CharlieMungus – Yeah, I live in there.
Nope, not on a site. I’m free-range!
Fill and empty? I assume you mean fresh, grey and black water? Black (being toilet waste) every couple of weeks the wheeled cassette gets emptied down a public loo. It’s all very civilised. Grey (being sink and shower water) goes down storm drains. Fresh water is the hardest to find commodity for a travelling man! Many different places. I have been living in vans for over six years so have become quite canny in the art.

Cheers guys!

Oh, nickcutter85, you may want to get a mobi wash if you’re sleeping in the van with the bike. I’m a tart for keeping a gleaming bike but I assure you that even non-pungent sheep poo clinging to the knobbles of you tyre tread will brew an ambience to turn your stomach by the time morning comes around!

Also, I meant to say, if you want any advice then feel free to ask!

I’m not very proficient with the internetz so let me know if you can’t see my photos! This is my Sprinter MTB touring wagon. Toilet, shower, regular bed, hot + cold running water, central heating, 12v + 240v, etc.
It is also my full time home so I can say it is fully tested and well used!can you see this?[/url]

Yup, I plan to hit all the trail centres. I know trail preferences are subjective but are there any that really aren’t worth seeking out?
I’m going to be travelling and riding alone so ‘out in the wilds’ will truly feel like wilderness riding, especially for being so far from home!
What tyres for a gondola?

Argos are selling 8GB ScanDisk Blade sticks for £14.99 at the moment. That was the cheapest I found when I was looking last week.

Why would you bodge something like this together with glue? GLUE?
Weld it.

I bought the same padels a few months back and also found them lacking any way to engage a pedal spanner. In the end I had no choice but to use the 8mm allen key hole.

If you pop into the Dales Bike Centre in Grinton (Swaledale), the really nice guy there that runs the bike shop will sell you a selection of laminated maps of some really great ride routes. He charges a couple of pounds each for them. A bargin when exploring new ground as you know you are climbing or descending in the right places! I did them all last week and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Okay, I had a brew, I rolled up my sleeves, I gave it full beans, I broke my chainwhip!
It seems so tight that something else must be going on? Any ideas?

Cheeky bugger! I’m proper flexing the ‘guns’ here!
I’ve got the lockring tool on a 2″ breaker bar so I must be putting about 150nm into it?
I’ll have a cup of tea and go back to it after. See if I can’t lose me some skin or break a spoke!
Thanks for the quick replies.

No worries! I’ve never taken a cassette off before!
I’m trying to take it off to see if it’s done any damage. So I am assuming it has a regular thread type and unscrews in an anti-clockwise direction?

Big old loop out of Edale for me tomorrow. Lovely.

My bike lives in a cupboard stood on it’s back wheel. Never had any bother.

Sweet, cheers buddy.

Last 12 months;

Headset bearings
Front and rear wheel bearings
Rear gear cable
Front gear cable outer
XTR Shadow rear mech (lanced by a branch and torn apart)
3 chains
About to fit a third cassette
Frame pivot bearings about to be changed
Front chainset about to be changed due to worn chainring teeth and BB bearing wear
Destroyed a pair of pedals
Eaten quite a few tyres and sets of brake pads.

That’s all from a FSR Stumpy Elite bought new a week short of a year ago today. She’s seen over 2000 miles of off-road action and, apart from the rear mech, it’s all wear and tear so I’ve no complaints. I ride my bike hard and I ride it all year long and in all weathers. Things wear out.

I always ride in knee and shins, can’t see my going for a ride without them.
However, if you take your spare seven question marks with you, they should be more than enough to break any fall.

How odd.
If I were so inclined how would I reach these moderators?

@HORA

For no one specific reason but rather a whole load. I rented houses for about 8 years and was finding the expensive quite upsetting to occupy someone elses property. As a single man I found that I was never in a position to buy. Van living does away with an awful lot of the regular expenses.
I also prefer to own, occupy and consume only what I need. Before I bought my first van, when I gave up my last house, I sold or gave away pretty much everything I owned except for my car, some clothes and camping gear and a few books. I worked in a city during the day and headed out into surrounding countryside in the evening, setting up a tent as it got dark. Then packing it back into the car the next morning and heading back into the city. In the years since I have swapped to a van instead of a tent for more security and to save all the unpacking and repacking!
As for a reduced quality of life I can see that my lifestyle wouldn’t suit most people but I much prefer it. I have hot and cold running water, a shower, flushing toilet, regular bed, gas central heating, electric lighting, a kitchen, a place to stow my bike inside and a jet wash to keep it nice and shiny! It is fully insulated and the heating keeps it toasty.
The noise issue would be a question of expectation versus tolerance?

So I live in a van. Have done for the last six years. I’ve never chucked a bucket of wee into the street. I’ve never left rubbish behind. I’ve never stolen anything in my life.
It’s never caused a problem except to perhaps about ten individuals over the years who took offence to my presence and decided verbal or physical abuse was the best way to make a point.
There are a lot of ways to generalize and categorize people but it’s fair to say that most people are nice and some people are complete tools.

+1 for coffeeking

Do it calmly. Makes the point in a passive manner plus you’ll find out either where he lives or places he frequents. You never know, he may even head for a police station himself.

I spent hours trying to magnetize mine while I was mending from the surgery. I wanted to be able to stick my door key to it when I went out. That doesn’t work either.

If it’s that the hooked side is clagged with fluff or dirt then give it a comb with a wire brush. Bish, bash, bosch.

I gave up having a home a long while ago. I lived in out of a tent for a while and for the last six I’ve been travelling England and Wales in what is a van on the outside and a house on the inside.
I finish working for my current employer on Thursday and then I’m off riding for six months.

Not the toughest climb out there but the Syfydrin trail at Nant-yr-Arian left me disgusted. A massive fire road slog that pretty much ends with the trail centre car park.
What should be standard procedure is to start at the bottom to warm up your legs with a climb, finish at the bottom with a grin from the last decent.

I’ve had mine for ten years now, never found it a problem. How come you had yours removed?

I live in a big white van with a house built inside.
The van is called Milky.

Tea. The king of brews.

Hey Doug.

I don’t use GPX. Any chance of a description of those routes so I can plot them on OS, or maybe even a link to a map of the route?

Badum tish

Dogs arse, all of them. Don’t do it to yourself.

+1 for alexxx!

I say kick to kill. You won’t manage it + it’l be a plenty steep learning curve.

I quit my job yesterday!

Forget that lark, working’s for losers!

Come the end of the month I’m going to be travelling the UK riding my bike for the next five months at least.
Follow that with a bit of part time until the weather really sets in again for winter and then I shall go back to working full time again until the Spring.
Next year I’m going abroad to ride.

Right! Class 10 it is then. Unless I can find a class 11!

Thanks Dango. Have you used these in a Go Pro hd? Are they definitely compatible?

Are you sure the measurements relate to circumference? More likely to be length I would have thought.

I’m also 5’11” and I ride a 2010 Stumpy FSR Elite in a medium. Fits me just right and it rides like a dreamboat. I paid £2000 for mine back in April. I’m not planning on selling it but I do hope £660 isn’t the market rate!

Yeah, I opened this thread expecting photos.

One step at a time.

Boom-tish.

Bad Boy Bubby