Simon Bullen's Weblog

Cycling plus rate Hope lights 9/10 and a best buy

Cycling plus rated the Hope vision lights a 9/10 in this months (feb) magazine and gave them a "best buy".
They state that the battery life was generally better than what Hope quoted, the LED units were very good but not as bright as Hid units.
Its nice to know I made a good choice.

tags [lights][cycling]

Posted at 10:59AM Feb 19, 2007 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[0]

Y22 in China

An interesting picture of a Trek Y22 in China (not me I am afraid), the bike has the water bottle mounting in the same place as mine. I found it didn't work that well as it ended up splattered in mud all the time.

The bike still looks very modern despite being a 1995 design, no wonder it won design awards.

Posted at 03:06PM Feb 12, 2007 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[2]

First ride on the road bike this year.

Yesterday myself, Stacey Marshall and Andy Coe hit the road for a pleasant 18 mile ride. This gave me the opportunity to try a couple of new gifts, some Assos overshoes from Helen and a nice jacket from my Nortel account man, Andy Needham.

The over shoes are excellent but expensive, my feet where never too hot or too cold throughout the whole ride, the jacket is also great, apart from the fact Andy failed to get Lance Armstrong to sign it !
The ride how ever proved I have a long way to go to get fully fit, the major climb up Farnham hill killed me off, thankfully Stacey had yet another blow out on the hill allowing me to stop and check if he was ok . The decent should have been great but was spoilt by both calves cramping up, I managed to cycle through it but it was painful to say the least.

Any way not bad stats for the first ride:-

Distance 17.7 miles

Average Speed 17.6

Max speed 42.9

Total time 1 Hour 2 min

Posted at 10:12AM Feb 08, 2007 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[0]

Hope vs Cateye

This is a very unfair test, the Cateye EL320 is a £30 unit and the Hope Vision set is £175.

What I am try to show is the difference between a "standard" set of lights and a "high quality" set.



Hope Vision



Cateye EL320

Posted at 09:45AM Jan 16, 2007 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[4]

Hope vision cycle lights

The other week I purchased some Hope Vision lights and was going to comment on how good they are.

Well I am happy to say that they are excellent, so far I have not needed to use the highest setting as the medium setting is great, as the mornings are getting lighter I am using the flashing mode which really works well in traffic. My only complaint is the battery connecting lead, it is very tight, good to keep water out but it is a pain to disconnect to recharge.
I have placed some silicon grease on the connect to try and ease removal with out compromising the water integrity.

The paper work states "Do not look into the beam, permanent eye damage could result" yes I can confirm, it is that bright !

Posted at 10:58AM Jan 15, 2007 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[0]

Hope Vision cycle lights

After much research I decided to purchase a set of Hope Vision lights.
These lights consist of 2 x 5w high power white LED's with 6 degree collimating spot lenses.
The light output can be set to 4 levels, high, medium, economy and flashing giving a battery life of between 2 and 12 hours.

The main reason for going for the Hope set and not something like the Cateye or Lumicycle was a combination of cost, lamp power, battery life and battery recharge time. I had to find lights bright enough to allow me to cycle along a canal and off road tracks in the dark that would last 2 hours (travel to work and home)


The light unit can be mounted either on the bars or helmet and is supplied with the necessary clamps, brackets and power leads as standard. There is an "endurance" option which is the same product but with a spare battery pack.

Currently the unit is charging on my desk but I will let you know after my ride home tonight how it compares to a "standard cycle light" such as the Cateye EL320 which I am using at the moment.

Posted at 12:17PM Jan 04, 2007 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[3]

Fell off again.........

Fell off the MTB on the way home last night, a quite sad and non spectacular low side on a greasy cycle path.

New years resolution:-

Stay upright.

Posted at 04:48PM Dec 19, 2006 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[2]

Cycle helmets - again

The subject of cycle helmets has come up again in one of our national papers:-

"I'm constantly amazed by the number of cyclists in Britain who still don't bother to wear a helmet, especially those who are regularly braving dangerous inner-city roads. There's no end of independent research which, not surprisingly, shows that wearing a cycle helmet reduces your chance of being seriously injured in an accident considerably.

According to a study from the US, you're 65 per cent less likely to suffer brain damage and almost 75 per cent less likely to sustain a serious brain injury if you wear a helmet. That's more than compelling enough evidence to convince me."

"Another more recent, and equally flimsy argument,(which I blogged HERE ) against making cycle helmets mandatory, is that cars tend to give cyclists less room if they see they are wearing a helmet. What a ridiculous assertion. Are policemen who wear body armour more likely to get shot? And even if they are, does that mean they should stop wearing it?"

Full Artical

Posted at 04:35PM Dec 08, 2006 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[1]

Rebuilding a Trek Y22

The other week I purchased a Trek Y22 frame from Tony Kay, the idea behind this was to achieve a cost effective upgrade form my old steel frame by swapping the running gear from my old frame to this one.

I know the Y22 is quite old but the frame is a design classic winning quite a few awards, it is also fully carbon fibre frame making it quite a light for a full suspension bike.

The main issue with upgrading an old bike is the gears, new bikes have more gears making it essential that components such as the chain are swapped out, also the old Y22 has grip shifters which are not as precise as the modern shifters making the adjustment quite hard to do. The wheels I am using are Mavic 221's with shimano hubs, the rear is slightly out of true making the brake adjustment a bit harder than is should be.



So yesterday I decided to see what the bike was like, next to the office we have the use of some army ground, this is sand based so the drainage is not too bad, so at lunch time Pete Jenkins and I set off. The first thing Pete does is go down a set of steps in the car park, well I thought this is a good way of testing the Y22's suspension, down I go, excellent no problems at all the soft suspension soaked up all the bumps. Off in to the woods we went and had a good 30 minute ride around the Army training ground, the bike was excellent, the rear shock needs some work as it is far too soft I do have another with a lock out I can try when I get the bike home. I can understand why this bike won awards, just need to do some more gear work and then it will be perfect.

Posted at 10:19AM Dec 06, 2006 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[0]

Cycle Glasses

I have been after a set of cycle glasses for some time and have been frustrated with the quality that you get for £40, yesterday I bought these Sports Glasses. They come with three easily interchangeable UV-400 polycarbonate lenses. The clear lens (filter 0) protects against wind, insects and dust. The yellow lens (filter 1) is designed for dusk or when it is overcast or misty. The dark lens (filter 3) is ideal for sunshine and snow. All are break-resistant with a special scratchproof coating. The Glasses have soft nose pads for real comfort, an aerodynamic design and grip side pieces for a perfect fit, and come with a robust, softly padded storage pouch and a carry cord.



The best bit of news is the cost me £4.50 and the quality is excellent.

Posted at 11:33AM Nov 24, 2006 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[2]

Group riding

Yesterday 5 of us decided to have a lunchtime ride, the weather looked ok, bit damp in the air but not raining.
We set off just after 12, there were 4 of us on road bikes and Pete on his mountain bike.

Very quickly it became apparent that Pete was going to struggle on the mountain bike, little things such as off road tyres and low pressure made the rolling resistance of the bike far too high for Pete to maintain the 18mph we were doing.
We were kind enough to drop the speed down to about 13mph which was tick over for us but still hard work for Pete, poor lad, well he did last about 6 miles before he finally gave up and headed back to the office.

In the mean time the remaining riders continued on a further 10m mile circuit down to Blackwater and back up the A30 to Blackbush, we all took turns at the front apart from Richard who seemed to be struggling a bit at the back, that was until we hit the A30 and Richard over took us to take the lead, the trouble is he just went for it leaving the three of us standing in his wake.
This took us a bit by surprise and I later found out that Richard far from tired and "was not use to group riding therefor sat off the back as a safety measure" which is a new excuse to me for failing to take the lead.

Well when we go out next week we will all be fighting to get behind Richard and then waiting for the sprint finish just to get our revenge, excellent ride though, so much better going out as a group rather than as an individual, didn't even get knock off. In fact I did not have to raise my voice at anything.

Posted at 03:19PM Nov 23, 2006 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[0]

Chritmas present list

If any of you out there are struggling to find something to buy me for Christmas then do not worry I have found the perfect gift, and at a mere $1000 a pair !

Who cares if they don't make you any faster, you will still look good.........

Posted at 10:23AM Nov 08, 2006 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[3]

Virtual Training

The trainer connects to a PC and operates via a USB interface on the handlebars. Using the arrow keys, you select a track of your choice. Fans will cheer on as you compete with opponents on real cycling tracks, digging deep to stay ahead of your opponents. Alternatively, you will find yourself in a magnificent landscape where the sun is shining, birds are singing, a seemingly perpetual holiday location. You will visit the village of Capricorn, a splendidly situated castle, or cycle past rolling meadows. You are the tour guide and the tourist all in one. Unique Perspectives You can vary the cycling track in many ways. You can choose between an ATB, Racing or track bike, with or without a guide, with the pulse meter turned on or off and from any camera angle you want. You can also vary the angle as you cycle. This provides some unique perspectives. There are many different camera angles possible. Watch yourself cycle at a distance of two metres; survey the surrounding area from the eye of the cyclist or switch to an aerial view, with a magnificent panorama.



During the competition it is even possible to glance behind you, so you can keep track of where your opponents are. To make things even more exciting, you can compare your current position with those of your opponents on a bar graph at the bottom of the screen. During the race you can call up training data such as speed, cadence, watts, pulse, the number of rounds you’ve cycled or the degree of slope on the track.

Winter looks better and better.

Posted at 10:41AM Nov 03, 2006 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[2]

Nice top !

Well Dan was true to his word and set me a great F5 cycling top, and as promised here is a picture of me getting ready to go out on a lunch time ride.



Dan has been invited by some friends in Germany to go and ride a 24hr mountain bike event there next July so keep an eye out for the mad fools in the F5 jerseys making the rounds there too!

Good luck !

Posted at 02:40PM Nov 01, 2006 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[0]

Duathlon results

So Sunday we hit the track at the London Duathlon race, 3000 single racers and 85 teams. Our team consisted of Glenn Wright, Lance Hardiman and myself.
Lance was down to do the first 9km leg and hand over to me for the 20km cycle and Glenn finished with the race with a 5km run.
At 11 o'clock Lance set off on the first leg, 45minutes later he arrived at the transition point and handed the chip and race number over to me. I had to run 50m in carbon sole cycle shoes on grass(believe me its quite hard to do) and mount the bike once I reached the tarmac.
The track is in a sort of square so the first leg took me west slowly uphill to the first corner which turned out to be a mini round-a-bout, the next northerly leg started getting slowly steeper until half way along it became pretty steep and the lungs started hurting along with the legs. Reaching the top I braced myself for a recovery period on the decent, this didn't quite go to plan as the track descended down to another mini round-a-bout so I had to brake an loose my 30mph speed to get round the bend at about 10mph only to hit another steady climb.
This as you can guess was not in my plan, my average speed was getting hit badly, I was expecting to complete the race in 39 minutes at an average speed of 19mph but at this rate I was struggling to reach 16mph.The other issue was I had two laps to complete and another hill at the north-east corner.
As it turned out the north east hill was nothing to worry about but I had cut back too much on my effort and time was getting quite critical, the good news was the southern descent back to the start, I managed to get back upto 30mph and get my average speed back up to 17mph, but this lap took me 25 minutes to complete which was far too long. At least I knew what I was going encounter on the next lap.



The Second lap was still hard on the northern climb but the rest of the lap went well and I managed to catch some cyclist that had past me earlier. The final decent to the finish was great with me topping out at a respectable 36mph and completing it in 19 minutes which was far better than the first lap, but the overall time of 44 minutes was pretty poor.
Running back into the transition zone I handed the chip and number to Glenn to finish the race which he did in a personal best time of 25 minutes giving a team total time of 1 hour 57 minutes and a position of 42nd.
So the times are not that good, my training was giving me 36 minutes results which didn't happen on the day, but what an experiance, I learnt so much and will compete again next year and next time I will achieve my training times on the day.

Posted at 04:14PM Sep 18, 2006 by Simon Bullen in Cycling  |  Comments[0]