Out of your 800,000 you need to take out the locals and those who are getting there by public transport. But, yes, there’s going to be a lot of extra cars about.

Here’s the traffic order for North Yorkshire http://www.northyorks.gov.uk/media/28239/Tour-de-France-traffic-management-special-event-order/pdf/161635.pdf You have to go to about page twenty to get to the parking restrictions.

I say hello to loads on my commute from the miserable git kitted out in full DH gear to the elderly couple walking their dog.

Worth it as an alternative to battling the hordes on the lakeside path back from Sandwick?

f you’re not used to Lakes riding but you think you want more than just Helvelyn then you could push (or ride) up the BW from Dubhow to Boredale Hause then do the technical BW back down to Patterdale or, you could push up to Boredale Hause from Dubhow then head over Bedafell and do the Martindale Common descent before looping back round along the edge of Ullswater via Sandwick and back to Patterdale.

What’s the bridleway like from Boredale Head up to Boredale Hause? Am thinking along the lines of: Dubhow – Boredale Hause – Beda Fell – Martindale – Boredale head – Boredale Hause – Rooking – back to start.

It’s good. I don’t think it’s that steep at the top to be honest. It’ll be pretty dry at the moment as well, possibly just the side becks being the only damp bits. Nowhere really difficult but there’s a lot of it and you need to keep alert.

Don’t underestimate the ride back via Cautley, it takes longer than you think and there’s lots of gates.

Or enough car pounds to accommodate all the cars (mostly belonging to residents) they’d have to tow to clear them on the day.

The signs mention “exempt vehicles” so presumably residents have some sort of permit. I’d guess that they’d want the roads for emergency vehicle access as access along the actual route might be a bit tricky.

Not only are some roads closed but quite a lot to the side of the actual route have parking restrictions as well along with towing orders.

Used to ride 52/42 with a six speed 12-24 which was “interesting” on some hills. Now ride 50/34 with a ten speed 12-25 and it’s rare that I need to use the 25. There comes a point where no matter what the gearing that I’d rather get out of the saddle and grind at about 50rpm rather than spin.

It should be noted that I’m no spring chicken nor exactly svelte!

When in doubt, rule #5 applies.

Here’s a link to the road and parking restrictions – http://www.northyorks.gov.uk/media/28239/Tour-de-France-traffic-management-special-event-order/pdf/161635.pdf

The ride you suggest is technically easy but there’s a big climb out of Settle and there’s a big climb up Mastiles lane coming back. I think you might be OK to park in the Malham tarn near the end of Mastiles Lane then it’s a steady ride over to Kilnsey and with the big climb back.

I’ve got a spare just above my waistline that you could have had for nowt 🙂

Don’t get a Solaris as a winter bike. You won’t have any reason to ride your summer bike again

+1 to this, more fun than you can shake a fun shaped stick at.

I’m 5’10” and have a 32″ inside leg and I’m middle to upper end of the medium frame. I did consider the large for a while but the medium feels right.

faustus: the roads will be open to cyclists until about half an hour before the advertising caravan comes through.

sundayjumper: there was a photo-article in the Guardian a few years ago that came to the same conclusion that we’ve become so accustomed to workers wearing hi-viz clothing that they’ve become invisible.

AlasdairMc – that route is one of those in the new Scottish Wild Trails book.

Generally the smaller the volume of the tyre the higher the pressure you run. So fat tyres run at something like 6 – 8 psi, MTB tyres run in the 30 psi range, touring tyres are in the 80psi range and full on road tyres 100psi upward. This doesn’t take in to account tubeless systems.

The Wiggle in-house brand DHB aren’t bad, don’t last as long as “top brands” but not far off.

r8jimbob88 : How accurate is that TopPeak digital guage? I might have to get one.

I went with 30T on the front and 11-40 (the usual 11-36 standard cassette with 40trex replacement) on the back. This is on a 29er. Only used it a couple of times but I’m running out of steam by the time I get there!

If you have start and finish at the same point then you can run a timer on a PC – easy to do in a “web page” then have a start button which is pressed once when the first rider sets off and a “log finisher” button which you press as each finisher crosses the line. Independently you log the number of the rider finishing, then you match the two lists up. The software takes account of the delay between each rider starting, i.e. rider #5 starts four minutes after rider #1.

