I wouldn’t have thought the tred makes a difference regardless of the size, if you like the rolling resistance, climbing grip and cornering grip why change? If you favourite tyre isn’t in your size, find another tyre that you like as well and use that instead.

BMX rims, an MTB hub, some spokes and an ability to learn?

I rode my land cruisers (schwalbe) around cannock, dalby (both without any punctures I might add!) and soon to be the three peaks. I have absolute confidence in these tyres, I have very little confidence in my ability to fit the tyres without pinching them.

Car park needs that pot hole filling in.

I have re-threaded cranks before (based on my cranks being two right hand threads instead of a left and a right) but the re-thread wouldnt work due to not enough material. You would need to drill it out, make an insert, make sure the insert was tight (lots of loctite bearing sealer and potentially lots of grub screws) and then use the tap to thread it. Would not recommend. Use a helicoil or buy yourself a lathe/milling machine and a 7/16th left/right tap.

I have heard of people modifying the cable stops to accept a full outer instead of an inner (no links, just talking to bike nuts).

Problems with drilling you ally frame: Smaller holes induce larger stress concentrations (read: more likely to crack the frame) but a larger hole is giving you a lot less material (read: shit gona snap slowly).
The places that you would be likely to drill i.e. near the welds, would be where the stresses are greatest anyway so would be a super bad idea and would likely cause catastrophic failure.
Not to mention possible heating (tempering different bits at different rates) and your drill slipping as you would be drilling at an angle.
Also it would completely void any warranty you have with the manufacturer.

Unless you have done some FEA and calculations on the best position to drill, I wouldn’t touch it and I’ve re-welded ally frames (with varying successes).

As flaperon mentioned the tyre drag is neglidgeable but would be worked out and offset by pumping up your tyres a bit more.

In terms of a flat speed (assuming no change in your profile) then the only governing matter is your power you have in your legs, which will increase as you get fitter.

In terms of climbing thats where the weight and power matters, your power will increase quicker the heavier you are (for a given speed up hill) but the quicker you ride the more weight you will lose so will reach an equlibrium point of you are not able to go up the hill any easier at that speed unless you do additional strength training.

TL;DR Lose weight – get faster.

They aren’t harsh on the road, pretty shit off it though!

crash and burn
blue light bikers? (could be police or fire as well)

Iolo, I purchased based on the spec of the product, only after I started to have issues did I google the shop and find the wealth of hatred across many cycling boards.

Paid by debit card, now that I have the wheels and I have had them trued up by someone who knows what they are doing they are seriously light and will be good for road, they are not very good for what I bought them for (cross) which is annoying considering my first conversation with them.

“Oh yeah these stans alpha 340 are the best rims you can get for cross, they are light, strong and we build good wheels. Yep they will absolutely be fine for the three peaks cyclocross, infact they would be perfect for it given their weight! Yes we do have lots of people around us racing on these wheels and they are superb.” **** bull.

I have told trading standards everything, sent them copies of emails and transcripts of phone calls.

I have also reported them to trading standards to see how that goes.

Their reasoning for refusing a refund was based on the distance sellers regulations of which I quoted for reasoning of a refund.

“anything that is built to a specification of the customer can not be returned or refunded” or words to that effect. Which I argued the toss on saying they aren’t machining the hubs for me, they are assembling the wheels which were not custom at all (the only custom thing was the spoke colours!) and were to their specifications.

LBS trued them firstly and now they are out of true but I have a feeling that’s to do with the rims not the LBS.

I would say my lizard skin chain stay protector. Saved my paint no end!

Links broken.

I can not find anything on their website relating to new bikes either!

7075 is actually a good alloy to make this kind of thing from, certainly better than any 6000 series alloys. I blame poor heat treatment after forging!

Personally I would want this one.

I second slik graphics.

I would contact the local parish council and county council for the highways officer. Where I live my father is the highways officer and he can ask the farmer to clear the obstruction and if they don’t the parish counciler will contact the county counciller responsible.

Personally when I know their is a block path due to crops/brambles/over-grown hedges I take some clippers with me and cut the **** back! I wouldn’t do it with a fence though.

I have a CX forme (the hiver) and I have to say it is absolutely fantastic, build quality is great and its light and has been taken down some light downhill trails near me with much annoyance of the baggy short brigade.

WARNING: I have just tried to convert my 10 speed road bike to a 11-36 cassette and shimano is a **** pig to do. Their mountain mechs have different pull ratios (definitely on the 10’s, not sure about the new 9’s) and because they are complete cretins this means that everything is completely useless with all previous systems. Also you need to make sure that the cassette isn’t dyna sys is a different spacing.

I went with sram in the end so that I could get enough gears and better compatibility. Which is a pig as I had to buy new shifters.

Couldn’t you just buy different bearings with smaller balls in them (because I know ball diameters can be changed from bearing to bearing).

I don’t know anywhere that will take your hub but they might also encounter problems with the free hub, you know, freehubbing whilst they are trying to cut the material.

