Had thought of that but the zip’s been wrestled about with so much it splits apart under any kind of strain now – I reckon the only way to salvage them is to replace the zip completely but that’s gonna be a ball ache apparently…

The zip itself looks pretty much unsuitable for a high strain area but it also looks like it was also slightly misaligned from the factory leading to the problem in the first place. Have told her to bin them & get something else (she emailed photos to the manufacturer who agreed it was a defect & refunded her – didn’t ask for them back) but she can’t find anything else she likes so has decided to make it my life’s ambition to get these fixed at any material or emotional cost.

J

There’s been quite a bit of wild nimby-ism from what I can tell – guy in work (West End) moaning that he’s going to have to take a day off as his regular bus is cancelled… despite the fact he could get the train instead…

Has anyone seen a start list for the TT or the road race? Can’t find a list of the riders other than the GB team one:

Men’s Road Race

Adam Blythe (28, Sheffield)
Mark Cavendish (33, Isle of Man)
Mark Christian (27, Isle of Man)
Owain Doull (25, Cardiff)
Luke Rowe (28, Cardiff)
Ian Stannard (31, Chelmsford)
Ben Swift (30, Rotherham)
Scott Thwaites (28, Wharfedale)

Men’s Time Trial

Alex Dowsett (29, Essex)
Harry Tanfield (23, North Yorkshire)

Women’s Road Race

Lizzy Banks (27, Sheffield)
Alice Barnes (23, Kent)
Dani Christmas (30, Surrey)
Anna Henderson (19, Buckinghamshire)
Nikki Juniper (36, Essex)
Abby Mae Parkinson (20, Yorkshire)
Dani Rowe (27, Southampton)
Sophie Wright (19 Norfolk)

Women’s Time Trial

Hayley Simmonds (30, Redditch)

Had a quick look at 9-5s – seems like a decent compromise between true lux-o-barge status & something my missus would almost approve of, you do get a lot of Jag for 2 grand though! those Merc CLS are tidy for the money – much like the 7 series BMW’s but a bit rich for my blood

J

Had a couple of Preludes in the past – last one was a 1999 model with the H22A8 2.2 engine & the closer ratio gearbox, really liked that, had that for 7 years and still kinda regret selling it as it was still as fresh as the day I bought it.

Spanner-wise everything would be done at the local garage so I don’t really want anything that’s gonna require loads of maintenance – Saabs look like a pretty decent shout, always quite fancied one of those.

Decisions decisions

I had actually thought about the MG ZT / Rover 75 as an option – they’ve got the BMW diesel engine eh? I quite like the 75 with the leather interior & they sometimes pop up with low miles…

Anyone know if a bike will go in a 5 series saloon? I’m assuming the rear seats go down but never had one to try.

Glad the overwhelming response is to go big – a BMW 7 series popped up with 110k for 4 grand – looks like a private jet inside, although that would be stretching it a bit 😂

Like zilog6128 I also tried ebay again recently for those bargain Ulvang ones, a couple of the 6 pairs i bought for £8 a few years ago are getting slightly thin around the heel after fairly constant commuting abuse since then :)

Will be keeping an eye on this thread – I have a few pairs of the thicker Rapha ones from various sales over the years & they’ve held up really well, good for £5 or whatever when they’re on sale – Evans sometimes has the Sockguy ones on sale for around the fiver mark too

J
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Smashing, cheers – had read somewhere before that was the best method, will get some sorted for the next sunny weekend – roll on August 😂

I suppose I could ask the wife if she’d actually do it – she does do everything around the house and knows everything so it would be a canter for her 🤔

The BBC have the guy’s photo up on the story now – looks like a hero to me, I can barely stomach one pint of guiness of an evening nevermind two simultaneously…

I can’t hold it any longer…

COUNT WANKULA

:)

5 piece drumkit – the aforementioned metal band of corpses must have abandoned it after their music video.

It’s a good mile from the nearest road through some woods that are ankle deep in mud for the most part of the year, including a hill that’s hard enough to walk up it’s so slippy – someone really wanted a drumkit up there.

“From my understanding, the vast majority of short manufacturers all use the same brand of pads in their shorts.”

