Tell us about your new improved government regulations compliant cycle part II

godtabh

Howth Hill to Kiliney Hill and some crap in between. Want to see which was harder. The hard side of Howth is hard than Kiiiney Hill.

95km all in. Probably should have done the 100

secman

Se out early this morning around back of blessington and stopped to watch early morning rowers on the lake, stunning morning. Saw a very busy outward n81 on my way back.
50 km avg 27 kph

magicbastarder

lovely morning for it; 42km around NCD at 27.7km/h - wind wasn't as much hassle as expected.

https://www.strava.com/activities/1074802180

positron

Drogheda, Clogherhead, Annagassan, Castlebellingham, Ardee, Sweet Jesus what have I done hill after hill after hill, Slane, Donore, Drogheda.

Absolutely beautiful morning once again, and 88k of beautiful villages and pleasant villagers always saying hello, chatting and advising on better roads etc. The hills between Ardee and Slane were interesting and Slane to Donore to Drogheda was even harder (running out of fuel as well I guess). On the plus side, my little tweaks / experiments are working well. I had terrible pain on my right wrist and elbow all of last week since last Sunday's 110k ride. GP reckoned it's RSI exasperated by cylcing and adviced not to bike for a while - err.. sorry I Miss GP I am on a mission.. looked up all sorts of videos and figured my wrist was not straight on bike. Turned the bar up 10-15 degrees to sort that out and bought new gloves with padding and it all seems to have worked. Also fitted a new Brooks Cambium 17 and for the first time I can feel my sit bones are actually sitting on the seat. Comfortable enough after today's outting, and given that my bottom got used to much narrower E4P saddle after a few rides, I think Cambium c17 will work just well. Aldi's softshell jacket was perfect for the early morning start as well - warm but not clammy. Great morning overall.

Daroxtar

I had intended to hit the Wicklow hills to test my new power meter but instead decided late last night to take a spin to the Slieve Blooms with a mate today. Delighted we did. He'd never been over there before and was really impressed with the scenery and how could you not be? Weather was near perfect for cycling apart from a tough headwind on The Cut.

We took it relatively easy but paced it fairly steady on the climbs. I have to say I'm delighted with the power meter. Had a much better idea what was in reserve over just going on heart rate and even managed a few decent attacks over the top of the hills where before I'd be blowing too hard to attempt it.

I did Glendine for the first time since I crashed there last year. It's a fairly brutal climb. Much tougher than Cunard or Kippure. Went down the back and turned around and came up it again from the far side. That's actually a really nice climb too. Then we went over the Wolftrap to Kinnity and had a lovely scone and coffee in the Castle before rolling back to the start for a total of 81.5km with 1400odd climbing in a leisurely 3:34. Really enjoyed it.
https://www.strava.com/activities/1075053493

secman

Headed from house to killenagh, ballycanew, Gorey( heavy traffic today) and on out old n11 through Inch and on to Arklow. About 50 odd minutes into spin and having beenn chasing segments , doing quick calc I realised I would be very close to 30 km for the hour. Decided to hit finish at the hour and was bang on 30 km. . Carried on to Woodbridge and back to Arklow, Inch, Gorey, courtown, slong coast road to Ballygarrett, killenagh and home. 52 km avg 27 kph.
Overall 82 km and an avg between 27 and 30

Went to bother of working out Avg... just over 28 kph

LollipopJimmy

I've not been able to get out much of late but managed 230 kms this week... well after the low mileage the last 2 months and then doing a good bit this week my backside is not happy.

secman

Meant to mention I came across a guy yesterday on old n11 just out of Arklow heading for Gorey, he was walking with his bike, back wheel flat. Naturally I stopped to see if I could help him. He had no spares at all , I was going to give him a tube and inflate it with co2. I noticed the back tyre, I could almost get my finger into it.... told him it was pointless putting a tube into it. Tyre was in very bad condition, whilst taking to him I thought he was a bit familiar, he then pipes up.." I met you a few weeks back around coast road to Ballygarrett " I said and you were walking the bike with a bad front puncture, front tyre was in ribbons. Yep says he, I got a new front tyre..... Then tells me he did Ring of Kerry and no punctures..
Some people amaze me, I've taken a lot better off my bikes than what he was riding on, no spares, no co2, no pump... and a very black sludgy oily chain and derailler.

