Apologies, jambo.

Glad to see you got out. It’s many a long year since I rode the SDW, but we’re entertaining the idea of a visit later this year.

Plan is
Day 1 Winchester to Brighton
Day 2 Brighton to London.

If we meet let’s not talk politics !

A fabulously intriguing soap opera with some real life high stakes that we’re all bound into. We live in Interesting Times…

Please, jambalaya, make your statements in correct English. Otherwise I can only infer that your statements are as accurate as your grammar.

Does anyone know if this chap actually rides a mountain bike ? He does come over rather roadie…

Genuinely want to know. I guess they’ll sweat the asset, so the trails will return to nature.

All’s fair in love and war. And make no mistake, this is civil war.

Go to a good physio and learn how to get it taped. I’m not a doc, YMMV.

Woman at work had a couple 25 years ago, is well medicated and completely back to normal. So, fingers crossed…

So, to be clear, my wife (who’s father was born in Ireland – he’s dead but we have his old passport) can apply for an Irish passport today ?

We then need to work out how to support ourselves in Ireland for three years…

This is the best news I’ve had all day.

More here…

front rack…

Screwed straight in. They survived 5 day Wales off-road coast to coast.

Fully loaded…

I mounted some gorilla cages, but had to get a mate to print up some adapters.

Yikes ! I don’t have a ‘change of wellies’.

Fortunately we’re not camping…

And in use…

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Alternative front luggage mount:

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and with luggage:

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BQ failed to get the Tara’s to fit.

For my recent Wales off-road coast to coast I used Gorilla cages. They didn’t fit either so a mate printed up some custom adapters, which to everyone’s amazement held up to 5 days of abuse. I used Alpkit 8 litre tough dry-bags in the Gorilla cages, about 2 kilos rammed into each.

Carhatts too small for me…

The loops on my grey apidura one wore through after two days of proper bikepacking, so beware, these are fashion items only.

How about Finale Ligure, if you like beaches etc ?

Thought it was always banned July / August ? Certainly when I was going there every year (2004-10) it was…

Shhhhhhhsh. FFS don’t tell folk about Mii & U (or any of the proper top stuff here in MK) it’ll get mobbed and ruined.

Love the Woburn loop but you really have to work at it.

I thought the gravel sections were supposed to be bumpy ! Love them as they are. I can do a 20 mile pseudo rural gravel loop never more than 5 miles from home…

Searing burning = something tearing…

Station side of the centre. Best bet Loughton or one of the nicer bits of the town centre above ‘the Hub’.

Certainly city of dreams for me, no irony.

Too late I know, but had you used the wrongly named Railway Walk in the north of MK you’d have found exactly what you wanted. I’ve answered this here for future reference.

Nothing like Holland, as you observed. Nor intended to be.

They’re there to allow you to get from A to B without being molested by cars, and they’re perfectly comfortable on a sensible bike with wide tyres. I use them all the time and they’re brilliant – for that.

However, if I want to ‘go for a ride’ rather than go from A to B I either ride in the golden triangle between the A421, A422 and western MK or up in the Brickhills.

Depends where they will work.

Lots of nice places to live inside MK (I live here and wouldn’t live anywhere else). If they’re at, say, National Rail, then Loughton or Shenley Church End are both nice, leafy, affluent middle class areas. If they’re at, say Siemens, then Middleton (which has the town’s best pub) is similar.

Plenty of easy train commutable small places nearby too (Berkhamsted is particularly nice)

If you can, get yourself to L’Eroica[/url] in Bakewell. Loads of inspiration, loads of folk to talk to and a massive sale of old bits.

Wheels: lots of new-old-stock out there but it’s best to know the rear spacing (could be 120, 122, 124 or 126 mm for 6 speed) of the frame and match that. I rebuilt for mine using nos hubs and second hand rims (and a tension gauge).

@lobby the Saumur[/url] event would be even better for you…

lunge, my diverge has the same head tube size as my 1983 Raleigh Record Ace (64 frame), and taller than my 1982 Road Ace (62 frame).

However, the old Raleighs do ride fantastically, probably better than an A1 Diverge would.

Aren’t the A1 and E5 frames very different (A1 frames are old Secteur frames) ?

I can only comment on the carbon one, which I have. 6’2″ I have a 61 with seat tube on max extension. I do have silly long arms and legs for my height. I’ve flipped the stem, loads of stack washers gives tops and saddle roughly the same height. I’ve stuck some 48cm Nitto noodle bars on it.

Lots of bad points – paint is coming off, seatpost is wearing where the pack is, tyre size limited to 36mm, one of the rims badly drilled (only noticed when converting to tubeless), luggage points not compatible with any racks, etc

An absolute and utter joy to ride though.

Just did Wales coast to coast off-road, the guys I was with usually cane me when we’re on MTBs, but they were on CXers and I left them for dead on the rocky downhills (and they had 40mm WTB nanos, I had 36mm X’PLORs). I honestly think I could do the passports on it, yet on skinny tyres you could win a ‘sporting’ (i.e. non-TT bike) time-trial.

Thanks, ninfan and Northwind, these are the type of insights I was hoping for.

I hate the zero sum games e.g. cars vs bikes because it’s always a false dichotomy, that only exists in the bigoted positor’s head.

The arguments on here are genuinely swaying me.

we were just told we were going straight to hell for any form of sexual activity whatsover by a except with wild eyed irishman with a beard and granite faced nuns.

FTFY

Marathons. Awful to ride but indestructible.

So, changing the name might so p’s off the old codgers that they leave and a new better organisation emerges. Hadn’t thought of that. I’m wavering…

Interestingly, mrs flap_jack tried to get a WI group going locally but wanted it to be cool and groovy, like the Shoreditch Sisters. However, she encountered so much resistance in the local organisation (despite backing from the very top) that she eventually gave up.

Maybe the WI needs a name change too.

Fascinating. I am clearly totally out-of-step with the singletrack massive on this one.

We have one. Don’t use it for post-number-twos but fantastic to ensure the crack is freshly clean before donning cycle shorts (infections down there are nasty).

I always ignored the CTC cos I thought it was a club for old git tourers i.e. trundling around the country with panniers.

Will calling it CUK change your mind ?

Or will folk in it doing bike packing do the job ?

Or neither ?

Touring is a minority cycling pursuit

But is it among the members ? I just did a bike-packing off-road Wales Coast to Coast last week, with some mates who would never call themselves ‘tourists’ (we did some CYB and Nant-y en-route). But it was a tour, as well as an adventure. And, for contrast, previous weekend I did the The Tweed Run.
In my view (and clearly this is open to argument), any ride that’s not a race, TT or commute must be a tour. You can do single-day tours (e.g. a sportive). And I think that’s what most of the members do.

Can you expand on why you think CTC is outdated ? I am genuinely interested.
I can certainly see that the ‘T’ should be maybe changed from Touring to something more general, so I can see that I could be wrong…

£1500 ? is that new ? Struggling to find it using my rubbish google skills…