Only the crap shorts ime .

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>Elastic Interface? They make a massive range so some of the lower end stuff might not be up to 10 hours in the saddle, but anything i’ve had with their pads have been good (even if my arse is hanging out of the back of the threadbare shorts)</span>

http://www.elasticinterface.com/brands

Cheers all – have ordered a couple of sizes just to be sure, meant I got free shipping & there’s free returns too so hopefully there’ll be something that fits & the rest can go back.

Short-arse syndrome means pretty much all my jeans have turn-ups of some description – amazing what you can find in there after a night out :)

Someone should superimpose the Dior logo onto that piratey chap up there, bet it would start a fashion revolution

Just looking at that there Carhartt site – anyone any experience with the Buccaneer pants for sizing? Looking at the size guide they’re a regular tapered fit but the measurements look like i’d need to size down a size or two – waist on the 32″ is showing measured as 18″ across which would be 36″ in real money – the rigid ones would shrink a bit, but how much?

Cheers!

J

Reminds me of the mildly frustrating day over Christmas I spent sorting my commuter out with new mudguards / inner & outer cables / bar tape. I didn’t even encounter any particular snags, just took me bloody ages – the mudguards were those SKS commuter ones with just the one double-stay that fit round the discs fine, so that wasn’t even a problem, every time the clearance at the tyre was perfect, the front of the guard would be off at a jaunty angle – and it still is :)

I’m still curious why people are so quick to justify students being refunded a couple of hundred quid or whatever due to a perceived loss of service & slating the workers who are trying to stop their terms & conditions being rewritten without their consent, costing them far greater sums over the course… is it the perception that they’ve got it good so they deserve to be shafted?

I don’t know your situation work wise, but if by supporting them you are not at work, then fine. If you are supporting them with mere words then that too achieves nothing.

well you got one thing right, you don’t know my situation work-wise – for the record I’m not on strike, nor am I a member of the union that organised it, a lot of friends & colleagues are though and they’re really not relishing the idea of losing 14 days salary or disrupting their work. It’s not just lecturers (who are usually also heavily involved in their own research projects, which are also affected) holding students to ransom for maximum damage to make a quick buck, other associated staff are on strike alongside them.

to answer your question as to why lab assistants / library staff aren’t involved in all this, that would be because they’re not likely to be members of the UCU which primarily consists of academic staff (lecturers, professors, research assistants etc). The UCU probably have the most members affected by this, so naturally have taken the most proactive stance, however other unions’ members are also affected to varying degrees depending on which pension scheme was available to them when they began working with their institution, so there could very well be further action involving the other unions who are monitoring the situation closely (they love that term)

Fight the power / solidarity / stick it to the man

You striking means the services you provide.. aren’t being provided. So, a refund for lack of service or perhaps a discount on next term to those students who are paying for a service .. not .. provided.

The service is ultimately still being provided, just with a narrowed content – you do realize that students won’t be examined on any content they were’t actually taught? If the lectures etc. can’t be rescheduled (unlikely given the time constraints) the exams can’t contain any of the “missing” coursework, which adds up more points spread across less content. If the Universities suddenly decided to increase the course content by 20% with the same points spread across more content there would be an outcry from student bodies. This makes it a bit easier. Students should be using their heads & telling the student bodies to push the point that there’s no time to reschedule for the “lost” content & use the time off to study the bollocks out of the “reduced” content. More for less, innit.

You’re welcome ;)

Managed to get 2 cogs up using the limit screw – so now set in the 14t which should be fine with 38/46 for shortish journeys until I get a new shifter* sorted or grow some big ass legs.

*may or may not be attached to a new bike ;)

The rear of mine looks pretty similar – I mounted a flat-head countersunk bolt straight through the guard to give as much clearance as possible, the guards are only about 1.5mm thick so your ~5mm of clearance goes further than you think with slick tyres, my rims are about 24mm wide so I don’t think they’re lowering the height by spreading the width out either. In all honesty I’ll probably replace the 35c with 32c once these wear out for a bit more room, but thought i’d give these a go as they were already on the bike before I fitted the guards – seems to work so far, although I did almost grind to a halt a few times in the recent snow/slush as it compacts under the guards before it flies out in a huge icy chunk.

