This Thread is a fascinating insight into people’s mindsets around these sort of topics.

Yep

When environmentalists argue we need to massively change our lifestyles, half the population call them hypocrites because they still use phones and computors, eat vegatables the production of which involved some sort of insect death, occasionally travel by car or god forbid take a flight every few years

Then when they find out that some of them live off grid, grow all their own food, and don’t use motorised transport, the same half of the population call them smug out-of-touch virtue signallers

It reminds me of a brilliant Russell Brand quote from before he went mad:

“When I was poor and complained about inequality they said I was bitter; now that I’m rich and I complain about inequality they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think they just don’t want to talk about inequality.”

Again, I repeat, I am massively skeptical of Critical Mass protest tactics, but I think these character attacks are unneccessary

Edit: I just reread your post @cookeaa and that really is a good read and interesting analysis

God it annoys me how casually people tape rims in videos, given that even when I dedicate an hour to the job I still so often end up with a poor seal

Honestly though, this is a distraction

I’ve already said I have major concerns about the tactics of things like critical mass, and that’s the point of this thread. So if people want to complain about these tactics I’m obviously not going to be rushing to the defense of anyone

There’s just no need to also attack activists’ character with right-wing myths. Especially when these myths are a much better description of the kids of these right-wing elites

So, @legometeorology, have you met this Bournemouth group and are you familiar with many of the individual members other activities, or are you going off anecdotal media appearances?

I’m going off my experience of people involved with extinction rebellion, critical mass, occupy, climate camp, and local activist groups, mostly in Leeds but also London and Bristol and prob other places

I’ve no specific experience with the Bournemouth group, but if you have any evidence that they are significantly different from the wider UK culture I’m more than happy to be corrected?

@binners, with all due respect, I hung out in these kind of cirles for a decade and you are just going off anecdotal media appearances

All well educated and middle class? Mostly, yes

All unemployed and living off trust funds? Absolutely not — that’ll be the Tory’s kids living off various forms of passive income

Here’s some of the things my friends in Leeds would do aside from critical mass:

> Run the local bike repair coop
> Run a local NGO educating taxi drivers about road safety, specifically with cyclists in mind
> Do the local school run — i.e. not for the own kids, but as the marshall guiding tens of kids home from school in high-viz
> Work for local NGOs supporting refugees
> Or work in what is to my mind very difficult youth work

All of which is work with pitiful wages

I went on a critical mass once — I thought it was a terrible idea and I never did it again

But the idea that all these protestors are unemployed upper class elites is a myth that I at least first heard Farage spout

They need to stop mucking about changing wheel size incrementally. Just bring 36″ wheels to the masses.

And they keep the £400 rear mechs well away from the ground too

Another bunch of trustafarian bell ends pissing everyone off and claiming to do so in the name of ‘cyclists’

I agree it could do more harm than good, but this trust fund crap is just propaganda made up by the likes of Farage

Given the number of gravel bikes with suspension of some kind coming out, I’d argue that’s incorrect for some roads. A significantly larger diameter (which this isn’t) could provide a smoother, faster ride without the weight, complexity, cost and inefficiency of suspension.

The correct answer then is 700 x 50mm gravel tyres

The reason 650b gravel bikes exist is so designers could retain road geometry but use larger volume tyres

This looks like a way to necessitate MTB geometry (in terms of chainstay and front-centre length) but use gravel volume tyres (~40mm)

Why? It’s not like the pebbles of gravel roads need more roll-over

Paywall unfortunately (and I couldn’t get 12ft ladder to work)

https://institutions.newscientist.com/article/mg25934523-500-fighting-climate-change-means-avoiding-doomism-as-well-as-denial/

https://institutions.newscientist.com/article/2387728-spreading-climate-doom-may-make-it-harder-to-halt-global-warming/

The larger “opinion” is (paraphrasing perhaps as I’m not going to watch again for a direct quote) that these environmental groups care more about principals than fact or outcomes.

Yes, I guess that’s part 1 of his critique, which I didn’t really challenge (assuming part 2 was the critique of protest tactics)

I have less to argue with there. Nuclear is one example as you point out. GM is another. To be fair, I don’t really know enough about either to have a really firm opinion, but I do feel they have been rejected by some environmentalists in a principled way, rather than a reasoned one.

