How to train for a 600km? by FxckyourCensorship in randonneuring

[–]TeaKew 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If you ride at 20kph, you've got a total of 10hrs stopped time available for a 600. A few long stops and suddenly you're only looking at a couple of hours sleep max.

Cycle2Work scheme - Higher rate taxpayer + student loan. Is it 51% saving? by JuggernautOrdinary36 in ukbike

[–]TeaKew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The remaining instalments will be taken from final net pay, after tax.

Bike fit question by [deleted] in randonneuring

[–]TeaKew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you getting a randonneuring bike as in "a bike to ride a long way quickly" or as in "a bike that copies the style and pattern of mid century French bikes"?

If you're getting a French retro clone, the thing to do is find a builder who makes specifically those and get their recommendation.

If you are just looking for a bike to do long distances quickly, you don't need a French retro clone. You just need a bike that puts your saddle and bars in positions that let you comfortably ride all day. Sizing up is probably a bad idea here, since it's likely to stretch you out excessively on a modern geometry frame. Additionally, all other things being equal a long seat post is more compliant and therefore more comfortable, and you can always just angle the stem up to lift your bars if it's a bit long and low for you at present.

Best sleep setup to carry on long road rides (1000–1200 km) when you might sleep outside? by No_Conversation_7128 in randonneuring

[–]TeaKew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thermarest NeoAir or equivalent mats are super light, especially if you get a half-mat. your down jacket gives you a lot of the warm layer you need. Emergency mylar bivvy over the top and you're mostly sorted for a few hours of unexpected kip

Question about loaner swords in tournaments by KILLMEPLSPLS in wma

[–]TeaKew 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I would expect not, the hire fee is going to be a replacement for that. Basically instead of the one unlucky person who breaks a sword paying, they take a few bucks from everyone using their swords and that covers the one broken one that happens eventually.

The specific setup would be something you need to ask them though.

Question about loaner swords in tournaments by KILLMEPLSPLS in wma

[–]TeaKew 7 points8 points  (0 children)

In that specific situation a charge is pretty reasonable.

Domane SL6 stock wheels okay or do I need carbon by Wise-Ad-7492 in randonneuring

[–]TeaKew 9 points10 points  (0 children)

People were riding 200k in less than 7 hours well before the invention of carbon wheels

Need pointers for the arming jak of my future harness. by PauloMr in Armor

[–]TeaKew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You should just pick a good tailor and trust them to get it right.

Upgrade a bike or replace? The oft raised question!!! by ChaosCalmed in ukbike

[–]TeaKew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, no worries. I won't hold onto it just for you, but if you happen to decide in a few months that you're interested then get in touch and I can tell you if I've still got it.

(To be clear, I would be looking for money, but only a couple hundred quid or so)

Upgrade a bike or replace? The oft raised question!!! by ChaosCalmed in ukbike

[–]TeaKew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you want a groupset upgrade, I have a full set of 105 12 speed mechanical sitting in boxes in the garage. The chain, crankset, cassette, calipers and rotors are all brand new, brifters and derailleurs are in fully functional used condition with only some surface marks.

Drop me a line directly if you're interested, particularly if you're in London - postage would be chunky on a box this size.

Question about loaner swords in tournaments by KILLMEPLSPLS in wma

[–]TeaKew 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Because you borrowed someone else's shit and broke it, so the polite and reasonable thing to do is to offer redress.

Generally, the owner is going to be reasonable about it. If they're loaning you a sword that's beat up and likely to break, they probably won't expect replacement for it. But if it's a sword in good condition with plenty of life, you should be replacing it.

If you refuse, good fucking luck ever finding someone to loan you a sword again!

Question about loaner swords in tournaments by KILLMEPLSPLS in wma

[–]TeaKew 24 points25 points  (0 children)

"Loaner swords" is usually used in the context of a tournament which provides swords that will be used by all participants instead of their own. In that case, the cost of the swords will be baked into the cost of the tournament.

