u/ResortMain780

Ive been doing a fair few 20 min FTP tests since I started cycling more or less seriously earlier this summer, and while they are tough, I kinda enjoy them and Ive have gotten good at pacing them. I have also been doing short duration (~5s and ~30s) sprints, which I think no one will hate.

But my power curve started looking a bit odd, with my 5 min power being basically equal to my 20 min power, so today I tried a 5 min max effort test. I asked chatgpt to give me a power target to aim for, given my other results ( ~130% of FTP), and gave it try

UGH.

OUCH

F*

Never again lol. Man thats brutal! Heart rate kept climbing until it was off the charts. I was gasping for air. Legs burned like there is no tomorrow, while simultaneously seizing up with lactate. Took me 30 minutes to recover lol. Didnt expect a 5min max effort to somehow be so much harder than a 20 min one!

But the curve looks okay now 😄

I just bought a Thinkrider XXPro. Everything seems to work, except AFAICT, I can only connect via bluetooth. The thinkrider is connected to my wifi. In mywoosh equipment settings I cant enable "direct connect" (for wired connectivity). Is wifi just not supported?

While im at it.. what does enabling ANT+ do? Can a phone, tablet or PC even do ANT+?

Im looking in to waxing my chains, and I will be buying an ultrasonic cleaner to help prepare my chains. Most of those are heated with temperature control, the one Im looking at goes to 80C, so that makes me wonder, would it make sense to use it also for waxing? I imagine the ultrasonic agitation will help the wax penetrate the chain better? Or is there a risk of the wax breaking down? Has anyone tried this?

Last year in Namibia, I was told not to use water to clean our glider (water there was extremely hard groundwater that would leave stains). People used some sort of (german branded) cleaning product, I dont recall what it was. Is there something generally recommended to clean a PU coated glider when water is not advisable?

Bought my first "proper" (gravel) bike a few months ago. Just a second hand decathlon triban RC520. Ive been riding it ~250Km per week and when the (cheap stock) tires where due for a change, I wanted to try something better. Landed on 35mm panaracer gravelking SS as a compromise between price/looks/performance and local availability. Turned out I needed new wheels for that too, the decathlon rims where too narrow and too shitty, even with inner tubes, it didnt work. Since my bike is QR with discs, I found myself with little choice and ended up buying some DT Swiss ER1600's. Wheels and new center lock discs and QR adapters and tires cost nearly as much as I paid for the bike, but at least I can probably reuse them on my next bike.

After a bit of a false start (brand new tire slashed and destroyed after just a few Km), I went for a ride yesterday. Rear disc was rubbing, I tried everything, recentered the caliper using shims.. oh well. Did my usual loop and somehow had a tail wind the entire ride. I also must not have configured my new wheel diameter correctly because my bike computer was showing just too high speeds. Also weird was I was actually overtaking half a dozen road bikes with riders in full gear (not common for me, Im a 50+ yr old beginner)

Got home, uploaded to strava, and was greeted by 57 new PRs. And not just by a little bit, like my best 10, 20 and 30Km speeds increased by over 3 KmH.

I did not see that coming.

I may never know how much is due to the more aerodynamic wheels (or who knows, bearings) and how much due to the tires, but the combination sure did more than I expected.

Havent had a flat in 4-5 years while riding cheap factory and decathlon tires with inner tubes. I did need new tires, wanted something decent now, and I wanted to give tubeless a try. Bought some panaracer gravelkings, delivery took a week. They were utterly impossible for me to mount on the decathlon rims, so I took it to a shop; turned out my cheap decathlon "tubeless ready" rims were too narrow and pretty shitty, shop strongly advised against tubeless setup and mounted them with inner tubes, still warning me it might not end well. I figured Id start shopping for new wheels, but at least meanwhile give this a try with inner tubes. I shouldnt have bothered. I had only just mounted the wheels and turned the bike over for 20 seconds, when I heard a loud bang. I hadnt even sat on the bike yet.

so, I upgraded to DT Swiss ER1600 (about my only option as I need QR and discs and DT swiss sell QR adapters). Cost almost as much as my second hand gravelbike. Had the shop mount the gravelkings as tubeless. Went for a ride. Pleasantly surprised by the ride quality and perceived speed for effort. 6Km in, I deviated from the cycling path on to the main road to overtake some other cyclists, and just as I went through the (very shallow, smooth and clean) rain gutter, I heard another loud bang. Blue sealant spilled everywhere.

