Cycling UK Forum

Having ridden a number of "Fred Whittons" (google) on trad. road bikes,I decided one year to use my cannondale F900 sl mtb with slicks.I vowed not to use it again,mainly because of the lack of options of hand positions.It just wasn,t as comfortable,at least for me it wasn,t.

As a 63yr old ,regular cyclist(at least 3 rides a week,min 7 hrs a week) the years have ticked over,patterns form,nothing much changes,one knows what works, at least I thought I did until a major event necessitated a big change in behaviour.My wife had a heart attack.She,s recovering well and,naturally,I needed to stay home for a while until she felt she could be left on her own.The turbo was dusted off and,biting the bullet,I knuckled down to 1hr sessions most days with a 2hr one at weekends,mostly intervals.Here,s what I found after 4 weeks;feel stronger;recovery is better;never have that tiredness that lasts days and,most interestingly,on my first road ride,a 4hr hilly effort,these changes were felt during the whole ride.All very unscientific but,nonetheless,food for thought.

Got C15 used off ebay .Mildly uncomfortable and after a 50miler yesterday,still only mildly uncomfortable so have hopes that my bum will adjust.

I,ve had to stay close to home in the last month due to my wife having a heart attack which meant using the turbo exclusively.I get through an hour a day by counting revolutions in blocks of 100 ,then 500 and marking these with a pencil on a board.Every 1000 revs I look at the clock,about 15mins.A typical session might be 500 revs warmup,gear3(feels easy) then a pyramid for 500revs,increasing by 1 gear every 100revs.Repeat for another 6 blocks of 500,then 500 revs warm down.Done with a heart monitor,I find this session manageable as there is enough to concentrate on to pass the time reasonably.Will be interesting to find out if I feel different going back on the road.

I,ve used a tesco 500ml stainless flask which I put in a cut off drinks bottle.Fine for a short commute,though I stopped using this method for longer winter rides due to too rapid cooling.I now put it in a large wedge bag and its good for a couple of hours.

Some good info here,thank you.

Thanks for the confidence booster.The frame is a "Maurizio"-Fausto Coppi model,possibly 50,s,with no indication of tube type.By triangular symettry,do you mean the dropouts being equidistant from the centre line after setting and,if so,is the string method shown by sheldon brown good enough?

Has anyone cold set a steel frame.Looks easy enough according to sheldon brown.I,m wanting to go from 5 to 7speed freewheel i.e.120mm to 126mm and don,t want to simply spring the rear triangle.Any experience of doing this welcome.

Try grinding bolt flush with frame then drill out with a 2 or 2.5mm drill.Apply lube spray and some heat then attempt to remove remaining stud with,say,one jaw of some long nose pliers pushed into the hole.If this fails, use a 5mm drill on the remainder.This will ruin the threads so an M5 nut and bolt could then be used to secure the guard.Hope I haven,t offended any engineers out there but this is what I would do.

£35 !!!! Try £19.95 for the SKS(ebay).Managed to make my old set last 15 odd yrs,mind you,the rear is now in five bits all bolted together with plates;a bit like the apocryphal 50 yr old broom thats had 12 new heads and three new handles.

Why do haemoroids keep popping into my head reading the"thick droplets breaking wind fork"

Chairman,s thoughts on following description of chinese road bike on ebay:
FRAME:HIGH CARBON STEEL THICK CAR FRAME
PAINT:CLASSIC PAINT
HANDLEBARS:BEND THE ROAD BIKE
STEM:ALUMINIUM FOUR NAIL STEM
FORK:THICK DROPLETS BREAKING WIND FORK
SEAT:ROAD BIKE SADDLE COLOUR THICKEN
ROUND GROUP INFORMATION
TARANTINO:9 LOCATION TARANTINO
DENTAL PLATE:3 LOCATION CRANKSET.


Definitely fancy the"breaking wind fork"

cyclop wrote:The A7,Carlisle to Edinburgh is designated the "scenic route" to Edinburgh ,the M74 being the preferred route.Certainly much quieter than the A roads on the Furness peninsula,my old stamping ground.Longtown to Hawick returning via Newcastleton or Hermitage castle makes a pretty good circuit.

We,re all a"work in progress".

The A7,Carlisle to Edinburgh is designated the "scenic route" to Edinburgh ,the M74 being the preferred route.Certainly much quieter than the A roads on the Furness peninsula,my old stamping ground.Longtown to Hawick returning via Newcastleton or Hermitage castle makes a pretty good circuit.

Buy any car with a towbar,then use a simple scissor style bike rack(cheap as chips at the Range).Best ,most simplest way of transporting a single bike,very secure,out of the wind.Had mine years.Also a zafira has a great sized boot.My deisel does 50mpg+