Have you at least been up there a ouple of days to acclimatize?
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Bicycle age
- Thread starter elrechazado
- Start date
Have you at least been up there a ouple of days to acclimatize?
jakonovski
Member
I've never cycled at altitude, but it seems like fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwzeUT82ZxQ
Psychotext
Member
Pretty much the main reason the Leadville 100 is so scary.
The other being that it's steep as fuck.
The other being that it's steep as fuck.
Hah nope, just got up here today.
At least the weather will be nice and one of the two difficult climbs is in the first 12 miles.
Woo-hoo! New computer arrived today. It's basic, but great! Shows speed, distance and ride time all at once on a giant display. I don't need anything else. For £18 I'm chuffed to bits. Needs a slight recalibration (it read about half a mile high on a ~32-miler) and I had to bar mount it (couldn't fit it securely on my Tharsis stem) but apart from that it's perfect. No doubt I'll find the old one tomorrow now.
Flying Wheels?
Intended to do a 48 mile ride today. Right at the start I hit a pothole so hard one of my water bottles went flying, so I immediately lost the group retrieving it. I also didn't realize until several miles later that the valve had popped off. The ride went into 5 or so miles with 1000 feet of climbing and when I hit mile 12 my body basically told me to fuck off. Routed a much more pleasant 15 miles back to the car. I definitely need to stick to <30 mile rides for a bit while I build up my stamina, and pay attention to the elevation profiles.
I've always wondered why roadies don't use Camelbaks..?
Some do, I don't like to carry stuff on my back. Gets all sweaty and the straps bother me.
jakonovski
Member
Apart from a backpack being hot, the traditional cycling jersey already has three pockets in the back. And personally, I've discovered that long efforts with a backpack give me lower back pain. Periodical stretching can help, but for me one of the charms of road riding is that you build up stamina and then you can cover large distances with your bike without stopping.
jakonovski
Member
Two 0.75l bottles is enough for a couple of hours, after that you gotta refill somewhere.
Psychotext
Member
It's a different mindset. On a road ride you're generally passing shops etc fairly regularly. On a mountain bike ride you take everything you need, or risk being in a bad state by the end of the day.
Absolutely perfect shady solo morning on the burke Gilman. Even got a slight tailwind on the return trip from Kenmore all the way to Fremont.
I can't deal with pack rides.
Parks, public schools, guard houses of gated communities, and a bunch of other places have water fountains you can use. I have a friend who seems to have every water source in the Santa Monica mountains memorized.
Plus water stops provide some of the few reasons to stop on a road ride unlike mtn bike rides where you can stop at almost ever trail intersection or top of long climbs.
1-Back heat.
2-Back pain.
3-The rules.
4-They're more annoying to clean, especially if you're not using plain water.
5-Pocket obstruction.
That sounds really bad. Check your rims and fork for bends or cracks. Also see if your wheels have been banged out of true.
Psychotext
Member
Stopping? I've heard of it.
Once I get going I usually only stop once I'm out of water (probably around four hours depending on the heat).
Oh, and those first two on the camelbak list are long gone with modern designs. 5 is irrelevant too with the hip pouch sort as they basically replace your pockets.
Number 4 (cleaning) is a non-issue too if you refill it after your ride and put the whole thing straight in the fridge.
Helps if you have two fridges, as it takes up a good bit of space with the pump and spare tubes in there...
Psychotext
Member
I freeze mine. Pretty much the same deal.
Unrelated... what a downer. Amazing weather, but had an utterly awful ride today. Trail was totally shit. Best part of it was a climb, which should pretty much say all that needs to be said.
Worse, I replaced one of my chainrings with the wrong type and got the chain stuck between the inner and outer rings.
Unrelated... what a downer. Amazing weather, but had an utterly awful ride today. Trail was totally shit. Best part of it was a climb, which should pretty much say all that needs to be said.
Worse, I replaced one of my chainrings with the wrong type and got the chain stuck between the inner and outer rings.
