Silly commuting nostalgia

tgotb

The "Where are they now" thread got me thinking...

Who can remember:
Commuting in the Winter, when you stopped at the lights and there were no other cyclists beside you?
The NKR pavé?
The Col de Putney Bridge, when there were additional summits part way up the main climb?
ITB posting about cycling, rather than trains and the weather?
DSC, when it was still called DSC?
Albert Bridge closure?
Discussion of power figures restricted to the Amateur Race forum?

itboffin

you forgot the big rings wars and the OXO tower

ugo.santalucia

TGOTB wrote:

Discussion of power figures restricted to the Amateur Race forum?

This...

Sometimes I wonder how do Sky manage to still keep an advantage when all their training secrets have tricled down to virtually everyone on a cycling forum.

There is an impressive expertise in power training, training zones... I wonder how the market for "experts" in the field can still exist, as we all know everything there is to know.

Scientific publications in the sector are passed around as if they were light reads... it's power gone mental!

benws1

ugo.santalucia wrote:

TGOTB wrote:

Discussion of power figures restricted to the Amateur Race forum?

This...

Sometimes I wonder how do Sky manage to still keep an advantage when all their training secrets have tricled down to virtually everyone on a cycling forum.

Legal highs?

I have been on the bike at night on various occasions since the end of December. Apart from the ghost bike I see every Tuesday, I haven't really seen anyone out in the rain and cold.

rower63

All things new get scoffed at when in the early stages. I remember offering someone my mobile phone at a regatta in the early 90s to allow her to call home in an emergency. She visibly recoiled at the idea of being seen using one but only relented because it was really important. I'm sure it would've been the same for bikes when speedometers first became affordable. Now power meters are ubiquitous, I'm bemused how often people get defensive when the topic comes up.

ugo.santalucia

rower63 wrote:

All things new get scoffed at when in the early stages. I remember offering someone my mobile phone at a regatta in the early 90s to allow her to call home in an emergency. She visibly recoiled at the idea of being seen using one but only relented because it was really important. I'm sure it would've been the same for bikes when speedometers first became affordable. Now power meters are ubiquitous, I'm bemused how often people get defensive when the topic comes up.

It's the transformation of the bicycle from a useful and enjoyable tool to an instrument of torture that baffles me. It's seems suffering on a bike it's what is all about, as if life wasn't miserable enough... :roll:

tgotb

ugo.santalucia wrote:

It's the transformation of the bicycle from a useful and enjoyable tool to an instrument of torture that baffles me.

'twas always thus. In my teens I rode everywhere with a straight 13-17 block because I thought that was what proper cyclists did; the area where I grew up was not flat.

Just remembered another one. Who can remember the mythical Storck Man? Back when he was still mythical, and still known as Storck Man?

MrSweary

I can't remember anything that happened before last week. This thread is useless to me.

ugo.santalucia

I would like to have stopped the clock in the days when "carbo-loading" was the scientific thing to do

rower63

TGOTB wrote:

Just remembered another one. Who can remember the mythical Storck Man? Back when he was still mythical, and still known as Storck Man?

Haha. Once upon a time I was Lemond Man...(I was quite badly behaved in those days )

rjsterry wrote:

cjcp wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

cjcp wrote:

On a sliver and red LeMond?

I believe so, but I've seen him on a different bike too. Tbh, he's the most distinctive component of the machine anyway.

Yep, he's quick, and he *really* hates being overtaken. But he's got form as a drafting fairy and an RLJer. He's quick off the mark, but he's weaker over distance. It's the long game with him. Not that I've spent hours strategising about this or anything...

I wonder if he knows we all talk about him on here.

and then this happened...

cjcp wrote:

BLUE STORCK MAN!
He's EX-RED-AND-SILVER-LEMOND MAN! He of The Twitching Calves!
He still *HATES* being overtaken . And he still needs to RLJ and draft.
He overtook just as we entered DSC, with Ed F in hot pursuit. I had to bust a hump to stay in touch with this 2-up. Quick chat with Ed on the NKR before we had to filter and my rear mech snapped. Had to trundle home in a badly-indexed 39-12.

and finally this [Aug 2013]:

cjcp wrote:

A-HA! Welcome, rower63.
The Storck was nice. A LeMond before that, right? Then an old skool steel frame?
Yes, we've duelled a few times

fat daddy

ah, that's nice ... that's proper reminiscing .. I wish I could be a part of something so beautiful

rower63

I remember when the Queen's Ride/Mill Hill Lane junction in Putney Common was a simple give way.
And before they installed the (stupid IMO) traffic lights 3/4 the way across Putney Bridge heading south.
And when I had to go all the way around Trafalgar Square (using the bus-only cut-through) to get from the Mall towards the Embankment.

DJFish

When I started commuting the last carriage on the train was the smoking carriage, nowadays it's full of cyclists (until the rolling stock is replaced).

You youngsters don't know you're born...etc...

dhope

TGOTB wrote:

Discussion of power figures restricted to the Amateur Race forum?

Strava killed the SCR thread. All of a sudden tales of cruising in the mid-high 20's, seeing someone coming past at 30 and ending up at 35mph into a headwind, up a hill with a handful of pros hanging on for dear life was replaced with 20mph peaking at 22 and the pros being an old lady on a shopper once Strava revealed all.

I don't log my commutes anymore. It's because I'm still doing 35mph the whole way and don't want to embarrass everyone else...

rick_chasey

The Olympics was the best commuting experience I've ever had in London.

Empty roads, permanent greens, glorious summer.

