Cheers Munrobiker – the missus likes hillwalking but most of the stuff we’ve done are the kind of “hike up / ride back down” routes I mentioned so never really went back with the bike – I did the Cobbler/Ben Arthur a while back though, enjoyed that but much prefer a (mostly) rideable loop.
J

rOcKeTdOg – Member

My boss brought durian sweets in, they tasted like wee smells on a course of ampecillin.

I brought some of those back from Malaysia in January & one or two got eaten – the bag’s still sitting in work if anyone wants them? I actually thought the street-food markets in KL were overflowing with sewage & refused to eat anything there, until I realized that it was all the durian sellers (which ARE honking of shit but at least not tainted with human sewage)

BillOddie – Member

Fat Janice from accounts?

Never met the woman, but yes – I believe she’d have bits of chicken skin hanging from her hair by morning teabreak. :lol:

trail_rat

Was a good party though – the one thing that boils my piss about fancy weddings in posh places is drink prices being a fortune. drink prices were the first thing i would check out at a venue

Stick a litre bottle of vodka / whisky etc. in a gift bag – looks like a present (allegedly) :wink: (remember to take it away – some places are arsety about finding empties like that under tables & charge the happy couple for the equivalent from the bar)

Couple of whole roast chickens, leave a carving knife & a jar of mayonnaise next to it and see who cracks first

Are any of the Scottish ones up there loops? I’m hoping to do more natural stuff (ideally within a couple of hours drive of the central belt) this year but not really a big fan of the 2hr push up / 30mins ride back down routes

Cheers,
J

Some classy first aid there – “shit he’s unconscious – bloody clown suplexed him & landed right on his head, quick – drag him away before the crowd think we’ve killed him”

If I didn’t already have the previous incarnation of this i’d be all over it like a rash at that price & probably look out for a s/h Kinesis DC37 or similar fork to lighten the package a bit – much like maxlite’s in fact.

Milko – if I were building one of these up on a budget & already had brakes i’d probably bung on a Tiagra 4700 groupset to give a wider choice of cheap 10 speed only wheels – some of the factory options are pretty light & unless you’re set on 11 speed gearing there’s a few bargains to be had. Frame & Forks you could probably get for under £200 / Tiagra 4700 £230 or less (sell the calipers = less again) and then it just depends whether you want new wheels & finishing kit or pick up some bargains on ebay.

Here’s a crap photo of my old Filter, Sram Apex (38/46), Spyres, Novatec hubs on Halo Aerotrack rims with Halo hex skewers, Thomson post, seatpost clamp & stem, Deda RHM01 bars, Charge Pan saddle – comes in around 25 lbs – thought about lightening it but in reality it would take serious intervention to knock more than 2 lbs off it!

I got married & my wife was forever moaning at me to get the bikes / shrapnel out of the spare room, then we moved house & I found an old ikea chest of drawers up the loft & managed to fill it (5 drawers) with all sorts of handy stuff I will never use again, like that 140mm centrelock rotor i’ve never used and don’t know how I acquired…

*ok Northwave wins with his 30 26″ tyres & no bike for them!*

That must have been a proper knot-splitter – there’s a bog bandit in almost every workplace, we have a mysterious individual who leaves (always the middle, weirdo…) trap looking like a set from trainspotting & doesn’t wash his hands :| The Profanisaurus is great for descriptions of toilet terrorism using wonderfully dense prose, perhaps you could print out a note using some choice terminology to warn against this type of behaviour? +5 points if you include the phrase “u-bend straightener”

Looks interesting – is it wifi or just bluetooth compatible & does anyone know if it has any physical inputs?

J

I’m plagued by the terrible easterly winds of Renfrewshire, (Lochwinnoch-Glasgow-Lochwinnoch) although one day last week it all went to cock & somehow I had a tailwind in and again going home, it was magnificent although I now may owe my soul to the dark lord himself. Still, it was worth it at the time.

18 seems to be a popular commuting distance on here, i’m the same-ish – 18.5 miles each way if I do cyclepath/road or bang on 20 if I stay on the cyclepath pretty much all the way, only done it 5 days in a row once & I was burst all weekend after that, although I suppose i’d get used to it eventually… I don’t beat myself up about it though & just stick to the dry-ish days. The headwinds are a killer sometimes though, last Monday it took me 1:30 to get into work & 55 minutes home.

OP – try & make a point of doing it once or twice per week at first, I started with Tuesday & Thursday at first, then progressed to Mon/Wed/Fri, then Mon/Tue/Thurs/Fri, just think of all the food you can eat as inspiration & you’ll obviously need some new gear and perhaps a new bike too.

