Where have all the roadies gone?

[derrick]

You dont get better at something by not practising it.

All youre doing is making yourself less likely to be able to stay upright when you do unxepectedly hit a loose or slimy surface in August.

The roads around here are bad enough when it's dry, If you hit black ice on a road bike you are coming off, so no riding for me if there is any chance of ice. Falling off does not help riding skills.

 

[ColinJ]

You dont get better at something by not practising it.

All youre doing is making yourself less likely to be able to stay upright when you do unxepectedly hit a loose or slimy surface in August.

Damp roads, mud, ice with crunchy snow on top - yes, practice makes perfect.

You don't get better at riding on smooth, wet ice by practising doing it though - you probably end up breaking a hip/pelvis/arm/whatever instead.

You need friction between tyre and road to control a bike - you can't steer or brake on smooth, wet ice. The only thing you can do is carry on in a straight line and even THAT is hard to do. It also isn't much help if the icy road has a bend in it and you are going downhill at the time...

I went out on New Year's Day once and had 3 heavy falls on wet ice in less than an hour. I was really lucky not to hurt myself. I decided after that to avoid going out in icy conditions unless I ever got some studded tyres. (I risked it again a few years ago and... crashed!)

I walked to the shops a couple of nights ago and there was so much black ice on the backstreets that I could barely walk across them. Cycling on those would have been extremely foolish without studded tyres.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

The roads around here are bad enough when it's dry, If you hit black ice on a road bike you are coming off, so no riding for me if there is any chance of ice. Falling off does not help riding skills.

Edge of London you’d be riding year round. Ice all day is a rare beast

 

[derrick]

Edge of London you’d be riding year round. Ice all day is a rare beast

You do not need ice all day , Only a split second and you are down, been there done it, a few years ago a crowd of us would ride in all weathers, we are all older and wiser now.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

You do not need ice all day , Only a split second and you are down, been there done it, a few years ago a crowd of us would ride in all weathers, we are all older and wiser now.

My point is I’ve rarely lasts for long around London. It’s not there all day apart from very rare days which are easy to recognise.

 

[vickster]

Saw plenty of folks on road bikes around SW London today while a friend and I were riding ours (the 🦄 in my case). Lovely sunny January day, certainly no ice and much drier than yesterday

 

[Landsurfer]

Well ..it’s a two wheels thing I think ...
The carbon £200 Lycra brigade disappear off the roads into Zwift world for the winter ... The leather clad plastic fantastic Yam and Kwak brigade put their bikes into the heated garage and meet at cafes and chat via their laptops and cars ....
Some of us ..with panniers ..... Just ride through the winter .........
On two wheels ....

 

[Paulus]

There were plenty of groups out yesterday, more than I have seen for a while.
It was a nice sunny day though.

 

[johnblack]

Debated whether to use the winter roadie yesterday, decided on the 29er, it was the right decision, the roads were pretty bad, saw quite a few out in their roadies, a few were struggling, it was pretty sketchy.

 

[Mr Celine]

Southern softies...

OK, I did have to walk to the summit from here but 28mm slicks were never going to get any traction.
But I did ride down the other side...

... which took nearly 15 minutes compared with a strava PR of about 2:30. Never fell off once. More fun and excitement in those 15 minutes than in 15 days on a turbo.

 

[matticus]

... which took nearly 15 minutes compared with a strava PR of about 2:30. Never fell off once. More fun and excitement in those 15 minutes than in 15 days on a turbo.

Amen to that!

There used to be a meme saying: this is useless without pictures. Well this post is useless without annotation: like where? "North" - Yorkshire? Cairngorms? Norway? Iceland?

 

[Mr Celine]

Amen to that!

There used to be a meme saying: this is useless without pictures. Well this post is useless without annotation: like where? "North" - Yorkshire? Cairngorms? Norway? Iceland?

Selkirkshire (Scottish Borders). March 2018.

 

[FishFright]

There's plenty of lycra'd up roadies riding around here on their winter bikes .

 

[ColinJ]

I was less of a winter wimp when I was in my 50s...!

This winter I have mostly been hiding indoors!

 

[Tim Bennet.]

Plenty of roadies round here over the weekend. Mainly in groups varying between 3 and 30.