Just remembered that I bought my son’s Hoy bike last year from their Easter house shop which I think is their flagship store in Scotland and the service there was pretty good. The sales guy was pretty clueless though and had to look their own website to read about the bike I wanted to buy despite there being one in the store. Although I’ve always found the RRP of bike shops to be a little high (I understand how the shops pricing works and am happy to pay full price of they have what I want and the staff are good like they are in Edinburgh bike coop) the prices in Evans seemed reasonable compared to the Tri UK shop downstairs from Evans (never heard of Tri UK but apparently they’re part of the same group of Evans).

My son’s Hoy has been excellent and he even got a 3rd place at one of his club races whilst riding it.

I bought a road bike off them years ago and I refused to accept it when it was delivered to my house as it looked like it had been driven over. Delivery guy was pissed off and insisted I took it. Evans were a pain to deal with about getting another bike, so much so I ended up cancelling my order and buying a PlanetbX bike which was great.

And a few times I’ve used their Edinburgh store I’ve found the staff to be a bit condescending (maybe they’re used to mainly dealing with people new to cycling). I enquired about some 26″ tyres one time (probably about a couple of years back) and the guy laughed and said “who’s still riding 26er’s?” Er me? That’s why I’m asking about them. I found their staff in a London branch (near Bishops gate) equally as snippy.

I’m not a huge fan of theirs although I’m lucky that Edinburgh has a lot of decent bike shops about.

Now Mike Ashley is involved aren’t they just another On-one?

Or had a shed load of world class trails on my doorstep.

There’s a de-restricted ebike I see around my way that I’d struggle to catch in my car!

One time when riding to meet up with my pal at Waverly station I ended up having a bit of a race between the few sets of lights on the A701, I was amazed by how fast they shot off when the lights went green but was equally shocked how easily I caught and passed them until it all started again at the next set of lights (was on a mountain bike). All good fun just like the days when I used to race roadies through Edinburgh on my fixie (didn’t win many but it’s the taking part that matters, isn’t it?).

I’ve never ridden one and was going to cheekily hire one at Winlatter this summer as I pass-ish it for work. Can see me getting one when I’m old and f$$ked!

Hurrah! The suspense was killing me.

Ukterfra! 🤯

Never heard of Open bikes until this thread, they look lovely but they make Santa Cruz and Niner look affordable. I’m sure they’re good but way above what I’d be willing (or able 😭) to pay for a plastic bike frame or any bike frame come to think of it.

I don’t know who Lee Rigby is as I try not watch the news, don’t use Facebook or Twitter as it gets me down. And I’d say I’m not the only one.

I see the colour of people’s skin, there I’ve said it! and you know what? I like having people from different parts of the world (hell, even different parts of my own country), from different cultures, with different religions, languages and with different life stories around me in my dailly life because (as I tell my kids) if we were all the same and liked doing the same things then life would be boring as variety is the spice of life.

Can you imagine life without curry, the potato, regae, soul and all the other cultural things we come into contact every day that was originally not from these shores? It’d be shit!

However I try challenge racism even the micro sometimes passive racist behavior of people around me at work, where I live etc. And I hope if I say something inadvertently outdated term that is now perceived as being racist then I want to be challenged too. It’s how we will shape our society, slowly one little bit at a time.

Embrace diversity.

Integration not segregation.

Bottle cage? Or someone f$$cking with you?

I was hoping to see some amusing words or phrases in that list but I’m drawing a blank

What is the world coming to! Do kids not sniff tipex, gas and glue like when I was a lad (other kids and not a good boy like me).

I’m joking obviously and do not vindicate any drug taking legal or illegal that is damaging to your health.

Corbyn is out of a job these days, he might be interested in filling in for your holidaying gnome untill his return

Or zee calipers?

After a quick Google I’ve ended up doing the same cycle I seem to find myself doing whenever something Shimano wears out.

1. Brakes stop working properly due to a leaky caliper.

2. Look for – and fail – to find spare parts to repair the caliper so decide to replace the caliper.

3. Start looking at the cheap Shimano calipers but as they’re only a couple of quid cheaper than deore I think about getting deore but hang on! Deore is only a couple of quid less than slx but slx is only a couple of quid less that xt. Ooh! I can get 4-pot zee calipers for not much more, think of all that power!

