Topic: The Health, Fitness and Exercise Thread

@render What bike do you have?

@ralphdibny I was passing through a field last summer on my bike, went through a gate into a field, turned around to get back on my bike and was face to face with a cow - we had a bit of a moment, I think I have spent too long in the city haha.

Here she is, actually!

@kyleforrester87 It's a bike I built myself over 10 years ago based on a Rocky Mountain full sus frame. It was a pretty good spec when I built it with RockShox Reba fork, Fox Float rear suspension, Shimano XT brakes and gears and various Hope bits like headset, wheels, BB etc. Everything has moved on to 27.5" and 29" wheels now though with single chain ring up front and 12 speed on the rear where as I'm still riding 26", a triple and 9 speed cassette. I can see how much better the newer bikes are so really would love to get an upgrade.

I've really started to notice how prevalent e-bikes are these days though. I'm not interested in one myself but think they are great for getting people out riding that might not ordinarily do so. They aren't without their problems though as they've had a really big impact on the trails. Because of the sheer weight compared to a manual bike they really rip into the ground but the other thing is that people that ride them seem to be happy tearing new lines through the trails in order to get round people or avoid switchbacks. The other thing I think I dislike them for is that it feels like it takes away from the purity of the discipline a little. I liked the fact that cycling was about using our own power to get places and that pretty much everything on the bike could be fixed at the road / trail side, as well as having greater obsolescence now due to the tech moving along so quickly.

Do you ever ride off-road? I think you've mentioned before you've done some gravel riding?

@render That's interesting regarding e-bikes, my take on them has been similar to yours in that I like to think of myself as a bit of a purist but I have been coming round to the idea more. I didn't really consider the impact they had on trails so that's a good point.

Yeah I have a Saracen gravel bike, it's my commuter bike so spends most of its time with road tyres and mud guards on, it takes a real year round hammering frankly, but I did 3 days back to back offroad on it. I found it wasn't bad at all actually - it's fairly lightweight, good hydraulic brakes and wide bars. Plus it has wicked lighting bolts on the forks, yeehaw. I have a compact chainring and decided to put a 32 cassette so plenty of range for climbing, I was out the saddle in my easiest gears spinning for my life up a rocky incline a couple of times, so made the right choice on gearing as I was on a 28 and only went 32 a few weeks before taking it off-road. I'd have been off walking a bit more regularly if I had kept the 28. The main problem is the widest tyres I can get on the back are 35mm, and even then I actually had to trim a little off the top of each of the knobs to stop it rubbing on the frame. On the front I can probably get 45mm's. I don't know why they bothered giving me the clearance up front but not the back..?* And 35mm is really stingy. Upshot is a struggle big time on sand. Wondering if there is any value riding wider up front just because I can - I should look into it. Wider on the rear makes more sense to me since that's where the power goes, but front I don't know.

I'd love to have tried the same route on a mountain bike though!

*I guess some clearance helps with mud build up, didn't think about that until now - was very dry when I was out on it!

@kyleforrester87 Sweet ride. I would love to get a gravel bike but have spent so much on kids bikes recently and the garage is also full so I'd need to see about getting rid of something. Good call on the gearing, I'd have gone for the same I think as I'm generally more comfortable knee wise spinning up something than I am having to push a harder gear. There's plenty of scope for on and off-road with that range. That's one of the good things about running a triple on my mountain bike still as I would lose a lot of range, which I do tend to use as I'll ride down to the trails from here and that's all on-road. The weight saving and mechanical simplicity of dropping to a single chainring would be great as well as extra clearance under the BB for steeper drops etc.

Tyre wise I sometimes run a wider tyre on the front than I do on the back. Having a narrower tyre on the back allows you to cut into mud to get better traction where most of the weight is going to be pushing down through the bike, whilst having the wider tyre up front gives you extra stability and shock resistance. There's actually a big push now with "mullet" bikes where you run two different size wheels, 29" up front for those things mentioned above whilst having a 27.5" on the rear in order to keep some of the manoeuvrability of a smaller wheel size as well as making it better for drops as there's more clearance at the back. Pretty interesting stuff but it all feels like it might be a bit of a fad at the moment so I'm definitely going to hold out on that for now.

@render 1x does look really slick, but then some of the cassettes you see to provide a decent range look insane. Triple's get a lot of crap but aesthetics/weight and maintenance aside (that's a lot to put aside) I can understand the significant value they have for some.

Thanks for the advice on tyres - I will certainly look into that further, then. Plenty to learn about tyres. Most of my riding is on the road where you slap a pair on and ride them in all conditions until they look a little on the dangerous side, and if all was well you put a new pair of the same ones back on again until they either stop manufacturing them or are not in stock when you need them!

@render @kyleforrester87 My wife got an e-bike for commuting when we lived in our previous house and loved it, particularly with it being so hilly in Devon!

They feel really weird to ride for the first time though. She bought it second hand from a bike hire place that were selling old stock off and it was interesting how three different bikes we tried all felt so different to ride.

Her bike is mega heavy though!

@Thrillho my only experience is riding the rental e-bikes around London, I don't know how they stack up to better ones. The motor is pretty cool, but it cuts out after around 15mph and they are so heavy it's horrible trying to get anymore out of it. So you just sort of have to cruise on them or you'll get there more worn out than you would on a regular bike.