Even if the start and finish are in different locations you can sync the start time by phone/radio.

This is a slightly automated version of the park-run method mentioned above.

Does having the seat dropped (I assume as low as possible?) affect pedalling efficiency? Or have dropper posts got round that?

Di2 has been around for a few years now for road bikes (Dura Ace and Ultegra groupsets) but it’s nowhere near universal takeup amongst club riders. I suspect it will have to drop down to the 105 and Tiagra level for that to happen. Shimano will want to make the most of their R&D and keep the exclusive cachet for as long as possible so it will be a few years yet.

DONK:

It’s both – they have to submit a set of samples and pay a wodge of cash. Remember this is per model and if they update the model then unless they can convince the standards authority that the change doesn’t affect the rating then they have to go through the certification again.

Depending on what is being tested, possibly the number of regulations and laws relating to that device, then you could be looking at several thousand pounds per test/certification. I know some consumer electronics devices cost upwards of €50K and take 3 months to get certified but I’m pretty certain a bicycle light won’t be at that sort of level.

The regs basically say that any light with an EU rating equivalent to BS is fine, there’s something on the CTC site that sums it all up. My commuter has lights to DIN (German) standard so that’s fine.

There’s an upper limit to the brightness of lights allowed on bikes on the road that some of the more powerful LED systems might exceed. Doesn’t help that there are different ways of measuring light intensity/output.

The law (as is so often the case) hasn’t kept up with the technology plus manufacturers aren’t going to submit lights for tests to multiple standards agencies. A lot of consumer electronics carries CE marks but I’ve no idea if there’s anything similar for things like bike lights either in existence or planned.

Other than absolute bike weight you need to look at how that weight is distributed both between components (frame, wheels, etc) and across the bike as a whole. I’ve two bikes that superficially are roughly the same weight, well within a kilogramme of each other – not enough to tell just by picking up, yet the bike that is “lighter” actually feels heavier as the weight distribution is skewed towards the back end.

To occamsrazor: the distribution of weight between components can have a big impact on how a bike feels to ride. A light frame with heavy wheels will ride differently to a heavy frame with light wheels. This is perhaps the most extreme example as you are trading “static” mass for “rotational” mass. Heavy wheels, especially heavy rim/tyre combinations, will accelerate more slowly than a lighter set up but will be more stable. A lot of quite expensive road bikes (even up to £2K) have pretty cheap stock wheelsets as the manufacturers put the build cost in to the frame and components knowing that most road cyclists will change the wheels as the first upgrade. So even though the bike is only a small part of the overall mass moving along the road/trail, it’s the physics of how that mass reacts that gives the impression of being light/heavy, lively/dull, good/bad, whatever.

Within reason (undefined term), the absolute weight of a bike isn’t that important. If you weigh two bikes using the same weighing device then all you can say is that one is lighter than the other. If one bike is a full on DH rig and the other an XC racer then there really isn’t much point in comparing them but if both are XC machines and one is 5Kgs heavier then it’s worth investigating where the difference comes from and does the extra weight give any advantages.

Some distributors have a minimum order – smaller shops might not be able to meet this at the drop of a hat

My hardtail is 12.7Kg, had the shop weigh it (using Park scales FYI) just out of interest. If I’d had to guess beforehand I’d have said it was between 10Kg & 11Kg but I think that’s because the weight distribution is evenly balanced, if front or back were significantly heavier then I think that would affect my perception.

No doubt I could get the weight down, but at what cost and would the bike really be that much better or would I be sacrificing durability, etc on the alter of weight?

The Postman’s path heading to Reinigedale on Harris – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGgDN9JpN8M

Forgot!

Baby wipes – if you don’t have access to a shower at work.

If you are using a CX or MTB for the commute then look for “interesting” ways home.

I’ve got caged SPDs on my commuter so it’s almost best of both worlds: I don’t need to clip in to get away at junctions – strong leg is left clipped in with pedal at two o-clock, lights change, push on pedal, other foot on to other pedal and I’m away.

Flats are a system in the same way that SPDs are – you can’t simply get a set of flats and use any old shoe, you need a flats specific shoe. This is probably one reason why people struggle. You also need to be pushing in to the pedals more – SPDs let you relax when you aren’t actually pushing as you know that your shoe isn’t going to slip off the pedal.

