TBH it’s a bit of a non-story. Most people are not going to turn up by bike because the audience who live within cycling distance is probably small. And if you have ever been to bike events and had your achilles and shins mashed by muppets walking about pushing bikes in crowds, well, you have your answer. Bikes were always banned inside the halls at the annual bike shows in brum too, when I worked there.

The Dutch F1 was a bit of an unusual thing, where the entirety of the country has a bike already and access by car was banned, but also access by car is already awful to that location.

@uselesshippy – yes our employer in the Netherlands has the same answer – even if you test positive you come in. I work in a small office with close-to-retirement staff – I just told them I was remote working for a week, I don’t need that responsibility!

@martinhutch – I’ll have to dig out the report, but that as literally the phrase an authority used. And while it’s inevitable to some degree, it doesn’t make it any nicer – I was just conveying that to the OP. My second bout was omicron (or at least during an omicron spike) and it absolutely floored me and left me struggling to do 1/10th of the exercise I could the week before – for months. If those boosters are no longer as effective, I worry for folk who are not otherwise fit and healthy as I am.

@coffeeking<span style=”color: #000000; font-family: Roboto, ‘Helvetica Neue’, Arial, ‘Noto Sans’, sans-serif, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ‘Segoe UI’, ‘Apple Color Emoji’, ‘Segoe UI Emoji’, ‘Segoe UI Symbol’, ‘Noto Color Emoji’; background-color: #eeeeee;”>– who are you quoting with your special “quote” marks? Cos it’s not what I posted.</span>

You are absolutely correct, I was using my (entirely normal) quote marks to paraphrase your description of a vehicle sitting behind a cyclist for 2 miles, and that is an incorrect use of normal quote marks.

Natural immunity doesn’t last long against new variants, it seems. I’ve had it 3 times now, every time about 4 months after my last jab.

I used to get the jab because I live with a person who is immunocompromised. I’ve not been offered the one that is coming up before winter, but they have. As far as I have seen on TV, the official stance is “we aren’t doing anything about it anymore, some weaker people will die”

Mine’s OK, not mountainous and lovely, but chilled and flat and surrounded by woodland and flower fields.

Youtoob

Do you actually mean freehub interfaces (i.e. FH body to the hub shell) OP or Cassette interfaces (i.e. Cassette to FH body)? I’m assuming you meant cassette interfaces.

No, I mean the interface to the hub, not the cassette. The cassette interface is surprisingly limited in variation, I noted.

I think the replies so far have pretty much matched my googling, they’re all bloody different. I thought HG might be the best “general” interface to replicate:

but then I notice:

I still think I’ll take the HG route.

@desperatebicycle – I assume by “stuck behind” you don’t really mean it then? Because they’re either waiting to pass you and you’re slowing them down, or they’re not and they just happen to be following you. Personally, as a long long term cyclist, I’d move over if I was blocking traffic for more than a couple of hundred metres, because I’m not inconsiderate. In exactly the same way that if I were driving a slow car (have had this with car that developed a fault) I’d move over regularly too, and if walking down the pavement I don’t force everyone to wait for me. It’s all about tolerating each other, and not getting in the way. If that first comment got you so upset, I suggest you get some anger management sessions.

Why would Ranger (a gender neutral word) make you feel uncomfortable? It’s illogical. It’s just a whim that has been given artificial weight.

It’s definitely less safe in certain areas, but SM does exaggerate it hugely too. The problem is that SM is antagonising both sides. Here in NL, where I spend 3/4 of a my time, we intermingle inches from each other most of the time, cars and bikes. Who crosses first at a junction is governed by a nod and a wave even if one has priority, and in a city it’s very common to have bikes on all sides less than a foot away, with no clashes and no animosity. Come back to the UK and if you dare to drive within a couple of metres of a cyclist you get a mouthful of abuse or your car punched, and if you dare to cycle filter down to an ASL you get abuse and aggressive overtakes. In NL that rarely, if ever, happens. Cars just hang back and wait for a safe overtake (and that can be <1m away) and bikes know not to swerve about or ride out randomly.

48mph on a rough rubble access track in the Alps in 2004. 5 inch bombers up front, 6 inches of single pivot out back. Span out near the top and just tucked in. I was a bit more blase about my survival back then. Measured with a calibrated oldschool reed-relay based computer and a handlbar mounted GPS, both agreed within 0.2mph.

I hope you get a steal, because a 3K MG is normally going to be a lot more rusty and knackered than a 3K MX5.

The raft of updates to the K series included head/block stiffening via assembly changes, head bolt torque changes, coolant system changes to reduce thermal shock and a few other odds and sods. If they’ve not been done, I’d try to retrofit them if you plan to keep it.

Ouch. Awesome! This pleases me.

They have recently improved, and the parcel collection is a great addition. I have no problems using RM for all my posting needs. The other companies are all a bit variable and useless mostly – and impossible to contact when there’s a problem.

But it’s very rare that I get letters that are not legal items (tax, contracts etc), so I can’t really see how they support themselves other than spam delivery.

Do I want next day post? Yes, it’s very useful and there are many areas where it helps rapid development of products etc. There’s no reason why we’d go back in time, and I don’t think the speed of delivery is what drives the cost. But this is another problem with critical services being privatised. There’s a dozen mediocre services, instead of one good cheap one. The solution to poorly performing public entities is not privatisation, it’s running them properly.

Stat set to 15 degrees. Not come on yet in Glasgow.

It’s just a bunch of problems that need solving for no reason. It looks wrong (which usually means it’s sub-optimal). It looks different for the sake of looking different.

I worked my way from rigid local trails up to long travel FS on alpine descents. After a couple of years of that I found I just wasn’t going out in the UK anymore, all the trails were either incredibly tame or being made into BMX tracks with all the doubles, and boardwalk boredom.

I stopped mtbing altogether.

Took me nearly a decade to try again, I brought out my FS, hit some local trails, felt deflated. Everything was just too boring and I was not fit enough to push the FS quickly anymore.

So I built up a hardtail using an old used steel frame and loved it. So I sank some cash into a carbon 456 frame and parts and it’s so nice to ride I get excited every time for every local ride. Feeling the trail, using my body, scaring myself on stuff id have flown over on the long travel bike. All so much better now, in my situation at least.

Is there any earthly reason why all the bolt heads on the caliper should be on the inside, thus making it almost impossible to get a socket wrench of any decent length in there.

Yes

ajaj – it’s still very VERY clearly a car. The only thing the pattern does is remove the brain’s ability to perceive the 3D shape and contours. It doesn’t break up the outline or make it less obviously a car.

gkeeffe – you know there’s a large aluminium smelting plant in Fort William, right?

Not local anymore, but heading up to Rivington Pike of an evening will find you lots of locals if none pop up here.

I guess that’s my point. If we see a blue light do we become better or worse drivers? If people drive better as a result, they can only be a good thing.

Neither, more cautious. That doesn’t mean better if you were sufficiently cautious in the first place, it just means inefficient. Faking emergency vehicles just means you’re reducing the effectiveness of *real* emergency vehicle lighting – this is a bit daft.

No, not legal. Lights facing forward need to be white or yellow. Lights facing backward must be red or white, or yellow. Anything else is illegal, as a kind officer let me know with a copy of the law in paper form and a fine for £30, when I was a young adult.

Oooh thanks! Let me know and I’ll cover postage and beer! Nothing a little black paint couldn’t solve. Only minor issues would be these seem to be 170mm long, not sure how common that is.

Its not really rhombic, they just call it that, it just means they’re 45 degree rotated in the arm.

All my notification problems come from the new android power saving settings that were set to automatically manage the app. It doesnt work, switch it to manual.

Ohhh man there’s more info here than I realised – I’d forgotten you lot are the oracle.

Yep, it does look oddly full of plaster but it seems to actually be cast alu, I’ll grab some close-ups for interest’s sake!

Hmm I hadn’t considered going 9>10/11 actually isn’t a problem on ring thickness, but I wondered if spacing was a problem – I know my shifters are semi-indexed, so probably can work around it (the index clicks are smaller than 1 ring space but not tiny.

I didn’t realise their taper was different, I knew they were rhombic rather than square. Definitely knew they shouldn’t be greased but also not sure how that’s greased – the first owner had it for 2 years and said he’d done nothing to it, I’ve had it for the rest of the time and never pulled the arms off – I guess maybe it was assembled that way. It does look a little like it’s burst, rather than snapped. I guess a casting flaw at that location could generate a fatigue failure start point, and I’m no small fry.

barrykellett – that’s an amazing failure! Again, weird to see so many brittle failures though – I’d never have assumed these would fail in a brittle mode!

Stop reading womens magazines and eat properly. It’s not difficult.

Trimming your cals-in while maintaining cals-out IS eating properly if you wish to lose some weight. Eating only nuts, or drinking smoothies only is following daft diets.

However, I found that at 1200 cals or lower, I can’t sustain it because it keeps me **starving**. I find it easier to eat nothing than 1200, and no more likely to scoff tons the next day.

That is a nice solution but I can’t find cane creek levers anywhere in 22.2 clamp diam just yet – I’ll keep looking!

Do you not find the lack of cable outer retention means the inner catches on the lever body?

Hmm thanks for the tips folks, I’ll dig some more into these suggestions.

Looks like the metrea groupset is 1x only, so that rules that out. Most tri aeros are plug-type and I can’t find clamp-on shifters, so I’m limited to “not really brakes” brakes and plug-type shifters.  The bar top brakes is a good shout but I rarely ride on the tops and don’t like having to shift bar position to brake – that’s a recipe for disaster with my reaction times :)

I’ve got my STIs mounted on there just now. They fit, which is about all I can say for it, the cables come off in giant loops and it’s really unpleasant to look at, but I can brake and shift.

I just don’t like the feel of rim brakes. Too variable with weather, too spongy and variable with cable routing, thickness, outer type etc. Need adjusting, need releasing when removing wheel. All just faff that I don’t have to deal with on a bike with discs. My discs don’t squeal, they don’t bind (of course they rub lightly, but the seals pull the pistons back 95% of the way so there’s almost no load on the wheel and it shifts fully after a couple of rotations). They have literally never failed on me in 15 years of riding in all weathers, on several bikes. Their performance doesn’t change when bolted to a slightly noodly fork, or in the rain, snow, mud, cold. They don’t spread grey mush around my bike in the wet.

The only reason they’ll stick about is Luddites and legacy hardware.

Incidentally, did you pass the folk out deer hunting? Not sure what season it is just now but I’m pretty sure they’re not meant to be doing it at night, especially not around public paths with public cycling by.

Yep, I was just coming in from the path behind the derelict castle, I’d gone about 50 yards in from the gate and then stopped to adjust light and fire up strava :) Wasn’t the size of crowd I remember from my last run with GMBC?

Pic 1
Pic 2

Still not got the courage to cut the steerer down but I’ll have a few more rides to set the position.

Thanks folks!

Yes but very geometry dependent. I struggle not to do them on my trials bike or my undersized inbred. It’s slightly harder on my c456 because of the longer chain stay length.

My Chinese rims sat for1 day before I called and got them moving. If you sit and wait for the letter you wait forever. Parcel force add on such a huge lump even their staff apologise for it.

Had a chain snap, 6 miles out from home in 6 inches of snow wearing only lycra and a tshirt, going through one of the rougher areas of glasgow.

Still, was a lovely snowy walk. Took a good hour in the bath to warm back up!

Tell staff to HTFU and stop whining. Don’t go killing animals for the sake of someone getting scared of a small feathered creature.

[Quote]no_eyed_deer – Member
I tried precisely that at the weekend on grass. Went straight off the back on my ass, with the bike flying away in front of me. [/quote]

Next time hold on :)

Get rolling on some hard grass (floor kind) and stop trying to bounce the front end up, instead try to push the bike out in front of you with your feet (hard) and pulling backwards on the bars. There’s no need to preload the suspension. The bars will come up by default. Push/pull in. conjunction with shifting weight backwards to really lift it. Best practice is too try to fall off the back, you should be able to lift the front totally up without pre-load and without much effort as most comes from the legs.