This is ominous, I have a pair of Pembrees and I love them. i was hoping to be able to keep them running for many years to come.

isn’t it the ones who ran away instead of at least trying to put the brakes on extremism the real cowards?

TBF I think they less ‘ran away’ than were quite ruthlessly and deliberately purged from the party by B0-Jo and Cummings in 2019.

The Tory moderates with spines, the Soubrys, Grieves and Gaukes of this world were largely absent by 2020.

Which is why all the moderate voters all headed off to swoon over Ed in his wetsuit.

Whilst it’s an easy pisstake, the Lib Dem approach was to combine Ed’s mildy daft adventures with a fairly steady of Drumbeat of policy announcements, interviews and panels, much of this lead by deputy leader Daisy Cooper, who was a constant presence in the media rounds during the campaign.

It worked.

Because Web 2.0 has created a vast network of facebook groups, Discord channel and forums where like minded people can go round in circles telling each other how clever and right they are and that everyone else are outsiders who just don’t understand.

50 years ago if you wanted to engineer that kind of dynamic you had to start a cult, now it just happens organically.

Kleen Kanteen have the option on a steel or steel and wood cap

I have one of these and whilst it’s very nice even this has a little plastic/silicon seal on the cap the make it watertight. Like the Mia.

It’s also not ideal for bottle cages.

Lovely ‘office bottle’ though.

Elite Mia, all steel construction with just a silicon seal in the lid.

The reason they’ve kept Farage at arm’s length is that they know that whilst approx 20% of the electorate love him and 10% could be won over the other 70% despise him with a passion. Having him join would drive away the last remnants of the socially liberal  pro-business support that they’ve already hemorrhaged chunks of to the Lib Dems and hugely drive voter turn-out against him.

Especially now Brexit is widely regarded to be the disaster it was always going to be and he remains the enduring face of it.

Any party with him at it’s head will have a certain floor in their support and almost guaranteed to be in the mix but hugely unlikely to ever have enough support to contest for No.10.

That’s the electoral calculation, there’s also the personal factor being that he’s a weapons-grade arsehole who’s spent the last 3 years lagging them all off and who will expect to run the party as his own petty fiefdom with zero bandwidth for anyone else.

Some carbon road disc forks have very tight clearances, hence why DT do a ‘Road’ version with a low profile lockring for 12mm axles and a ‘MTB’ version with a chunkier lockring that can handle bigger axles.

Used an Upride for a while and it’s hard to see how the bike could escape if you’d installed it correctly, have a mate who still uses one to carry his carbon Enduro bike and a few years into using it he’s had no issues.

If you have a frame you don’t want to clamp your options are either this or a fork-mount system such as the TopRide.

The Topride is solid and makes your bike a bit less of a wind brake but then you have to deal with a muddy front wheel inside the car.

The Goretex Shimano GF800’s that launched last year look like pretty much the ultimate solution to this problem.

Has anyone got any experience with them yet?

I like the DT/Schwalbe stuff, just be sure to put lots of tension on it when you’re applying it, get it right and it goes on beautifully, fail to use enough tension and it can wrinkle.

Also, if using it in a really cold space it’s a good idea to warm it up first, helps the glue work better. Only an issue in winter really.

Ringpay needed an app to manage it but once you’d gone through the faff of setting that up it was pretty seamless and the only time you used it was to check your balance and to log in every now and again when you hit your spend limit (which was a smidge annoying but I suppose it limited just how much coke and hookers a thief could get through before it automatically stopped them).

From what I can gather most of the other rings out there require both a Curve Account and an App for the ring itself. The more links in the chain the more faff and the more vulnerable you are to getting hacked etc so I was hoping to avoid this if possible.

If I’m being a ninny and it’s actual all pretty painless then feel free to tel me so, I just don’t want to have to end up dealing wit a rubbish, annoying app., have enough of those in my life already.

Any existing Tapster users on here?

He said star ratchets are difficult to manufacture to achieve a low failure rate in use.

Which is why the ratchets themselves are still made in Switzerland in DT’s HQ, hence why they’re expensive.

I’m very large of swede and find large POC’s work well.

If you witness and record something that you genuinely feel crosses the line, report report report.

Many terrible, dangerous drivers are blissfully ignorant of how terrible and dangerous they are, a word from the local constabulary may just help them change their ways before they hurt someone.

Others are fully aware and just don’t care, in which case the more they are reported the more likely they are to get points in their license (which they will care about because it jacks up their insurance) or eventually a ban.

If motorists started assuming every cyclist they encounter is recording them they may just start behaving a bit better.

