Cycling UK Forum

Actually I was incorrect. HH tops are a fashion statement in the rarified world of fell and hill running. A Lifa top, the bobblier the better, marks one out as a highly experienced fell runner and distinguishes one from the arrivistes

BAM’s catalogue makes much of their clothes as suitable for athletic use, eg running, and even have a few magazine quotes saying how good they are. Certainly very comfortable but sizing erratic; however don’t dare to sweat in them. They hold a massive amount of water. I weighed one top after washing...

An email advertising the soon-to-be released Brompton Explore piqued my interest and before I knew it I was browsing the Brompton website and starting to feel the first twinges of bike envy. I’ve had a Brompton since about 1997, firstly a 5 speed ML then in 2006 I traded up to a S6L. The S6L is vast...

The next video by GCN is a talking heads one with a “discussion” about recumbents. Apparently recumbents are horribly slow, especially round corners, give you a sore back, and are always falling over (especially trikes). I’ve been riding recumbents of two and three wheeled persuasion for the last 15...

I’d love to have a go but with a 700-800 mile round trip to the nearest events it’s hard to justify.

I did try time trialling in my youth and really didn’t like it. So I joined the CTC.

I was one of them! Incidentally GCN did an interview with round the world unicyclist Ed Pratt recently, and the same presenter learned to ride a unicycle in a remarkably short period of time. I was surprised he had so much initial difficulty with the Raptobike, it gave me (briefly) a smug feeling of...

Thanks for the replies... I do have an old Garmin strap (I think it might have come with my Edge 810) so the strap-watch-to-handlebars method seems the most practical. Somewhere I even have a rubber mount for just that purpose!

Problem solved. I’m looking at this the wrong way. Strap a second running watch to the handebars and broadcast wrist heart rate from my Garmin. I’ve got an old Polar in the drawer which should do the trick - if the Garmin doesn’t broadcast on Bluetooth I have an equally old Polar heart rate belt I c...

... I could strap my running watch to the bars but then I lose the wrist based heart rate function... Forgive me, but why don’t you just ride your bike whilst wearing your wristwatch? That’s what I do now I have a Garmin watch. I do, but I can’t see it easily - taking a hand off the handlebars whil...

I’m looking for a bike computer that will tell me my pace in minutes per mile to mount on my kickbike where comparisons with running rather than cycling at more meaningful. Are there any that will do this? Sadly my Garmin Edge 810 won’t. I could strap my running watch to the bars but then I lose the...

I switched to short cranks on my recumbents a few years ago (a very good move for me personally, YMMV). Using Sheldon’s gain ratio setting on his gear calculator was helpful to check what my equivalent ring combinations needed to be as I shrunk the cranks. That said, reducing the rings by the same r...

Also check out unicycle.com’s UK site:

https://www.unicycle.co.uk/penny-farthing.html

The logical progression of this is... to get a recumbent! When I started riding recumbents, my original cleated shoes (Shimano SPDS) felt like I was hanging on to the pedals with my toenails, though they were fine on an upright bike. So I got another pair of shoes and following perceived wisdom fit ...

PS I’m even thinking of adding unicycling to my repertoire, my inner teenager must be restless!

Six weeks on and I’m kicking away with even more enthusiasm! The self consciousness bit went pretty quick (well, I do also ride a recumbent!). I’m getting quicker and at a push can do 5 miles in 30 mins on a moderately rolling course (there’s nothing round here that would count as flat). Even though...