Silly commuting racing

greg66_tri_v2.0

You have learned the hard way. You don't play the Game. The Game plays you.

There is never an off day. It is relentless. It will suck your lifeblood from you if you give it the merest sliver of a chance.

Greg T wrote:

There is always that deep dark winter period from November through to April when the weakness takes hold and the train to town looks increasingly attractive.

...

or should I just ride the road bike?

The Train. I spit at the very words. What is this foul malaise that grips and bends you to its will?

Road bike. 23mm tyres. Every day. All year round. My only concession to the weather is not to use a carbon fibre frame in the wet.

You will never rule the road like a King if you hide from it like a rat.

victor ludorum

As much as it might alarm Greg 66, I'm with him on this one.

Clever Pun

Greg66 wrote:

You have learned the hard way. You don't play the Game. The Game plays you.

There is never an off day. It is relentless. It will suck your lifeblood from you if you give it the merest sliver of a chance.

Greg T wrote:

There is always that deep dark winter period from November through to April when the weakness takes hold and the train to town looks increasingly attractive.

...

or should I just ride the road bike?

The Train. I spit at the very words. What is this foul malaise that grips and bends you to its will?

Road bike. 23mm tyres. Every day. All year round. My only concession to the weather is not to use a carbon fibre frame in the wet.

You will never rule the road like a King if you hide from it like a rat.

I'm with 66 on this, although I don't have a carbon frame... we all ride in the same conditions, in a straight line it makes no difference, corners and hazards be careful but other than that you're fair game to be taken by the bottom feeders.

GregT a small cap under the helmet keeps the scuzz off the face... but is that still a step up the fcn?

Bassjunkieuk

!!!!A TRAIN!!!!! This is like converting to the dark side! You might as well go the whole hog and buy a brompton :-)

Trust me on this, as I speak from bitter experience following a 3 month off period after an accident, the train is never a viable alternative to the bike. It seems to be infested with all these other horrible people who have very poor hygiene and even less respect for other people! If you enjoy standing up in a metal tube, with barely enough room to breathe then by all means try the train. Otherwise suck it up and learn to enjoy the rain, embrace it and use it to your advantage......

victor ludorum

The Dutch writer and roadie Tim Krabbe put it best:

The greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses; people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. ‘Good for you’. Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few friends these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms, she rewards passionately.
(Tim Krabbe - The Rider)

They use this excerpt somewhere on the Rapha website (about the only thing they have on there I can justifiably afford) but I strongly recommend the book. It is excellent.

jedster

Some of us are compelled to use a train even if it acts as an interlude between our bike legs at each end.

I see it as an opportunity to wield by road warrier machismo over lesser commuters. By which I mean both non-cylclists and the brompton pilots.

And if I wear the dreaded synthetic base layer instead of merino I get to wield something altogether more dangerous and unpleasant on the return trip...

J

chewa

You could always fit guards, move down the chain a bit :twisted:

jedster

victor,

Now I absolutely share that bloke's sentiments but I have to say that I'm not sure he needed to resort to such formidably portentious bollox to make his point.

I might look out the book though...

J

victor ludorum

jedster wrote:

victor,
Now I absolutely share that bloke's sentiments but I have to say that I'm not sure he needed to resort to such formidably portentious bollox to make his point.
J

It is a charge that has been laid at Krabbe's door before. Mine too, come to that.

Must be because I'm one of those Cambridge intellectual types. (even my username is a Latin pun... :oops: )

2wheelzgood

wow cool but OTT yeah.
But honestly Greg66(6) :twisted: , would you deliberatly go out on a piss poor day to show your strength and stamin.. yeah OK. :roll:

I tell you what else is OTT. searching Facebook for fixed/single groups (bikes terms not relationships.. although.. hmm yeah anywy) in Leeds and casually-not so casually arranging to meet up/race in my mind.

Hopefully my dinner won't be too big and I can bag some of those unsuspecting fixie powers-rangers tonight!
That'd be points in the bag and scalps off their skulls.

do fixed road riders show in the rain? :?:

Greg T

Ah!

The Taiban Mounted Section is alive and well. Despite my recent fall from grace I'll re-double my efforts and with a convert's zeal will be henceforth a zelot!

