specialised are very good with a big range of saddles.
a saddle with a groove will prob be the answer, specialized can measure your wife’s bum and get the correct width.
her current saddle sounds like exactly the worst option!

I gave my wife a fridge for valentines . you should have seen her face light up when she opened the door.

the adapter shown by fasthaggis is or was made by mavic.

i adapted v brakes to do as you require. i used two aluminium extension bars about 15mm by 55mm drilled with holes to bolt to the vbrake and give the extra radius required for 700 rims. very simple and very safe!
pm me and i can send photos which explain much better.

also a cheap cyclocross fork will work with either v brakes or better still, mini v’s

3 points then unluckily get another 3, now 6 and cacking yourself you’ ll get another 3. no thanks, take the course every time. and it is condescending sh!te.
though at 83 mph you might not get offered the choice

wicklow is a good call, or else get the train down to west cork ( beara peninsula or sheeps head ) , ring of kerry, or over to the west – achill, mayo or connemara. if you cycle from dublin to galway you leave yourself very short of time in spectacular scenery

the wife and i do touring for softies. we tour a nice part of the country for 7-10 days, 30-60 miles a day. stay in b n b s or good hotels, eat in the best pubs/cafes or restaurants. we use a 22 litre dry bag each for off bike clothes etc.
light weight makes the cycling easy, and somewhere comfortable to stay each night as she has no interest in spending her holidays in a wet tent !
we have had great fun , using what are now known as ‘gravel’ bikes !

i built 2 cx bikes with flat bars, my wife prefers flat bars as she never used the drops , the brakes and gears are now easier at hand. she has no problem with 30-40 miles a day on touring holidays
i then built one for myself for adventure races, holidays etc. however for longer distances eg 50 mile runs, i find my hands/wrists get sore, so i’m going to put drops back on to give more choice of hand position.
probably more important for older people – backs get stiffer and a slightly raised shorter position is more comfortable, i’m not necessarily talking about very upright – sometimes 1-2 cms makes all the difference on longer runs

Holy moly. Great advise all around. In essence don’t buy the X1 as they are sh1te More sh1te than mostly all other cars. Only buy the Macan ifyou were bullied at school and have a short wee micky I’ll have to Google dimensions for small mickies and if I qualify then the Macan it is.

the gla has a useless boot

this has been a great bit of entertainment.
x1 vs macan is a strange choice. there is some logic to it, but as with bikes, the choice can’t all be about logic.

i need a car with flat loading boot, leather upholstery, automatic and a pleasure to drive. i don’t want a big suv that needs clearance to land every time you want to park in the local town, therefore i liked the idea of the x1 – quite attractive, good enough performance and smaller dimensionally than the x3, q5 etc, and therefore easier to park.
then we have the macan, which i think is the best looking of all the suv range. and it is a porsche, a brand i have always wanted to drive, i was looking at the s diesel, which isn’t exceptionally faster than the x1. and i also know that it is bigger than the x1, more on the q5 size.

we already have a tiguan, my mates have q5, q3, and x3, i don’t find any of them that special for various reasons, so after many hours farting about on the world wide web, i have narrowed my choices to the above!
oh and more importantly – i have sat in most of the various options, and these 2 cars felt most comfortable to me

thanks for all the comments
boardinbob, you are correct, it will be full of drugs
bike buoy – hope that explains my illogicality !

thanks for all the feedback. i really love the style and class of the porsche, but when i tried it out, it wasn’t what i was expecting. granted it was the usual garage test drive – out through traffic, onto the motorway, back on short country road and back through traffic. not great for testing a porsche, but then thats probably most of our real life driving conditions.
it feels big and gives a feel that there is piles of power to move its 2 tonne bulk. but thats the thing, it didn’t feel like a ‘sportscar’ to me, it felt like a big heavy car with loads of power. and before anyone points out the bleeding obvious, many of the reviews describes its sportscar like qualities,
the x1 is a grand car, but obviously lacks the undoubtedly special feel of the macan. however in sport mode it was very perky and probably more gave me more encouragement to swing on a bit.
it may seem a strange choice of two cars, but for various reasons thats where I’m at.
i think i’ll go back and drive both again ( and try to ignore the salesman’s look that says ‘come on just buy the thing, of course its the best car’)

sorry wilburt, can’t do pictures. google them, the new x1 and and the macan both look well .
squirrelking you’re right, i can’t afford a real one i.e. a 911 at £100k , nor do i want one ! but thanks for your help anyway

nothing wrong wit skoda. just not this time !