@Thrillho @kyleforrester87 A friend of mine has one and brings it over if we ever do a group ride. I've thus far avoided taking him up on his offer of having a go as I don't want to find out that it's as good as he tells me it is and then I'll want one too 😅.

It does look like great fun as you can really boost the assistance up when you want that extra power or down when you want to save some juice. I think his will do something stupid like 150 miles on the lowest power setting which is pretty amazing. He tells me that ride wise you don't notice the extra weight as the power delivered offsets that, and as the weight is lower down you can really sling it around the trails making it look a hell of a lot lighter and really well planted.

When I was in the bike shop the other day a sales guy was trying to shift a brand new lightweight e-mountain bike with internal rear suspension, think it was a Scott. It looked impressive as from a distance you'd not even know it was an e-bike and it was something ridiculous like 15kg which is insanely light for an e-bike. It was 10 grand though so not surprising they'd managed to get it down to that weight. The funny thing was he did a terrible job of selling it, going on to the couple interested about how expensive it was to service and get replacement parts. I think he should probably stick to the maintenance side of the operation.

@render yikes - I have electric shifting on my road bike, so I guess I am slowly going in that direction!!

Awww 😅

@ralphdibny are you saying "aww' because its cute, or because shes in several bellies now?

kinda ironic to see this in the exercise topic too, lol.

@nomither6 because the cow and Kyle had a moment! 😅

@nomither6 based on the size of that cow, it’s for milk not burgers

100 days sober for me today. Physically and mentally I'm on a much better stretch of road than I was last year. Feeling sharper and happier, although i've still had a few rough days along the way but i'm feeling better equipped to deal with the low days.

Now, I just need to get a handle on my sugar and bread intake which I think I've been over compensating a bit due to the lack of alcohol. Regardless it has got pretty out of hand lately. I would like to get out and get some miles under my feet too, haven't done any running for too long.

@AgentCooper Nice work Coop, it's always good to make some positive changes. Hopefully it's something that will stick and you'll not miss it one bit down the road.

Exercise and food can always be tricky ones to balance out as it's easy to give one a miss when you don't have time or don't feel like it and even easier to double down on the other. All I can say is it's a great time to be getting back out there if you've not run for a while what with the weather picking up. Others have mentioned the couch to 5k which I haven't done myself but others have said can work well. Might be just the thing you need.

@AgentCooper Great work!

So much of bad diet (and drink) is just based on habits though isn’t it.. I’m a fiend for biscuits but think I manage to balance it out elsewhere!

And with running it’s a similar thing that I found I have to make it a routine to make myself get out; I feel very twitchy if I don’t get my Thursday or weekend run. Strava goals really help me personally as well as they encourage me to keep pushing on for distance and climbing over the month.

@render @Thrillho Thanks, appreciate it. Without getting too ahead of myself, I definitely intend to stick with it as I just don’t feel alcohol is compatible with where my life is right now and it just isn’t good for me physically or mentally.

I’m not new to running but I’ve been off the wagon for too long and now with the baby I’m struggling to find the motivation, though I know once I’m out there I’ll be getting the itch back, just have to find a way to fit it around everything else. I’ve been considering using strava, do you reckon it’s a good motivator then Thrill? My friend circle is almost single figures these days so don’t really know anyone with experience of using it. As for food, I’m in constant battle with an addictive personality, I can’t just have one biscuit or one slice of toast and having no alcohol has only exacerbated that, but like you say this is all habits primarily, just need to find a structure or routine that provides a nice balance.

Don’t know if that made any sense 😂

@AgentCooper I go through patches like that as well where if I've not got an event planned I often find a good excuse to not bother. At the moment I'm feeling the opposite and want to get out at every opportunity so I'll use it whilst I can but you are right, kids don't make it easy. The worst time for me was during lockdown as the only time I got out running was when I took the kids out for their daily exercise. I'd get them on their bikes and I'd run, and as my son was quite young still I'd be pushing him along for the extra training 😅.

During that time I remember Strava being a great thing for me as even though I couldn't meet up with other friends for activities we could motivate each other by posting our runs / rides on there. I'm a bit more on and off with it these days as quite often I just want to go out and not worry about how fast or far I'm going but do still post and look at what others are doing. There's a load more functionality in the app than that even but while I haven't really bothered with the segments stuff for a long while I do like having a look to see other routes people do around me. There's also some groups stuff in there now as well where you can join a group with similar goals for extra motivation. I'm sure @Thrillho will have some better advice on it but hope you find something that works for you.

@AgentCooper I find Strava useful to track what I’m doing and having the 100km monthly badge to aim for (and the 2,000m climbing one) pushes me to try and get them each month. I’m on a streak of doing those and a half marathon every month since Jan 2022!

You can set weekly goals too but I think that’s a paid feature. I pay for it now, mostly to use the route planning feature if I’m thinking of trying something new. Being able to see other routes near you is handy too.

But as I say, I find the routine is what helps me. My wife knows I’ll want to go out Thursday and Sunday morning so we try to work it into what we want to do.

The great thing with running though is that you can just throw shoes on and go and remember that getting out there for 20 mins is better than not bothering at all!