Summer riding roundup

I've been training for a half-marathon, so haven't been cycling much!

During a difficult period at work my colleagues and I did manage to get out on our bikes on two of the hottest days of the year, for just about the same route; the first one on the Brompton:


And the second on the recumbent:



Plus we managed to get around to visiting Cannock Chase on the MTB. Was really not doing well on this route, needed a lot more cycling fitness:



As soon as the half marathon is over (28th Sept) I'll need to start training for my winter riding again!

Xmas preparations

I've got the trainer tyre off of the Fuego now ready for some rides before I set off on Christmas eve.

My trailer has also already been modified to take a Cat Eye Volt50. This involved drilling a couple of holes into the end of the base:

Angling it down at the ground should prevent it dazzling anybody behind me and it's bright enough for the patch of light to be seen from a good distance.

Longer Christmas Prep Ride: Return of the Recumbent - with added turn-by-turn

After a week of shame, I returned to Lincolnshire to fetch my bike:


I tried a different route enabled by the BikeHub app on my phone which does route planning and offers turn-by-turn navigation. This had mixed results. Most of the time it really helped navigating little villages and unnamed links on a route with far too many turns to memorise (well, for me).

Longer Christmas prep ride

As I mentioned previously, there's another location I usually visit come Christmas time on my bike which is almost 100km from door to door.

Emboldened by my previous 70k effort I thought I'd just go for it and set off a couple of weeks after (this last Saturday the 28th).


This one didn't end so well! The weather was lovely, almost 20 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Unfortunately there was a 15km/h easterly wind, which did help to keep me cool but was in my face for the entire journey (it wasn't a round trip, so I didn't get the payback of riding with the wind in the second half). I was also slightly more heavily laden with overnight luggage and a larger amount of water. Thank goodness for the more aerodynamic recumbent profile.

I was slower than I expected but felt ok until I hit the last 30k, where pains in my hip and knee started to manifest. I plodded on to the destination after a brief stop to extend the boom another two centimetres. When I arrived I genuinely had trouble standing up. My thighs and glutes had basically melted.

I think it was a decent effort distance wise, but I really need to up my game to do the same route in winter with luggage. I'm also going to investigate the local Specialized store to see if they can do a bike fit, as I suspect that my asymmetric pains (left knee, right hip) may be due to different leg length or flexibility.

It's rather humiliating having to leave a bike and limp home on public transport. Thankfully my old mum didn't mind locking it in her garage until I man up and return to collect it.

Christmas prep ride

For the last three years I've tried to cycle to my relatives in the neighbouring county of Lincolnshire for my Christmas visit (two successes, one hideous frozen near-death failure). Getting there usually involves one 72km ride (or a 100km ride, depending where I go first) followed by a bunch of eerily consistent 32km rides between places on different days. By the last day I'm usually totally ruined and somewhat frosty.

This will be the first year on the recumbent; so I thought I'd try an unladen test ride of the shorter first leg:

Derailleur cable switch

The derailleur cable on the Fuego was getting a bit frayed. I don't know how old it was when I bought it (three years, max, I think) but it was due for renewal:

Strava test!

Testing testing... Can anyone see this?

Light 'er up!

I was planning this weekend to take the train to Lincoln, then ride along a stretch of The Water Railway route and finish off on the road to where my mum lives for a visit. Unfortunately a train derailed this week and ruined the track, so no trains are going that way for a week.

As the plan was to ride a lot of B roads, many with hedges and sharp turns, I ordered a flag mount to make my recumbent a bit more visible to the mad boyracers and motorcyclists who seem to think that slowing down for blind corners is a courtesy too far.

The mount I got was the type that fits on the rear axle of the bike. It comes pre-drilled with three holes which I guess are to allow you to bolt the mount in place through rack/mudguard eyelets.

These weren't quite big enough, so out came the cylindrical file (I also had to lop off a bit of a corner because of the derailleur, but have no photo of that):

Because the pole is so long and one of the attachments is pretty heavy, I felt it'd be safer if it were attached at two points for stability. The seat is suspended however, so it'd need to be able to flex. I added an elastic band around the rack and threaded the pole through the strap ring of the bag to give it some extra stability:

That red thing on the pole is the result of my thinking ahead to winter or when the weather is poor; I added a strip light. This was too heavy towards the top of the flag pole, so I mounted it above head-height. It should complement the existing rear light.