i used to lust after a maserati, but its as comfortable as a go kart for day to day stuff. i also need a decent boot for work and mountain bikes of course

thanks for the comments
i have driven both the macan diesel and the bmw diesel. both with about 3k miles on clock.
one is £49k the other £32. bm is pleasant leather upholstered automatic. porsche is the same only more! on the test drive i was probably a bit overawed by the porsche, so difficult to get a real feel of it. it will be my work car, doing 18k pa. i love the look of the porsche but just can’t make up my mine if its just too much car for day to day

your entitled to you opinion, however horse racing is a fantastic sport loved and enjoyed by many, whether you are up for a bet or simply enjoy watching top equine athletes ridden by some of the fittest, toughest sportsmen in british sport

northern highlands of vietnam,last year cycled 10 days with backyard travel. through beautiful country, beautiful people away from the tourist trail.
hire bikes are basic trek mountain bike, some decent climbs on mainly quiet roads, mopeds the main traffic and a few rickety old lorries. some dirt track roads
an absolutely brilliant holiday and recommend backyard travel highly

interesting thread. my wife always holds the flat section of drop bars, not very safe so i changed to flat bars and she is delighted, can see around her and hands are right on the gears or more importantly, the brakes. i then put flat bars on my touring bike. great to see the scenery and easy to locate brakes etc.
however when riding over 50 miles i like the variety of hand positions that the drops give, and i find that when climbing out of the saddle the flatbar position is not as well balanced as riding on the hoods.
anyway, half the fun is tinkering about with different setups !

i like the inov8 roclite 315 as a good all round trail/mountain shoe. they are ok for a bit of road and cope well with slippy/muddy mountain decents. i have tried the salomons twice and found the toe box too tight.
google advice on decending, some fairly simple tips can greatly enhance your enjoyment.
it is brilliant fun. entering a fell race is a very quick way to improve. my mates pushed me to enter one about 8 years ago with the immortal words ‘you won’t be last’ i very nearly was last but since then have been hooked !

jura is a loveley wee island only one road out and back, but really nice( and flat). arran might be a bit too far south for you but brilliant for a weekend – mountain climbs and flat bits. great wildlife beaches and restaurants. also consider the ardnamurchin peninsula , awesome scenery.
i have toured these areas with my wife who is an occasional cyclist- 30 to 50 miles per day, very relaxed.

hi, i don’t know how relevant this is – i built up a carbon cyclocross bike to act as an adventure racing/touring bike, and at 19 lbs weight also as my road bike.
i have a 50/34 in front and a 10 speed 11 / 36 behind, the mech is an xt. it all seems to work well with a little bit of fine tuning occasionally due to my amateur mechanics

the axle length is different (longer) so you need to mess about with spacers, then you need to be careful that the spacers allow the bottom bracket to screw in far enough and not risk causing the threads to wear over a period of time, rendering the bb shell useless !! as i found out. you would probably be better building up a suitable chain set from middle burn

if you are staying in newcastle then the natural stuff in tollymore is a must. there is stacks of great stuff. a bit of google strava and garmin should give you a good idea. plenty for 3-4 hours

just read this thread, i don’t seem to have a problem with logging in/out. but i never get the popups everybody is talking about ( no idea why ! )

I have been looking at these bikes and the Tripster. eventually bought an ICAN ( chinese ) carbon cyclo cross frame (£340 delivered in 6 days ) and have just built it up, going for a spin tues night to test. flat bars at the moment for adventure races but will probably put drops on later. fully built it is 19 lbs .50/34 chainset, xtr hubs, trp spyre brakes. 30mm cx tyres. i hope it will be my summer road bike/touring bike with 25 tyres on – should be light enough

we had 12 days with backyard travel last year. they organised a brilliant trip with a guide etc through the northern highlands. they are very adaptable and can design the trip to suit you at no great expense. more of a tour on (basic) mountain bikes rather than a mountain bike holiday. we had an excellent trip and i recommend them highly

an awesome experience. car hire in vegas is/was very cheap. drive via hoover and stay overnight. we also stayed overnight at phantom ranch at the bottom. if you’re fit and used to mountain walks/fell running you can walk in and out. we took the overnight mule ride ! i am sure the flights are great but to experience it up close is the real deal

