Just out of interest, anyone know how it improves stiffness and by what percentage compared to square taper and threaded cup?

Stiffness improved ‘cos they can make the frame shell mahoosive. And a larger diameter chainset axle.

Wouldn’t worry about the stiffness issues. IIRC Tom Boonen won quite a few races on a square taper chainset when the equivalent outboard bearing version was available for him.

And also, I’m sure I read the Sky Dogmas this years for the Tour are HT2 rather than pressfit. So they don’t see any benefits from it either.

So yeah, whatever… everything was shite 15-20 years ago…

This. I’m sure some WhatGnarlBike magazine will look fondly back at todays bike and mock us for using bits of cable to manually move gears around, or the madness of ditching all your front chainrings to have a smaller range of gears, or wearing matching helmet, top, shorts and gloves in royal blue or orange etc., or fatbikes, or 27.5+ etc. etc.

I hope Obama can use his remaining time in office to shame those who cling to white supremacist/racist views even when in public office and shame the gun lobby into understanding that the solution to guns is not ‘more guns’.

He ain’t going to do that now – he’s pretty much zombie president until the next lot take over. He’s had plenty of mass shootings to shame everyone into any gun control and each time he’s been beaten down. Shame really.

I thought when Pebble went back to Kickstarter for their new watch was taking the mick somewhat – it was almost like wanting the free advertising rather than needing the money.

Don’ think I’d ever take a punt with electronics on there. Maybe a nice pen possibly…

DT Swiss 350 – a little chunky but good quality stuff, from what I can gather, it’s 240 level inside in a slightly less swanky shell.

Herd mentality. The fear of not having the right ‘look’. Which is like nailing jelly to a wall as it’ll have changed by some random hispter/fashionista by the time you’ve found it in Top Shop…

I’ve just read an autobiography by one of the SR71 Blackbird pilots, Brian Shul – Sled Driver which is worth a read if you can get it on Kindle – it’s short but really interesting. I think NASA have a free pdf from a similar guy on their site – I can dig the link out if you interested.

Never had an issue with our gloss units, though they are glass fronted, rather than acryllic.

The Silestone tiops have been a bit of a pain to keep looking tidy though – water marks etc.

Considering using that heavy-duty lino stuff for the floor rather than wood – just worried about it staining if we use wood. And we don’t want to use tiles as the open-plan style (ie kitchen/diner) means we would have tile in the eating area which I think would be a bit cold and uninviting.

Unless anyone has any other ideas?….

We went with a cheaper Karndean/Amtico product called Colonia from a company called Polyflor (they do a Camaro range too) on a recommendation from a friend (they’re basically a shop floor company getting into the domestic market). Less choice than the 10,000 combinations you get from Karndean but looks really nice in a light limestone effect with the grout strips.

Make sure the orignal floors are really finished – the original boards in the kitchen were a bit ropey and not a perfect match to the newer extension part and I can feel a dip under my feet occasionally despite the plywood cover under the tiles.

However, the cranks are 5 bolt 110bcd and can’t find a narrow/wide chainring in 32/34 teeth for 110bcd.

You won’t get a 110bcd 32t chainring – won’t go small enough. TA used to make a 33t version but thats not wide/narrow.

Spa Cycles do a Stronglight chainguard for a tenner, plus a couple of quid for a Dogfang to keep the inside sorted too if a Jumpstop is too rich for you.

Do some checking on the rear mech compatibility – not sure if you might need to factor a rear mech as well…

Could you imagine glamour models at Wimbledon.

Despite not winning any decent tournaments, wasn’t Anna Kournikova bascially the best paid tennis star in the world at one point, mainly because of her looks?

Both road bikes are Campagnolo throughout, and bearing in mind Mr Campag invented the q/r, both are rocking Shimano qrs, as are the off road bikes that need ’em.

One place I really don’t feel the need to make it lighter and pimpier. Tried Hope before, they were horrible.

gnarmac?

For the win. Copyright it before SBC do and then sue you…

Just do the front as a disk…

I’m of a thought that those bunch of ramblers are positively begging for ridicule too.

*removes Avengers stylee leather outfit*

Go on, keep it on. You know you want to….

Cool, I’ll take a look at that rail – it was a couple of Wickes units I was looking at cheapo (plus they’re local and Ikea, whilst local, is well, Ikea!).

Cheers.

So in answer to the OP, GP4000S II or Schwalbe One’s. I’ve been running Ultremo’s for years so went with a pair of One’s. Not used yet as the Ultremo’s have a few miles in them yet.

So let me get this right – you’re recommending something you’ve not actually tried yet?

Where are all those ‘celebrity’ Labour supporters who declared they’d leave the UK if the Cons were re-elected?

Well, much of the format relies on the three of them buying a cheap lorry/tractor/hot hatch/supercar for £20 and then doing something stupid in them. Presumably this often takes weeks/months to sort out, so i can’t see how the guest presenters would manage.

Suprised the planners didn’t pick that up earlier.

If the neightbours had employed an architect for drawings I’d be fairly annoyed they hadn’t thought of it either.

Massive faceplam to the local council – they’re doing some standard bike lanes but with a delicious added twist.