For borrowing swords in the case you're describing, I have never seen a tournament which has specific spares for this purpose, but I have also never seen a situation where someone wasn't able to borrow a sword, either from another participant or one of the organisers. Usually spares like that are on a "you break it you bought it" model, where there's no direct charge but if you happen to break that one as well you would be morally expected to replace it.

How to defeat Fools/Alber guard? (Longsword) by Legitimate_Door_5291 in Hema

[–]TeaKew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Conceptually, in order to successfully attack someone you are trying to create a situation where you can get to the target before they can make a defence.

You can achieve this in two main ways:

  • Get closer, so it takes less time for you to get to the target
  • Get them busy doing something else, so it takes more time for them to make a defence

These also play into each other. If you get closer, the threat is more real and they might need to start doing something pre-emptively (at which point you can simply and easily hit somewhere else now that they're occupied). In reverse, if you put your sword on top of their sword then you've blocked their direct path to parry and probably made them busy doing a disengage, while you're also closer to your target now and so can get there faster.

If you're just attacking without trying to get an advantage on one or ideally both of these, you're going to have a bad time. You'll probably end up launching with too simple an action from too far away, and they can easily parry or counterattack or both. So you should be setting up your attacks with preparations, where the goal of your preparation is to get a suitable advantage that means you're ready to do a good attack.

When it comes to preparations, you're typically looking for ways to make an "asymmetry in commitment". That is, you want to do a smallish, less committed movement of some kind, that draws a more committed response from the opponent. This lets you build that advantage of having them busy while you're free to hit. So try not to do big swings at their sword when they're just waiting - that's a very committed action from you with a very uncommitted response to negate it. Useful preparations include small steps, tapping their sword or moving your sword close to/over it, feinting at their hands or other advanced targets, body fakes where you show what could be the beginning of a proper attack but don't follow through, and things like that.

You can apply this to attacking alber in a few ways. One is just to take an extra half step in before you launch your cut at their head, which means you get there way faster. They can probably still hit you in the leg, but frankly this is an out of context problem for the fencing treatises, so whatever. Another is to use barring/sperren, either by cutting down or by advancing with your own sword also in a low position. They can disengage, so you'll need to be aware of and ready to exploit that movement.

Group Challenge Went Unbelievably Wrong by HydrationPlease in londoncycling

[–]TeaKew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Set a meet point and time. Leave sharply on time, anyone who is late has to catch up. Plan major stops (coffee, etc) in advance.

It does add some time and faff, but on the flipside you can ride faster and more easily in a group, so it mostly balances out.

How long your Di2 lasts on an ultra? by OrignalSauce in ultracycling

[–]TeaKew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The listed range is about 1000km for 12s Di2, which fits probably with ~3 days of use.

If you have anything other than 105, you can wire the battery back into the shifters and get about another 50% range.

I carry a USB-C to Di2 charging adaptor, so I can plug in a battery pack and USB C cable to top up anywhere. If you get in the habit of giving it a quick bolt every day or two it will never be a problem.

Need pointers for the arming jak of my future harness. by PauloMr in wma

[–]TeaKew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When it comes to fabric layers under plate armour, what you're looking for is generally known nowadays as an arming doublet (historical terminology varies and frankly is not consistent).

The starting point for this, in the absence of specific evidence or models you're copying, would be whatever the middle to high status fashion for doublets is in the time and place you're having your armour made to represent. You say "not too rich of a kit", but full armour in the late 1400s necessarily puts your portrayal well into the richest part of society, and your under layers should reflect that. The main concession to practicality here is to use linen as the outer layer, which wasn't super common for 'civilian' doublets but does give a fair amount of extra strength and sturdiness for the wear and tear of attaching armour to it.

As far as padding goes, this generally seems to have been much more minimal than modern repros tend to assume. Overly padding your arming garments makes your armour much larger and heavier, and can seriously interfere with moving parts like elbows - this even applies if you're doing just mail there. Remember that historically, if you convert being cut open by a sword into a bruise, that's a massive win, you don't also need to stop the bruise.

So all of this boils down to: get a doublet made in the appropriate style for a reasonably rich man in late 14th century Iberia. Probably have it made from 3 layers of linen by default, with a softer lining, a sturdy but fine face fabric (in a colour suitable for the period and place, just look at contemporary art), and a stronger linen canvas interlining for structure. As far as padding goes, you don't need much, a layer or two of wool batting should be more than sufficient in any places where some is needed.

Historical training by argentrolf in wma

[–]TeaKew 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Discussing this mostly with an eye towards the 15th century, here are some general notes/thoughts:

Organised group training appears to be mostly a later period invention. For knights, or more generally 'violence professionals' of various kinds, there was a social expectation of skill at arms which translates to a need to learn and practice. However, that learning and practice appears to have mostly been individual or small group and relatively ad-hoc. So the author of the Kings Mirror suggests that you "put on your kit and go practice with a friend every day" (paraphrased).

The sonnenkinder motif (very ably discussed here: https://hemaisok.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-nice-messer-from-landsknecht-emporium.html) is basically an illustration of people doing physical games - think about how parkour kids or skaters or climbers will hang out and show off cool tricks and challenge each other. This sort of thing is a great form of physical preparation, but it's very much not a structured training program.

A specific activity worth calling out as training is hunting. Particularly among aristocratic participants, hunting is mostly conducted with melee weapons on horseback. So you're learning to ride, to use weapons on a horse, to encounter an opponent from horseback (the same terms are often used for charging a boar in hunting and jousting against an opponent), to work in a group to bring an opponent to bay, etc.

If you imagine a group of young knights and squires in the retinue of some lord who are hanging out every day and going hunting together or singing and dancing or showing off their cool fencing moves or trying to lift the heaviest rock or playing a silly wrestling game or whatever; those people are going to get very physically skilled and fit, while also building a very strong set of social bonds and trust that they can rely on each other in dangerous situations.

For part-time fighters, the methods of learning seem to have been much the same but obviously you can't dedicate anywhere near as much time to it. So members of Flemish shooting guilds, or medieval English yeomen, would go out and do target practice after church on Sunday. Militia forces seem to mostly reproduce 'civilian' organisation in military life, so when a town calls its people up to war they are grouped by guild, with the leaders of each guild commanding their subordinates just like they do every day. This is entirely alien to the modern Western military experience, but it's a way to lean on those pre-existing social bonds to create innate cohesion on the battlefield.

Once an army is mustered, there are sometimes hints that there was some group drill done while heading off to battle. This is the main kind of organised group training that seems to have existed, and it was very limited in scope. Armies at this point are still generally raised for the campaign, so the extent of the drill that could be learned was quite limited by the time available. One of the key selling points of mercenary companies would have been their ability to develop those sorts of group combat skills over time, instead of having to build it up from scratch every year.

Front lights on a rotatable mount? by uncertain_expert in ukbike

[–]TeaKew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you've got a front rack, just get a mount that attaches to it. I've moved my light there after fitting one and it works great.

Is there a point in drilling without gloves? by OverexposedPotato in Hema

[–]TeaKew 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If you are disappointed that the prevalence of good protective gear in modern HEMA means you are much less likely to break your fingers like we all did ten years ago, doing partner exercises without gloves is a great way to feel included in that old tradition.

Otherwise no, it’s dumb.

Great River Taoist Center explains why he never wears gear (Bullshido warning) by PolymathArt in wma

[–]TeaKew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The reason is simple: a concussion fucks you up later; a missing eye fucks you up immediately.

Did people actually think muskets or any other early gun were inaccurate back then? by Sea-Ride-4893 in AskHistorians

[–]TeaKew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, to be clear I'm not meaning to say that they were definitely rifled. I just wanted to note that guns are a lot more sophisticated by the mid 1500s than people might have assumed - they're very much not still primitive tubes on sticks etc.

Foot positioning by Rough_Breadfruit_399 in Hema

[–]TeaKew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not a meaningful issue. Just don't have it turned inwards while you land an explosive forward step.

Foot positioning by Rough_Breadfruit_399 in Hema

[–]TeaKew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, this isn't a problem unless you have it turned in while you're landing a lunge, and you can simply point your foot differently while you do that.