petrieboy – Member

“we don’t stock spokes we have to order them in”.

to be fair, try buying a single spoke in most LBS or even the big online retailers and you’ll struggle. thing to consider is they WILL order it for you. indeed they will order in almost anything you like.

the five lbs’s (of the seven in total round my way) have boxes and boxes of spokes and all will build you a wheel.

The bikehut (whose massive shop-floor-space is only equalled by the specialized concept enormo-store in Saltash) has a pitiful selection of spares and parts. They certainly don’t have spokes and their workshop is a coupe of square metres behind the desk with a workstand and slightly more tools than i have in my rather modest garage.

I hear great things from people on here about the expertise and indeed nice parts in their local halfords/bikehuts but sadly, i have heard some proper nonsense in terms of sales, advice and ‘my new bike doesn’t work’ fobbings-off from the staff in my local one. What i also like about my lbs’s is that they will advise you on what it is you need before they order it for you, and you don’t have to wait a week for them to fit it.

…oh or file spanner flats onto the top sticky outy bit and use an (whispers) adjustable spanner.

dremel or file a slot in the plug and screw it out anticlockwise with a flat screwdriver: plugs will doubtless be rammed in real tight so kids can’t remove it and threads may be keeping them wedged in.

(if you have a steady hand and pin spanner you could do the same but drilling 2 tiny holes in the top at 3 and 9’o clock.)

i bought a gore (oxygen?) windstopper jacket and it is suprising how much rain it keeps out, only my commute is 3 miles not 15 so not sure if it would ‘wet though’. Also have a fox convert which is great for pretty much all rain provided you reproof it from time to time. Both less hot than a ‘proper’ waterproof (which i have and now only wear in proper winter).

my cousin once got pulled over and fined doing 3mph over the limit in austrailia, on a highway (wide-ish dead straight 2 lanes) in the middle of nowhere. Apparently no one speeds, therefore anyone speeding even a little bit is conspiciuous and worth stopping.

I suppose you see this in busy motorways over here; I remember back when a speed camera was a real rarity, merrily doing 85ish on the m69 because there were cars coming past me at 95+, I thought they would get pulled over first!

…and SIS Go comes in 500g bottles too. A tablet ‘preparation’ will not fit much in the way of energy as the dextrose has a certain volume/weight: think of a 50g dose of SIS Go as being like a crushed-up golf-ball-sized/shaped tablet, and imagine how much fewer calories a little fizzy table will fit in. Diluted fruit juice plus nuun tablets might be a good alternative (I quite like it) but if it was me I would go for a few 40g sachets or 500g of a drink I knew I got on well with.

btw sis go is also excellent for hangovers :D

Sponging-Machine – Member

Watch out for that Plymouth ladies team, they’re feisty down that way.

‘ere Rich, you talkin’ about me bird? :x

crikey, what do you do when they forget to empty your bins?? 8O

it doesn’t come with any brake at all but i guess the fork is a ‘stock’ kiddie bike one, so is drilled for a front caliper brake.

betd also sell a nice and not ludicrously expensive tool to do it ‘properly’, or will do it for you for no extra if you post your cups to them. A mate bought five sets from betd to split between a few of us and they gave him the tool free. All five bb’s still spinning merrily (2 are in my bikes).

middle hole is fine to start with: the choice of holes adjusts the tension of the return spring so you could make it feel firmer by going ‘up’ one or easier for a little hand to squeeze by going ‘down’ one. As long as the ‘return’ of the springs overcomes the friction of the cable inner and outer you may as well go softer as its a back brake and less dangerous if grabbed too enthusiastically. (annoyingly, my lad’s balance bike is only drilled for a front brake…)

8mm allen key for the bolt, then octalink/isis fit crank puller does it for me. Then you need an external bb tool to remove the cups: beware the socket type ones as the ‘lifu’ one does not fit the left hand cup on gxp bb’s. Lots of grease on the bolt and splines when you do it back up again too. 40ish NM iirc, but it is etched on the plastic ring round the bolt anyway.

i like it that the nomad survived but the bike-holder and rack didn’t. Well-ard!

you can also get enduro cartridge bearing replacements for gxp bb’s which you either press in yourself (soft face vice and big sockets) or post the cups to BETD who will do it for you. they aren’t on the betd website but they do stock them: you just need to phone them instead. Mine have been lovely and spinny for ages and for only £25. Yes if they seize the drive side on could wear the crank spindle (not the left side as it has a softer aluminium spacer/insert) but
a) they will take three times as long to seize as truvativ ones,
b) you can tell if its seized before you get to the end of the street.

Mental Health nurse writes: I agree with tj’s ‘gradual taper (with the blessing of your GP!): I have known some folk to break them into quarters to wean themselves off a whole one as the last bit can be a bit ‘rocky’ for some folk coming off ssri’s. If you have ever forgotten a dose and felt terrible that day, it is a bit like that at the end for a minority of less lucky people…

If you can, see that someone close to you knows you are doing this, and that you trust their judgement to ‘send’ you back to the doctor if they worry about you coming unstuck, as you might not see it so well yourself. A good barometer for you yourself (often hard to recognise how your own emotional responses change) of you staying the same mood-wise will be the basics: ie what time you get up, whether you wash/shave, how messy (or messier!) your kitchen gets and so on. Excercise is definitely A Good Idea. Motivation, endorphins and circadian rhythms etc.

All the best!

