Show us your.......newbie progress! [4 Sep 2012 - 4 Oct 2014]

[AndyPeace]

My Cycle Helmet saved my life tonight! I was riding indoors on rollers when a tall box (for an outdoor umbrela) shifted and fell forwards towards my front wheel. Luckily my helmet was hanging on the wall and stopped it Pretty pleased with my effort, was aiming to do 10miles @ 20mph avg.
http://app.strava.com/activities/132365977

 

[Exile]

Been away for the weekend with the O/H and a friend camping in Calderdale. Really enjoyable, the weather was great but didn't have the bikes with us. Every cyclist we saw seemed to be having a great time, even those winching their way up to Blackstone Reservoir, and made me long for two wheels. So as soon as we got back we put our names down for the Great Manchester Cycle. Just the 26 mile distance (now that's newbie progress for you, putting the word 'just' before 26 miles ). Figure it'll be a nice test of how far we've come in a year, and it'll be good to measure our fitness before deciding if the Manchester to Blackpool night ride is a yes or a no.

Back out on the bikes tomorrow, will be nice to put a few miles in the legs before the commute starts up again. O/H is planning on riding to the gym so I'll probably head over then do my own workout on the (non-stationary ) bike whilst he lifts his weights. Then I'll get him to put another 10 miles in his legs before heading home, because he neglects his cardio work otherwise. At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

 

[DavidD]

@DavidD for example I actually worked harder today than Friday in terms of H.R. even though the gearing on avg was lower at 63.31" compared with 66.18" about 1/2 a gear, and cadence was down from 84 to 82 indicating something was actually more difficult, as it turns out the wind was stronger though for most of my ride today it was more in my favour than against me, also the terrain was a touch steeper at 33.38ft/mile compared with 28.53ft/mile on Friday (ft/mile taken from rwgps, as I have used this from the beginning and use it as a standard from ride to ride, this differs somewhat to strava)

Some do say I have O.C.B.

Edit
Also two other things what I try and show with the gearing thing is one a compact is not always better than a triple, and that the inner ring should not be referred to as a granny ring as my set up shows it can actually be higher geared than some compacts, for example a 34x28 is 31.94" my 30x25 is 31.56" less than 1/2" you put a 30 or a 32 on the rear of a compact and it lower than mine.

Wasn't expecting such an extensive answer, I do understand the gearing charts and it's relation to how hard you work, also understand the relationship between shutter speeds and aperture. Tend to over analyse information I gather in my profession but don't have the time at home
Had a good look at your chart and it does contain a lot of information and reading it a bit closer found it quite interesting.

 

[Nigelnaturist]

Wasn't expecting such an extensive answer, I do understand the gearing charts and it's relation to how hard you work, also understand the relationship between shutter speeds and aperture. Tend to over analyse information I gather in my profession but don't have the time at home
Had a good look at your chart and it does contain a lot of information and reading it a bit closer found it quite interesting.

The effort/mile doesn't really work need to look at it more when I have time, it only takes me a couple of mins to enter the data, my database shows in months, quarters, year, rolling 7, 30, 90 days also days of week its visible more apparent than most websites I use, though things could be laid out better for clarity.
The reason I mention about the inner ring from time to time is a lot of newbies view the inner ring purely as a granny ring when in reality it isn't ( as you are obviously are aware), but many dont and shy away from using thinking its a soft option, and the fact that manufactures have been pushing compacts at new users where sometimes they are not appropriate, this is becoming less with the introduction of 10-11sp as you can get closer groupings, but these are not cheap.
To be honest these days I just enter the data and have a quick look, I just like to say when I have made changes to the bike what they are, and how I find it, and the inclusion of just one gear from 8 to 9 on the rear has made as made a difference beyond what I would expect, the test will come when I do the few hills further afield that require some effort, the last steep but short hill I did I was on the 30x28 that was back in Aug, but like i said i have the option of dropping the 16th and putting a 28th on.

http://www.strava.com/segments/1138013

 

[Boon 51]

Download it from garmin as a tcx and upload that to strava, it should also still be on your unit.
What I do is down load all my rides to my computer and back them up, then up load the saved file to whatever site I am using as tcx files this way all sites have exactly the same data. When I had the rider 35 this was quite a palaver but doable, the new bryton bridge is better as you can download direct to your computer, but still not as good as garmin which the computer sees as an external device, and its easy to drag and drop from the folder on the unit to a folder on your computer, and like wise if you create a tcx course this can be dropped into the new folder, which the garmin unit then converts to a course file (crs) which can be seen in the course file on the garmin unit (you can create crs files in software).
However the Bryton site will only upload tcx files that have been exported from a bryton unit (I did sort this out, but it is complex, and not something I would do normally), but the tcx the Bryton exports, can be uploaded to all sites I have tried.

