Geekzone Cycling Thread

Forums › Sports › Geekzone Cycling Thread

1 | ... | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48

3359 posts

Uber Geek

#3362976 11-Apr-2025 14:58

Seems like (is) a lot of cash but I see some of the fancier eMTB as more like light motocross bikes. They're a galaxy away from your dad's Raleigh 20.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

Lenovo

Shop now for Lenovo laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

geoffwnz

1546 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#3362977 11-Apr-2025 15:15

elpenguino:

Seems like (is) a lot of cash but I see some of the fancier eMTB as more like light motocross bikes. They're a galaxy away from your dad's Raleigh 20.

My Dad has a Trek Rail eMTB. ;-) So has more spent on a bike than I do.

MotorDrive Rallying

Handsomedan

7154 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Subscriber

#3362980 11-Apr-2025 15:23

elpenguino:

Seems like (is) a lot of cash but I see some of the fancier eMTB as more like light motocross bikes. They're a galaxy away from your dad's Raleigh 20.

My first experiences of "mountain biking" were on a Raleigh 20. A nice gold one in the late 70's in the hills surrounding Wainuiomata.

Glorius.

In fact, this could well have been it:
Blakes raleigh 20 resto - Two Wheels - oldschool.co.nz

Blakes raleigh 20 resto - Two Wheels - oldschool.co.nz

Handsome Dan Has Spoken.
Handsome Dan needs to stop adding three dots to every sentence...

Handsome Dan does not currently have a side hustle as the mascot for Yale

*Gladly accepting donations...

elpenguino

3359 posts

Uber Geek

#3362982 11-Apr-2025 15:26

Hehe, I too went off road on my R20 but it wasn't intentional. Luckily that adventure ended up in a soft bush.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

geoffwnz

1546 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#3368290 28-Apr-2025 14:31

So, Faultline 100. Not how I planned it to go.

Started ok enough with a solid first 25km leg from Belmont over to Porirua where I hit the first hub exactly 30 seconds slower than last year, except the leg was 4km longer and included a bonus climb before Porirua itself. Good that I was "faster". Maybe I went out too hard. Dunno. Hydration was on plan.

Second leg from there to Ohariu Hub was where things started to fall apart. Spicer forest included some bush bashing where I think the event organiser forgot he had bike categories, not just trail running. Struggled a bit through the more technical bits and eventually made it to the Hub where I discovered that I had been under hydrating already. Whoops. Topped up and headed up onto the grind up the first part of Skyline. Took me around 90 mins to grind my way to the far end of Skyline where I took another break at the aid station to restock and get encouraged by the volunteers there who were good friends of mine. Still had around 20km of Makara Peak park to complete before the next Hub and my support crew meeting me. Figured I'd see how I felt by then and decide there whether I'd keep going or not.

By this stage, the knees were becoming painful, I'd run out of strength in the quads, had been inner thigh cramping on and off for about 20km and was chasing hydration issues.

After struggling through Makara, I hit the Hub having decided that was my day done. My crew went through all my options to try and work out if we could fix the issues but with too many things going wrong and having been unable to make any difference to them, ended up pulling the plug at 76km of the 106 total distance.

Plus sides, I rode 76km with 2500m of brutal climbing in 8 hours. That's still a solid achievement.

Down side, no bling. And also having to withdraw from the planned 50km ultra run the next day. So double no bling.

Post event dissection:

Hydration. Still an ongoing discovery process even after 10+ years of running various distances. But it looks like I need to do more pre-event hydration work and keep on top of it.
Knee pain. Looks like I need to do some more work on the bike cockpit setup to get that right as it seemed to be only a problem at 4 hours plus whereas the recent training rides of around 4 hours plus the 2 hour PGT effort have been fine.
Cramping. Who knows. Possibly related to the hydration.
Event build up needs work. In the 10 weeks since Tarawera 102km Ultra I had one week recovery then 3 weeks of renovating a bathroom which blew away mu mental health and obviously took a hit on the physical health too. SO I only had 6 weeks to rebuild. Felt like enough and felt good with the training.
Endurance events are tough. They are meant to be. On the day, everything has to go right enough or be fixable on the go. Sometimes that's achievable. Sometimes it is not.
I'm ok with the DNF and DNS results.

As for the bike. Flawless as always. i9 wheels were phenomenal as always. Can point the Slash at any downhill and it just deals with it but it's a bit of a beast to haul up the hills. Bonus Hydra note, the faster hub clicks makes it feel like you are pushing up the steep hills faster. ;-)

Top speed 47.7kmh. Average total speed 9.4kmh.