I have some slightly ‘Clarksonesque’ family members and have mentioned to them that most cyclists running lights in daylight are doing so because they have integrated cameras. Caused a few raised eyebrows and hopefully a bit more consideration in the future.

Well attended. Around 250 people present, including the BBC (local news tonight probably).

That’s great to hear

Apparently I am a nightmare to buy for so.. massive clunking Xmas hint dropped in the missus’s general direction.

I suspect that Russia’s snuggling up to Iran and the fact that Israel need to keep the USA at least somewhat onside may have put that on ice.

Considering how important the supply of Shaheed drones has been to the Russian war effort I’m suprised we haven’t seen more shenanigans of this variety.

That is a formula OEM hub, could be a tricky to source but Spesh might at least be able to tell you exactly which model of hub it is.

I understand them wanting to rest Fort William but they could have at least given us an XC world cup at Dalby so there was at least 2 major UK event.

Rubbish news, love Fort Bill.

 

 

 

To be fair, for the average STW dweller with a garage full of tools and spares and the ability to confidently buy random spares online a good local bike shop probably is far from vital.

For the ‘average’ commuter, weekend warrior or beginner having that local support and advice there on tap is a much bigger deal, I grew up in a town without a bikeshop and it was definately a barrier for the less dedicated.

Same hub internals also means you can cannibalise one set to keep the other set going if you need to in a pinch.

Something with DT 350 hubs like your 1600’s.

Then your discs are less likely to rub when you switch them over and you’ll be able to just switch your cassette over by pulling the free hub off and transferring it.

Give me convenience or give me death!

the demise of the mates biking weekend

As much as anything it’s a reflection that the average MTB rider isn’t in their 20’s anymore, they’re older with kids, mortgage, job etc.

The sheer level of spousal negotiation and logistical organization that it takes to go away for a weekend these days means that for me it’s a very rare treat indeed, once or twice a year max and always booked months in advance.

Used to go several times a month when the weather was good but the days of checking the weather report on a Wednesday and going ‘Wales this weekend anyone?’ are long gone.

Truss blowing up the bond market and jacking up everyone’s mortgages a few years back didn’t help, for the stereotypical MTB’er that was a big chunk of the monthly ‘fun budget’ gone.

https://www.freewheel.co.uk/dt-swiss-m-1900-wheel-30-mm-rim-12-x-148-mm-boost-axle-27-5-inch-rear-sram-xd-whdtm193021r

Order it by 1Pm and you’ll have it tomorrow apparently.

Poor little scrap, so much life in front of her. RIP.

Fantastic actor, RIP.

Was up there for a week with the family in August, it  rained pretty much all day every day.

So.. go on, rub it in.

quite a few of the things which go bang were nearing end of life

And now they’ve gone to Ukraine they will need to be replaced, which means orders, which means jobs.

As a district councillor I have had direct experience of the corrosive effect illegal electric mopeds are having on the general public’s perception of cycling in general.

We’ve been trying to get some barriers removed from a local cycling cut through as they were preventing those with cargo bikes or adaptive cycles from getting through.

The flurry of letters we recieved from nearby residents were full-on “there will be deaths and their blood will be on your hands” type missives. A bit much when most of the riders using the route are kids on their way to the local secondary school.

Talking to the residents and digging a bit deeper it became clear that it wasn’t actual cyclists that had these people up in arms, it was delivery riders in illegal electric mopeds, every single one of the negative experiences that came up was with one of these, riding like muppets, no lights, on pavements etc etc.

We are forming an active travel group on the council which I intend to join to push for better and more connected safe cycle infrastructure in my city. We are going to be fought every step of the way and the illegal mopeds and the way the public conflate them with cyclists is going to be major factor in the opposition we will see.

We are also already seeing bike shops closing because the panic about battery fires from ali express specials has jacked up insurance premiums to a ridiculous level, even for shops who never touch the dodgy stuff.

If the police enforced existing laws and Deliveroo and Co were held financially responsible for any fines etc whenever one of their riders gets collared this problem would dissappear fairly quickly.

Built loads of these, my tips are.

Build from the back, using a t25 socket and clamping the spoke so it can’t twist (you should do that on any wheel build anyway but going in from the back of the nipple makes it easier. )  If you can get you hands on a drill bit with this fitting it speeds things up even more.

Prepare all the nipples in advance, the interface between the nipple and washer is supposed to be greased and, as stated above, you can use that to ‘stick’ the washers onto the nipples in advance which makes it much lrss likely that the washer will fall off during installation.

The PHR dome shaped nipple and washer arrangement is one of the reasons the DT high end alloy rims build up so nicely and way the washers spread the load is why their rims tend to be pretty resistant to cracking around the spoke holes, so it’s worth persevering with as you do get a better wheel in the end.

the visit from a state leader who wants tonnes of their output is a good thing for jobs and maybe Dem votes??

One of the things that isn’t often mentioned in the discussions about Western Military aid (possibly as it could easily be seen as a bit ‘merchants of death’)  is that every shipment to Ukraine secures or generates a whole load of Western jobs.

The Military Industrial complex isn’t exactly known for it’s love of progressive politics but I bet Lockheed, Raytheon and  co. have everything crossed for a Harris victory and continued support for Ukraine and as a group they are not without influence.

Anders is a good guy, a bit dry but very concise and measured, clearly Pro-Ukraine but doesn’t let that get in the way of a balanced analysis,  I miss the occasional snark from Perun the Aussie powerpoint warlock though.

He put a lot of meat on the bones of what I was trying to say on here last week, Russia has done an excellent job of managing its economy but they are running out of levers to pull and reserves to plunder. Gravity will reassert itself at some point.

As with most economic crises, it will take far longer to happen than it should and when it does eventually happen it will happen shockingly quickly.

How on earth can that be possible?

Because, at a fundamental level, a sizable chunk of the American public pays very little attention to politics but really objects to having to pay tax.

As a result, in a 2 party system there will always be a sizable audience for whichever party is perceived to be the one that will tax you the least.

People are happy to tie themselves in rhetorical knots to try and justify this morally but a vast swath of US political discourse can largely be boiled down to this and so long as Trump remains the candidate who is perceived as the lower tax option he will remain in contention because for a vast swath of America that is what decides their vote.

I remember reading a Guardian article about Russia going into Georgia over South Ossetia in 2008.

The comments underneath were a sea of “This is America’s fault, NATO are the real villains, Russia has a right to do this.” Etc etc.

I distinctly remember thinking at the time that those sentiments seemed a bit incongruous with my image of the stereotypical liberal Guardianista.

Of course now I realise that was my first known encounter with a Russian bot/troll farm.

Security guards from Naval bases in Vladivostok and from Nuclear Silos deep in the interior have been found on the front lines in Ukraine, they really are throwing every body they can muster at it.

Hence why I don’t think this will be a long drawn out 10 year war, the level of intensity is just so high and it’s showing no signs of abating.

+1 for ODI Reflexes, seem to offer a fair a bit of squidge without the squirminess some other softer grips have, they also seem to last well, my current pair are well over a year old now and still look and feel good.

Note that article is talking about 100% verified and confirmed deaths where there have been obituaries and proper funerals etc. It’s solid journalism but the number should be treated as a absolute base line minimum,

Russia has an active interest in obscuring it’s casualty figures and with the Russian military’s general lack of regard to reclaiming it’s soldiers’ bodies I think it’s fair to say the real number is considerably higher than that, possibly by an order of multiples.

Even in the highly improbable event that the deaths are really that low. 70,000 deaths is still an incredible amount of dead in 2.5 years, by way of contrast the US lost 58,220 dead in Vietnam but that was over 20 years from 1955 – 1975.

On average, the US lost 2.911 people a year in ‘Nam, Russia is losing a minimum of 28,000 in Ukraine, that’s an insane rate of attrition

Trump isn’t going to win, so there’s that.

I really, really hope you’re right, for Ukraine and so many other reasons.

Sanctions always take along time to bite and Putin took care to insulate himself against these by building up a massive war-chest of gold and  foreign currency reserves ahead of the 2022 invasion (he was one of the few people that knew it was coming after all).

Russia’s MVP’s so far in this war have really been its central bankers, they’ve done a far better than expected job of propping up Russia’s balance sheet and the massive restrictions they put in place to prevent capital flight have been pretty crucial.

In the meantime, competition for labour means that many common Russians have done pretty well over he lsat few years despite inflation, which has been a vital factor in maintaining public support for the war.

Putin’s calculation all along was that the decadent and venal West would lose interest and want cheap oil so badly that the sanctions regime would be relaxed once the EU starting hankering after cheap fossil fuels again, Russia only had to hold out a few years max.

Two and a half years in and Putin’s war chest is now largely gone and as a result the very big hangover that Dakuan mentioned (solid analogy there) creeps ever closer. Russia has handled this better than most thought possible but they have now burnt through every reserve and you can only defy gravity for so long.

As said before, I really do think Putin is hanging on for a 2nd Trump term as his best hope for victory, everything seems looks like it will come to a head towards the end of this year.