Ouch!Worse, I replaced one of my chainrings with the wrong type and got the chain stuck between the inner and outer rings.
There's a lot of weirdness that can happen with chain and ring types. On my '79 6-speed triple, if you use a particularly narrow 8-speed chain, occasionally the chain won't engage all the way to the middle ring when you derail it from the big ring; instead, it'll be where the outside plates are rubbing against the inside of the big ring and the inside plates are sort of riding on top of the middle ring. But this can be fixed by simply moving the FD a bit farther to the inside and continuing to pedal.
Having the chain actually slip between the rings sounds nasty; without any drive force on it, I hope it at least wasn't jamming itself down there, but just resting disengaged?
Last night I went on a little Amazon binge and bought a mechanic's stand, bike wash stuff and a torque wrench. I found a good video online about adjusting the 105 FD and I'm going to give a go at making my trim work correctly. Hopefully it won't result in me at the bike shop asking them to undo all my damage
Psychotext
Member
No, it was flat out jammed in there. I could only get it out by wrenching with both hands, and getting my riding partner to backpedal at the same time.
Vaguely related, with the hill repeats I was doing, I apparently ended up doing 4 more miles than him (24.6m vs 20.4m).
Get a one-by. I really don't miss the other two rings at all.
Psychotext
Member
I've never had a problem with 2x until I put the wrong ring on.
Psychotext
Member
Some incredible runs in the Downhill World Cup: http://www.redbull.tv/live/AP-1KR6H1G411W11/uci-mountain-bike-world-cup
Wont spoil the results.
Wont spoil the results.
Some incredible runs in the Downhill World Cup: http://www.redbull.tv/live/AP-1KR6H1G411W11/uci-mountain-bike-world-cup
Wont spoil the results.
This guy doing a training run is pretty hilarious.
http://www.redbull.tv/video/AP-1N2Y...KR6H1G411W11:clip/fort-william-course-preview
Psychotext
Member
I love that, casually commentating at a speed I could literally never achieve.
One time I got to 55 on a downhill on pch on the aids ride and my frame started warping.
Noooooioooookpe. And this was rim brakes time.
2002whitegt
Member
Hey, nice to find a big biking community here on gaf.
My brother and I started hitting up a nice singletrack here in Houston late last year, and mountain biking has become our obsession.
Haven't been able to ride in a over a month since all the flooding, and some parts are still under.
It's going to take a few work parties to get the trails ride-able again.
So anyways, we bought some hardtail bikes to dip our toes into the scene, but want to get a full-suspension at the end of the year, any recommendations under $2,500?
My brother and I started hitting up a nice singletrack here in Houston late last year, and mountain biking has become our obsession.
Haven't been able to ride in a over a month since all the flooding, and some parts are still under.
It's going to take a few work parties to get the trails ride-able again.
So anyways, we bought some hardtail bikes to dip our toes into the scene, but want to get a full-suspension at the end of the year, any recommendations under $2,500?
What's the hill situation like in Houston? To me the geology seems like hardtail heaven.
2002whitegt
Member
My local track has some elevation changes but nothing like long uphill stretches, here's a few vids of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zLnswa93_8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ3kZTMWawo
They've added a lot more jumps in the past year too, and I also want to head over to Austin to try out some of trails there.
My Tokul 2 is has been a great beginner bike for now.
Welcome to CycleGAF, fellow mountain biker. We're outnumbered by the
Those trails look like fun - that's exactly the type of terrain I love riding locally.
Psychotext
Member
I love the little speedo and elevation indicator on that second vid. I wonder how they did that.
TarpitCarnivore
Member
Psychotext
Member
Psh, I don't need to be seeing lycra clad asses when I train. My suffering is already bad enough.
This is honestly one of the reasons I'm excited about improving VR. Imagine doing some of those terrifying razor edge mountain trails?
Psychotext
Member
I might never cycle again having seen myself fall to my death a few times.
TarpitCarnivore
Member
You can just hit restart though!
Seriously though if VR can get to a point of being properly immersive and not just a screen with Google Map images updating it'd be pretty nice. Half the reason I go insane indoors is because of this.