It's only fecking water says Terry the Tour Tailban get wet

Has anyone noticed that our very own MTB riding bagger of kids on trikes is asking for road bike advice on this very forum....

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12576804

Ahem - cough - cough....

Snooks explain your sudden conversion......

Clever Pun

Bassjunkieuk wrote:

!!!!A TRAIN!!!!! This is like converting to the dark side! You might as well go the whole hog and buy a brompton :-)

:x I use it for practical reasons... and for beery nights

I'd rather use the brompton/train/brompton than tram/train/walking, plus I'm still faster than most out there

Bassjunkieuk

Clever Pun wrote:

Bassjunkieuk wrote:

!!!!A TRAIN!!!!! This is like converting to the dark side! You might as well go the whole hog and buy a brompton :-)

:x I use it for practical reasons... and for beery nights

I'd rather use the brompton/train/brompton than tram/train/walking, plus I'm still faster than most out there

I fully understand! After all your still a fellow cyclist so atleast you know the quickest way's around!

It always fascinates me watching those little bikes fold up so small :-)

attica

Greg T wrote:

and lose sight of "Big Greg" down south.....

.....On cold clear days I'd spin the road bike on crappy days the tank....

On cold clear days, you'll still lose sight of Big Greg no matter how svelt the extra miles make you!

Greg66 wrote:

Road bike. 23mm tyres. Every day. All year round. My only concession to the weather is not to use a carbon fibre frame in the wet.

What difference does the carbon frame make in the wet exactly? Or are you just looking for excuses as to why you're slow come the downpour?

Greg T

Attica wrote:

Greg T wrote:

What difference does the carbon frame make in the wet exactly?

I don't think he wants to get it dirty - makes the sheets all gritty as well.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Greg T wrote:

Attica wrote:

What difference does the carbon frame make in the wet exactly?

I don't think he wants to get it dirty - makes the sheets all gritty as well.

I see that having adopted my name in a childlike effort to honour me, you are beginning to understand ...

Greg T

Greg66 wrote:

I see that having adopted my name in a childlike effort to honour me, you are beginning to understand ...

Right then Lilly....



For all you big talk about your awsomeness we are yet to hear of even one of your epic victories.....

Is this because

a) You've had none - no "oh he's just asking for it I'm going to do him all ends up", no "look at thie size of him - I'm going to do him by the bridge or forgo that date with Keira at the weekend".....

or

b) You just don't have the magic.....

So let's hear the Gladiator talk and less of the Narcissistic objectification....

victor ludorum

I like my rides a little dirty. There's nothing like getting hold of something expensive and exotic, then leaving it ridden hard and put away wet. The next day you can always wipe it down, lube it up and start over...

victor ludorum

and I'm the same with bicycles...

attica

Clever Pun wrote:

Attica... fixies and single speeds are yours to take as well...

So do you mean I did get a scalp this morning or not? I claim a moral victory as he took the flat girly way into Bristol instead of heading up over the "Col du Clifton Suspension Bridge" which I took on having just given myself a definite pass and was still making my lungs bleed in my effort to make it look effortless.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Greg T wrote:

So let's hear the Gladiator talk and less of the Narcissistic objectification....

What is there to tell? This morning, as every morning and evening, I crushed all before me with scant regard to who they were.

I did notice a carpet legged roadie on a Trek, opposite Battersea Power Station. As I went past him at 46kmh, I think I heard him scream in fear, but I paid it no heed.

One thing puzzles me about this "Food Chain", I confess. Why is there any honour in any roadie scalping a fixed? A roadie should always be able to scalp a fixed, because he has taller gearing at his disposal. I have always felt cheated when I have swept by a rider, only to see that they have a child's gearing.

attica

It might be a child's gearing, but I still kick Ar53 on it (yours included G66) and come the weekend when I'm out on my "grown ups" bike I leave everything in my wake.

46km/h slow slow slow.

2wheelzgood

aye. I don't have gears but my "baby gearing" still allows my to cruise at a good pace,
Greg666, are you trying to sound more manly with the kph figure? It's 30mph if I'm not mistaken. I can do that on mine. without ladylegs and a campag double or 23 tyres.

eat that

Greg T

2wheelzgood wrote:

aye. I don't have gears but my "baby gearing" still allows my to cruise at a good pace,
Greg666, are you trying to sound more manly with the kph figure? It's 30mph if I'm not mistaken. I can do that on mine. without ladylegs and a campag double or 23 tyres.

eat that

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

This is why the singlies are so high in the food chain....

