@matt_outandabout

Dahon Hammerhead. Nifty wee beast. Fits nicely in the boot of the car with the pedals folded.

It wasn’t in production long in that form, but that front fork has just enough suspension so that it feels like a bigger wheel. Later models were rigid forks.

They’re featured in one of the fancy cycling books as an example of good design… :)

Don’t forget a torch in your winter bag.

Basic idea is to be able to survive subzero for however long it takes for a rescue.

Many many years ago my aunt and uncle had to be rescued by helicopter from a snowed in car in the Highlands. They were hypothermic by then.

go slow
I hope you update after your ride. I’m particularly interested in the surface between Fort Augustus and Inverness on the north side of the Loch.

If it’s any help I’ve ridden it on this, single speed, so a bike with gears and knobby tyres should find it a breeze.

Been waiting for a decent (i.e. truly horrible) winter.

For most of the things I use a fat bike for, 3″ tyres do the job for 3 seasons.

Too much flop is the price of slack head angles. There are compensatory measures, e.g. big wide bars. Steering dampers help too.

Cycling went through a slack HA phase in the 1920s and early 1930s resulting in horrible handling atrocities.

I have been getting the same problem on my old Mac. I suspect Safari.

Would Firefox fix it?

My computer clock is automatically set to Apple Europe (time.euro.apple.com.)

Could this be another Brexshit benefit? :)

If the roads were an industrial site, there’s no way they would allow traffic at even 20mph with vulnerable humans in the mix.

I’m all for the 20mph limit. I’d like to see it even lower e.g. 15mph. Most of our inner city and town roads were built at a time when pedestrian were common on the road and the fastest thing was a bicycle.

It’s ludicrous that car drivers think it’s safe to go fast on those sorts of roads.

The one thing cyclists need to remember when considering visibility is that motorists still manage to crash into trucks they didn’t see…

If you’re going to work all hours, then work for yourself.

Anything else is exploitation.

We have have a whole industry (education) devoted to ensure we get brainwashed with all sorts of crap about careers etc, but the reality is why would any sane person want to work instead of use their time as they saw fit?

When you consider the ethics of the people running the oil and gas industries, you’re always going to be a victim if you rely on their products.

It’s just like fishing for them. Bait the hook with low offers, check hook is set, i.e. give sucker a few months to get comfortable, then reel them in.

It’s why I never take up any of those wonderful offers and stick to electrickery. At least with that you can go offgrid if the bastards get too greedy.

Poopscoop
…How is this crap not illegal?

Insurance companies are run by the same people who have bought our politicians…

boxwithawindow

@epicyclo what ratio and wheel size do you run out of interest?

Usually 32/22 but I’m nowhere near as fit as trail_rat who is too modest to say he’s a good rider.

One year I went lower to allow for the exhaustion in the small hours but it was no advantage. Far too spinny.

The best way to stave off exhaustion is to walk before you have to. I do a lot more walking during the race than necessary so I don’t get in the way of the fast guys on the trickier narrow stuff, but it has the benefit of keeping my feet warm. If you’re planning to push a lot, wide bars are a disadvantage.

The course is easy enough to ride when it’s above zero, what makes it interesting is a bit of snow and ice because the lines can change from lap to lap, especially in the small hours.

Ice tyres are a good investment, even if it’s only for the first lap.

I use cheap pogies with no lining and wooden gloves which breathe much better than cycling gloves. My hands stay warm and dry even in sleet.

It’s important to mount the pogies so they point down. That way they don’t fill with weather.

If they are are cheap pogies with no lining they don’t absorb any moisture that does get in.

Mind you, it’s probably not wise to take advice from someone who rides the ‘Puffer in sandals on a single speed… :)

I maintain one of the best ways to stay warm is to have full mudguards.

I’m hoping for some proper Antarctic weather like we had in the early ‘Puffers. 80mph winds and blizzards make for a far more interesting race.

@zerocool As the owner of several fatbikes, I agree with you.

If there’s any sort of surface a 29er with 3″ tyres will handle most of it.

However when you like to go in places with no trails inevitably there are soft surfaces and then there’s no substitute a nice big fat tyre.

