I only bought a bike to cycle to the pub.

Ended up cycling from London to Edinburgh.

Bikes (and pubs) are great. Wives not so much.

The hubs in my hunt wheels survived LEL (which was 1400 soggy km) plus another 4-5k of London commuting after that and still going strong.

I left a wet bike next to a radiator at work and the chain went rusty really quickly.

Had to strip and clean the entire drive train.

Can you use RS685/785 levers with Shimano 4 pot brakes?

For that price you could fly out and collect.

Mine won’t wear gloves, but does like sticking his hands in his pockets.

I think the people complaining about CSH safety are over stating the case. They are perfectly safe if you are riding slowly.

At 10mph, a ped stepping out is no issue. Just apply the brakes. It doesn’t happen that often – even by Parliament Square.

They can be a bit dangerous if you are a mid-level speed rider going because you are both trying to overtake and be overtaken at the same time.

Slow riders don’t have that problem – if you are willing to take your time and wait behind slower riders then they seem fine. I ride on them every day with a toddler in his child seat and we’ve yet to have a problem.

My di2 bike lives outside year-round.

Lithium Ion batteries should be long term stored at 40-75% charge in the fridge. So unless it’s actually below zero you are all good.

What kills modern batteries is:

– Deep discharge

– Overcharging

– Many charge cycles

– Charging while hot

Her start and end points make her journey partially safe.

CS3, EW cycle superhighway, NS cycle superhighway gets her to king’s cross on fully segregated cycle lanes via a pretty direct route. Then a short cut through on back roads to Euston.

There may be more efficient safe routes South of Euston Rd depending on exactly where she works. For example you can carry on from the NS cycle superhighway onto Tavistock Place (mostly segregated with safe crossings) to get pretty close before turning onto shared roads.

A velomobile won TABR this year.

Not only that, but I think the pilot was one of the first to the high point of the race – he didn’t just claw back a deficit on the flat.

So the disadvantage when climbing is clearly not that pronounced.

My Boardman Hybrid has had new everything except the frame, headset, and seatpost clamp.

Over the last 5,500 miles it’s had 5 wheels, but only 5 tyres!

Send it to road safe, who will prosecute the driver if the offence is bad enough.

If you try it, please report back! (With disassembly pictures.)

http://raleigh-canada.ca/rxs

I saw one of these for sale for £400 (new) on eBay and was very tempted for bombing around London.

Would have needed to fly to the US to pick it up, but still a pretty good deal!

I did St Malo to Caen over a weekend and really enjoyed it. (Although the reverse might work better for ferry timings.)

There’s plenty of quiet roads and challenging hills. Extending the route into the Cherbourg peninsula would be good – the d day beaches were interesting to cycle past and with more time you could see them all.

I’ve donea few hundred km of voie verte.

If your mates are slow, it’ll be much more fun on an MTB than a road bike.

You can ride them on 25mm tyres no problem but you have to pay attention. Which is no fun after a French lunch.

Whereas if you take your MTB you can amuse yourself by riding up and down steps in French villages on the way to lunch.

(I took a gravel bike with 40c tyres which was perfect as we were racing for a ferry and not stopping for lunch at all. Merde!)

Hunt have just saved my trip to the Alps.

I’ve got a crack in the rim of my 2+ year old just-out-of-warranty rear wheel. The wheel has done at least 5,000 miles (possibly as many as 10,000) through London and Surrey potholes.

So, they’ve shipped a new rear wheel to France and it’ll arrive before I do.

It’s my second encounter with Hunt customer service and I’ve got nothing but good things to say about them.

I’m embarrassed to say that I resorted to the LBS.

Hopefully they’ll be a bit easier to manage after being stretched on the rim for a while.

Yep, have done that. Helped a little but not enough.

Trailers don’t really seem to wear out our depreciate. One of the other parents at the nursery delivers their kids in a Burley trailer every day – Brixton to Waterloo – and it still looks in good nick after a couple of years. So I guess it’s an “investment”.

If you like I’ve got a Burley Honeybee trailer you could have (including a second trailer hitch – so you can have two bikes set up to tow). Its only been used for 2 holidays – 6 days of cycling. It rolls brilliantly but the boy is now too big for it. You can buy an infant insert.

Not sure what a fair price would be. £350 new so maybe £250. Based in London. Can send photos.

Hunt wheels in general seem to be pretty solid.

I’ve put about 7k miles on my first set (including off-road and with a child seat) and they are still true and rolling well.

The second set (aero lights) are only about 500 miles in, but that includes taking them on the South Downs Way and smashing them into some rather large pot holes. No problems so far.

