I've only read a couple of articles from this months; both seemed pretty good.

Last issue was excellent.

But odd.

I glanced through the titles, and they all looked quite dull. But on reading them, they were all excellent.

Easily worth whatever it is I'm paying.

Conservative.

Lib Dems have policies made up to appeal to as many people as possible, rather than to actually make sense.

Pensions, power, immigration: their policies just don't add up. Shame really as their candidate would make a great MP.

Can't vote Labour in this area as they don't have a candidate. Probably wouldn't vote for them if they did though. Gordon is a one trick pony: if there's a problem, throw other people's money at it.

Get drop bars and use cork tape (I'm using some Cinelli gel/cork tape). It's way nicer than those horrid grip things and is a sensible price to boot.

Obviously you have to put up with the jeers and catcalls from your so-called friends, but that's a small price to pay.

A woman who killed a cyclist in a time trial event in Cambridgeshire was given 21 months in jail.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8529091.stm

Suggests sentencing is not uniform across the country?

Isn't he being sued right now for sexual harassment? And not just for being a bit forward in the office either.

I think you have to remember what both Labour *and* the middle-of-the-road Conservatives had managed to do to this country up until 1979 to see why Mrs Thatcher did what she did.

Only five years earlier, in 1974, the National Union of Mineworkers effectively forced out Ted Heath's elected government.

British Leyland were almost perpetually on strike for one reason or another; it was a wonder they produced any cars at all, they were so busy destroying themselves.

"Managed decline" was the phrase that the civil service used at the time. Our GDP had been overtaken by that of East Germany (*), and really all we could hope for was to gracefully crumble into ruin and irrelevance.

Of course there is much to criticise in what happened after 1979. Perhaps the biggest mistake was the doctrinal adherence to using money supply figures to determine interest rates, driving them far too high, with the consequences that TJ and others have alluded to.

Now, where did I put that flame proof suit?

(*) Of course, they were faking the figures.

Sounds awesome!

Went to work 🙁

I thought that this year's Deore chainset no longer had Hollowtech II cranks (still HT2 BB). I would guess that means that they're heavier and/or flexier than the SLX, XT, or last year's Deore LX.

I think it has also been claimed that Deore HT2 BB's are not as well sealed as the XT ones. Don't know if that's true though.

EDIT: could get some used XT cranks on the classifieds?

so I don't see the bank newly-returned-to-mega-profits contributing much to that!

Since RBS and HBOS are now mostly owned by us, we get their profits.

I thought the Conservatives were going to scrap ID cards. So why is the "scrap ID card" bubble only in the LD bit?

Who's going to bail out RBS and HBOS next time if Scotland is independent?

If you don't have the nifty tool, you're not going to remove it.

If you do have the tool, put the tool on the FR, use a QR done up quite loosely to hold the tool in place. Put spanner over tool. Then get a very long metal tube (I have a 2m length of old climbing frame pipe) over the end of the spanner. Then just undo it. Comes off every time without any fuss or agro.

Well, you've gotta be a fekking deranged lunatic to vote Labour…..

I actually can't vote Labour here. It turns out that our Labour candidate used to be with the Lib Dems, but was kicked out. Unsuitable suggestions to the ladies, or something like that.

So now he's been deselected by the Labour party as well, but it's all a bit late.

The tories got booted out because they completly brought the UK to its knees.

Short memories around here.

At the time the economy was actually doing OK, but there was a deadly mixture of sleazy politicians and internecine warfare over Europe.

Won't the curvature of the earth's surface mean that the bullet fired from the gun will have further to go to reach the ground, and so land later?

Very helpful with a bike I bought from them recently.

I don't understand what the problem is here. I've got a few bearings in my bike and finding out ways to make them last longer/cheaper would surely be good.

Criticizing the experimental technique seems fair enough, but just generally being gratuitously luddite seems a bit, well, petty.

What am I missing?

Kids are more open to speaking to you than if you're on a larger bike or on foot patrol.

e.g. a WI DOS Eno freewheel?

http://www.whiteind.com/singlespeedgearing/freewheels.html

Or a flip-flop hub?

I think you'll find no-one cares what lycra looks like. It's all about performance.

This used to say something deeply profound that would have transformed this country. But re-reading earlier posts, I can't see the point now.

