Cycling UK Forum

I have a ZTTO thing on my handlebars with my phone in landscape orientation, although the mount only works properly with it in portrait, I did manage to get it to stay in landscape, but indoors it's OK, outdoors it wouldn't be secure enough that way around.

I watch old comedy series on it like Goodnight Sweetheart, Bread, Frasier etc. A phone is a bit small really and could do with being a tablet, but I'm not spending money on one of those things, plus I have no idea how it could be mounted to the handlebar the way the phone is with one of these things...



It was only about £10 from China.

I found I can't listen to music when I'm pedaling because I start trying to pedal to the beat. Sad but true. Can't help it.

The GPX file doesn't work

It doesn't set the gradient, it's at 0% on my Garmin.

I scrapped GPX files altogether for doing this. It's quite a faff even if it could be made to work and I never realized how pointless it is when the Garmin can just be set at X grade or X watts anyway.

Managed 10% grade last night and after 25 mins of it thought OK, that's enough of that.

Averaged 149W when it's normally more like 100W.

It's all working itself out now I've added the below calcs to my Kickr ride diary spreadsheet. It's based on Normalized Watts x4.2 = cals burned per hour. It's not totally linear, but that 4.2 is the average of Cals per hour ÷ Watts over 64 rides.

No idea which forum best suits this, but it's more about indoor smart trainers than anything so here it is.

I have got a GPX file so I can ride up (part of) Alpe d'Huez on my indoor trainer. Tonight I started the ride and it was the expected hill gradients around 6% to 20%. After a while I saw that I was going 15% downhill! Surely this road isn't actually like that? I was shifting from granny ring to outer and back and it was just silly...

So I ended up making a GPX file of a route that's 10 miles long and 10% gradient. It only has 2 points going in a straight line. The 2 points are completely random so don't use this in real life (you'd end up doing that GeoExploring or whatever they call it going in a straight line no matter what).

On an indoor trainer it's useful, at least to me. I know devices like Garmin/Wahoo have a setting to put a 10% gradient, but I prefer to have an actual GPX course I can just go to and use, so here it is

EDIT: The GPX file doesn't work It doesn't set the gradient, it's at 0% on my Garmin.
I scrapped trying to do this altogether with GPX files. Since the Garmin can easily be set at a certain gradient, or watts, it's a lot easier doing that after all. On the Garmin (Edge 1030 Plus) it's really simple, just put it on the Indoor profile and swipe down, go left or right once or twice and there it is, grade, or watts.

Why would it crack vertically at that place on the seat tube?

I do think it's a paint crack but I have no idea in reality.

Three pages... and no one's mentioned Reynolds 953 yet?

When I was a kid that steel was out of reach, too expensive, TdF riders had it.

Even having 531 was somewhat luxurious back then.

I suppose the thread is about the build quality and it being lightweight, not just the weight.

I had a front hub motor on around 2014 and the weight at the front always bothered me. These days I have a rear hub motor on and it's miles better being at the back IMO. I considered mid-drive but was put off by only being able to have a single chainring and it having to be bigger than I'd want, then there's the chain wear and slamming into gear.

Rear hub seems to solve everything, I still have a triple chainset on. Taking the rear wheel off is something to avoid, but I found punctures can be fixed without taking the wheel off anyway (if you have Marathon Plus tyres on, whatever's going to puncture those is going to be visibly poking out of the tyre so it's easy enough to find).

I got pulled around 2001 on a wide straight road with no houses or pedestrians (the road bridge over the motorway in Brinnington) and while that's a 30 MPH zone, I probably was doing at least 45 MPH. If you look at the road you can see why it's safe to go that speed. The cop that pulled me said "I can't do anything because I haven't got my speed gun with me, but I know you were going too fast" so I just admitted it on the spot, said sorry and was let go.

I posted in that thread and I am deeply offended that it was deleted:

viewtopic.php?p=1868610#p1868610

Just kidding, I don't know what you guys are talking about to be honest.

For a thread like that to get deleted though is crazy to me. There's no controversy going on there, but whatever.

This guy (the OP) joined the forum 20 days ago. Here: memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=62695

Don't even give these members the time of day if they are causing hassle or deleting their content, what's the point. The guy was born yesterday. Water off a duck's back.