Undecided on next year as yet. I still want to give the MTB Miler a crack which is the 100 with an extra 60 tacked on the start from Paraparaumu and heading over the Karapoti Valley to Upper Hutt before hitting Belmont Regional Park from the Haywards entrance. But I'm also still tempted to give the "ultra duathlon" a crack. Got a lot of work to do before then for either option.

MotorDrive Rallying

JPNZ

1504 posts

Uber Geek

#3368426 29-Apr-2025 08:04

A good mate of mine went up and did the Faultline ultra run. 108km with 3900m of climbing, took him 17.5 hours. Incredible

Ultra races like that are amazing feats of strength and perserverance.

Panasonic 65GZ1000, Onkyo RZ730, Atmos 5.1.2, AppleTV 4K, Nest Mini's, PS5, PS3, MacbookPro, iPad Pro, Apple watch SE2, iPhone 15+

Wakrak

1676 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3368428 29-Apr-2025 08:19

Handsomedan:

elpenguino:

Seems like (is) a lot of cash but I see some of the fancier eMTB as more like light motocross bikes. They're a galaxy away from your dad's Raleigh 20.

My first experiences of "mountain biking" were on a Raleigh 20. A nice gold one in the late 70's in the hills surrounding Wainuiomata.

Glorius.

In fact, this could well have been it:

I recently bought something similar for my partner for $12 😄. Just waiting for a replacement tyre to arrive from Chain Reaction.

geoffwnz

1546 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#3368430 29-Apr-2025 08:34

JPNZ:

A good mate of mine went up and did the Faultline ultra run. 108km with 3900m of climbing, took him 17.5 hours. Incredible

Ultra races like that are amazing feats of strength and perserverance.

Yep, that was basically the course I was supposed to ride. Running 100k in 17.5 hours is solid. My last 100k run took 21 hours, 11 minutes. And that was an "easier" course.

Ultra events are definitely more into the mental game than physical so long as you've done the work in training.

Lots of epic achievements across all the Faultline divisions over the weekend.

MotorDrive Rallying

Handsomedan

7154 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Subscriber

#3368443 29-Apr-2025 09:02

geoffwnz:

So, Faultline 100. Not how I planned it to go.

Started ok enough with a solid first 25km leg from Belmont over to Porirua where I hit the first hub exactly 30 seconds slower than last year, except the leg was 4km longer and included a bonus climb before Porirua itself. Good that I was "faster". Maybe I went out too hard. Dunno. Hydration was on plan.

Second leg from there to Ohariu Hub was where things started to fall apart. Spicer forest included some bush bashing where I think the event organiser forgot he had bike categories, not just trail running. Struggled a bit through the more technical bits and eventually made it to the Hub where I discovered that I had been under hydrating already. Whoops. Topped up and headed up onto the grind up the first part of Skyline. Took me around 90 mins to grind my way to the far end of Skyline where I took another break at the aid station to restock and get encouraged by the volunteers there who were good friends of mine. Still had around 20km of Makara Peak park to complete before the next Hub and my support crew meeting me. Figured I'd see how I felt by then and decide there whether I'd keep going or not.

By this stage, the knees were becoming painful, I'd run out of strength in the quads, had been inner thigh cramping on and off for about 20km and was chasing hydration issues.

After struggling through Makara, I hit the Hub having decided that was my day done. My crew went through all my options to try and work out if we could fix the issues but with too many things going wrong and having been unable to make any difference to them, ended up pulling the plug at 76km of the 106 total distance.

Plus sides, I rode 76km with 2500m of brutal climbing in 8 hours. That's still a solid achievement.

Down side, no bling. And also having to withdraw from the planned 50km ultra run the next day. So double no bling.

Post event dissection:

Hydration. Still an ongoing discovery process even after 10+ years of running various distances. But it looks like I need to do more pre-event hydration work and keep on top of it.
Knee pain. Looks like I need to do some more work on the bike cockpit setup to get that right as it seemed to be only a problem at 4 hours plus whereas the recent training rides of around 4 hours plus the 2 hour PGT effort have been fine.
Cramping. Who knows. Possibly related to the hydration.
Event build up needs work. In the 10 weeks since Tarawera 102km Ultra I had one week recovery then 3 weeks of renovating a bathroom which blew away mu mental health and obviously took a hit on the physical health too. SO I only had 6 weeks to rebuild. Felt like enough and felt good with the training.
Endurance events are tough. They are meant to be. On the day, everything has to go right enough or be fixable on the go. Sometimes that's achievable. Sometimes it is not.
I'm ok with the DNF and DNS results.

