Might ‘only’ be two changes (I used to get a train up from Cardiff to Bangor, so I remember how that used to go with Valley Lines etc) but I imagine you also have some split ticket goodness in there too, yes?

According to ebay – People want this – 192 people watching it.

People have a habit of slowing down to gawp at car accidents on the other side of the road, too.

[EDIT] FML. Some syphillis-addled lunatic has one in their shopping basket, according to the ‘bay.

I don’t think I want any of the bikes upside down anyway. Maybe I could tolerate the rigid MTB being, it’s effectively my gravel bike so the brakes just need to work.

To echo NBT, I’ve not had any issues, either, and storing suspension forks upside down (or at least at about 100 degrees from their usual angle) helps keep a bit of oil on the seals and foams at the top of the leg. I seem to remember Hope O2s or similar having a problem at Metabief one year a long long time ago until the lift ops figured out hanging the bikes by one wheel or another (I’m guessing back wheel – honestly it escapes me) on the teleseige stopped them sucking in lots of air as the (very, very hot) braking system cooled on the way back up the mountain. Other than that, I don’t recall it ever being a problem.

Nice – thank you @jonk and Ned! I’m going to try grinding down and tapping, since I have a cheap M8 die sitting around and haven’t got the angle grinder our for a while. :) All the bikes are dangling from hooks with wood screw threads at the moment, attached to the cars with ply. I’ll probs get grinding next week and will post pics here.

I’ve used the same brackets as you, Ned, to dangle the track from the ceiling of our garage, packing them out to get everything level. That took a bit of work as the person that built it (I’m guessing the deranged concrete enthusiast whose work I’ve spent a decade removing from our garden) also seems to have liked beams – every 30cm for a light, uninsulated flat roof. The floor plan of the garage is a very sight parallelogram, which added to the chuckles when my brother and I removed the corrugated concrete sheet roof and replaced it with a coated steel one. I think our amateur concrete fan may have had one leg shorter than the other or a squint on top of their poor understanding of cement hydration.

I’m tempted to get a chonky beam, fit it crossways and then screw the track in to that, removing the support cradles. That’ll have the added effect of moving the hooks down a bit to save my back a bit.

@jonk – could you go into a bit of detail about removing the wood threads from those hooks? Do you basically just take a grinder to the thread until it looks round-ish, then stick a die over the result?

I’ve got the FH brunde stuff – the cars seem to stick very, very randomly, but it’s entirely possible I’ve fitted the rail on the wonk or something…

Hey @moredashthancash – that’s totally doable on a Brompton, and I’d recommend either hiring one (go via Brompton for the Brompton Dock thing), borrowing a demo from a local dealer or borrowing a friend’s one if you can. I got one for a 7 mile each way mixed commute (train to Wimbledon, ride up Wimbedon hill, which is plenty steep, then down to Putney and across to Hammersmith) years ago and demoed a shop one before buying. I’ve since leant it out to a few friends who wanted to give it a go for their commutes, and every one of them has bought a Brompton after.

I did, however, wreck three Sturmey Archer three speed hubs in the first two or three years – the pawls are just not up to it. The two speed hub is basically a mini-Hope and very robust in comparison. You can gear a long way up – 44t front and quite a lot on the rear – if you are concerned with gearing for hills and / or getting sweaty in work clothes. I’d recommend treating it like a full sized bike commute and riding in one set of clothes, then changing at work. I used to roll out of bed, into some riding trousers and a top, and shower at work before I began my day.

Yeah, not something to do casually while relying on’t web, either, especially as Google is now presenting AI generated images of mushrooms: https://www.reddit.com/r/mycology/comments/1fkm59w/google_snippets_using_ai_generated_images_of/?share_id=iLojRP0YprANX-VB2vSHF

I’ve also surprised a couple of foragers on a local hill in the past – there seems to be a bit of a group of them that rotate through multiple hillsides around here at this time of year. I’m not sure if they’re super-keen amateurs or collecting for restaurants, but they’re not exactly chatty…

I’ve got quite used to challenging PCNs – two from different pubs that we’ve gone to. We tend not to attract parking fines or other stuff generally.

In both cases a call to the pub with the date and amount spent has been enough for them to cancel the PCN with the provider – as said above, they don’t want to put customers off, and are very helpful. Our local Lidl had a super keen PCN co that sent us a bill – again, going in with the receipt and talking to the staff got it cancelled immediately.

