Official Road Cycling Thread

[M_Six]

I have Cobb Randee saddles on my bikes. I went through a ton of saddles before someone suggested the Cobb. I still can get a sore butt and I still get numb hands after an hour or so. But it's not as bad as when I first started riding. My newest bike came with a stock saddle and it wasn't half bad, but I still swapped it out for another Cobb saddle.

[beats]

I'm pretty happy with the Pro Stealth Team Saddle. I used to use a lot of Selle Italia SLR but much prefer the Pro. I have a curved one on my bike, and the regular on my trainer.

https://www.pro-bikegear.com/us/road...th-team-saddle

[chassis]

17 miles on our usual loop. Great weather, low 60s at the start, ended in the low 70s.

Wife needs new tires! What a challenge. No one has tires I want available online.

Kenda 700x32c city tires are on the bike now.

I want 700x35 or up to 700x38 with some knobs for better gravel performance, tube-capable.

Can anyone recommend in-stock, online purchase-able tires? I prefer Kenda but they are out of stock. Continental's website made no sense to me. Thanks!

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by chassis

17 miles on our usual loop. Great weather, low 60s at the start, ended in the low 70s.

Wife needs new tires! What a challenge. No one has tires I want available online.

Kenda 700x32c city tires are on the bike now.

I want 700x35 or up to 700x38 with some knobs for better gravel performance, tube-capable.

Can anyone recommend in-stock, online purchase-able tires? I prefer Kenda but they are out of stock. Continental's website made no sense to me. Thanks!

I was running these on my gravel bike until it became my trainer bike. They're not bad. Cheap enough. This place supposedly has them in stock, but no one else seems to, so who knows.

https://www.capitolcyclery.com/produ...e-375294-1.htm

[chassis]

Originally Posted by M_Six

I was running these on my gravel bike until it became my trainer bike. They're not bad. Cheap enough. This place supposedly has them in stock, but no one else seems to, so who knows.

https://www.capitolcyclery.com/produ...e-375294-1.htm

Thanks, looks like a tire I am looking for. I tried to order, and it limited me to qty=1. I am not sure if I am going to try to game their ordering system.

[Markr]

Originally Posted by M_Six

I have Cobb Randee saddles on my bikes. I went through a ton of saddles before someone suggested the Cobb. I still can get a sore butt and I still get numb hands after an hour or so. But it's not as bad as when I first started riding. My newest bike came with a stock saddle and it wasn't half bad, but I still swapped it out for another Cobb saddle.

I ordered a Selle SMP TRK on Amazon earlier, and it will be here tomorrow - something else to try. Cannot get Cobb in the UK.

Did another 12.5 miles tonight and last night, and it’s not so windy now, so a little easier.

I have lost count of how many saddles I have with less than 100 miles on!

[M_Six]

Perfect riding weather today. I knocked out 25 miles. And yeah, I went through a ton of saddles as well. Amazon is the best for that since you can return them as long as you don't mess them up.

[chassis]

7 miles last night, nice and easy. Low humidity, mid 70s. Nice night.

[Markr]

New saddle on the bike, and knocked out 15.4 miles yesterday and 21.8 miles today. Had the torque wrench in my bar bag in order to make any necessary adjustments.

General feedback is that the saddle is extremely comfortable, but has been necessary to play with height, fore and aft movement and angle, but I am getting there.

Here is a pic of it on the bike when I stopped to make another minor adjustment.

[chassis]

7 mile normal evening short loop. Pretty warm and muggy. Temp will be mid-90s this week.

Put two new Schwalbe 700c-32 tires on my wife's bike. Long overdue. The outgoing Kendas were 14 years old, and the rear tire was smooth. Seems like the tread loss was all of a sudden. But, to be honest, I must not have watched it closely enough.

She likes the Schwalbes, they are sturdier and of course new rubber helps with ride comfort. I wanted to put wider gravel tires on. After I got halfway down the rabbit hole with 700c-40 tires that didn't fit on the 16mm rims, and after considering wider rims, I backed out and bought direct replacement tires. The new tires should last until/if we decide to get her a bike that can handle mixed street/gravel duty. It's a 14 year old Cannondale Quick (don't have the numeric model number at hand) and it has been a good bike.

[M_Six]

Schwalbes are good tires. I had them for a while.

I'm trying to catch up to my pace for a 5k year. I knocked out 24 miles today to bring my week to 144 miles. Still 10 miles behind my pace for the year, but that'll be easy enough to make up. This coming week is going to be brutally hot and humid, so I might be doing some miles on the trainer.