4. You realise that you can buy a whole deore brake for the price of a zee caliper so you buy a pair as they’re so cheap and you get new levers and hoses too!

5. One day after looking in your spares box you conclude that instead of buying and dumping 3-4 sets of Shimano brakes you could have had a beautiful British made pair of hopes for less money than all the Shimano brakes put together and just replaced the seals and bearings when required. F##k!

Don’t even get me started on chainsets (even more so on road ones) where it works out cheaper buying a new chainset than buying the chainring/s and bottom bracket – the only parts you need to replace – separately. Damn you Shimano and your cheap online groupsets! (I am really a bit of a Shimano fan boy but they’re online pricing is sporadic).

Calls for a spreadsheet!!!!

I’ve some old leaky xt brakes with leaky calipers in the spares box, sounds like a good idea to buy some new cheap calipers so I’ve got a pair of fully functioning spare brakes.

For note I have 3 different brakes on my mountain bikes and I think I prefer my Magura MT2’s c/w 180mm rotors to my XT m8000’s, Sram Level TL on my other bikes and the cheap basic Shimano brakes they replaced. I’ve liked all the above brakes, had minimal problems and the pad’s have lasted well. The Magura’s are not the most powerful or best looking (look pretty cheap as the level is nearly all plastic) but they are powerful enough , lever shape is nice (they’re the short ones) and I like the way the brakes power builds up add to the fact that I got them off Amazon for something like £80 a pair what’s not to like?

Nice one. Never managed So Calabra as I wasn’t fit enough. I did a loop from Alcudia up the tough – and first alpine type switchback – climb of Coll de Soller and back down the lovely descent into Pollenca. Would like to go back.

Cheers epicsteve for the info. Indeed the road surfaces in Scotland can be a bit rough, when watching the tour of Britain last year the commentator described the surface in Scotland as being “heavy” and knocks a considerable amount off the riders average speed, never heard that description before.
The worst I’ve seen (for a complete road surface I mean not just a normal road with a load of potholes and parches as there is too many of them to mention) is the climb out of Slamannon, it makes your glasses bounce off your face!

I hired a carbon Colnago with Di2 Ultegra groupset when on a family holiday in Majorca a couple of years ago, it was good but I still prefered my Ritchey.

When we hired bikes from Decathlon for a cycling holiday around lake Como last year, the bikes were pretty standard alloy bikes with 105 groupsets. I was really impressed with them, just shows how good a £1k bike is. I’d still have been on my Ritchey though (see a trend?)

It’s the OP’s money and of he wants to spend £5k on a bike then I am very happy for him and a bit jealous. 😀

I agree that weight isn’t everything as when I built up my Ritchey using 105, mostly components from planetx (albeit pretty light parts) and a hope/stans wheelset I already had (because I was poor) with the intention of upgrading everything. But it rode so well I just couldn’t justify the hundreds of pounds needed to lose 1kg. I’ve ridded 200km audaxes, 100 mile sportives in the borders and highlands and have even taken it to the French alps and it was great at all those rides. I still have a sneaky look at fancy Ritchey builds on the web sometimes though which starts me making up upgrade spreadsheets.

Hi 13thMonk, I used to work at QM in Edinburgh about 4 years ago (I was at McGill’s) and you were one of the consultants I think. Small world.

I do most of my riding these days either riding with the kids or on my jack jones on my SS riding around Beecraigs but I did go out last night with my pal on the road bike (now that we’re allowed) and did a loop over to Bathgate which went up Puir Wife Bray, that’s a good climb especially when you then head over carnpapple.

Drop me a mail if you fancy meeting up sometime or if you’re ever heading over linlithgow way oneeyeianatgmaildotcom

Ian

I love the idea of an aero road bike with discs but as I only tend to bimble around the – very rough – back roads of West Lothian. I don’t think I’d like reality though of the extra discomfort and extra cost over my Ritchey Logic.

I could be wrong though.

Anyone have experience of riding an aero bike as their only road bike living in the central belt of Scotland?

