If you already have a clutch mech may I throw a Paul’s Chain keeper into the mix?

By far the neatest option, I have mine on a 1×10 Fortitude and it works beautifully, zero noise and yet to throw a chain.

If these had proper distribution they’d be everywhere, lovely little bits of engineering.

Actually in the process of beefing up my Cyclocross/Commuter to make it a bit more suitable for ‘dad duties.’ Currently eyeballing a Cannondale CaadX disc. Disc brakes and tougher bigger tyres are definitely the way to go when you’re towing a trailer but make sure whatever your buying has dropouts that will work with the hitch.

A decent range of gears is a good idea too, steeps hills are bloody hard work with a trailer. If we lived anywhere near proper big hills I’d probably stick a triple on (oh the shame) but as it stands I should be able to get by with a 50/34 and a big cassette.

Bar wise I’d go for the widest drop bars you can find, getting yourself into more of a ‘road’ position can make long flat drags less of a chore. I use my MTB with the Chariot gor offroad and I do miss the drops if we have to cover any distance on tarmac.

That’s just my experience from the past year of nipper shuttling.

Oh man, me and my Vinyl, got loads of coloured, picture disc, gatefold etc but my fave may have to be.

Anthrax/Public Enemy: Bring the Noise – 12″ White label single

or

Clutch: Passive Restraints EP – 12″ on Earache from back in the day

Mind you, Baroness’s new Live in Maida vale EP on acid etched clear vinyl with gold/black splatter is a thing of beauty.

/Nerd

What’s the name of the charity? Let me know a contact number or e-mail and I may be able to put you in touch with someone who could help you out.

Yup, 2007/8’s I reckon, cracking vintage.

Another vote for open pro’s, built well with 32 spokes they are astonishingly tough for the weight. For a traditional build with 23-28c tyres there really isn’t a better choice.

The only downside is if you want to run fatter (32c +) tyres.

I’m switching to 35c tyres and disc brakes on my new commuter and I’m going to give the DT Swiss TK540 disc brake touring rims a go, they’re a bit heavier but look strong, have a wider profile and no braking surface so they’ll hopefully look ace once they’re all built up.

Lazer make some really nice glasses, they’d usually be out of your price range but they’re on sport pursuit on the cheap ATM.

The only ‘nice’ part would be from Radlet to Stanmore/Brokley Hill.

If the uphill M1 junction roundabout with traffic coming from your right at 60 MPH counts as ‘nice’ in your book then fair play sir, you are a harder nut than I.

Had some proper close calls there.

Provision for cyclists, haha that’s a good one, the average Radlett resident feels that you should feel blessed that you’re allowed to so much as smell the exhaust of their gleeming white Porsche Cayenne as is whistles past inches from your elbow.

Proper cycle infrastructure that genuinely improves your survival chances? That may delay getting little Samantha to public school by ten seconds, we can’t have that!

*ahem* more seriously, no, just get a hi-viz gilet and festoon yourself with a few serious day-visible rear lights. (L&M Viz 180, Hope district etc) and MTFU. It’s not the nicest commute but still better than being sat in traffic on Elstree hill.

I’ll see if I can get a Garmin connect file out of my mate for the rest of the way into London.

VW T4/T5 Kombi

End of Thread, depending on what your definition of ‘a fortune’ is.

I ride St Albans-Stanmore so go through Radlett (large chap with beard on White Cannondale) I fall in beside quite a few people heading into Central London.

Seems that bashing all along the A5183/A5 and then into Edgeware is a popular route, if not particularly quiet or scenic.

Know guy who rides from St Albans to Shoreditch, I’ll ask what route he uses

That kid and those like him are more of a threat to the world’s fundamentalist morons than anything the U.S. Neo-cons ever did or could ever do, how utterly inspiring.

Sadly I feel that he and those with similarly cogent, calm and rational viewpoints have a long hard road ahead of them both in Egypt and in the rest of the Middle East.