Cheers folks, I gave up in the end and just made a 2.5 mile section of Alpe d'Huez. Since it's indoors, it doesn't matter where I'm going. I did laugh before when I saw "Incident detection enabled" on the Garmin, while on the Indoor profile. I'll have to make sure I don't get a puncture as well!

Winnats Pass is 20% near the top, but Alpe d'Huez apparently maxes out at 13% and the start (I did as a GPX) is "only" 8% to 10%. It'll do. I'll have no granny ring left I found that while I average about 100 Watts normally, up hills like Winnats Pass on one occasion the average was 170 Watts, which is insane to me, 70% more effort.

Last ditch attempt

<trk>
<trkseg>
<trkpt lat="53.341479935" lon="-1.792049976">
<ele>275.000</ele>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="53.341359990" lon="-1.792899985">
<ele>277.000</ele>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="53.341319924" lon="-1.793129984">
<ele>278.000</ele>
</trkseg>
</trk>
<trk>
<trkseg>
<trkpt lat="53.341479935" lon="-1.792049976">
<ele>275.000</ele>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="53.341359990" lon="-1.792899985">
<ele>277.000</ele>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="53.341319924" lon="-1.793129984">
<ele>278.000</ele>
</trkpt>
</trkseg>
</trk>
</gpx>


EDIT: That hasn't worked, now it's a single 0.85 mile route. It seems </trk> completely ends the route and the next is ignored. I guess I'll just have to ride it as separate rides.

I'll try this at the mid-point:

<trkpt lat="53.341299975" lon="-1.810099985">
<ele>410.000</ele>
</trkpt>
</trkseg>
<trk>
<trkseg>
<trkpt lat="53.341479935" lon="-1.792049976">
<ele>275.000</ele>

That doesn't close it off with </trk> but I reckon it's going to give me that crow flight line back to the start.

EDIT: Yep... it starts the route at the right, ends at the left, then does a crow flight back



I could just do it this way, it's only about half a mile back and it's down a really steep hill, but I don't want to have that speed boost at the bottom of the hill when it restarts, that's not going to give the workout I want.

I'm only doing this because I realized on one occasion I burned the equivalent of 740 calories per hour, when my average over all rides is 470 cals per hour, so I can do these steep hills and burn more calories in the same time.

Another way to do this is to just find a really long hill like Alpe D'Huez, find the steepest part and just make a 2 mile section of it. The thing is Winnats is steeper so maybe 2.5 miles of Alpe D'Huez.

Cheers folks, I realized I was being dumb and any point after any other point is a continuation of the route, unless the tags are closed off and started again, but within the same GPX file it might not work, I'll try it anyway.

What I'll try: Keeping only one <trk> tag but putting a <\trkseg> tag at the end of the first route, then start the next (duplicated) route with it's own <trkseg> tag.

If that doesn't work I'm not sure what else would, because those are the only tags I can play around with.

Instead of this:

<trk>
<trkseg>
<trkpt lat="53.341479935" lon="-1.792049976">
<ele>275.000</ele>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="53.341359990" lon="-1.792899985">
<ele>277.000</ele>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="53.341319924" lon="-1.793129984">
<ele>278.000</ele>
<trkpt lat="53.341479935" lon="-1.792049976">
<ele>275.000</ele>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="53.341359990" lon="-1.792899985">
<ele>277.000</ele>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="53.341319924" lon="-1.793129984">
<ele>278.000</ele>
</trkpt>
</trkseg>
</trk>
</gpx>

I'll do it like this:

<trk>
<trkseg>
<trkpt lat="53.341479935" lon="-1.792049976">
<ele>275.000</ele>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="53.341359990" lon="-1.792899985">
<ele>277.000</ele>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="53.341319924" lon="-1.793129984">
<ele>278.000</ele>
</trkseg>
<trkseg>
<trkpt lat="53.341479935" lon="-1.792049976">
<ele>275.000</ele>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="53.341359990" lon="-1.792899985">
<ele>277.000</ele>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="53.341319924" lon="-1.793129984">
<ele>278.000</ele>
</trkpt>
</trkseg>
</trk>
</gpx>

Asking Chat GPT (that's wrong as often as it's right) it told me:

<trk> = The entire track or route.
<trkseg> = A segment of the track, often used to break up the track into logical parts.
<trkpt> = A single point along the track with geographical coordinates and optionally other information like elevation or time.

