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Today Today - November 2015

Took my new Cateye Volt 800 and Cateye rear flasher out for a test ride on the Edogawa / Tonegawa.

Pretty good, and when in full power I could see well. Couldn't see into the distance though, nor could I read the ground accurately for stones, weird angles, etc., so I couldn't go full on nuts up the river. Was decent enough though, so I reckon I will reserve the night riding for low level riding, and do all the hard stuff in the day light.

The battery life of the front light seems good. I turned it on, at full power at 6:17pm tonight, and it is still on, on full power, right now. Will keep an eye on it and time when the battery dies to find out the full length of it at max power.
 
2h on the rollers yesterday.

2h on the road today.

A winter chill in the year.

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A chat on skype tonight with @Doug3 . Looking over last year's annual training plan:

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base > build > peak > race
base > build > peak > race

The first time for me to have such structure, focus and motivation.

Now is the time to pick target races for next year and build an annual training plan around it...

Andy

www.jyonnobitime.com/time
 
The battery life of the front light seems good.

Further to my rant on Strava;

The best thing that I like about those Volts is you can carry a spare battery or two in your jersey pocket, no hassle.
That means you could do a decent distance ride without having to worry about battery life.

Night riding takes a bit of adjusting to from my experience. Everything is different.
You have to get your nocturnal head on, and that takes practice.
 
Further to my rant on Strava;

The best thing that I like about those Volts is you can carry a spare battery or two in your jersey pocket, no hassle.
That means you could do a decent distance ride without having to worry about battery life.

Night riding takes a bit of adjusting to from my experience. Everything is different.
You have to get your nocturnal head on, and that takes practice.

Yeah I think you are right about the rivers. They are just too dark up where I am. Alright for recovery or low power rides, but sticking up to 40kmph is just too risky. Also, going under the bridges there with a light is too risky. As you approach the edge of the drop down ramp, it is just complete darkness in front of you. Never know what is going to be waiting, so you have to slow right down.

Taking it onto the road which are lit by street light at about 10pm like you said would be way more thrashable. Will plan out some routes along quiet roads and see how that goes.

I had my new lights and also wore a reflective vest thing, over the top of my wind breaker. It has hi viz reflective strips on it, and I found that with that and the rear flasher, I was given loads of room by cars.
 
^ I also wear one of these 100 yen shop reflectors on my right ankle...

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It fully does the trick because most cars will come up from behind using high beam and get blinded and startled by their own lights' reflection.
They're thinking, "What the hell is that?" and slow down.

In general I've found the night drivers to be very relaxed and well behaved, completely the opposite to stressed out, panicky day drivers.

Also, if I'm in a street lit area, I always put my light on strobe as that really catches drivers' attention.

Now that the days are shorter, maybe we could start a night riding thread if enough people are interested.

Anyway, rant over, must sleep.
 
Took my new Cateye Volt 800 and Cateye rear flasher out for a test ride on the Edogawa / Tonegawa.

Pretty good, and when in full power I could see well. Couldn't see into the distance though, nor could I read the ground accurately for stones, weird angles, etc., so I couldn't go full on nuts up the river. Was decent enough though, so I reckon I will reserve the night riding for low level riding, and do all the hard stuff in the day light.

The battery life of the front light seems good. I turned it on, at full power at 6:17pm tonight, and it is still on, on full power, right now. Will keep an eye on it and time when the battery dies to find out the full length of it at max power.

I certainly like the light (800), although I have no point of reference with 'powerful lights'.

Anything like river paths etc are going to be a little sketchy, regardless of light power (as you elude to).
 
I had to wear something similar in 2003 after my behaviour at a Burnley vs. Wednesday game. Ironically I was not allowed out at night for 3 months until it was taken off...

British culture init! Water under the bridge stuff.
You gotta...
 
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Impressed by the ruggness of the Volt700. Yesterday the plastic fastener thingie snapped at about 45km/h slight downhill. The Volt took the hit without problem and worked flawlessly.

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Today; went up to Tochigi for some mini-climbing. Been about 3 weeks since I went uphill, due to all the bloody rain.

Found a new toilet on the way, offered a guy who was struggling in the endless headwind a draft, which he took, and we then did half the ride together, enjoyed a completely silent bike after eliminating 3 creaks, KOMed a KOM I already had too, up this mad deserted ultra climb that ends at a seemingly abandoned country club (definitely a Daesh lab, manufacturing Captagon), and saw an old woman having a dump in a field, while her dog looked on, confused...

Good ride. Cold though.
 
Ouch.

What's the story there? Cracked for sure, but was it an impact, foreign object, or just shit design?

Non impact crack.
Was actually climbing when I heard the "pop" - yes there was a technical section and I did not clear it, however the impact was on the rear wheel/swingarm area.
Wheel coming up, my weight coming down.... snap.
 
I bought the Cannondale @chinti was selling today. The fleet is now up to three (actually will have to dispose of a really old one I almost never use), which is the accepted S-1 (separation minus one) number right now: a decent carbon one (Wilier), an all-weather and pretty much all-terrain LG CX, and now a lower-end commuting, (indoor) training and chores bike CAAD8.

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@D'Pioneer - no, just to show off! To ride, saddle needs to drop a little and raise the handlebars a bit, otherwise I will probably do my back in or run into the back of a truck!
 
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