Has anyone got a Grid Fleece or Roubaix jacket.
I'm thinking of getting one or the other from their custom print range, but I don't really know what the difference is.

I've seated truck tyres with acetylene.
About a four second blast from the welding torch, step back and poke it with a bit of burning paper on a long stick.
Works a treat.

I use the HT for shorter smoother races and trailquests.
On longer and rougher races I prefer the FS because it is less tiring.
After a few hours I tend to loose the enthusiasm to stand up over the bumps and it's lot easier to just sit down and let the suspension do the work.

Thanks, but I think 120mm is the maximum I can use.

try them all

What ?
Buy a pair of every type and measure them, then resell the ones that are not right ?
Go in to a shop and measure them all ?
Email all the manufacturers and ask them ?

I was kind of hoping a few people might have their bikes and a tape measure handy and could spare a moment to check for me.

Does anyone know or has anyone got any they could measure ?

I thought everyone used a 20" tube and trimmed off the overlap.
Can't see why the genuine things cost so much meself.

I think even if the bus service is part of an overall package, it is still Hire & Reward and may be subject to tacho rules.
For example, the Cwn Down minibuses operate under tacho rules.

If it's got a speedo as well as a tacho, you can ignore the tacho, or take it out and sell it as you choose.
If the tacho is just used as a speedo, all the seals need to be intact, but it doesn't matter if the stickers are out of date.

If you are familiar with driving vans, don't bother with the course, just take the test in your own minibus, although you will need someone with a D1 licence to get it to the test station for you.

I'm not sure, but removing seats and converting a vehicle from one class of PCV to another may be a notifiable alteration. If so, it will need inspecting by VOSA afterwards. Best check with VOSA or DVLA on that one.

I don't get why it's always 26" v 29" in these arguments.
Surely, if 26" is better than 29", then 24" would be even betterer.
And if 29" is better than 26", then why does no one make a 32" wheel ?

Or maybe, just maybe, different bikes suit different riders and there is no "better".

It's that internet forum game again.
Half a story gets reported in the media and everyone has a go at guessing the rest of it.
As a mechanic, I could add my own guesses and experiences, but why bother.

Either it is possible to shift to neutral while under power or it isn't.
Either pressing the brake pedal disables the throttle or it doesn't.
Either the brakes will overcome the power of the engine or they won't.

Toyota know the answers and won't publish them.
Any decent journalist could hire a car and take it to a test track to find out, but won't because it's easier to write speculation and opinion than proper journalism.

You need a proper disc measuring calliper and the manufacturer's data for a definitive answer, but as a rough guide, 1.5mm per side is worn out. Replace them.

CaptainFlashheart – Member
…do more to damage urban cycling than almost anything.

Apart from cars, of course.

Thanks for the replies, some interesting leads to follow up there.
That cycle museum is only about 60 miles away, so that will be a day out in the near future.
Those Hiwheelers are exactly what I am looking for. Anywhere between about £700 and £1600, which is about what I was expecting to pay, although I would imagine shipping for such an unusual size parcel would add quite a bit more.

While I'm out on my bike, the car I have paid Vehicle Excise Duty for is parked on private land.

I bought the Chameleon because I wanted something with horizontal dropouts to run a Rohloff and it was the first bike to turn up on ebay locally at the right price.
I bought the Blur because, on paper, VPP sounded like the best suspension linkage and it was cheaper than an Intense.
So, all this time I should have been feeling smug and looking down on other people on their common bikes. I never knew. :cry:

Do people really consider Santa Cruz to be boutique ?
Wow, I've got two of them. 8)

Well, I've lost my copaslip, so that solves that dilemma.
I think I may have found a legitimate use for WD40 though.
It helped everything slide in to place and adjust, but as it has no long term lubricating properties, it won't prevent the wedge from locking the BB in place.

So one no and one yes. :roll:
Part of the problem is that the two 5mm hex holes are a little worn.
I can get it to move a bit by putting a 5mm hex key in one or other of them, but it feels like if I apply enough force to turn it, it will round the holes first. I could do with a sort of angle grinder type peg spanner to get a bit more grip and leverage.

I'm using FSA ceramic bearing jockey wheels in my Rohloff tensioner.
I reckon they've outlasted the originals three times over, so that makes them worth three times the price.
I don't know how they compare with Shimano or SRAM though.

An AEC Militant yesterday…

Good mixture of tread directions there. :-)

gusamc – Member
same issue on buses and trains………………..

Polite note to bus/train/plane designers. Stop looking at films of Butlins in the 60s to determine average UK person size please.
Trucks are rated on their gross weight, buses on their passenger capacity.
I can't remember the exact figures, but it's something like, up to 1980 the average weight of a passenger was reckoned at 66kg, after 1980 it was 75kg.
I don't think the seats got any bigger though.

I've got an open fire and no mains water, so no central heating.
I scavenge wood from wherever I can, owning a Land Rover 110 and trailer helps. I've got about 10 tonnes stacked up in my garden at the moment.
I keep thinking I ought to get a proper log burner, not just for the efficiency, but to keep some heat going all night. I've got up some mornings and found the water in the jerry cans and dog bowl frozen.
If you've got the transport it might be worth a tour of your local industrial estate to scavenge broken pallets if you can.

