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Thanks @Velocio for all your work with this site.

I’ve not been a member for that long but I can’t imagine just how differently my journey into cycling may have gone without this forum. Its impact has been huge. I’ve met some really great people in real life because of this site, I’ve gotten so much help from kind strangers online, it’s truly been a bastion of what can be so great about the internet, and a little reminder that despite the world being an exponentially alienating and lonely place there is genuine kindness and meaningful connections still out there.

This fuckin sucks.

Would it be hilarious to suggest a big forum meet up IRL before the plug is pulled?

friendly heads up that this could be why they didn’t sell last time

She’ll be missed here.
Feeling lucky to have been the subject of her discerning and sharp observational wit once or twice!
Rest in peace Maj

yes and are you worried it’s stuck or wondering about functionality?

it can come off I just haven’t taken it off

Square Mile’s decaf is good i reckon

happened to me once on the cycleway in Bermondsey
My love for fixed brakeless went rapidly down hill after that and hasn’t come back haha

haha that looks great man

big temptation to do the same to my all day for the lolz, tho i never really did get skidz down in straps as well as in cleats

Thought of the day:
why am i so stupid

squeeze it in before SFAB talk from January to May

What’s the best aliexpress-type offering for easy roller wheels to do that nifty ‘pushing my Brompton round the supermarket by the saddle’ kinda thing?

hey hey hey
if you look closely it says ‘gravel’ on it

Yeah it’s a wicked colour hey. Accidentally colour matched it for the ride home heh, was a lot of fun, my first time riding one. ‘Spose I’ve gotta learn the Brompton maintenance basics now

i agree
…and if it wasn’t two sizes too small

na i know i know… there are people out there who actually have the core strength to ride bikes like this, but maybe i have a bee in my bonnet about gravel bikes that look exactly like aggro road bikes with slightly wider tyres

there’s no way that’s fun to ride down anything but the most champagne-iest of gravel

my girlfriend has a brompton now 😎

i kind of have a brompton now 😎

sorry to derail the constructive side of this thread to poke fun

good fkin goin
I walked 15 mins in it and was glad to not have to be commuting anywhere on a bike

Price drop for a big fat 1er?

i don’t need this stuff, the longer it hangs around the more likely i am to build another bike that i don’t need, let my lack of impulse control be your small win

nice bikes! that genesis is cool

Cheers Sam (: hope you’re well

I just checked the numbers and I have been riding this bike a little under a cm lower than I should have so I guess that explains the feeling in the quads. Realistically the flared up tendon pain in the inner knee is probably because of the step up from 2hrs on a bike for almost two months to 200 miles in two days heh. Hopefully will just clear up as you say!

@ltc well ‘luckily’ it’s been shit weather all day so I as well as a couple pals bailed. I’ll shout you next time im free 🫡

my knee still hurts a bit which is laaaaaame.

I’ve lime-biked to work to keep the pressure off since getting back home, I did a two hour ride to Richmond on Wednesday and could feel my knee was there if that makes sense. It didn’t hurt as such but was certainly present.

I reckon a play about with saddle height is in order. It does feel like my quads are working a bit too much in comparison with other bikes I’ve had. But it seems a bit contradictory to raise a saddle in pursuit of getting rid of knee pain.

I got a bike for on the Kepler so I can copy the saddle height across I guess. The Kinesis only has 0.25 degree steeper seat tube angle so I guess it’s a good place to start?

It was a really nice ride tbf.
The weak attempt at a ‘party’ the day before the ride and afterwards was shit though.
Bad PA system playing house music that drowned out any of the organisers who tried to give information out via a microphone, ‘free pizza’ that was woefully ill equipped to serve everyone there, and 3/4s of the vendors had left before the ride day had ended meaning people (myself included) were getting back to Old Sarum to a sort-of shell of a campsite with nothing really around to eat or drink

Maybe will be better now it’s ran locally…

new stayer

spill the beans in your thread

cheers for the nice comments everyone.

I listened to all the 2024 Silk Road Mountain Race podcast episodes recently, the one hosted by Allan Shaw, it’s really great, they’re a great addition to the podcast. It kinda helped me in a couple ways in regard to my outlook on this cycling stuff. The first and most basic way is in how just breaking down longer rides into smaller chunks can totally change your outlook on finishing a ride when you’re struggling. Now riding from London to Cardiff is no Silk Road, but I’m also no ultra endurance athlete. My quads were having a cramping party on the first day and my left knee was giving me jip all throughout the second day. But by just saying ‘ah I’ll just get to Bath and then see’, and then saying ‘ah well Bristol is right there so we’ll see then’, and then getting there and thinking ‘ah well I’ve come this far, what harm can going the rest do?’ I managed to stick it out and not give in to a train ride to comfort-town.

The second is in how worrying about the ‘perfect bike’ for the ride is kind of just dumb and stupid. It would be easy to say riding 45c gravel tyres across the country on a mostly road route is not the most efficient way to do it. And that’s true. But when you look at the scope of the different terrains that these crazy cats are covering day-to-day on an ultra, it all becomes rather insignificant. Translate that into your average Joe like me who rides for fun and has palid dreams of doing crazy shit like that on a bike, then you kinda understand that ideas around ‘perfection’ and ‘efficiency’ are just a waste of time. Like yes it was probably harder than it needed to be for me for that specific journey, but on Day X of [insert off-road ultra name here] everyone was probably riding 2.1” XC tyres on mile after mile of tarmac. If they can do it in an ultra, I can do it on my weekly long ride - you get what I mean?

You get on the bike, you pedal the bike, you get fitter. You might go faster more easily if you did this or that but for the most part who really cares. I rode to Paris on a Halfords hardtail mtb before I knew anything about cycling, and it was one of the best trips I’ve ever done.

With all that rambling done is time to make it relevant…
That little mini-adventure to Cardiff was the kinda ride that I ride bikes for. Being outside all day, seeing new stuff, going places. I’m feeling really positive and energised about making sure I stay regularly riding this winter after it. Though it did make me realise that my winter riding schedule can’t all be full of winter fixed miles as I had optimistically thought back in September. The limited distance, non-varying terrains, and being a part of constant busy traffic just aren’t things that I enjoy that much. I’m never excited to go out and ride around the lanes around the perimeter of south London and as much as work n life was a bit hectic this autumn, that lack of excitement is probably quite a big reason as to why I didn’t do much riding whilst I was stripping my old gravel bike to then build a new one.

Since getting back, I’ve cleaned the bike up, put some tokenistic lil plastic mudguards on that I’ve had hanging around. I’ve stared into the depths of Komoot to thread as many as I can of what I’m calling ‘mixed terrain’ AKA ‘lanes and hard pack gravel that doesn’t turn to boggy slop in the winter’ routes together. I’ve been planning my post-ride bike wash protocol for living in a garden-less London flat… And I’m avoiding falling into the self-made trap of using the ‘well I don’t have a perfect winter bike’ excuse to assuage myself of guilt for not riding a bike when it’s a bit wet and a little cold out. This kinesis does not have full mudguards and the 45c chunky tyres will be slow and heavy on what will be mostly road rides, but it will mean I’m outside riding a bike, having fun, getting fitter, seeing the sights, and preparing for when the weather gets nice again so I can see more places and spend more time outside.

But for now, my knee still hurts a bit so no riding for a bit, only rambling of the written kind.

Hoping it’ll be fine by Saturday. Gravel bikes on Saturday anyone?

yeah what’s the news here? the people want to envy

that’s sick!