The legality of riding a bike on a footpath is buried in a lot of essentially feudal law. Many old routes of access were placed in to footpaths as the owner did not want to have to manages the route for horses to go over. That bracket of either foot or hoof is no longer suitable for the uses that we have for them as cyclists. There have been a lot of decent articles ( http://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/access-all-areas-a-rights-of-way-officers-view-part-1/ ) about it but riding just legal routes often depends on where you live.

I often find that an approach of stop and let walkers/riders through and a smile gets a good response. If you get a “You are not supposed to ride this.” they get the response ” Yes, silly isn’t it.” Smile and you are off. Most of the time I don’t see anybody.

Just get out and ride wherever you fancy, but don’t damage it and most people are just happy to see you out and about.

+1 more for hope and GXP converter. The SRAM ones just creak when they are not grinding. It gives so much pleasure on a ride not to have the bike creaking like an old gate all the time. I now have to sort out why I creak all the time. Do hope do people upgrades as well? 😀

Sorry, but the first thing I thought when reading that was:

Black or white, rich or broke
We’ll cut prices at a stroke
God bless Hooky Street………

SRAM GXP bottom bracket removed and Hope BB inserted. No creaks and groans at all (apart from rider now having 20lbs of sticky chalky mud attached to bike).

😀

Is the equation:

Parents get priority over 14 weeks a year
Non-parents get priority over the rest of the year

If this is the case the OP’s gripe is that the three/four spring classics clash. This will not always be the case with Easter moving around so is it just this year’s classics being an issue?

How many parent’s in your company take those weeks off?

There are a lot of variables here so your company may be saying the right thing in the wrong way, but it is a bit harsh considering the first bit of the equation above.

I think it may have been Robert Louis Stevensen who said:

“Those who take the serious only seriously and the humorous only humorously have really understood neither.”

FWIW if you have an emotional reaction to the music that is separated from the person who made the then you can still like it. Good music and tunes will outlast the makers so it may be a moot point when they are dead. Wagner was a fascist sympathiser and very few people even think about it when the Ride of the Valkyries is used in an advert.

Summer only. Shallow tread is ok in non gloopy wet, but if it gets claggy then it does not cut through or clear well.

“Sitting up ther like a fairy on a gob of lard.”

I know what it means, but I have never seen a reference to faries sitting on lard anywhere else.

Good Black Country one:
“Yow’m yampa yow am.”
Self explanatory really.

That’s a mate of mine who thought that it might raise a few giggles going down the motorway. I have seen a few tweets from people that have clocked it so he seems to have succeeded 🙂

Is that the film with the kid going for a pee with his parka jacket and interrupting his parents in the middle of some horizontal jogging?

Good film that I may hAve find out again.

The main issue with synthetics is that they allow the bacteria that live on the sweat to colonise the fabric. That is a polite way of saying that for sweaty smelly bods (like me) that end as expensive very smelly synthetics that smell as soon as you put them on even thought hey have been washed, rewashed then washed again. They are amazing at wicking away and drying quick, but that is not much good if they leave you alone in a pongy garment. Before you say it these are the items that get Bio washed at the correct temperature. They just end up honking. Merino does not suffer from this in the long term, or short term for that matter.

You have to have horses for courses, but I have ended up with merino base layers, some wool medium weight and fleece/synthetic heavier weight stuff.

How about you ask for the evidence? If you go in to ask them because you may have to have the cab looked at as you were aware of the situation, with plod behind you, and you were minding your Ps and Qs. So not aggressive, just asking.

It looked like you gave them 3 separate calibration events as well so they will be able to give you good solid evidence.

Supper’s ready by Genesis. All 23 minutes of it. Very cheesy and prog rock, but I liked it.

Fireworks! We had a great display with that lot.

Campag super record rear mech. Still got it and works fine. It was some 25 years ago as well so why it was in the skip I will never know.

It depends on the position you want on the bike. If you look at the couple of images of 29ers above you will see that the racer wants the head down arse up mode. To do the stem is slammed with a negative rise and it gets just about the same level as the saddle. When the sag of the forks is added it will be a proper racer’s position. However if you crash and swing the bars around there will be a lot of contact with the frame.

As long as you know what you want position wise, buy what you like. Try and get a test ride and as long as you. Are comfortable who cares what the internet says 😉

Get in touch with your local rights of way officer. They will treat it seriously and it I found them to be very good at tackling hogweed. As others have said it leave the area very sensitive and you will probably have to keep it covered from direct sunlight for a few years.

Lastly do not phone the Environment Agency as they will not be able to do anything about it unless it is on land that they own. They don’t look after any of the rights of way, but do promote the tackling of issues of non native species.

The short answer is that this needs to go to court in France to provide a test case. It is a brave and committed person that does this and I wish him all the best in this.

If it is a protection racket, whether it is legal or not, it needs challenging. It feels like they have had enough of this and want to settle it once and for all.

Best of luck.

Current earworm being fed:

Seahorses – Love is the law.

Contains my favorite line:

Strap on Sally chased us down the alley. We feared for our behinds! 😯

Double Polaroid…..

Most events off road have been pretty good. With regards to the courses the bike has to have elements where overtaking is possible so you cannot have it as all single track and techy down hill, it is a race after all.

The best advice is to practice the run after a ride. There are quite a few guides on how to do this so see what works for you.

