Oh! I just love seeing the rise of women on bikes. The 50%men-50%women day is looming. Gender discrimination on this magazine? ;-) Cheers!
To be honest I don't see that many women riding in the Sierras, and when I do it's so surprising I have to make an effort not to stare, especially if she's pretty, ha ha. At work I was talking to an Irish lady who's preparing for the Madrid half-marathon. Anyway, she was saying that her impression is that Spanish girls don't tend to be sporty, and I had to sort of agree, tho there must be an elite group cos the ladies did well in the past Olympic Games. Today I ventured out on my road bike, in spite of the forecast, and was treated to a really beautiful day. The snow-covered Sierras were marvelous. The air was so clear I could easily see the antenas at the Bola del Mundo, all the way from Madrid! Went to La Pedriza but stopped on the way to take a picture or two.
I totally agree with that... I love riding up Abantos, and whenever I do it by myself I always find some gentleman that wants to ride with me for a while and chit chat a bit... They use to tell me how their girlfriends tend to find biking up there hideous and sometimes they even dump them because they didn't get to understand that kinda love for sports xDDD women! who can understand us xDDD
hah! i did it!! i 've seen a lassie commenting at a mtb forum , ayeeeeee !!! Welcome redwirb! By the way, no kidding, chain n you are both right about it, hard for you girls to understand a soprt like this, absolutely lacks of glamour!
All right, redwird. First of all, have a warm welcome to this part of the forum. Secondly, It was about time for a new contribution to the debate from women's perspective. Now, for those of your female friends who think they´re skating on thin ice with their sexiness, science is coming to the rescue. Take a look at this vid and see how we can tailoring a material´s properties for they to keep dry, clean and sexy when on the mud, rain or dust... Is it cool to you? ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=IPM8OR6W6WE Lovely photo, Chain. It makes me want to get out there and ride my roadie, but I´ve to put it off and choose another bike at least for tomorrow´s ride since I´m in the process of changing my road bike´s chain after 3.000 kmts on it. In order for my effort not to be undermined when following you on the road, I want that bike to always be in perfect condition, so I bought new 9 speed chain and rear cassette (not really necessary but I got dirt cheap price for the complete set), but turns out that my chain breaker had a flaw and I broke it (sounds funny, like a chain breaker breaker or a broken chain breaker which doesn´t break anything if you like) and now I have to buy a new one to get the job done. Till then the decision-making on which bike to ride is reduced to that of big chucky tyres ;-) Cheers!
A girl responding to this! I might be a bit flustered, ha ha. Anyway, it's nice to hear from you, redwirb. I'll bet when you're riding guys are attracted to you like bees to a flower Hi Inter! That Ultra-Ever Dry stuff is amazing. It could definitely go on shoes, raincoat, maybe clothes. Using a chainbreaker takes some practice, I've broken a few myself. In any case, I imagine your roadee will be ready for our ride next Friday. BTW, tomorrow I'll be riding with the enduro gang in El Pardo. The Sierra is too snowy and wet so we're staying on low ground. Redwirb, I see you're not far from el Pardete. If you (or anybody else) want to join us we're meeting at the Somontes car park at 9:00. I've never really thought about biking in terms of glamour but I suppose it's hard to be sexy when you're sweating like a pig and on the edge of your endurance level :compress
Hi there again... What I hate the most is that we gotta use male's stuff if we want to get same prices and same quality... When I changed my bike i couldn't find any decent one for less than 900............ or so so... obviously I got an S size! And same about clothing, marketing people (and i include myself in that group) stop thinking that girls that practise any sport are whores PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Chain, thanks for the invite, but i'm too girly now for that, i'm now riding my hometrainer... it's been so long since i last ride a bike, so now i'm back on hometraining and hope i can go out again by springtime... fingers crossed! And about girls meeting people when out for sports..... I have just seen there's a thread about a nasty experience, one girl was supposed to be meeting another one for a ride and she found out there was a guy waiting for her... that's a perfect sum about our life and sports... either they consider you a tomboy and are not welcome anymore or they just see you as bitch (once more and again...) the funniest thing when girls date boys that don't like practising sports... my favorite!! (and it happened to me some years ago xDDD)
C´mon Red! Get your ass out of your house and go ride.Though clean and sexy stuff implied, hometraining could be boring and quite different from the real thing if not computer-assisted, like those of Bkool personal trainer with some ground and colleagues reconnaissance in it which I find interesting. But again, like J.F. Kennedy said, nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride. ;-) You know, the law of supply and demand is inherent to what you say, fewer female riders imply higher fixed cost per girl, but then there is the other side of the coin: The biggest bargains I´ve ever seen in cycling come out from those dealers in need of getting rid of their female stock, so big that sometimes I wish I were a girl to take advantage of them!. Why don´t we exchange bodies with one another for a while? ;-) Cheers.
So Inter, I hope you went for a ride yourself today because the forecast says there's rain on the horizon. I myself went for a long one: started off at 8:00 a.m. and didn't get back home till 3:00. Of couse I wasn't riding the whole time, but I tell you I'm knackered. In any case, it sounds like for the next few days a hometrainer would be really handy. Of course, on a hometrainer you don't improve your skills. Speaking of which, I felt fairly confident today. I was going down some trails pretty fast and thinking, 'I'm getting better, but if I fall it's going to hurt a lot more'. Actually I was wearing my body armor and that makes a difference, you feel you can risk a bit more. Actually I haven't fallen for a while now. Maybe that's good, or maybe it means it's time for my next one, ha ha. Red, if I may be so bold as to ask, can you tell me if you're a native English speaker. I think you are but you said 'practise sports' which is a typical mistake Spaniards make. But maybe you're a native who's been here for a while and some Spanglish is creeping into your English. I know I have to fight that all the time. Seriously. No joke. I don't understand why more girls don't go mountain biking, it's great exercise and it's just cool. This is such a male-dominated sport that when you see a girl doing it, I don't know, you just want to ride with her for a while, get to know her a bit, you just feel curious about her, at least I do. But then again, you hardly ever see girls on mountain bikes, for example, didn't see any today.
My Gosh, a 7 hour ride. That reminds me of Red´s sentence "they didn't get to understand that kinda love for sports xDDD women! who can understand us xDDD"!!! I do not even understand him! Yeah, actually I went for a ride inmediately after I finished to write my last post. Overcast skies and rain are expected ahead this week, so I´ll turn into a seat filler at home for 7 days in a row. Turn for exhibitions and event organizers to hire me to watch any award event on tv ;-) Are you really sure about Red´s mother tongue?. She could be British... A proper introduction of yourself, Red. That´s what I presume Chain is asking of you ;-) Cheers.
Hi Inter! I've been thinking, why are you going to put on a new rear cassette when the old one is still OK? If I were you I'd save it for another year or two till when you really need it. It looks like the honeymoon phase with my Rallon is coming to an end: it's giving me its first mechanical problem, for example, the chain broke on me yesterday. I thought that sort of thing only happened to other people, never me. Guess I've been lucky. On top of that, I need to mess around with the brakes and service (relub) the headset, something like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoP0f4ZeD-w Well, maybe some people do say 'practise sports'. I'll ask my British colleagues.
Friday, managed to snap the mech hanger.... only a 9km walk home. Saturday was a 83km road ride from Pamplona to the Pyrenees. Was nice.
Oh! So sorry to see that photo, Mckem. The good news is that it snapped off to preserve the frame. Walking 9 kilometers back home will make you lose the weight you gained :twisted: Mmm... 83km road ride to the Pyrenees... that sounds really nice!. Wow. Well, it´s not yet a heartbreak, Chain. You still love each other. Chains are not big deal to replace, but considering how much you´ve been loving it and the honour you gave chains by choosing your nickname, it should have broken on the next guy!!! I´d say both of you have to intensify your efforts to get an adequate maintenance. That spectacular photos of you jumping, climbing, passing through stones, mud, water on your bike or those of McKem´s coping with whatever weather condition are not cost-free. Lads, you´re putting tough demands on your bike and you´ve to keep in mind that as an excellent but simple vehicle, every time you ride your bike its condition change. The tougher the conditions the more frequent the need 4 maintenance will be. Hope Yours and Mckem´s bike are ready for the next ride. Those are minor replacements. The funny thing is that all of us have to fix transmission on our bikes! Yeah, you´re right, there is no real need of changing my rear cassette. I didn´t even mean to buy it, just the chain, but so often salesmen are good at their work and I got an offer for the two-piece set as If I were to buy a bikini ;-) that I couldn´t let pass. At first I thought it was a good idea to put on both pieces but as you say the old cassette is still Ok, so I´ll keep the new one just in case and save some money here to keep on PLAYING (not so common doing) (or practicing ???!!! could you brittons and americans PLEASE get a consensus anytime over anything?!!!! ) my favourite sport Cheers!
LoL I didn't know I was gonna make such a big difference just for writing a few lines in this thread... And I had my user abandoned for a while!! oh my! I'm not, I'm a bloody spaniard, but I studied abroad and lived abroad too... Thanks for the compliment anyway, I feel honored xDDD but I'm not that fluent anymore. Back to bikes, where did you find those bargains??? I spent at least one month during sales looking for a decent bike my size and found nothing... And as for my hometrainer, I used to ride outside, but I had to quit due to our lovely weather and also because I had a calf injury which didn't allow me either to run or ride a bike, I'm using it as a fresh starting point to get ready for the season (remember, girls and dust don't match xDDD) and I'm downloading realaxiom dvds, appart from the Imperia-Sanremo that came in the box combined with soccer on saturday made a nice ride. Today I guess it'll only be music ps, i think there was a proper introduction of myself in another thread bout a couple of years ago...
Everything is breaking! Two weeks ago I was with a guy who also broke his mech hanger. I still haven't managed to break one yet, but I carry around a spare one... just in case! And what Inter says is true, these bikes lead a hard life, but that's what they're designed for. I know I thrash mine: jumps, drops, stones, mud, water, everything Inter said. And it's also true we're all having transmission problems. That reminds me of classroom games you sometimes get your students playing. You put them in groups and ask them to figure out what they have in common, so they have to ask and answer a lot of questions. Wow, road biking in the Pyrenees! That must be breathtaking. Probably cold and snowy now too, but that probably made it even better.
Hi NakedUp, Stiffness es la dureza o rigidez de esa horquilla. Do not hesitate to ask whatever you may need. Red, It wouldn´t be the first time I see such great bargains for women on the internet when dealers have few stock left intended for inmediate sale. The more uncommon the size the higher likelihood you might get great price on it. Many times you click for an offer you saw on sites like Decathlon, Chainreaction, Forum, etc... and find out there is no point in buying it since there´s nothing of your size. On the contrary, if you´re a girl or just have uncommon sizes (S, XXXL) and devote some time to searching for good deals, you can often end up making great savings. Didn´t you see such things when you decided to buy your bike? MacKem, the next time you go roadbiking to the Pyrenees, please take some photos of yourself there with your bike. It would be wonderful to participate in group events over there such like Qebrantahuesos or Traparriscos. Chain is quite lazy about the idea of taking part in those races, I mean going from Madrid to the Pyrenees and back home, that´s a lot of kilometers for just a day ride...
:lool Just another message for those of you doing/practising??? indoor sports!: Ver el archivo adjunto 3293474 ;-) Cheers!
So Red, what kind of bike are you looking for? I don't actually spend a lot of time surfing the net in search of bargains, but I will keep my eyes open. Unfortunately the prices of bikes (as pretty much everything else) have been going up lately. Yeah, Mackem, how about some pictures of your rides in the Pyrenees. I'm sure they'd be impressive with the spectucular landscape everywhere. Yeah, it'd be hard to go on a longer trip, say to the Pyrenees, mainly because of work and family commitments, but I haven't taken the idea off the table. Hello NakedUp. So are you looking at used forks or something? Like Inter says, feel free to ask questions, or tell us what you're up to.
