Cycling UK Forum

Had chronic, albeit intermittent, shoulder and hip issues (largely tightness) for years. I started doing more or less daily yoga at the start of the year and since then both issues have been much, much, improved. Overall, my flexibilty and strength is also vastly improved. I noticed a difference relatively quickly - within a few weeks.

MikeF wrote: ↑18 Aug 2022, 7:53pm

borisface wrote: ↑18 Aug 2022, 12:05pm If you rode fixed wheel it wouldn't make any difference. You could easily cycle backwards.

Have you tried cycling backwards??

Yes, it was easy. I think I got about 6 feet.

If you rode fixed wheel it wouldn't make any difference. You could easily cycle backwards.

You don't want to injure your flange

The weight loss will help a lot. I'm 18 lbs lighter than I was 8 years ago. 8 years ago I was riding 1000 hilly miles a month, putting in some long rides but also intervals a couple of times a week. This year I have ridden less than 2000, all but 200 on an ebike. I went out on my road bike a couple of weeks ago and took significant amounts of time off Strava PBs set 8 years ago. Maybe not scientific but a real world experience.

I'd follow a British Cycling training plan between now and when you go away to try and plug the fitness gap.

The issue with getting a rear wheel out is due to the weight of ebikes rather than anything intrinsic to the design. It's a pain I agree. If I have to remove the wheel I remove the battery and any other paraphenalia such as bags to make it as light as possible. I then get someone to give me a hand to hold the bars whilst I faff around. Sometime ago I replaced the inner tubes with ones with a sealant in the hope that any puncture will be dealt with that way.

'Sandwich biscuits' - what they?

In the Uk it's not so much the temperatures as the temperatures combined with humidity. I live in central Portugal, at this time of year it is regularly 35 degrees. We currently have a heatwave and yesterday it hit 40.5 degrees and is forecast to be hotter maybe 45. Our night time temps are about the same as the UK daytime. But here it is a dry heat so like for like it doesn't feel as bad.

What did I do yesterday when I went for a ride? I left early - I was on the road at 7.30am, I did a shorter, slightly slower ride than normal, I drank a litre of water before I left home so I was hydrated to start with, I chose to do a ride that had more shade, I drank little and often, I wore thin, lightweight clothing, especially thin socks, I didn't wipe any sweat away as helps to cool you down. Friends sometimes put a bidon of water in the freezer so that they have cold water and can press the frozen bidon against the back of the neck. Its also a good idea to drench yourself in water from a tap (here we have lots of springs and virtually every village has a water fountain) especially your head and jersey. I was back home by 10am by which time it was 35 degrees.

BTW its a myth that the midday sun is hottest. The hottest times are generally somewhere between 2 and 5. But then again 'mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the sun somewhere between 2pm and 5pm' doesn't scan quite so well.

So I had an update from Cannondale via the dealer. As follows 'the manufacturer has contacted us and will send us a new rim. this means that you will have to send us your wheel so that we can rebuild it after receiving the new rim.'

Whilst Cannondale are within their obligations regards my consumer rights, I feel that this is the bare minimum that they can do. It's actually not much use to me as I have to send the wheel from Portugal, where I live, to Germany. To do this I would have a 50 mile round trip to the nearest shipping company, so £20 worth of fuel, the delivery costs are likely to be another £20 or so. Plus the delay in getting the wheel back and the risk that it will happen again. So the upshot is that I'll probably just get a new wheel that's more fit for purpose.

It's not really possible here to have a wheel built, at least I don't know anyone who could do such a thing and I'm not getting involved in importing anything from the UK as it's a PITA. So I'm looking at factory built wheels. I require a centrelock disc brake wheelset with 12mm thru axles.

The type of riding I do is just general on road riding on pretty smooth roads and it's mountainous, so was thinking either a Mavic aksium or a fulcrum 6. I've had both mavics and fulcrums in the past (and both have done c. 30k miles) on my human powered bikes and found them to be bomb proof. I'm slightly erring towards the aksiums as they are £100 cheaper and as it's an ebike a couple of hundred grammes extra weight isn't a big issue.

Any other recommendations or warnings about the mavics/fulcrums? Or if I were able to get a wheel custom built what rims should I spec? I run 32mm tyres. And for a strong wheel what spoke pattern in the rear?

I've done quite a few spring tours over the years. Greece or Crete would be my vote. The only thing to be aware of is that if you get high enough there might be snow and even at relatively low altitudes inland nights can be chilly. The Peloponnese is lovely, sadly my last trip got cancelled by COVID. I was also really struck with the bit north and east of Thessaloniki, however, it was a bit nippy at times.

Cheers Jonathan, I'll see what they come back with and then point them in that direction if required. I've had a look around in the internet and no-one else appears to be reporting an issue.

Thanks for the replies. At 73kgs, I'm well within the weight limits. I'm EU resident. The cracks are all driveside now I look at it. I guess a complicating factor is that the bike is an ebike with a mid-mounted motor and so the forces are going to be greater than just with my legs.

Just checked the cannondale warranty for cannondale parts - one year! So I may well outside the time limit. I take your point about a replacement being the same, so I will have to run it past the controller of the purse strings...

Yep bought it from Bikerboader in Germany, so EU consumer law applies. Just after a gauge as to whether I should be getting uppity or let it slide. I have contacted the company I bought it from and waiting to here back.

I have a Cannondale Synapse Neo e-bike which I have owned from new for 18 months. I have only ever used it on road, never loaded the bike with panniers and I live somewhere with smooth roads and no pot holes (so not the UK obvs). I haven't touched the wheel which has remained true. When cleaning the bike I noticed a split starting to develop either side of a spoke hole and when I looked more closely there are in fact ten similar splits starting to develop. I've not seen anything like it before. I bought the bike mail order - do I have a claim against cannondale's warranty.

I've done quite a bit of touring and in Spain including a Camino about 15 years ago, as has been said it's not the easiest country to tour in for a couple of reasons. It can be very remote and places to stay and eat few and far between so I suggest using a booking site beforehand. The other issue is that the Spanish eat really late IE. 10pm or later, although restaurants may open at 9. Also breakfast can bit hit and miss and often served late - I stayed in a hotel near Barcelona once and the breakfast hours were 9.30 to 11.30 which can eat into the day somewhat and be inconvenient at best. Personally I like to be finished for the day by 5pm so I have enough time for a beer, do my washing and any other chores but it Spain I tend to try and arrive between 7 and 9pm as otherwise, tapas aside, you have a long hungry wait. So for the time of year you are planning it will be starting to get dark. Just some thoughts to consider.

That aside, Spain is a lovely interesting country to visit, in fact I'm going there tomorrow as I live in Portugal and it's a couple of hours drive. Autumn should be a great time to visit but if you're after dry sunny weather I'd avoid the north west although it is really beautiful. Presumably you'd be flying to Madrid?