I do like that green. Sam does a fine job of choosing the colours for his bikes.

Turbo trainer every time. An exercise bike is like riding a bike. Using a turbo trainer IS riding a bike. Just make sure you use an old rear tyre you don't need anymore as you will melt the tread.

Whilst at university many many years ago a mate of mine rode a Black Russian mountain bike that he had picked up cheap at the local Cycle King shop in Cambridge. It was awful and he never washed it or lubed the chain so after a few months it was a mass of slow moving rust. Coming back from the pub one night I thought it would be a laugh to jam it in the wheelie bin. At about five in the morning I woke up in a panic as I realised the bins were due to be emptied that day and the bike was in such a state that the bin men probably would chuck in their truck. After about fifteen minutes getting it out of the bin (I'd wedged it in there quite tight) I went back to bed and thought nothing of it. Joke averted to avoid serious repercussions, or so I thought.

Later that day my mate came back from lectures covered in cuts and grazes. Apparently his handle bars had come off at a vital moment whilst negotiating a busy junction. I never did have the courage to tell him it was probably my fault as I'd had to manhandle his bike quite roughly and had probably loosened the headset. Oops.

My first was a Raleigh Maverick. It was a collection of metallic turd brown tubing shaped roughly like a bike. It had five gears, cow horn bars and had tyres that punctured every time you rode on anything apart from dry tarmac. I got it when I was about 11-12 and it was so awful it put me off cycling.

It was only a bright red Dawes Ultra road bike that got me back on two wheels. That must have been in the early ninties when all mountain bikes looked like garish scaffolding factory explosions. Used to quite like the look of Marins as they were relatively understated.

Personally wouldn't but then I've just stuck a 1X9 drivetrain on my Swift.

Why would you want to cut it off? Hardly going to make the bike any lighter.

I have a Cross Check and love it. It is massively versatile and I've run mine with flat bars, drops, road wheels and tyres and heavier duty wheels and tyres for mixed on an off road use. Just fitted mudguards for the winter.

I don't think it is actually all that heavy and it rides beautifully. If you are looking to buy a frame that you intend to keep for a long time the versatility of the Cross Check may prove useful.

[/quote]Do you get your own little patch of sea?

When it is very windy yes. Usually all over your house, car and garden if you live too close to the coast.

What's the allotment scene like?

Strangely enough I know a few people in Devon with allotments and I think the whole grown your own scene is pretty big. I just shop at Morrisons. Much easier.

I like to try my best :-)

Be interesting to see if MrNutt has come to any conclusions. Hopefully they won't be based on any of the comments made on this forum!

And the South West is like an honorary part of the North*

eh? get ****.

+ 1 million.

Oh, and when it comes to the great North/ South beer divide debate some of the finest beers in the UK come from the South and, occasionally, Scotland. I have spent many years and gained much weight from researching this.

The south doesnt register as a place really, the only thing I know of it is that millions of dull important people live there, and many of them seem to flock to the lake district to clog up the roads at around this time of year.

Funny that, because every summer the South West gets clogged up with Northeners. I can only assume it is incredibly dull way up there and they need to go somewhere vibrant and exciting. :wink:

Form should always follow function, even if that form isn't to everybody elses taste. If you feel you are going to get on better with bar ends do it. It you that uses the bike afterall.

Rather than Cornwall moving to Mid Devon may be a better option. I've nothing against Cornwall but living in either Okehampton or Exeter will give you access to a far better range of job options and the coast isn't that far away.

I moved to North Devon 5 years ago and I've been lucky with the job situation up till now. That may change next year but there is always work around, it just isn't necessarily the most stimulating. Work in Cornwall is very hard to come by. The county receives the sort of EU funding that far poorer nations have access to as the infrastructure for industry and commerce is so bad. Last I heard there was over £600 million of convergence funding available and nothing viable to spend it on! The public sector is also about to take a hammering in Cornwall over the next six months so isn't a good option for jobs.

overprice, overrated, far too busy in summer, full of pig thick locals, shyte weather pre 12noon on most days

Its not that bad, as for the tourists (otherwise known as Grockles in Devon) you soon learn how to avoid them in the summer mainly by getting to the beach and the hills before they do (tourists seem averse to getting up early). You can also feel quite smug about the fact that when they have all shoved off home in huge traffic jams with their caravans, roof boxes and supermarket bikes strapped to their cars you and the rest of the locals can enjoy the place year round.

The weather is usually far better than some other areas of the country; I find the only people who complain about it are tourists (who forget that they are visiting a coastal region that is on the Atlantic). I don't mind a wet summer as the weather in the winter can be stunning(sunburn in February anyone?).

You only live once Mr Nutt, just make sure you look closely at all of the options before you leap and I'm sure you wouldn't regret the move.

I'm writing this on an old T60 I bought off my last employer. Had it from new when I joined the company and when I left I only had to pay £100 for it. Great laptop which has taken a lot of knocks over the years.

My new employer has given me some kind of generic Dell thing. Terrible keyboard and rubbish to use. :cry:

Less likely to shag your headtube

Really! Has anyone ever done that ?

Erm…yes. :oops:

But it was a cheap old frame and it was the perfect excuse to buy my Cross Check

It's a Peugeot. Surely a brick and a pair of pliers are all you need to get in and start it :twisted:

I live near the coast and could have a lot of fun with a fat bike. An affordable UK sourced frame would be good but I suspect everything you would need to stick on it (wide rims, tyres, wheel hubs etc) would bump the cost up quite a bit.

Going on the basis that it has worked flawlessly for 11 years and has never needed a battery I reckon my ageing Citizen EcoDrive is the best watch on this forum.

It doesn't look like tinsel covered crap either. :wink:

Oh yes, always use grease when installing new headset cups :wink:

Best option is to buy the proper tool. Shop around and you'll get one for under £20. Less likely to shag your headtube, quick and simpler to use, and its something you will undoubtedly use again.

A few years ago in Cambridge I was on a pub crawl and riding an old Raleigh Shopper. I passed a roadie who didn't seem too impressed by my speed and grace (or should that be drunken flailing and frantic bell ringing as I went past him?)on such a beaten up old bike. He proceeded to sit on my wheel as I upped the pace. I think he was feeling quite smug with himself right up until the point where I swerved around a bollard and he went straight into it. In my defence I hadn't noticed the bollard as I was too busy trying to see what he was up to. That'll learn him; never draft a drunk on a shopper.

In order to try to redress the balance a bit I've always found CRC very good to deal with.

At the end of the day cheap bar tape is cheap bar tape and will never be as good as the bigger brand stuff. You pays your money…

I don't have any pictures of it to post but it has to be my Thorn Sherpa tourer. Its the most reliable and no nonsense bike I've ever owned and it will do everything, even off road.

It has had four years of hard use with no real problems although the wheels are now pretty much knackered.

Hate to tell you this lads but the programme caters for the wider public who know nothing about mountain biking

Fair point, but why did they then go and choose such a pricey bike? That will only put people off mountain biking if joe public thinks you have to buy a five grand bike and body armour to wobble your way down a shallow slope.

I thought it was pretty toecurling telly. I think I've walked that trail and I could have done it faster on my Dahon folder.

grinding lezzer action in the last chapter…

Now thats my sort of book.

Edit to add: Is this you Big Dave?

That is the sort of look I try to go for. Never seems to work strangely enough…

They may be playing hard to get Big Dave, and if that's your real name I'm not surprised

The size can be a bit scary for some women to deal with…they may not have seen a stomach so large before :-)

Have you considered that she may be a lesbian?

Could be. A lot of the women I try chatting up tell me they're lesbians. Or is that just a cunning excuse?

cinnamon_girl – Member
Guys, you just don't get it, do you?

He isn't 'getting it' which would appear to be the root of the problem. :D

Used to ride a single speed and loved it. Then one day I fitted gears and loved that as well.

I'm probably not helping the for or against argument am I?

WTF?!? What size batteries does that thing take.

But seriously, I think even with a banana in there it would still look obscene.

I think SJS Cycles also sell their own version although it is a bit simpler in execution.

IMO you shouldn't bother. Use your money to buy a 2nd hand Fiat Panda. Seriously; it's a great car, just as dinky as the Smart but it has seats in the back that adults can fit into and a boot that you can actually put things in. I also think it is an underated modern design classic that has been overshadowed by the retro mess of the Fiat 500.

Yes, I have been drinking but I also drive a Panda on a regular basis and love it. Really can't see the point of a two seat car with no boot.

I know the feeling, I've already had an expensive week bike component wise, largely due to incompetence on my part.

Ask this Parkinson's Disease sufferer
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/health/01parkinsons.html?_r=1

That is truly astonishing.

If you're using a specific headset press that shouldn't be a problem. I usually install mine that way.

Last time I installed a headset I tried doing the top and bottom cups separately and managed to jam the tool in the bearing cup. A lot of hammering and swearing followed…

Ta, I'll see how I get on.

I seem to have had a week of problems with my bike and cycling in general.

If I can't fix it I suppose I could always fashion it into a throwing star and pretend I'm a ninja :D

It would have to be a drunk fat ninja obviously…

Nobody's mentioned Kill Em All yet? That's clearly the best one, let's be honest.

+1

Not had a proper chance to check yet, it was a bit late in the evening by the time I got back and I was a bit fed up with it all by then.

I'm going to leave the whole swearing at tools in the garage thing for tomorrow evening. Hopefully I can sort it.

Well, the bb is running smoothly and the chainset was nice and light…guess I'll have to take it off at the weekend and narrow down what the cause was. If it can be fixed it will be a damn sight cheaper than replacing it.

Right nuisance.

I've never had a bolt on a chainset loosen itself before. If that was the cause it isn't something I would normally check for.

Should I now be paranoid and check my other bikes?

And why the hell have my skills in posting images suddenly deserted me?

Thankfully I was going quite slowly up a fairly steep hill so no over the handle bar adventures were involved.