Done with TTing for another year, so I’ve swapped the Schwalbe Pro Ones for some 40mm Vee Rails. Taking a quick break in the shade on my way to the south downs way.

It hasn’t changed the feel of the bike as much as I expected, although I’m into the little ring a bit earlier on hills it still comfortably belts along at 20mph on the flat.

This is what enigma’s Di2 drilling looks like…

Hmm. Will see if I can get some leg warmers in time.

Thanks for the info.

Which route did you use for the 6 day option?

The route in the book is 1,000 miles. Think I could just about do that in 6 days but not sure I’d enjoy it!

Thanks for the Di2 advice. In the end i got Enigma to drill the frame for me, then my LBS re-did the wiring.

It looks so much better than external Di2, very neat.

The psychosomatic effect is in full swing. Took 3 1/2 hours to ride London-Brighton this morning while testing everything out.

Terrible, terrible potholes but pretty good for checking all the cables are properly connected!

I have a working arrangement with my LBS, where they don’t charge me for little jobs (like bleeding hydro brakes) but they do charge me for big jobs (like one new bike every 12 months).

Not sure who’s winning out of that arrangement.

Has anyone drilled their V1 frame for internal Di2 routing?

I’ve got externally mounted Di2 at the moment (seatpost battery in downtube/bottle cage MTB mount etc) but wondering if I can tidy it up.

1. Restore all the visible security
2. Post on social media that you’ve replaced the bikes with new and more expensive ones
3. Put a sign in the (empty) shed saying “suckers”

At least you’ll get a chuckle out of it when they break back in :-)

I’ve used the CTC bag to take a bike on BA:

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/ctc-cycling-uk-plastic-bike-bag/

No damage to bike or bag. Whereas BA put a hole in my Ground Effect Body Bag the first time I used it.

Thanks to everyone who gave half-frame bag advice.

I ended up with an Alpamayo one.

http://www.alpamayodesigns.com/index.php/products/frame-bags/partial-frame-bag.html

The size #2 fits perfectly into a 54cm v1 Tripster frame.

I had to use a mount skidmore bottle cage adapter to drop the height of the rear bottle so a 750mm bottle would still fit.

Has anyone got a recommendation for a half frame bag that will fit a 54cm v1 ATR frame?

Lol, “partnership of equals” lasted until we had a kid.

We are still equal, because now the fickle little tyrant is in charge.

I can buy as many bikes as I like* but the only bike I get to ride is the one with the child seat on it. And I’m pretty grateful I even get to do that!

*Actually I’ve gone from 1 to 3 bikes as a result of 3am parts shopping…

Does it count if you buy a frankenbike for £80, then swap so many parts you could practically rebuild the original bike?

(My ninth hand bargain fixed gear bike is now a singlespeed, mostly made of bits taken off my commuter, which is now mostly made of bits taken off my good bike, which now only has the frame and saddle in common with the original bike.)

I think you are best off asking on the BikeRadar commuting chat forum.

Someone posted in the Fred Whittington thread about using a RoadLink and a medium cage Ultegra derailleur to give 50/34 11/40.

Compact chainsets are a lot cheaper than sub-compacts and a sub-compact only get you down to 30:32, which is a lot taller than the 34:40 the RL gives.

Plus you retain the 50:11 which is occasionally handy for fast touring with minimal luggage.

For comparison the bottom of the 2014 Boardman range (the hybrid sport) has a square taper BB.

Mine did over 2k miles with no maintenance, including UK winters and Singapore rain, and it was neglected for 6 months to rust at 30c/90% humidity without seizing up.

It’s heavy af though, and the drive train never shifted cleanly even when new, so there you go.

The frame is now back in the UK and has been fitted with a surplus hydraulic Ultegra group set and drop bars. Looks very wrong, goes very fast :-D

Last year I ate 2 bacon rolls, and 2 egg and bacon rolls, and some cake. In my defense I did cycle there and back.

Easily one of the best rides I’ve ever been on. Unfortunately I’m not sure if the weather will ever be so perfect again as it was in 2016.

I’ll tell Tomsk you called him a MAMIL :-)

It’s technically true I suppose but anyone who rides a January 200 on a fixed-gear Genesis is hardly a supportive racer wannabe.

I built up my Kinesis Tripster for under £3k, and people ride the TCR on their alloy bikes.

At one Audax last Jan more than 50% of the frames I saw were from Kinesis or Genesis.

There’s a control roughly every 80km, which should be fine with 1.5l of water.

I usually only use about 3l of water on a 200k ride. The first 1.5l goes quick but then I reach saturation point and only need a slow trickle to stay hydrated.

Plus you drink less at night when it’s cool.