The other one is a local hotel to us that has a lido; locals can buy season tickets. We used it for three years, I think, and got PCNs every year, despite registering our cars with the hotel when we bought the season ticket. It actually got a bit awkward for the FoH staff, as we’d have to go in and explain to them that we’d received another PCN from their parking enforcement goons in front of other customers.

I get the impression, certainly from the people I’ve dealt with, that the PCN companies are an absolute blight and cause them a lot of headaches.

@jonk (or any one else that’s done it) – how tricky is it to grind the wood thread off those hooks?

I’m guessing it doesn’t need to be some sort of high precision thing, but do you just remove the thread with a rasp or grinder, then chuck an M8 die over it and hope it cleans up the non-round bits? I’d probably get a super cheap die so not worried about trashing the tool in the process, but I’d look to do seven or eight hooks to allow me to store wheels as well as bikes.

Finally got round to rebuilding my old Brompton earlier this summer after getting it stripped and resprayed last year. I used to do massive miles on it with mixed commutes, and it deserved some love.

I’d forgotten just how useful, convenient and fun it is as a utility bike; I can teleport up to the high street to get a few bits from the shops, or nip over to friends for a cuppa without a 20 minute walk or bothering the car. We chucked it in the boot back in the summer when we went off to the Netherlands, and it saved £70 in bike hire straight off during our stay.

What we haven’t seen yet is how small (or big) it folds compared to the original model, and I think that’s going to be a critical comparison, and one that Brompton probably should make – there’s still a massive market for the little ‘un. One of the things that did it for me was that it could fit on a commuter train without taking up someone else’s room, and this looks like it’s a bit scaled up.

I do have to say, though – Ben at Kinetics is owed a few beers by Brompton.

I’ve had a Buck Knives Model 350 on my keyring for about 20 years. I’m not sure what I’ll replace it with if / when it conks out, as they’re discontinued and resell for a  fair old whack: https://www.ebay.com/itm/126294738608. It’s perfect for removing properly stuck valve cores / thorns / pad retaining split pins.

JFC. Another Project 2025? Is there some sort of tombola prize for this nonsense? Thanks for bringing this to wider attention, STW peeps. Good reporting.

Friday-night-just-got-back-from-local-cricket-prizegiving-grade(tm) analysis:

1)Way to turn the faffing sport into some sort of full-kit-w**ker F1-style dorkfest – unless, of course, this is some sort of intentional leak to soften the blow of something a bit less clipboardy and blazery. I feel sorry for the riders, mechanics, support staff and teams, mildly impressed for all the companies selling baseball caps, unimaginative open mould bikes and replica kit.

2) Two effing hours for a podcast? Life’s too short. Can we not just have the article(s) to read? That’s a quarter of my day. Seriously. I used to top out at 20 minutes per episode with the ones I ran – as a courtesy to my poor bloody listeners.

3) My bikes are 130mm travel. Can I ride my bike now, or do I need to set them all on fire and sit on a sofa?

4) There’s a thread on the forum about how, because no-one on the forum apparently watches DH, we must all hate it. I think there’s a ton of fatigue post-Red Bull, and a huge split between actual participation and passive viewing. I doubt I’ll ever buy a Discovery Channel sub, but I’ll sure as hell buy another bike.

5) Can we see the full document without it compromising the source?

I got a 210mm V3 as a warranty replacement for a six week old V2 that had something wrong with it from the factory – absolutely no complaints about customer service, by the way. They were really quick and helpful, so I’ll be buying more posts from them in future.

V3 sealing seems far better (It was an issue on my other V2) and I’ve noticed no problems at all with the actuation. I did replace the inner and outer with the new post, and it’s connected to an OEM Bontrager lever. I’ve been running it since May, mostly in the Surrey Hills where it’s used a couple of times a week, plus BPW, the Lakes and a trip to the Alps in the summer. Hasn’t needed any tweakage or servicing and hasn’t skipped a beat. It seems to feel and last like a Brand-X – which is a good thing as they were equally easy on the service intervals

In the past I’ve noticed slow actuation on the V2 if I overtightened the seat clamp. I use Fibergrip on every post I install and check that every six months or so. another V2 for another bike (180mm) also needed a clean / extra grease fairly regularly compared to the V3 = although we’re not out of summer yet.

On the plus side, our Renogy drier has motored through drying football, dinghy and mountain bike boots every week since I bought it for £12.99 – it seems to have got a bit spendier of late.

Although the instruction to unplug it from the mains if it caught fire or started smoking was a bit unnerving at first.

20% VAT in the UK.  On delivery in Sweden you’d maybe have VAT and duty to pay on top.

