@adam_h

good to hear Freeborn are sorting problems out for customer. Joe is a good guy with a lot of experience with full suspension frames

segregated infrastructure can be great, but it won’t stop vehicles as these recent photos I took, both on CS3 in London show:

This a LB Tower Hamlets / Veolia refuse truck that was driving along the elevated section on CS3 on Cable Street, causing cyclists to brake hard and swerve to avoid a collision. One women had crashed when I arrived at the scene. The driver was very abusive telling cyclists to ‘eff off!’ when challenged.

This is a Tesco home delivery truck, also on CS3 towards Canary Wharf. The driver had parked on the cycle lane, and was busy talking on his phone. This was causing cyclists to have to swerve around him (CS3 is one-way coming towards the camera in this photo) which was then putting them straight into oncoming traffic on the road.

You see this kind of behaviour all the time in London, the infrastructure is being ignored, and Police are no where to be seen, due to cutbacks

I ride a XC racing machine for my “mountain cycling” on south-east trails, and can report its batsh*t fast and I love it

this is after years of heavy duty freeride / downhill / all mountain bikes with lots of suspension travel and huge tires

the XC racing bike is all about rider skill and fitness, and its a blast to ride the same trails which my full bouncers just flattened = snoozing

if pad are in place then the Park piston press

if I am doing a proper brake service and pads are out, then its the ring end of a 10mm ring spanner

@geetee1972

Shimano did offer a Dura Ace 7800 crankset in carbon fibre / aluminium core, but found there was no practical advantage (740gm), but additional expense to manufacture and bring to retail at acceptable price

it was dropped thereafter, and they went back to making their excellent duraluminium alloy HT2 crankset which comes in at 683 grammes (race 53/39)

@htmI6

good advise, and in line with my experiences of customers wanting shimano’s higher-end wheels rebuilt – often cheaper to buy a new pair on-line than try and source rims, spoke and have them rebuilt

Shimano’s high end rims do seem very soft and wear quickly, but otherwise are good racing wheels

if you can find factory wheels from Mavic, Fulcrum, Reynolds at a good discounted price they can be well worth purchasing

otherwise its worth finding a good wheel builder, buying some quality hubs like King or DT 240 and going down the hand built route

these were a godsend for bikes with problematic cable routing in the era before Shadow rear mechs

ran Rollamajig’s on my Specialized Big Hit and Banshee Scream = happy shifting

@renton

its worth what someone is willing to pay

probably £150-175

@Joe

good and glad to hear you are out there.

I’m down at Giant Docklands, come in for coffee and say hi!

go see Bespoke in their new store at Crossrail Place, Canary Wharf

ask for Ray, tell him Rob sent you 😉

they seemed to have the entire range on display when I visited on their opening day recently

my missus had a Pashley Poppy, absolutely hated it, although it looked great!

rattly on anything but the smoothest road, heavy, hard to pedal, terrible brakes and strangely nervous steering

sold it, put the money towards a Specialized Ruby women’s road bike, loved road cycling so much we got her a Giant Propel Advanced Pro this year!

@Tom_W1987

The manitous have been stellar, and a number of other riders I know who also bought them cheap off CRC have been also very happy with both ride quality and durability

they are certainly tough as they survived this encounter on a slippery wet cycle path with a solid timber vehicle post, without issue, unlike the wheel and rider!

If I remember correctly, Manitou went through a real sh*tty period some years back with QC issues meaning forks were arriving leaking in the box. The old saying was that a good pair lasted forever, a bad pair required ongoing warranty claims! I know at Freeborn we got burned on a shipment of Manitou that were f*cked out the box, and gave up on the brand in favour of RS and Fox.

It was interesting going back to Manitou, something I do remember is they always had the best damping tech when their forks worked.

