L1 Road Bikers - We push more Watts than our Computers do!

Communities Vehicles & Mobility
1

So I wanted to share my hobby and beloved sports anyway. I had a road bike as a teenager and eventually abandoned most of my sports activities with smoking, job and “I don’t have time for this” excuses.

I “rebooted” my love for road bikes 3 years ago and have been an eager cyclist since then. Strava and weather apps are my most used apps most of the year (although I prefer to skip rainy days…). And being not only nordish but also nerd by-nature, all the fancy electronics and metrics also gravitated me to get the full setup and seeing myself making actual progress outside of having so much fun.

And with spring in full bloom here in Northern Germany, the season '25 is finally here.

My Bike is a Rose Reveal 04 105 Di2 from 2023, carbon, electric shifting, 4x BT connections and all the stuff that makes life great while the heart rate sensor is telling me to slow down, but the dopamine sensor is telling me to push it harder.

But I mostly stick to my training schedule and be a responsible driver. I know I’m the one losing my bike and possibly parts of myself if things go south.

As I live in northern Germany next to the (former) dutch border (some would say that frisian blood has an affinity to bikes), I have basically 0° elevation on my usual routes (40m elevation on 40km routes, and that’s mostly speed bumps or bridges), but strong windy conditions are the norm, so no training is ever the same. Although I sometimes pick up the bike (and maybe some fellow minded bikers,) get into the train station and explore other regions.

Some forced stop at a very old ferry:

IMG_20240626_144817
IMG_20240626_1448171920×1440 452 KB

Might as well check out the beach (that wind, up to 60km/h bursts, almost killed me):

IMG_20240618_154952
IMG_20240618_1549521920×1068 356 KB

Oh right, next upgrade will be transition to waxed chain. Ordered the stuff but didn’t get my hands dirty so far. Carbon rims are on the list, but there is only so much hobby-money around.

So what are you guys doing with your road bikes? and where are the pictures? I wanna know!

And tell people that we “white lycra dudes with radar and shit” (sorry, @THEkitchenSINK )are the good guys :wink: My Bike is 7.6kg, I’m not the one driving tanks around the streets (although I’m guilty of occasional speeding).

7 Likes
2

What do you think of belt drives? They seem to be gaining in popularity as of late.

This is slightly tangential but, I watched this video on a slick looking transmission for belts and wanted to bring the design over to a 160hp 2-stroke bike that I plan on making:

2 Likes
3

There is a lot of innovation for bicycles atm. Pedelec being so popular and being a multi billion € market, a lot of nice things are coming to the market. I personally don’t like automatic shifting. I don’t like it in cars nor do I like it on bikes. My family has Pedelecs with automatic transmission…it’s nice and convenient for casual cycling. But I want to keep my rpm sweetspot at any given speed, and automatic transmissions so far weren’t able to give me that experience.
And I like shifting. I always did and I always will. Can’t wait for 13/14 gear derailleur on my next bike in 6 years or so. And electric shifting is just nice and fast. You get what you pay for.

Although front derailleur is falling mostly out of fashion (for good reasons), I find it of critical importance on a road bike having a “some gear between A and B would be nice now”-option.

Yes chains are pretty old tech all things considered. But a proper rear derailleur with 12-gears and the fitting chain is pretty much very high-precision, fast and efficient. Chains have a bad rep because we usually use oily grease and stuff gets dirty and black as it collects dirt from everywhere. And if you don’t care about it, it sucks, is noisy and gets rusty and just becomes a burden.

That’s why I ordered wax + stuff from Optimize, a German startup selling this “premium niche”. Let’s see how this goes…less maintenance and less/none black oily dirt on my bike and my clothes is a great thing.

About the shifting…the Shimano firmware basically has a semi-automatic setting, adjusting the front derailleur as gear changes in the rear and also double shifting on the rear to keep gear ratio smooth, and chain runs straight and you get best power transmission and least amount of noise. but you can also do it manually and can adjust the gear and shifting behaviour, much like setting a fan curve table :wink: I really like it, but I settled with a very basic setup. But I made a second mode where I can just use the left shifter to cycle through my bike computer pages for navigation and stuff without leaving grip on shifter and brakes. In this case, the Shimano software adjusts the front derailleur automatically.

And chain may be old, but dealing with a chain isn’t rocket science. It’s easy maintenance and replacement. I don’t have a proper retailer (that has a clue about carbon road bikes) within 100km, so I can’t just walk to the next dealer to fix things. I need the ability to do everything myself. And there, simplicity is often very valuable when repairing stuff.

edit: Link to that chain wax company…seems a solid choice so far. I will know more if I finally can change the chain and testrun the stuff

1 Like
4

To a guy that mountain bikes a single speed without gears that doesn’t really sound basic… :grinning:

2 Likes
5

Depends on the gear ratio that gear is running on. fixed-gear bike? brave! uphill? Well my doctor would advise me not to do that to my knees. My 41yr old knees are the main reason why I never was able to do running and always stuck to bikes.

Being able to adapt gears to elevation, wind or traffic situation is very good for training purposes. Being able to keep rpm&torque at a constant rate let’s you control heart rate and exhaustion very easily, which is nice for what is mainly an endurance-focused sport. I like to be flexible and adaptable.

And downhill? who needs gears anyway? I’m certainly not that crazy road cyclist racing downhill @80kph on 9 teeth, 250W and red glowing discs. I do like their videos for watching though :wink:

And I’m too clumsy for mountain bike trails. I can see myself driving a gravel bike through the forest (in fact this will probably be my 3rd bike in the garage eventually, cause I miss the forest segments on a road bike), but living and growing up without mountains, I missed the mountain bike lifestyle.

