Ordered forks on the 20th. Pestered support on 27th. Still waiting.

Alfa 159 saloon. Fits a ritchey timberwolf in with the front wheel off and with the correct engine (1750 tbi, 3.2v6 or 2.4 diesel) will surpass the required power to weight ratio whilst looking suitably bellissima. That giulia looks pretty epic too.

I’ve just replaced my previous new balance vongos road shoes with a pair of inov-8 parkclaw g280 to deal with the Chilterns mud. The inov-8s appear to be faster on the road and far grippier in the mud. Win all round for me.

While we are on the subject, has anyone figured out how to use the gpx adapters/shims with the outer seal?

We have a delonghi corso and a sage barista (when the student is back). The delonghi makes a nice coffee. The sage makes a great coffee once you’ve spent a one-off hour faffing to get the settings right for your beans. Overall bean to coffee time is maybe 60 seconds longer on the sage. When our delonghi dies it will be replaced with a sage.

I’ve been using rechargeables of various brands for decades though i’ve not got smart valves. The eneloops are the ones that i keep buying because they stay charged when not in use and don’t fail provided you don’t absolutely flatten them to the point a smart charger doesn’t recognise them. They do get inadvertently thrown out from time to time but we can’t blame sanyo/panasonic for that.

Xtar charger and panasonic (i think) 18650s from torchy the battery boy here. All working flawlessly here three or so years after buying them. They get used once a week for a good nightime mtb ride during the darker months.

I had a mk1 mx5 for 13 years. Utterly brilliant particularly the gearbox, handling and reliability. The early 1.6 was 115 bhp, which was ok in a car weighing about 1000kg but when the 1.8 came out they dropped the 1.6 down to 90 bhp which I would expect to be sluggish.

Sustrans 57: the wall at great missenden. 42m of vertical at 16%. It really shouldn’t be difficult but after a long ride and with cold legs from cake and coffee in the village, the narrow track, magnetic weapons-grade nettles, slippery leaves and a front wheel that won’t stay down conspire every time to have me completely gasping by the top.

A vote for Ryobi here. I have a Ryobi petrol powered hedge trimmer which has always started first time and never let me down in 10 years. Got a Ryobi cordless drill (drill, hammer drill and screwdriver) 5 years ago and still going. Just purchased junior his own one.

You do need to like the honda boy-racer school of design mind.

The picolax thread.

Chilterns

@bigjohn I bought an atkin troubadour a few years ago in denmark street when i was out looking for a takamine new yorker. It sounded and felt way better than anything else in the price/size range. It’s great for finger style, has beautiful tone and is remarkably loud for a small guitar. Thoroughly recommended and made in kent by mr atkin.

I shaved my head for several years. Started with double bladed blue cheapie disposables – they are just about ok and usually doesn’t result in injuries but they clog easily. Custom tooling made from a piece of thin hard plastic can be used to declog or you need to shave every 2 days.

The next step up is an old man’s safety razor with feather stainless blades. This gets rid of the clog problem but the first few shaves are challenging. You need to keep the skin tight and the angle correct or you gouge. A stypic pen or alum block is essential and lay off it for a few days if you cut yourself or you’ll snag the scab.

Then you can start a thread on the best safety razor blades though I strongly suspect there’s one already.

Edible doormice are indeed a pita around here, but they have the advantage of being significantly more cute than the squirrels, field mice and rats. We have a general agreement that the field mice live in the field, the squirrels in the trees, the rats in the fields and the glisglis in my neighbour’s shed. Noises in the roofspace for us tend to be birds in the eves.

@corroded – you can rectify the missed kona cinder cone right now on ebay. Everyone needs an n+1 retrobike and no it’s not mine.

Terrible terrible trophies. Golden boot trophy fell apart on mbappe and the golden glove was clearly a marrigold blown up and sprayed with Halfords finest.

Consultation response submitted. Get your responses in.

https://consult.gov.scot/environment-forestry/wildlife-management-in-scotland/consultation/subpage.2022-09-15.0619890324/

Does anyone make spd cleats and cleat bolts out of something more thermally insulating than steel? My feet suffer in the winter after about an hour with a cold patch that starts right over the pedal.

I’m already employing most of the suggestions in this thread including core and leg insulation, winter boots, thermal insoles, overshoes…

@shermer75 are you thinking in particular about ashridge or wendover/coombe hill by any chance. Utterly miserable this time of year. The difference between good ground conditions and bad here is quite astonishing.

@shermer75 are you thinking in particular about ashridge or wendover/coombe hill by any chance. Utterly miserable this time of year. The difference between good ground conditions and bad here is quite astonishing.

Vs

Chilterns here. Relentlessly muddy from early october to june but we do get plenty of variety from wet slop through muddy mud mud to wheel stopping clag. Then there’s the off-camber slippy chalk with flints and a barbed wire fence run into latimer. In the autumn the leaves, roots and rain combine to add treachery to the mix. Theres no sign of grippy igneous or sedimentary rocks but there is the odd erratic farm road brick. Mid winter it freezes making the offroad going a lot easier but the roads lethally icy. For 4 months of the year it bakes hard and the landlords look a lot happier to see us. We love the chilterns!

Tyres wise, I tried some narrow mud tyres a few years back and broke several ribs on the root they failed to grip. Currently on bontrager xr4s, great in the mud, roots and leaves but the flints shred them so it’s bontrager se4s next.

Led zep – iv

Then honourable mentions to

deep purple – made in japan
Rainbow – rainbow rising
Boston – boston
Dire straits – dire straits
Van morrison – moondance
Sex pistols – anarchy in the uk
Fleetwood mac – rumours

@trail_rat we too have the lantana that derek_starship mentioned. I’m competent with it. Mrsjonwe and the children (big ones who really should be able to use an advanced design) struggle with it and revert to the butterfly model and dangerous edges.

Now the issue I have is with some cans that have a low height seam (aldi – why do you do this?) – it struggles to engage or stay engaged. Any tips?

Rock n roll blue. Ride bike, hose bike off, squirt rnr blue onto chain, rotate cranks a few times, put bike in shed, go to pub, sleep, work, repeat. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. Sloppy mud, sticky mud, dry dusty mud, roads. Mountain bike, road bike. Good for about 40 miles in the most chain unfriendly conditions so just do it every ride.

Mighty impressive launch but who thought the massively overenthusiastic scripted buzz lightyear commentary was a good idea? Thankfully he was replaced shortly after launch by someone who was calm, technical and professional.

Grumpy of Herts who watched the 60s/70s apollo launches in glorious black and white.

I suspect most of us live in the uk where the main cause of bicycle failure is water and mud. As a result I use Morris k99 marine grease everywhere unless there are seals involved that call for silicone grease. No need to buy massively overpriced bike branded stuff, this works everywhere and stays put in our conditions. It’s on the pawls in my hope, shimano and various other freehubs and it works fine though don’t overpack the pawls.

Last time i looked it was about £5 for 500g.

Pinkbike review. TLDR. Can’t ride no-hands. Feels odd in corners. Hard to get used to. Solution looking for a problem.

My first car was a mk1 Scirocco. The sensible part of my 21 year old brain then part exchanged it for a mk1 fiesta in baby blue and rust. The rear window fell out whilst hooning the mighty 950 down the a46 near RAF Swinderby. I took it back to the garage and asked them to replace the knackered starter motor as well. The salesman explained that ‘the starter motors all do that’ and solved it with a dose of WD40. I never tested it’s fabled cornering ability as the Romans built my route to work. I got bored of its gutless nature and it got swapped for an mg midget which was ace but even less reliable and more rusty.

After a subsequent Saab 96, my boring brain won again and I paid a couple of hundred quid for a mk1 950. This time rust orange with added rust, a peeling black vinyl roof and the foot pump windscreen washer. It carried my marin palisades trail around the country along with my tiga 260 windsurfer. The board went inside with the mast tied on the vinyl roof without the need for a rack. In this configuration I drove out of GEC in Lincoln when we went on strike – two fingers to the company and I was aiming for a day’s surf at Skegness!

Paul smiths fit me well and don’t go baggy after 6 months like levis. PSA: Good deals at their online shop right now.

Another vote for brake rotor bolt. Love the photo.

Ah – I was doing the exercises lying on the floor and lifting the back of my head slightly but when I do this my SCMs are rigid so clearly activated. Will try doing them against the wall next time.

@kaiser – no worries, i started doing the exercises that you described this morning and think I’ve got the hang of it so please don’t add to your stresses looking for the videos.

@kaiser thanks for the tips. Any luck finding the YT videos?

Chapeau to Mr Chounaird and his family. I’ve always had a liking for Patagonia gear and this gives me more reason to continue to buy it in the future.

@funkrodent Too Bloody Old terribly upset their’s no riding on funeral day. God bless president. But not saying where favourite trail is as not relevant to topic of most intelligent leader on planet.

I’ve not had m447s but i’ve got various iterations of shimano slx brakes. Slx tend to go soft (long throw of the brake lever) if not used for a few weeks, especially if hung vertically on a wall. They come back to life with a few pumps of the lever, or in the worst case a quick bleed. The m447s are mineral oil and look to have the same bleed port on the lever as slx. The slx ‘funnel type’ bleed system is excellent and easy to use and i think m447/m445 uses the same. I’ve had no seal failures across many bikes and many years so unlikely that’s the problem.

<edit> woops missed the bit where OP mentioned brake pad oil contamination</edit>

Scotroutes – you were spot on with your analysis. The nds bearing was not seated properly. That caused the outer axle cap to be further outboard than designed resulting in the axle cap flange interfering with the rotor lockring. There was another clue – the cassette wasn’t seating properly with a couple of mm of the pawls showing. I’d assumed it was poor design work by ritchey (apologies mr ritchey) but it was the drive side bearing also not seated properly.

Anyhow i used it as an excuse to buy new bearings and the wiggle bearing press kit to play with and the timberwolf has been transformed back into a great bike.

That is a very fine point scotroutes. I will remember to tap the new bearings in fully on the rebuild.