I traced back the splashes of tubeless sealant on the road and sure enough, right next to the first blue splash was a piece of metal, shaped like a blade, sticking straight up, wedged between the concrete gutter and asphalt. No idea what it was or how it ended up there, but it was no different than riding over an exacto knife. 5cm gash in my rear tire. A bit more than sealant can cope with, more than I could fix with a patch form the inside (tried a patch on the inside anyway, put an inner tube in, inflated it, didnt look pretty).

Bummer.

Its gonna be a while before I get to enjoy the statistical advantages of tubeless. But at least Im convinced by the advantages when it comes to forensics to find out what happened. That blue sealant is hard to miss :)

I picked up a used triban RC520 a few months ago, my first "proper" bike. And as much as I like the shifting, I was annoyed there seemed to be no way to use the smallest or largest rear sprocket without the chain rubbing the front derailleur, no matter if I used the small or large chainring. I tried adjusting it, but at most I could make one or the other work with.. almost no rubbing. It wasnt a huge issue, its quite flat where I live, and I almost never need the extreme gears except for maybe some very steep bridges so i couldnt be bothered to take it to a shop to solve it for me.

Glad I didnt. lol. So yeah, turns out you can do a half click on the left shifter to move the front derailleur a bit to avoid this very issue. Duh!

After having ridden an ebike for a few years, I bought my first road (/gravel) bike a few months ago, at the ripe age of 53. Goal was general fitness and weight loss, I have no great ambitions beyond that.

I knew it was going to be a "uphill battle" for me, but I was still frustrated I couldnt ride longer, even fairly relaxed "zone 2" ones, without my legs just completely giving out after an hour or two. I figured just riding more would make me improve, but it barely worked.

I bought a power meter, honestly just to have an idea of where I stand. To do an FTP test so I could compare mine with typical values for various age/weight/sex groups. Then I put that FTP in my cycling app, and discovered I wasnt riding zone 2 at all. More like zone 4/5. Dont believe it when they say being able to talk easily is a good way to determine zone 2. I could sing all day, not remotely out of breath, but my legs just didnt have the power. I was pushing (way) too hard, my legs where always tired and I was barely improving.

So with the power meter, I have been riding actual zone 2 for a while. Felt slow, like embarrassingly slow at times, but at least I had endurance now. And boy, does riding zone 2 actually help! In just a matter of weeks I went from being barely able to walk after 50Km to considering it a warmup. Did another FTP test and it went up by 25%

I barely even look at my speed now. Im just targeting a power output for a given ride or interval, and the speed is whatever it is. This works so much better!

edit; because this came up so often. Regarding HR monitor and using that. Using heart rate is better than nothing, but if you are anything like me, dont believe the HR zones and think HR zone 2 is necessarily an easy ride. Its easy for my cardio vascular system, but it certainly isnt for my legs. After a few hours of mostly "zone 2" according to my HR, my legs would be like lead, I could barely make it home or walk down the stairs the next day. A combination of muscle glycogen depletion (too much hard riding not enough resting or actual light riding, combined with under-fueling) and insufficient mitochondrial density in my leg muscles due to being a new cyclist and having older muscles. Having been overweight and borderline pre diabetic will not have helped that either. A HR monitor wont tell you any of that.

If you can ride a few hours of zone 2 HR and still feel good with relatively fresh legs, then it might work for you. For me, it didnt. For light or endurance riding, I need to moderate my power output regardless of what my HR is. I found this especially important at the beginning of a ride, the first 15-30 minutes where I would feel fresh and think I was taking it easy, but in reality I would be pushing WAY more than what I could sustain. Pushing ~100% of my FTP feels almost effortless when I start a ride. ~80% would feel fairly effortless after 20-30 minutes. But I almost never actually rode zone 2 early in my rides and certainly never ever close to 50% of my FTP. So I started the glycogen depletion cycle at every start, and I really needed that power meter to help me realize what was happening, and to pace myself so I can actually finish a 3+ hour ride without major problems or at the end risk getting overtaken by grandmothers going shopping on their (e)bikes.

YMMV

I bought a 2020 stelvio recently. The AC wasnt working at all, so I took it to the dealer and they re-filled the gas. They told me they could only fill 450gr, rather than the 500gr the manual prescribes, and they seemed a bit puzzled by that, I need to go back after driving a while to re-check it. Its working now, but its too weak. 27C outside, it struggles to keep cabin comfortable, and I have the temp set to 16C and the fan pretty much full bore. Im guessing thats not normal?