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ste-phan's Avatar
Posts: 1,196 | Thanked: 2,708 times | Joined on Jan 2010 @ Hanoi
#31
Originally Posted by endsormeans View Post
Agreed

I have spent most of my life hiking swimming camping, kayaking and canoeing and all such fun outdoor activities ...since I was a kid.
The good fortune to live in places where walking out the house...literally was the start of the fun.
City life ...I have enjoyed...but it isn't for me.
No wonder you are so capable of enjoying the best of N800 / N900. One need some fantasy & creativity to "know what to do".
Internet connected devices long time ago were not a means of flight from a stone concrete busy busy virtual reality, rather a utility thing that enhances and colors the life by spending your virtual, connected life as efficient as possible.
For now I like this topic most for the non picture part, thanks all for the informative comments :-)
Most pictures I take from bicycle is the sad sight of great vintage steel racing bikes left carelessly locked by students / hipsters in the city centers missing parts in days.
 

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Ancelad's Avatar
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#32
Or this infernal one in tunnel's fog
 

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pichlo's Avatar
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#33
Originally Posted by kinggo View Post
That saddle............. I'm hurting just by looking at it.
Just out of interest, what is wrong with it?
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#34
^ me being an intact male, it has some disadvantages.
I should tilt it forward a little, and if that doesn't help maybe there's special "male" saddles?
 

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#35
Originally Posted by pichlo View Post
Just out of interest, what is wrong with it?
you clearly have never ridden a bike for hours. Or days.
This is great for 5min ride to the shop and back but for a serious ride is big no. Unless you have 3 feet wide behind.
Saddles are personal preferences and you just have to find the right one and then get use to it since they are all uncomfortable at the begining. If saddle feels great at first it probably means that it will suck in the long rides. The issue with those wide and thick ones is that it spreads your legs too much and rubs your thighs to much. And that stays with you far longer than that feeling of pain from thin, hard, narrow one. And comes back after every ride because your legs are not moving in natural position.
 

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#36
A bicycle saddle is like a good suit. It has to fit your body - or in this case your behind - like a 2nd skin. If it does, there's no need for any cushioning at all.
On a good saddle your weight is only supported by your sitting bones. This of course needs some training, which a lot of people don't have. That's why they prefer heavily cushioned seats (not saddles) that distribute their weight on everything their behind has to offer. This relieves untrained sitting bones, but the downside is, that it creates a lot of additional friction (which will irritate your skin) and that nerves and veins in the soft tissue get squeezed. You won't mind that on a 1km ride, but you will on a 100km ride.

The width of a saddle is another point. You'll want it to be at least as wide as your sitting bones plus some margin, but not much wider to reduce the aforementioned friction. If it's narrower it will cause a lot of pain because it applies pressure to your soft tissue and a shearing force on your sitting bones.
More well trained riders also tend to sit more aerodynamically, with their upper body lowered. If done properly, the pelvis will tilt forward while lowering the upper body and the contact point betwen the saddle and your sitting bones will move forward. The more forward this point is, the smaller is also the distance between your sitting bones. This is why trained (and thus aerodynamic) riders will prefer narrower saddles.

And then there's of course the difference between men and women. The sitting bones of both are shaped differently. Men have sitting bones with a more rounded lower edge, that on a bicycle saddle more or less works like a hinge, enabling men to assume pretty much any angle on a saddle.
Women's sitting bones on the other hand have a flat underside, which makes it more difficult for them to change angles.
This is why a woman looking for advice with a saddle should never turn to a man, but to an experienced woman instead.
 

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pichlo's Avatar
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#37
Thank you for your comprehensive answers. You are right, it's been a long time since I had done any kind of serious cycling. I used to cycle 50 km ("ha ha ha", I hear you laugh, "is that what you call 'serious'?") when I was young but that was 25-30 years ago.
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#38
Originally Posted by pichlo View Post
...when I was young but that was 25-30 years ago.
But remember! Now You are...
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N9 - My Precious...

"Gods have mercy. Cats don't..." <- Kaotik@iotech
 

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#39
Originally Posted by pichlo View Post
I used to cycle 50 km ("ha ha ha", I hear you laugh, "is that what you call 'serious'?") when I was young but that was 25-30 years ago.
That depends on how you approach it.
If you only do it once a year, like it's customary in my region on Father's day [1], the seriousness lies more in getting home safely despite being drunk, rather than in the actual cycling part.

But if you do it on a regular basis (while staying sober I might add), 50km is a serious distance in terms of training effect. As a rule of thumb it is often said that you need to cycle for at least 90 minutes at a stretch to get a long-term training effect, because at that point you'll have burned through your excess carbohydrates and your metabolism will rely entirely on burning fat (see "basic endurance").
It doesn't really matter at what speed you ride, as long as you ride continuously, but when riding 50km in 90 minutes you'll have an average speed of ~33km/h, which even with a road bike on a relatively flat track isn't that easy.

If you use a different bicycle or a more challenging track you'll need even longer and burn more energy.
For example, have a look at Koiruus's picture! A Fatbike on a hilly snowy forest path will require much more energy than a road bike on a flat and even road track. If that track is only 25km long and looks like this all the way, I'd consider it challenging to finish it within 90 minutes.

Oh, and of course it's never too late to pick up cycling (again)!


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father%27s_Day#Germany
 

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#40
Originally Posted by sulu View Post
If you use a different bicycle or a more challenging track you'll need even longer and burn more energy.
For example, have a look at Koiruus's picture! A Fatbike on a hilly snowy forest path will require much more energy than a road bike on a flat and even road track. If that track is only 25km long and looks like this all the way, I'd consider it challenging to finish it within 90 minutes.
This is probably going too much OT, but I'll tell it anyway. When riding a fatbike, I usually try to stay on trails and to avoid roads as long as I can. Usually that means not making some reasonable circle ride, but going randomly around the forest. Often it leads to a situation where I have chosen to ride a trail which fades away or just disappears suddenly. Then I still try to keep going even if there is no trail at all. Sometimes it goes just nicely and I manage to find another trail to follow, but often I end up walking and carrying my bike instead of riding it This kind of biking is a quite heavy exercise. My average speed is usually around 10km/h or even less, but average heart rate is still more than 150bpm
 

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