Last couple of months commuting i’ve been surgically attached to my Endura MT500 light-softshell-jacket-y thing with a varying amount of base layers under it & a lightweight windstopper gillet if the wind becomes an issue, it’s discreet enough that it doesn’t look like a mtb top and has a light shell on the arms & shoulders with a much lighter fabric under the arms for ventilation – probably the most versatile bit of kit I own, it’s great. Wish the same could be said for the FS260 3/4 bibs i’ve started wearing again in the last week or so, if much more of the stitching on these spontaneously unravels, they’ll explode off me one day in a shower of fabric leaving me in the scud from the waist down :?

I always wanted the Avid Arch Supremes, just look at them 8O

I’ve read a few other posts online which put Ventoso’s claim that Nikolas Maes was also the victim of a disc injury into severe doubt, as there were no teams using discs involved in the crash that injured him, nor anywhere near it…

Are we against aero spokes too? 40 sharp 30cm long blades PER BIKE spinning at 200rpm, that’s TEN THOUSAND per race 8O

Apologies in advance to the squeamish / anyone having breakfast but there almost looks like regularly spaced teeth marks round the periphery of the wound at the bottom, no?

If you don’t want to see it – scroll quickly now :wink:

I keep banging on about the cheap Vittoria Voyager Hypers that Planet X have been churning out for £10 for the last while, so why stop now – if you have room for them, 35c comfort but roll like a charm and pretty puncture resistant too – good review here

Some of these are hilarious – guy I knew years ago worked in a place where they kept lots of animals & they had a store-room full to the rafters with large bags of sawdust, he’d arranged a corner of the room into a sort of fully enclosed nest area for himself & said it was the best sleep anyone could ever have imagined… he was always covered in sawdust though…

Sounds like you’ve a fairly full itinerary – if you do however find yourself with a couple of hours to spare, the Panini Motor Museum is amazing – it’s in the middle of a dairy farm outside Modena & has the most amazing collection of vintage sportscars (mainly Maserati) & memorabilia i’ve ever seen – even in random pics on the tinternet.

It looks like this – there’s a Maserati Chubasco upstairs too…

Hey guys, I’m heading down tomorrow – any updates on conditions etc? Have the choice between 2.4 nobby nic evos or 2.25 rocket rons at the moment, although I’m reading that the tweed valley got some slightly inclement weather over the weekend, so will probably go with the nics

Cheers!
John

Instead of swingning those macebells around for fun, those guys should become lumberjacks & they could make a few quid at the same time :idea:

Look up Steve Cotter on youtube – he’s pretty handy with them & there’s a good few basics video’s he’s done, like this:

:wink:

I love kettlebells – they’ve worked wonders for me, i’d recommend going to a class for a while to get your technique properly sorted and an idea of what weights you need before shelling out – as previously mentioned you might find that you progress quite quickly as your core strength builds.

To give you an idea, i’m not very big (5’7″ / 73kg) & I started with 14/16 for most exercises at first, but now warm up with a 20 and use everything up to a 36 for something or other.

You can always chuck in some variations instead of moving up weights though – on a good day I can strip press a 28 but if you press the ‘bell upside down it requires a hell of a lot more grip strength and I need a 20 instead…

I’m guff at the Turkish get up though

I had some Luganos a while back & while they felt ok when new, they were pretty guff in the long run tbh – used them for commuting and got about 300 miles out of the rear before it was cut up so badly I ditched it, tried another in case it was a dodgy tyre and the front was still ok but the second lasted about as long – averaged a p*ncture every 100 miles or so into the bargain…

Heard good things about the Lithion 2 as a cheap all rounder

edhornby

You need to start at the bottom and tape outwards so that the overlap doesn’t leave the leading edge where it rolls up and ruins the tape.

Have you had problems with this personally? I only ask as i’ve been doing it top-down for years & never, over many thousands of mainly commuting miles in all weathers, have I had any problems with the exposed edge of the tape rolling up – if it’s tight enough you can’t really see where the edge is anyway – is it a mainly a CX issue because of the added mud getting worked into it or something?

Only time i’ve ever had issues with tape have been where new bikes that have came with bars wrapped bottom-up have started to unravel mid-ride when the bit of electrical tape holding it all together gives up.