Ah – I forgot about the Brexit effect. Awesome! And yes, 44.42 /5 X 6 does indeed come to 53.31. Slightly tempted to get it shipped to a Nordic pal. It does indeed look like very nice stuff.

That’s nice for Unite. I went on the site to have a look: if I’m in Sweden, the Shimano oval chainrings are 44.43 Euros. In the UK, 53.31 Euros. How does that work? They’re made in the UK, but are cheaper to buy from Sweden? Seems a bit weird, if you ask me.

That’s an amazing deal for a private sector employer, and better than anything I’ve been offered since I started working at places that offered pensions in my 20s.

From a lender’s point of view the fact that you’re plugging 10% before tax into a pension is a sign that you’re probably going to be a good bet for a big loan; it’s likely that your monthly mortgage payment will be a bit less than any rental unless you’ve got a good deal there, and it’s done on affordability anyway – a big old food or ents bill each month is mote of a concern than pension payment.

Also – where are you working, and do they need more employees?

@thisisnotaspoon – which pads are you using for sailing? I’ve been racing a Europe dinghy in Rooster Pro Hikers and the fairly basic neoprene knee pads built in to those have been pretty awesome, but I’m keeping an eye out for the next thing once those wear out.

Thanks all! I got a bit hinky about the Exposure nylon bolt mount ones a while, back, and have a gopro adapter thing for both the moon one I use at the moment and my old Joystick, which is a bit short of breath these days. I’ll have to go on an epic trying-on tear now. Will report back once I have something sorted…

Not the experience I had a few years ago with ours – which was ordered in the UK and fulfilled direct from the Netherlands by gentlemen in clogs. The time delay may well be related to, ahem, taking back control and all that. But I’d definitely be on the phone to them asking what on earth was going on at this stage.

Good point, Reeksy. I’m chocka this week with jobs, so can’t get to all of them – there are three, possibly four in my town -two of which are excellent – and another three I rate about a half hour’s ride in three different directions of the compass. I’m trying to narrow down my options a bit, but you’re right. Realistically, with the amount of night riding I do, having some sort of QR light mount is fairly critical, though. Maybe one of those self adhesive GoPro sticker things perhaps? I don’t know how well they get on with helmets, but I’ve seen a ton of them attached to racing dinghies, so they must be pretty solid

I’ve had a few Giros and a couple of Specializeds over the years and got on with them, but the new Specializedseses look like the mutant offspring of a lenticular cloud and a meringue for some reason. I’ll give them a try regardless. It seems that I have a round rather and oval head in cross section. Thank you.

I own none of the bikes above, but would regret it if I didn’t mention the matte green paintjob on this year’s Solaris is absolutely stunning, and if I didn’t already have quite a nice hardtail (a 2020 Specialized Fuse Elite frame built up with my choice of bits) I would totally have bought one in a second. It’s on my bucket list.

Cotic does chainstays that are a tad long than suits me as a shortarse and my sort of riding, but it pretty much has everything I look for in a good hardtail, and I’ve ridden and thoroughly enjoyed hardtails with longer back ends.

One other option you might want to consider is Singular, which Sam has started back up again. I have very happy memories of my old Hummingbird, and the updated Swift might be worth a look. If you can stretch to it, a custom Pegasus in Ti would also be worth chatting with him about.

I’d be minded to say no. You’re under no obligation to sign up with TalkTalk, even if you are with them at the moment, and it’s likely this is a (admittedly legit) reseller trying to get you to sign up to a multiyear contract through their company. Say ‘no’ and see what they say. There will likely be plenty of competing offers, all with the same basic access, and it’s worth shopping around.

Down south, and our street was fibred up a couple of years ago. We’ve had cable as long as I’ve lived here – the local office cabinet backs onto the wall in our front garden, but the fibre was all overhead from the OpenReacharound / BT poles.

We had a couple of ISPs leafletting / doorstepping, so my recommendation is to avoid taking the first offer you get (or getting locked into a TalkTalk contract renewal because some random is trying to sign you up.

FWIW, we ended up with a gigabit each way, fixed IP, a semi-decent router and mesh networking for £25 a month for two years from a local company called HeyBroadband. We switched to another competing local ISP –  Box – at the end of the term for a £24 a month contract, just before it was acquired by Community Fibre, which seems to be consolidating all the little ISPs that popped up.

I have been WFH almost exclusively for four years now (thanks, Pandemic) and nothing made me happier than cancelling my Virgin Media contract.