I was there in 1988 for the seoul olympics. and it was all kemchi (very nice but blows your insides out if not used to it) and spam , and dog.
probably irrelevant but – vietnam on the other hand has fabulous food

i have just bought a cx / trail bike frame and forks off these guys yesterday! if you google ican carbon frames there is a load of good info about. from my research they seem to be decent frames and a fairly reputable company.

thanks guys

hello dickyhepburn, i’m a horse vet too. i think we need a cpd meeting for mountain biking equine vets. plenty of cpd points and a days on the hills. should it be organised here or on BEVA ? either way get it sorted !

Just an update.
saint bb have longer threads on the drive side – therefore no use if the problem is non drive side.
nobody can thread titanium frame bottom brackets for helicoils
i bought one of these – ‘First threadless square taper bottom bracket’. it cost £40 from vernon barker. it appears to be a really well engineered, solid piece of kit, i applied loctite to the threads, it takes a bit of grunt to tighten completely home but now seems very secure. time will tell how it performs !

get a nice 26″ frame and 2 sets of wheels – 26 with mtb tyres and 700 with road or cx tyres. up front this won’t work with rockshox but does work with any of my fox forks.
you can now get 700 wheels built easily with rear mtb spacing , or buy something like mavic speedcity. use the same type of rear hub for both wheels then you won’t have to mess with changing brake/gear settings.
i think 700 wheels roll nicer than 26 wheels with slicks

years ago i bought my 1st full sus frame and my 1st disc brakes. built up the bike and took it for a ride round the backyard and back into the workshop. rode into workshop at speed to see how this full suspension would deal with the substantial upstep.
rather well as it happens and i entered the shed a heck of a lot faster than i expected, cue the new brakes which stopped the bike on the spot. OTB and put hand out – little finger dislocated, pointing nicely 90 degrees in the wrong direction. grabbed finger pulled it back into place and then passed out.

my wife and i are just back from a week in west cork, doing just that. we each use a medium sized dry bag. squeeze the air out and put it in a very old pannier or strap to the back of saddle, you can then take the dry bag into the bnb/hotel it is a brilliant way to travel light and tour an area. stay in good places and eat good food !

thanks very much, helicoil it is then !
might get the frame polished at the same time

thanks very much for the help guys. yes the threads on the frame are gone ( on one side only ), i found this amazing as i thought the strength of titanium would trash the aluminium treads first , but not so. i don’t completely understand the helicoil. have any of you direct experience of either of these options, the thread less bb is cheap to start but becomes dearer when i add the cost of 2 nd hand middle burn cranks

yes it handles great, i actually don’t notice it handling particularly slower than the road bike. it is a v brake frame. so – the front is easy, cx fork and avid mini brakes. at the rear i have taken v brakes and used a little strip of aluminium bolted to the brake arms to extend the brake pads to fit 700 rims . i saw this years ago on a forum, it is easy to fabricate, some day i will upload photos ! alternatively you can use a mavic adapter, it works well just isn’t quite as elegant, or use an A to Z disc adapter for the rear dropout
i find the brakes work well, if the terrain is muddy cx type going, the pads wear quite quickly. other than that they are powerful enough to lock up the wheels but wouldn’t have much ‘modulation’

i rode it last month in the gaelforce west race; long climbs, sharp descents and muddy rocky bog roads and it was a pleasure to ride. next month it goes for a weeks touring in carcassonne, it is an excellent n+1 bike !

i built up an old ( 26” titanium ) hard tail with carbon cx forks, flat carbon bars, 50/34 chain set and a set of 700 cx wheels with 30mm cx tyres. weighs in about 9 kilos
i use it for adventure races, trail quests and touring. i love it, it flies along nearly as fast as my road bike, its great on the rough tracks and lovely for multi day tours.
the bottom bracket is a little higher than a road or cx bike, and the wheelbase is 7 or 8 cms longer. it is very stable and very reassuring cornering on poor surfaces.
i should add that i think 700 wheels roll much better than 26″ wheels, even if they do have narrow tyres

i was in pcworld/currys last week to buy son a macbook. there is a substantial discount across the range, and also in currys an additional £100 cash back. we ended up getting a model 2 grades higher than the basic mbp for 999, the basic was 849 i think, plus the extra 100 off.