Cycling UK Forum

It's spelt RIPOSTE. Pardon me for committing the unthinkable and correcting someone's English (gasp!), but as an ex-fencer I found it really irritating.

rjb wrote: ↑16 Nov 2024, 8:41am Yep, 5 minute job. Open split link, remove chain, wipe over and place into the cooker. Spare chain goes straight on. Cooker switched on and left for an hour. Rewaxed chain removed allowing excess to drip back into the pot, wiped over and hung up ready for reuse.

If you join up the split link before potting the chain the hole won't get bunged up. SRAM & C° discourage re-use of 11 spd links but I must have used the same one a couple of dozen times before I read that and got KMX Ti ones.

rareposter wrote: ↑15 Nov 2024, 3:45pm My "cheap and easy" gain is chain waxing. OK, it might not be "cheap" initially to buy the wax (and having a crockpot really helps too)...

20€ slow cooker and the village very helpfully delivers nice thick candles to burn in the window on Christmas Eve (well, on the outer sill in a jamjar ¼ full of water). We had half a dozen knocking about in drawers.

More problematical is finding genuine PTFE powder. Ordering on the Internet you're just as likely to end up waxing with bicarb. Anyone for a frothy crockpot?

"Dumplings are off, dear, want some spam?"

Jon in Sweden wrote: ↑11 Nov 2024, 5:59am My point is that you can ride hard for a long time with carbs in your bottles. You really don't need much else.

Aye. Back when I was doing long-distance rides I thought of my body as a calorie-burning engine: as long as the fuel went in the pedals went on turning. Once I'd reached a steady state I could keep it up for days, with the need for sleep as the main limiting factor.

Time marches on, though...

mattsccm wrote: ↑8 Nov 2024, 8:40pm I don't think it is fair to moan about any system where the main problem is caused by user stupidity, as in presta valves bending.

I had a Michelin tube recently that came out of the box with the stalk bent.

axel_knutt wrote: ↑7 Nov 2024, 1:19pm https://www.itv.com/news/london/2024-11 ... -in-london

It surprises me that scooters are worse that cycles.

It says a lot that the rental account was linked to a fraudulent bank card.

keithg wrote: ↑6 Nov 2024, 5:51pm Your chances of a successful ascent depends more on how much riding you’ve done beforehand and your overall fitness than the bike you will ride on the day.

In the year I first did it I'd done ~2800 km by early June, but I don't stop in winter other than for ice & snow. Well, I didn't back then.

First time ever that I passed Chalet Reynard I stopped to get water and photograph the 7% sign. A German gentleman going past said "too hard for you!" I made various uncomplimentary observations involving cabbage and cranial cubism, but he was past and away.

That ^^^^^^ Though I'm not so sure of the won't happen.

Hoo!

mattheus wrote: ↑29 Oct 2024, 4:08pm

Audax67 wrote: ↑29 Oct 2024, 2:47pm Heh: when we were preparing to ride a chappie we didn't know came over aand asked what ratios we were using. When I began "well, up front I've a 52/40/30 - " he interrupted with "ah, you're using a triple?!" and walked away in disgust. Imagine going up there on an old-fashioned 10-speed with a 52/42 up front and a 13-23 on the back. Ouch.

Yeah, I guess that would be hard.

But going by your username, you might already know about Paul "Octopus" Rozelle (whom I met riding PBP, a week after the ride in this blog:)
https://www.thebicyclestory.com/2011/11 ... oux-rides/

Lovely chap, and very supportive of us lesser mortals!

Alas no, I never met him. I was planning to do all three road routes in the same day and qualify for Les Cinglés du Mont Ventoux when the coronary squad got me in March 2008. I spent the next 3 years drugged up with unnecessary performance-killing nostrums before I got out from under and started to ride again. That was on the basis of a single high BP measurement. Still bitter about it, since it cost me PBP 2011. My BP still reads high in the presence of a white coat.

The direst I've done was a 400 out of Belfort in May 2007. The weather forecast gave the lowest temperature as 12°C so we took summer togs plus rain jackets, but by the time we were approaching the Jura it was 6°C and we were shivering. We climbed up to the plateau, where it was 4°C. I was glad of the bar bag that sheltered my hands but my little fingers had gone numb and hard all the same. I remember thinking that we had a good chance of hypothermia if we stopped, so we kept going. After an hour or so we plunged down into fog and it dropped to 1°. We rode into La Chaux-de-Fonds and headed for the station, where we had to wait for the cafeteria to open.

Wouldn't do that one again.

If you ride far enough to get there it's all healthy.

rjb wrote: ↑29 Oct 2024, 4:30pm Can't wait to see the video.
Here's another you may have viewed already for inspiration. Good luck.
https://youtu.be/TxKURy2yE64?si=FoGeeqQzRle9Wu-q

Hardly a role model: he lost his shovel halfway down.