On the other hand, principles can kind of act like heuristics, which can be good decision making tools.

So being vegan, for example, will almost certainly reduce the carbon footprint of someones diet dramatically, but there are contexts where eating meat is lower impact. It’s impossible to do a full supply chain analysis of every single meal choice, so it makes sense to just be vegan as a heuristic for lowering the impacts of one’s food.

Being born. Dunno why im here at all really.

me not ever existing at all would make no difference whatsoever to anyone.

@singletrackmind and @reluctantjumper, I tend to feel similarly, and I find the arguments against feeling this way quite weak (I mean, if we’d never been born, no one would miss us, as the idea of us existing wouldn’t have entered anyone’s mind).

I am convinced there is a way to reconcile those feelings with a good life though. I actually find meaning specifically in the act of not having kids, for example.

Also, this little animation helps. It’s absolutely brilliant:

https://vimeo.com/107395294

Bear with it to the end

I wish it hadn’t taken me 25 years to be confident enough to dance and 37 years to sing

@dangeourbrain

It’s from here:
https://projectxii.nl/

Looking back, the Starling Beady Little Eye isn’t a beautiful as I used to think it is. I do prefer full sussers when they look like hardtails

Some steel full sussers are stunning:

I think the Orange Subzero I has as a youngun put me off aluminium hardtails for a long time

Utterly brutal and I still cracked it

That said, I realise modern alu frames with modern parts are very different. I still buy steel almost exclusively, but I accept this is largely for aesthetic reasons, and the practical fact that single speeds are always easier to find in steel

There’s a lot of mention of how this won’t fly in a democracy, but the key problem there is that the people most affected by climate change don’t vote in our elections.

I don’t think anyone has mentioned casing, unless I missed it

I run a 2.6″ on the rear of my hardtail and never have tyre stability problems, but it’s an enduro tyre so the stiff casing helps

I used to run a 3.0 Minion on a 29mm internal width rim and I found that to be great. When I added a Rimpact insert, I had the pressure down to 10 psi and it was still stable

In contrast, I ran a Schwalbe 2.6″ with an XC casing on a 23mm or width rim years ago and it was genuinely dangerous

Hope Tech Enduro rims were only 23mm internal a few years ago remember

Cotic use steel on full sussers for performance:

https://www.cotic.co.uk/geek/page/SteelFullSuspension

@kormoran, did the boiled one last as long as the raw one?

The Merlin looks better than the Triban, and the Ridley PJ posted better still

In response to that video: I don’t know what I think of Just Stop Oil. My gut feeling is that I can’t imagine how it’s helping anything. But I’m extremely conflict avoidant, so of course that will be my gut feeling.

What I can say is that, for someone as subscribed to evidence-based think as the presenter claims to be, he draws upon embarassingly little historical evidence to make his case. Zero, in fact. No mention at all of how anti-slavery, civil rights, women’s rights, and any other protests were received in their time. I’d guess that the response to Just Stop Oil is not dissimilar. There was probably a large chunk of the population that said to abolitionists ‘look, I agree with your aim, it’s very noble, but it’s simply not feasible to abolish slavery completely and you’re being overdramatic’.

So it’s very easy to point to GB News and say ‘look what they are saying about Just Stop Oil, obviously it isn’t working’. But the right wing media has been saying all along that environmentalists should focus their protests at people in power instead, then when Greenpeace draped banners down Rishi’s (empty) home, they immediately replied ‘not like that’. It’s pretty clear that all they will tolerate is things like petitions, which don’t fundamantally change anything.

Pinkbike is prob worth it for the fatty at least

It may not be the site with the most traffic, but it’s free, easy to use, and has the best search functionality of any secondhand bike part site I known of

I’ve had loads of good sales through there

I could write a lot here if I had more time and emotional energy spare, as I’ve been on both sides of this, but I’ll just chime in on two points:

Talking/listening: yes this can be extremely helpful, and listening can be just that. Trying too hard to help can make things worse. For me, any sorts of ‘it will get better, hang on in there’ comments often just make things worse. Yes, it will pass. Then it will come back again. If you friend hasn’t been talking these things through with people, opening up may be immeditaly liberating and hugely helpful. For me, having been in and out of depression for years, talking remains useful to a point, after which I recognise myself spouting the same true but unhelful c**p and need to move on.

