Ultracycling

My tuppence on saddle sores is that you either get them or you don't and there's not a lot you can do about it in the short term.

This isn't really a solution to aim for, but an interesting experience: In 7400km NCT, about half way through, I had bloody saddle sores, kind of shocking. After a good sleep and some hardening up, I grew a thicker skin somehow and stopped having problems for the rest of the race, felt like I could carry on forever. A dry layer was peeling off a while after the race.

what issues are there with a horizontal component to pedalling? Given that people manage to pedal recumbents

Pedal thrust on a recumbent is reacted by the back rest. On a conventional bike, the vertical component is reacted by gravity and the horizontal by saddle friction and arm tension. Since the load is cyclic and the gooch is flexible, the change in horizontal thrust at the saddle inevitably results in a certain amount of cyclic fore and aft relative motion between gooch and saddle, which is probably best minimised in the context of this discussion.

When I did midfoot I actually had to put my saddle back rather than forward, and a long way down. While it's not very intuitive, apparently that is not uncommon.
If I'd just shunted my saddle forward, by the same distance as from ball to midfoot, to keep my legs moving in the same pattern as before, I 'd have been way too far forward with loads of weight on my hands.
It might depend on leg length and how much set back there is to begin with.

Thanks, that's a good explanation! Makes sense.

Steve Abraham has talked in the past about having built up rhinoceros skin on his arse from volume of riding.

"The saddle was dropped and moved forward and I cycled whilst Scherrit eye-balled the position. The saddle was raised a bit and moved further forward and the bars were dropped and the position was retested."

Guess it will just depend on where your position was to begin with.

My tuppence on saddle sores is that you either get them or you don't and there's not a lot you can do about it in the short term

I think this is bang on. There is only so much bike fitting, stretching, trying different saddles, trying different shorts you can do until it reaches a point where you have to accept it and just maintain is and best you can.

I still think Sudocrem is very good and always surprised what a difference it makes by the morning.

My tuppence on saddle sores

All these years I've been assuming your gender didn't involve the possession of a tuppence 🙂

tuppence

I've learned something new today

Has it been suggested to get in touch with Jasmin Muller? She has the excellently titled blog post “flap mash”, and has really been through it all!

Oh thanks! I'll pass this on!!

Anyone on here riding Trans Pyrenees? I saw that a message from Anna has gone out asking for feedback so looking as a maybe? I presume a similar email that went to TCR entrants. Not down to ride it but have applied to volunteer.

No info, but I'm down to volunteer too and saw that the message and wondered the same.

GB Divide starting in a couple of days? https://bikepacking.com/event/great-british-divide-2021/

what do you get for £275 - a route?

edit: "Our main business is corporate events" aha.

a route
a tee shirt
patch
route

Hadn't seen that! I was getting confused with GBDURO. Will probably keep an eye on it regardless.

#TooManyRaces

club mate doing the GB divide currently. is this bad

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They bin Indra'd.

How far into the event are they?

It does not look like they started with a new, or even healthy cassette/chain.

1,433km (in the lead)
https://greatbritishdivide2021.maprogress.com/#

would be surprised if he didn't have a fresh/healthy chain and cassette going in but can't say for certain. chain snapped this morning too, I think

This bike?

https://www.instagram.com/p/CR6-yZVMjHB/

Maybe he's just got a more enthusiastic lubrication policy than me :)

that's the one

just SRAM things probably #mollemavidgoeshere

I didn't want to say it was SRAM because I can't identify any mountain bike parts unless they were made in the 90s.

I hope he's got a file on his Swiss Army knife, and an hour or two to spare!

club mate doing the GB divide currently. is this bad

Josh Ibbett has pulled out. Cant be a cakewalk