LollipopJimmy

secman wrote: »

Meant to mention I came across a guy yesterday on old n11 just out of Arklow heading for Gorey, he was walking with his bike, back wheel flat. Naturally I stopped to see if I could help him. He had no spares at all , I was going to give him a tube and inflate it with co2. I noticed the back tyre, I could almost get my finger into it.... told him it was pointless putting a tube into it. Tyre was in very bad condition, whilst taking to him I thought he was a bit familiar, he then pipes up.." I met you a few weeks back around coast road to Ballygarrett " I said and you were walking the bike with a bad front puncture, front tyre was in ribbons. Yep says he, I got a new front tyre..... Then tells me he did Ring of Kerry and no punctures..
Some people amaze me, I've taken a lot better off my bikes than what he was riding on, no spares, no co2, no pump... and a very black sludgy oily chain and derailler.

Madness. Although we got caught out yesterday, 1 spare tube each and my buddy got a flat, spare was also punctured, looks like something snagged it in the saddle bag then he snapped the valve off the spare i had. We got the dart from Howth to Harmonstown and got sorted in 360cycles

retalivity

retalivity wrote: »

2 hr spin from dublin out to maynooth, barberstown, celbridge and back. The route out is my new favourite quickest-way-out-of-the-city-with-minimal-stops: from phoenix park city gate theres only 1 set of lights til you hit maynooth, traffic is generally light and junctions are easily negotiable. Headwind out, tailwind back. Considering i think ive only ever gone above 27kph once in a longish ride, delighted what i was churning out tonight

58.6k in 1h 58m, 29.8kph

https://www.strava.com/activities/1070983752

Sameish route again this evening, got the avg speed up to 30.6kph. Absolutely banjaxed now though

https://www.strava.com/activities/1077239008

LollipopJimmy

retalivity wrote: »

Sameish route again this evening, got the avg speed up to 30.6kph. Absolutely banjaxed now though

https://www.strava.com/activities/1077239008

That's good going. Drop me a pm if you want company another evening this week. I have averaged between 28-30 in that area

Gerry

That's basically a large chunk of my commute though I am going blackrock to maynooth, so I am going via island bridge. I could detour a little to go via the park but overall its a great route as you say. Here's the return leg by the beds. Almost got to 30kmh, ran out of gas a little towards the end

https://www.strava.com/activities/1077314259

And the morning leg - I don't go by the beds as I find it a bit pointless descending westmanstown hill into line of traffic and then having to climb by the anglers rest only to have another descent with traffic down knockmaroon hill. But I could go by the park instead I suppose with that small detour back to islandbridge

https://www.strava.com/activities/1076486846

Alanstrainor

Got soaked this morning. What made it worse was that I didn't put my shoe covers on, it was dry when I left Portmarnock and I only hit the weather coming into Clontarf. Managed to get drowned in it, shoes still soaked:o

Here's hoping for a dry evening!

P_1

Currently hiding from a biblical rain shower mid way between Chester and Hyde. Also just encountered the A556 M6 interchange.

Rather makes the Walkinstown Roundabout seem a bit tame...

D13exile

Don't normally put my regular 6am spins up here but this morning was different. I left my phone behind in the house as each spin was turning into a time trial with me trying to go faster than the previous day. While my average speed has increased from 23kph two months ago to 30kph now, it's mentally exhausting trying to beat my previous time each day. So I left the phone behind so there was no point in killing myself for a new "best time" as there was no way to tell what speed I'd done. While I felt good and strong, I also relaxed a lot as I could just cycle and enjoy the scenery without having the "timer" in the background. No idea what speed I did but the 35kms flew by and I was disappointed to get home as I wanted to go further but a meeting in Limerick had me back in Clane to shower and change and drive down.

Have to admit I felt a bit "cheated" by not recording the spin as I felt that if its not recorded, it didn't happen🙄. Guess I've become a timer junkie. Need to wean myself off the timer and just cycle again.

Luxman

D13exile wrote: »

Don't normally put my regular 6am spins up here but this morning was different. I left my phone behind in the house as each spin was turning into a time trial with me trying to go faster than the previous day. While my average speed has increased from 23kph two months ago to 30kph now, it's mentally exhausting trying to beat my previous time each day. So I left the phone behind so there was no point in killing myself for a new "best time" as there was no way to tell what speed I'd done. While I felt good and strong, I also relaxed a lot as I could just cycle and enjoy the scenery without having the "timer" in the background. No idea what speed I did but the 35kms flew by and I was disappointed to get home as I wanted to go further but a meeting in Limerick had me back in Clane to shower and change and drive down.

Have to admit I felt a bit "cheated" by not recording the spin as I felt that if its not recorded, it didn't happen🙄. Guess I've become a timer junkie. Need to wean myself off the timer and just cycle again.

If I need one of these non data type spins, I drop the Garmin into the back pocket (recording) and just cycle.

D13exile

Luxman wrote: »

If I need one of these non data type spins, I drop the Garmin into the back pocket (recording) and just cycle.

I hear you but if I know I'm recording the spin, I'll go hell for leather to beat the clock. While it's great how much my regular early morning spins have upped my speed and made me so much stronger on hills, they were becoming a chore always racing against the clock to see if I've gone faster. It's gotten so bad that if I did say 29.9kph instead of 30kph +, I'd feel like it was a wasted effort. That's wrong as it takes away from the enjoyment of just cycling and loving having the roads almost to yourself at the crack of dawn.

secman

D13exile wrote: »

Don't normally put my regular 6am spins up here but this morning was different. I left my phone behind in the house as each spin was turning into a time trial with me trying to go faster than the previous day. While my average speed has increased from 23kph two months ago to 30kph now, it's mentally exhausting trying to beat my previous time each day. So I left the phone behind so there was no point in killing myself for a new "best time" as there was no way to tell what speed I'd done. While I felt good and strong, I also relaxed a lot as I could just cycle and enjoy the scenery without having the "timer" in the background. No idea what speed I did but the 35kms flew by and I was disappointed to get home as I wanted to go further but a meeting in Limerick had me back in Clane to shower and change and drive down.

Have to admit I felt a bit "cheated" by not recording the spin as I felt that if its not recorded, it didn't happen🙄. Guess I've become a timer junkie. Need to wean myself off the timer and just cycle again.

If I want to do a handy spin and not chase time, I call it my spin with ANNETTE, who is of course an imaginary person whom im going on a spin with at her pace.

Bloggsie

I have to say i was becoming a slave to the clock, it was doing my head in that i didnt go as fast of faster than the previous spin, just decided to go nucking futs, deleted bookface(nothing to do with this thread but I was on a roll) and decided to not be bothered by how long, how fast avg kmph and just enjoy cycling to and from work. I record them just so I can total my yearly kms so I can judge when things need to be changed, tyres etc.

RayCun

D13exile wrote: »

Have to admit I felt a bit "cheated" by not recording the spin as I felt that if its not recorded, it didn't happen🙄. Guess I've become a timer junkie. Need to wean myself off the timer and just cycle again.

have you ever heard of the 80:20 rule?
Most of your cycling (running, swimming, whatever) should be at an easy effort, and only some of it hard. So you can do the hard bits hard, and build volume on the easy stuff, rather than do everything at a kind-of-hard effort, not hard enough to improve much, too hard to do a lot of.

dinneenp

I love cycling but haven't cycled in way too long. Cycled to shop and back, only about 2km but delighted to get out in the saddle again. Promising myself I'll get back into it more now.

Borderfox

44km today in muggy weather, all good till I got on the Trim - Navan road and lots of lorries testing their minimum passing distance on me.

Somedude9

Borderfox wrote: »

44km today in muggy weather, all good till I got on the Trim - Navan road and lots of lorries testing their minimum passing distance on me.

Funny, as I was up that way today and experienced the closest pass ever heading out of Trim in another direction by a big-ass truck hauling some JCB. The back of it came with a foot of me, scared the hell out of me, the bastard! :mad:

Borderfox

It was two of the large stone carrying 10 ton yokes with motorway maintenance on the back and was within a foot of me too. Didn't have the gopro on otherwise it would straight to the Gardaí with the footage

Somedude9

Damn right, its scandalous carry on.

DominoDub

Tired in work so said must get out in this nice weather

So a spin out to Howth after rush hour was called for ..a strong east wind off the sea making progress slow out to Howth.

Had no plans to climb but said to myself I never did the hill from the harbour side so said feck it lets do it.

I just got going "Spinning Froome Style "on the steep bit when a car pulled out in front of me so a detour down a side lane required.

Got going again, all in all not as bad as starting from Sutton Cross.

Will do it again very soon with no car blocking my progress.

East wind was bit nicer on the way back into town:)

https://www.strava.com/activities/1080373967

secman

Went for a spin with Annette tonight , felt tired today, definitely slowed her up tonight , no harm in listening to your body now and again.
47.5 km avg 26.9 kph per Garmin.

Alanstrainor

I stuck a bell on my bike. I've had cheap/free bells before and found them useful for annoying pedestrians if they stray into the cycle track. Bought a Crane Mini-Suzu and god damn this thing is loud. People 100 meters away look at you when you ring it. Cars can here it in traffic. Granted it looks a bit ridiculous on my road bike but it is definitely useful! The only thing is that the handlebar mount is tiny. It looks like a mount that would only work on handlebars as wide as your finger. Had to cable tie it on.

Worth a buy for any commuters out there, and as an added bonus it doesn't rattle over bumps at all.

P_1

Brace yourselves, this is gonna be a long one...

Just maybe an hour off the ferry now after a week spent touring across Wales and England. That was such a fantastic experience. I'll split the post into each day:

Day 1: Holyhead to Blaenau Ffestiniog. 94.6km, 1,092m elevation.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1075820861
Relive: https://www.relive.cc/view/1075820861

Just glorious. Blue skies all day and maybe a gentle breeze to cool me down. The climb up the Crimea Pass right at the end was an absolute kicker but was so worth it for the views. The road into Betws-y-Coed was closed due to a bad looking car crash so I got to do a lovely diversion walk down a rocky path by a river.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWUw32Ehg9k/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWVVkMjBHaF/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWVV9GrhMxv/

Day 2: Blaenau Ffestiniog to Chester. 104.5km, 1,149m elevation.
Strava:https://www.strava.com/activities/1077141067
Relive: https://www.relive.cc/view/1077141067

Probably the highlight of the trip. A brutal climb to start with but the scenery and the fantastic isolation you were rewarded with were so worth the suffering. After a decent there was another climb up into the Denbigh Moors which was covered in cloud. Such a thrill cycling through it though the descent was bloody terrifying!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWXWR8Lhhp0/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWX28V8BAYl/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWX3ZlVh1P-/

Day 3: Chester to Hyde. 92.4km, 835m elevation.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1078783054
Relive: https://www.relive.cc/view/1078783054

Without doubt the toughest day! Typical Cheshire weather, it lashed rain all day. Had a nice off road section featuring some Roman bridges at the start and possibly the best crepe I've ever had in my life (egg, ham and cheese). It really started teaming down just after I encountered the brown pants moment of an M6 interchange and it just kept raining. There's a town called Knutsford that now has a special place in hell reserved for it. Abandoned it just outside Stockport and got a cab to the hotel.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWZww9VB1oN/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWZ6ZouhNrj/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWajc3eh5ML/

Day 4: Hyde to Manchester. 32.6km. 175m elevation.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1079861533
Relive: https://www.relive.cc/view/1079861533

Just a really touristy easy spin in the sunshine. Also found a gem of a vape shop in Ashton. Manchester city was quite pleasant to cycle in compared to Dublin. An epic, epic piss up happened that evening!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWcdcafhQlr/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWcmsHoB3p0/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWc0K3bhVRj/

Hopefully I'll still have something in the legs to join ye in Ticknock tomorrow and have a bash at a few legs of it!

D13exile

Ok so I relapsed back into timing myself this morning on my 6am spin from Clane to Allenwood (felt good), onto Kilmeague (felt knackered - I have a real mental block about this stretch of road), Kilmeague onto Naas (felt better and was fairly motoring after the slog before), and then onto Sallins and home. 40kms at an average of 31kph.

When I looked at the stats, the "slog" from Allenwood to Kilmeague was still done at 25kph even though I felt I was hardly moving. I hit 40kph on the flat stretch from Kilmeague to Naas! This is a straight boring as hell road but boy was I moving! Felt tired towards the end of the spin but no wonder after the push I'd put in to the cycle.

Ok, I'll leave the timer behind for my next spin on Saturday and concentrate on taking it easy. Might try for an easy 80-100kms in 3 1/2 hours or so. There was a time I'd be having nervous thoughts about that distance but not now. Great how some regular training helps you eat up the Kms.