Tidy 8)

I’ve always went from the top down to avoid any tapage – if it’s tight enough you don’t notice the overlapping ends are facing in & not out

Not entirely sure yet, however i’m keen on getting round some of the nice natural routes I keep seeing popping up on here – done the Cobbler (Ben Arthur) a couple of years ago & whilst the way up was a bit of a slog, the way back down more than made up for it – I prefer proper loops though rather than ride/push up a big hill then blast back down it so i’ll need to get some routes looked up… also keen to try out Drumlanrig Castle fairly soon as I keep hearing good things about it – mostly on here – and it’s closer than GT for me.

Maybe the real-life shots of the silver group will sway me, but that rear mech doesn’t look anywhere near as well finished as the current silver Athena equivalent, which is quite pleasantly shiny instead of having that dull anodised silver that seems to be the norm these days… the group looks pretty good in black though – that was the problem with Athena, even in the black alloy version it didn’t look quite right on modern bikes.

A big +1 for ash258369’s suggestion – our old pizza stone eventually cracked after a while & someone suggested I try that instead, never looked back!

Best results with a big ol’ heavy cast iron pan (I got a huge one from TK maxx for a tenner…) on the gas full bung until it’s smoking hot, a light wipe over with some oil on a bit of kitchen roll then dump the base in – give it a minute until it starts to bubble up, then add toppings & transfer to a hot grill to finish the top.

Used to spend ages making a sauce too, but have now just settled on a half-decent passata – once you’ve fired your toppings on & a little drizzle of olive oil / balsamic you don’t really notice any difference.

I got a couple of pairs of these (in black) when PX were doing the folding ones cheap & they’ve been great – no discernable difference drag wise between these @ 35c and my old 28c Rubinos over my 20mile commute and they’re extremely comfy – if brown’s your bag they’re only £10 per end however there’s not much of a tread pattern on them for slightly off-road usage.

Edit – The folders were under 400g, not sure if these are the same but they’re almost half the weight of similar touring tyres.

Vittoria Voyager

franksinatra – Member

So the real vulnerability there was not the key safe but the blunt axe. That same axe would very easily break a window.

Ahaaa – but it’s an upper cottage flat so they’d need to bring a 20ft ladder to get to those in the first place :wink:

The axe was actually the neighbours – he’d been out cutting mashing firewood into splinters with it earlier & I couldn’t be bothered going back upstairs for anything less appropriate to tackle it with.

My missus had one of these (left over from when her parents owned the place – they thought it might be handy one day, just in case…) & it definitely voided her insurance – I told her to double check the policy wording & there was a section specifically regarding key safes, can’t remember if there was anything regarding the visibility of it, but hers was right next to the door… :|

I removed it fairly easily with a handy blunt axe, which was lying about 3 feet away…

Sweet Jesus – that frypie-up is a thing of beauty 8O i’ve got one of these at home for construction this week, although i’m now tempted to fill them with bacon & black pudding…

Drewd – I’ve got one of the older Tange Infinity frames too, i think Charge made the Filter from Prestige at first but then swapped to save on costs – remember seeing a quote from them saying the weight penalty wasn’t much but can’t remember what it was exactly…

I’ve mine built up with Sram Apex, Thomson stem & post and wheels I built up on novatec hubs and Halo Aerotrack rims and mine is 25lbs, could probably knock a fair amount bit off with a lighter groupset / carbon fork etc but it rides really nicely so don’t notice the beef too much!

peteimpreza

Does not work on the clearance frame I have been keeping an eye on .

Yeah – sorry if I got your hopes up there, i’d have bought one of those CAAD10 disc frames too if that had worked :wink:

j

Drop anchor down the back of the fire instead – when they turn it on, hey presto – the instant aroma of roast bungle’s finger

HTH

Not especially fancy but we bought a load of crystal Nachtmann glasses from TK maxx one day for buttons – think they’re Reidel owned, they weight an absolute ton & are very good for drinking whisky from… i dropped one in the sink & it exploded into literally a billion razor sharp fragments, several of which ended up in my hand for a while (yes i’m scared of them now)

It was Alex(?) at Clarkston that did the wee repair to the chainstay a year or so ago – that’s another option I hadn’t thought of – I remember they had a Bob Jackson frame that had a really nice paint scheme hanging up in the shop, could be some inspiration there!

Good shout, cheers – hopefully he’ll appear by magic & set me straight – I remember him saying ESP were good for powdercoating from a previous search but not sure if there’s anything that could smooth the imperfections & withstand the powdercoating process. The imperfections aren’t massive but I know they’re there & it would drive me mental if I didn’t get them fixed before a(nother) refurb :?