I haven't got a 19mm spade bit, so I used 18mm and a big hammer.
Trial assembly and hanging of the first gate. Looking OK so far, just needs the tops of the styles rounding over. Drilled for pegs and dowels, but I won't put them in until final assembly.

I bought the timber untreated, but paid treated price.
Once I've got everything made, I'll disassemble it all and take it back to go in their pressure tank. That way, it gets treated on the ends and holes as well.

psling, that's the information I was after.
I'm making two pairs of wooden five bar gates.
I'm doing OK cutting the mortice & tenon joints, I've got a load of 10mm coach bolts for where the diagonals cross the rails and I'm dowelling the diagonals where they meet the rails and styles.
Drilling the holes in the posts to take the hinges was the only thing I wasn't sure about.
The top hinge is under tension and goes right through the post. The first half is 20mm square and the second half is threaded.
The bottom hinge is under compression and is also 20mm square, but just has a point on the end.
I guessed 19mm would be about the right size. If that's what you use, psling, that's what I'll try.

Maybe it's because I'm old and not keeping up with changes in the English language.
I've sort of come to grips with the idea that "random", as used by today's youth, now means unusual or unexpected.
Does "underrated" now mean chosen for a job in films or television because of her looks then spending an hour with a team of professional hair and make up artists before having her publicity photo taken ?

Stu, yes I bought the frame and matching stem off Matt.

Podium.

Santa Cruz Chameleon

Santa Cruz Blur

Santa Cruz Blur

Gary Fisher Rig 29

Robin Mather 29

Lynskey 29

All Rohloff.

Some people have got some strange ideas about what "underrated" means.
In terms of achievement versus media exposure, it's hard to beat Sarah Outen.

http://sarahouten.co.uk/

Following the fixmystreet link on this thread, http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/blocked-bridleways-how-do-i-complain-and-will-anything-get-done I contacted Worcester County Council about the missing bridge over Dowles Brook at the bottom of the Mile Climb.

http://www.fixmystreet.com/report/122995

I just got this reply.

Thank you for your recent communication regarding problems you have
encountered on the public rights of way network. We have recorded the
details accordingly.

I can confirm that a replacement bridge has been ordered but due to the
site in question being a Special Site of Scientific Interest, we have
had to wait for permission to begin the work. We have now received
approval and anticipate that the work will begin in August.

So it looks like we'll have a bridge by the winter. :D

Whatever the law says, and whatever people think should happen, the fact remains that many women feel uncomfortable joining in with a male dominated activity.
I've regularly been the only bloke in a yoga class of 20+ women. It didn't bother me, I just focused on what the instructor was saying.
A friend of mine entered a downhill race and was very concious that a lot of the guys were staring at her.

If one or two women can stick it out at the start, other women will be more likely to join in.
We've got a fairly regular group around the Wyre Forest that includes the top woman in the Midland Trailquests league and the top veteran woman from Set2Rise 12 hour solo.
I've been on some rides where the grrrls outnumber the guys.

No, the entire industry is based on shullbit.
It would be nice if one of the magazines did some impartial scientific testing of components now and then.
Even something as simple as "We clamped 10 handlebars in our test rig and hung a 50kg weight off the end of each. Handlebar A deflected 5mm, handlebar B deflected 3mm etc." would help.
Why should they bother though, when they can waffle on about "super stiff construction" and "race proven technology" while taking handlebar A manufacturer's money for a full page advert and people still buy the magazines.
No chance of them doing any long term cyclic load testing to failure on forks.

The best you can hope for is anecdotal evidence from other users.
Two things I've learned from this thread are that I could have bought my forks cheaper with a different name on them and that the only two carbon MTB forks that I've heard of failing both failed at a metal component.

Go for it.
I reckon they should do away with all this age category nonsense in bike racing and have weight divisions like boxing anyway.

If you want a personal challenge, take a look at my post near the bottom of this page.
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/hit-the-north-under-threat/page/4

TandemJeremy
I fully accept my fear may be irrational as I said – but I personally could never be happy riding CF forks for this reason.

Mountain biker makes component choice based on irrational preconceptions rather than sound, peer reviewed, scientific evidence shock.

Thomson posts have got the long axis of the internal ovalisation going across the bike.
Does this mean they are intended to flex fore and aft, but not sideways ?

"I am using generalisations and so there are of course exceptions to everything that I say."
Well, yes,I can see that, but it makes a far more interesting thread when people jump to conclusions and deliberately misinterpret what other people say.

I was looking for in between size grips and ended up cutting down some full length ones.
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/are-all-lock-on-grips-the-same-length

Are pigeons made of helium then ?

If a lorry is carrying a load of pigeons on perches and the pigeons all take off and start flying around inside the lorry, will it weigh less ?

Ian, I didn't take your reply as critical. You just made me realise how far out my original off the cuff estimate was.
If we knew the number of people who have a phone connected per year, the timescale between BT disconnecting a phone and reallocating the number, the number of elderly relatives, neighbours or work colleagues those people have and the number of usable numbers in an area, we could work out the probability of this happening.
It's probably quite common.
That's the thing with million to one chances. Nine times out of ten, they happen.

"Depends a bit on how big the log is … then driving with your feet with your arms fully extended … the wheel comes up tangentially…"

This all sounds way to complicated to me.
I think I'll stick to just pointing the bike where I want to go and hanging on, with the occasional little front wheel hop over the bigger bumps.

I said about 1 in 1000000 to allow for certain numbers not being used.
If you can dial a number in the same area code without dialling the area code, then no number can begin 999xxx.
Thinking about it a bit more, now that you've mentioned it, my area code, 01299, covers at least three towns. Bewdley numbers begin 01299 40xxxx, so yes, it is far more likely than I first suggested assuming both addresses are in the same town..

Just given that fixmystreet site a go.
Anyone who rides the Wyre forest will know about the missing bridge between Cooper's Mill and the Mile Climb
http://www.fixmystreet.com/report/122995

RIP Mollie Sugden. :cry:

The only time my bike gets both wheels off the ground is when I lift it over gates.
I get the odd bramble scratch now and then.

Assuming it's the same area code followed by a six digit number, there's about a 1 in 1000000 chance of this happening.
Considering how many BT lines there must be, it's inevitable that it will happen to someone.
Still a bit weird for you when you're that someone.

"And you shouldn't pull the front end up anyway."
Er, so if I'm braking down hill, hanging off the back, and there's a log across the trail, what should I do ?

We've done nitrogen and helium in tyres before, haven't we ?
Nitrogen was touted for truck tyres a while ago because of the reduced change in pressure with temperature.
It never caught on. For vehicles that have already got air brakes and air suspension, On Board Tyre Inflation linked to the vehicle's ECU is a much better idea, constantly adjusting tyre pressures to suit vehicle speed and load.

"Production technique on that style of fork is to press a chromoly or even titanium tube into the cnc'd crown, then bond the mandrel wound carbon fork leg over the top."
That makes sense. So in that picture, it looks like it is the pressed in metal spigot tube that has failed, by going way past its elastic limit and permanently deforming, while still remaining in one piece. The CF fork leg itself doesn't appear to be damaged at all.
So if we take the Cf out of the equation and imagine that as a full chromoly or titanium fork leg pressed in to the aluminium crown, it would have failed in exactly the same way.

"Just to be clear any force sufficiently strong to break a CF component will also break a metal one…"
There's a lot of variables and assumptions in that statement.
I watched a bit of the Olympic track cycling on the telly.
There was a crash where a rider hit another downed rider and endoed over the top of her. The bike could clearly be seen flying through the air in two halves.
Presumably it was a CF frame and a single minor crash had exceeded its design limits.
I wouldn't take that as evidence that my CF forks will break the first time I crash with them, more that track bikes are built down to a weight with a minimal safety margin.

I can't find any mention of Rights of way on the WFDC website.

http://www.fixmystreet.com/ looks good.
It seems to be mainly pot holes and pavement obstructions listed round here, but they are getting fixed.
I'll go back out with a camera and check the exact location and give them a go.

"Instead of snapping the crown assembly has bent."

I'm not sure what you mean there.
It's not very clear from that photo, but it looks to me like the carbon leg has snapped immediately below the aluminium crown.
Or is there a spigot on the crown extending down inside the leg and it's the spigot that has bent ?

I'll have to remember that one for my next crash.
"It's not my fault, the air in my tyres compressed unevenly"

I wear a bright yellow jersey or jacket for commuting.
Not proper hi-viz, but near enough, although my back pack hides most of it.

If you don't want to wear a hi-viz, how about one of those red plastic lolly pop things that stick out the side ?

Some important points from that link;
Only one leg broke.
It didn't break completely.
The rider was able to stop without crashing.

I also have irrational fears, including having one fork leg snap clean off, which then overloads the other one causing it to also snap, leading to a nosedive.
It looks like that may not necessarily be the most likely scenario.

Interesting links, Macavity, although it does look like someone's been copy & pasting instead of doing their own original research. :wink:

I feel a bit more reassured now about the reliability of my carbon forks now. The idea of sudden catastrophic failure is still a bit of a worry though.
Both frames developed a mysterious creak shortly before they broke. I would imagine that if I had searched more thoroughly I would have found the cracks before they spread.
A crack on a steel or aluminium fork may spread slower, but it may still be too quick for me to stop riding before it fails completely.

I'm still curious as to why there is a rule of thumb 80 hour limit for carbon handlebars and no similar limit for frames or forks.

I'm Graham from Worcestershire and for the benefit of any Americans reading this, there are only three syllables in Worcestershire.
I provide real time hands on ongoing lifecycle management support strategy system solutions for mobile technical assets in the urban and rural mass transit stage carriage public transport sector.

I was trying to think of some way of splitting the course on a marathon and sending all the hard tails down one line and all the full sussers down another to see if there was any difference in braking bumps.
I don't think that would ever work, but what about single speed marathons ?
They have their own events don't they ?
Most of them ride hard tail or fully rigid as well.
What do the courses end up like compared to a normal MTB marathon on similar ground with a similar number of bikes ?

TJ, I'm a mechanic, not an engineer, so I'm not familiar with different failure types.
Generally, if a bus breaks, I weld it back together and add a reinforcing gusset.
I snapped an aluminium frame at the top of the seat tube. Presumably it was the constant flexing and leverage of my weight on the seat that did it.
I snapped a steel frame at the seat and chain stays near the left hand drop out. Presumably it was the torque reaction of the Rohloff hub that did it.
In both these cases the load would have been well within what the frame was designed for,it was repeated small loads that caused a fatigue failure.
When you say fatigue is not an issue for carbon fibre, do you mean that if it survives the first bump, it will survive an infinite number of similar bumps ?
Maybe not quite that literally, but you get what I mean.

Oh, and 100kg rider on Nuke Proof rigid carbon forks.
Since snapping two egg beaters clean in half I have given up any aspirations of doing anything remotely radical, dude, and never intentionally get both wheels off the ground at the same time.
I have still managed to snap one aluminium and one steel frame within the past two months, so, I too worry about the fatigue life of my forks every time I hit a set of braking bumps.

Interesting stuff, Macavity.
How does "aluminium-zinc-magnesium-copper" and "aluminium-copper-magnesium-silicon" translate in to the 6000 and 7000 numbers quoted by bike frame manufacturers ?
It's all very well a manufacturer saying they are using a lighter, stronger alloy, but not so good if it's one that's been found unreliable by the aircraft industry.

I do 12 hour solos on a Fizik Gobi and it's the most comfortable seat I have ridden, not that I have tried all that many different ones.
The Wing Flex bit really seems to work. I ride a hard tail and I can feel it doing its stuff on the unexpected seated big hits.

That's a slightly different topic they are talking about there, bassspine.
Stutter bumps going away from the corners are common now in motocross, but weren't when it was called scrambling.
They seem to be caused by increased suspension travel.