The old factory with the big windows opposite the First Bus garage in Worcester is allegedly used for making "gentlemen's interest" short films and hasn't got any curtains.

I don't know what the figures are, that's why I'm asking.
As a comparison (and from memory, so I may have got some of the details wrong);

SPAM Biking Winter Challenge.
£18 Entry fee.
Motorbike & 4×4 marshalls, Raynet, Red Cross ambulance, Lions Club & Timelaps all in attendance and presumably being paid.
Hire of the land from MOD, including sections that are not open at any other time.
Reasonably priced tea and cakes.
Free overnight camping.
Large donation to charity.

Kona Mash Up.
£30 entry fee.
A few marshalls, some of who packed up half way through meaning no timed runs on their sections.
Notoriously inaccurate timing system.
No first aid cover.
Another £2 to park.
Camping charges.
Takes place on a course that you can ride any time and is still open to non competitors on the day of the event.
Overpriced cafe.
Free Red Bull & bananas out on the course.
No donation to charity.

rOcKeTdOg – Member
can i leave my bike in her entrance?

Won't your girlfriend let you make a mess in her entrance then ?
Try asking her if you can put it in her back passage instead.

I've got a Defender 110, although if you want to be pedantic, it's just a Land Rover 110 as it was made the year before they started calling them Defenders.
I can get two bikes in the back and still have room to sleep in the gap in the middle.
I think if I had a 90 I would cut the centre of the bulkhead away so I could get a bike in with the front wheel poking through between the seats rather than take the wheel off.

Power to weight ratio. At 18st you're never going to be as fast up hill as the fit guys half your weight.
I'm around 16st and hill climbing is definitely my weakness when racing, although in a mixed group non competitive fun ride, I reckon I'm faster than most up hill.
The way I train hill climbing with slower riders is to go on ahead to the top, turn round, ride back down to the back marker, ride back to the top and repeat.
Can you get one of your faster guys to do this ?
You can turn it in to a game. He tries to "lap" you 4 times, you try to catch him before 3.
It needs everyone involved to be willing, otherwise it just looks like the fast guy is showing off or trying to wind up the slow one, but at least it means no one gets left at the back on their own.

I think people here are confusing capitalism with consumerism.
Any system of government can continue indefinitely.
Any society that uses non renewable resources can not.

…especially where the point of maximum bending is the weld

That was my point about the tapered chainstays.
No doubt the maximum force is at the point where the chainstays are welded to the BB, but by butting and tapering the tubes the elastic deformation can be made to take place more or less evenly along their length.

Santa Cruz Chameleon with 100mm fork or Blur XC with 130mm fork depending on the event.
Up to 6 hours or so and reasonably smooth, I prefer the HT.
Longer or rougher, I find the FS less tiring.

Doesn't this design just turn the chainstays in to a leaf spring ?
Why should it be any more likely to break than any other spring ?
Hard to tell from the pic, but I take it the chainstays are tapered. This will spread the load along their length, rather than kinking them at the BB end.
Sorry about the non technical terms, I'm a mechanic, not an engineer.

I used the one on the Job Centre Plus website.
It worked for me. :-)

Get a Rohloff.
It's like a singlespeed with gears.

34" inside leg and I ride with a high cadence.
165mm on the FS and 175m on the HT.
I can't tell the difference.

I stayed here with some friends a couple of years ago.
http://www.blaenau-gwent.gov.uk/leisure/5807.asp
It's the only bunkhouse I have ever stayed at, so I don't know how it compares to others, but it seemed pretty good to me.

elaine anne – Member
…we need meat to get up those long winding hills and switchbacks…we need some 'grrrrrrr' inside of us

Vegetarian since about the age of 20 and vegan for about 3 years.
Despite being 47 years old and weighing 100kg, I'm still regularly finishing in the top third in MTB marathons and ran a 10km race in under 50 minutes last year.
More Grrrr than I know what to do with. :P

A list of vegan athletes.

I like the way they dropped the "Flesh" and "Indian Red" names to avoid causing offence, but kept "Fuzzy Wuzzy" :-)
I take it they don't get Dad's Army in the USA.

Mr Agreeable, I thought the 2Gb limit would be a problem with some sections of MM being over 2Gb. Once I found out that I could export just the current screen from my PC and an area of 50x25km is only 20Mb, I realised that 2Gb was plenty.
Trailquests are typically over an area of 10x15km or so, so I can simply centre the map on the event start and know that I have got all the map I will need with me.
With room for 90 such maps on the SD card, it will be a long time before I need to start deleting old ones to make room for new ones.
The Otterbox looks good, but for £45 I think I'll stick with my original plan of wrapping it in clingfilm for now.

Ambrose, I'll experiment with backlight levels and the screen timer to extend the battery life. If it still won't last long enough, I will get one of those external batteries.

Nobody got one then ?