Seriously though if VR can get to a point of being properly immersive and not just a screen with Google Map images updating it'd be pretty nice. Half the reason I go insane indoors is because of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYDo11b0rFoI might never cycle again having seen myself fall to my death a few times.
frontieruk
Member
Garmin virb sports camera, bit like the gopro but does some cool data points, also will sync up with their cadence and power sensors, heart rate belts etc.
Psychotext
Member
Remarkably unscathed.
I've always been impressed by how well some roadies manage to handle cornering ridiculously quickly downhill.
I've always been impressed by how well some roadies manage to handle cornering ridiculously quickly downhill.
I am moving to a city which is much flatter and has a lot of bike lanes and paths. I would love to be able cycle around the city instead of busing for part of the year. Unfortunately I know pretty much nothing about bikes and haven't owned or ridden one in about ten years. Where do I look to buy a bike? What costs should I expect? What kind of bike should I consider? What should I know about city riding? Is it even a good idea?
If you're unsure, go to a local bike shop (LBS). Bike shops are the most expensive option for getting a given bicycle in your hands, but:
1-You can try out different things on the spot.
2-You'll get fitted.
3-They'll service any early problems free of charge, and the purchase typically comes with one tune-up for correcting for the breaking-in process.
Lowest-end LBS bikes typically fall in the $300-$400 range. At this price point you can get heavy beach cruisers and super-upright hybrid/mountain-bike/cruiser thingies. Doesn't take much more than that to get a perfectly good single-speed bike. And for double that you can get a reasonable, if basic, multi-speed entry-level road racing bike.
Diminishing returns set in quickly. For $15,000 you can get an 11-pound 22-speed fancy-schmancy carbon-fiber high-performance machine that feels tighter and will get you to the top of a hill a few seconds faster.
In addition to the bicycle itself, people often wind up wanting to change saddle for fit reasons. Basic replacement saddles could run $30-$60 or so.
Most entry-level bikes come with cheapo platform pedals. These more or less do the job, and plenty of people are fine with them.
Some people wind up wanting grippier platform pedals. There are various options, notably pedals that have set screws sticking out of them that dig into your sole. These will also draw blood if any part of you so much as grazes said set screws, but that's part of the fun! Expect to lose another $40-$100 dollars if you decide to go down this route.
Some people wind up wanting to use "clipless" pedals (which do the opposite of what the name sounds), where you have a cleat on your shoe that clips into the pedal, securing your foot to the cranks. This is nice in that, if the cleat has been positioned correctly on your shoe, you can ride your bike without thinking about foot contact or positioning. If you decide to go down this route, you might be looking at something like $30-$120 for the pedals+cleats and $50-$120 for the shoe. The downside of these is that you're using a cycling-specific shoe: there are "mountain bike" pedal options like SPD where the cleat sits into the shoe and walking feels mostly normal-ish, but there are also "road bike" pedal options like SPD-SL where the cleat sticks out from the shoe and walking is a bit clunky. So this needs to be kept in mind for commuting (i.e. do you carry an extra pair of shoes with you to work).
Other things:
Bottle cages could run you $10-$20 each depending on whether you get basic metal ones or fancy-schmancy nylon ones.
You should get some manner of repair kit, enough to adjust basic things on your bike and repair flats. This means a multitool with at least screwdrivers and hex keys, tire levers, a spare tube, tube patches, a saddle bag to shove this stuff in, and either a pump or a CO2 setup. Some LBSs sell basic kits containing basically all of this for around $50. If you want to pick out fancier tools and a higher-quality saddle bag, this can quickly run you over $100.
Depends on what you care about and what you think you might wind up doing with it.
If your city doesn't have have lots of steep hills and you want a machine that's simple and reliable and requires minimal maintenance, an urban single-speed might be your thing.
It can be intimidating, depending on where you're going and in what city. You'll want to learn your roads. But it's good exercise and, depending on when you're riding, can be faster than taking a car.
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