To avoid problems with buses at bus stops they are building the bus stops out into the road (yes out…) and directing the cycle path behind the bus stop onto the pavement and back out the other side.

Sounds possibly a sensible solution until you realise its a very narrow existing pavement, so the bike lane is literally inches behind the bus shelter – to get out of the bus shelter to actually get on the bus you’d have to walk and queue on, guess what, the bike lane 😯

If you’re clipping mirrors etc. with your bars, in some respect you need to consder what gaps you are trying to squeeze through and if thats appropriately safe cycling.

But standard flat bars and bar ends are what you need. Leave the bullhorns to the time trialers and hipsters on their fixies.

Cool. Cheers for the comments. Looks like play time tonight…

I reccomend the book my 7 year old brought home for reading homework last week.

In summary, nice young girl visits her Aunts big old house, finds an old doll. This possessed doll talks her into going up to the top floor, where the doll proceeds to throw the child out of the window and she dies. They bury the kid and the doll together because the doll “never wanted her to grow old”.

Wasn’t the most pleasant night-time reading.

Yeah, it’s an 11-speed rear mech so I know the longer cage version will take a 32t. I did assume they hadn’t tweaked the swing angle of the mech so there was a fair chance the short cage mech would go up to 32t rear.

Maybe a bit of experimenting is in order.

Now, if only they did 105 11sp flat bar shifters (at a sensible price!) for the commuter….

Yep, maybe the deal has already been done (especially as Dave said in an interview this would be his last term as Prime Minister).

Boris gets a few years to get his network of supporters sorted, Dave ‘retires’ gracefully after three years to allow the next Con leader a chance to get used to the job, no acrimonious backstabbing to bring any skeletons out of the cupboards.

but with constituencies how would you actually choose which of the 240 seats the Conservatives get?

You wouldn’t, just like you’d get the long list of Primrose Hill Labour MPS before the sensible ones would be allowed in. Con MP #172 isn’t the MP for “Harrogate North” for example.

The inexplicably badly designed, but awesome, vanilla slice

Simples – pastry top comes off and eaten first. Then the bottom layer/custard combination devoured after that with minimal custard/hands/lap/floor combination.

If the shop/person sending the item can’t afford to lose £40 then they should have insured it adequately. They may accept losing 1 out of 100 parcels is not worth the cost of insuring them all but thats their call.

However, if I was the shop I’d certainly be having a word with RM.

Alas, whilst you’re probably in a better position to wander up to the RM depot, as said above, it’s actually not your fight.

Thats one I’d speak to the RM manager about rather than the postie himself. Who knows, if those 50 people who have told that postie not to leave their parcels in bins (especially on binday) actually told his/her manager instead then the ‘message’ might have got though.

Lord Reid nails it for me:-

“They (the public) thought we were on the wrong side of all the major arguments – our economic competence, on the question of creating wealth rather than just distributing wealth, on the question of immigration, on the question of reform of the public services,”

But he said he would consider running for the job again when the leadership contest is held in September.

Without liking the man, that seems like a crafty move from him – kept to his word about resigning, but knows the party is basically a one-man band (i.e. him) so probably a shoe-in to be re-elected come Sept.

With Sturgeon at the helm instead of Salmond, I think the yes campaign would be different second time round. I admire her much more than Salmond and I think she’s more straight talking. I think we’d get more commitment over the issues that Salmond was too non-commital over (currency being the main problem)

The problem with having the next referendum so soon after is that people might rightly look at the Yes arguments in terms of figures promised from the last one. As the oil price has currently dropped it could easy to say “oh look, you projected x% income from oil, but you’ve actually got less than that, how would you have filled that £y billion shortfall”.

And if Scotland votes to stay in the EU and the rest of the UK votes to go out (certainly not a given), it’ll be game on.

Not sure of this. Surely the referendum will be a straight in/out vote for the whole of the UK. The fact that a relatively small number of people (i.e. Scots) voted against won’t matter.

Indeed for Scotland to stay in the EU surely it would need to be independent from the rest of the UK?

I think Ed should have stayed for a while longer – that way he could have absorbed all the negativity like a sponge, fell on his sword and a new start from then.

Whilst UKIP won’t have many MPs they have been second in many Northern Labour constituencies and will take a share of the overall vote which will eclipse both the Lib Dems and indeed they will have more vote cast for them than have the SNP

Hopefully Lab will take notice of this and start looking after their heartlands again rather than relying on their unfettered support election after election.

I was about 2 minutes from setting up my polling station in the back of the car until the guy came running up to open the TA centre we were meant to be using….

Seeing as the poor old chap had 11 broken ribs that says to me its a frontal hit…..which means he saw the cyclist IMO

Saw him 30 seconds away or turned to see him 0.0001 seconds before the impact?

A group of us got stopped when we were yoofs. Whilst he hardly twitched when me and my mate told him we were the sons of coppers, he did, however conclude the process quite rapidly when he was informed he was hassling the Chief Superintendants son…

Did you know Jeremy Clarkson before Top Gear? What was he famous for? Literally his whole career was Top Gear.

Bit like asking what did David Beckham do before he was a footballer! Or, maybe more pertinantly, what Philip Glenister did before Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes.