@gschenk Misread that as "only at obscene web stores"...

@Criggie "Hope" isn't the best choice of a brand name for brake manufacturer...

yeah I'm still thinking of what to do with the bent

Its crap uphills

So why bother doing that at all? I've got to replace the rear wheel cos the pawls are iffy, so I'm thinking 10 speed, 11-34ish and upsize the chainrings from 44/32/22 to 53?something. I can't even use the 22 granny now cos its bent.

and the few times I did ride in it, the forward speed was too slow to maintain balance.

Yeah, accepted wisdom is that 'bents suck up hills. Just have to put big gears on it and smash everyone on the flat.

Hey y'all! I was wondering if anyone had any feedback on any technique you can see in this video I took a couple days ago, of me on my mountain bike. Most of it is in the cleats; I decided to unclip while going uphill on the skinny because every time I've done that clipped in I've fallen. drive.google.com/file/d/1WdivXW0oiOE_dG5FgIcltoO-jnEJFK7R/view

I'm pretty sure I did the jump at the end incorrectly.

I weighed mine at 9.9 kg.

Yay under 10kg.

Merida claims 9.38 kg for a medium sized one on their webpage.

Going one size up, attaching stuff, and possibly having dirt and water somewhere increased weight only by 0.5 kg.

@Mithrandir excellent bike handling mate!

:)

I'd love if I had the skill (or courage) to try that.

The only thing I can judge is the last jump, which seems perfectly fine.

turned out better than this did at least :P

For such a hop one would do an 'english' bunny hop, rather than 'american' bunny hop.

@gschenk Yeah - I think I'm relying on the cleats a bit too much, though

Excellent recovery.

More important than the technique itself.

I don't know, its kind a moot. You hop that way if you need to evade an obstacle. If you got the proper technique for high hops already, don't bother for that.

You want to do what's the fastest and most secure.

English bunny hop: you lower your center of gravity (COG) then lift it up quickly, your bike follows either because of springiness or because its pulled by the cleats, or both.

In the video one can see that you did exactly that, cowered down, the jumped up.

cant do the hole lifting front wheel, then righting yourself and pulling the rear at high speed.

Well thanks :D

bicyclingaustralia.com.au/news/…

Link: Alejandro Valverde hops a patch of bad road on a fast descent.

Hey, but I've not mastered the proper bunny hop as well as you did. So don't rely all that much on my comments.

I do need to master an American bunny hop, though - I've been having some trouble with that.

@Mithrandir Hey, nothing but your feet touched the ground. That's gotta be worth something.

Yeah... that's why I did that one not clipped in...

Excellent recovery is perhaps the most important trial/bike handling skill.

+14C, calm and dry weather tomorrow morning.

I'm h&h.

Bike is in good working order.

clean clothes stashed a work.

If I don't cycle to work it is only inexcusable lazyness.

(haven't been on a bike in four weeks)

Good luck!

Go for it! We have storm systems passing over at the moment, though it's mostly been dry. It's made for some nice tailwinds (and I try to think less about the times when I've been going in the opposite direction).

Excellent weather to attack Strava KOMs?

Yeah, at least the ones that involve going north or north-east.

I went home in a rather gusty wind and saw someone sprinting like crazy on a really good section here.

I improved a third-overall by one second on my way home. Will have another go tomorrow. Honestly, I wasn't pushing that hard but traffic wouldn't have let me go any faster, in the end.

analytics.strava.com/segments/9709394?filter=overall

Did you keep one of your three KOMs of this year?

Yeah, all still mine. I had another one, briefly, but the guy took it back after a couple of days and I've not tried again.

That was a highly contested segment.

Kudos for achieving that KOM in the first place!

Thanks. :) Did my second-best time on that one today, but it was 11s short of the KOM.

Wasn't trying on that one, since it was on the way to work.

We have a weather warning for wind tomorrow evening -- maybe I'll have a go then and use the tailwind.

(Assuming the wind isn't crazy, obviously. The forecast is that it'll be less strong than today, which is weird given that we dind't have a warning today.)

Well, I wish you luck. Personally, I prefer tricks and trials-style stuff to racing ;)

(A Google search revealed that KOM stands for King of the Mountain - is that correct?)

King of the Mountain, yes. In this case, Strava's name for the fastest person on a timed segment, which may or may not be uphill.

Ah.

And thanks. :-) I love watching people do tricks but I've no skill at that kind of thing.

Actually, most of the KOMs I'm close to are either flat or only slightly uphill. I'm too heavy to climb really well. (Which is to say, I'm not stick-thin.)

I've been taking a MTB course for the last... year minus two months (the school year). Just started up again. The tricks are, um, largely from GMBN tutorials and watching Fabio Wibmer / Danny Macaskill videos :P

This is my coach.

I don't know Fabio Wibmer, but Danny Macaskill is amazing.

National champion -- niiiiice. :)

Yep, I got lucky :D

OK, Fabio Wibmer's pretty amazing, too (and funny).

Indeed. I have to use subtitles for his SickSeries vlogs, though ;)

(He rides with Danny Macaskill, Ali Clarkson, and Duncan Shaw on Danny Macaskill's Drop and Roll tour.)

Neat.

Crazy-talented people.

Yep. Makes us mortals jealous ;)

Yeah, but it gives us cool stuff to watch on YouTube, so it's not all bad. ;-)

@gschenk My road bike is 15.5 kilos, and the bent is somewhere near 20 now.

I had a KOM for ~3 days and lost it again.

Broke the new mudguard on the bent too - really needs an extra stay. So it flapped about a bit and cracked where it had been folded in transit.

More things to fix :-\ good and bad.