Author Topic: Rides 2013 — add yours  (Read 40757 times)

FrogPrince

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #165 on: October 22, 2013, 08:33:13 PM »
[quote/] "If you can't see the mountains, it's raining; if you can see the mountains, it's going to rain."  [/quote]

My other favourite quote is " there is no such thing as bad weather.....only bad clothes"
Sell your Clothes but keep your thoughts.

sdg_77

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #166 on: October 22, 2013, 08:38:39 PM »
The old ones are usually the best ....

sdg

Very much enjoying this thread ... good to see our Thorns getting out for several day rides as well as the longer distance 'real' tours.
« Last Edit: October 22, 2013, 08:41:17 PM by sdg_77 »

John Saxby

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #167 on: October 22, 2013, 08:49:08 PM »
Quote
" there is no such thing as bad weather.....only bad clothes"

Indeed.  And of course, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a bit."  Actually find that the weather in the West Country is quite gentle--much softer air than we have here--so I'm just symbolically grousing about the rain.  Mind you:  some years back, a friend  from Vancouver rang to say they'd be visiting Ottawa. It was February, so I said she should bundle up, as it was -25 at noon--as we say, "a dry cold", and sunny.  She said she didn't care--she hadn't seen the sun for 41 days...

JWestland

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #168 on: January 02, 2014, 11:28:29 AM »
A 45 km run with my dad in the Hinterlands of south Netherland.

On my mum's Koga Traveller, a fine bike with butterfly bars and an Alfine 11. I really do not like an upright position at all. Can't get out of the wind and there's plenty in NI.

Hub gears however are great, there's an Alfine 11 on my mum's bike and an improvement on the 8 year old Nexus 8 on her spare bike. The frame is stiff with 0 "zing" which is not my thing, but for those that like thatyou can't go wrong.

Good pre-training for the Scotland tour...I shall have to bring plenty of fuel as I ran out the last 15 km. The "man with the hammer" as that's called in Dutch.

My dad thought I got both end of the claw hammer it was that slow lol
Pedal to the metal! Wind, rain, hills, braking power permitting ;)

Danneaux

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #169 on: January 02, 2014, 02:59:35 PM »
Quote
On my mum's Koga Traveller, a fine bike with butterfly bars and an Alfine 11. I really do not like an upright position at all. Can't get out of the wind and there's plenty in NI.
Yay-yeah -- I found out wind is the stand-in for hills/mountains in NL. Was it something like this?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8qgjyqibwY

I would have been lost without my drops and riding "knees inside elbows" on my last tour there. You rode upright into the wind? Respect!

Best,

Dan

JWestland

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #170 on: January 02, 2014, 04:02:28 PM »
Somebody who held the word record around the world (I am terrible with names) for a few years also toured on butterfly bars on a Koga.

Drop bars are more "road bikes only" in NL, it's part cultural. And at near 60 (my parents) I guess your neck may demand a higher position too...

...well my dad is the clear winner, butterfly bars and 23 km/hour in the wind with me plodding along behind. It gets to show my lack of long rides at speed due to lack of time...practice is more important than age :)
Pedal to the metal! Wind, rain, hills, braking power permitting ;)

jags

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #171 on: January 02, 2014, 04:09:13 PM »
that was Mark Beaumont Scottish cyclist  when he cycled the Americas he rode 25 mile into a head wind,

John Saxby

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #172 on: January 02, 2014, 04:57:45 PM »
During my ride along the Rhine in Sept 2012, I met up with some German guys who all used butterfly bars.  They said they managed with headwinds by laying their forearms across the bars.  Maybe that would work -- I sat on one bike, and the "lowered" position wasn't bad.  But still, I recall cycling along the south shore of the Gaspé Peninsula in late July 2010, and one morning, we rode for 6 hours into a brutal westerly: covered just over 60 kms.  Can't imagine handling those conditions with anything other than drop bars -- unless, of course, you just do what canoeists do when windbound: set up camp, make tea, read a book/whatever, until the wind drops.

Andre Jute

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #173 on: January 02, 2014, 09:36:55 PM »
You don't need drop bars to get a horizontal flat back on a Dutch touring bike. Gazelle, parent company of Koga Miyata, on their better models fit the Switch stem, on which you flip a lever, reposition the handlebars, flip the lever again, and ride on, a five second operation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrFG-rOG8os Not shown in the video is rotating the stem all the way forward so it points downwards, then rotating the handlebars in the stem so that the grips point to only 15 degrees off vertical, and you ride with a horizontal flat back into the wind. Much nicer than those clumsy drop bars the cyclists left over from the last century like. I used an upright Dutch stadssportief, the Gazelle Toulouse, to set my ton-up 60th birthday personal record behind a specially prepared truck. I didn't even turn the North Road bars upside down, I just lowered them on the Switch stem as above, and after I set the record reset them to my preferred upright riding position. A superb stem, but unfortunately only made for quills. (There is rather cruder version made for Ahead headsets by Kalloy, if you're interested.) I also often used it to ride into the wind or to hunch up on really cold days.

Danneaux

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #174 on: January 02, 2014, 10:16:01 PM »
Quote
Much nicer than those clumsy drop bars the cyclists left over from the last century like.
:D

All the best,

Dan. (...a proud drop-barred-wool jersey-wearing-cleated shoe-toe-clipped Luddite er, "traditionalist"  :D )

Andre Jute

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #175 on: January 02, 2014, 11:45:54 PM »
Just checking whether anyone is awake.

jags

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #176 on: January 02, 2014, 11:56:31 PM »
 ;)

JWestland

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Re: Rides 2013 — add yours
« Reply #177 on: January 03, 2014, 10:12:29 AM »
You don't need drop bars to get a horizontal flat back on a Dutch touring bike. Gazelle, parent company of Koga Miyata, on their better models fit the Switch stem, on which you flip a lever, reposition the handlebars, flip the lever again, and ride on, a five second operation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrFG-rOG8os Not shown in the video is rotating the stem all the way forward so it points downwards, then rotating the handlebars in the stem so that the grips point to only 15 degrees off vertical, and you ride with a horizontal flat back into the wind. Much nicer than those clumsy drop bars the cyclists left over from the last century like. I used an upright Dutch stadssportief, the Gazelle Toulouse, to set my ton-up 60th birthday personal record behind a specially prepared truck. I didn't even turn the North Road bars upside down, I just lowered them on the Switch stem as above, and after I set the record reset them to my preferred upright riding position. A superb stem, but unfortunately only made for quills. (There is rather cruder version made for Ahead headsets by Kalloy, if you're interested.) I also often used it to ride into the wind or to hunch up on really cold days.


As usual the Dutch have the solution :P

I set the bars on my roadster very low but I don't really like a very upright position anymore...
...yes I have been away to far from the Moederland.

Pedal to the metal! Wind, rain, hills, braking power permitting ;)