Hi all.
What a shock it has been reading here about the current state of bikes/riding/clothing etc. I am certainly a cycling fish out of water!
Let me introduce myself and my bike. I took early retirement last year and moved from hilly Bucks to flatter Essex. With time on my hands and a rarely used bike to hand I recently decided to get cycling and get fitter.
The good news was that at least I have not put on too much weight over the years, the bad news is that my bike has made up for that. I own a Raleigh Stratos tourer, which I bought new some 37 years ago and only used spasmodically in the intervening years. Over the past 2 months I have enjoyed getting (slightly) fitter cycling around the local country lanes.
But my bike has had to go in for a service (its first), as now only 8 of the 10 gears engage, and there is a crunching noise from the front as I cycle - hopefully not my knees! I have a nice circuit or two around the local reservoir (Hanningfield) which is very popular area with cyclists a third of my age, riding bikes half the weight of mine, going at double my speed. There must be time trials around there also as sometimes they wear numbers.
I think I am the only cyclist who still wears cycle clips, and suppose I need to embrace the clothing fashions of cycling, perhaps when I can drag the bike to slightly less embarassing speeds. Talking of which I am amazed by the gizmos now available to measure performances. My bike has a cycling mileometer which works on the front wheel and turns a cog every revolution to measure distance covered. Now for upwards of a fiver I can measure distance/speed/averages etc etc with a little computer gizmo. I have ordered one. Any information gained from it will be carefully analysed, compared to others on this forum, and secretly wept over
When every cycist and his dog/snail/glacier stops overtaking me at such staggering speeds I hope to get a new bike which (with more fashionable clothing) may earn me a few more nods and hi's from passing lycra lads and lassies. And hopefully one which has some better gearing than my current steel stallion, but at least I will be fit for it by then.
Great forum everyone .......
Paul
What a shock it has been reading here about the current state of bikes/riding/clothing etc. I am certainly a cycling fish out of water!
Let me introduce myself and my bike. I took early retirement last year and moved from hilly Bucks to flatter Essex. With time on my hands and a rarely used bike to hand I recently decided to get cycling and get fitter.
The good news was that at least I have not put on too much weight over the years, the bad news is that my bike has made up for that. I own a Raleigh Stratos tourer, which I bought new some 37 years ago and only used spasmodically in the intervening years. Over the past 2 months I have enjoyed getting (slightly) fitter cycling around the local country lanes.
But my bike has had to go in for a service (its first), as now only 8 of the 10 gears engage, and there is a crunching noise from the front as I cycle - hopefully not my knees! I have a nice circuit or two around the local reservoir (Hanningfield) which is very popular area with cyclists a third of my age, riding bikes half the weight of mine, going at double my speed. There must be time trials around there also as sometimes they wear numbers.
I think I am the only cyclist who still wears cycle clips, and suppose I need to embrace the clothing fashions of cycling, perhaps when I can drag the bike to slightly less embarassing speeds. Talking of which I am amazed by the gizmos now available to measure performances. My bike has a cycling mileometer which works on the front wheel and turns a cog every revolution to measure distance covered. Now for upwards of a fiver I can measure distance/speed/averages etc etc with a little computer gizmo. I have ordered one. Any information gained from it will be carefully analysed, compared to others on this forum, and secretly wept over

When every cycist and his dog/snail/glacier stops overtaking me at such staggering speeds I hope to get a new bike which (with more fashionable clothing) may earn me a few more nods and hi's from passing lycra lads and lassies. And hopefully one which has some better gearing than my current steel stallion, but at least I will be fit for it by then.
Great forum everyone .......
Paul