Maybe I got lucky with the placement of the rear bridge – does seem like I have a bit more room height-wise – always thought they missed a trick not having the bridge slightly higher.

I’m running the 35mm Voyagers (622×37) with 45mm SKS commuters on my old Charge Filter (old model before they changed the name) & whilst it’s a bit of a faff getting the clearances sorted it’s do-able, not ideal, but do-able. Over the years the rear spacing moved from 130mm on mine to the current 135mm but I always assumed that was just some extra bending at the factory & not a change in the rear triangle as the geo charts looked the same.

Thought about building a 650b wheelset for mine as i’ve a spare set of wheels for it but never got round to it, this thread makes me want to trawl ebay for a cheap set of rims!

Duff photo of mine with guards – showing nothing of the actual clearance – but you get the idea :)

Cheers all – if I don’t get any joy with the limit screws i’ll try tying a big knot in the cable at the derailleur itself, didn’t think of that!

Will moving the high(low gear) screw allow more travel at the low(high gear) screw position, or am I mental?

New bike is the most obvious (and correct) suggestion but have a couple of nicer bikes just waiting for decent weather, this one is the winter beater – was going fine until some arse-piece knocked me off a few weeks ago, since then it’s been one niggling thing after another – then the gear shifetr fell off…

Hi – have 2 stops on the seatstay that could work but they’re slotted so i’d be paranoid it would slip & i’d tear my knackers off on the stem, can’t see much else to hold the cable.

At least I have a new teaspoon.

I had a pair of Fulcrum quattros on my stainless Moda for a while & the deeper section didn’t look right for some reason, even though the profile isn’t a huge difference over the Record/Open pro & Zondas which both suited it a lot better, the Quattros looked pretty good on my carbon Ridley which had a chunkier frame profile though.

Deep section carbon might be a different matter as they seem to go with anything, can you borrow a pair to try them out? I’d want to stare at it for a while before throwing fistfulls of cash around.

That’s a nice Volare up there with the HED wheels – mine is probably the road bike i’ve stuck the most mileage on by far, it deserves some nicer wheels than the Fulcrum 7 that have been on it for the last year or so, but it gets used for commuting a bit in nice weather so the wheels take more of a beating on it.

J

Well played on tackling the bawbags – you left out one pertinent issue though, was there any condiment on the pie? I used to play footy with a guy that Specialized in pairing savoury pastry based goods with condiments, ie – a cheese & onion pasty, served on a mortons roll with lots of butter is transformed into haute cuisine with the addition on broon sauce. Whod’st’ve thunk it.

I’m liking these – bought a Cannondale best of the east recently but the proper retro styling of the Marin plus range looks brilliant ! Also couldn’t believe how different the big wheels / tyres make a bike feel, apart from the weight penalty – currently looking at how (reasonably) light you could go with a 27.5+ build on a budget

J

Sage advice there  – for years i’d been going out trying to get hit by cars… walloper

Cheers chaps – will have a look at those, good discount on that Shimano one! Decent low light performance is probably quite important, although even on dark, rainy nights there should be enough incident (get it) light to see what’s what…

j

Dp – now the forum update thread makes sense :D

Been looking at some if the half stuff in the sale – usually by the time I finally get round to hitting the button Evans yo-yo sale pricing pops back up to full price, like it did a week or 2 ago with the thermal tights & l/s jersey… have one of the s/s merino tops and they’re good – currently down to £24, go 1 size up for a snug fit, 2 for baggy

Those Specialized cadet shoes that Rutland were knocking out for cheap recently, i find mine pretty comfy off the bike & a guy in work cycles in wearing them (~8 miles or so) then keeps them on all day – they’re sold out online but still loads on ebay for £20 or so.

That’s a cracker, however my admittedly cloudy memory is telling me there was more of a funk involved – will do some investigating today seeing as its fresh in my memory & the weather’s guff… they only wrote a few dozen albums, it’ll be in there somewhere :lol:

Abba are a guilty pleasure of mine, but I’ve never gone through the whole back catalogue despite always meaning to – I swear, if some of the more uptempo songs they wrote were by some never before heard of obscure 70s disco band, recently unearthed in a dingy record shop in Soho people would lose their minds.