Suicide: talking about this is a massive taboo and it shouldn’t be. There is, counterintuatively, a potential to overreact, which backfires in the long run. There is a huge difference between daydreaming about wanting to be dead, and actually tying up a noose or stepping out in front of a train etc. A lot of people have experienced the former to some degree, and I actually believe that anyone that hasn’t at some point wished they could simply disappear is mentally ill in their own way… When I opened up about suicidal thoughts 12 or so years ago, a few people freaked out and I felt I was being treated a little like a young teenager by some. One friend confiscated my slackline. I wanted to slackline damnit. Cut forward a couple of years, I actually had a few very serious attempts, and didn’t talk much about it as I had previously felt completely misunderstood. Basically, if you ask the suicide question, just understand that thoughts, plans, and actions are very different things. Perhaps also make sure your friend understands this, as it’s easy to overreact to your own thoughts — I did this for years, now I can just say to myself “ah, there’s the suicidal ideation again”.

This turned into a longer post than I expected. Hope it makes some sense.

I’ve got the Roubaix

No problems so far, they held air well from day one and haven’t punctured yet

Pretty light if I remember correctly, and were cheaper than most other things I was looking at at the time

Depends on the drop, 425-500g:

LEV Ci

I think I’m meant to put a link

https://www.stifmtb.com/collections/seatposts?gf_31735=KS

I’m actually performing a set this weekend with my (as of tues) wife, at our own wedding party

I wrote all the songs, and the second happiest (or second least-miserable) is called Almost Worth Living, and it takes that idea entirely seriously

The happiest has a very upbeat melody, but climaxes:

If I’d never been born
the world would be a little different
in a million different ways
none of which matter
to anyone alive

There are puddles of lead on the surface of Venus for God’s sake

Yes. And the melting point of lead is 327.5 celcius. So clearly, pretty much all life, including microbial, would be a goner.

But this year the average surface sea temperature in Florida is 38.4 degrees.

That’s hotter than your average hot tub. It’s not livable in by any earth-based animal that can’t get access to colder water.

End of. Water too hot to live in, and we enjoy it for shits and giggles, largely oblivious, because our average IQ is woefully inadequate.

@chevychase I completely agree, I think you misunderstood me as well.

My point is that the FT article accuses doomers of sensationalising, that continues to say things like ‘no climate scientist thinks we are soon to see venus-like conditions on earth’. That is itself sensationalising, because no one I know of is claiming we are heading towards a venus-like state. If we were, we’d all be dead before we got a few percent of the way there.

@Edukator, I agree with you, I think you’re misunderstanding me.

The reason I consider those kinds of comments unhelpful isn’t because I think they describe a future that isn’t possible.

I find them unhelpful as they take the worst case scenario as a given.

You, in contrast, say thing like:

there are probably enough fossil fuels to burn to reach CO2 levels associated with the Cretaceous anoxic events

which I have no problem with, because you’re not saying that we will inevitably burn them all and extinct ourselves.

We may, we may not.

curiosity got the better of me so to back myself up, these are the kind of comments I was thinking of, from early in the thread:

The Earth will recover but we won’t be part of the recovery.

We’re doomed the planet will adapt

eventually there will be no human race – the end

fwiw @Edukator, my realism, if that’s what we want to call it, is quite close to yours

@Edukator, that wasn’t leveled at you nor anyone else in particular

It’s just I feeling I’ve had at times, but I’m certainly not going to go back through 36 pages just to name names

To be fair, reading my comment that came accross too strongly — I don’t feel that the thread has tended too much towards doomism overall, I just remember reading occasional comments that I felt strayed too far in that direction. For example, comments along the lines of ‘we are f**ked until we seriously reduce the population, and if we do not do it Gaia will’

The FT article does have a point, and there has def been a bit too much doomerism on this thread for me

On the other hand, the author accuses doomers of hyperbole, then preceeds to repeatedly refer to the fact that scientists do not think the earth is heading towards a Venus like state…

Seriously, I’ve never heard even those most pessimistic about climate change claim that we are on track to turn the Earth into Venus

There are puddles of lead on the surface of Venus for God’s sake

I think seeing a psychotherapist is a great idea. Well done for taking the initiative.

