Search found 868 matches

by speedsixdave
26 Jun 2023, 10:34pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: 6 week tour for relative newbies.
Replies: 37
Views: 4365

Re: 6 week tour for relative newbies.

I'm a fan of the 'book the start and end (if needed) and make the rest of it up as you go along' school. Firstly you will get a good gauge of your fitness only after a week or so, and also of the capabilities of your erse for sitting on a saddle for six hours a day for days on end. You might find after a week or two what seemed a lot of cycling at the start now seems a reasonable day, or you might find that your prescribed mileages prevent you from seeing the things you actually want to look at on the way.

On the saddle thing, I have not done enough hours on the bike this year before going touring for a fortnight straight and have found my erse tender after a few hours, so a day off after three days then four days was much appreciated. If you are fully hardened this shouldn't be a problem. It's the first year for a long time I can remember this being an issue, though I consider mine a comfortable saddle.

Secondly, you have rightly considered the weather and this is a big factor in route planning if you have the flexibility to deal with it. In 2019 I planned to go to the Alps but the forecast was terrible there for the next week so I trained to the Pyrenees instead where it was much drier. In 2001 I was heading south-east towards Avignon and did half a day into the Mistral before deciding that a change of direction would ease my passage massively, so turned left for a few days. If you are not keen on 35 degrees plus (who is?) you might well be wise to head north rather than south. Flexibility is your friend here. It might cost you more but it might be a lot more fun too.
by speedsixdave
26 Jun 2023, 10:18pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: 6 week tour for relative newbies.
Replies: 37
Views: 4365

Re: 6 week tour for relative newbies.

simonhill wrote: 26 Jun 2023, 8:14pm Steve, have you checked out the price of accommodation in Western Europe? It's not cheap nowadays. Six weeks will set you back a fair wadge.

Sorry if you have already taken this into account, but it's worth pointing out.
Cheaper than Britain! I'm on week 4 in France and there are plenty of options on AirBnB or Booking.com for less than £50/night. That was hard to do in the UK in 2020 and 2021, last time I toured there. Of course a bit of camping brings the average cost down significantly too if you like that sort of thing.
by speedsixdave
31 Jul 2022, 10:42am
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: French supermarket opening on Sunday afternoons
Replies: 18
Views: 1514

Re: French supermarket opening on Sunday afternoons

In France I generally work on the premise that Nearly Everything Is Shut Nearly All Of The Time, and find this serves me quite well. If you see a shop open, stock up on stuff, and make sure you've always got some emergency dry supplies in the way of nuts, cereal bars etc.

I did a long ride to Luchon a few years ago on a Bank Holiday where absolutely nothing was open - every village I thought
there must be a bar or a tabac or petrol station or something open, but no luck at all. And then caught out again at La Mongie having climbed the Tourmalet, where everyone went home at 6pm and the whole town shut, leaving me with no food for the night. Nuts, chocolate and emergency whisky for dinner that night!
by speedsixdave
27 Jun 2022, 9:58pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Cash v Contactless use in France?
Replies: 51
Views: 2149

Re: Cash v Contactless use in France?

Also just back from France and Germany. France was almost entirely card- or contactless-friendly, even in little bakeries etc, but as noted above with the exception of (a) some chambres d'hotes, even when booked via Booking.com and (b) tourist tax in some places. I'd keep a hundred Euros cash in your wallet for just in case.

Germany was, surprisingly for me, still much more cash-based, especially in pubs and bars. I'm sure they'd have got the card machine out if I'd actually had no cash but lots of places were still the barmaid with the big black wallet. Felt kinda retro in 2022.
by speedsixdave
27 Jun 2022, 9:37pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: Looking for SPD Road shoes
Replies: 7
Views: 663

Re: Looking for SPD Road shoes

I have a pair of lace-up Giro Republics which I like very much, so they are of course discontinued now. 2-bolt cleats and quite a low-profile look. But Giro do a range of 2-bolt shoes, some of which are very pricey. They suit my feet, they may or may nor suit yours.

https://www.giro.co.uk/cycling-c45/shoe ... 5#t6:t501
'Gravel' shoes may be what to look out for.
by speedsixdave
16 Jun 2022, 9:39pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: High cost of joining a cycling event
Replies: 42
Views: 2657

Re: High cost of joining a cycling event

I've done a few of these things, each for a reason. The Pembrokeshire 100 a couple of times, as something serious to aim at and get fit for, and because we have friends in Pembrokeshire. The Oxfordshire white roads, as a chance to do a decent 'white roads' ride with a friend of mine, on roads we didn't know without too much map reading and dead ending. They've been pretty well organised and good fun, and I've met people and ridden in roads I wouldn't have done otherwise.

