onetimeews – that’s a great summary – especially the ibuprofen and paracetamol advice!

Where as for me,that is the polar opposite of my experience and sounds horrendous.

It reads like one those people that take up running ,find they hate it,but persist ,while at the same time banging on about how much they loathe it,then question why anybody would ever take up running.

Luckily we are all different.

My top tips would be.

Start early,finish early.

Eliminate as much faffing as possible.

Get comfortable with the distances.

Enjoy.

Don’t spend too much time on cafe stops.

Have your accomodation and food on the stops sorted out.

Make sure the bike and all your kit is prepped each night.

Enjoy

Can usually get it by eye as long as the bars( drops) are not an unusual shape.

(For me)a ruler and bits of string work as precision checkers ;-)

Dogs and owners are all different, so I always carry dog treats.*

Throw treats to the dog,squirt a drinks bottle in owners face,then hoof them in the slats.

* part of this is not true.

** some of this is true.

:D

Get some AI driven chop-sticks or robot arms ,they can catch the shopping before it falls over/crashes.

Buy a Smart car( low mileage),there’s no room inside for anything to fall over.

With the play I found just making sure I measured when the tool was at the ‘same end of it’s play’

Yup,TBF, you are never going to eliminate the play completely,I just wanted it to be a lot less than the original setup.

Plus,I like taking things apart,always with half an notion that I can fix/improve them ;-)

Slow down..

Fill up the space with more shopping.

Place small children in the boot and tell them to stop the bag falling over.

Glue Velcro to the shopping bag and boot liner.

Chop up a fitted wardrobe and use sections to make safe storage.

Get shopping delivered.

in fact in the last 35 years of working on 100’s of bikes that’s the only time ive ever needed one.

The opposite happened with me :-)

Just because I could,once I had the tool,I ended up checking all my frames( and the frames of club mates).

Most weren’t that much out,but some frames(PX) had a hangers made out of cheese.

It felt at times like a hard stare could knock them out.

Any shifting issues I now get,it’s nice to be able to quickly check the hangers.

@nickingsley  I took the barrel apart and had access to a selection of steel shim to make it a tighter fit.

I know that the sloppy movement over the lever distance ,was not the end of the world, but it just bugged me that far away in some Asian manufacturing empire,they couldn’t be arsed using better fit/tolerances ;-)

We should follow the Honda DH bike example of encasing the drivetrain in a carbon fibre box or something.

I think the E-mtb market will push this forward with things like fully enclosed belt drive.

Coming from an MX background,part of my weekend routine used to be boiling up chains.

I tried it for a while with my commuter bikes over the winter,but in the end I went back to a fit and (almost) forget chainsets practice.

Along with cleaning and wet lube,for me the seasonal swap thing also worked.

Take the cassette and chain off the summer bike and fit to the winter/commuter bike…destroy.

The summer bike then gets a new cassette and chain.

Rinse and repeat.

Ages ago,I bought one of the Lifeline ones.

You could work around it,but the amount of play annoyed me,so I took it apart and shimmed it.

I like to imagine that somewhere in the world,there is a person that has just bought a new MTB.

They ask the shop person ” What do I need to do about chain maintenance?”

Shop person : “Well, first get yourself a small deep fat fryer…

:D

Fat Moose

Shirts & overshirts

Aye ,should be good .

Was looking at the latest images on the BBC site this morning.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6qz387qjgo

Do a weeksy and go racing with your kid.

Enjoy them enjoying the love and support of a parent helping and cheering them on.

The only danger is that you may get friendly with some of the other parents ,then end up going cycling with triathletes.

But hey,that’s a risk you will have to take..  :-) :-)

Southwell?

No photos needed.

Just imagine..

>> The Detectorists trampoline scene<<

>>Some  blown over wheelie bins<<

>>A garden fence at a 45deg angle <<

The cuffs on Northwave Artics were the only ones that I ever felt got close to a good seal on a winter boot,but by eck they could be real barstewards to get on.

I now use Shimano MW5s and add GripGrab cuffs,they work pretty well as water deflectors.

Have they decided on whether it is a musical or not yet?

Not in the traditional way,but(I felt) the songs were used as an alternative dialogue and (IMO) work very well.

I thought it was fantastic,Joaquin Phoenix is great and Gaga is also excellent.

Spoiler …If you are going to see a Gotham comic book movie,you may be very disappointed.

I suspect this is why there were negative reviews.

Spare yourself all that trauma tomorrow and watch >> The French Dispatch :-)

Everything feels better after a bit of Wes Anderson ;-)

I am making plans to swap tents for next year,so looking around atm.

As you have found,there’s always a bit of a compromise.

Search (Gokotta 1 Tent),a bit like a Hubba and comes in at 1.1kg.

I was also looking at Nordisk Telemarks,1 pole and  very light,but the reviews mention horrendous condensation.

If there is any recorded evidence of this vast intelligence, I would be very interested in reading it.

Until then ,I will continue to believe that a lot of people were mugged by a world class bullshiter.

That’s (probably) why he was such a successful sex pest.

In another life he would  have been a fortune teller/palm reader.

Lets be like the Frickin Mericans  and their Halloween excess.

A scary 18,000 tonnes of uneaten pumpkins are thrown away each year in the UK, according to waste management company Waste Managed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgq8z8w1kxvo

Give the kids (and Cougar) some Neeps to carve out in to lanterns,that’l learn em. ;-) :-)

It would be interesting to hear from an insurers perspective, when there is ( potentially) deliberate damage to a vehicle.

Free keyring  ?

Ooooooo,Bonne Maman, get you.

As today is national poetry day,you can borrow my Vogon book of greatest hits..

The Vogons have all the answers,you just need to dig around.

Don’t be so quick to ditch the jam jar,nothing will look as good alongside the rocking chair and banjo.

;-)

The glass that I use the most ,is a smooth crystal .

It’s a tumbler style with a heavy base.

Weirdos who eat cheese scones

Reported.^^

That is pretty messed up to be fair…like a rubbish version of cheese on toast.

And your accomplice ^^

When the people that work there are competent,nice humans that are passionate about cycling ,and involve themselves  in local cycling events/races.

It’s also a big bonus if they trade small fixes for biscuits ;-)

I appreciate that all Fulcrum wheels may not be equal, but when the freewheel on my son’s rear (Fulcrum CX) died, I could not source a spare anywhere,so the wheel got binned. There are always sets of ( almost new)wheels on ebay/Facebook as people go for a lighter upgrade,always worth a look.

OP do you have a local wizard that could help?  :-)

for complete non cycling middle aged STWness I think we need a What Umbrella thread!

Whatever you choose RNP, please make sure it matches the new shoehorn

Bit of a pig to fit initially (c. 20 mins of swearing)

Tru dat.

Try fitting them in 33mm CX tyres…#closetotears

:-)

When I saw this thread pop up,I was going to post..

Stay safe,check the exits,and make sure your laces are tight.

Then I thought ,that’s a bit harsh,maybe it’s improved over the years.

Clearly not. ;-)

Lolz

For top level bodging you can also throw a Wolf Tooth roadlink into the mix.

Have used them in the past when using bigger cassettes.

Fine on gravel/easy trails,but it can drop the mech in to the crash zone,and presents a bigger lever if knocked.

As most of us on here have known for a very long time,he is, and always will be as described by Stewart Lee .

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/28/dude-i-take-no-pleasure-in-having-been-right-about-boris-johnson-stewart-lee

Was he ever really punished  or held to account.?

No

Will he ever be?

Probably not.

So this  horrible human will continue on his merry way,doing what he has always done.

Buy his book,buy his effin book!!

They should be ignored,then burnt when the charity shops skip them.

I will despise him and his kind forever

Go full ‘Captain Birdseye’ Sou’wester with your choice of warm layers underneath. FFS, it’s only walking a mutt ;-)

Unless of course,you are running,jumping and sprinting with said mutt,that’s a different thing/thread altogether :-)

This time of year,all soup (IMHO)tastes better when you whack some rice or pasta into it ,bulk it up closer to stew/goulash.

:-)

BITD I was going to miss a round  of a race series ,as my bike was out of action.

A friend* stepped in and loaned me their Killer V.

It was ( and still remains) the worst thing I have ever ridden.

* it’s a miracle we are still friends :-)

@mashr  and RNP  .

Their motocross venture passed me by at the time,so I went digging.  :-)

https://motocrossactionmag.com/biggest-disaster-in-motocross-history-the-story-behind-the-cannondale/

They really did bite off more than they could chew.

Shame,as it looked pretty good.