I think this is a terrific film and well worth 19 minutes of your time. It's beautifully filmed, the "characters" are engaging and it talks sense about cycling in crowded urban places.
I find myself becoming more interested in cycling advocacy for a number of reasons:
- Whilst I live in a relatively small town, there is no where safe for my kids to ride on the road.
- There is no where safe for my wife to learn to ride and gain her confidence
- Even in a town like Tunbridge Wells, I regularly have near misses on my bike on my paltry 2km cycle commute
- There is gridlock in every town/city and the car is prioritised in all places I know of
- Most of the time when you see someone on a bike, it's one less car and congestion
- When you think about it, a car is actually a really inefficient vehicle for moving people in an urban environment - it moves too few people for the space it takes up. I say this as a car enthusiast who spent several years working for a motor racing team. I still love my car but it makes no sense to use it in town on the whole.
I could go on, but I won't as I still don't know enough to speak on this subject with any authority.
On of the points in the film that I most agree with is that actually the only real way to reduce traffic in our cities and towns is to make it harder for cars to be used. It's not until the car is obviously a harder way to get about that people will realise that the bicycle can actually be the solution (especially when combined with more useful public transport). I believe this approach was used to help reduce car traffic in the Netherlands - closing roads to cars but leaving them open to pedestrians, cyclists and public transport.
As many of you know, I’ve spent the last year or so as the UK agent for NeilPryde bikes and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it on the whole. However I reluctantly decided not to re-pitch for the contract when it came up for renewal recently.
To be clear, I really do love the bikes. For me the Alize in particular is a brilliant bike as anyone who’s read a few reviews should have gathered too. The Diablo is also a fantastic race bike, a bike that’s it’s almost impossible to ride slowly, that handles and climbs brilliantly as well.
It has also been a genuine pleasure to meet some really fantastic people in the UK bike trade – be they journalists, or working in, or running bike shops. There are more fantastic bike shops than you might think out there run by people who love what they do and are genuinely there to help customers get the right and best bike for the riding they do.
The UK is also blessed with some particularly fine cycling journalists and publications and I thoroughly enjoyed my dealings with each of them. I look forward to continuing my relationships with as many of them as I can going forward even if it ends up as just an occasional coffee meeting.
Ironically one of the last “official” things I did for NeilPryde was arrange the first ever UK owners ride and I can genuinely say that customers have all been brilliant and we had a fantastic day out together.
The reason I’m not continuing with NeilPryde is simply that we have some different views on the way forwards, so I’ve decided to step back so that they can pursue the path they believe will work best for them.
I genuinely wish NeilPryde Bikes and the dealers every success – the bikes are great and if you haven’t tried one you really should. I’m also sure that NeilPryde will be a successful bike company, they have great ambition and I’m happy to have played a small part in the beginning of it in the UK.
As for me, well this development frees me up a bit to write about a wider range of bikes on my blog from now on and I may even have an exciting new bike related project to announce soon as well. Any news will be of course be here first.
In the meantime, as soon as another fine day comes along I’ll look forward to getting out my Alize and to writing more about bikes and riding.
A few weeks ago I had the depressing task of taking the Forty Six’s off my bike, boxing them up and waiting for the courier to come and take them away. To be honest, I was pretty gutted as I’d thoroughly enjoyed them and had been vainly (and foolishly) hoping that Paddy at Reynolds might have just forgotten I had them for the next year or so. I really did enjoy them that much. At least I managed to not actually cry when the courier arrived.
Whilst I had the Forty Six’s I successfully managed to convince myself to ride them as my everyday wheels on my best bike. I did have to convince myself to do this though as I kept thinking “do I really want to be going out and riding £2k wheels on the rough potholed roads around where I live?” As it turns out the answer was a resounding YES I DO. I wanted to not "baby" them but to just to ride them because I don’t believe that if you’re going to buy wheels of this calibre that they should only be for “Sunday best”.
In total I rode for just over 400km on the Forty Sixes during a period of about three weeks over all types of local surfaces and terrain, from flat to 10%+ gradients from smooth to very rough road surfaces with plenty of climbing and descending. It seems amazing to be saying this after the last few weeks of weather – but I didn’t get to ride them in the rain, nor did I get to ride them in a strong wind.
Without fail, every time I rode the Reynolds, they felt fast regardless of conditions or terrain. They are stiff wheels and the ride quality is noticeably less comfortable than my alloy clinchers but no alloy clincher I’ve ridden was as fun to ride as these. The light weight of wheels (just over 1400gms a pair for a 46mm deep rim) made them a pleasure to climb with. I’m not the strongest or most powerful of riders but I was able to attack and accelerate with the Reynolds on surprisingly steep climbs.
Unscientifically, the wheels started to feel like the aero aspect was working once you pushed past 20kmh and then stepped up again once you got past 35kmh. Over the test period I set a bunch of personal best times on various local climbs and descents and I was far from my peak of fitness.
The hubs also have a fantastic sound and each time I rode with other people, the noise they made was always complimented. Whilst the hubs are labelled Reynolds, they are in face a DT Swiss 240 outer shell with DT 190 internals, so they’re very high quality, expensive and roll very well indeed. This is one of a few differences between the Forty Sixes and the Reynolds Assault, which is Reynolds more affordable 46mm carbon wheelset. In addition to the hubs, other upgrades on the Forty Six versus the Assault include: bladed DT Swiss Aerolite spokes versus the marginally heavier non-bladed DT Revolution spokes on the Assault. The Forty Six also features the Reynolds Swirl Lip Generator where the Assault’s don’t.
The Swirl Lip Generator is an aerodynamic feature which is a little bit like a spoiler on the inside edge of the rim. It’s not a large lip but it breaks up the airflow where the rim and spokes meet and improves the overall aero performance of the wheel according to Reynolds. I’m no aero expert but it makes sense to me that something like this could help.
A further and important difference between the Assaults and the Forty Six is that the more expensive wheel features higher modulus carbon in the rims and the rims are made from longer sections of carbon fibre during the manufacturing process to improve the ride quality of the more expensive wheels. This means that more carbon is used in the manufacturing of the Forty Six again pushing the price up.
So in total the Forty Six have higher quality hubs, better spokes (bladed) and rims that are both a step up in engineering, manufacturing, ride quality and aerodynamics not to mention graphics that are much more elegant. This dear readers is also why they’re a decent step up in price over the Assaults.
Back to actually riding the Forty Six, some of the things that most stood out to me whilst out riding were: How easily it was hold a good clip of speed on the flat. It definitely took less effort to roll along in the high 30’s kmh. Sitting on someone’s wheel also required noticeably less effort on the Reynolds, even with just one other rider in front. These are wheels to put on when you’re going out with your fastest riding buddies - they really did help me. I’ve already mentioned how well they climbed on both steep and gradual climbs. On shallower climbs I felt I could carry a higher speed more comfortably than normal as they just feel light on your bike. As I’ve said before I really, really enjoyed these wheels.
What’s the catch? I mean it can’t be all sweetness and light can it? Well, I don’t think there’s a catch as such because I genuinely think these are a great set of wheels. However, what I did notice that’s something to keep in mind also applies to many other carbon wheels too. The stiffness of the rims translates into a less comfortable ride than my alloy rimmed wheels. I found myself naturally riding towards the smoothest bits of tarmac on the road in a way I don’t with alloy clinchers. A friend with a pair of Lightweight Clinchers told me he rides the same with them too, so it’s not just a Reynolds thing. What I found most noticeable in terms of riding differently was during descents. Normally I’m a pretty quick descender but given the harder ride quality of the Reynolds I found myself descending more slowly to read the road surface more carefully and pick my path – particularly on tree lined rough surfaced descents (i.e. most UK descents!) where the light changes and can be quite shaded in places. To be clear I didn’t find it a problem but I did adjust my style because of it. I don’t think it should put you off either – it’s just recognition that to get the best out of the wheels requires a slightly different riding approach.
Another point to mention is braking. Carbon rims for a long time have been infamous for not braking as well as alloy rims and to be honest – these still don’t but the braking was very good. I normally ride on the hoods most of the time and I found that the Forty Six would scrub off speed well braking via the hoods. When I really wanted to stop in a hurry I needed to move my hands fully onto the brake levers and then they very stopped well indeed. My test bike has Dura Ace 7900 calipers which are good brakes and I ran the Reynolds Blue Cryo pads which can apparently lower braking temperatures by around 50 degrees over normal pads.
However even given the observations above I didn’t once think about taking them off my bike and riding my alloy clinchers instead whilst I had them. Far from it in fact. The performance benefits significantly outweighed any of the slightly less positive aspects.
Every time I rode the Reynolds Forty Six wheelset I felt like I was cheating. My bike was faster, held its speed better and climbed and descended as well as it ever has. I set a bunch of personal bests whilst not at my best fitness levels and I kept up with my fitter, faster riding buddies much more easily than I had expected too. They looked fantastic on my bike and to me aesthetically are a great depth. Shallow enough to be light and climb well, deep enough to look great and deliver some tangible aero benefit. These wheels are credit card speed and that’s a very compelling proposition as long as you can afford to hand over your plastic. These are a very high quality set of deep section carbon clinchers that you can confidently ride every day and on any type of road terrain. I thoroughly enjoyed them.
If you’re looking for mid depth high end carbon clincher aero wheels I believe these should absolutely be on your short list - especially if you’re considering wheels like the Zipp 303 clinchers or the ENVE Smart System 3.4 clinchers. On paper the Reynolds are lighter and helpfully they operate a trial programme allowing you to arrange to try to a set via your local Reynolds dealer (not something you can do with Zipp or ENVE to my knowledge) so it’s easier to try them out before you buy.
For some professional reviews of the Reynolds Forty Six – please check out the following links:
*This is to note that I’m not a professional reviewer, so my comments/opinions should be considered to be those of a well intentioned amateur. I’ve written the review from the point of view of myself as the potential buyer and covered my experiences of the wheels that I hope will be useful to others considering buying them
On my test bike, I’ve ridden over 1,000km with aluminium rimmed wheels and most of this riding has been on a pair of Mavic Ksyrium SL clinchers, which is my main point of comparison. I also put about 400km on a set of Mavic Cosmic Carbone SL’s last year too. Also included in the total is approximately 400km on pair of Easton EA90 SLX clinchers and a variety of tyres on the test bike.
If you've not seen these, I wanted to bring them to your attention as what I like the most about this project is that they showcase some of the really great local builders there building excellent hand built bikes in the UK.
As someone who isn't actually British, it's not a jingoistic thing in the slightest. With all of the lust for carbon it's easy to forget that there are other fine choices for frame materials including steel, titanium, scandium and aluminium to name a few that immediately spring to mind.
I'm glad Rapha have helped make more people aware of both of these points. Each of these videos is worth a watch and I hope you enjoy them as I did, even if like me, you're very happy with your carbon bike ... although I definitely do have a hankering for a great steel bike too.
Yes, I know it’s a bit of a blindingly obvious title, but please stay with me. When it comes to bikes my view has always been spend as much as you can manageably afford, as I genuinely believe you get what you pay for. Shop around and buy smart, so if your budget is £500 spend it well and get the best bike you can for your cash. If your budget’s £5k and you can afford to spend the money then do, I doubt very much you’ll regret it. Of course there are plenty of people out there who’d disagree with me I’m sure, but having ridden a number of bikes are both ends of those price points I know which end I’d spend at, as long as I could spare the money. I’ve enjoyed my riding much more on a great bike and it’s encouraged me to do more riding too.
There’s also no doubt I’ve also ridden faster on my most expensive bike and kept up on rides where I wouldn’t have on my cheapest bike but …. and it’s an important but …. My £5k bike doesn’t and never will turn me into a great rider on it's own and neither would doubling or tripling my budget again. The law of diminishing returns applies. However my best bike just massively increases my enjoyment of the getting out and riding.
Last weekend I was lucky enough to go and join Mark Tearle’s La Doyenne du Eastbourne adventure with a 50 mile social road ride followed by a few hours in the Belgian café in Eastbourne where I was also extremely pleased to meet Twitter legend @festinagirl. You can read the write up on the day here: http://30daysofbiking.com/blog/?p=268 (I’m in the middle of the group photo in my blue Gore Phantom jacket if you're in the slightest bit interested).
On the ride I met Simon Wicks (@thefixedfactor) who I’ve been following on twitter for sometime. Simon’s a lovely guy and was definitely one of the strongest riders on the day. On the climbs in particular he pretty much smoked most of us. Fortunately it was only a social ride. Not content with simply doing a 50 mile group ride, Simon had ridden down to Eastbourne from Surrey first (another 60miles), as the trains were not going to work for him to get to the start on time. It was a fine effort.
Whilst riding and chatting with Simon I asked about his bike, which is the 2008 model Cervelo R3 featured in the pictures – a good bike and a bit of a modern classic in many respects. What was especially good to see about Simon’s bike (apart from the pace he rode the thing) was that it looked exactly how the designers would have loved to see it after this period of time. It looked like it had been really well looked after but ridden well and often. It looked like a bike that could tell you some great stories from climbing cols in France and Spain to many, many miles through the rolling English country side. I thought it looked terrific and I hope that in another few years time my Alize will look as well used and well loved for as Simon’s bike.
That’s the long winded point of this post – once you’ve got your great bike – it’s the riding it that’s the most important thing and the more miles and use and wear and tear the better. Cycling’s an honest sport in the respect that ultimately good bike or bad bike you can’t hide behind your form on the road each day and ultimately you’re only competing against yourself (unless you're racing). If you’re not riding well it shows and vice versa. To that point I asked Simon what the secret of his good climbing was and it was refreshingly simple: Ride lots of hills. Simon regularly rides loops with a minimum of 1800m of climbing in 80 miles, including a mixture of short punchy climbs as well as longer draggier ones. Funnily enough over time he's got really good at climbing doing this.
From time to time I get too carried away by my bike tech, whether it better or lighter bikes and components as I love all of it. But it’s great and important to be reminded from time to time that even with a fantastic bike and set up – most of all you’ve got to keep those miles clocking up as that’s where the real joy of cycling is always found.
Thanks for reading and thanks Simon for the photos
You may have seen my recent post on Stoemper Bikes brilliant Stoepid week, where they got a bunch of guys including Bicycling Magazine's Bill Strickland (@TrueBS) and attempted to ride 5 of the toughest and most famous spring classics in a week (see more here: http://girodilento.com/the-brilliance-of-stoepid-week ).
Part of the point of Stoepid week was all of the riders were out on the new Stoemper road bikes which I'd been looking forward to the launch of as I've loved the look of the Eddy and Ronny cyclocross bikes since I saw first them.
Yesterday, Stoemper updated their website and launched the new road bikes. These are the Darrell which is a handmade aluminium road frame, made by Todd right down to the fact that he makes the tubes first. I saw a tweet saying that Bill Strickland rode a Darrell on Stoepid week and the whole bike weighed just 16lbs, which is a decent weight for a strong frame. Stoemper say that in Todd's hands the Darrell gives a great ride quality and still offers excellent power transfer. With a tapered head tube (hand made by Todd), ENVE fork, triple butted main tubes and S-bend seat and chain stays it might be a bike to reassess your views on aluminium race bikes. Hopefully it won't be too long before Bill Strickland shares his experiences of riding the spring classic routes on one including the cobbles and climbs.
The other new frame is the Taylör again hand made by Todd but using True Temper S3 steel which builds up into a light frame by steel standards but still gives the legendary ride quality. Now to be honest I've not yet ridden a good steel frame in anger - titanium yes but steel no, so the Taylör in particular has piqued my interest. Again I love the description that it's a torpedo, a wrecking ball but with the fantastic ride quality of steel. It's sounds like a bruiser performance wise but not when it comes to the ride quality. It sounds like a fun bike to ride fast and far on (and perfect for those spring classics rides).
Stoemper are also doing some great paint work too (again at Todd's hands) like this with the Belgian flag. There are more photos of different colour options on the website in the media section
I really like what Stoemper are doing - both with the bikes and the brand (right down to the great logo) - I find the banding fun and refreshingly straightforward but it's obvious that there's a serious side too - the guys at Stoemper look to be trying to build some genuinely great metal bikes both in steel and aluminium fusing the best bits of US and European geometries not to mention cycling in general. As much as I love my carbon bike I want a great metal bike too - so watch this space... and in the meantime I leave you with this cool short video on Todd of Stoemper:
You can find more info on the bikes including geometry and pricing etc here: http://www.stoemper.com/
I'm delighted to have another guest post. This time it's from my friend and all round cycling advocate Mark Tearle, who also happens to be a very decent rider. You may know Mark from Twitter where he resides as @_BLIXA_, you may have seen his regular sportive reviews on http://www.cyclosport.org/ or from his enthuisastic promotion of the #30daysofbiking campaign in the UK. Even if you don't know Mark, this is a good post and well worth a read. The video is from one of the rides other attendees Oli Pepper from http://www.morvelo.com/ and the photos are via Mark. Enjoy and thanks for reading .....
For the most part I am a bubbling cauldron of nervous energy.It is pretty much that which gets me through the day to day – riding a bike tends to calm that down, usually.Jo’s Happy 100 sits in that great cycling lexicon of “legendary” here in the South East so it was quite nice to be invited along, by virtue of being localish and on twitter rather than actually knowing Jo personally or anyone else for that matter, much to my burning blush of shame – I mean I get around, right?
As the day grew nearer I felt decidedly twitchier - 100 miles in March? With people I don’t know? I don’t know why I fretted so; I do this type of strange thing most weekends anyway and thrive on it – but the added responsibility of riding a borrowed bicycle too, gah!
I had heard about Jo Burt of course; a mountain bike rider of some pedigree, creator of MBUK’s regular Mint Sauce comic strip and contributor to that ever popular ‘Cycling website of the year’ Road.cc.
Anyway, before I start scraping the barrel and gush about all my industry great mates (though it feels right to offer Jo this sort of semi-formal introduction) I should bring this piece round to the actual point. Riding a bike. The ride. There doesn’t need to be a reason to ride but the Happy 100 celebrates the spring forward of the clocks from GMT to BST just after the Spring equinox, marking the point in space and time when the sun moves across the celestial equator from south to north...this is good enough reason to me to do 100 miles in the Sussex lanes.
Up and at them then...early rise, which feels earlier due to the clocks changing – I can’t ever get up for work in the morning but always find that motivation to get my arse up and out at an unnatural hour for a bike ride - funny that!
I arrived at Jo’s embarrassingly early, the first to arrive, though Jo politely pointed out that I was ‘on time’ – a Happy 100 tradition is to get the first kicks from litres of espresso coffee and kilo’s of waffles and other patisserie breakfast delights, with others now beginning to arrive, welcomes, handshakes, introductions, chat and gossip.
All assembled, then let us roll out...with route cards neatly taped to top tubes and stem we take our leave of Brighton and head east crossing the Adur at Kingston-by-Sea over the footbridge. Having picked up one more stray just after Shoreham airport, crossing the A27 at the lights the first attacks began.
Plenty of bravado but no mean over-competitiveness as all will assemble again, just that element of pleasure and adventure pushing what is possible over those first 50 miles to the café. Time to warm the legs on the first hill then, a little bit of farm track; regular thup, thup, thup of tyres over the joins in the concrete road now at 2:8 time signatures with the heart rate as the gradient begins to rise.
‘Bostalberg’ done, now for some pavé ‘Petit Brut d’Ecole, ‘Pont Demoli’ – was our first and only puncture here? I forget. Then some hills ‘Hammermen’, ‘Hammertwee’ aka ‘Hammerponds’ a rolling murderous bit of road that leaves you gripping hard to stay on the wheels of the stronger man, updown, updown, up… and some final pavé and strada bianche before lunch.
Balcombe tea rooms is a pretty café – a table already laid out for the riders who are welcomed with open arms, Jo seems to be somewhat of a regular and I know my own cycling club frequent when the club run takes them north as opposed to south down to the Badgers.
Sandwiches and various hot drinks ordered and riders settle down for some alfresco chatter and dining.The weather, glorious early spring sunshine with the temperature needle far above average for this time of year…legs were already out and exposed.
With full bellies, eyes were then fixed on a very large birthday cake presented to Jo. “CAKE! Oh, Christ, alright why not? Well it would be rude not to…” Addled by the bright sun, and gorged on food it was time to settle up and leave – no haggling over the bill, evenly split with a fair tip for the hospitality…time to go.
Happy 100 part 2 with all the hills – we had already done a fair bit of climbing but now it was time to work off that lunch. From Balcombe the route took us east, up then down into the reservoir at Ardingly before heading towards Ashdown Forest. Pillow Mounds and Kidds hill en route (Asklimmen and Ashdown Muur respectively on the crib card) – the second time on both ascents for me in as many weeks.
200 meters up into the forest and our way is blocked. Road closed. Is that black smoke billowing from the forest? The local constabulary officious and by the book (all for our own safety of course) will not let us through to the Crowborough Road junction that takes us out of the forest and on our way.
What are our options? There was no appetite to retrace the route descending Kidds Hill on a loop that would take us 5 miles out of the way…ok, Google maps what do you have for us? Ahhh, a bit of singletrack through the forest out of the way of the fire to get us back on track – having been subjected to Jo’s pavé there really was no objections…5 minutes later we’re back on route.
From Nutley towards Newick – stopping in a lay-by for one of them “comfort breaks” Jo disappears over the hedge and appears with a ‘Bonk Box’…a stash of goodies to see us home; sausage rolls, sweets, cake, biscuits all washed back with cola and lemonade.
Now on towards Chailey for another couple of sections of pavé – ‘Croix de Barcombe’ and a section above Plumpton…rolling country roads, fast pace, sucking wheels and taking a turn at the front – riding with people who know what they’re doing is an utter blast…no skittish braking or jerky movements, smooth drafting and strong pacing.
Just that enigmatic beauty Ditchling Beacon to overcome now…by this point my legs were starting to hurt on the hills. Jo, generously kept me company as I grinded up the ascent, either that or he was hurting a bit too, though I doubt that!
As the sun began to set we made our final descent into the city, just that final leg burning lump to get over at Hollingbury then down towards the sea. The weather had held it couldn’t have been more perfect. Home.
Although I’ve been pretty much on track for my monthly mileage target for March, I decided I wanted to try to ride 100km today, as I'd not done a 100km ride since January. So last night I mapped out a ride using Bikehike and uploaded it to my Garmin this morning heading much further south than normal, using roads that Malcolm had introduced me too on a couple of previous occasions.
It was an absolutely beautiful day but I had a great deal of trouble making myself leave the house, I could have easily sat at my desk all day and in fact did for an hour and half longer than I'd intended too.
Once I got out on my winter bike (taking it was an excuse to ride slower) I felt good although I had my first hunger pang - just a little one within 20 minutes of beginning the best part of a 4 hour ride and I should have paid more heed to it but I'd started the ride and had therefore committed myself.
In fact the first hour went really well and I covered 30km including a category 4 climb which I rode just a fraction under my best time. After two hours I'd averaged 29kmh and was well over half way through the journey and had climbed 500m or so. I was riding well. In fact, I was riding the best I have so far this year. The sun was shining, the countryside was stunning and there was even the occasional other roadie out who was also happy to smile and wave.
All was well in my cycling world.
I'd even managed to take a few photos including some terrible attempts at Pandas - the best one is in this post above and as I got well into the second more challenging climbing segment of the journey my hunger pangs started to turn into a dreaded bonk.
For those of you who've not experienced the famous cycling bonk, it's when you've typically not eaten or drunk enough while your riding and you literally hit a wall and lose almost all of your energy. The only way to fix it is to refuel - but in most cases when it happens you're out on the road somewhere and it's difficult to fix this. It's a hero to zero situation as you fairly rapidly lose almost all energy and generally just want to get off the bike as soon as you can.
I reckon it hit me at about 80km and before it hit properly I thought I was just slowing up a bit from fatigue more than anything else. It really hit me once I'd finished all my climbing and was doing the last small crest into a head wind. My speed crashed and I found myself having to change down to the small ring because of a 15-20kph head wind and my speed dropped to around 15-17kmh where I'd been doing 30ish before. On the following descent I found myself changing down gears descending into the headwind and I knew I was in trouble. At least I was able to descend for a while.
On the last Strava hill segment of the ride not long before Groombridge I recorded my slowest ever time. Considering I'd be recording virtually best time in the first half of the ride, this confirmed the bonk. I had orginally been aiming to complete the ride in 3hours 30 and had been on track but in the end I worked very hard to get back in 3hours 45 after losing that extra 15 minutes in the last 20 kilometres.
I was absolutely shattered by the time I got home and rushed inside to down a recovery drink, an energy drink, biscuits, yoghurts, sandwhichs and anything else I could get my hands on.
I had eaten an ok (not a great) breakfast but that was nearly 3 hours before I left for my ride. I took one small banana as food for a 100km ride and two 700ml energy drinks. I should have eaten a bigger - perhaps a second breakfast 30minutes before my ride as well as some energy bars or gels (I've run out).
Rode really well for 80km today. Shame the ride was 103km. So tired now, just tried to walk to the shops in my slippers. Doh!
It was still a really good ride, not least because the day was a cracker and for the first time this year I really felt a hint of form. Like my tweet said - I rode well for 80km today - just a shame that it was a 103km ride. Still, bonks happen - it was my first for quite sometime and hopefully experiencing it today will make me ensure I don't again for a while.
I've just re-ordered my energy foods/drinks this evening.
I've been a fan of Stoemper bikes for a while - how can you not love a brand that named the bike models the Eddy and the Ronny (the Eddy is my favourite: http://stoemper.com/eddy.php - it's a fantastic looking bike). How can you not love the motto:
Stoemper are about to launch some new road bikes Stoepid week has been a brilliant piece of PR built around a gruelling idea of riding 5 classics in 7 days. Yes, that's right in 7 days and they're not the "easy" ones either (not that there is such a thing).
In case you didn't read the description above carefully enough, that's 1230km of riding in a week and lots and lots and lots of cobbles and climbing. In fact part of the genius is that it's just a brutal way to spend a week and what self respecting cyclist doesn't respect a fair serving of brutal. Another masterstroke was inviting Bicycling editor Bill Strickland (@TrueBS) to join the team. I've always greatly enjoyed Bill's writing and was glad and very impressed to see him jump in (he might be regretting it a bit now - though hopefully not).
It was always going to be very hard indeed (like Stoemper bikes?) but I loved this quote from Bill's Bicycling Blog (http://bicycling.com/blogs/theselection/2012/03/19/stoepid-week-gent-wevelgem/) - "Yesterday, I quit seven times, the day before that, some countless number, neither of which I told my five friends."
I think Stoepid week is the best cycling adventure I've seen in a while - and I'm delighted Stoemper have done it and that they got Bill Strickland involved too.
Something that’s really stood out to me in watching the beginning of this season’s pro-cycling coverage is how many team bikes are now running 40mm+ deep section aero wheels on every stage – even those with a lot of climbing. Seriously, take a look at any pro road race going on and check it out if you haven’t already noticed it.
Now as someone who owns an aero road bike – a logical next step is to put some appropriately aero wheels on it – but according to wiser people than I within the industry, aero wheels can make a noticeable difference to the speed and effort required on any bike.
With this in mind I asked Reynolds if they’d be open to loaning me a set of deep section wheels and I picked up this set of Forty Six’s late last week to spend time riding.
Reynolds effectively have three ranges of carbon aero wheels Road Racing, which includes the state of the art RZRs at the top of the tree (under 1kg for a pair of 46mm deep carbon tubulars!), then the Thirty Two, Forty Six, Sixty Six, a more affordable range called Competitive Road including the Strike, Assault, Attack and (the non carbon) Solitude as well as a range of Triathlon/TT wheels featuring up to 92mm depth
Priced at just under £2k a pair in the UK these are what I'd call an upper mid range priced wheel set and they’re priced to compete with aero wheels from Zipp, ENVE, HED. (for me the high end is £2.5k up).
Carbon wheels at this end of the market even a handful of years ago were mainly tubular and the lightest wheelsets still are. For the Forty Six, a tubular set weighs in at just over 1200gms a pair whereas the clinchers like I’m riding are just over 1400gms a pair. 1400gms still makes them lighter than any of the alloy clincher wheels I’ve been riding on my Alize. Reynolds tell me that 70% of the wheels they sell are clinchers and the Reynolds brochure tells me that the AG2R pro team rode clincher Reynolds in last years Tour de France. Most of us weekend warriors also favour clinchers because we’re used to changing clincher flats but changing a tubular flat is far more intimidating (perhaps just because we’ve not done it).
Because of all of this, wheels manufacturers including Reynolds have been investing significant resources in building clinchers wheelsets that are engineerd to be strong enough and durable enough for daily use over a varieity of road surfaces and this is where the extra 200gms of weight largely comes from.
I’ll cover the technical aspects of the wheels in deeper detail in my next post on the wheels. For this post I want to touch on two more aspects, the looks and the first ride report.
I spoke to a retailer this week and asked him if they were selling many set of deep section carbon wheelsets and was told volume is going up quickly. His answer to why are people buying them was not exactly what I was expecting – that customers are buying them mostly because they look great on most bikes.
This is definitely true. I think the Reynolds look great on my own bike and they look more “right” on an aero bike for sure.
For me, the most important reason to try these wheels is to see if I can detect a discernible aero gain from the engineering put into the design and construction.
My first test of this was on Tuesday, when I went out on a rolling loop of roads I know extremely well. From the first 500 metres, these wheels felt fast and my Garmin display was echoing what I was feeling. It seemed to be easier to get up to a good speed and hold it. Normally when I ride this loop at about 10kms in I am looking to averaging near to 30kph – so I’m looking for the 10km in 20minutes and I’m checking this mental arithmetic as I ride. With these wheels I was initially confused as my mental calculations weren’t working normally …. because I was averaging over 30kph rather than under. In fact I managed to keep the average speed above 30kph until 17km through the ride including over 200m of climbing – something I’ve not managed before. My speed only dropped below 30kph after my riding glasses fell off at about 55kmh on a descent, so I had to stop, turn around, ride back up the hill looking for them, get them back on, turn around and continue. I also managed two personal best times on the ride – one a short steep climb and the other a longer draggy uphill section that my previous best was set when I was much fitter.
I’m still rebuilding my fitness from a chest infection that wiped February out – so believe me I’m not fit enough to be riding that quickly. My fitness is getting there but I still shouldn’t be riding that quickly.
This was a very promising first ride. Now certainly there may be a placebo effect but I’m not sure that’s what happening. I genuinely think these wheels feel very quick from the first ride.
A couple of other things I noticed include – they hold speed incredibly when you’re up to speed (including coasting) and I imagine if you’re riding in a group you’ll be using less energy to hold the pace and this could make a real difference in a race. They climb really well at the first impression. Last year I wrote about a set of Mavic Cosmic Carbones that I had (http://girodilento.com/2011-mavic-cosmic-carbone-sl-first-thoughts), which I loved but they were a poor climber as they were heavy. Not so the Forty Sixs in fact they were great to climb on and I found myself able to accelerate on relatively steep gradients.
The only minor down side is that on the first ride, they weren’t as comfortable as I was expecting. They weren’t harsh or uncomfortable by any means but the ride was just a bit less smooth than I expected.
The braking using Reynolds specially supplied pads (in a nice blue that matches my bike) was fine on the first ride – not as good as my alloy clinchers but good nonetheless.
Overall my first impression is extremely positive – light, very fast, look great and an absolutely perfect example of credit card speed, which is an intoxicating thought in itself. I’m really looking forward to spending more time on these wheels, including longer, more challenging climbing, descents and flat road riding. The Forty Six seems like it could be a perfect depth for all round riding; deep enough for genuine aero benefit, light enough to climb well and will look great on a lot of bikes.
I’ll write again once I’ve spent more time on them but if you’re looking at aero wheels – these should be on your short list.
Here is some other information to consider including a couple of excellent professional reviews:
