penguinsknees

Or you could go the cyclocross route I've got a genesis Croix de fer which I use for commuting and winter training as well as forest tracks it's a cracking multi purpose beast, you can also get the day one alfine which has hub gears to stand up to our crappy winters and all the salt and muck on the road

Saddle height is a personal thing, ideally you want a slight bend in your leg when the pedal is at the 6 o clock position with your foot flat (you don't want your heel pointing up or down). I'm about 5'8" but don't have long legs so I ride a 52cm frame bike with the saddle pretty high, most of the 54cm frames I tried would castrate me.

I can sympathise with you there the etape Mercia was a lot harder than course profile suggested, although it was great to ride on the uber smooth tarmac of oulton park

What's the course like, I quite fancied it but wanted to keep my powder dry for the etape this weekend, I've got it earmarked for next year though

Depends on how fast you want to ride and how much you don't mind tinkering. A bike in that price range will probably be fairly heavy with cheap components, but there are plenty of good videos on YouTube which show you how to fix stuff. Have you considered checking out the police lost property auctions or free cycle, up here in Aberdeen there is a place which fixes up bikes and rents them out for free for months at a time, kinda like a bike library

In theory not much but it has a much better battery life & GPS receiver than my phone (no more getting home to find sports tracker crashed or my phone died). It's waterproof and the touch screen works even with gloves on. The display screens are fully customisable so you can have any mix of info being displayed and you can have ghosts on it so you've got a target to ride against if you're on riding your own. Oh and it takes about 2 secs to upload your data to strava.

My lovely wife bought me the edge 510 (although I think it was so she could track me when I'm out riding to make sure I'm not hiding in the pub) and its a cracking piece of kit, easy to set up, I've not had it drop the GPS signal or stop working like my phone had a bad habit of doing. Even though it doesn't allow you to use it like a sat nav with maps for when you're riding a new route you can download the route to it and if you zoom in enough it's not too bad for figuring out which turns etc to take and it tells you if you go off route.

Couldn't agree more, on a personal note I was fairly pleased with my 10 miles in 29 mins tonight, sharpening up nicely for the etape Mercia in 2 weeks, is anybody else doing it?

Just back from trying out my new conti grand Prix 4000s tyres and I can recommend them to anyone. I reckon they were good for about an extra 1 mph on my average speed on a hilly 30 miler today and will be even better on a flat course

Anybody else using ritmo on cycling weekly.cc? It's a bit like the golf handicap score for bike rides over 10 miles, it really appeals to the competitive geek in me.

This one http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/products/revolution-air-track-pump-sport

I've only got a soft bike bag so I'm a wee bit wary of that, I think I'll see if I can defer my entry until next year and settle for doing the second one, I'm doing the etape Mercia 2 weeks later so at least I'll be one of the first to do that Sent from my Nexus 7 using Pie & Bovril mobile app

Just found out today I got a place on the ride London 100 they are starting this year using the Olympic road race route courtesy of the nice people at Garmin. Only problem is after missing out in the original ballot I've arranged to take my mum to the Edinburgh tattoo on the night before the ride and the bloody sleeper doesn't run on a Saturday, anybody got any clever ideas how I can get myself and my trusty steed to London bearing in mind I don't have a car Sent from my Nexus 7 using Pie & Bovril mobile app