There’s a Tandem Pilot & Stoker Matching Service on Facebook that’s always putting out requests for pilots.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1656859641194681

if you weren’t one of the cool kids it felt like you didn’t count

I’ve got bar ends and a Rohloff hub, and I still own several items of ’90s neon lycra. The trick is to be so uncool, that you actually end up cooler than the cool kids.

I live on the Worcestershire/Shropshire border.

For quaint old towns with museums, castles and antique shops, Ludlow is excellent. Bridgnorth is good.

For industrial history; Severn Valley Railway and Ironbridge Gorge Museums. Both world class at what they do.

I see a lot of kayakers and paddle boarders paddling past me on the River Severn. You can even hire a boat one way and get a steam train back upstream from Bewdley to Bridgnorth.

Mountain biking. I agree, a lot of bridleways are overgrown through remoteness and lack of use. Clee Hill is mostly rideable with spectacular views.

Clee Hill is popular for walking as well, although ‘popular’ by Shropshire standards means once you’re away from the carparks, you could spend all day Sunday up there and meet 10 people.

Road cycling; easy to get from A to B or make up a loop on lanes through sparsely populated areas.

And for bonus points. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafren

Nothing follows the contours quite like a canal.

I bought a dog guard for a Land Rover once off a guy who had been given a budget to choose his own company car.
He chose a Land Rover Defender, which cost nowhere near his allowed budget, so he added on every possible extra he could think of, including a dog guard that he had no use for and immediately removed and sold.

New to that game. Or. A short memory ? Truckers T+c have been in decline for years and they reached crisis point to get you in that position Of being able to name your price – it hasn’t always been that way.

I can’t exactly name my price, I’m on a fairly average hourly rate, although I’m only doing 100 miles/2.5 hours actual driving and sleeping for 1.5 hours in a 6 to 7 hour shift.
I passed my HGV test in 1995 and worked as a mechanic until recently, only doing a bit of driving as emergency cover. It’s only the last couple of years I’ve been driving full (part) time.
Reading some of the replies here, there’s a lot of conflict between staff and management. I work for a family firm with about 60 employees and avoid all that. I negotiate directly with one of the owners/directors and it’s all done on good terms.

Wow, that simple eh?

Yes, there’s a shortage of truck drivers and they don’t want me to leave.

How much do you get paid on the days where you don’t drive the truck, for whatever reason?

It hasn’t happened yet, but I wouldn’t get paid.
However…
I was part time doing three days a week. This job* came up doing 5 to 6 hours five days a week, so I was asked if I wanted it instead.

*By different job, I mean different route/collection/delivery for the same company. A different role, if you like.

This is a salaried thing isn’t it?
I’ve never understood salaries. If you’re contracted for 160 hours per month, or whatever, then why has anyone ever regularly gone over that without sorting the problem.
I currently drive a truck on the same route every day on day rate. My finish time varies by about two hours, but my average equivalent hourly rate is acceptable. If I was regularly getting back late, lowering my equivalent hourly rate, I’d renegotiate my day rate.
Why don’t people on salary do that?

A former 12 & 24 hour racer writes…
As others have said, everyone’s different. Recommendations can help, but ultimately, trial and error based on those recommendations is what will work for you.
I don’t like gels and I don’t like sports drinks.
What worked for me was huge quantities of cheap high sugar content foods and plain tap water.
Licorice
Marzipan
Kendal Mint Cake
Fruit Jellies

Yes, but the Lynskey is my single speed bike. I’ve got a Qoroz titanium Rohloff 29er as well.
The idea is that I can swap between the two day to day, and if I ever go racing again, I can convert either one to Rohloff or single speed so that I’ve got two the same with oe being a spare bike for whichever category I’ve entered.
I doubt I ever will race again, so realistically, I just need a single speed frame.

Looking for Rohloff/singlespeed compatible titanium 29er frames in the UK, it looks like it’s Van Nicholas or nothing.

https://shop.vannicholas.com/en/products/titanium-frames/Zion-Rohloff-29er-Frame/8107

I think it may be new frame time.
I’m not 100% certain, but that looks like a crack, not a scratch, running up the downtube. The weld is definitely cracked.

I’ve emailed Ted James, and Titanium Techniques of Dudley who specialise in titanium offshore gas and oil pipework, so they probably know what they’re doing. I’ll see if either of them can give me a quote based on my photos.
A quick search for UK to USA postage costs looks like it’s around £80 one way.
Vernon Barker quotes £150 for fitting disc brake mounts to a titanium frame and I guess this repair would be a similar sized job, so even if Lynskey honour the warranty with no proof of purchase and do the repair for free, it will cost about the same and take longer.

“You will also need to email, mail or fax us a legible copy of the your original proof of purchase…” from https://lynskeyperformance.com/warranty-information/

And

“We upgraded our website on 26/04/2023. All orders placed after this date are listed here.
To make a return on any orders placed before 26/04/2023 use our dedicated returns portal. You’ll need to provide your order number which you can find in the confirmation email you received when you originally placed your order.” from https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/my-account/order-history

I’ve deleted all my emails over five years old and long since lost any paper copy I might have ha, so I’m stuck either way.

Thinking about it now, isn’t my contract with the retailer, Chain Reaction, not the manufacturer, Lynskey, under UK consumer law?
The frame cracked around the seat tube when it was 11 months old and I sent it back to CRC for repair or replacement and they sent it to Lynskey in the USA. I remember Lynskey having the worst customer service I have ever encountered, it took months to get it back.
CRC have got a new order system and don’t have a record of any orders from before April this year, so they need the original order number. I have deleted all my old emails so have no record myself.

Stroud’s only 55 miles, that’s not too bad.

26tpi CEI is my favourite.

Camels in Worcestershire.

Ooh, I do like those vazaha. We could do Public Art next week, I remember there were some good examples last time.

Anyway, Butterfly at Hawkbatch.

Truck driving. They’re all automatics these days, nothing like the old 13 and 16 speed gearboxes I used to drive.
I even get to have a kip in the middle of my shift waiting for a return load.

As someone who has owned the same NATO Green Land Rover for 24 years, I find it a bit sad that resale value is the biggest influence on some people’s choice of colour for a new car.
Even if they want blue or yellow, they will chose black, white, or some shade of grey in between because they’ll get a better trade-in in 3 years time.

Bigger wheels are better, and 29″ is the biggest practical wheel size.

If you think smaller wheels are better, get a BMX or a Brompton.

The conspiracy theories have started.
https://stewpeters.com/video/2023/06/titanic-cover-up-rothschild-funded-ocean-gate-sinks-sub-to-hide-truth-about-the-titanic/
(No, I haven’t watched the video. Reading the introduction was enough)

“Did an iceberg really sink the Titanic?
Google Whistleblower Zach Vorhies is here to talk about the missing submarine and his alternative theory about what’s really going on.
When the media believes something is important and all have the exact same narrative that is a red flag the truth is being concealed.
The lost submarine operation was initially funded by the Rothschild dynasty.
Due to a new treaty citizens of the West will no longer be able to visit the Titanic wreckage site without a permit.
This submarine operation was able to obtain a permit with an experimental sub design while using a wireless video game controller.
Zach believes this tragedy will be used as justification to prevent anyone from visiting the Titanic wreckage.
Zach also believes the Titanic was not sunk by an iceberg but rather an explosion.
We know jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams.
Likewise, an iceberg cannot cut through a hardened steel hull.”

I’ve got a mostly off road commute and I had to take evasive action to avoid a hedgehog on the path twice in one week.

I don’t get all the resentment towards rich people spending their money this way.
I don’t believe in trickle down economics, but trickle down technology seems like a real thing to me.
If people or businesses want to spend a lot of money on vanity projects like submarines, spaceships or formula one cars, and there’s a chance it will make future technology safer for less frivolous uses, then I’m all for it.
Would there be less resentment if they had spent the money on a work of art for their private collection, or a grouse moor with no public access?

I’ve resorted to carving the polystyrene away on both cycle and motorcycle helmets in the past. I seem to have a very large oval head, so even the biggest round helmets don’t fit comfortably.
Currently using a XXL Nolan motocross helmet which fits me well without unauthorised modification. Don’t know what model it is, but I see on their website they go up to 3XL.

I asked a similar question here a few years ago on behalf of someone else and was recommended a Salsa El Mariachi.
It seemed to do the trick as she is still riding it.

*Laughs in Rohloff*

Anecdotally, I replaced the suspension coil springs on my Land Rover because they had got shorter.
On the other hand, I’ve known of vintage trucks that have been parked up for decades which will have had some of the valves fully open with springs fully compressed all that time with no ill effect.

I started this challenge with the intention of getting people out on their bikes exploring, yet here I am photographing things I ride past every day on my commute. I’ll try harder at the weekend.
Steps on the central reservation of the split level dual carriageway between Kidderminster and Stourport.
All that’s left of Bewdley Bandstand.
Quayside steps at Bewdley.

Gentrification sounds a good one. I don’t know if it should include things like barn conversions, but if it does, that should cover urban and rural areas.

Bewdley, worcestershire.

I’d like to try something abstract like ‘Circles’ for next week to see how everyone interprets it, but steps is a good one, so I’ll let others decide.

Today’s Grand Tour was a bit of a failure. I wasn’t sure if there was public access to the clock tower at Abberley, Worcestershire or not. There isn’t. You’ll have to take my word for it that it is somewhere behind me hidden by the trees.

Plan B was the three follies at Mawley Hall, Shropshire. Private land again and I was told by two people out walking that there is 24/7 on site security and they don’t like uninvited visitors, so that was out.

Anyway, alleys it is for next week then.

Been having trouble unclipping my right foot recently, so kept thinking I really need to have a proper look at the pedal to see what’s wrong.
Set off for work on Monday and got off to walk up the first steep hill and the cleat stayed on the pedal. It was the cleat loose on my shoe all along.

Thanks, thisisnotaspoon. Now you mention it I had noticed that modern chains are different to old ones, but I’d never really looked into it before.
The principle is the same though. No matter how much the chain wears, the two rollers D, on plates B will always be the same distance apart. As the pins on plates A and holes on plates B wear, the rollers on plates A will move further apart.

What this means for their ‘dual engagement’ is that it will only work if the teeth line up with the narrow links.
If you put the wide links on the teeth, they will ‘stretch’ as the chain wears and any supposed advantage will be lost.

theotherjonv, I would expect a good journalist to make it clear that they are reporting a manufacturer’s claims, it just would have been nice if there were a few “independent tests showed that…” thrown in there as well.

At £200+ for a chain and sprockets, and quoting performance figures at 400w and 480 rpm, this does look like something best suited track cyclists, while being marketed to real world cyclists.
Perhaps they should offer a motorcycle version? I’m sure the top teams would think nothing of spending £200 on a 1% power increase.

thols2, that’s why I wrote ‘stretch’. Everyone knows it’s not an accurate description of what’s happening, but it’s a commonly used term.

Not the best illustration, but as the individual parts of the chain wear, the distance between the two rollers on any narrow link stays the same.
However, with increasing wear, the distance between the two rollers on any wide link will get longer.

This becomes apparent if you run a single speed or hub gear with an even number of teeth on the sprocket or chainring and move the chain round one tooth. The teeth will wear alternately, so if you take the chain off and put it back on without checking, there’s a 50% chance it will be horribly noisy.

OK, I’m intrigued now, although this does lead to several new questions.

First of all, that article is a load of “…was said to be…”, “…claimed efficiency and durability gains…”, “…claims this new…”, “…is claiming up to…”, “…claims this leads to…” all strung together.

Why don’t they mention the NPL testing on their web site?

They claim to have installed ‘The world’s first independent high accuracy, multi-torque transmission efficiency test rig’ at Bath University. Is that apart from the one used by NPL? And the various ones that have been used to test the efficiency of hub gears and belt drives etc.?

Never trust a graph that doesn’t start at zero.

Doesn’t every chain and sprocket do something similar to this? Where does the next roller on a conventional chain and sprocket make contact if not the same place? It could do with more explanation.

As I understand it, chains ‘stretch’ unevenly. The narrow links ‘stretch’ less than the wide links. This could have a significant effect on their ‘dual engagement’.

Is 1% significant, or within expected tolerance? I’d like to see the tests done with normal chainring and sprocket sizes at normal pedalling cadence. Until then, I am suspicious that they chose an optimum set up.

Are the NPL test results published on line?

Single speed only? I’m oot

*Sad Rohloff noises*

Near Highley, Shropshire.

Only one suggestion, so follies and monuments it is for next week.

A tour of some Shropshire lanes and bridleways on my singlespeed.
Having fitted a new 34t chainring and 18t sprocket the night before, this looked like good advice.

And this one was a bit overgrown.