Pretty much what others have said:

try and leave as much kit (inc emergency set) as you can at work, just take in socks pants/knickers and shirt
Ride in slowly so that you don’t get too sweaty
Give yourself ten or fifteen minutes to cool down before showering and getting changed.

I’ll ride most days but since we don’t have a drying room at work will get the train if it’s raining in the morning as having wet cycling clothing hanging around the office isn’t pleasant. Not nice to put on later in the day either.

Use one of the dry-bags to hold your stuff in, plastic bags aren’t very durable

One option not mentioned is a seat post mounted bag or even a saddle bag – no need to fit panniers and you don’t get sweaty in the way that a rucksack causes.

Personally I wouldn’t bother with the 10 under the Ben loop to the west/left of the car park – it’s pretty boring. The World Champs route is OK though.

It’s probably a mixture of fashion and what you are used to. There’s also the cost of switching: it used to be that switching to SPDs was the expensive direction but looking at flats nowadays there isn’t much between switching either way. Give or take: pedals – £50, shoes – £90, you might need shin pads when going to flats as well.

When SPDs first came out most flat pedals weren’t particularly good so the benefits of clipless outweighed the cost of switching. Modern flats are much better so the difference is much less.

Someone I know has a Hope Vision 2 light, after about three years it started playing up so since he lives near Barnoldswick he popped round one Saturday morning. The guy he saw said that he couldn’t fix it straight away but leave name and contact details and they’d sort it out. It arrived in the post at his home address on Monday morning.

Ultimately we pay for this, Hope will have worked out a rate of return and factored it in to the price. When it comes to cutting costs, customer service is the first thing that the bean counters try to cut: customers don’t see it as something that they should pay for up front so the “higher price” supposedly affects sales. Is their kit the absolute best? Probably not but it’s of significantly better quality than OEM stuff and you know that if things do go south then they’ll look after you. That’s worth a lot.

It used to be that Dell’s customer service was really good, which was partly why they were more expensive than the box-shifters, but if you needed to ring them up you got a solution. Once they tried to compete on level terms regarding initial purchase cost then customer service got cut and things went downhill.

The coaches start arriving about midday so ideally you want to be back at the shack at the Lluc-Soller road junction by then. If it isn’t a weekend then there might not be so many of them and you can see them on the approaches to most of the bends from a reasonable distance so ease/speed up to avoid meeting them on a bend

It’s steady away, the steepest bit feels like it’s right at the top just after the loop. If it’s a hot day and there’s no cloud then it could be a bit of a grind. Taking it steady and talking to a mate for pretty much all the climb I took around 50 minutes. Best tip is to get there early so you are back at the top before the coaches arrive.

Even our three year old childs response was are you **** mental

I’d be more concerned about your three year old child using that sort of language, maybe social services should be informed. Of course if your partner has her way then the SS will be disbanded

Try a demo bike both 650b and 29er, preferably on bikes that are set up similarly or from the same manufacturer so as to minimise the effects of other parts of the set up. Ride the same trail on both bikes and also your existing bike. See what you think.

Personally I couldn’t tell much difference between 26 & 650b but the 29er felt considerably different.

I think there was a BW in Cumbria that the landowners were trying to get downgraded to a footpath. Don’t know what happened in the end, it was a few years ago.

In general getting the status of a right of way changed is not an easy process, even diverting one for safety reasons is long winded.

“Or Else”, well not much I’d have thought. Bikers have a legal right to ride the Snowdon bridleways, that hasn’t been taken away, it’s whether it’s sensible to assert that right. Mountain biking is a new activity when compared to walking and horse-riding and any new activity is going to meet with some resistance from those who don’t like change. The agreement wouldn’t have been made if there hadn’t been some problem in the past.

I suspect if you asked all those walking up Snowdon about the agreement 99% wouldn’t know (or care) what you were talking about. So the occasional rider who breaks the agreement isn’t going to cause too many problems because most people there don’t realise that the bikers shouldn’t be there at that time of day. If lots of riders broke the agreement then there’d be people moaning leading to calls for a ban.

To answer someone above who said that they didn’t sign up to the agreement, well neither did I but I’m not going to break it just to prove a point. It’s cutting off your nose to spite your face. Good access agreements can be held up in ongoing discussions to show that bikers do respect others, the environment, etc.