[edit]: Lighter weight ‘normal’ tube, bacon strips, tyre boot – either $1 or toothpaste. longer / big distance rides: extra tube in pack, patch kit, 1m of dental floss and a sailmaker’s needle for tyre slashes. Can’t remember using anything but the bacon strips on my own bike in years. [/edit]

I have lightweight ‘normal’ tubes as spares on both my MTBs, and haven’t used them on my own bike in years. I’ve used bacon strips far more. I did have a gravel bike for a bit but kept flatting as I was riding stuff like an eejit and pinching the tyres.

I’m considering the superlight tubes as local ride spares, but put off by both the price and the horror stories.

One tube is in the sandwich hatch on my FS bike, so just lives in there with the other bits, and the other is in a wrap under the saddle on my hardtail. I tend not to get punctures or pinches (I’ve ridden in the Alps, BPW and Lakes so far this summer as well as closer to home). Where I am in the Surrey Hills, one ridge in particular (the North Downs) has lots of loose flint, so I’ve written off two Ground Controls in a week on sharp flint in the past. In both cases, I patched with a US dollar bill or a bit of toothpaste tube and a spare inner tube and road home gingerly with a big old slash in the sidewall. $1 bills are light and tough and, er, cost 79p at the moment, although mine are from my last work trip to the States about five years ago.

We ran Islabikes (Cnoc 16, Beinn 16, Beinn 20) then a Frog for the smallest and from there onto the Orbea 24″ bikes, which were all excellent. I built up some 24″ disc wheels for the Orbea and dropped the travel on an old pair of 26″ Fox Forx to fit the same A-C of the Orbea forks, and both boys used it to step up to 26″ FS bikes, initially using the 24″ wheels.

The problem for Islabike and – latterly for Frog – is that the bikes tend to last really well, and hold their resale value really well, too. Combine that with a lot of new(er) arrivals like Hoy, and you end up with a saturated market with loads of nice, generally lightly-used, second hand options out there – to the point at which the market’s so saturated, second hand bikes start falling in price.

I’d look for a second hand Frog or Islabike in good condition, and you won’t go wrong. Once they get to 24″ wheel sizes, there are a few more options, but up to that point I’d say Islabikes and Frog are worth the money, and you’ll generally get most of that money back, too.

Bit of a hijack, but I have recently switched back to flats, and while I have a pair of fairly beefy Troy Lees for chasing the nipper around bike parks, I don’t have anything for pedally rides with mild peril and / or pedal strikes to worry about. I was looking for the Raphas as they seemed to have a good balance, but they’re no longer available. Anyone know the story?

Sportpursuit are doing Bontrager stuff cheap – including the very niche 29×3.0 XR4 Team issues, if anyone’s still running 29+

A former boss ticked over 100,000 unopened mails a few years ago. He is the most effective manager I’ve worked for and one of the most productive people I’ve worked with. We were at an agency, and my team worked across dozens of clients – most people had five, tops, and I think I ended up doing stuff for about 15. It meant a lot of client service spam in our inboxes which we could mostly filter and ignore.
I was doing some work with another director of that business with my laptop hooked up to a meeting room screen. Outlook showed 3,500 unread mails. They said something along the lines of it being unprofessional and every email should be opened and read, which was ‘how they did it’. I hit Select All and then Mark As Read. The sharp intake of breath was absolutely worth it. Explaining I did that about once a month when the little number in the corner started to tick me off was even better.

These look awesome. Unfortunately we have two sets of DTs, a Pro 4 hubset and a set of what seem to be bombproof Bontrager hubs in the household, all of which will probably last a good long time. Which is a darn shame, as I’d love to build up a pair of those in green or gunmetal.
Obligatory note: I had to contact OneUp customer service the other day, and they were absolutely superb.

Bear in mind even the best dry bag will end up with condensation. One option for forestalling that is to stick a couple of those dry sachet things that come with clothing and electronics in there to absorb moisture.

I’ve got a Gen 5 carbon Trek Fuel EX (sorry for the specificity – the reason for that is that different manufacturers have different approaches, and the Trek Gen 5 one is a fairly small aperture) and you can mount a Lezyne fat pump to the underside of the door hatch thing with a bit of ingenuity. The OneUp EDC is the same length but the valve head seems to mess this up, which is a bit annoying. That said, you can stuff it in the Bontrager burrito thing, stick a light tube in the other end of the hole and call it good. If you have a Specialized, it’s possible to buy a 3d printed mount for an EDC pump that will allow you to strap it to the underside of their glove compartment door thing. Bear in mind the downtube options do also get damp – they’re not totally sealed.