Here's a video of it in action (during a test phase, when it was much higher):

Learning to ride a recumbent

I bought my Nazca Fuego used from a specialist shop in Edinburgh called Laid Back Bikes operated by one David Gardiner. It took a few laps of the little road outside his shop to be able to start at all but eventually I got the very basics.

Schlepping it home on the train to Nottingham was not even slightly fun, nor was pushing it the remaining mile to my flat, but the next day I managed to take it to the nearby Park Estate which is fairly quiet and has a good layout for cycling.

I was still very unsteady by this point, as you can see here:

I've since learnt to stay upright more consistently and can set off confidently now. My turning circle is still really wide and my fitness is pretty poor, so there's a long way to go before I master it!

Trying new shoes and SPDs

I've used a combination of SPD and Crank Bros. cleats for a while now, both in a beaten old pair of Specialized Tahoe shoes.

I get a bit of toe cramp/pain when riding the recumbent so I looked around for some advice. Can't remember exactly where I got it, but I read that you should go with light, stiff shoes with adjustable straps when riding recumbent. Sticking with the same brand I plumped for a pair of Specialized Sport MTB shoes as they were stiff, light, had tread (need to put your foot down when you stop) and three straps across the instep, arch and toes as well as a generous toe box. Also, they were on sale :)

I decided to ditch the Crank Bros. in the end. I like the way they clip in and out and have greater (sprung) float than SPD, but the cleats wear out too quickly and the pedals don't have spanner grooves making them a pain to remove; so when I bent one of the arms on my eggbeaters that was the end!

Spending a while in the turbo trainer helped me make small adjustments and test them consistently and safely with no distractions. Having the straps loose at the top and bottom but tight in the middle (after warming up to let the feet expand) worked well. No pain in the right foot but a little in the left after about an hour.

The next upgrade might be a pair of Speedplay Frog pedals as they have a wide (20 degree) free float unlike SPD (5 degree) and are reputed to be the pedal of choice for recumbents.

Better storage picture & speed sensor on recumbent

Since Stan whinged about it so much (I'll bet you've never heard so much misogyny and swearing from a northern physicist) here's a better image of my storage setup:

Since I've pretty much recovered from my arm operation I've swapped the trainer tyre for the Marathon Supreme on the recumbent, ready for riding tomorrow and/or at the weekend. I also found time to put the speed sensor back on the rear fork:

It's actually a speed + cadence sensor, but the recumbent setup prevents it from doing both jobs at once as the cranks are more than a metre away from the rear wheel. The cadence sensor is housed in the main body of the unit and the speed sensor on the arm. On a traditional upright bike there is overlap between the cranks and the wheel; not so on a recumbent or on a Brompton (16" wheels) for that matter.

Returning briefly to storage I used to hang my recumbent in my hallway when I had a cross bike (since sold) in the bedroom. I'm pretty sure I was testing the tolerances of the hoist as the recumbent is very heavy and guests told me that they feared to walk underneath it:

Bikes and Storage

I live in a small city-centre flat and have three bikes. They (and their storage) are pictured below (apologies for the poor lighting, took the picture on my phone):

It's a little hard to see but they comprise a Boardman full-sus mountain bike that I use on trails when I can get to them; a Brompton for commuting to work and journeys involving public transport and finally a recumbent that I hope to use for long journeys and weekend riding.

My flat has two bedrooms one of which I either let or keep for guests and no other storage, so all of these bikes hang up in my bedroom.

If you're interested, the 'bent is on a standard wall hook that you can get from most bike shops (it's a Delta Leonardo I think, ~£10). The stand is a Topeak Dual Touch that I got from Wiggle (~£125) and is mounted against one of my roof beams. This setup works well as my ceilings are pretty high, about 3.15 metres and I'm strong enough to lift the top bike in and out. On that note, the recumbent is the hardest to lift in and out as it weighs at least 17kg. Ouch!

I'll go into further detail about the bikes themselves eventually.