at around 20mph average (previously this
was Scary).

For some reason didn't feel quite so 'as one with the
bike' but putting that down to mixing with traffic and
being more tense from that, so hopefully that'll improve.
Was led around the dreaded one-way system in the middle of
Purley and wasn't splatted, so that was a major
acheivement too.

Returned hot and tired but not exhausted, and rather
pleased with myself
- relieved that the NSL road was actually fairly pleasant
and not resembling something you'd find at Alton Towers,
and a bit amazed that I was actually capable of cycling
to my parents and back and only being defeated by one
hill in the entire ride (and that was only a 50%
defeat!)

Glad you enjoyed the ride. With regard to down hills, the
ride I was posting about includes a wonderful downhill
section of rural road. According to the speedo (When I dared
take my eyes off the road!) I was at 44.7mph. At that speed
I hit three recessed drain covers and swore like a trooper
as I was convinced my front wheel was about to turn crisp
shaped. Despite this, both I and the bike survived although
I was mildy disappointed to find that the speedo claimed a
maximum of 44.0mph afterwards. One day I intend to break
45mph on that hill.

Jon

Glad you enjoyed the ride. Keep it up!

Cheers, helen s

--This is an invalid email address to avoid spam-- to get
correct one remove fame & fortune
h*$el*$$e*nd**$o$ts**i*$*$m*m$o*n*s@$*a$o*l.c**$om$

--Due to financial crisis the light at the end of the tunnel
is switched off--

Velvet <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

In the event it went really well, despite me having major
headache with cycle computer whilst at parents and losing
all the settings in the process of getting back it's
ability to tell me what gear I'm in (very necessary
feature of it).

The Flightdeck? An excellent computer with the ability to
give you virtual cadence; I really like mine. Did you sort
it out before the ride back? I can't bear to have something
like that not working properly. I'd rather put it in my
pocket than have to look at it giving strange readings.

Quoted message said:

Need to instill in parents the idea that when a cyclist
says 'ooh it's traditional to have cake, you can be our
cake stop' that generally means they need refuelling with
more than just one slice ;-)

The aged p's definitely need re-educating on that score.

Quoted message said:

Returned hot and tired but not exhausted, and rather
pleased with myself
- relieved that the NSL road was actually fairly pleasant
and not resembling something you'd find at Alton Towers,
and a bit amazed that I was actually capable of cycling
to my parents and back and only being defeated by one
hill in the entire ride (and that was only a 50%
defeat!)

Well done, that woman! It sounds as though you just need to
get more rides like this in so you can begin to relax a bit
more on the bike. Then it really will be fun.

--
Dave...

Jon Senior <jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOTco_DOT_uk> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Glad you enjoyed the ride. With regard to down hills, the
ride I was posting about includes a wonderful downhill
section of rural road. According to the speedo (When I
dared take my eyes off the road!) I was at 44.7mph. At
that speed I hit three recessed drain covers and swore
like a trooper as I was convinced my front wheel was about
to turn crisp shaped.

A Pringled wheel at that speed could spoil your entire day.
:-(

--
Dave...

Jon Senior said:

Anyone else managed to take advantage of the lovely
weather?

Better that we had Saturday's weather /on/ Saturday and that
of March 21st on that day rather than the other way round...
Spent an hour belting around Thruxton on Saturday which was
all good clean fun except for my inability to arrange for
Mr. Fleming's handlebars to fall off during the final
sprint. Bah!

--

Dave Larrington - legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uklegslarry.beerdrinkers.co.ukOpen ↗
===========================================================
Editor - British Human Power Club Newsletter
bhpc.org.ukbhpc.org.ukOpen ↗
===========================================================

Quoted message said:

Anyone else managed to take advantage of the lovely weather?

Didn't manage to get out on saturday but went out for a run with the local club yesterday morning - 45 somewhat undulating miles through the east Kent countryside at a moderate-to-brisk pace. One of the group had a camera and has put the pics up on the club website - you can see me here (blue jersey, second place):
http://www.canterburycycleclub.net/sunday/25apr04_012.jpg

You can find the pic of me fixing a puncture yourselves (this was how I discovered that I had no rim tape on my rear wheel - can't think how that happened, but it was particularly embarrassing to make the discovery while on a club run).

d.

Dave Kahn said:

The Flightdeck? An excellent computer with the ability to
give you virtual cadence; I really like mine. Did you sort
it out before the ride back? I can't bear to have
something like that not working properly. I'd rather put
it in my pocket than have to look at it giving strange
readings.