They are often very relaxed and supportive races, so be prepared to ask to get past people, if you are faster, or pull over if fast guys come past. That goes for both run and bike. Often the faster guys tell you what they are doing and ask to go past, but don’t expect you to do it in daft, or dangerous places.

Do it and have some fun.

Just heard that Jimmy scored 49 in 50 overs after opening the batting. I put TMS on expecting to hear the worst and and doing lunch to the sound of England batting well and pirates being discussed on the radio.

Must be summer.

What a stage. Looks like almost everybody came of at one point or another. Unfortunately sometimes luck is not on your side and you puncture/fall/get hit (as did some of the spectators who got punted into the ditch), but that is what makes it a spectacle. Cycling is not a glamorous sport, but that was one of the best and most gripping races I have ever seen. To cap it all this is the start of a 3 week stage race.

Why bother to think about the guys that are out I think that Talansky, Niballi, Contador, Porte and few of the others will give us a race to remember.

How thick are they to start with? You could hire a planer/thickneser and then sand them down. If you want to add in the routing out of the tongue and groove you may actually be better off just buying good quality pre-finished oak and save the expense of all the work and still having to finish them off. What sort of area are you trying to cover, but the way? I have a small kitchen’s worth of tongue and groove looking for a good home.

I have a set and think they are excellent. I have run them tubeless for the last 3-4 years and only had to true them a couple of times. Even then it was because they had been used cross country and given a battering. Tightened up fine and we are off again. Not a bling as some others, but just work.

Pretty sure that the Salsa Fargo fits the bill, but the rear rack is a Salsa one :

linky

Damn beaten to it…..

I have an old (10+ years) Ripcurl 5-3 zipless hooded suit brought when surfing in the Canadian Pacific. This is warm and I have surfed in it in water temperatures down around 2-3 deg C and still has to take the hood off and get some water in to the suit to cool down. So it is the design and fit that will have as much to do with how warm you are.

Do try them on as well as the fit varies from company to company.

Brant- just out of interest why were you looking there in the first place? Just asking like ;-).

Don’t knock it in vertically, put it at 45 degrees. That means that when you brace the tree and it moves in the wind it will push against the pole pushing it in. if you do it vertically it loosens off and will not bring the tree back to vertical. You attach the tree to the pole with an old inner tube so that it dos not constrict the growth and will perish with in a few years, by which time it should be back vertical. The tree will naturally tend to go vertical over time, you are just making sure that it does it quicker and that any loosening of the root ball does not cause further movement.

If you are lucky enough to have a cycle to work scheme you can get it on that as well. I makes it an absolute bargin with that deal and I nearly pulled the trigger on Friday when I found that was the case.

It sounds as though you are probably ill. There have been several low grade viruses that just make you feel overly tired and lacking the ability to exercise without you feeling so tired that you have to stop for several days. There are no other symptoms other than the tiredness so you can feel a bit of a fraud.

In short go and see your GP and get a blood test. This type of thing can last over 5-6 weeks and is depressing if you are used to doing a lot of exercise. It may be that your body has been using all its resources (possibly see depleted iron) to fight off the virus so the blood test is a good way of seeing what it is.

Don’t take chances and go and use your free GP.

We have just spent a week in Lower Dalby and it has been excellent. The tracks are now almost totally dry and with them all on the doorstep I have spent quite bit of time exploring. As others have said there are some long bits of the red loop that don’t have much in the way of features, but that is what you get in most places. If you do all of the red in one hit then you will know you have been for a ride.

If you only have a few hours then you won’t get lost, it may well be sunny and there are is definitely some fun to be had around the loop.

Nether Wallop

Don’t mess with the statues!

link as the gif does not load link

Ride through it you wuss. Anyway I am pretty sure that they are standard size that you can buy from Bearing Boys

Can’t ride tonight as I have got the kids and Lu is away.

See you next week.

I brought this back in 1992 as it was a team bike cast off. Still looks and ride amazingly. I still love the Paris Roubaix rims that it came with. The strongest wheels I have ever owned. If it is nce tomorrow I think it may get a spin out. (this is not mine, but the closest image that I could post)

Is fat the new skinny?

Going from 29″ to 27.5″ in 4 weeks. Will I need a new wardrobe?

You may be interested in a few facts about the rain this winter to help educate the debate. Parts of the South of England had between 85 and 95% of the annual average rainfall in 10 weeks. That is somewhere between 600 and 700mm.

With the records that are around that is more rain than has ever been seen in that time period. There are quite a few records going back more than 100 years so we can start to see this is an exceptional event.

If you use a figure of 0-2% chance of flooding that is not time limited. If you flood today/this year you still have a 0-2% chance of flooding tomorrow/next year.

The climate change scenarios from 5-10 years ago predicted warmer wetter winters and dry summers. This has happened this year and may be a signal that it is going to happen more often. However the cold/freezing winters previously are also in the scenarios if things like the gulf stream move, so we are still in a wait and see/keep measuring mode.

Hydrologist hat off and tries to find a patch of dry land to get the bike on to.

CG how was the road out from the John O’Gaunt? I was up there last week and the river was still over the road in 3 or 4 places, pretty deep too.

Cheers

Andy

I think that Isla found that the grip shift was far more intuative when learning gears. Trigger shifters have a more esoteric link to understand when changing gear as you already have hold of the grip and it is one less thing to get confused about. That being the case I am sure that triggers will be used, but it may be a barrier to some. Not my bike company, but my kids are one Isla bike number 4 and 3 respectively and they love them the way they are.

Just get them out riding is the key. 🙂