{"id":188,"date":"2007-01-30T11:18:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-30T11:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/?p=188"},"modified":"2024-01-29T11:26:50","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T11:26:50","slug":"comparative-pootles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/?p=188","title":{"rendered":"Comparative Pootles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Posted on 30 January 2007<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several people have said to me, the last time on Saturday when I returned to the fold of Manotea after 205km slogging round southern England, that my Thorn Raven is not a suitable bike for Audaxing \u2013 it\u2019s just too slow. I had always countered that the sloth was down to my impressive physique and that it was unfair to blame the bike. However, I had a suspicion that with a lighter machine I might well increase my speed a little, so with my Thorn temporarily out of action, until I can be bothered to unbolt the saddle from the Ridgeback at any rate, and with GruB sneaking past me in the Bikejournal stakes, tonight seemed to be a good opportunity to see how I got on. Mrs. Wow\u2019s Dawes Discovery 701 is a lovely light little bike, so I put its saddle up an inch or so, and off I went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dawes is a nice little alloy frame with carbon forks. It\u2019s probably a bit small for me, and certainly I could do with a bit of a longer forward reach, but it\u2019s not ridiculously out of proportion. It has 700c wheels and what I would describe as \u201csummer\u201d tyres \u2013 not exactly skinny, but with virtually no tread on them. I wouldn\u2019t like to use them in the wet, and to have tried the Willy Warmer on them, with its damp, pot-holed, compost-laden roads, would have been asking for trouble. However, tonight the roads were dry and there was little wind, so I felt pretty confident that I wouldn\u2019t have any problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conditions tonight were also very similar to last night: little wind, overcast, dry and reasonably mild. I elected to use my Cateye computer rather than Mrs. Wow\u2019s as mine records riding time and that was really the important factor. I had to adjust the wheel circumference setting from 1990mm to 2160mm. My riding position was more upright than I am used to, but even so I felt that I was whizzing along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I chose exacly the same pootle tonight as I did last night on the Thorn. It\u2019s 16.57 miles of flattish roads, involving one fast downhill section and then, at the end, a gentle uphill back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results were as follows:-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bike<\/strong><\/td>Distance recorded<\/strong><\/td>Time<\/strong><\/td>Ave speed<\/strong><\/td>Top speed<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Thorn<\/td>16.57 miles<\/td>1h 20m 2s<\/td>12.42mph<\/td>31.1mph<\/td><\/tr>
Dawes<\/td>16.66 miles<\/td>1h 17m 0s<\/td>12.98mph<\/td><31.1mph<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t record the top speed on tonight\u2019s ride, as I foolishly forgot to reset the computer and the second ride was recorded \u201con top of\u201d the first, but it was a simple matter to subtract the times and distances. The 31.1 mph from last night\u2019s ride was still the highest speed after tonight\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So there it is. 3 minutes and 2 seconds shaved off my speed from the previous evening. I felt more tired at the end of tonight\u2019s ride than I did last night, so I don\u2019t know if that extra speed could have been maintained for a longer ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think these results tell me much. From an Audax point of view, the extra comfort of my featherbed Thorn machine would, I am sure, be worth a tremendous amount over a long day. Even though the Dawes has carbon forks, far more bumps were transmitted through to my hands than with the 26*1.5 tyres and carbon bars which the Thorn boasts. And the worst thing of all \u2013 and please take this as a warning \u2013 don\u2019t sit on a saddle designed for a female unless you have the necessary physical attributes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted on 30 January 2007 Several people have said to me, the last time on Saturday when I returned to the fold of Manotea after 205km slogging round southern England, that my Thorn Raven is not a suitable bike for Audaxing \u2013 it\u2019s just too slow. I had always countered that the sloth was down to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions\/190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentlemancyclist.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}