Bicycling

D

Disp_sl

shitlord
1,544
1
Seventh_sl said:
There's no way I'd learn to clip in and out on trails. I clip in on my road bike, but am still uncomfortable on the trail with them. I'm planning to run them on my fatty over the winter and anticipate making plenty of snow angels.

Just get some good flats and Five Tens man.
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Yeah, the trails I run just have so many areas that I really need to unclip on to keep my balance. Lots of jagged rocks, roots, and steep drops. The people I run with mostly go clipless, but they've been riding these trails for 20+ years.

Here's one of the ridiculous spills I took yesterday. Completely retarded. Saw my friend stopped ahead of me so I slowed down, and didn't have enough momentum to get my rear tire over this stupid pipe in the ground, and went timber. Took the handle bar to the jaw and just raged haha.


I really like the clips most of the time, but right now the downside just outweighs any benefit I'm getting from them. I don't have the time right now to add another day a week for riding to get better with them unfortunately.
 
Fifey

Fifey

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^^^ I like the anger after the fall.

Are you using SPDs? If so, you should look into using the SH56 instead of the SH51, it's a multi directional release so it helps with beginner woes.
 
Miguex

Miguex

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Try simple things like riding around your neighborhood and working on balancing while riding on top of curbs and such while clipped in, or whomping the curb at different speeds (slow is always worse it seems). When I first got into MTB about 12 years ago I just spent a lot of time dicking around in front of my house getting comfortable, and then would ride once or twice a week on the trails. I've recently gotten back into it after 5 years away and it came back quick, but I still get a lot out of just working with the bike a few minutes on the street. Just some ideas.
 
Famm

Famm

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Disp_sl said:
Saw my friend stopped ahead of me so I slowed down, and didn't have enough momentum to get my rear tire over this stupid pipe in the ground, and went timber. Took the handle bar to the jaw and just raged haha.
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Yeah, looks like more momentum would have been key there, but also try to get your butt out of the saddle and use some body english to float the bike over the obstacle.
 
latheboy

latheboy

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I've got a young bloke we take out on the single tracks.

Old Kona Blast (hard tail) with a Britax "Jockey Comfort" on the back.

Either I ride 2 up and my Wife rides solo or the other way around.

Really good set up I think, but we only do easy single tracks 2 up.

Whoever is solo rides infront as a shield for on coming riders...... Some places we ride the people have no concern for anyone else and push through even if they don't have right of way.
 
Jim Russel

Jim Russel

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Seventh_sl said:
Century today - rode this pulling a guy I work with, who's 63. Check the pace - I'll be damned if he didn't keep up with me the entire time.
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Jesus dude, that heart rate. How did you get in such good cycling shape? How long have you been cycling for and how old are you?
 
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Seventh

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Etwynn_sl said:
Jesus dude, that heart rate. How did you get in such good cycling shape? How long have you been cycling for and how old are you?
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Hah, thanks dude! This is actually my first full season. I've done just over 3,000 miles, and another 500 running in the last year.

This time last year I weighed 230 lbs (I'm 5'10) , so I bought a shitty Raleigh comfort bike to see if I'd like cycling. I have a desk job, and I quit smoking about 3 years ago. That combo, plus getting older (I'm 38) just destroyed my fitness. I was in pretty solid shape many moons ago, but the last 10 years have been long nights, lots of business travel/hotels/shitty food and basically no exercise.

The Raleigh starter bike lasted about 3 weeks, I grabbed the MTB around the end of last August, then the road bike last September, and have since just pedaled and ran my ass off for the last year. I weigh 175 now and went from a size 40 waist to a 32. I don't even really watch what I eat (I hit Chipotle at least once a week and devour everything), I just do a shitload of cardio. I don't really eat sweets anyway, but I definitely wouldn't call my "diet" anything special. I still work a lot, so on work days I bang out either a 5/10k before work or a quick 20 mile road loop, and then on the weekends I just gun it on the trail in the early morning before my girlfriend wakes up.

Basically I just ride a lot, and run on days that I don't have time to ride. Bikes are awesome. I feel a bit bad reading weight loss threads because people are eating all sorts of weird diets and trying keto and all this other random shit, while I'm in the best shape of my life and all I do is blast around the woods with my buddies, haha. I hate to admit it, but Strava has a ton to do with it for me. It's pretty motivating to see your friends out there belting it out, and on days when I'd rather just sit on my ass and play Diablo it gets me that little extra kick in the ass that I need to go get a run/ride in.
 
Miguex

Miguex

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Seventh_sl said:
What Seventh said
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That's awesome bro, your story almost exactly mirrors mine down to the height and weight, and what we are doing to burn it off. You're a little ahead of me, I've been doing heavy cardio about 5-6 times a week, ran my first 5k race this weekend and decided I think I'm more of a 10k person, but I just started running to keep going while I had an elbow injury that kept me off my bikes for a few months. Got really serious and I'm at 190 now from 228 this time last year. I watch my diet a little bit but not militantly, kicked soda 6 months ago. Feel fucking awesome and so motivated to just keep crushing it. Keep it up!
 