Sigh. This must be a troll. Oh well.

I think if I was a citizen of some third world country I'd pretty unhappy if some rich western country dumped a load of it's sink-estate, social-experiments-gone-bad, small-time crooks on me.

I'd want to make sure they were securely locked up, not free to abscond as soon as they could prise their GPS tag things off their legs.

Apparently you have a long hot soak in the bath; the plastic then becomes much more flexible and can with care be pulled off your leg.

Salt mines could work though.

Well, there must be something to this 29er drop bar thing.

Went to Brandon Country Park with my eldest son last night. After swapping bikes he thoroughly crushed me on Plumb Buster. Normally it's the other way round.

Saw a badger though, so that made it all right.

Friend of mine has white Stan's rims. Apparently it's just paint, and wears off eventually. YMMV.

Where are the trails of yesteryear?
EDIT: reckon I'm too illiterate to get this.

Sam – thanks!

I actually kind of like the silver spacers. They look better in the flesh than they do in the picture.

Cheers!
Luke

Again, just for the record if anyone else is trying this.

OK, seems better today. Cinelli cork/gel bar tape, bars angled down less. Saddle moved forward a bit. And no more slipping off the back of the bars! Yeah!

Still not totally convinced drop bars are going to work for me though; feels a bit as though I need either longer arms or a shorter stem. Maybe I'm just too short, being almost at the bottom of the range of heights Sam suggests for this frame.

I should say that aside from struggling with the bars, the bike is lovely to ride. Very happy with it!

EDIT: in case I forget, thanks go to Sam himself, and Roger at Head for the Hills for this bike. Plus a number of people on the classifieds selling me other random bits (including one item which still had the original free packet of sweets and was practically brand new, and another which came with a free waterbottle).

At least in the UK I think you would want to read up on child protection legislation first 🙁

My son (who is a tad shorter than me) seems much happier now with his 170s than he was with the 175s.

I bought some waterproof grease online a while back (Sapphire Aqua 2, chosen for the nice name).

Some of it went into my freewheel's sealed bearing in January to replace whatever was there before (which had lasted 3 months before seizing).

The original bearing was an Enduro; the replacement was an el-cheapo from Ebay (+ the grease).

If I can remember, I'll report back next January on how it's been doing.

Definitely seem better for going up hills.

They do look daft though (unless you've got a bike designed for it with a longer head tube).

[Just for the record in case anyone else comes upon this thread.]

Great for going up hills or accelerating – the hooks are much better for that kind of thing than risers, which in comparison are a bit rubbish.

Pointed the bars up a bit this morning which helps. Same bar tape (new stuff not yet arrived). But still slipping off the end of the bars just on flat – but bumpy – bridleways.

I also suspect the bars are not quite high enough. Stem is 90×35.

Children are not terribly impressed but who cares what they think?

Seems like whatever you do someone on here is going to look down on you. I hugely enjoy riding around on my rigid SS. Yet I don't have a beard. It's amazing I can hold my head up in public.

"All Mountain Bike" What a stupid title.You can ride any bike all over a mountain.

+1

That "all mountain bike" thing is annoying. Could you really take a bike up/down *all* of any given mountain? Take Snowdon for example. Could you realistically ride along the Crib Goch ridge? I don't think so.

(Now someone is going to come along and say that's their regular XC loop they do on their rigid SS).

oldgit – the stack and rise is there to try to get the drops at the same height as proper bars. If you had a frame designed for drop bars, it would look a bit more sensible.

The levers, at least to me, don't seem any more or less awkward than regular flat-bar levers.

EDIT: not offended though…

Another picture, slightly better angle.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try pointing the tips up a bit more, and some grippier padding.

skateboard grip tape? do you get a nosebleed holding the bars in that stem?

I've now got some cork/gel tape on order from CRC. That might help. Not noticed the nose bleeds.

@miketually – the saddle angle feels fine; I think my photo has a somewhat skewed perspective on it. The tips of the drops are about an inch below the saddle.

When you say further round- do you mean towards or away from the tips?

TJ – you can't be a proper dictator without a Ministry for Truth and Justice….

Could try going to Mumbles?

So, even if I could make it work, I shouldn't ride it as it would be very hazardous having lots of other people laughing themselves stupid and collapsing in front of me?