The trouble with fatbikes is the bandwagon got jumped on and there’s lots of them designed for trailbike type use rather than middle of nowhere use, and you may as well have a 29er instead.

My opinion is that the early fatbikes are best for true off piste use. The ultimate Rough Stuff bike.

Let us not mock that humble BSA’s ambition.

If you know where this is will appreciate that all bikes want to be mountain bikes… :)

Alea iacta est. It’ll be like the old days when we had to have Latin to study medicine.

I think it is beneficial as providing a base knowledge for certain European languages. A background in the classics has its uses, but there are many other subjects that should take probably take priority for the creation of wage slaves.

Had a go at this 36″ stuff over 10 years ago when I built this, but I was a bit half-hearted about it because I also thought 20″ might be the way to go.

Note how I was ahead of the trend on modern trail geometry with a very slack HA. :)

If you’re happy with secondhand, the On-One Pompino is very capable offroad. 40mm tyres.

Should be cheap as chips too.

Hoping this does not happen. The rare Wester Ross Haggis is close to extinction and they are a favourite food of bears.

Glass is a horrible surface to work on.

FOG
epicyclo, can you manage MTB disc levers with that bar?

Yes, it’s mtb diameter.

Here’s a set on my TD-1 with disk brakes (Corrieyairack Pass)

I get round that problem by using the Satori Bullbar

I wonder what the next generation’s scare will be?

I’ve lived through the coming Ice Age, Nuclear Obliteration in the next 5 minutes, Silent Spring, we’re all going to die from AIDS, and a few others.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the current campaign for the environment. It’s a fundamental rule of life, don’t shit in your own nest, and in this case our nest is the whole planet.

We could start by imposing environmental tariffs on products that come from countires that don’t observe the same standards as we do. That might even rehome some of the industries that have been shifted overseas when we exported our jobs and pollution to them.

Cheap with decent design was part of the attraction.

The main attraction for me was they produced singlespeed bikes without the enthusiast tax.

Pompinos, the original Scandal. I still use them.

BTW I don’t understand why folk think the Pompino felt dead. Mine certainly didn’t and it’s been well thrashed. Could it be the complainers fitted a cheap wheelset with crap tyres, that can make any bike feel like a slug.

I think it’s a shame they never proceeded with the Ti Pompino. I bought the Lynskey built prototype, it’s a lovely bike to ride, climbs like a goat.

I love a good climb. Luckily there’s plenty around here.

Climbing becomes much more pleasant by having the attitude that when you’re down to walking speed, then walk, it’s faster in the end.

I’d sooner have a steep climb and gentle descent than the other way round.

ballsofcottonwool
All this talk of broken chains, has anyone ever snapped a chain on a singlespeed with a proper chain line?

Twice. Once very 40 years, regular as clockwork. :)

tjagain
….Again for me thinking abouty future proofing and long tours – take a spare belt. Break it and change it – then I have no backup. chains can be bought in any bike shop. Belts cannot

I’m sure your new belt would last the few thousand miles between places where you could buy a new backup… :)

Couple of other conversions, both Magic Ratio.

I split the frame at the dropout. Turned out to be trouble free.

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This one was a total PITA. Too much lateral flex. Eventually cured it with a snubber, but bent a few before I made one strong enough. It might work ok with the newer CenterTrack belts and cogs.

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I also did a 1930s bike over 20 years ago in Oz, but that was back before digital cameras. It used 8mm belts, but there was too much frame flex for anything but gentle use. I got the necessary parts from Taiwan.

Maybe it’s time to convert another vintage bike to confuse my pedantic vintage friends. Thun in Germany made the parts to take 8mm belts over 20 years ago.

molgrips
Yes but the point is that you carry a quick link so you can fix a chain and carry on.

I reckon I could have a replacement belt on in about 2 minutes and be on my way with clean hands.

I would suggest to anyone interested to first get your hands on a suitable frame for experimenting on before carving up a bike you like.

Also it is possible to beltdrive a bike with no adjustment.

I have done 3 with carefully calculated Magic Ratio. You can make micro adjustments to a dropout by carefully filing one side and then peening the other. The only difficulty is you have to do it to both dropouts and you need to keep them absolutely perfectly in alignment. All that really takes is a bit of care.