So I reckon by closing it off with a <trkseg> and starting a new one, it won't assume a path to the next point.


EDIT: That hasn't worked, it's done the same thing with an 'as the crow flies' route from the end back to the start. The doubled up route is 2.45 miles and should be 1.7 miles. I'll try adding </trk> and <trk> at the mid-point....

drossall wrote: ↑22 Sep 2024, 11:57pm Surely, if it did what you wanted, it would be really confusing for someone who actually did want to plan repeats? The track is a series of geographical locations. Once you've "doubled it up", there's nothing that special about the two points that come before and after the join. You're just moving from point to point, so you move from end to start in the same way, albeit probably in a straight line, whereas Winnats has some curves.

If you want a double Winnats, you're going to have to edit the points to make it carry on going up

Absolutely, but how

The Garmin doesn't care about curves, but it assumes that at the end of GPS coordinates, you can't magically end up at a coordinate 0.85 miles away in one fell swoop, you'd have to "Make your way there" somehow.

On an indoor trainer, none of that should matter and I want to repeat the same course back to back.

I have the Winnats Pass section as a GPX file. It covers only the steep section that's 0.85 miles long.

I can do this in about 13 minutes (don't laugh) and I realized, doing a hill like this gives me the best workout, so I wanted to duplicate it, effectively giving me a Garmin course where I can just duplicate the section in a GPX file immediately after the first block of lines so if I am on my indoor trainer, it would effectively have me doing the hill twice in quick succession.

Here's the full single run as GPX code:

https://pastebin.com/raw/ZA6HXiHt

To duplicate that, it looks like I need to copy all the "trkpt" lines and put them just before the last 3 lines of code:

</trkseg>
</trk>
</gpx>

So I did. But when that GPX is put on my Garmin as a doubled up version of the ride, it's not double the distance (0.85 miles x 2 = 1.7 miles) it's actually 2.45 miles!

If I make x3 and x4 files tripling and quadrupling the ride, it comes out as x3 being 4.05 miles (should be 2.55 miles) and x4 being 5.65 miles (should be 3.4 miles) on the Garmin.

Why is this happening?

From looking at the map of the "Course" on the Garmin, it looks like the Garmin is plotting a straight line from the end of the last run to the beginning of the first, which I suppose does make sense, we can't just teleport from the top to the bottom, but I am really surprised by this and it's stopping me making a course where I can re-run the same course twice (or x3/x4) without this happening. Annoying. Maybe I just need to do the single run and end the ride, then do it again, but it's a bit of a bummer having to do it that way. The Garmin isn't as dumb as I thought it should be.

Is there any way around this so the courses can be properly made so it's a repeating pattern like I am trying to do? The Garmin seems to be taking reality into account too much, where you'd need to go back to the start to do a re-run but I am on an indoor trainer where none of that applies. It's disappointing that it doesn't have the built-in software or whatever to take a GPX file "as is" and it instead assumes you'd need to ride to the start to repeat the GPS coordinates of the GPX file.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, oh well.

I never had a covid vaccine and I never got covid. Where's it gone?

Shouldn't all the people (like me) that never had the vaccine, be catching covid?

This is a big clue as to what it was really all about. I'm still alive, no jab, no covid. How come the cost of just about everything went up an insane amount, like food, bike parts and probably everything else, since covid?

Are the prices ever going to come back down again?

Doesn't look like it does it - what a surprise!

I think the same about bubonic plague. The only evidence that existed is stories from the 1600's. How come that never came back again? It's not a conspiracy that there's no hard evidence it existed or that it never came back around again. Must be magic! Black plague in the 1600's just decided "It's OK, we have killed enough people now, let's vanish forever and never infect anyone ever again".

The Vektar is the equivalent of £620 today. I don't think I ever saw anyone riding one. Parents round my way didn't spend that much on kids presents! The BMX below that would cost £375 in todays money.




Then as I got a bit older but was still a kid, these two: