Apart from me, that is.

I started cycling as a teenager. It was a way of getting too and from school, of getting about town and visiting friends. Aside from a short tour with my father in the Scottish Borders, I was basically a utility cyclist. Back in those days, I had fairly cheap road bike with a 5 speed freewheel and a double chainset (still fairly unusual at that time, at least for kids’ bikes). I don’t think the basic technology of bikes had changed much since my father took up cycling in the 1950s. You really didn’t need much in the way of tools, and it seemed natural to me to pick up the basics of bike maintenance from my father. There were occasions where a specialist tool was needed - a memorable example was when I changed from a steel chainset with cotter pins to an SR alloy cotterless chainset (this would have had a square taper bottom bracket), I didn’t have a spanner that would fit into the crank arm to tighten the bolt. In the end, we popped into  George Pennel’s bike shop in Peebles to ask about it. He lent us the appropriate Campagnolo spanner , saying to return it the following week (after that we were lifelong customers until George died and the shop changed hands).

Chain waxing is another of those things being pushed far and wide on the internet. 

A messy oily chain is one of the worst things in cycling, especially if you’re transporting a bike in the back of a car. No matter how hard you try, a chain always gets mucky. Using wax as a lubricant is widely touted as a solution not only for a clean chain but for increased longevity of transmission components.

First trial, 2019

My first attempt at adopting tubeless tyre technology came after I bought a Shand Stoater in December 2018. I was intending to set it up as a low maintenance commuter bike. Bad timing really, as in 2020 we all went into Covid lockdown, and  I ended up mainly working from home! 

Maybe this post should have been entitled "Stopping with the times" :-)

Hydraulic vs cable brakes; disc vs rim brakes

I have a number of wheels which have Shimano compatible 8 to 10 speed freehub bodies. Two of these wheels are intended for use in a time trial bike with 11-speed systems, and one is the new rear wheel bought for the Longstaff tandem (LINK).  Accordingly I’ve spent a bit of time figuring out to upgrade these wheels to 11 speed.

Freehubs designed for 8 to 10 speed cassettes are very slightly shorted than those designed for 11 speed cassettes. They can fit standard Shimano cassettes from 7 to 10 speed, requiring a spacer in some cases. You can fit 11 speed cassettes if you drop out one of the cogs. This might not be the best solution for a racing wheel, but works fine if you’re not focussing on smallest cogs.

Another bout of modifications to our summer tandem, resulting in a rather mixed transmission: 11-speed Shimano cassette (reduced to 10-speed), Shimano 105 levers and rear mech, a 1990s Campagnolo tandem chainset and triple front mech, KMC chain, new Campagnolo BBs.

I noticed the other day, via the GP Lama YouTube channel that the latest firmware update for the Garmin/Tacx Neo 3M trainer (and, I think, the version 2 and 2T Neo trainers) enables virtual shifting on the Zwift platform.

I run Zwift on an AppleTV in my garage using a Tacx Neo 3M trainer, and I experience some issues. Firstly, the AppleTV bluetooth remote buttons are gradually breaking, presumably an accretion of sweat damage. Replacements aren’t cheap (and might just go the same way). Secondly, I often have a bit of trouble with jumping gears while training, particularly in intense intervals.

When we “almost-formalised” Team Grumpy as a vehicle for our two-up time trialling endeavours, we used an old saying for our byline:

Youth and Talent are no match for Age and Treachery

We originally bought the tandem frame in the mid 1990s, when I equipped it with some classic tandem kit. As a consequence, it has a lovely retro vibe to it. We haven't used it a great deal after moving south from Dundee at the end of 1999. After the seatpin incident at the end of our 2024 cycle tour, our Thorn touring tandem was out of commission until the snapped seat post stumpt could be extracted. At that time it was clear that the Longstaff tandem wasn't a terribly forgiving ride, so I started making some changes. But first, the initial bike set up.

The original build

In which I discover things I never knew about my indoor trainer and my Garmin watch!

I was interested in seeing how well my Garmin Vivoactive 5 watch would function as a heart rate sensor, broadcasting to whichever device I choose. I had tested the connections, and could see that it could pair with my Apple TV (which must be via Bluetooth) and with my Edge 840, presumably via ANT+. I was keen to see how the watch would shape up when I was engaged in riding HIIT intervals of 30s - would it keep up well enough?

Every so often, I'm motivated to test concordance between various sensors that connect to bike training devices. This is usually to confirm that there is good consistency between devices, usually power meters. This particular test aimed to evaluate some HR sensors and a couple of power meters. I wanted to compare the HR derived from my Garmin Vivoactive 5 watch (optical), a Polar Verity Sense armband HR sensor (optical), and my regular Polar H10 chest strap HR sensor. Over the years, I've found that Polar chest straps set the standard for HR measurement, and they are good tools for measuring heart rate variability (HRV) via the HRV4Training phone app. Unfortunately, I have been experiencing some skin irritation from from sweaty chest straps during indoor training, so I wanted to evaluate whether switching to one of the optical sensors might help.

As a secondary aim, I was interested to see how my current trainer, a Garmin Neo 3M, compared with a pair of Assioma Favero dual sided power meter pedals.

I’ve generally gone with advances in bike technology as they’ve developed over the years. Mostly these have represented refinements in existing technology, such as the steady creep in gear numbers from 5 speed freewheels (when I was cycling to school as a teenager) through to 12 speed cassette hubs. In mechanical gears, I’ve usually been able to keep abreast of which cassette spacing would work with what combination of shifters and gear mechs.

All that began to change as we moved into combined brake/gear levers (STI from Shimano and Ergopower from Campagnolo).

A bit of background on my online training

Over the last 25 years or so I've found that indoor training is the key to improving my fitness and performance in time trials. Away from the vagaries of dealing with terrain and motor traffic, I can focus on the workout rather than survival. 25 years ago, power meters weren't readily available, and one's focus was on heart rate as a measure of exercise intensity. Indoor trainers offered adjustable resistance, but little else. In those days I found the structured plan in Pete Read's The Annual Manual (the Black Book), which presented a month by month plan for training on an indoor trainer, to be highly effective.

As noted in a post from June 22nd (Revisiting an old tandem), our old Longstaff tandem has been back in use while the Thorn touring tandem was out of action pending the seat post stump removal and indeed since the Thorn was repaired. It must be 20 to 25 years since it has seen regular use! It's a remarkable sprightly ride, but in its original set up rather a harshe ride, especially for the stoker.

There have been a few examples of electric pumps for bike tyres on the market over the last few years. The first I was aware of was the Fumpa Pump, produced in Australia. I have the original model, and the nano Fumpa. I've also bought a Cycplus A2 Pro. These devices offer some advantages and some disadvantages for the cyclist. So in order of purchase, here are my opinions.

As an opening comments, these pumps all have battery capacity limitation to varying extents. Obviously the smaller pumps are more limited in this regard than the larger models. But I would not take an electric pump (or for that matter CO₂ cylinders) on a long bike ride in preference to a conventional pump. All these pumps can be used for inflating tyres with Shrader or Presta valves.

We've had the Thorn tandem out of action since the seatpost broke on the last day of our cycling holiday about three weeks ago. I'd tried to shift the post stump using a mole wrench but couldn't shift it - though I was being a bit cautious as I wanted to avoid distorting the seatpost remnant which could make things even more difficult.

After seeking advice from local cyclists, the best suggestion was to take the offending seatpost to John the Seatpost Man in Chorley. I decided that taking the whole tandem up was going to be a hassle and, since I planned to give the tandem a good clean up, I stripped the tandem down and only took the rear frame section with us. We'd planned a visit to the Leeds area for family reasons, so we drove up to Chorley before heading east to the Leeds area. This was OK, except the drive to Chorley took ages, due largely to an accident up ahead of us as we skirted Manchester.

On our recent cycle tour in the Hebrides, we managed to drop our backup Garmin bike computer, an Edge 520 Plus, during a fast descent. It hit the deck quite hard, bounced then ended up in a watery ditch. We retrieved it, still functioning despite a badly shattered glass.

The underlying circuit board could be seen through the break, and the corner was abraded off where the device hit the tarmac. As far as I could see, the majority of the screen was still functioning, with a few dark areas at the top and bottom. Here's a photo of the damage.

With our usual favoured tandem out of action pending the removal of the sheared seatpost, I dusted off the spare tandem and we went out for a rather nice ride on a sunny day. I also replaced the seemingly perished tyres with new 28mm Continental GP5000 tyres. That was a struggle in its own right.

Longstaff tandem

With our favourite tandem sidelined until I can take the rear section of the frame to the Seatpost Man in Chorley, I’ve taken it upon myself to sort out the Longstaff tandem.

I had this tandem frame built about 30 years ago and for the last 20 or so years it has seen very little use. It's a rather lovely single marathon frame finished in flam kingfisher blue. I had the frame built for fast riding rather than touring, and it has seen use on a couple of occasions in time trials. The tandem is pretty light for a tandem, but it's really a bit old-fashioned now: it has an elderly Campagnolo tandem chainset, Campagnolo tandem hubs with screw on freewheel, and Dia-Compe cantilevers. Gearing is Campagnolo Ergo-Shift, with a Choris rear mech and a triple front derailleur from  a long unavailable Campagnolo MTB groupset. I built the 40 spoke wheels with Mavic Module 3CD rims and 13G/14G butted spokes. Those rims are a bit limiting regarding tyre width.

Over the last few years, a new material for inner tubes has surfaced - TPU or thermoplastic polyurethane. The first brand I noticed was Tubolito, though there are several available now.