Someone once told me that dairy cattle are well used to having people around, so tend to be very placid. Cows bred for meat are not.

Thag said, bulls are monsters and i wouldn’t go near any of them.

Thought about trying some silly bars?

Ive got On One Mary bars on mine (about £10 from On One, if i remember correctly). They put your wrists in a much more neutral position, and they’re very comfortable.

That said, i’m running steel forks with a big tyre on a wide rim, so perhaps that’s making things more comfy for me.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Go on then…

Stu – your green Jones is one of my favorites ever. Makes me green with envy whenever i see it.

Another Cromoto owner here. They are lovely, although i’ve not long got them, so i’d be hesitant to sing their praises too much just yet. Plenty of room for a 29×3 tyre; I’m running a 2.4 chunkey monkey on a 35mm rim and there’s loads od space.

But for less than £100, i think they’re worth a punt. And they are steel, which (i gather) is real.

Is there anything else i should be thinking of?

Never look back in regret but, to move on to the next thing. A setback is never a bad experience, just another one of life’s lessons.

cuts to the carrier, Harrier, and Nimrod forces

And Tristar. And VC10. And C130K.

To be fair though, these platforms were well past their sell-by date. The Nimrod is basically a modified De Havilland Comet – the world’s first jet airliner – which is an aircraft from the 1940s. They should all have been replaced decades ago.

I use Strava on my Galaxy. Battery life isn’t much of an issue in my experience; if you drag your finger straight down from the top of the screen, you get the options to switch off things like your wifi and bluetooth. This can drastically extend your battery life. The longest activity i’ve recorded on mine is 6:25, and the battery wasn’t an issue.

Strava is free and does all the things you mention. As above, there are other options such as Endomondo and Runkeeper.

2.25 smorgasboard. Not a great deal of clearance on the rear tbh.

Yeah, i noticed. I’ve got Chunkey Monkies front and rear on mine, on 35mm rims. The clearance on the rear is bordering on unacceptable, i’m afraid. I think i’ll change the rear to a smorg at some point.

I was never bothered by the adverts, until that floating banner for ‘reis’ arrived. That really made the website unuseable on my Android tablet.

I recently changed the settings on my tablet and activted ‘request desktop site’. The page looks the same but the floating advert has gone away. Might be worth a try.

I’ve also just built mine. First ride was last night. Lovely!

What size tyres are you running?

Lukeryan – snap! 😀

I gather the white and red colour will be something of a recurring theme…

Some great looking bikes up there! Loving the Surly; that’s just my kind of thing!

I’ve ordered Problem Solvers from SJS before. This one?[/url]

Also a big fan of the full size Leathermans. The extra size and weight of something like the Wave is negligable, but they’re just better. Much, much better.

You’ll only ever need to buy one, so make sure it’s the right one. The extra cost of a proper one will be long forgotten in 20 years’ time.

Personally, i’m a big fan of the dedicated Singlespeed hub, but it’s by no means necessary. They are stronger in theory but, as Breadcrumb pointed out, it’s hardly a game changer.

Are you looking at retaining your existing alfine setup? If not, you could look at buying somethinig like the DMR hub and having it built onto your existing rear rim. Even factoring in the price of the new freewheel and having the bike shop build the wheel for you, i think you’d be looking no more than £120.

Failing that, you could buy a ‘normal’ multispeed wheel and some spacers.

Get yourself on the ‘bay and buy an old Pashley. They’ve not changed in the last 40 years.

We did exactly that when Mrs D wanted one. In the end we paid £200 for one that had spent it’s life at someone’s holiday home on the south coast, and was in ‘as new’ condition. Sturmey Archer 3 speed, brooks and rod brakes; it’s fantastic! I decided i’d service the hub, but as soon as i started to strip it i realised that it was prestine inside.

Project Binky is brilliant! I’ve just sat through the whole thing from start to current; there’s some unbelievable fabrication on show there! Also, most of the script seems to have been fabricated by splicing together sections of Monty Python and Blackadder…

Start here: Project Binky

Awesome, thanks for that. I’ll have a good look once der kinder are in bed.

Funny you should say that, i saw a guy on an Ornage 5… Must be a coincidence.

It’s one of the only fly-on-the-wall type reality TV shows that i’ll watch (still can’t stand the format, though). Minimal ‘whooping and hollering’ and some genuinely interesting projects.