It doesn't matter how they are geared the simple fact is that the biggest single mechanical factor they have in their favour is the size of their overbite.....

You know that having left the "redundant" cogs behind they hate to be reminded of what they have lost......

Sea_Green_Incorruptible

Ha! I've geared my single speed for accompanying my 5 year old son on his little ridgeback: so I'd struggle to get above 10 mph on it. If I ever took it out commuting it'd be points in the bag for half of Bristol.

On a slightly different note: rule query...

Bristol-Bath cycle path on a weekend. Full of people pootling along who are never normally on their bikes. All the way from carbon roadies to shoppers. All pootling.

Now I often ride this route on:
1) Nobbly MTB - 9
2) Pulling child on trailer - +2(?)
3) Clothed in 'proper' clothes - +2

Giving me a massive total score of 13. Yet we still burn past all the pootlers. Does this count? I reckon we could rack up at least a century on quick blast down the cycle path on a Saturday afternoon...

2wheelzgood

correct. if you need gears you're not strong enough. 8)

I will confess to dreaming about bikes last night (least I don't sleep with em). I was competing the the Tour. on a single. fair enough it wasn't fixed :oops: :P

Greg T

2wheelzgood wrote:

I was competing the the Tour. on a single. fair enough it wasn't fixed :oops: :P

That's no dream that's a full on nightmare.

Well I suppose it would say a lot about your self image...

Scenario 1.

Climbing the Alpe D'Huez 2Wheels is pushing on in a one man breakaway on his "revolutionary" single speed bike and T-Rex quads. The field are in disarray behind him and he's pulling motorbike cameraman up the steep bits to the roar of the crowd. Fiona Bruce is waiting for him at the top in very short shorts and a cheeky smile..Minx

Scenario 2

2Wheels is is in a one man drop away group having been left by the peloton before they left the staging area. The course has been opened to the public and he's waiting at the lights.... Ahead of him is 200km of one man fun and a climb that is destined to break his femur clean in two and have his corpse scavenged by vultures.... His wife marries Lance Armstrong three weeks later.

Clever Pun

Sea_Green_Incorruptible wrote:

Ha! I've geared my single speed for accompanying my 5 year old son on his little ridgeback: so I'd struggle to get above 10 mph on it. If I ever took it out commuting it'd be points in the bag for half of Bristol.

On a slightly different note: rule query...

Bristol-Bath cycle path on a weekend. Full of people pootling along who are never normally on their bikes. All the way from carbon roadies to shoppers. All pootling.

Now I often ride this route on:
1) Nobbly MTB - 9
2) Pulling child on trailer - +2(?)
3) Clothed in 'proper' clothes - +2

Giving me a massive total score of 13. Yet we still burn past all the pootlers. Does this count? I reckon we could rack up at least a century on quick blast down the cycle path on a Saturday afternoon...

The Game is commuter racing... unless it's take you kid to work day on a Saturday afternoon, it's just a practice run

2wheelzgood

:oops: 2

Sea_Green_Incorruptible

Clever Pun wrote:

Sea_Green_Incorruptible wrote:

Ha! I've geared my single speed for accompanying my 5 year old son on his little ridgeback: so I'd struggle to get above 10 mph on it. If I ever took it out commuting it'd be points in the bag for half of Bristol.

On a slightly different note: rule query...

Bristol-Bath cycle path on a weekend. Full of people pootling along who are never normally on their bikes. All the way from carbon roadies to shoppers. All pootling.

Now I often ride this route on:
1) Nobbly MTB - 9
2) Pulling child on trailer - +2(?)
3) Clothed in 'proper' clothes - +2

Giving me a massive total score of 13. Yet we still burn past all the pootlers. Does this count? I reckon we could rack up at least a century on quick blast down the cycle path on a Saturday afternoon...

The Game is commuter racing... unless it's take you kid to work day on a Saturday afternoon, it's just a practice run

Damn. Thought as much.