i would guess not completely terrible in sunlight but probably quite juddery tearing footage on a bike

a roadie doesn’t have a “nice day out in the hills”, he has a brutal day out in the hills with momentary pain induced euphoria

Been round the shops today, so to follow up if anyone’s interested, in general:

Specialized were alright but still a bit gappy at the sides
Lazer was promising for holding it on my head with their fancy retention system but sizing meant i would have to go up to a large
Garneau (europcar wear them, never heard of them otherwise) was pretty good width and good for comfort
Kask was the winner (mojito) but not by much – the garneau one was good.
giro, bontrager were poor, can’t remember the others

but somewhat unsurprisingly it’s mostly down to whether you can fit front to back in a smaller size.. if you have to go up a size for that, the sides go out too. and sizing is different even between models in the same brand sometimes it seems.

cool, thanks. i’ve had a specialized a while ago what wasn’t too great but never tried a lazer..

What are Kask like?

racing has been good, yep!

camera bike on the inside of the final corner mid sprint is ridiculous though..

stiffness i reckon yes, your feet bend down over the back of flats with soft shoes, which isn’t great. not good for your achilles tendon either i find

I’ve got some seamtape (stripped from an old waterproof and some sealant) to add to mine eventually, but it’s not currently taped. That said, it’s got very wet in the past, and only a small amount of water has got in.

cool, was wondering whether i could get away with not sealing a fuel tank style bag and keeping anything vital (phone) in a separate waterproof case. Probably reasonably safe if i design the top to be covered.

I can see how seam tape works on flat seams but not sure how easy/effective it is to do for sharp angled seams or corners etc.. suspect a right arse.

for those making their own, how did you seal your seams?

If you want to spend loads of money, speedplay are double sided (because all the complicated stuff is in the cleat)

ss is crap when you have a long road to cycle down, or you’re really done in and have a climb you’d rather take easy. Other than that, if you pick a gearing that suits you, it’s great.

anyone had a look at the lezyne mini floor pump?

not used the floor pump but the others have been better than any other small pump i’ve used, wouldn’t hesitate in trying it personally.

sounds perfect to me..

watching the E3 harelbeke belgian cobbly road race yesterday the commentators mentioned that someone was on a CX style (in fit at least i think) bike – smaller with a massive seatpin – i wasn’t particularly paying attention, but what’s the reasoning behind it? just more maneuverable?

I think you might be after aurora/neo chrome plating

to imagine a scenario you really don’t want to think about, if a car hits the trailer at a speed which doesn’t mean instant flattening, you probably want that head to have some kind of protection around it.

Similarly, alpkit seem to have lost their supplier for cheapy sleeping mats – who’s the go-to now?

What’s the roof made from that stops it being the weak point?

meh, fireroads

I went on the dave yates framebuilding course a couple years ago – and i haven’t built anything since so this is not to be taken as gospel, and i have forgotten stuff.. Also i think having a full jig has an influence, as you can fit stuff and know it’s right before brazing to calculate other things.

The way we did it meant there was only one “vital” length cut where you can’t have a second go at your mitres (toptube to seattube) – pretty everything else had a little leeway or could be adjusted – mainly because one end is going into the bb shell where it can stick through a bit if necessary.

Order was: stick seat tube into BB, stick top tube into headtube, cut the headtube length (the accurate one), mitre the downtube-headtube joint, then into the jig – get the downtube length and cut it (inside the shell again so can be long, just needs more grinding after. Cleaning is a ball ache though, so try not to obviously!).

Chainstays were attached to lugs at some point and were also in the jig for positioning reasons (and no, i can’t remember how all that worked properly at all)

Then stick headtube to downtube, then top tube to seat tube, then downtube to shell, then chainstays to shell

Then fitted and measured seatstays (the basic sticking to the outside of the seat lug design) and put a cap on, then stuck them on, then stuck seatstays-seat lug, then seatstays-dropouts

So yeah – one of the things i got from that is that there’s no reason to make things difficult for yourself, especially if it’s a first time.. however you do it, if there’s a way to avoid making vital cuts and mitres without having the rest of your frame to measure against, take that option!

I know if i was making another frame, there would be a fair bit of adjustment and compensation throughout, depending on how the previous steps had gone. My filing fairly sucked though.

Using brass rather than silver is easier.. more forgiving for gaps etc if you’ve done a shiter with your filing

it’s cold, hell no.

160lm max for the “pro” one, it’s also ahem £38 though

all for shonky chinese deals but it’s really hard to find reviews/opinions on stuff that isn’t for seeing offroad

the rechargable is fairly important because i’m guaranteed to remember it needs batteries when i can’t get any

do those tests cover sprinting, do you think?

specifically sprinting up hill, i’d be interested to know if i’m pulling up.. (feels like i am anyway)

i also think technical/slow speed mtb stuff probably includes pulling up

if it’s this time of year it might be a little grim for a first time over that distance.. wait til the summer.

cool, thanks – good lfgss thread! lots of things i should have done but didn’t..

velocipede – Member

Always amuses me when you see a rugby player go off and a comment is made along the lines of “with some treatment and an injection, he’ll be ok in a week” – an injection of what exactly????

Read an interesting account of an american football player’s injury filled career, rugby is probably similar – very high pressure, highly physical sport.. basically the injection is all kinds of stuff, a lot of painkillers, and he’s not ok in a week at all. This guy did use HGH at the end of his career too (unsuccessfully) but the rest is legal.

http://deadspin.com/my-injury-file-how-i-shot-smoked-and-screwed-my-way-1482106392

not really related to cycling other than the kind of pressures people are put under to get results.

ice, snow, heavy rain, gales.

with 2:1 gt black has a couple short parts you’re probably going to enjoy better pushing.. inners is fine all the way round.

seen them talking to drivers cutting down the one way at canning st (and to bikes around there too)

has certainly been an increased police presence around the west end in the last couple weeks

i would like to see some kind of numbers for warnings/fines at the end of it..

normal lights: 5 pedestrians step out in front of me in the rain
super bright lights: none do

no answer – **** it, if it was someone that well prepared they’d have a phone too, let’s assume army.

would you ride any other bike that cost £70 new? would be my question.

you still have to ride the thing remember

there are a fair few bicycle couriers/companies in liverpool btw – though they will mostly be wearing something more comfortable than jeans.

i’d be interested to know if anyone has experience of rechargeable (pref usb) front “city” be-seen lights from DX and similar too..

is my ay-up 7.4v 2600 mAh lipo battery of any use to me with a solarstorm x2?

Well i remember once going so slowly that i fell over sideways into a ditch full of nettles. pretty similar.

If someone backflips the canyon gap or the oakley sender they’ve got it in the bag.
I fear you may be right. It shouldn’t just be down to one trick; the technicality and originality of the lines should have equal weight.

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Redbull-Rampage-Judging-Explained-2012.html

technically they do, though i imagine there’s some less than equal weighting within those categories going on to some extent.

advice from bike theives: http://www.tested.com/tech/458286-best-bike-lock-today/

(basically, a decent u lock, position it as tight as possible)

i’m no expert, but after extensive research i feel pretty confident in saying it’s some kind of rodent.

you should get the plastic elite ones, or one of the multitude of clones.