If you look at who used to work for Manitou designing their dampers, a number went to DVO suspension alongside colleagues from Marzocchi USA.

this was a great one from this morning.

muppet driving down CS3 segregated cycle superhighway on cable street, caused a women to crash her bike.

driver then started getting aggressive towards cyclists who challenged him, told them to f*ck off and gave them the finger, and then drove off again down CS3 causing oncoming cyclists to swerve to avoid his vehicle.

I’ve heard the issue about the limiting factor in braking being tire breakaway grip

if you run a big volume tire like the Continental GP 4000 II I’ve got in 28c, its an absolutely massive tire with a long contact patch, run around 80-85psi its has a level of grip I’ve never experienced on a road bike. It also feels extremely quick both to accelerate and when rolling

I actually increased my front disc to 160mm from the stock 140mm as I do a lot of fast/steep hill descending, I’ve never experienced any issues with tire grip on my disc brake bike.

Regarding modulation, the big surprise was the level of control you get from the hoods position, literally using the side of your finger you have great modulation but also huge stopping power for those moments when a car pulls out suddenly

@Tired

Giant have told me directly (I work for one of their dealers) that the 2015 Defy Advanced SL frame is their lightest ever road bike frame

they said that doing away with the caliper mounting points allowed them to completely redesign the frame from the ground up

I know my Defy Advanced Pro frame was 940 grammes (I took it all apart and weighed it), which is very impressive considering the price of my bike.

My previous Tarmac Elite SL4 caliper brake frame was over 1250 grammes in 54cm size, as a comparison

I was incredibly sceptical about disc brakes on road bikes (bearing in mind I have ridden disc on mtb’s for years) but actually getting a disc brake road bike, and owning it (not just a quick test ride)has firmly convinced how good it can be when done right

I would never buy a caliper brake road bike again, there’s no advantage for me, only numerous disadvantages

being able to ride fast in full control in all weather, suffer no rim wear, and run GP4000 II tires in 28c is fantastic

regarding weight, the additional weight of the brake is only part of the equation, when done right – not just altering a frame mould to include a disc brake mount and adding material to the stays, but actually engineering a disc specific frame from the ground up

if you look at Giant, their 2015 Defy SL (with the integrated seat post) is the lightest road frame they have ever made, its lighter than their caliper brake TCR SL frame

my 2015 Defy Advanced Pro 1 is 8kg out the box which is very impressive for a £2,599 hydraulic disc brake bike with ultegra 11 speed and sub 1700gm disc brake wheels

I ride 40km a day through London on my commute and unfortunately mobile phone use among motorists is incredibly common

I believe its become worse in the past years since the “smartphone” became widespread because there is easy access to the internet with all its distractions

I witness all kinds of motorists driving in London on their hand held phones including private vehicles, buses, taxis, heavy goods vehicles(!)

Its also very obvious when a vehicle is stationary after the lights have changed to green 9/10 times they are distracted tapping on a smart phone screen or using their phone, I see a lot of “private hire” and Addison Lee drivers doing this in London

On several occasions I’ve managed to alert Police who have caught a driver red handed, but this is rare as there are very few Police to be seen on London’s streets.

The most blatant abuse I see is during the “school run” in NW London around Hampstead and Highgate.

I will go out for an early morning ride on my road bike, and coming back down some of the hills towards Swiss Cottage there will be long queues of stationary or slowly moving traffic. I will carefully overtake on the driver side, keeping an eye on the drivers in case they suddenly pull out. With the elevated height sat on a bike, you can see straight into the driver cabin, so its very obvious what they are doing.

I’d estimate that 3/4 of these drivers are tapping on a smartphone or busy talking on their hand held.

I’ve seen motorists with a book propped up on the steering wheel, going through paperwork on a clipboard and recently a women eating rice from a china plate propped up on her lap whilst she drove forward in a long queue!

