Jacuzzi of smugness!

for anyone who didnt get the guardian today....heres the two wheels section,which i found awful amusing!.....i hope its readable

I felt my head expand as I read it, although's it's a bit hard feeling smug about getting wet every morning...

Try to avoid drinking large quantities last thing before bedtime :p

it must be hard boshing out 500 words every day...

I don't take newspapers, that's something to be smug about

hmm self-satisfaction... i've posted this vid before but i really feel like it belongs here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMjG2s6UOaw&mode=related&search=

700 calories an hour, I dunno about that , can that be right, I would have thought you would have to be going at a pretty fair old wack to burn that many calories

RPM I don't take newspapers

It's weird how in English we talk about 'taking' papers. It's like saying read/buy/steal/subscribe to/believe/etc , all wrapped into one lexical package. What a great fucking language.

the-smiling-buddha 700 calories an hour, I dunno about that , can that be right, I would have thought you would have to be going at a pretty fair old wack to burn that many calories

Seems double what I worked out but it depends on what you weigh and how fast you ride..
http://www.stevenscreek.com/goodies/calories.cgi

Although when I check my HRM data, I seem to be over the 300 calories per hour. More like 450kcal/hr for some of the longer rides.

I got confused for a while when I saw the calorie thing on gmaps-pedometer, but then realised it was calculated for running/walking, d'oh!

pedalling at a 'middling speed' ain't going to burn 700 calories banging along at 80% of your max output might

I don't need a calculator I know I used to middle and now I bang

they probably recorded that 700 on a fat bloke on a dual suspension mtb with no idea what aerodynamics is...

Maybe he actually meant 700Cal (rather than 700kCal)...
Or, 700 calories of energy is being burnt by maladjusted brake blocks rubbing against the rims.

the-smiling-buddha pedalling at a 'middling speed' ain't going to burn 700 calories banging along at 80% of your max output might

'middling speed' is kinda vague. WTF is 'middling' anyway?

80% of my HRmax is fsck all - I could sit at that all day (ie. on a clubrun) and my Polar figures indicate I'm around 450kcal mark per hour (v. rough estimate).

I've just realised they said 700, not 300. So, yeah, their claim is pretty high.

Yeah, if clubrun middling is 80% MHR, 500cal +/-10% sounds more like it.

But if you're a commuter who regularly races at 95% MHR, probably burning closer to 1000 calories an hour, maybe 700 calories feels pretty 'middling'.

Or it's just a typo - it IS the Guardian ;)

Can I perhaps add the Hot-tub of Self Righteous Gloating... I love being on a bike on days like this.

Oooh, it's a tube strike. Oooh, look at all the queues at the bus stops. See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya!

I wondered why there were 100's of people outside all the bus stops on the way in!

i bet bike shops will sell plenty more bicycles over the tube strike period.

which is good!

Good to see more people on their treadlies.

Do you think that the extra peeps are just riding because of the strike, or is it just everyone that rides, has had to ride in all at once?

Fuck, that doesn't make much sense, but what i was getting at, was that if there are people with bikes that don't ride to work, maybe three days of being forced to might encourage them to do it permanently - which is good for wallets/planets/bodies.
I'm all for it.

With tube strikes and terror threats in the past few years the number of cyclists I see always shoots up but does tend to trickle off again pretty quickly.
Whereas I think things like this do inspire quite a few to start/return to cycling permanently, I think it also sparks a lot of "good intentions" that lapse quickly back into tube-commuterdom after a bit of rain or a night on the sauce.

post 7/7 there definately has been more cyclists on the roads.

I'm a half-commited commuter, I usually ride the bike 3-4 times a week and get the tube the other 1-2 days. Obviously if there's a tube strike (although I use the jubilee and nothern lines which are fine) I'll be on the bike those days :)

Although I do hate the increased traffic, it took me 45 minutes to do my usually 32 minute commute :S Which meant I was 45 minutes late instead of 32! baaah.

Don't know if stompy found this, but there were bloody hundreds of bikes in Canary Wharf this morning, took me ages to find somewhere to lock my bike up!

unxetas I'm a half-commited commuter, I usually ride the bike 3-4 times a week and get the tube the other 1-2 days. Obviously if there's a tube strike (although I use the jubilee and nothern lines which are fine) I'll be on the bike those days :)

Although I do hate the increased traffic, it took me 45 minutes to do my usually 32 minute commute :S Which meant I was 45 minutes late instead of 32! baaah.

ha! how far do you have to commute?

not far, I'm just slow :S Deptford to Shaftesbury Av., about 6-7 miles I think..Which means I'm averaging like 10 miles an hour? bah..

photoben Don't know if stompy found this, but there were bloody hundreds of bikes in Canary Wharf this morning, took me ages to find somewhere to lock my bike up!

No chain on bike. - no ride work :-(

I hate days like this at CW. If you need a good space you need to be really early, which ain't gonna happen.

Would have liked to cycle in, but glad I missed all the Sunday bikers ambling in the gutter.

Spoke (excuse the pun) to a nice man at Witcombe today. I'm dropping the bike off today, so I hope to get some riding in this week.