Posts Tagged ‘cycling’

How do we avoid drowning in our own sweat when indoor cycling? If you use a turbo trainer, you will probably be familiar with it being one of the sweatiest things you can do. In this video, I’ll give you five ideas for making it manageable.

There are mini pumps, then there is the Bianchi super micro. It’s really, really small for a bike pump.

I took me a while to get hold of because I wanted someone to recommend it but all of the shops said it was too small. Finally, an officially licenced Bianchi retailer said it was great (surprisingly), so I bought it from them. If there was any justice, at this point, it would turn out to be crap. But they were actually telling the truth and it’s a really good pump.

Here’s the video review:

Crankalicious is a British-based bike cleaning product brand and their Gumchained Remedy chain cleaning wipes are amazing. Mostly because they make it easy enough for me to actually bother cleaning my chain. Check it out:

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I spent an hour scrubbing my drive train with @crankaliciously and for the first time ever it actually looks clean again.

A post shared by Chris Worfolk (@chrisworfolk) on Apr 7, 2020 at 2:33pm PDT

Here is the video review:

Garmin have finally released a speed sensor with Bluetooth and it’s good. Here is my review.

Sad times today: I’m registering my first ever DNF in a multisport event. Ironman VR9 was a middle distance duathlon. 33 km into the 90 km bike leg, my rear derailleur snapped and flipped itself upside down. One expensive Uber later and I was home with my bike but it is now in a queue to be fixed at Woodrup and they are snowed under with the sudden increase in cycling that COVID has brought (not to mention being one of the few bike shops still open!).

So, I won’t be finishing Ironman VR9 and won’t be cycling for a while either :(.

If you watch is syncing with Garmin Connect or Garmin Express, but not appearing in Garmin Connect, it could be that the activity has corrupted.

You can fix this by plugging your Garmin watch into your computer, browsing to Device/Garmin/ACTIVITY and finally finding the .FIT file. Try uploading this to Garmin Connect manually. If it says unsupported file type, you know you have a corrupt file.

Take it to Fit File Tools and run it through their fit file fixer. Download the result and try re-uploading it to Garmin Connect. Hopefully, it should be accepted this time.

January means spin class for Hyde Park Harriers. Back before everyone was posting #FullKitWanker photos on Strava, I was showing up in my shiny new HPH cycling jersey. Completely inappropriate for a sweaty spin room, but what’s the point in buying it if you can’t show up to club events in the kit?

The Festive Fifty has a special place in our hearts because it was the first sportive that Bogdan and I did. It needs that special place because otherwise who else would be mad enough to do a sportive in winter?

Plus, this year we had a super-domestique on the form of Jon. He warned us that he was going to be taking it easy and on his slower winter bike, but we still struggled to hold his wheel. This was also the first year we stepped up to the 80km route (50 miles).

The ride itself was a mixed bag. I’ve switched to an ISM saddle and it is pretty good for being down on the aero bars but terrible for being sat upright. I had to ride a lot of the course on my drops to get my body tilted forward enough to relieve some of the pain. The 40-50km stretch was tough; after that, it started to ease up. The first 50km was almost pan flat. Then we got a few hills, although I use hills in a very loose term.

The photographer came out of nowhere, hence looking at my computer at the time.

My clothing worked well. Under Armour winter base layers with a gabba and rain cape over the top. Pretty quickly I had to take the rain cape off. My toes stayed toasty, too. Unfortunately, my new Sealskinz gloves broke almost immediately.

Our average speed was 26.3 kph: quite a lot faster than we tottered around at 23 kph last year. It was not as busy as last year, which is a shame, especially for the children who now won’t be able to afford heart surgery (the event was a fundraiser for the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund).

Nice company, and a nice way to round out the year. Now to wash my bike…

As Hyde Park Harriers Triathlon continues to grow, we’ve been expanding our club kit.

I was a little worried about ordering because when I ordered my tri suit, it took months to turn up and I missed a lot of races. However, I did get a full apology, and ultimately the club decided to stay with our current provider. It’s a monopoly, so it was either take the chance or not be able to wear the club kit.

This time things have been better: it turned up just before Christmas meaning I had it in time for the Festive 50. And it looks pretty snazzy. Yeah, I’m old, “snazzy” was a word when I was a kid.

I haven’t worn the jersey on a ride yet as I also picked up a Gabba in the Black Friday sales (and Elina has now bought me a long-sleeved jersey for Christmas, too), but I have been wearing the arm warmers which seem to do a good job.

Roll on summer when the club rides start again.

The final race of the World Championships was the men’s elite road race. Road races are not always the most exciting because the peloton rides together, so you get one big bunch and it is all over in under a minute. However, as it started from Leeds city centre, walking up to The Headrow at 9am did not seem too big an ask.