Fifey

Fifey

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I just like posting in the weight loss thread cause everyone worries about their caloric intake when my strategy is eat everything, they will hate on you cause your bench press isn't strong though.

Also, I raced my first cross race ever today . I think I got mid teens out of a fortyish field, I raced the c class but I'll do ss next week since I know more people in that field. Here's a sweet action shot.
 
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That's fucking awesome. I joined some Global Corporate Challenge and wasn't doing great with step counting until someone mentioned you can put in cycling stuff. At about the same time I decided I didn't want to drive around town anymore and that I was going to bike more. ~700 miles of biking and I'm down 28 lbs (I'm just shy of 6ft and now weight 200). I'm still looking forward to biking, but I think I'm going to get a nice winter-layer of fat :|
 
opiate82

opiate82

Bronze Squire
3,078
5
Disp_sl said:
Yeah, the trails I run just have so many areas that I really need to unclip on to keep my balance. Lots of jagged rocks, roots, and steep drops. The people I run with mostly go clipless, but they've been riding these trails for 20+ years.

Here's one of the ridiculous spills I took yesterday. Completely retarded. Saw my friend stopped ahead of me so I slowed down, and didn't have enough momentum to get my rear tire over this stupid pipe in the ground, and went timber. Took the handle bar to the jaw and just raged haha.

I really like the clips most of the time, but right now the downside just outweighs any benefit I'm getting from them. I don't have the time right now to add another day a week for riding to get better with them unfortunately.
Click to expand...
I would advise you to stick with it. I'm to the point now with my clipless that even when I ride flats I still instinctively twist my foot off my pedal as if I was clipped in when I need to put my foot down. It will become second nature eventually, but I agree the learning period is frustrating.

If you look at all the top DH racers they all use clipless pedals these days, I think that is pretty telling to the benefit of them. Just need to get past that "these pedals keep causing me to fall" period.
 
Jim Russel

Jim Russel

Lord Nagafen Raider
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Seventh_sl said:
Hah, thanks dude! This is actually my first full season. I've done just over 3,000 miles, and another 500 running in the last year.

This time last year I weighed 230 lbs (I'm 5'10) , so I bought a shitty Raleigh comfort bike to see if I'd like cycling. I have a desk job, and I quit smoking about 3 years ago. That combo, plus getting older (I'm 38) just destroyed my fitness. I was in pretty solid shape many moons ago, but the last 10 years have been long nights, lots of business travel/hotels/shitty food and basically no exercise.

The Raleigh starter bike lasted about 3 weeks, I grabbed the MTB around the end of last August, then the road bike last September, and have since just pedaled and ran my ass off for the last year. I weigh 175 now and went from a size 40 waist to a 32. I don't even really watch what I eat (I hit Chipotle at least once a week and devour everything), I just do a shitload of cardio. I don't really eat sweets anyway, but I definitely wouldn't call my "diet" anything special. I still work a lot, so on work days I bang out either a 5/10k before work or a quick 20 mile road loop, and then on the weekends I just gun it on the trail in the early morning before my girlfriend wakes up.

Basically I just ride a lot, and run on days that I don't have time to ride. Bikes are awesome. I feel a bit bad reading weight loss threads because people are eating all sorts of weird diets and trying keto and all this other random shit, while I'm in the best shape of my life and all I do is blast around the woods with my buddies, haha. I hate to admit it, but Strava has a ton to do with it for me. It's pretty motivating to see your friends out there belting it out, and on days when I'd rather just sit on my ass and play Diablo it gets me that little extra kick in the ass that I need to go get a run/ride in.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the response. Sounds like you've put in the miles and are reaping the benefits. I'm really into the idea of high volume as the best training method, but as of yet I haven't been able to get into a rhythm. I think part of the problem is that I'm too self-conscious to ride slow enough for the effort to be repeatable the next day. So I end up exhausting myself or tweaking something and needing to take 2-3 days of recovery. I bought a bike trainer and am going to try for some high-volume low intensity riding this winter. I could probably do 15 hours a week or even more (I'm a grad student), but the question is whether I have the patience to ride at 60-70% HR indoors on a trainer for that many hours a week. With that said, I'm pretty determined to get into better in aerobic shape. I'm relatively young (26) and would have, until recently, considered myself to be in good shape. But now I'm realizing that all of my exercise activities have been power-oriented (rock climbing, power-yoga, etc). This has resulted in pretty low levels of aerobic endurance capacity despite being a decent rock climber with normal body weight. I'll go on a very easy ride (avg of 14-15 mph without much hills) and my heart rate will be in zone 3. Supposedly this is a symptom of being under-trained aerobically (sometimes referred to as aerobic deficiency syndrome--typically associated with/exacerbated by only doing power-activities) and the only solution is lots of embarrassingly slow LSD (Long Slow Distance).