If only the Police would take a ride down these roads, they’d nick 100’s of motorists 😉

here’s my 2015 Advanced Pro 1

I’ve warrantied a lot of forks for customer over the years including a good number of my own Fox and Rockshox

My last pair of Fox 32’s had the CSU replaced FOC under warranty by Mojo after developing the ‘CSU creak’. Then it happened again, and it cheaper to replace the fork with a Manitou bought cheap off CRC than pay Mojo for a CSU and their labour to rebuild the fork.

Mojo have always been super helpful and professional, but warranty is warranty and once out of warranty it was at my cost.

I’ve had a couple of detailed discussions about the CSU creak with their technicians over the years, and they said its much more common in the UK because we

-ride all year round, in all weather
-which means more regular cleaning, especially with products like Muc-Off

they’ve said to me that the use of these products causes the ‘assembly grease’ to leach away over time, causing a metal-on-metal clicking/creaking. He said its typically the stanchions, rather than the crown.

This assembly grease is used when they press fit the stanchions (and steerer) into the crown during factory assembly. Its a precise fitment with a narrow tolerance range, and a machine measures the expansion of the crown during this process, if it falls out of the tolerance the CSU is rejected and scrapped.

he said that they could make the crown heavier which would help this situation, but the market wants lighter forks. he said this noise is never structural / safety related but agreed very annoying!

my Manitou is heavier than my 32 despite being same stanchion size and travel length, but the crown is much more substantial with a long overlap between stanchions and crown. so far, so good…

I get the same issue with my 10 speed XTR cassette on my newish DT Swiss 350 rear hub; did not have the same with the same cassette on my steel body Specialized Stout rear hub

when I downshift from the middle of the cassette into the smaller cogs it disappears, as soon as I shift back up it reappears

frustrating annoying noise, not that it affects the gear function, but who wants to be wearing headphones to block an offending annoyance whilst riding in the lovely woods

seen recently on a roof in London off Waterloo Bridge

@wanmankylung

what you believe has no relation to medical evidence.

when you undertake professional training to become a certified bicycle fitter, ischial tuberosity is one of the first topics looked at in depth, because it is critical to saddle fitting

http://ja297.user.srcf.net/The%20difference%20between%20the%20male%20and%20female%20pelvis.pdf

@wanmankylung

its well documented (medically) that the size of the rider has nothing to do with the width distance between the ischial tuberosity

a larger rider will generally have a wider pelvis, but this is not related to the width of the ischial tuberosity

a small woman can have a wider ischial tuberosity than a large man

@monkeyninja

this can be caused by numerous factors, and its worth having your setup diagnosed by a decent bike fitter.

the starting point would be the saddle, to make sure its supporting your ischial tuberosity (sit bones) properly.

If not, this can often cause an imbalance and your body will tend to “adapt” itself by you sitting lopsided or constantly adjusting your stance which can present as hip pain

size / bulk of rider has nothing to do with width of ischial tuberosity so its worth having it checked out, and a decent saddle sorted if needed.

once you have the right saddle, have the fitter look at your saddle height and fore / aft.

all good bike fitting comes from the saddle being in the right place for your body.

once that is established they can start looking at your reach / drop, cleat alignment, knee tracking, etc. its quite common to have a difference in femur or tibia length on one leg, which can cause hip pain until adjustments are made to your setup.

@Rick Draper

Giant use Shimano press fit BB – easily the best out of the lot and very little trouble in the real world; also very easy to remove/refit and inexpensive to replace

designed by Shimano to work specifically with their HT2 cranks so nylon sleeves isolating the bearing from the metal crank axle, rather than the common ‘metal bearing on metal axle’ which causes so much trouble with other press fit systems

when Specialized gave me a warranty frame after finding a crack, it turned up and was bright red.

then my black Fox forks started creaking in the CSU out of warranty, and I found some white Manitous going cheap on CRC.

they actually look much better with my red frame, than the black Fox forks did

Sad to hear, but it happens with many brands from time to time.

we had the same thing happen over 2 years with the older /Mythic Banshee frames running the IGUS bushings, and it was a nightmare for both customers and us (freeborn) as the distributor.

customers said the frames (typically the Rune and Spitfire) rode brilliantly, but the back ends would not stay tight, or would be too tight, or constantly chewed bushings and frame components.