Best of luck to him though.

Took our nipper out (very very carefully) for the first time when he was about 7 months, he loved it and it sent him to sleep better than anything else we’d tried up to that point, transferring a snoozing infant from trailer to cot soon became a well honed skill.

From about ten months he was more than happy to go for longer, faster road rides and after about a year we started venturing off road. Unintentionally Got him airborne at the FOD at 13 months, he didn’t even wake up!

Mind you this is in a Chariot Cougar 1, which has pretty decent head support and suspension, without this we’d probably have waited much longer.

As a rather broad chap 2 inches off my back wheel is very desirable real estate in a headwind, my personal record was on the Garmin rideout when I looked round to find a conga line consisting of twelve of the sneaky buggers grinning sheepishly at me from behind their radars.

Protocolwise it depends on how they arrive on your wheel, you’ve gone steaming past them I feel it’s well within their rights to hop on, if they’ve latched on and said hello then fair enough I’ve done it a few times on the homeward stretch when I’m knackered.

If they’ve crept up behind you and not announced their presence then that’s a touch off and frankly dangerous so Glupton’s options 1-3 come into play.

Best pit I’ve revisited in modern times was in Brum, Slayer world painted blood at the 02 academy, second half of the set was brutal

The O2 in Brum does tend to have a very lively crowd, the fiercest Gig I’ve been to recently was the Machine Head/Hatebreed double header there in 2010, a swirling maelstrom from start to finish I tell thee.

Most ferocious ever? Probably the Stampin’ Ground gigs in pub basements, only time I’ve ever been properly knocked unconscious was against the downstairs bar at the Flapper.

Tory governments

Crikey, wonder what the SCR scalp rating on that would be?

http://www.itsnotarace.org/%5B/url%5D

As a proper sweaty individual I’ve long had severe cramp issues on long hot rides.

I now swear by electrolyte tabs for keeping them at bay. The Maxim ones are good but I’ve now switched to Nuun, great stuff.

Similar situation last year when we had our first, road rides tend to be the bit easier to fit into that precious 2 hour window.

Don’t despair though, once they’re a bit older you can get a decent trailer for the MTB and bash round the woods with it, much more fun + mum gets a break.

hatter, that argument assumes it has to be one or the other. It doesn’t

Agreed, Inception is an example of where the original premise was well worth turning in to a film.

However, there are only so many great plots and ideas out there and now the studios are under huge pressure to crank out big spectacle pieces regardless of whether they have a brilliant appropriate screenplay ready to roll.

Inevitably they will at some point end up grabbing onto an existing bankable IP with ready made characters and plot themes (see superhero movies again) or having to crowbar characters and plot into the required CGI whizz bangs, at which point we have the crux of the problem this thread’s about.

Was a huge Neon Genesis Evangelion fan in my student days so fully intend to go see Pacific Rim, on the other foot I also thoroughly enjoyed the beautifully moving, thoughtful and superbly acted Lincoln, came out feeling genuinely enriched by the experience. Horses for courses.

I can understand the industry’s dilemma; with every new film widely pirated online the minute it’s in cinemas the big studios are definitely moving towards ‘spectacle’ films that really benefit from being shown on the big screen. See the current flood of superhero flicks for evidence of this.

A cerebral character based drama translates perfectly well on your laptop so people are that bit less likely to download it and to go see it at the Cinema instead.

As a consumer base we tend to get the products we deserve.

Phew what a bun fight!

Kittel better run and grab a lottery ticket before that incredible luck runs out!

I generally don’t cycle on the pavement as a matter of principle as I don’t want to give ammo to the Daily Mail brigade. I will occasionally nip along an empty pavement if safety demands it but it’s very rare and usually to avoid some kind of motorized SNAFU.

However, the minute my boy’s wobbling around on his first bike I’ll be riding wherever he goes and where he goes will probably be (at least sometimes) on the pavement where a safe cycle route is not present.

We will be respectful, polite and sensible, anyone who takes umbrage with that, well, no helping them really.

Personally I’d rate them pretty highly for having a suitable spoke in stock, many shops would have taken one look at that and said you’d have had to buy a whole box of straight pull spokes so they could do a repair.

From the shop’s perspective this is awkward but understandable, straight pull spokes are still pretty unusual and few shops would want to spend £50+ on a box of spokes that they’re unlikely to ever use again in order to carry out a £15 repair.

Top marks for getting you rolling again at a minimal cost, if you’re that worried about the appearance of your bike… clean it!

Fractured mine at the 2011 Big Dog, hurt like buggery but healed in about 6 weeks, the wrist’s never been quite the same since though, still feels weaker.

The ‘Oooommm’ sound about 1:10 into Burning Beard by Clutch

http://vimeo.com/5024884

Oh, and my nipper getting tickled.

The irony is that probably the cheapest mail out that little Gideon’s had in years.

£10 for a decent quality burger is pretty much the norm in most decent pubs round here, non-story, move along.

Had a 53 plate 156 twin spark sportwagon for three years, a bit fond of oil and occasionally melodramatic with the warning messages but went like a good’un.

Recent Alfas seem to be much improved and so long as you look after them properly, don’t skimp on servicing and don’t rag them to death they’re lovely if rather eccentric cars to own.

If I wasn’t already lucky enough to be in possession of my dream van I’d happily have another.

So….

http://www.raileurope.co.uk/Oslo-Copenhagen

Functionally, not that much, the main appeal of the Pauls is the fact it looks super neat and tidy, even compared to other dedicated 1 x 10 devices.

Use mine with an 11-36 block and Shadow Plus mech, never lost the chain and it never makes a sound, great system.

Ian Brown mooching round the services on the M40, scouting for Krispy Kremes.

He really does walk like that all the time, very strange.

DezB – Member

Aesop Rock and Sage Francis

Ooh, nice – can I recommend B Dolan, Cadence Weapon, Subtle and Nocando to your good self..?

You most certainly can.. and just did, *totters off happily to have an online rummage*

After well over a decade of rock puritanism and furious opposition to anything even vaguely ‘urban’ sounding I’ve got quite into my thoughtful Hip-hop, Aesop Rock and Sage Francis in particular.

Also now dabbling in Dubstep so I can’t help but feel my musical taste is travelling in roughly the opposite direction to how most people go when they hit thier 30’s.

No Coldplay for me yet, my wife has strict instructions to euthanaise me on the spot if that happens!

Ditto, my Chariot runs perfectly fine on the cowled drop-outs on my fortitude.

I hear Chariot are even working on a system for 142 x 12mm back ends, talk about every base covered.

I really shouldn’t, being about to move house and all and with the nipper only 15 months old but….

I went though the Reading/Leeds ‘go mental and burn everything on the last night’ era and survived, he’ll be fine.

Pitchshifter and Sick of It All on the main stage, those were the days!

+ 1 for very grippy for thie speed.

Don’t get too hung up on UST, standard protection casing ones with a big slug of sealant work just fine, especialy if you have a compressor to get them mounted.

You’ll see the sealant coming out through the sidewalls for a bit but that soon stop as the holes fill and job’s a good ‘un.

It was the big monkey arms that gave me away wasn’t it? Damn my simian profile!

Don’t get the chance as often as I’d like but inspired by discovering new I indie record shop has opened within walking distance of my house I dug out my double 12″ gatefold of Baroness’s The Blue Album, damn, there’s a slab of wax.

I’m 6 2″ with long monkey arms and ride the 20.5″

I’m guessing you’ll be a medium, but as always there’s no substitute for slinging your leg over one. Worth the effort though, great bikes, mine did 15 miles of dusty bridle ways towing the nipper in the chariot yesterday.