Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

The marathon plus tyres are worth their weight in gold. Yesterday afternoon doing the normal route home, cross the bridge with the narrowest shoulder and a shoulder with the most crap possible....to such a point I am always actually fearful of something going wrong due to the crap and me falling into the traffic going past at 80+ k's.

Well anyways, I suddenly hear this rubbing noise...keep riding thinking it may go away, it doesnt. Finally pull up in a nice shady spot to check the tyres out. Nothing on front, cant see anything on the back so decide to tip the bike and do a thorough check. Sticking out of the rear tyre is a thin piece of wire about an inch long, decide to pull it out fearing the worst - the rush of air as it comes out. Close to another inch of wire comes out of the tyre...put a blob of spit over the hole but no bubble. Thinking you beauty. Check the tyre a bit more, its not going down. So hop back and keep riding and hopeful it wont go down. At this stage I had around 20-25 k's to go home. Tyre lasted all the way and didnt even go down over nite.

How good are marathon plus tyres.

It was a warm ride home yesterday too, local temp was 37. This morning was/is very muggy, think I dropped a litre or two of sweat.

gretaboy wrote:How good are marathon plus tyres.

Pretty good 5500km on my pair so far and 0 flats. And they have been attacked - lots of visible punctures on the outside but nothing has got through.

They do weigh a bit though...

No commutes for me today - family got back from overseas last night, and I've got to a Disaster Recovery test to do for one of my clients on Saturday, so I'll be riding in then.

was on the fuji this morning. half way drizzle starts. to top it off, the legs just have nothing.

InTheWoods wrote: Pretty good 5500km on my pair so far and 0 flats. And they have been attacked - lots of visible punctures on the outside but nothing has got through.

They do weigh a bit though...

I got just under 7500 on my last back tyre and it looked like it had gone to war...had 3-4 punctures

Yeah the weight is something, but I look it as another claytons training partner. I have simply got used to it now. I laugh when I look at strava and the times I am getting on some segments and I think about the tyres I am running compared to others on their slick tyred carbon bikes.

The GoPro decided to freeze on me this morning - I must have been pressing the record button too quickly after start-up so it decided to not go past the video image stage - and I don't have the time to unscrew it from the mount, open the housing, pull the battery out to reset it. So no commute video. But luckily nothing happened and the ride was uneventful except for a headwind - there were ominous clouds over Melbourne and the ground was wet from the pouring rain during the night and early morning but no rain on the way to work. And not many cyclists either today. Although I was running later than usual so maybe that is why I didn't see many people.

I have Maxxis Re-fuse tyres on and I know some people think they don't work as well as the Marathon Plus, but the only puncture I've got after 3000km was from a nail right dead in the centre of the tread. Another time I pulled a 2 cm construction staple out of the tyre (thinking it would have punctured the tube too) but no puncture. The tyres have so many little holes in them now from all the crap they've gone over (including glass, rocks etc.) and no further punctures. They have done the job for me.

I only managed one ride this week due to public holiday Monday, first day of primary school Tuesday, first day of high school on Wednesday, and pouring rain on Thursday.
It was a nice ride this morning though. Lots of school kids walking two abreast on the bike paths. I'm getting a bit sick of everyone at work carrying on like no-one's ever ridden a bicycle before though. It was kind of encouraging the first couple of times, but I'm a bit over it.
I nearly got wet this afternoon, I could feel it spitting a few times, but the rain held off. I don't have a rain jacket so am going to buy one at the weekend. Any recommendations?

Wet, very very wet.

after feeling lifeless most of the week, I felt ok this arvo and went for it on coro drive. solo run and beat my PB by 6 seconds

newie wrote:Wet, very very wet.

+1.

Everyone in my office asked if I was being picked up/catching the bus/taking a taxi home.

I got home wet but intact only about 5 mins slower over 24km than usual. All good.


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Holidays are over and I have just completed my fist weeks commute through the rubble left over from last weekends weather. I appreciate how good cycling is for making me feel good and the feeling last through the day. My commute is 30 minutes and about 5mins from work I stop for a coffee at a great coffe shop (Hi Christy!) then head over to work for a shower and change.
The cycling equivalent of mood altering drugs- Don

The weather is soooo screwed now. One day sweating buckets because it is stinking hot, another day looking like a drenched rat due to the heavy rain and now having goosebumps most of the ride due to it being so cool.

The joys of riding lol. Wouldnt swap it for quids as they say.

Felt really good this morning on the ride in, hope it lasts for the week.

load lugging monday. nice weather

Saturday's commutes were pretty pleasant...none of the weekday impatience and aggression from the cagers.
Good ride in today, pleasant temperature (15C), dry, mild headwind.

I forgot about Thursday evening's drenching commute - I tried to leave work late to miss it. Didn't happen. Although I had my booties and waterproof jacket on so everything underneath stayed dry. Everything that got wet (gloves, booties etc.) dried before the Friday morning commute which was lovely. And I could kiss my mudguards, they work so well - there was an English guy waiting at Hoddle street/Albert Street intersection that had a huge wet patch all the way up his back, thighs and everything else the water could splash on - he said to me that only that morning he had said to his flatmate that he was missing the rain. So he obviously must have summoned the weather gods for Thursday. Don't tempt fate Mister English!!

jules21 wrote:

Too funny! What was he trying to do? Stop?

Summernight wrote:Too funny! What was he trying to do? Stop?

turn left i'd say!

Commute to work today was ok, few showers about in Sydney so some slippery roads. Got rained on partway in but nothing too heavy. Be careful out there.

Gave a strava segment a go on the ride home yesterday...was very happy with my result. Gave the last major hill, cat 4, a big push but disappointed with the time on that. Then went to the usual monday night boxercise class, it starts half an hour after I get home on the bike so not much time to recover. My body is feeling it today. The ride today -> Cold is all I can say...normal commute apart from freezing my things off and taking it very easy...

riverloop commute. perfect weather

Just did my first ever commute today, and on the first bike I built myself from a bare frame. 26k's from Parramatta into Sydney, mostly along bike paths. Only got lost a few times, and mostly incident free. Dropped what I thought was my pump but ended up being just the pump shaft (the rattling had made it detach), and my rear shifter was a bit loose which caused a bit of auto upshifting up some steep bits (sorry to those behind me on the Victoria Rd overpass). Will tighten everything up and try again, can't wait for the ride home.

TedDancin wrote:Just did my first ever commute today

Welcome to the commuting fraternity..good work!

Had a bit of an adrenaline surge yesterday afternoon after a narrow miss. I was riding in the on-road bike lane along Heidelberg Rd towards Ivanhoe, at the point where the bike lane starts narrowing before it merges completely with the traffic lane.
A blue Holden sedan passes me, I look over my shoulder for traffic, with the intention of merging into the traffic lane well ahead of the bike lane ending - clear, so I start easing across, doing just under 40km/h at this point. As I look back ahead, the blue Holden has stopped dead just ahead of me! No time to brake, flick the bike left and zip past. Looking at the footage later, I saw the indicator came on about a second after he passed me (and I was probably looking over my shoulder), and on the second flash of the indicator he was already almost at a full stop, presumably waiting for me before turning.
Perhaps bad timing on my part, but also silly got-to-get-past-cyclist-at-all-cost-even-tho-I'm-turning approach by driver.
The various creek trails where also teeming with peds and unleashed dogs, so a pretty busy commute all in all.
Better this morning, stuck to the Darebin Creek Trail for the most part, pretty pleasant, even in the dark...

Found a nice route do get me 27km in the morning via part of the river loop just past the tennis centre. Up from the direct route of 11km. Always nice to ride by the river in the morning.

Icky this morning. The GoPro froze before leaving home and I had a guy in a sports car rev his engine and zoom past like he was going to knock over any cyclists in his way (which I got out of the way for as I heard him coming), then after him I decided that I would deliberately ride on the right hand side of the left car wheel track (which I was doing already but no more Ms Nice Cyclist about it) and had a lady in a silver Mercedes/BMW drive so close to me that my elbow would have touched her car if I'd moved it. Lucky for her I didn't wobble when she zoomed past me as we would have hit if I had. She heard me shout at her as I saw her look in her rear-vision mirror (My shout was 'Don't'. I need to learn to say the correct thing in future to get the point across concisely. )

Then had another car come too close as they tried to pass although not as bad as the silver car. All of these things happened in the two block length between Hoddle St and the start of the Albert St green copenhagen lane. I don't like that stretch. I think I'll go back to being 10 minutes late for work with the nicer 10 minutes later peak hour car drivers as those 10 minutes seem to bring out the crazies.

So no footage to shame drivers with.

Summernight wrote:Icky this morning. The GoPro froze before leaving home and I had a guy in a sports car rev his engine and zoom past like he was going to knock over any cyclists in his way (which I got out of the way for as I heard him coming), then after him I decided that I would deliberately ride on the right hand side of the left car wheel track (which I was doing already but no more Ms Nice Cyclist about it) and had a lady in a silver Mercedes/BMW drive so close to me that my elbow would have touched her car if I'd moved it. Lucky for her I didn't wobble when she zoomed past me as we would have hit if I had. She heard me shout at her as I saw her look in her rear-vision mirror (My shout was 'Don't'. I need to learn to say the correct thing in future to get the point across concisely. )

Then had another car come too close as they tried to pass although not as bad as the silver car. All of these things happened in the two block length between Hoddle St and the start of the Albert St green copenhagen lane. I don't like that stretch. I think I'll go back to being 10 minutes late for work with the nicer 10 minutes later peak hour car drivers as those 10 minutes seem to bring out the crazies.

So no footage to shame drivers with.

Or get yourself a mannequin of Arnie to sit on your rack?