1 Like
6

I’m 54 and my knees are old and crap too. The issue with old knees vs running is that they take a shock every time your foot lands on the ground, pedalling a bike on the other hand eliminates those shocks.

I don’t run fixed gear, I still have free wheeling enabled for coasting along, it’s just the gear selectors I have gotten rid of.

To my surprise climbing uphill turned out to be no biggie, took me about 3 weeks of riding before I was faster uphill than I used to be when the bike had gears. It’s the flat bits that suck, spinning endlessly with a not all too great top speed.

2 Likes
7

It’s amazing how our bodies adapt within a couple of weeks if you just keep on going and make it a habit and break old ones.
Uphill or with strong headwind, it’s a test of will more often than not. But beating that route and rewarding yourself with a nice quiet tranquil view in nature, often meeting up with like-minded people and with some serious tasty meal to refuel on carbohydrates and water (I still burn more than I can possibly eat, I got rather skinny during the last years). Always a good time.

Which is why bicycles are great for everyone. Even if older and walking longer distances become hard, chances are…riding a bike is still fine. Family trips with 3 generations riding side by side is just great. I’m usually not a group ride person, but family trips are great.

Just keep on spinning :slight_smile:

2 Likes
8

More of a fietser, myself. Happy to see people enjoying all kinds of bicycle though.

2 Likes
9

It’s all family!

I’m actually jealous of dutch fietspad infrastructure, feels always like returning to a developing country when I cross the border to get back home.

2 Likes
10

I try to look at it from a physics point of view, forgive me if I mess up the units, it’s been a while since school.

I weigh a certain amount. My bike weighs a certain amount. Climbing up a certain hill means moving that weight from x meters above sea level to y meters above sea level. It doesn’t matter if the bike has many gears or just one, the only difference is how fast I do it. The faster I go, the more energy I need to put in, but the sooner the climb will be over. With gears I can climb the hill slower, putting in less energy, but doing so for a longer time. End result is roughly the same. I didn’t get stronger in those 3 weeks, I just learned to put in the same energy in a new way.

Honestly it has come to a point where it almost feels like cheating.

When I rode with gears I would mostly sit and spin on the flat bits and sit and spin going uphill. If I changed from sitting and spinning to standing and mashing halfway up a climb, I would find myself in the wrong gear, so I would rarely do that. In essence I was using the same muscle groups for everything.

With only one gear I have no choice but to stand up and mash going uphill and it kinda feels like I’m using a different set of muscles standing and mashing compared to sitting and spinning, it’s like having a fresh set of muscles for the climbing and that makes me get to the top faster.

Don’t know if that makes sense, but I’m doing my regular route of gravel and mud faster with just one gear, using “two sets of muscles” and a bit more swearing…

2 Likes
11

That sounds like a strength vs power thing to me. Someone who’s on the bike 20 hours a week and can sustain hundreds of watts over an hour isn’t necessarily going to be stronger than someone who can’t. It just depends on how you’ve tuned the system though training.

1 Like
12

If you watch road bikers, they are alternating between standing and sitting positions because of just that. Different muscle groups that aren’t used that much while sitting and not developing as the rest of the body.

I made this a habit for myself even though it is more exhausting and I’m usually driving on a flat plain. Especially if your ass is getting “numb” after long sitting, standing up, ignoring the bad aerodynamics and just put force into the pedals…utilizing way more body weight is just maximum power and turbo mode. And uphill, aerodynamics aren’t that critical anyway and weight is the more crippling factor.

It certainly is much better for our knees too, especially when at lower rpm anyway. I certainly don’t like pedaling slower <60, just feels too much of an effort.
And although I don’t have much experience uphill, standing up is a common thing I see on professional bikers all the time. And they don’t do stupid shit if career and money is on the table :slight_smile:

I usually aim for ~87-92 RPM for my trips. My personal sweet spot. Got some Wahoo cadence sensor on my shoe (basic acceleration sensor with bluetooth and a latch for the bike shoe) to have some feedback other than “feeling”. I benefit in having some guard rails to tell me “yeah that’s what you are aiming for” or “no, that’s too fast for your own good”. Bike computer and sensors certainly helped me find a good and sustainable pace.

You adapt to your bike and your route. And you probably mastered the benefits of that gear ratio very well and learned how to bypass or mitigate the limitations. Single gear may sound stupid to most…but to steal a quote: “If it is stupid, but it works, it is not stupid”.

Having a bike you enjoy and where you are looking forward to the next trip. That’s an asset in my books. And why I spent more (than I should have) on mine just to make it that way.
I used to play Tennis and Squash. Good and personally satisfying equipment is important to have a good time.

Put a 20-hours-a-week cyclist into a boxing ring or a random gym station, anyone in the gym will smash them if all they do is cycling. Last autumn, I had a 100km trip with an average of 31.7kph (19.7mph). But I’m not the guy lifting refrigerators or washing machines upstairs or meaningfully participate in construction work. I’m just too weak for the heavy lifting.
But 5-10 hours per week is what I usually do. 20 hour/week is really serious commitment. I can’t imagine how much stuff I had to buy at the grocery to keep up with 20 hour/week of cycling to avoid malnourishment :slight_smile:

I’m not at “hundred of watts” (yet), but I managed to get to ~185W FTP (sustainable power over an hour) before last winter (where I got lazy and fat). That’s sportive hobbyist road biking, certainly far away from any serious road bikers out there driving 200-300km each week.

1 Like
13

Yeah that’s a pretty extreme example. There probably aren’t many people who do that without having some kind of contractual obligation.

185W sustained over an hour is still pretty good though. It’s more than I could do.

1 Like
14

I find myself window shopping for some semi-slick 700C x 35mm tyres.