Great bit of advice.. Cheers

 

[BrianEvesham]

Nice bigger loop round the villages this morning with a mate, so much easier riding with a buddy.

http://www.strava.com/activities/132569123

 

[welsh dragon]

Another pootle this morning. Only 6 miles, but we have an awful lot of tourists here at the moment and the roads are full or motorbikes and cars towing caravans. Best to stay off the roads if possible

 

[Goonerobes]

Another pootle this morning. Only 6 miles, but we have an awful lot of tourists here at the moment and the roads are full or motorbikes and cars towing caravans. Best to stay off the roads if possible

Its the same around here @welsh dragon which is why I went out this morning rather than this afternoon when they all head back home. The caravan towers seem to forget that they have something 2 foot wider behind them & come very close at times!
Well done for getting out anyway.

 

[welsh dragon]

Its the same around here @welsh dragon which is why I went out this morning rather than this afternoon when they all head back home. The caravan towers seem to forget that they have something 2 foot wider behind them & come very close at times!
Well done for getting out anyway.

Same to you. I think the motorbikes are the worse though. They think the roads are they're own race track and come roaring along the roads sometimes doing around 100mph. Scares the bejeezus out of you when they do go past. But caravans are bad as well.

 

[BrianEvesham]

Very excited this afternoon, my wife has started cycling again she did 6 miles then a further 3 miles in Lycra (a first) all on her own, at her request. Hopefully this is the start of something good.

 

[welsh dragon]

Very excited this afternoon, my wife has started cycling again she did 6 miles then a further 3 miles in Lycra (a first) all on her own, at her request. Hopefully this is the start of something good.

Congratulations. Hope your wife continues..

 

[Stonechat]

Did my ride today, was started at Chessington, and a loop round Box Hill a d Polesden Lacey

There was a high attrition rate due to the weather many dropped out before the start, and as soon as the heavens opened near the start. Ride was not too hard, but nonetheless we had two offs, but no lasting damage
Fuller details later, but 30 miles done at a modest pace.. Fuller details later when able to upload.

Did not go from home due to circa, on the way there saew another off from cyclist whose wheels strayed onto a very rough section at the verge

Weather was bad but I suppose could've been worse

Here is the ride from yesterday
http://www.strava.com/activities/132647430
28 miles at 11 mph -lots of stopping

Rather quicker up box hill at least
11minutes 43 as compared to 13 minutes 01 last time

 

[turbopercy]

Well in the first week of cycling i think i have done well
tuesday 16.8 miles
wednesday 4.5 miles
and then did this this morning

 

[Effyb4]

What a beautiful day for a cycle ride with my hubby. We went along the Thames path from Erith to the dome at a nice gentle pace (as it's shared access)
http://www.strava.com/activities/132652721

 

[Exile]

Out for a ride with the O/H as planned. No gym because he was still achy from camping so we decided to put in a few more miles on the bikes. Or that was the idea.

5 miles in, he gets a visit from you know who. There's no hurry, so I sort of talk him through the process of changing the tube, just in case he ever needs to do it whilst riding solo. A nice chap did stop and ask if we needed help but we'd all but finished by them so thanked him for the offer and went our separate ways. The weather was nice enough that even sat at the side of the path for half an hour swapping out tubes was pleasant.

Decide not to push too on just in case the tube, instead turning tail and heading home (via McDonalds for a horrible guilt burger. Those calories I'd burned on the bike? Yeah...). All in all though we racked up another 10 miles without breaking too much of a sweat and, fairy willing, our next ride out should be in the region of 20 miles.

Oh, and the urge to splurge dropped in on me again and I nipped in to Evans with the intention of buying a Garmin of some sort. Ended up with the 510 HR/cadence/speed bundle thing ordered. Not sure how much of the data I'll be able to make sense of, but I'm sure it'll either confuse or impress my work colleagues. Curse this paid employment lark, it's making me buy shiny gubbins I'd never have dreamt of having six weeks ago!