Road – the BB5 on the rear is either so tight on it’s dragging OR merely decorative. Neither of which is ideal. TRPS might be a good shout. LBS on Saturday methinks!

Many thanks

Paul

Thanks fellas.

Some time with the kids and enough spare to pedal off the booze lard.

Boom boom! He’s right you know….

Brill – thanks all. I quite fancy a fence type thing. Perhaps I should get out more …..

Not BB5s based on my experience, unless you want to be chuffing about with cable tension during every ride. I will follow this thread with interest for a replacement.

aha – where does that come from please?

West Lancs Moors for me. Oldham central is horrid, but lots of nice folk. Nice places to live around there, mind, and the hills are never far.

Go. It just gets a load harder once kids hit secondary school and parents start ageing. Mrs Please refused to go to Nz for a 2 yr stint last year predicated on not being able to leave her folks. If you don’t go the’what ifs’ are uncomfortable. Good luck as i don’t think there is a right answer.

Marin and penmachno as a oner is good and not fat from Snowdon. There’s a hotel just outside capel curing which is fair with bar, and Bala can be entertaining, white lion i think or The Goat is a bit cheaper. Depends what you’re after.

Thanks fellas. Usual slop fest in the rain. Might go audaxing instead

Phineas & Ferb. I know it’s Disney and hence evil, but I love it.

Went NYC to Newark in a cab – $70, part of the turnpike was shut so we found ourselves being given a distinctly alternative route – in a stretch limo. Amusingly strange end to a top weekend. NYC is a place where $70 doesn’t go far – so why not?

Racing snail – many thanks – i have taken the bearing out and had a visit to the LBS – the bearing is unmarked either externally or on the seal, whic has you might imagine is brilliantly helpful. The link takes us to one that looks very much like a Cane Creek notional ‘standard,’ but it’s not as deep as the one that cane out, again, unhelpfully.

Thnking it’s time for a new bottom cup, bearing & steerer crown.

Thanks again.

Paul

Clubber – fair one – could do. On other press fit ‘stuff’ I’ve had the bearing collapse and not seize in that manner, yet! ALways a first time.

s2000 and share it with a mate with a van/ estate. I am presuming you’re not racing and hence riding up and down the country every weekend?

OR

Get a paranoid riding mate who drives everywhere and refuses to be driven. I have one – lovely chap.

What about a Sabbath? Ti, from Macclesfield and I very much like mine – the Bikeshak in Altrincham even did me some good wheels (Hope 36 hole rear, Pro 3/ CXP 33 front)) in the RRP because they’re ace and I’ve been going there for a bit, or just to make me get out of the shop.

Either way – a top result and they do ‘test bikes,’ which certainly convinced me. Apparently there’s a disc braked version in prototype rolling around too, in case your Ma is thinking bigger loads and hills. Either way – nice ‘problem’ to have!

About a year out of mine which is similar to the Shimano external threaded units (XT), the Hope ones rather longer.

However, have got a new Hope press fit sat on the bench to go in and the tool just turned up, so will be finding out if there are more long lived. Doubtless you could critique the nature of a press fit but as the bearing inner and outer races are held distant from the frame evening if the bearing collapses it shouldn’t do too much mischief, save ruining the ride.

It is a bit disappointing that everything is going press fit and not threaded. At 17 st and riding about 200 miles (on and off road) per week i am not sure i can see that there is a user advantage from my perspective. Apart from ‘working on a bike’ involving a deadblow hammer.

What he said ^. Some LBS do it ‘properly,’ some are a bit more flexible. Which works for me.

Fantastic – many thanks. Thinner is better for me!

Liking the bike very much. But your lawn needs a bit of work!

TomH makes a fair point – stuff is getting better made all the time and improving annually and if we all predicated our views on the past then we’d not have full suspension bikes, discs or owt else as the early versions were generally poor. However, didn’t Time make road bikes in the early 80s out of carbon so the application isn’t ‘new’ as a consumer leisure product? Is there any reliable data on failures as I’m sure there are horror stories for every material?

Luddism has it’s appeal for me at least. Not least as you can actually ride through Lud’s church in Staffordshire – it’s short valley in the rocks – recommended, but a bit of a road schlep to get there.

It is a material I dare not touch. Perhaps I’m a luddite. I don’t think being 16 st has helped me with the longevity of bits. Frames and bars have been bad, but to each their own, and was on the big Airbus and the seats are carbon, looked very cool indeed. Just not for me on bikes. Good luck with it.

At 110 kg it’s Maxxis for me and the occasional Specialized on the back. On the front whatever you fancy. Did manage to split 7 tyres in 7 rides on an innocuous bit of trail near Marple. My riding mates were not best pleased for some reason. Schwalbe are particularly easy to tear in my experience, which is a shame as they’re fast and grippy enough.

Anthem X 29er is pretty racy and really rather well specced, it is an XC bike. Rode it down The Slab in Dalbeattie and if you’re going to do that sort of thing regularly I’d recommend a bike with a slacker head angle. It’s good for long distance adventures on the proviso there’s a minimum of bowel loosening descending.

Ripon Sportive if you find you’ve a yen to ride all over the place. Albeit it’s not until June. Boo. Hiss.

My second hand Hope mono/pro 2 onto magic cxp33 with 36 spokes at the back and 32 at the front. Stiff, long lasting and very strong, not to mention all the spares are easy to find. So far a pair of rear wheel bearings has been the worst of it. You can find lots lighter, but all depends on the extent to which durability matters. I am 17st and wouldn’t touch factory wheels after last time, supposedly bombproof, lasted 2 weeks.

Good luck to the OP, but a bit more reflection before hitting ‘send,’ may be no bad thing. Yours from Manchester

Not cartridge bearings then. I love ’em. Why spanner if you can use a drift and dead blow hammer?

Hi Onzadog – many thanks for the note – I’m running the Olympics – all I’m seeking to understand is whether or not I need to strip my existing road wheels to reuse the CXP rims OR – just flog them on and use the MTB bits n pieces I’ve got lying about. i’m also after a 36 hole disc hub – if you know of such a thing lying about…..

Cheers

Paul

Thanks fellas – went with a VW Touran for £8500 in the end, tried Mondeo, V50, Toyota Avensis but in terms of value for money and wifely acceptablility it wound up being VW. Coluldn’t being myself to do a 60k+ mileage car, albeitk the agent put in a valiant effort to get me to buy an Audi A6 and A BMW 5 series, on the grounds they’d be more fun. She was also cloer in age to my daughters than me. Kids these days…..The remaining £1500 is nearly right for a bike to work Croix De Fer with some upgrades!

Thanks fellas. Good to get the collective view as the Golden Love Barge (3l Omega) is tragically wheezing its last.

Clayton Vale is ace, but not on a road bike with panniers. I know, the shame.

Fantastic – cheers fellas. So an old MR2 and a roof rack it is then……

Is the Vectra option a woeful one?

thanks fellas – to be fair it wasn’t too bad on the road, just a shame my old office is now the halfway point. It is not a town of the beautiful people ……

Cartridge bearings for me.

A joy relative to the loose bearing numbers. Same for wheel bearings, headsets and anything else that contained the slippery spherical blighters.

Fantastic. Thanks fellas. Fettling awaits…….

Oh yes. Most of my bikes are worth more than my car.

Taupo. We were going until Mrs HP decided that she wasn’t at any price. Luckily I was over excited about it and making good progress with NZ immigration.

Barely any tension in the house and every now and then the ‘well, you’ve dstroyed my dreams, love’ doesn’t always make for comfortable times at the dinner table. There are kids involved so it’s a case of just cracking on.