With most lathe chucks they just can’t go wide enough for the flanges on the hub so it would need steadying at both ends and then you could only machine the outside so yeah, I don’t blame them.

For the amount that you are probably looking at wouldnt it be worth selling the hub and buying the correct one?

Trek is my best customer service experience. When they give you a life time warranty, they bloody well mean it, it had been 3 years of hard riding on stock components, shipped me a brand new frame (8700 for my 6300 frame) and let me keep the old frame as well! Lovely.

Bad is dave hinde (of course) as I have just bought some wheels off of them then read the reviews. Late but they are cheap.

I am having a similar issue trying to run a clutch mech on my cross bike. I am having to go full sram just to get the gears I want (11-36 on the back) which sucks a dick.

STATO, is the pull ratio the same then?

I am training for the 3 peaks and the fred whittons 4 seasons, so Lots of road riding, just finished training for the south downs (although it got thunder stormed off!).

Before I can do more training I need some **** CX wheels and a mech that **** works! My LBS has been stupid and sold me completely the wrong everything.

SJ, I have read that TRP mini-v’s are pretty good, 8.4s for sram/campag and the 9’s for shimano. Only problem then is the clearance! I e-mailed TRP and they said that if you use the 8.4’s with shimano you will get a bit more clearance and a bit less power but still more power and less clearance than cantis.

Also on the bike it looks Fit as F***. Quite heavy and out of my price though. Love a steel bike.

Superficial. Boardman in their infinate **** wisdom decided to go with FSA comet cranks, which are BB30 specific and have 3 bolts with a 86mm PCD as opposed to the standard 4 bolts with a 104mm PCD. I can not afford the £200 for FSA afterburner cranks and that plate cost me <£5 for two of them and works fine. I would rid of the almighty bodge but it would set me back a mother tonne of money.

The chain device fouls on the conversion plate and when it doesnt foul on the plate it then fouls on the chain ring bolts.

It also wouldnt mount any lower before because it fouled on my tabs for my direct mount front mech (ffs boardman) so I have already had to customise (read machine) that some what to get it to sit lower. Think I may machine some more out of it to get it to sit lower again then if that doesnt work get a chain keeper.

CJ, it very well could be, I did put 4 links extra instead of the two suggested, will probably try that first although I would love a race where my chain doesnt fall off..

Custom adaptation is a 3mm steel plate to convert the bolt patterns. It also requires the device to be mounted higher and the chain ring to be cut to make it fit.

BL – I mean it drops off of the chain ring from the top guide, it is a top guide only system.

Jbo – I am tempted, MRP also looks good and cheaper.

It is one of these things, the problem seems to be that set up for either high/low gears it drops out the other way and set up for the middle it drops from both sides. I can’t set it up low enough, here is a picture of the set up including the “custom” adaptation.

£240 from here I decided the offer was too good to miss considering I want to run tubeless for less rocky races.

I ended up goimg for stans alpha 340 rims with stainless spokes, 32h and abrosianzennith hubs, 3 cross pattern. Should be alright and should arive this week.

So I take it that open pros are good rims for cross then? Or is it a coincidence and they are judt strong trainig road wheels? If so would my r500 road wheelset stand up to abuse?

Blond, I did not try that, I will factor it into considerations.

Mike, budget is ~£200.

I am an ~85kg rider (60cm frame) with cantis (no discs)

Seriously considering getting some hand built wheels now with hubs of my choice.

Here you go http://www.haibike.de/produkte_liste_epower_en,3004.html german branded electric mountain bikes.

Quite annoying if I am honest, they turn up to a lot of the local races I enter and end up on the podium, very frustrating!

Do NOT use caffelatex, it is a pile of shite and I had to scrub it out of my tyre.

With that gearing I assume you are running FSA cranks (as they like their 40/28 combos), if they are anything OTHER than afterburners then I would recommend buying new cranks. Chainrings in a decent tooth size are an arse to buy for the tri bolt pattern and are very difficult to find! I managed to fit one but it required a laser cutter and lots of persuading.

Personally I would go for the Tk3 as it has a tapered headset, makes the whole fork assembly feel stiffer for braking and steering. The wheels are absolutely fine, R501’s are a bomb proof wheelset.

I can not recommend imgur.com highly enough

I have TIG welded in the past (I am not a good welder though but have had frames repaired by a guy at work). You need to be careful, if the tubing is 6061 then the likely hood is that the chain stays will be 6061 as well (but check again with orange!). It is a very very common alloy so they should have the bits in the shop to weld it up (although vintage cars use steel a lot more so they may have to order in aluminium!) and if they don’t they are incredibly easy to get hold of!

Once it has been welded the problem that you then have is that the frame really should be heat treated to take the stresses out of the frame and if you don’t it is just going to crack in the exact same place again and again. Heat treating is difficult and will require paint stripping etc. If you don’t heat treat it you can just re-weld it up every time it cracks but I wouldn’t go thrashing it down double black routes.