I’ll dig up photos of the conversions in the next few days.

I did several a few years back. I ignored the high tension and set my belts to the same as a chain on my singlespeed, ie not hanging on the bottom run but not taut.

That was the original Gates belt set up, but I believe the new version is better as regards the need for tension.

What you really need for a conversion is a stiff chainstay and a dead straight beltline. If it is slightly off, the belt arrives at the rear cog at a slight angle to the cog, and ends up trying to ride up it. A snubber (not a tensioner) helps in this case. You set it at about 1mm off the belt so it only touches if the belt starts to rise. About 7 o’clock is a good position. The snubber arm needs to be very rigid or it will eventually get bent.

The big thing is having the courage to chop into a perfectly good frame. :)

As for breaking a belt, that is no more likely than breaking a chain, probably less so, and a belt is lighter than a decent chaintool – or at least the sort I carry.

Also, there is now a split belt, pricey though. https://www.veercycle.com/products/split-belt-pro?variant=29894666190926

The best frame for conversion I found was the Pompino. It has nice stiff chainstays.

Details here:

Anyone got a Pompino.? Show us your pics.

15mm open end spanner thin enough for removing pedals and stout enough for wheel nuts.

Skinny 8/10mm open end spanner.

A small triple that fits in a pocket.

Get a fat mate, send him down first and stay right up his arse.

Take some wipes to keep the blood of your goggles…

Just stuck 16Gb of RAM and a 1TB SSD in my son’s 2012 MacBook Pro.

It’s £200 well spent.

Fatbike is fun especially for beaches.

If you’re going on the various tracks, a bike that you can shoulder would be ideal.

There’s lots of bits that are really walks, but it’s worth having the bike because there are long bits where you’ll be glad you have a bike.

I’m torn between bike choice every time I go to Harris, whether to take a lightweight 29er singlespeed for easy portages, or a fatbike.

The perfect bike would be an ultralight fatty.

greeny30
I’ll never understand the appeal, a fatbike for trail riding seems an odd choice to me.

Some of us use them for going places where a standard bike is just a shoulder ornament…

Not all trails are maintained.

Inverness. Job done.

My thoughts are with you TJ.

Alba now has more members than the LibDems and is aiming to overtake the Labour and Tory parties.

There have been several high profile defections from the SNP. It now has 2 Westminster MPs as well.

Independence matters more than any other issue to the members.

The SNP trollbots flinging abuse about unacceptable behaviour seem to be quietening down as exSNP supporters come forward alleging that also applies to Sturgeon and her very particular appetites. She apparently has recently taken out 2 super injunctions out muzzling something or other, we can only wonder why and what for.

There may be a few MSPs in other parties hoping the Me Too doesn’t spread to them as well.

However, TJ, if you are worried about women’s attitudes to Alba, you may be interested to know that the SNP Equalities Convener and the SNP Women’s Convener, Lynne Anderson has joined Alba and will be a candidate, and that nearly half the candidates are female.

tjagain
there is this group that has the belief that Sturgeon and co are not interested in independence but are happier being a “colonial administration” and they will follow Salmond

It is unhappiness at how democracy has been removed from the internal structure of the SNP, members no longer get a voice.

It is unhappiness at the concentration on minority issues, however worthy, at the expense of independence.

It is unhappiness on the attack on women’s rights represented by the GRA (I’ll take Joanne Cherry’s word on that any day).

It’s unhappiness at the totalitarian aspects of the Hate Crime Bill.

And above all it’s unhappiness at nothing being done about all the ignored open goals left by Westminster.

The SNP used to be a broad church, now it’s only for a subset of the independence movement.

That has left the field wide open for an alternative independence party, and guess what, one has sprung up.

It may be false news but there could already be over 10,000 new members. Apparently their server crashed from overload. Not bad in the first 12 hours of announcing its existence.

Even 1,000 would be good in that time span, and it’s definitely well beyond that.

It’s got the Tories shitting themselves. They’re trying to resurrect the Better Together alliance. It remains to be seen whether Labour and the LibDems want to participate in that suicide pact again.

As I said, life is a bit more interesting.