So, I’ve been working as a researcher in the environment/climate space for 15 years or so, and I would certainly not take the issue(s) lightly. That said, if you find yourself in a kind-of mental paralysis over it, I’d consider that an unhelpful reaction.

For a start, there are plenty of other things just as dangerous as climate change. Biotech, nuclear war, rouge AI, pandemics (engineered or otherwise). Existential Risk researchers (academics studying potential apocalypses, essentially) are not even sure if climate change should be on the list of existential risks. I’m not trying to give you more to worry about, just trying to put climate itself into perspective and highlight how absurd it would be to try to live day-to-day while holding all this in mind.

Avoiding the news for a while may not be a terrible idea, until you’ve calmed down a little. Perhaps more important though, would be avoiding social media, where you’ll encouter people regurgitating psuedo- or actual conspirary theories about climate change and other things, which could easily embed any feelings of hopelessness and despair you may have. It’s difficult to remember that these people are a shrinking minority when they are so noisy.

In the end, if you are doing everything you can do without making your life too miserable, that’s all you can do.

Well, there is always more we can do, but put your mental health first. I’ve seen enough burnt-out environmental activists to understand that not doing so doesn’t help anyone.

Not wanting to be facetious here

20 pages of bulls**t and crosshair has still just managed to out-troll himself

You’re not a fan of free speech then?

Deride it, mock it, and correct it (if you can , without telling people to **** off), but don’t deny it!

Online communities are allowed to do this thing called moderation

If people post racist comments, vicious personal attacks, links to multi-level marketing nonsense, or simply non-bike posts in the bike forum, posts may be removed, and this doesn’t make STW the spearhead of some authoritatian anti-speech agenda

It merely helps STW not become 4Chan

Obvious conspirary bulls**t about climate change is another prime candidate for removal in the name of sanity

Totally depends on the specific tyre/rim combination

I run a 29 x 2.6″ Vittoria Agarro in a frame that officially only clears 2.4″ — that gives me 5mm clearance either side, I’ve had no rubbing, but that’s not much mud clearance

What’s your current tyre and what’s the clearance like?

fwiw I tend to use allen keys to measure clearance to the nearest mm

That is pretty heavy, but I doubt the weight is the main thing making it feel dead, especially if you don’t mind it on the road. From the pics I just googled, it looks like you have very long chainstays for example, which prob doesn’t help

My gravel bike is likely the heaviest on here, as it’s a steel frame and fork and I just added a Rohloff (so +800-900g, but it didn’t feel any slower after to me). I haven’t weighed it, but I’m guessing about 11.5kg, which is the same as a stock Shand Stoater. But I do have quite snappy geometry so I find the ride feel to be nice, and it only feels sluggish when I go to larger non-slick gravel tyres.

https://road.cc/content/review/133605-shand-stoater-road-bike 

I totally agree that a lot of environmentalists have dropped the ball by opposing nuclear, but that does not take away from the fact that fossil fuel interests have and are the main issue here

Not only have they been spreading misinformation about climate science for decades, but they have also been central to the anti-nuclear movement since the 1950s and an oil baron even seed funded Friends of the Earth in the hope that they killed off nuclear

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/28/the-dirty-secret-of-renewables-advocates-is-that-they-protect-fossil-fuel-interests-not-the-climate/

Could be maybe not getting on with the sealant? How much are you using? Are you checking levels every 3 to 6 months and topping up if needed?

It could be the sealant isn’t up to it. I def had enough in there, I’d actually just done a tyre change.

Sealant shaken too

Perhaps it is time for me to go for the obvious Stans option. Although from what I read, it’s these bead-level punctures where Orange seal tends to be a little better

I will try some Orange regular seal and go from there I guess