Better still are the retro and Eroicae events. I live in Derbyshire and the Eroica Britannia years were full of folk telling me they didn't need to pay £60 to ride round the Peaks on an old bike. But did they? I think not. I found the chance to meet loads of interesting folk with interesting bikes pretty fantastic, and the ride itself was a bit of a bonus, though I am definitely more Velo Retro than Eroica Britannia Goodwood.
by speedsixdave
16 Jun 2022, 8:30pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: ...how to read foreign maps?
Replies: 14
Views: 1016

Re: ...how to read foreign maps?

Galactic wrote: 16 Jun 2022, 7:18pm

For Germany, you really can't beat the BVA Radtourenkarten 1:150k maps,

I am a huge fan of the BVA maps, and miss them sorely when traveling in other countries
Thanks Galactic, that's really useful (or would have been a week ago!}. I can't remember if I saw them in the Freiburg bookshop but I think my natural inclination world have been to ignore 1:150000 in favour of something bigger. But it's been a sure fire learning experience. Small scale that is legible and useful is better than large scale that is not.
by speedsixdave
16 Jun 2022, 6:13pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: ...how to read foreign maps?
Replies: 14
Views: 1016

Re: ...how to read foreign maps?

Thanks Jonathan, I'll have a look at the Bikeline books. And I should have tried The Map Shop. What I've found interesting (!) is the difference between a map that looks good in a shop and a map that works well when you're not sure which way to go on a hillside desolate. I had a 1:200 000 map of that bit of Germany with me that I didn't like the look of in the comfort of my living room, so I took it as backup and then left it at a charity book exchange* when I'd bought the Kompass map. The Kompass map looked the best of the bunch in the shop, but I couldn't get on with it as discussed. I wonder if visitors to the UK feel the same about OS maps? Is it merely that that's what we've been brought up with?

Apologies for this bit, because I've now had two pints of excellent French 7% craft beer. When I was a youth I was reasonably certain that all sorts of British things were better then their foreign counterparts, including but not limited to: touring bikes, explorers, aeroplanes, batsmen, armed forces, legal systems, literature, pop music, films, meteorological services, maps, sausages, cheese and of course beer. But as I have grown older, I have realised that the world is somewhat more nuanced. But the OS? Surely that is our one undeniable advantage over les autres!




*I popped back the same way a couple of hours later and had a look, and noted that the map had gone. I was pleased at the time, but now I worry that someone had spotted a Rare Good Map and snapped it up...
by speedsixdave
16 Jun 2022, 3:27pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: ...how to read foreign maps?
Replies: 14
Views: 1016

...how to read foreign maps?

I'm a mappy kind of guy. If I'm going to a new area in the UK I'll always get the relevant OS mapping and I can be very happy for an age just reading a Landranger. What greater pleasure in life does a man need?

I am currently touring in France and Germany - Alsace and the Black Forest, and very nice it is too. Though I lament the lack of OS mapping in France, I'm fairly comfortable with the Michelin 1:200 000 series, especially for the weight saving over a stack of Landrangers. There's a lot to like in the Michelins, especially the green edging along particularly good routes and the well-known Michelin Star system applied to towns and villages. Is Le Struthof worth a detour and a stiff climb? Two stars suggests it probably is. And I like that you can buy a map book of the entirety of France for about £15 and cut out the pages you need.

Disappointingly my Michelin map pages run out about Freiburg, just into Germany, so my plan was to pop into a bookshop in Freiburg and buy a map of the Black Forest. There were lots of options at different scales, and I eventually selected a Kompass map specifically targetted at cyclists, at a somewhat useful 1:70 000 scale:
_DSC4750.jpg
The problem is, I just can't read the dashed thing! I've had the best part of a week with it in the Black Forest, and I just can't get on with it at all. A couple of days ago I skirted down the bottom edge of the Black Forest before turning north again towards the astounding Sankt Blasien (no stars to suggest quality). Imagine my surprise when the cycle path I was on suddenly ran along the bank of the Rhine, Europe's biggest river! Looking hard at the map I could indeed see it, but it was lost completely among all the other information:
Can you see the Rhine?
Can you see the Rhine?
After Sankt Blasien I drifted back into an area covered my the Michelins and found myself enormously relieved, reverting back straight away to the smaller-scale, clearer mapping. Consider these two different representations of the area around the Belchen mountain:
_DSC4743.jpg
original_f7ba1a19-cf5d-4f5e-9e9b-5880f975e624__DSC4744.jpg
Maybe its my aging eyes, but I just can't 'read' the German map happily at all. I can't figure out instantly the hierarchy of roads, though of course there is a key. They only bother chevronning cycle routes, and then > is 3-7% and >> is greater than 7%. I'm happy to ride up an 8% gradient all day long, but will actively avoid 20% with bags if I can. But you're on your own with the contours and shading there. And a 3% gradient is not worth indicating in my book. I think much of the problem here is that it's heavily biased towards showing cycle routes, and as soon as you stray from those, there be dragons.

I know we are spoilt in the UK, but this has led me to consider how good the French Michelin maps are too, in their own way. Does anyone know of good German mapping for cyclists for next time?
by speedsixdave
30 May 2022, 10:20pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Ventoux - how tough?
Replies: 60
Views: 3352

Re: Ventoux - how tough?