What 100psi said. I’ve always used a fresh blade in the stanley knife and the appropriate steel straight edge. Nice deep couple of draws on one side, flip over and do the same on the other side, and it’ll do nicely. I’ve always done my ply cutting on the dining room table, protected with a nice thick sheet of cardboard. Usually 3mm or 4mm, but the same applies to 5.5mm ply. It helps if you can clamp the straight edge.

The rocker is worth paying special attention to – if it’s like my ’14 Process 111, it is a carbon bridge bonded to alloy beams. You need to be careful not to do anything when removing it or pressing out the bearings to pull those parts apart. Other than that, mine was a joy to replace the bearings on.

I seem to remember PNW used the same OEM posts as well. I’ve had several Brand Xs (family fleet, init) and they’ve all just worked. Good sealing, completely reliable.

The only reason I switched from Brand X to OneUp originally was the ability to squeeze a longer drop into less overall length – a critical concern if you’re a shortarse like me with short legs on a frame with a short seat tube.

However, I had reason to drop OneUp a line after my new post (the second one I’ve got from them) developed a score in the stanchion, and their after sales service was absolutely superb. I had a brand new post in under a week, with the suggestion that I hang on to the old one and use the non-scuffed bits for spares.

Unfortunately, they shipped me a V3 post, so if anyone needs a spare cartridge or lower tube for a V2 210mm dropper, I’ll be happy to send it your way in exchange for a donation to MND or a similar charity.

Summary: TransX/Brand X/PNW posts are fab, but if you need more drop for length and great support, I’d say OneUp is worth the extra cost.

It’s fine – but you will notice that the colour / texture will be different on the inivisframed bits. To be honest, the finish on the Solarii (both green and orange) looked lovely when I saw them up close at a demo day the other month, and I’d hesitate before wrapping them with anything. They’re that nice. The frames themselves look equally awesome.

Ooooh – that sounds nice!

Stick up a pic when done. I’ll see if I can grab a pic of mine (once I’ve cleaned the mud off)

I’ve got vague memories of riding there. Off road can be a bit fruity with sharp stones, IIRC, so unless you are set on getting in a century on the road and lycraing it up, I’d take the Nitrous. There’s usually lots of fireroad / bridleway type stuff to explore and wander round, although I’d also suggest taking one of those high frequency dog zappers for the inevitable farm dogs – they’re often a lot noisier than bitey, but it can be a bit unsettling.

I’ve drilled a frame before, and it’s less horrible than I expected. Try and keep at least an inch away from welds, round the edges of the slot you cut off to remove stress risers and so on. You can buy frame grommets for cables and make a cutting pattern from them quite easily. I pulled the cranks and BB and took the wheels off to give me an easier time for drilling stuff. Remember to clear any swarf out, although it’s less of an issue if some is left behind in an alloy frame. As a precaution (it was an aluminum Scandal Mk2) I put a bit of clear nail varnish on the bare alloy to slow oxidisation down a bit. It’s more critical you do that with a steel frame.

However.

If you are juggling a toddler and have an external seat post and aren’t looking for a super-shiny ride with everything tucked away neatly, I think it’d be far easier to stick the external post you already have in and call done with it. It’ll save you a ton of time and faff, and get you the same result. You can use the time you saved to a: play with the nipper or b: enjoy a hot cup of tea while sat down in the sunshine – and both of those are more valuable than a dropper :)

Hey – I’ve just finished off* invisiframing my Fuel EX from last year. It was the lovely matt translucent blue over raw carbon, with painted flat silver logos. This does have a slightly odd effect on the matt finish, but it’s usually not noticeable and it’s not unpleasant. It looks smashing in bright sunlight.

I did the main matt invisiframe before riding the bike. As said above, the recommendation is you do the clear covering before decals, and there are faint lift marks around the decals on my forks that prove this to be true.

What I got wrong was ordering the wrong logo decal kit – it was for the Gen 6 and was the wrong size. I eventually got round to re-ordering and the peeps on the other end of invisframe’s email address could not have been more helpful. I’m not a splashy logo person, so having what felt like foot tall branding on the downtube was something I wanted to cover up. I’d suggest messaging them first just to check the dimensions on the logo – Trek, for some reason, has used different sized versions of its logo on the same model of bike in a slightly random manner.

Also: I’m totally coveting that white Specialized, Tracey. What a smashing looking bike!

Long-awaited replacement for HMS Challenger. All of the sinky toys.
https://www.navylookout.com/a-guide-to-rfa-proteus-the-uks-new-seabed-warfare-vessel/