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

[BrianEvesham]

Hammering down here at the moment and has been for hours. Almost glad I'm on nights!

 

[Stonechat]

A rise in river levels again today
12 cm up on yesterday
This is getting bad again
Bob

 

[Mo1959]

Baltic here. Had a 4 mile dog walk. Pavements and parts of road were icy. Nice walk though and grabbed a couple of pics but hands froze as soon as I took my gloves off!

Just having brekkie now and if it warms up nearer lunchtime I might pop out for just an hour. Sun is out which makes it look nice looking out.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Thanks for the encouragement! I'm actually building up to commuting the full distance to work one day, 49 miles each way. Wish me luck!

That is a good stretch. Agree with what others have said only thing I would add is you will normally be slower on a commute than a leisure ride due to you tend to be carrying some gear either via panniers or rucksack and you hitting rush hour traffic at some point so build in extra time.

I would also recommend that the first time you do the commute to work is when you are not working, that way iron out any niggles on the route and not worry about beating the clock. The final point is, if you do that, when you turn around to come home, add another two miles onto the journey and bag yourself an imperial century.

Alternatively do you currently drive to work? If so what you could do is drive so far to work and then cycle in, as you get fitter reduce the distance you drive until you start leaving the car at home

 

[Ootini]

That is a good stretch. Agree with what others have said only thing I would add is you will normally be slower on a commute than a leisure ride due to you tend to be carrying some gear either via panniers or rucksack and you hitting rush hour traffic at some point so build in extra time.

I would also recommend that the first time you do the commute to work is when you are not working, that way iron out any niggles on the route and not worry about beating the clock. The final point is, if you do that, when you turn around to come home, add another two miles onto the journey and bag yourself an imperial century.

Alternatively do you currently drive to work? If so what you could do is drive so far to work and then cycle in, as you get fitter reduce the distance you drive until you start leaving the car at home

I agree about adding the two miles on, I don't think I could forgive myself!

Also I live and work on opposite ends of the North Wales coast, and as I'm sure some of you are aware we've got a pretty decent cycle path here (National path 5 or something). What I'm thinking of doing is getting up early and cycling to the nearest train station, get off the train at a certain point and ride the remaining distance and keep increasing this distance (getting off the train earlier each time). Might be a good way to build up distances whilst always having a back up plan, ie. if it lashes it down, stay on the train.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

I agree about adding the two miles on, I don't think I could forgive myself!

Also I live and work on opposite ends of the North Wales coast, and as I'm sure some of you are aware we've got a pretty decent cycle path here (National path 5 or something). What I'm thinking of doing is getting up early and cycling to the nearest train station, get off the train at a certain point and ride the remaining distance and keep increasing this distance (getting off the train earlier each time). Might be a good way to build up distances whilst always having a back up plan, ie. if it lashes it down, stay on the train.

Sounds like a perfect plan that

 

[MattMM]

Best day for ages so took advantage and hit over 25 miles, longest so far. Not being able to see hills whenplanning a new route is a bit of a pain as I literally found out, some brutal short climbs (a 16%er being the worst) which gave a decent interval workout I suppose...

http://www.strava.com/activities/111706740

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Best day for ages so took advantage and hit over 25 miles, longest so far. Not being able to see hills whenplanning a new route is a bit of a pain as I literally found out, some brutal short climbs (a 16%er being the worst) which gave a decent interval workout I suppose...

http://www.strava.com/activities/111706740

If you use ridewithgps it shows elevation as you plan the route

 

[MattMM]

Cheers, just being doing it ad-hoc with my iOS Maps app, handy for distances but that's about all

 

[Stonechat]

I am going for ride this afternoon. The plan calls for an hour at zone 1 which is hardly taxing.
(Not that I am good at keeping to the plan)

Looks fine at present. Going out on Sunday if the weather holds up - may have to carry the bike out, and stash wellies somewhere. Should be ok but winds are forecast
River up another 4 cm since this mornings post. Plan is this time to put the bikes on boxes.

p.s did the spin too easy to put up here, side door of garage now has water round it

 

[Stonechat]

Best day for ages so took advantage and hit over 25 miles, longest so far. Not being able to see hills whenplanning a new route is a bit of a pain as I literally found out, some brutal short climbs (a 16%er being the worst) which gave a decent interval workout I suppose...

http://www.strava.com/activities/111706740

as @Supersuperleeds said, also there are the route planning in Strava and GPSies and cyclestreet, plenty of ways of seeing the hill

 

[Supersuperleeds]

I am going for ride this afternoon. The plan calls for an hour at zone 1 which is hardly taxing.
(Not that I am good at keeping to the plan)

Looks fine at present. Going out on Sunday if the weather holds up - may have to carry the bike out, and stash wellies somewhere. Should be ok but winds are forecast
River up another 4 cm since this mornings post. Plan is this time to put the bikes on boxes.

p.s did the spin too easy to put up here, side door of garage now has water round it

If I were you I would probably be riding in the wellies

 

[Stonechat]

If I were you I would probably be riding in the wellies

I have done it once on a cycling holiday I did that was too too wet
Back in the 80's

 

[Exile]

@Mo1959 Fingers crossed for the warmer weather coming along soonish, I'm fed up with wearing cargo trousers over my cycling shorts and can't bring myself to subject the local population to the sight of me in bib tights. Even if most of the population are shouty yoofs, my longer rides take me to some fairly nice places I'd like to be allowed back to

It's been fairly dry here this week, during the day at least, so managed ti get out on the bike to do a bit of shopping on Tuesday, racking up another 11 miles, and discovering a road I considered to be "almost flat" felt like I was crossing the Alps. Was behind a roadie on a segregated path part of the way. I though I was doing rather well keeping him from vanishing over the horizon, which sort of made up for the killer 3% grade, then he crushed my belief once we hit the roads and he dropped me like the proverbial bad habit. Also discovered that whilst you can indeed walk fairly normally in SPD's, on anything other than perfect flagstones it sounds like you're walking up a gravel driveway in hobnail boots.

Got out this afternoon, immediately noticed a clicking every turn of the right pedal, always at the same point. Checked the obvious things like shoelaces, gear cables, etc to make sure it was a noise coming from the bike. It was. I've narrowed it down to the pedals, after swapping back to the flats the bike came with got rid of the noise. I've refitted the clipless pedals, will have a little spin later on/tomorrow to see if something as simple as taking them off and re-greasing the thread has fixed it. If not, time to work out how to strip and re-grease the things.

Oh, and I need a new cleat bolt as I've lost one somehow. If I need to re-grease/replace the pedal I'll be cheeky with the LBS and ask if they've got a spare knocking about whilst buying the tool(s). If the pedal needs nothing, I'll probably just order a spare set of cleats, I imagine I'll need replacements at some point in the future anyway.

@Nomadski That could've been the issue, I put it back on before Tuesday's ride and it's not tried to escape again, despite me bumping down kerbs and finding one or two potholes..

@Ootini Welcome, and hello! The better part of a 10 mile ride is nothing to be sniffed at for a newbie, it took me a while to get to that distance, and I'm rarely getting an 11mph average even after five or six months on the bike. As others have said, keep at it, take it easy at first, and soon you be commuting no trouble. The idea of getting the train partway is great too. Best of luck, and if my touring plans come together we might cross paths on the North Wales coast at some point later this year. Maybe.

 

[SWSteve]

Has anyone heard from @Nigelnaturist recently? I've seen others ask after him, but haven't seen a post from him :/

Was thinking of going out for an hour tonight, but really cant be bothered, going to go out tomorrow after work, light rain forecast but it will hopefully be alright.