MrsHJ wrote: 30 May 2022, 9:10pm
Tiggertoo wrote: 29 May 2022, 3:35pm I don't know why the industry has gone away from triples to the compact doubles, much better solution to the issue of gearing.

My steel bike has a triple which I used to use in the mountains, and like you I have spent a lot of money messing around with the rear set on the double when I should have just stuck with the triple on the steel bike.
Yep, totally, LBS sold a compact double tourer to one of my cycling buddies and it’s pretty tough using on Devon roads for training let alone climbing when on tour.
This still makes me a bit sad. It was so easy to have decent high gears, lots of useful middle gears, good chainlines, strong-ish rear wheels and some tiny bail-out granny gears, all for the price of a very slightly more challenging front change. But that's progress, apparently.
by speedsixdave
24 May 2022, 9:29am
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: Schlumpf Speed Drive
Replies: 18
Views: 2210

Re: Schlumpf Speed Drive

Indexing is famously a bit dodgy on early AMs too, just to add spice, as the mech hanger has rather different geometry to the preferred modern specs. But of course there's always friction, with a decent offer nowadays of good downtube (and thumbshift?) levers, if you are prepared to pay the price.
by speedsixdave
23 May 2022, 10:11pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: Schlumpf Speed Drive
Replies: 18
Views: 2210

Re: Schlumpf Speed Drive

https://www.microshift.com/news/introdu ... er-short/
This won't do anything for the aesthetics of your AM7, Simon, but a 9-speed 11-38 cassette could give you around 21-72in on a 48 chainring, which would fit your bill. But, as ever, I suspect it's aimed at 135mm hub spacing and I bet your AM is 130 or even 126mm. Same with the Sturmey though.
by speedsixdave
22 May 2022, 9:48pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Ventoux - how tough?
Replies: 60
Views: 3352

Re: Ventoux - how tough?

May I make the point about the wind again? It is not named Ventoux for nothing. 8% in and of itself is no small undertaking but the Ventoux has recorded the highest wind speeds in Europe and the Mistral blows regularly in Provence. If you climb it on a windy day proper low gears will be of great benefit. Better to have them and not need them, than to need them and not have them.

I agree that smaller chainrings with a similar gap is probably the best way to go, and a call to Spa Cycles might be a good starting point.
by speedsixdave
21 May 2022, 10:38pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Ventoux - how tough?
Replies: 60
Views: 3352

Re: Ventoux - how tough?

Only you will know whether you are confident with 34x32 - about 28". How have you found it on UK hills?

I did it twenty years ago, on a converted mountain bike tourer with four panniers and full camping gear, with a bottom gear of 24x32 or 19.5". From Sault, via Chalet Reynard and the Tommy Simpson memorial. Also 50mph on the descent, with rather underpowered cantilevered brakes. I was the fittest I've ever been on a bike, after three weeks touring in the Alps.

I don't think, as a bit of topography, it's as hard as the Galibier or the Tourmalet or indeed the Col de Romme, which was an Alpine horror, let alone some of the sustained 1-in-5 and steeper hills in the UK, such as Hardknott Pass or the Devil's Staircase or Rosedale Chimney. It certainly does not have the technical difficulty of those sort of climbs, of trying to keep momentum on the ultra-steep bits while trying not to lift the front wheel or let the back wheel lose traction. It's just a pretty long, pretty steep hill.

For me, the killer on the Ventoux was the wind. I had an old Cateye computer then and there was a moment when I was pushing hard, presumably in bottom gear, on the moonscape and into the headwind, and the computer genuinely read 0km/h. You might get a day without wind, which will be fine, or you might get the full 320km/h wind , in which case you may struggle.

If you can get your bottom gear a bit lower, down to 22" or 24", you should have no problems at all. But doing that on a modern bike is sometimes more difficult than climbing Mont Ventoux!
by speedsixdave
13 Apr 2022, 10:01pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Good USB-chargeable cameras for touring
Replies: 21
Views: 1693

Re: Good USB-chargeable cameras for touring

TrevA wrote: 11 Apr 2022, 11:43am A new RX100 is £850. Do we really have to spend that much to get a decent pocket camera?
Richard Fairhurst wrote: 11 Apr 2022, 11:51am The improvements in RX100s have been very much incremental over the years, so second-hand ones can often be a good buy. I picked up a MkIII last year for £200 on eBay after my much-loved MkI rattled out of its holder on the rough bit of the Strawberry Line by the Thatchers factory...
Agreed. Cameras nowadays are amazing but they're also mighty pricey. A good place to be with tech is about five years behind the bleeding edge, and that's particularly true with cameras. A class-leading camera that took excellent pictures five years ago will still take excellent pictures now, and it will be cheap second-hand (as Richard notes above) as some people are good enough to upgrade so they can benefit from the latest minumetric improvements.