The trainer I got has a fluid resistance unit so I should be able to correlated speed with power pretty accurately. Comparing power to HR should be able to provide solid benchmarks with respect to how I'm improving. Haven't set up the trainer yet because I'm about to move, but I'm pretty excited to start with this program.

I wonder if anyone has any advice on how quickly I can ramp up my training hours. I've been commuting 2 miles roundtrip every workday for the last 3 years and put in about 500 miles of pleasure riding last summer. Less this summer, probably only about 200. I'm planning on doing all my training in zone 2 (60-70% HR) for now to keep things simple. I can worry about threshold rides and intervals when I'm in better shape. So my goal is to get up to at least 15 hours a week and sustain that through the winter/spring. Should I start with ~4 hours a week and increase by 10% each week? Can I ramp up faster since it's low intensity? Do I need to incorporate rest weeks as I'm ramping up?
 
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apex

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Etwynn_sl said:
Thanks for the response. Sounds like you've put in the miles and are reaping the benefits. I'm really into the idea of high volume as the best training method, but as of yet I haven't been able to get into a rhythm. I think part of the problem is that I'm too self-conscious to ride slow enough for the effort to be repeatable the next day. So I end up exhausting myself or tweaking something and needing to take 2-3 days of recovery. I bought a bike trainer and am going to try for some high-volume low intensity riding this winter. I could probably do 15 hours a week or even more (I'm a grad student), but the question is whether I have the patience to ride at 60-70% HR indoors on a trainer for that many hours a week. With that said, I'm pretty determined to get into better in aerobic shape. I'm relatively young (26) and would have, until recently, considered myself to be in good shape. But now I'm realizing that all of my exercise activities have been power-oriented (rock climbing, power-yoga, etc). This has resulted in pretty low levels of aerobic endurance capacity despite being a decent rock climber with normal body weight. I'll go on a very easy ride (avg of 14-15 mph without much hills) and my heart rate will be in zone 3. Supposedly this is a symptom of being under-trained aerobically (sometimes referred to as aerobic deficiency syndrome--typically associated with/exacerbated by only doing power-activities) and the only solution is lots of embarrassingly slow LSD (Long Slow Distance).

The trainer I got has a fluid resistance unit so I should be able to correlated speed with power pretty accurately. Comparing power to HR should be able to provide solid benchmarks with respect to how I'm improving. Haven't set up the trainer yet because I'm about to move, but I'm pretty excited to start with this program.

I wonder if anyone has any advice on how quickly I can ramp up my training hours. I've been commuting 2 miles roundtrip every workday for the last 3 years and put in about 500 miles of pleasure riding last summer. Less this summer, probably only about 200. I'm planning on doing all my training in zone 2 (60-70% HR) for now to keep things simple. I can worry about threshold rides and intervals when I'm in better shape. So my goal is to get up to at least 15 hours a week and sustain that through the winter/spring. Should I start with ~4 hours a week and increase by 10% each week? Can I ramp up faster since it's low intensity? Do I need to incorporate rest weeks as I'm ramping up?
Click to expand...
For your commute 2 miles doesn't seem like long enough to get warmed up and get any sort of benefit (physically). I'd start with adding a few miles to your commute if feasible. Take a longer route and get to 5+ each way. I was doing 8-10 miles through just commuting each way and the results came without me realizing it. Honestly though I like to go fast and when there is a yellow light I'm sprinting my ass off. Some days if I'm dead exhausted or just not feeling it I'll do a nice easy recovery ride where I'm likely in the lower heart rate zones.
 
Jim Russel

Jim Russel

Lord Nagafen Raider
509
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Rabkorik_sl said:
I hope this is the right thread. I recently switched jobs and live ~12 miles from work. I plan on biking some of the days and was wondering what light to buy for the morning commute. I was looking at this but not sure if I could do better:

Amazon.com: The Best Rechargeable 1200 Lumen Bicycle Light - Outdoors
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I have a cygolight, I think the 600 lumen version, which is plenty bright. Just be sure to get a cygolight model with a replaceable battery because they lose their ability to hold a charge eventually.

Edit: don't know much about the quality of the one you linked, it's cheaper than the cygolight model I'm recommending but I'm not a fan of external battery packs.
 
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I have and older one of these:Amazon.com : NiteRider Lumina 350 Wireless / USB Rechargable Headlight : Bike Headlights : Sports Outdoors
And it's great.

I don't know about the quality of the one you linked... but the product name alone scares me away as it being mostly marketing. I also dislike having a battery pack (I've got a frame bag, so any other shit just gets in the way), so the all-in-one nature of the Lumina 350 is pretty nice. I ride quite a bit at night and usually get ~6 hours out of the Lumina 300. Once it gets down to the point that the indicator of low battery comes on, another lower-power mode comes on as well.
 
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