I thought it was the norm that even decent road bikes came with crap wheels as roadies would already have a few pairs of wheels already for different types of road racing, is that not the case anymore due to disc hubs and carbon rims?

Another take on it is this.

When we were growing up we had f$$k all! My sister – when she became old enough to vote – voted for Labour because they believe in sharing the wealth and as she didn’t have any of that she thought that sharing was a jolly good idea.

Now years later she is in a pretty good job and pays lots of tax (as does her husband), now she votes Tory because she’s not too keen on sharing anymore.

Tories equal greed (in my opinion obviously).

I don’t think people voted for a Tory government, they voted for Boris as Prime Minister (or rather to not have Corbyn as Prime Minister and the Tories being perceived as the only other alternative).

I think that our voting system seriously needs to change though. When I vote I for my local MP it should be based on what they’re going to do for the local area and how they’re going to vote in parliament. My vote for my local MP shouldn’t also decide what party runs the government and who the prime minister is going to be.

If I had my way we would vote for our Prime Minister separately to your local MP. Once the prime Minister is elected then they decide who makes up the government, picking from all the MP’s ensuring that the best people get the right jobs.

Ask yourself who did you last vote for and what were the reasons you chose. I ask this to people often and the reasons why are (IMO) quite startling at times.

I was thinking of doing it from Inverness and then head home once I got to the Forth & Clyde canal. 🤔

I’m back to work as of yesterday and off Furlough. I had to go through redundancy consultations over the last couple weeks but got the call Thursday last week that I was needed back to work. Working from home for the time being but will be back onsite once the Scottish government says that building sites can open again.

Thanks for all the informative contributions. Hopefully you’ll all be back at work sooner rather than later.

One thing I have noticed recently (due to riding the same local trails dailly on 3 different bike with 3 different wheel & tyre sizes) is that my pedal speed and timing (over bumps and around rocks, roots etc) is different on each bike. I find that spinning in easier gears on my 26″ bike really doesn’t work as well as riding with a slower cadence in a bigger gear and vice versa with my 29″ (spinning seems to be the key with this bike). My 27.5+ bike seems to be somewhere in the middle.

I think it’s to do with the acceleration and deceleration of the wheels (more noticeable on bumpy climbs), smaller wheels accelerate quicker but decelerate quicker compared to bigger wheels which accelerate slower but hold their speed better.
Could also be exacerbated by the pedal rotation matching up to the wheels rotation on the 26″ bike (tend to climb on the steeper sections in 32/32) as the gears are 1 to 1. This doesn’t seem to happen on the 29er as it’s essentially geared up due to the bigger gear.

I’m no expert so I might be gibbering sh$$e but just thought I share my musings.

Sorry to be a bringer of bad news but it would seem that you do not have as good endurance fitness as your pals. Can’t see the bike being such a huge difference (your bike sounds ideal for distance riding) unless the terrain is particularly punishing which I believe the badger divide isn’t very from my understanding of it. Don’t most folk do it on gravel/tourer type bikes?

I find when I have done multiple day rides with some friends (who I’m a lot faster over a couple of hours) they really come into their element when in the latter stages of the ride. Seems some folks are better at short distances (me) and some are better at long distances, who’d have thought it?

I have a different saddle on every bike I own (6 in total) and the most comfortable I have is a Brooks Swift Ti (now on my fixed Paddy Wagon), it did take time to break in though, it develops little dimples from your sit bones. Next best is the titanium Velo saddle on my road bike which I got cheap from Planet x (much cheapness and weighs naff all). But my favourite saddle of all time was a SDG titanium but after breaking one, wearing out the cover of another I just couldn’t face spending £60-£70 on a new one.

I would love to try a Cambium but would be worried I’d need to buy more to fit to all my bikes which would be expensive!

Let us know which one you get and how you get on with it.

26″ Soul. So good that when I broke my first one I replaced it with another one. I also sold my Orange 5 because the Soul was just more fun. Now riding it again whilst my Scalpel is in the process of having it’s (incredibly poor quality stock Cannondale) bearings replaced. It’s fun and fast (well feels fast) but I find I hurt myself more riding it as it’s just not as capable as my Scalpel but eggs me on all the same.

