Cycling UK Forum

For me, all the routes have their advantages:

If you start from Villes-sur-Auzon you can ride through the Gorges de la Nesque, which are magnificent, then through the lavender fields up to Sault. From there it's an easy ride to Chalet-Reynard, and then somewhat less easy to reach the top.

If you start from Bédoin you can compare yourself with the TdF riders. A chacun son gout. Personally, I found the slog up through the forest a bind: it can get extremely hot, the flies are numerous, and you can't see anything but trees until you reach Chalet Reynard.

Last time I did it I started from Orange in the cool early morning, then rode to Le Barroux and over the little col that separates it from Malaucène. This is around 33k, a nice warm-up. Riders were dribbling into the café opposite the start of the climb: I had a coffee and a pain chocolat and then started up. It was a clear day, and practically all the way I had magnificent the views of the distant Alps off to the side. All the way up I was passing and being passed by riders from all over the world, and everyone was jolly. I'd say the slopes are stiffer than on the Bédoin side, but as compensation you get a few easy stretches to recover on. There's one point, though, where you round a bend and see the relay tower at the top hanging over you: it looks almost straight up. Something of an "oh my God" moment.

What's great, though, is cycling down the Bédoin side. The curves are easy, the tarmac is smooth, and you can put your nose down and motor. Not my fastest descent but definitely the one I want to repeat.

So for me, absolutely the best way to do it is to climb from Malaucène then zoom down to Bédoin. Then toddle on to Carpentras and have a good lunch to celebrate.

Or: you can pick up the route card for the Cinglés du Mont Ventoux and do it from all three classic starting points in the one day. You can then join one of two distinguished fraternities: the Cinglés du Mont Ventoux, or Intensive Care Past Pupils.

Heh: first time I did it was with a bunch, and at the top we paused for the customary photo:


A couple of weeks later I showed it to a friend, modestly refraining from comment. Friend: "Oh, you were at the seaside!"

Back in 2004 we went via Sault to C-R on the same day as the Dauphiné Libéré Time Trial. That's worth a go:

http://www.pbase.com/johnewing/image/122488471

Nettled Shin wrote:...

As someone who had his saddle snap off recently, my experience was that is was my arms and upper body that burned with lactic acid trying to cycle back. Perhaps this is the majority source of the inefficiency?

I've read several times that building your upper body improves your climbing, but I don't think that's the reason. It's more a question of matching the gearing to your optimal pedalling frequency, just as in a car.

Ever bought one of those tins of "snails"? Well...

Can't remember where I saw it any more, but a comparative test of different hub dynamos showed that drag on the Shimanos was actually lower when the light was switched on. They put this down to eddy currents setting up resistance when the light was off. This is borne out by the fact that a chap I know rides his bike with the light on all the time: he has a Shim.

That being said, the difference in drag (in my SON anyway) is minimal. I have my lights on auto setting and I rarely notice when they go on during the day.

I've been running on Mavic Open Pro 36-hole with Ultegra hubs for the last 3 years, HB bag up front and Topeak RX Trunk bag at back. No problems.

Suggestion: if you do go for a custom build, put a SON dynamo in the front one. It adds a chunk to the cost but oh, what a wonderful light.

Trigger wrote:Looks pretty near identical to what I built from an old MTB, only it didn't cost a quarter of that!

I've been looking at my MTBs with a view to that, too. I have a 1994 steel-frame MBK Climber with no suspension, but it has a quill stem and is too long. I knew next to nothing about it back then: the shop guy judged my size by closing one eye and squinting at me with the other, and I took his word. I also have a recent Specialized, but I'm none too fond of it. Dunno why.

York Commuter wrote:Audax67
I, too, look the like of this.
If you do buy a French bike be aware that the brake levers may be, to us, "reversed", i.e. right lever controlling the rear brake. Easy enough to sort out but can be a bit of a surprise!
Stephen

They will be reversed WRT the UK, but that's how all my bikes are. I'm not quite sure why there should be a difference.

If I buy a UK bike I'll swap 'em over.

EDIT: I just looked at a few US bikes. They appear to have the brake levers the same as here. Maybe the rule is that the side the rear brake is on matches the side of the road that you ride on.

John

I'm having a serious think about a bike from the French site Cyclo-Randonnée:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3bybstw

Englished by Google, this yields:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3v2976p

OK, the fixtures & fittings are all bottom of the range but they're still decent quality. To me the package looks pretty good.

Anyone else care to give an opinion?

BTW, the price is 1,195 € rather than Google's 1€ 195.00. If it was just over 2€ I wouldn't be asking for opinions.

Jonty wrote:Is there not a wealth tax in France, that is, a tax on positive net assets over a specified amount? Also the women don't shave their armpits.
jonty

Yes, but it's set at a level that only affects the wealthy.

Never understood why women would shave their armpits. The hair is functional.

Jonty wrote:

Audax67 wrote:I tend to alternate between standing and sitting, with the gear selected accordingly. My bike computer is blessed with an ergometer, and long ago I noticed that for a given heart-rate I develop more power sitting than standing. However, thou shalt not live by bread alone, so every so often I do a stretch standing to afford my posterior a change of scenery.

Whatever the power & motion considerations, though, I do find that going up a hill standing on the pedals is more satisfying. And I am vain enough to think that I look better that way.

I think it looks good as well. Some people seem to be better at honking that others - it may be something to do body-shape. I can only do it for short periods but others can honk the whole way up a hill.
I seem to have more difficulty breathing efficiently when honking.
You would have thought that standing on the pedals would produce more power as you tend to be in a lower gear and use your body weight to push as well as legs.
jonty

The key phrase is for a given heart-rate. You have to lift your body weight with every stroke, and lifting it takes energy. It appears that this is less efficient than letting the bike support the weight and just using the quads. If I climb a given stretch at 200W standing I have a higher heart rate than doing the same sitting. It's still better to honk periodically, though, to change the set of muscles being used and their length during effort. I usually find that towards the end of a long ride I honk more than earlier on, probably because most of the time has been spent sitting.

Terrible word, honk - for me it invokes images of throwing up rather than climbing en danseuse (which is rather chic). Never mind bonk.

I tend to alternate between standing and sitting, with the gear selected accordingly. My bike computer is blessed with an ergometer, and long ago I noticed that for a given heart-rate I develop more power sitting than standing. However, thou shalt not live by bread alone, so every so often I do a stretch standing to afford my posterior a change of scenery.

Whatever the power & motion considerations, though, I do find that going up a hill standing on the pedals is more satisfying. And I am vain enough to think that I look better that way.

Vorpal wrote:

Audax67 wrote:Far be it from me to be cynical, but is there not a connection between the total length of cycle lane and the amount of subsidy that a city can claim from the Ministry of Sport, Beauty, Truth and Moral Uplift?

Yes. But the relationship is inversely proportional. The shorter the cycle lane, the more money they can claim.

Perhaps, but when they've run out of logical places to put them and they've still got some paint, why not move on to the idiotic?

If you are working then you'll be paying social security and have the same kind of entitlement as anyone else. If you retire here from the UK then there is a reciprocal agreement with the NHS whereby you get the same treatment as a French national. Likewise, anyone French would get UK treatment in the UK.

The test would be free, or nearly so, if (a) prescribed by your GP here and (b) it was done in a hospital. You doc should prescribe it if you're over 50 and doing strenuous exercise.

I live Alsace, where for what they call historical reasons the health service is a bit better than elsewhere in France. It's also fantastic cycling country, and produces excellent wines. Just over the border there is German beer. What are you waiting for?

My first bike cost £5 second hand in 1962, and came with a Sturmey Archer 3-speed hub and a Dynahub. My father fitted it up with his 1930s plastic-covered drops. The lights were OK on the downhill, non-existent on climbs, so that one night in rain and murk I rode into the back of a parked lorry. Dad was not impressed.

You never changed a chain: it came with the bike and every so often you sluiced it round in petrol, doused it in 3-in-1 and put it back on. Job done.

We used to buckle our school briefcases over the crossbar. Nowadays we don't have crossbars, we have top tubes.

If you had any kind of counter it was a mileometer. It was clamped on the fork and a finger on a spoke struck a little metal cog once per rotation. You couldn't reset it unless you wound it backwards. It went tick tick tick when you were riding, and it never occurred to you that this might be irritating.

Speedometer? Forget it. You never knew your speed. On a fast downhill I once overtook a bloke on a moped and scared the [bleep] out of him trying to read his.

You always had a bell. Real cyclists nowadays would never disgrace their carbon butterflies with anything so staid. Does Cav use a bell?

You didn't carry spare tubes, you had a Dunlop Long Cycle Repair Kit with inter alia a chalk puffer, valve rubbers and three rather nice cast aluminium tyre levers. I still have mine.

You never thought of changing a saddle: you used whatever came with the bike. Brooks saddles were taken for granted.

Your pump came with a flexible hose and had no damnable little rings, balls and rubber grommets that never quite clamp onto the valve thread but do often manage to bend the slender valve core within. Unless they fall off or out and get eaten by the dog, rendering the pump even more useless than it was to start with. (OTOH, my gas pump is straight from heaven. If heaven is called Barbieri, that is.)

Valve caps were metal, and the valves had wee rubber tubes inside to keep the air in. Of course, once it was in you couldn't let it out unless you unscrewed the retaining ring and let it all out. That was fun, though. Especially if the bike was a teacher's.

Speaking of teachers, SA 3-speed hubs came with an unsecured adjustment screw that little fingers could twiddle in the wink of an eye. Our teachers' bikes were easily accessible, and the effect of a slipping gear was very gratifying to watch. Educational, too, from the linguistic point of view.

You never worried about the weight of your bike. Curious concept, that: it was your bike, and it weighed what it weighed.

But: back then, a long day's ride was 60 miles. Nowadays it's 250.

I haven't read the entire thread by any means, but if you're worried about your heart then you need to do a cardiac stress test. Our local hospital does a complete VO2 max test: mask to measure respiration, BP cuff on upper arm, and ECG electrodes all over. You then start pedalling and every so often they up the load on the pedals, in hikes of 25W or 50W. The cardiologist sits watching the screen the whole time and continually asks how you feel. When you hit the wall they let up the load, hand you a towel and give you the news. The word you want to hear is negative.

These tests place a good deal more stress on the heart than you're liable to yourself, and apart from an insignificant warm-up they do it from a cold start. This means that any problems that might not be visible if you do a long, gentle warm-up will jump out at them, possibly without your noticing any pain or difficulty. The cardio will be able to tell you then and there what heart-rate limits to observe, and you can take comfort in the knowledge that he'll err on the safe side, so occasional envelope-prodding most likely won't hurt you.

Tests like this will spot defects such as arrhythmia and narrowing of coronary arteries due to plaque, but will not spot narrowing anywhere else in the circulatory system. For this you need an angiogram, carried out by the appropriate ologist; this can survey the major arteries and also measure blood delivery to the extremities. Apart from the cardiac arteries, critical plaque sites are in the carotids and the renal arteries, and constrictions there can be just as serious as in the heart. Plaque anywhere had be dislodged by strenuous expansion and contraction of arteries under load, and constriction sites are likely spots for fragments to end up and cause 100% blockage.

If you're over 50 and aiming at a decent level of fitness it's best to do these tests every two years. in 2005 I was fine but in 2007, after the most wonderful cycling year I have ever had, they spotted a coronary artery that had narrowed to 20% of capacity. If I had continued cycling as I had been I would probably have had an infarct in the next 12 months. They dilated the artery with a stent, set me some crippling limits and gave me some crippling drugs, but these have since been lifted and I'm cycling almost as well as before.

Now for the down side. I live in France, and the above is almost entirely free of charge. A friend of mine in Yorkshire asked his GP how to do the same, and the price quoted almost gave him a heart attack, then and there. But it's probably an excellent investment.