Wow where to begin... I was feeling like a touch of illness/cold/flu symptoms last Thursday, but rode the TTT on Zwift anyway as didn't want to miss out and just thought 'bring it on' to get illness over and done with. Friday riding home with the lad in his chariot we went to meet the other half from work, I got proper cold waiting and should've put on another layer when being stopped that long. Whoops. Sure enough that did it - wiped out the weekend and most of monday & tuesday by this lurgy. Feeling ok some of the time, other times utterly drained. Sinuses blocked and nose streaming with a bit of a cough. No other symptoms (thankfully) so assume it's just general cough/cold and not isolated with the dreaded red plague. Still no riding for 4 days as it was the lads birthday on monday (3! Where did that come from!). Back to it now, feeling about 65% but on the up. Cold sores inside my nose are the worst, frequent blowing really painful and grim. Anyone else get them? Seem to be loads worse than when I was younger and didn't cycle. The cold air really doesn't help with them.
More positive/less moaning/self pitying aside - it's good to see the chatter here returning about tyres and rims. Good work
@Drollic ! Pretty much what I've been advocating the last few years, but one thing I would note is the tyre choice has a massive difference. I'm on my 4th set of 28's and these Hutchingson Fusion 5 TL do feel much more like a 25 than a 28. Nowhere near as soft as a Conti GP or the others. In a 28 at lower pressures the softer tyre compound and feel/feedback you get from them is quite a bit different to a 23 or 25 at higher pressures. These feel like a 25 at 65 PSI. The others (Spec Roubaix) at 40/50 PSI felt like a 32.
I also hit a curb this morning (roadworks). Huge bang. Not sure what, tyres and spokes looked ok, so unsure if I broke anything... Probably a buckle. Limped to work, can tell I've lost quite a bit of pressures, but at least Tubeless so no flats. Hopefully the bang was just both rims bottoming out... Gah.
I will check those out. I do actually ride around Chepstow quite often as a close friend lives close-by. I actually did a shorter route, taking in Tintern, there last weekend and I agree it is beautiful around there
Tintern is glorious, much of that area is, all those little hidden away castles and lanes which are always so rolling. Monmouth/Ross areas are nice too and I imagine a bit further over towards Gloucester is too although I've not really ridden that way.
There's a climb across the river in Monmouth to Staunton I've been meaning to revisit, spectacular road with quite a nice shallow long climb, switchbacks and fantastic views. It doesn't even have a name!
For me some of the best parts were the descents and it was certainly a loop that was a graft>reward graft> reward.
I would advise anyone who wants to try it to try it, was really exactly what i was hoping for and more.
Haha much of wales or even the border areas (around here) are like that, just so rolling you go from ramp to ramp, climb to climb and each is a small victory!
Also why I think I enjoy riding as much as I do around here. I'm a country boy at heart and although I've not ridden much of the areas I grew up around, the stuff I'm riding here isn't that different, just has a few flatter and faster roads. So the times I have ventured out to 'those parts' I've usually had good enough fitness/legs to enjoy them and not find them utterly
impossible/destroying.
I'm sticking with tubed for now, for simplicity and have realised, I only get punctures on the rear, so the front may as well go back to GP5000. So, ordered a pair (as they were cheaper) of GP5000 and one 4 Season for the back, for winter. Then will swap the 5000 onto the back next Feb/March. I'll throw the Gatorskins on eBay as they've only done 100 miles.
Good choice, although surprised you didn't run the Gators longer than that before deciding, but equally know how 'iffy' running a tyre you don't like is. You didn't get great mileage out of the GP5000 considering their cost but equally, they are at the 'premium' end of the scale so very little can come close to them. Riding something you know & trust is a very personal thing, regardless of the expense. I loved the 4Seasons but switched to Mitchelins (Pro 4 Endurance) and liked them too, but not really heard much from people running the newer mitchs which make me think they're not great for the money. Everyone recently seems to be on GP5000's, so everything is compared to them.
How often is a rider of anything around 4w/kg going to be riding above 23-24+ mph average, not often.
I should just add that a lot of bikes have been designed in a cross over phase between 25 being normal with a move to 28s coming. This is why they state 28-30mm clearances in the paperwork - 25c coming in at 26-29mm on wide ID rims like 20-21mm. Cervelo s5 just the same and list goes on.
Really liked this part of your post as it pretty much highlights where the industry is being pushed towards. For various reasons. Obviously selling 'new' bikes and kit is the main aim of the industry, but a large part of that has to be the research and development the big names have put into it steering things that direction (regardless of the Gravel bike 'phenomenon'). If a 26mm tyre was the 'sweet spot' for general riding than 28mm, then I think we'd see the new frames without the large clearances they have now and more focus on aero rim shapes. We seem to be heading wider in both aspects - tyre and rim, for lots of different 'reasons' given by the industry.
But the bit above about a 4w/kg rider... I think you need to re-evaluate where most of the bike industry is aiming it's bike sales at!
Maybe I have too many old dinosaurs around me using 53-39 11-25/28 and 23mm tyres
Probably, but equally that's the more 'traditional' way of doing things and lets be honest... Bike shops are not really at the cutting edge of technology - not until the bikes they're mostly selling and servicing are. Same could be said of most of the clubs around!
80kg = heft?
I'm 95kg!
Cycling is one of the rare occasions I wish I was short.
I'm 'short' (5' 7') and 76kg, but with much of the riding I'm doing on Zwift that although that puts me at one of the shortest... It's also one of the heaviest.
So is this really a discussion on which tyre size is more comfortable or more so what PSI is more comfortable depending on how much you weigh?
That's it. But when the science points more and more towards the 28mm not even being slower then...
Personally. I get both sides of it and understand how hard it is to 'measure'. On the one side I don't see how a 28mm at lower pressures can't have more rolling resistance than a 25mm at higher pressures. But you really have to consider we're talking about much more than just 'rolling resistance' once things like rider fatigue and imperfect road surfaces are in the equation to calculate overall rider 'speed' at X distance on Y tyre.
It's just so 'personal' to the rider/frame/area/roads/experience/situation there can be no singular correct answer.
Syncing my Wahoo ELEMNT is taking longer and longer now, I know
@Roady has said how slow his device is generally... I'm wondering if I should just factory reset to remove all the old rides and hopefully speed syncing after a ride again? Is there any reason not to?
No real reason if you're using the rides uploaded from it for your ride tracking rather than the Wahoo side of things.
I cleared a bunch of old activity files from mine, it made a little difference, but equally I've learnt to live with mine now and it doesn't bother me. It'll upload everything 'missing' generally the next day, it's very irregularly I have to go in and sync it to the app to upload anything missing. But then because I don't frequently sync it enough with the app that's always a ballache of several weeks of activities for it to 'catch up' with (that have already uploaded from the device to Strava/TP/Komoot).
I go back to my original point, which is simply this. I personally wouldn't spend thousands on a road bike now unless the frame can support 28s at 30-31mm and if off shelf, has wide ID rims. You then have the option.
I currently ride 25 on sub 18mm ID I should add. 6'1 72kg.
Agree, but equally I think you'd be hard pressed to find a new 'popular' brand bike frame, aimed at the masses from the last few years which didn't have room for 28's....
You need to widen your rims! 21mm ID here and it's superb!