Bliss.

msmancunia

As a non-Londoner these days I always used to look forward to hearing about any encounters with Shouty Cervelo Guy...

imatfaal

Rick Chasey wrote:

The Olympics was the best commuting experience I've ever had in London.

Empty roads, permanent greens, glorious summer.

Bliss.

Still my fastest time into the office - olympic lane all the way; got shouted at by policeman, drafted a team car for a km or so, and even asked if they would mind me swapping my commuter for one of their dream-machines

hopkinb

dhope wrote:

TGOTB wrote:

Discussion of power figures restricted to the Amateur Race forum?

Strava killed the SCR thread. All of a sudden tales of cruising in the mid-high 20's, seeing someone coming past at 30 and ending up at 35mph into a headwind, up a hill with a handful of pros hanging on for dear life was replaced with 20mph peaking at 22 and the pros being an old lady on a shopper once Strava revealed all.

I don't log my commutes anymore. It's because I'm still doing 35mph the whole way and don't want to embarrass everyone else...

My Garmin ran out of battery a fortnight ago, and the kids or the dog have eaten the lead to charge it up. Since then I have also been smashing it in and back at eye-meltingly high speeds, easily mid to high thirties mph, leaving literally everyone on CS7 in my wake.

MrSweary

I stopped using Strava when I realised I was getting slower.

Now I cycle around like a geriatric. And why is there ALWAYS a headwind? :x

veronese68

I'm really slow when on my Kinesis, but if I'm on the old Marin MTB I absolutely smash it and am easily the fastest thing on or off road. I don't think the little plastic aeroplane on the handlebars helps, I'm pretty sure it's the lack of Garmin mount. Although saying that I got my first KOM on the Marin on a light dusting of snow, could be because it was earlyish days of Strava on a little used path and recorded on an iphone.
Wasn't Rower's full title twitchy legged Storck guy?

rjsterry

I predict a Strava backlash, heralding a new trend for riding 'unplugged'.

smokey_bacon

rjsterry wrote:

I predict a Strava backlash, heralding a new trend for riding 'unplugged'.

That sounds suspiciously like the matrix!

cjcp

rower63 wrote:

TGOTB wrote:

Just remembered another one. Who can remember the mythical Storck Man? Back when he was still mythical, and still known as Storck Man?

Haha. Once upon a time I was Lemond Man...(I was quite badly behaved in those days )

rjsterry wrote:

cjcp wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

cjcp wrote:

On a sliver and red LeMond?

I believe so, but I've seen him on a different bike too. Tbh, he's the most distinctive component of the machine anyway.

Yep, he's quick, and he *really* hates being overtaken. But he's got form as a drafting fairy and an RLJer. He's quick off the mark, but he's weaker over distance. It's the long game with him. Not that I've spent hours strategising about this or anything...

I wonder if he knows we all talk about him on here.

and then this happened...

cjcp wrote:

BLUE STORCK MAN!
He's EX-RED-AND-SILVER-LEMOND MAN! He of The Twitching Calves!
He still *HATES* being overtaken . And he still needs to RLJ and draft.
He overtook just as we entered DSC, with Ed F in hot pursuit. I had to bust a hump to stay in touch with this 2-up. Quick chat with Ed on the NKR before we had to filter and my rear mech snapped. Had to trundle home in a badly-indexed 39-12.

and finally this [Aug 2013]:

cjcp wrote:

A-HA! Welcome, rower63.
The Storck was nice. A LeMond before that, right? Then an old skool steel frame?
Yes, we've duelled a few times

And you still hate being overtaken! Although you're a good deal faster now that you have a longer commute.

I remember the first encounter with Greg T (he looks like Father Christmas now).

Death Star Canyon with the railings up. Didn't someone post a photo of that a couple of years ago.

And I distinctly remember a lot less cyclists on the road. I used to commute down through Tooting, and then to Kingston along the South Bank about 10 years ago. Not much about back then. If you have late rides home these days, much more likely to have company.

itboffin

this is what Embankment looked like when Greg66 started commuting

itboffin

Early SCR

mtb-idle

Rick Chasey wrote:

The Olympics was the best commuting experience I've ever had in London.

Empty roads, permanent greens, glorious summer.

Bliss.

Eh??!! 2012 was the wettest year in living memory. It absolutely peed down all year apart from those two weeks.

I know cos I covered 12,000 km that year and most of them were commuting.

For me it was the bliss of 2003, the first year I cycle commuted when I first met DDD on the commute (didn't realise it was him then, only realised later) and I was the only cyclist that rode South beyond Colliers Wood tube station.

I also cycle commuted on the Friday before the hottest day recorded in Britain (and obviously the BBC website design was a bit, well...shite).

Damn that was a warm week.

jds_1981

Just checked when I first started commuting in London and looks like it was probably November or December 2003 from green lanes way to Leicester Square. That used to be a quiet route too.

rick_chasey

MTB-Idle wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

The Olympics was the best commuting experience I've ever had in London.

Empty roads, permanent greens, glorious summer.

Bliss.

Eh??!! 2012 was the wettest year in living memory. It absolutely peed down all year apart from those two weeks.

I know cos I covered 12,000 km that year and most of them were commuting.

For me it was the bliss of 2003, the first year I cycle commuted when I first met DDD on the commute (didn't realise it was him then, only realised later) and I was the only cyclist that rode South beyond Colliers Wood tube station.

I also cycle commuted on the Friday before the hottest day recorded in Britain (and obviously the BBC website design was a bit, well...shite).

Damn that was a warm week.

You're probably right. I just remember that first week of the Olympics was mega.

I only started London commuting in 2010.