As for the bike. Flawless as always. i9 wheels were phenomenal as always. Can point the Slash at any downhill and it just deals with it but it's a bit of a beast to haul up the hills. Bonus Hydra note, the faster hub clicks makes it feel like you are pushing up the steep hills faster. ;-)

Top speed 47.7kmh. Average total speed 9.4kmh.

Undecided on next year as yet. I still want to give the MTB Miler a crack which is the 100 with an extra 60 tacked on the start from Paraparaumu and heading over the Karapoti Valley to Upper Hutt before hitting Belmont Regional Park from the Haywards entrance. But I'm also still tempted to give the "ultra duathlon" a crack. Got a lot of work to do before then for either option.

Well done for even entering!
I couldn't even imagine the training and preparation that goes into doing an event like that, so I am gutted for you, while quietly still in awe.

Meanwhile, I was having a whinge in the weekend because I had to ride my eBike out of the forest without assistance after I rinsed the battery over a 30km offroad jaunt.

Handsome Dan Has Spoken.
Handsome Dan needs to stop adding three dots to every sentence...

Handsome Dan does not currently have a side hustle as the mascot for Yale

*Gladly accepting donations...

geoffwnz

1546 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#3368452 29-Apr-2025 09:25

Handsomedan:

Well done for even entering!
I couldn't even imagine the training and preparation that goes into doing an event like that, so I am gutted for you, while quietly still in awe.

Meanwhile, I was having a whinge in the weekend because I had to ride my eBike out of the forest without assistance after I rinsed the battery over a 30km offroad jaunt.

Entering is the easy bit. Always seems fine and achievable on the website. ;-)

As the saying goes. You earn the medal in training. The race is just the victory lap to pick it up.

It helps to be able to have a life that is more or less Eat, Sleep, Work, Train, Repeat. There are definitely more than a few hours committed to the training side, but also, not as many as you might think. Most weekday evenings is 1-2 hours either running or riding with the weekends being long ride, long run which can be anything from a couple of hours up to 6+ hour sessions.

MotorDrive Rallying

SheriffNZ

671 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3368454 29-Apr-2025 09:30

geoffwnz:

Handsomedan:

Well done for even entering!
I couldn't even imagine the training and preparation that goes into doing an event like that, so I am gutted for you, while quietly still in awe.

Meanwhile, I was having a whinge in the weekend because I had to ride my eBike out of the forest without assistance after I rinsed the battery over a 30km offroad jaunt.

Entering is the easy bit. Always seems fine and achievable on the website. ;-)

As the saying goes. You earn the medal in training. The race is just the victory lap to pick it up.

It helps to be able to have a life that is more or less Eat, Sleep, Work, Train, Repeat. There are definitely more than a few hours committed to the training side, but also, not as many as you might think. Most weekday evenings is 1-2 hours either running or riding with the weekends being long ride, long run which can be anything from a couple of hours up to 6+ hour sessions.

A mate of mine (and training buddy) has just signed up for the Crater Rim Ultra. I'm not so secretly pleased that I'll be away for the pointy end of the training, and the race itself, so my offer of being his training partner isn't as onerous as it could be.

mudguard

2064 posts

Uber Geek

#3368461 29-Apr-2025 09:51

geoffwnz:

Handsomedan:

Well done for even entering!
I couldn't even imagine the training and preparation that goes into doing an event like that, so I am gutted for you, while quietly still in awe.

Meanwhile, I was having a whinge in the weekend because I had to ride my eBike out of the forest without assistance after I rinsed the battery over a 30km offroad jaunt.

Entering is the easy bit. Always seems fine and achievable on the website. ;-)

As the saying goes. You earn the medal in training. The race is just the victory lap to pick it up.

It helps to be able to have a life that is more or less Eat, Sleep, Work, Train, Repeat. There are definitely more than a few hours committed to the training side, but also, not as many as you might think. Most weekday evenings is 1-2 hours either running or riding with the weekends being long ride, long run which can be anything from a couple of hours up to 6+ hour sessions.

Ah hard luck. Sounded like a big sore day. I'll be the one to ask (as an owner of Slash's cousin, Specialized Enduros etc) have you been tempted by using a bit less bike? This is the existential dilemma I have about this year's Whaka 50 where I'm up for a trifecta of DNFs. I've ridden my Stumpy Evo twice and whilst I put XCish tyres last time (which were absolutely phenomenal, they had no right hanging on as well as they did) I have ridden friend's bikes whilst there and it was phenomenal the difference in rolling speed and climbing. My dilemma is I don't really want to buy another bike for a one off event. To be fair I could probably ride something 120mm ish full time, but I'd worry about durabilty to be honest. I've always had more bike than required, because occasionally I'll see something I want to ride that I don't want to try on something light.

NB. A job change means I'll actually have time to get some proper training in this year rather than trying to cram into weekends. No way I'm doing a hundred kilometres though, so well done on giving it a crack.

Training for anything like that does look bonkers. Almost like a second job.

geoffwnz

1546 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#3368466 29-Apr-2025 10:13

mudguard:

Ah hard luck. Sounded like a big sore day. I'll be the one to ask (as an owner of Slash's cousin, Specialized Enduros etc) have you been tempted by using a bit less bike? This is the existential dilemma I have about this year's Whaka 50 where I'm up for a trifecta of DNFs. I've ridden my Stumpy Evo twice and whilst I put XCish tyres last time (which were absolutely phenomenal, they had no right hanging on as well as they did) I have ridden friend's bikes whilst there and it was phenomenal the difference in rolling speed and climbing. My dilemma is I don't really want to buy another bike for a one off event. To be fair I could probably ride something 120mm ish full time, but I'd worry about durabilty to be honest. I've always had more bike than required, because occasionally I'll see something I want to ride that I don't want to try on something light.

NB. A job change means I'll actually have time to get some proper training in this year rather than trying to cram into weekends. No way I'm doing a hundred kilometres though, so well done on giving it a crack.

Training for anything like that does look bonkers. Almost like a second job.

The thought has repeatedly crossed my mind to get slightly less bike (especially when grinding or pushing up the steep hills). Could easily get away with something in the 150mm travel range without compromising the ability to point and shoot the downhill bits. But not sure I'd be keen to go full XC spec. I did reduce the tyres from full on Enduro level to the Maxxis Forekaster which has the best apparent combo of low rolling resistance and grip. That seemed to make a big difference at least with PB's on many Strava segments after putting them on.

I think when it comes time to replace the Slash, I'll do some more research and testing of Trail or Downcountry spec etc and see what comes of that. Maybe even going Carbon for the small weight saving that provides. I purely went on travel compared to the late 1990's Mongoose DH-ish bike. Because, you know, travel is the only variable.... So I thought. Lessons learned and all that.

That said, all through my mtb racing 30 odd years ago, I was never on the lightest, highest spec bikes so I just had to be fitter, faster, stronger to keep up with the top riders (I was often top 10 at XC locally and nationally). So I'm well used to doing it the hard way.

Never say never on 100km. ;-) Also every event is different. Taupo Huka Hundy for example was 6hr 50m for me to cover the 95km that it ended up being. Vs the 8 hours it took to achieve 76 of the 106 at Faultline which would have translated to around 11+ hours again. Half the elevation at Taupo though.

Training can be a full time thing, yep. :-)

MotorDrive Rallying

maoriboy

993 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#3368539 29-Apr-2025 11:12

Well done on grinding it out on the Faultline 100k @geoffwnz, that is a tough course! Lots of lessons to be learnt from a dnf. Tt sounds like you did the right thing though as that knee (and the hydration issues) would not have gotten any better. I was planning on running the 50k, but health issues meant it wasn't to be so I volunteered at the start finish line on Saturday. Cracker weather for it!!

mudguard

2064 posts

Uber Geek

#3369038 30-Apr-2025 06:07

geoffwnz:

I think when it comes time to replace the Slash, I'll do some more research and testing of Trail or Downcountry spec etc and see what comes of that. Maybe even going Carbon for the small weight saving that provides. I purely went on travel compared to the late 1990's Mongoose DH-ish bike. Because, you know, travel is the only variable.... So I thought. Lessons learned and all that.

I think that's big thing now. It was pretty binary for awhile. Lots of travel, slack and hard work to get up the hill, or twitchy, light, limited travel whippet bikes. Now the down country bikes are slack with droppers. A friend has a 120mm bike he rides in places he shouldn't (be has a 180mm enduro as well) and it takes a beating.

I think if I'm sensible with wheel choice I could get away with less travel. Who knows, I've been looking at smart trainers all week, the dumb trainer makes it a little trickier to gauge my fitness level and I don't want a power meter for my bike. Figure I'll make the most of a break from work and improve my base fitness.

1 | ... | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48