I came home one night a few years ago (blazing) & watched some Abba documentary on TV, there was a live performance of a song on it – the name of which I missed and have never heard again – that I remember thinking at the time had the best bassline in the world. The only thing I can remember about it was a line that sounded like “something kinda stupid” and was repeated a few times, obviously as I was somewhat impaired by powerful drink I could have misheard / dreamt the whole thing, but does this sound familiar to anyone? it’s driven me mad for years, every time someone mentions abba it pops back into my head :lol:

Another vote for handbuilt something or others with a 20mm+ rim – Hope are nicer to look at but probably not much difference functionally to some Novatec hubs (have had a set of novatec on my commuter for a couple of years & they’ve been trouble free).

Saying that, a mate has the Zondas mentioned above & loves them, another has the DT Swiss Spline (R23?) and rates them too, only person I know with Hunt 4 seasons had problems with the rim & nipples corroding after running them through 2 of those 4 seasons (Autumn & Winter).

personally i like stuff that can be easily rebuilt so stay away from weird proprietary rims / nipples etc, but some of the factory options get good reviews so maybe i’m a luddite.

J

I generally stuff all my cycling gear completely at random into one of those under-bed storage boxes, so that every time you want something (usually at 6am in the dark) you have to empty the entire bloody thing onto the floor & rake through it…

Tonight I shall be roilling them up from the bottom & securing with the bib strap a’la that GCN vid – then every morning i’ll have to unravel them all to find the right ones adding extra faff to the equation :lol:

All sounds pretty strange, the return address being vacant would have me melting their phone line with obscenities for one. It does sound like they’ve sold it on then burnt through the proceeds – not a clue what the multiple refund / receipts are all about but i’d be wary of being caught in the middle of someone trying to fudge their accounts at your expense. Or they could simply be completely inept & it’s all a silly mistake which will be sorted out in due course.

Any pics of the old bike? Someone might have bought it & be unhappy that the bike shop they bought it from is now claiming it’s been stolen…

I had a couple of rotor bolts that wouldn’t budge a while back, tried filing across them to use a flat bladed screwdriver but no dice – ended up using an old drill bit slightly smaller than the bolt with the drill set in reverse & leaned on it heavily while giving it full beans – even though it doesn’t technically have anything to grip on, the heat generated by the friction of the drill bit was enough to break the bond between the screw & thread and it popped out cleanly.

I then of course burnt my damn hand on the bolt as it picked it up to examine what had happened, the top of the bolt had a perfectly smooth concave in it from the hardened drill bit, even in reverse – still have it somewhere as a reminder to use anti-seize on bolts.

If the screws are flats take extra care if trying this, a cross head / hex helps to keep the bit centered when you’re pushing against it, also if this wrecks the screw heads completely & leaves you in a worse situation don’t blame me – it was you who put your faith in some bloke off the tinternet :D

slowoldman – Member
add a healthy(?) Amount of sugar to the egg mix

What egg mix?

Sorry just seen this – dip the brioche slices into a beaten egg (or two, 3+ slices will need more) with a splash of milk to make it less eggy if required, with some sugar mixed in (cinnamon works well in here too). Fry in butter & you’re golden

J

Not the most glamorous suggestion by any means, but extremely tasty – French toast with big mental thick slices of brioche loaf, add a healthy(?) Amount of sugar to the egg mix & fry in a similarly (un)healthy amount of butter until it starts to caramelize – goes well with added bacon / maple syrup / fruit compote (OK, jam) / nutella or all of the above – if no fancy bakery nearby, aldi/lidl usually have a brioche loaf for 1.50

You’re welcome :wink:

The cup/cone washers are usually found on Avid setups I think & usually come with the brakes themselves – i’ve always just bought decent qulity stainless M6(edit m5?) bolts for mounting, 16mm or 18mm i think they were last time, any hardware shop will have them & plain stainless washers unless you really want to use the conical ones?

J