Have a look at ‘Roadkill‘ on YouTube, if you haven’t already. It’s basically two blokes dicking around in old motors, and it’s got very little of that faked drama you get on the TV. Really enjoyable.

Yeah the Jimmy is modified, but not ‘heavily’. Only a few hundred quids worth of shocks and springs. The lights and bull bar are incidental. Hardly anyone realises but they really are serious off road machines, right up there with the Land Rover and Jeep Wrangler.

I think we’ll probably have a Yeti to replace the Octavia before long. It’s just a shame the Yeti is so much more expensive.

Suzuki Jimny? The hairdresser’s runabout with serious off road ability. Ladder chassis, 80″ wheelbase, coil sprung live axles and a locking diff (of sorts), it’s like a 2:3 scale model of a land rover!

Still available new, and also the cheapest 4 wheel drive on the market!

Racing cars will only have handbrakes if the formula dictates it. Rally cars have to be road legal, so will be bound by the same laws as your car.

Either way, that should have been chained down.

To be fair, Hope meets all of those requirements, except the noise thing. They’re easy to service, spares are plentiful, they can be adapted for whatever axle standard you wish and they are very robust. They even come with a steel freehub body if you ask for one.

I recommend you buy Hope and pack the pawls with grease to quieten them, if you must.

Yeah, it’s that good.

Surprised to read it ships with ejector seat intact pretty lethal item of equipment.

Somehow i think the explosives will have been removed.

You might want to get your head around ‘gear inches’. For example:

32 (chainring) ÷ 16 (sprocket) = 2
2 × 26 (wheelsize) = 52 gear inches

This will give you a numerical figure to work with. There’s loads of info on Sheldon Brown and the Surly website (spend some time looking through Surly pages, there’s some great stuff on there.

Mine for reference:

(32÷18)×29=51.56 gear inches.

I’m not too familiar with the Solaris; how much room do you have ‘twixt the chainstays? I’m only asking as i have an Inbred with P35 / Chunky Monkey and it only just fits…

If it’s just for a pub bike, then why carbon? You could get a set of Cromotos for two-thirds of your budget.

Kryten on the radio: “Iron duke, Iron Duke; this is pawn sacrifice…”

Love it, although it has aged terribly! Mrs D bought me the DVD box set a couple of years ago.

If you’re using a QR on a frame with trackends, then you’ll probably need chaintugs. The Hope SS hub comes with a bolt on axle, but i can’t speak for the others.

[Recommend what you’ve just bought] Hope Singlespeed, if you can cope with the silly noise. [/Recommend what you’ve just bought]

That said, i’ve had Shimano in the past and had no trouble at all.

I think MTB is a niche activity, when compared to the new golf road cycling. That’s in no way a bad thing.

For what it’s worth, i think it’s enjoyable enough as light entertainment. I also really enjoyed the mix of guests (although i have no idea who that third guy is).

car is 1 previous owner, the MOD.

That sounds suspect to me. Firstly, most (all?) MOD white fleet vehicles are leased in, and most of those are Vauxhalls. Secondly it’s a petrol, and the MOD only run diesels as a matter of policy. Thirdly, any demobbed vehicles go under a contract to a company called Witham Specialist Vehicles in Lincolnshire.

I’m not saying it can’t be genuine, it just seems very odd to me. I would get it HPI’d before signing anything.

VRS is like Coldplay trying to do heavy metal at a village hall. It’s all very sweet and harmless.

Brilliant!

I’m going to do the honest STW thing and recommend the one i own; Heavy Metal Coldplay for me! Reliable, comfortable, massive inside and interesting enough to drive (although mine is a diesel).

Are the CMs not essentially the same as Ardents?

I’ve just built my new’un up with 2.4″ CMs front and rear. Both went up tubeless in seconds with no trouble at all (P35 rims).

Not properly ridden yet though, so i can’t comment further.

I’m envious! The Land Rover looks lovely also, although i’m not sure about the colour scheme…

What’s brought about this move to an unfamiliar land?

Awesome. Great result. I hope it was worth the hastle!

The bike is a shed. Yet he’s more than happy on it.

That’s the important bit, in my mind. As long as it doesn’t squeak. Or creak. Or rattle.