At least with Saracen you are dealing with Madison who have the resources to deal with a problem like this in a timely manner.

Evans have never seemed to support BMC properly in the UK 🙁

one of my former colleague was a BMC fanboy who owned 3 and he would go to their service course in Europe when he needed spares or a new frame / bike

Manitou are excellent in recent years.

Great damper, great build quality; a little heavier than some of the competition but don’t dismiss that as it means a heavier duty structure for responsive steering and not developing annoying creaks after 12 months

More oil in the fork = real world durability and smooth ride quality when paired with their dampers!

@JonEdwards

that is what my locksmith friend said, make your bike a PITA compared to other bikes locked next to it, or make it invisible by getting rid of its identity.

Having said all that, its amazing the sh*te that some people will steal.

When we had the Freeborn shop at Esher our mechanic Joe had a paint smeared beater bike to roll back the hill from Sandown to the train station after work.

In the morning he’d push it up the hill, as it could not be pedalled. Had a reasonable lock on it, it still got nicked!

its doesn’t work properly, we tried last week, and the customer ended up getting the 5800 front mech which was not very expensive.

I would not trust any lock on the market to keep my bike safe on the street for more than a quick stop at a newsagent

I met a professional locksmith through a London bike shop I worked at, and one of his contracts was for London Borough of Kensington & Chelsea.

After bikes were left for 3 months locked on the street (and the borough had flagged the bike with a warning notice) he was employed to remove the bikes by cutting the lock.

He used a cordless angle grinder and said with a fresh cutting disc and a simple jig to stop the lock moving, he would go through any lock on the market in well under a minute, including motorbike locks of any quality.

He also offered this service to clients who had lost their keys and could prove ownership of the bike, and charged £40. He said he would never leave a bike on the street, but would not tell customers how quickly he could cut their locks as they would not buy another bike, or lock again!

In a busy street, people don’t pay any attention, as the BBC found out last year when they made a programme where they stole their own bikes outside busy tube stations on main roads, and no one cared…

put a yellow jacket and hardhat on and you look totally legit, even when using an angle grinder on a bike lock.

I have Tower Pro’s on my 29’er and very impressed with them. great damping, rock solid steering. Got them crazy cheap off CRC in a sale, came in about £50 cheaper than getting the CSU replaced (again) on my Fox 32

If commuting 5 days a week then 5 pairs of quality bibs are worthwhile as an investment. As well as some chamois cream which can only make the experience more pleasant.

Good quality bibs will easily last a season or longer. Cheap ones are a waste of money.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/privateequity/11576969/ECI-pedals-off-with-Evans-Cycles.html

it gets sent off to their workshop in Keswick.

we used to send customers forks and shocks up there, some of the services were flawless, other times we had “problems”.

I’d send it to a proper specialist like Mojo or TF 😉

recently went from Sram X-0 10 speed to Shimano XT 10 speed, both as 1 x 10

The shimano feels much better in use, and the build quality is considerably better.

The Shimano XT was incredibly cheap, compared to Sram.

have a look at this, very interesting reading:

https://fairwheelbikes.com/c/reviews-and-testing/road-bike-crank-testing/%5B/url%5D

@fruit

Swift in Spitalfields is worth visiting and has a large Cycle Surgery opposite which is rammed full of MTB gear!

Peleton & Co is around the corner in Spits market, with Evans flagship Spits store literally opposite.

If coming to Docklands check out Giant Docklands on 48 Lanterns Way off Millharbour on Isle of Dogs (about 5 mins walk from the Wharf). come and say hi and have a free coffee (I work there if you haven’t guessed!)

we get all kinds of visitors at the store, this was Dame Kelly Holmes last week