I was miffed, definitely, cos I'd been interested in my
experiments with keeping the cadence much higher (I tend to
cycle somewhere between 70-80rpm and find keeping it 80-
90rpm which would undoubtably be better for my knees AND
prevent running out of gears on hills really quite
difficult). But I was willing to forgo any hope of cadence
(though did stick in the rough wheel size) since I ended up
accidentally defaulting the entire thing, thus losing the
gear teeth settings and odometer etc. As long as it showed
me gears, I was happy - speed, cadence, distance etc, though
nice to know, aren't essentials to enable me to ride without
coming a cropper through mis-selecting the wrong gear, or
attempting to select one that doesn't actually exist ;-)

Quoted message said:

Well done, that woman! It sounds as though you just need
to get more rides like this in so you can begin to relax a
bit more on the bike. Then it really will be fun.

Ta :-) Yes, I love cycling, I'm just a bit nervous still,
but it's improving all the time, and I'm constantly amazed
at the distance I can do provided the terrain is fairly un-
hilly (or at least long slow climbs not up/down/up/down).

Velvet

Quoted message said:

As long as it showed me gears, I was happy - speed,
cadence, distance etc, though nice to know, aren't
essentials to enable me to ride without coming a cropper
through mis-selecting the wrong gear, or attempting to
select one that doesn't actually exist ;-)

I think you might be relying on it just a bit too much here!

Quoted message said:

You can find the pic of me fixing a puncture yourselves
(this was how I discovered that I had no rim tape on my
rear wheel - can't think how that happened, but it was
particularly embarrassing to make the discovery while on a
club run).

Some photos there of your club riding in February slush
*without* mudguards! Yuk! :-(

Simonb said:

Quoted message said:

As long as it showed me gears, I was happy - speed,
cadence, distance etc, though nice to know, aren't
essentials to enable me to ride without coming a cropper
through mis-selecting the wrong gear, or attempting to
select one that doesn't actually exist ;-)

I think you might be relying on it just a bit too
much here!

you've not seen me on a bike, have you :-)

My previous bike many many *many* years ago was a 3 speed SA
hub :-) This is a whole different kettle of fish, and
doesn't take much to send me into a bit of a tizz :-)
There's a lot of things different about this bike than what
I've had before, so it's almost been like learning to ride
all over again (and I'm not quite there yet).

Velvet

In article
<[email hidden]>, dkahn400
@yahoo.co.uk says...

Quoted message said:

A Pringled wheel at that speed could spoil your entire
day. :-(

If it just spoilt my day I'd be happy. I don't imagine that
flying over the handlebars at 40mph would be a Good Thing.
Perhaps I should buy a cycle helmet... ;-)

Jon

Jon Senior said:

If it just spoilt my day I'd be happy. I don't imagine
that flying over the handlebars at 40mph would be a Good
Thing. Perhaps I should buy a cycle helmet... ;-)

No, buy the sort of bike[1] where you're much less likely to
fly over the handlebars... ;-)

Pete.

[1] begins with the letter 'R'
--
Peter Clinch University of Dundee Tel 44 1382 660111 ext.
33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177
Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net [email hidden]
dundee.ac.uk~pjclinchOpen ↗

Quoted message said:

No, buy the sort of bike[1] where you're much less likely to fly over the handlebars... ;-)

The sort of bike where you're already over the handlebars to start with?

How do they handle going downhill at speed? Pretty good, I'd imagine.

d.

Quoted message said:

The aged p's

A Woosterism if ever I saw one!

d.

Quoted message said:

Some photos there of your club riding in February slush *without* mudguards! Yuk! :-(

They say they're not a competitive bunch, but some of them are closet roadies with the kind of seriously lightweight bikes that are built with only one purpose in mind...

Mind you, the one I envy most is Fred's utterly *gorgeous* Mercian.

d.

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

No, buy the sort of bike[1] where you're much less likely
to fly over the handlebars... ;-)

Quoted message said:

[1] begins with the letter 'R'

Heading to Glasgow at some point soon with the intention
of having a play on one. My finances won't stretch to a
new bike at the minute, but it's something that I'm
keeping in mind!

Jon

"John Hearns" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

MSeries said:

Thats pretty much what I do. On day rides I usually
don't bother taking any kind of lock. I rarely leave the
bike unattended, when I do its either in a very quiet
village or at a out of town garage which are usually
quiet also. I rarely go into cafes or pubs when I'm
cycling.

I think that would be a good topic for a thread.

A short thread.

Quoted message said:

Cycle friendly cafes and pubs.

Cafes and pubs that are friendly to anyone at all?

"Peter Clinch" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Jon Senior said:

If it just spoilt my day I'd be happy. I don't imagine
that flying over the handlebars at 40mph would be a Good
Thing. Perhaps I should buy a cycle helmet... ;-)

No, buy the sort of bike[1] where you're much less likely
to fly over the handlebars... ;-)

Pete.

[1] begins with the letter 'R'

Tandem doesn't begin with 'R' in any language I know :-)

cheers, clive