13.5 stone in my riding kit and i use a firm. I had an x-firm on my ‘play’ bike’s pikes though.

yep. I have done this with both ends of my formulas though i cleaned exposed piston and then applies silicon grease to the edge of the piston with the pointy end of a ziptie.

Unfortunately once the tory press have their hooks into you it is very hard to come back.

agreed, despite the overall good reputaion of journalistic-ness the uk has, I find it increasingly hard to have any clear idea what our politicians are really like or how ludicrous their actions really are. Though I am sure the few non-tory papers are just as clever in their portrayals of the conservatives.

yeah! :D

iirc its a reeeeeeeallly long allen key. You might fit an allen bit on an adapter on an extension rod from a socket set, but i forget how wide the inside is to get it in there.

TheSwede – Member

Must be a Frenchman.

I am disappointed to read he is not from the motherland but actually Swiss. Not sure how well that little empty feeling of disappointment translates here.

excellent motherly behaviour: she might cringe about it in 10 years but she won’t forget it. :-)

At work i agreed 2 separate holiday/leave requests for next week a couple of months ago only to overhear 2 twentysomthing colleagues shrieking with delight that they were going to see Britney together. :?

Britney?

tails – Member

What I never understand is, people buy pricey shimano or raceface cranks then use a piece of shit bottom bracket.

dunno, but i paid £40 and £50 brand new for my ht2 cranksets as recently as 18 months ago. So I find stumping up the same money again just for the bb a bit hard.

However a sensible, so far reliable and relatively pleasant bike-fiddling job has been refitting enduro bearings to the old cups at £20 a time.

I’m riding to and from work today :(

Angel Summoner or BMX bandit?

no actual useful advice to give but…

four posts in and no one has mentioned Zaphod Beeblebrox’s Joo Janta peril-sensitive sunglasses?!

Sponging-Machine – Member

I would try and read it in the shop, but it always comes wrapped in a bag with a crap freebie.

..read fatmuthahubbard’s: he got a subscription for christmas and usually has one lying about in the car.
The other day we parked at the Downhill Paradise that is Gawton and he spotted it lying face up in the boot: he chucked it under the seat so the other ‘hillers wouldn’t laugh at him. The shame!

no pics but mine is a bit like chvck’s, only ineptly cemented together leftover bricks and paving stones. I would like to take credit for it but it came with the house, and is well sheltered, the right height and behind a little gate so fairly child-proof. Best barbie i’ve ever used!

definitely something worth wheeling you bike into lbs and ‘sizing up’ to be extra sure, and on a hybrid commuter i don’t think there is really that much to be gained by shopping around for weight, load capacity or even price really. Mine even had a parcel spring thing on it! I junked it cos it rattled and seemed rather pointless.

The only other thing worth considering would be if you have or ever will have kids getting one that is compatible with a rackmount baby seat (topeak i think) as they fit much more sturdily than seat tube ones and come on and off really easily. Oh and i second the ‘stabilising tubes’ particularly if your pannier bags are at all flappy. Its amazing what you can fit in a big ‘trunk’ (sits on top of the rack) bag though, and better for negociating parked cars, railings etc.

KINGTUT – Member

Yes I am.

And to prove it I’m turning up with semi slicks on.

I like that. :-)
I can’t get weekend off work/on-call, starting to feel rather gutted i can’t come. :(

i found ukip on my ballot paper just fine.

I also found many reasons not to vote for them besides the ten seconds it took me to get through the enormo-list of parties/candidates.

rookie mistake: always take on some small-packing trews and a spare t-shirt per parent!

I stopped on lap 3 to go for a wee

Nowt wrong with that. I stopped for a snack in the 2nd lap of my first race.

…yeah i think we might have actually had someone in like that! ^

I think he drew on his face instead of putting the pencils in his nose though…

steed/stable/rig/fleet.

Peregrine – Member

It affects us all differently – however I did me no good at all, the psycho ward is where it all ended.

Although i’m not sure we ever called them psycho wards, I long ago lost count of the number of otherwise fairly normal folk brought in to us wearing nothing but underpants and handcuffs and talking about needing to meet Osiris in the fountain in town. Of course, drug induced psychosis wears off after a couple of days for most people but what takes a lot longer to wear off is:
1) what you might have said or done while out of your box,
2) the unpleasant experience of hospitalisation, and
3) the implications of an acute psychiatric admission (not infrequently under section 136 then section 2 of the mental health act) on your insurance, driving licence, occupational health/job (depends how sympathetic your employer is), and visa status. Even if you could get travel insurance after that sort of episode, the States and and Austrailia wouldn’t let you in for love nor money.

Most people are lucky enough to be able to regularly have a big old smoke and just really enjoy themselves. But when you start having really odd ones like Alpin’s I really think its time to re-evaluate what else you could be doing to relax or have fun.

And I am a mental health nurse. And usually the things that come up here are a bit too wooly or undefined to firmly plant my flag in the sand but in this case this is definitely my professional advice.

I think the cover is leather as opposed to faux leather on the ti, and a bit more tidily attched to the base. But then my stapled cromo ones have not come undone in 2 years use.

Mr Agreeable – Member

I see from that BM thread that someone found IWH’s Twitter feed. Just in case anyone needs confirmation that he really is a knob of the highest order.

http://twitter.com/hamishanderson

..and still following this thread?

you won’t read his twitter now as he has blocked access to it.

*Waves at Lee*

[edit] oh and the link just up there ^^ now leads to a ‘not known on here’ page too.

*Waves again*

hey, second to last is my position! I managed that in three consecutive Soggy Bottoms at Newnham one year.

No shame in that: you finished!