[Markr]

I have some 700c-23 on my other bikes, one set is Conti Grandsport Pro and the others are Michelin Pro 4 - both are good, but I prefer the Michelin’s.

On my Trek (pic above) I have 700c-25 on Mavic wheels, and the tyres are branded Mavic too, one is called griplink, the other powerlink. When they wear, I will probably put Michelin’s of some sort on. I like the 25 compared to 23, and haven’t noticed any impact to my times, but ride is more comfortable.

The ones on my winter hybrid bike (Giant Escape 3) are Schwalbe’s, and are at least 700c-28, but probably wider and have lots of tread compared to my road bike tyres (I can’t check as it is put away for the Summer). It is a much heavier bike, and with the wider tyres, quite hard work above 13mph. I may try it with a spare set of wheels with 23 tyres on to see if it makes much difference.

[Markr]

Knocked out 12.4 miles tonight, fiddled with height and angle again, and think I now have those sorted. Just fore and aft adjustment to fine tune over the next few days - assuming the weather holds!

[chassis]

7 mile loop again tonight. Much cooler and more comfortable than last night.

I ordered a pair of Schwalbes for my bike in 26x2.1. Looking forward to new tires after 14 years!
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Also sprayed down our rear cassettes with brake parts cleaner. Probably lots of reasons why I shouldn't have done that, but it's done. There was years of crud gumming up the works, and now the gears shift noticeably more smooth and crisp.

[Markr]

Another 12.4 miles tonight - we have proper sunshine today and not liquid sunshine! A bit windy, so a couple of legs of my circuit were hard work, but no saddle adjustment, so may be almost there..

[chassis]

7 miles again tonight. Nice cool evening.

MCL is bothering me from overuse, so I need to give it some rest. A few years ago I had a nasty shoulder impingement flareup from overuse (swimming) that I don't want to repeat with my knee.

[M_Six]

I'm still stuck inside. Excessive Heat Warnings today through Friday. Heat index of 112F on Thursday. Yikes. I did knock out another 20 miles on the trainer today in just a bit over an hour. Thank you, Fulgaz. Love that app.

[Markr]

Stuck inside yesterday, but knocked out 12.3 miles tonight. Dodged the rain, let’s hope the weekend stays dry to get some more miles in.

[M_Six]

I've been stuck inside all week. 91 miles on the trainer so far. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be less brutal and Sunday looks awesome, so hopefully some outside mileage this weekend.

[Markr]

Originally Posted by M_Six

I've been stuck inside all week. 91 miles on the trainer so far. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be less brutal and Sunday looks awesome, so hopefully some outside mileage this weekend.

I have an Elite Turbo Fluid trainer in the garage that I try and use in the Winter, with another road bike attached to it, but I really struggle doing more than 10 mins on it due to sheer boredom. I have tried watching TV, and even linked it to an app on the computer to “ride along a road”, but still get bored.

What have you done to help with that aspect, as it bugs me that I can’t hack it - but having said that I can’t go out in the road bike without my Garmin, as I need to compete against something - ie. Myself.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by Markr

I have an Elite Turbo Fluid trainer in the garage that I try and use in the Winter, with another road bike attached to it, but I really struggle doing more than 10 mins on it due to sheer boredom. I have tried watching TV, and even linked it to an app on the computer to “ride along a road”, but still get bored.

What have you done to help with that aspect, as it bugs me that I can’t hack it - but having said that I can’t go out in the road bike without my Garmin, as I need to compete against something - ie. Myself.

I have a Wahoo KickR smart trainer that connects to an app called Fulgaz. That runs on an AppleTV box at 4k. The AppleTV box is connected to a 42" 4K TV that's about 2 meters in front of me. The trainer works in conjunction with Fulgaz so when the video shows the rider going uphill, it gets harder to pedal. And vice-versa going downhill. There's a full readout of data at the bottom of the Fulgaz screen, so I can see my power and cadence and heart rate, etc. I also have another wall mounted TV in front of my rower that I can tilt over to watch football or baseball or whatever. I don't often do that, though. I usually just enjoy the Fulgaz ride.

All that said, I can't do more than an hour on the trainer. My hands and butt just get too sore. I don't get out of the saddle on the trainer as often as I do out on the rode, so the aches set in faster.

[M_Six]

Here's one of my favorite Fulgaz rides. Keep in mind this is a low res sample. The videos are 4k.

https://fulgaz.com/fulgaz-rides/?fg_...5807bf205f7a9b