Real fancy an all out xc 29er hardtail though, cycle to work scheme? 🤔

Enjoyed that. Had to Google who Claudio was as I’m not a follower of downhill racing. But now knowing that he’s a world class down hill racer I’m even more impressed with Nino’s skills on the bike.

Looks a nice trail.

I’m going to be very biased (what’s new! This is singletrack after all) and list a few of the bikes that I’ve owned (and still own a few) that I think are/were real lookers.

2005 Kona Blast in gloss black. First bike that I bought when getting back into mountain biking since I was a kid. Yeah the fork, brakes and tyres were shit but it looked nice, rode pretty fast and it made me want more!

2005 On one 26″ SS Inbred. Fully rigid singlespeed with sliding drop outs in pearlescent white. Rode it for thousands of miles, wish I’d never sold it.

2009 Orange 5 in red. Was the first (as far as I know) of the slack 5’s although not very slack by today’s standards. Built it up from a frame with blue Hope Headset, hubbed wheels and stem. Made me ride like a total hooligan. Sold it when we had our first child as it never really got rode anymore and was too much bike for my local trails.

2009 ish On one 26″ Scandal. Was built to save my Orange 5 as my Sunday best. It was very good all in black. Was way more capable than what I expected but I was worried I’d break it as it had a habit of going big (for me) on the table tops at Glentress. Rode my first Selkirk Merida 100 on it.

2009 Genesis day one in orange. You really can’t make a singlespeed/fixed steel drop-barred bike ugly though can you?

2008 Cotic soul (had one in black and Orange, looked good in both but preferred the orange which I still gave). Classic bike, was so good it was my only bike for a few years.

2015 Ritchey Road Logic II in metallic grey, I know it’s a road bike but what a road bike! It’s got skinny steel tubes and is comfy but also quick, still have it, still love it (even with lowly 105 groupset) and can’t see me selling it anytime soon. Took it to Alps a couple years back and it was ace!

2015 Stooge in turquoise, again another steel framed bike and again can’t see me selling it anytime soon. It just makes me smile every time I ride it. Even though it’s a parts bin budget build with only the one gear I still get people telling me that I have a nice bike which is always nice (sucker for a compliment).

2018 Cannondale Scalpel SE in gloss black, came with tanned wall tyres which I liked but I prefer it all murdered out with full black tyres. Currently replacing the hubs, headset and frame bearings, can’t believe the shite bearings they Cannondale fitted to a bike that retailed only a couple of hundred from £4k!!! Thankfully I got mine in the sales.

As for retro bikes, the bikes I always wanted were from the early nineties (when I was in my early teens) and were made in America like GT’S Klein’s, Cannondale’s, Fat Chances and Pro-flexes. The paint jobs on some of those were a work of art.

I’ve a 2015 Croix de fer 10 that I’m thinking of selling (too many bikes according to the wife), it’s in great condition. I’m based in the central belt of Scotland if that’s of any interest in you. Also it’s in a rather lovely deep metallic red.

Come to think of it my father in law gave me a pair of part worn Halo twin rail in 38mm width. Might try them.

Also the Gen 2 Soul still has a 27.2mm seatpost.

Nice idea FOG, I was thinking doing something similar and use it for cross races but then the cross races were cancelled. I’ve got all the bits but the only tyres I have only go up 32mm so could do with some 40’s I think. What tyres are you using?

The Gen 2 is post CEN but Cy (of Cotic) states that in order to pass the test he only needed to add some some gussets and ovalise the top tube. Seems to have plenty of twang to me but I don’t have a pre CEN framed bike to compare it to.

Just thinking, it’s always along a seam that my gloves wear out so it would make sense to make a seamless (or part seamless on the high friction area/s) glove.

After a quick Google it seems there are seamless cycling gloves but they’re either wool type winter glove liners or water proof neoprene type.

Seems strange that mountain bike gloves can’t seem to follow the size chart that work gloves follow, I’m a nine on that chart which is a large but often have to get an XL in gloves or they won’t go all the way to my wrist.

Have you noticed the same with cycling specific socks? I’m a size 9/43 in shoes but often have to buy socks that at are xl.

OP, have you considered going singlespeed? as it’s probably all the gear shifting that’s wearing out your gloves 😉