I did it for the first time this year and thought it was ace. Yes there are fire road links but bombing down them at 30+mph with your mates seeing who can brake last for the corners is still cool. For your 49 euros you get two days lift passes, food on the way round and a ‘free gift’ that’s worth having (it was a jacket this year). I rode officially on the Friday and wasn’t turned away from the feed stations when I went round again on the Sunday.

Or can i blame it on bike setup?

If you’re riding fully rigid or your bike is badly set up then yes.

Are you seeing nearly full travel on your forks? I’ve seen lots of folks run theirs with far too much pressure. The bodyweight/pressure charts supplied by fork manufacturers are often miles out.
Have you got so much rebound damping on that the forks don’t have time to spring back between bumps?

Too big for me — and far too many gears.

The OP’s aim sounds similar to the n+1 bike I’m currently building. Kinesis 5T CX frame (when it arrives next month), bull bars and 1×7 using an old downtube shifter I had kicking around mounted on a Paul Components thumbie converter.

Shimano boots have been good to my feet but a friend bought Gaerne when his last Shimano pair wore out and now says he wouldn’t go back.

Feta and slow roast tomato pasta courtesy of Tesco
Super lush tasting apple courtesy of the tree in my back garden.

My Brother in law runs a Scuba dive school on a tiny Island off Cebu. The centre of the storm is about to pass over the top of them about now.

They posted a video late last night of the wind – looked pretty frisky – not sure some of his buildings are going to have roofs in the morning.

N

Link please.

I think I’d baulk at a 4 ft drop but rollable doubles I’ll usually try to clear.
I got the biggest air of my life (so far) last month aged 49 at Swinley on the humpy bit of the blue. I had time to look down at the ground below the front wheel and think ‘ooh, that’s a long way away’. The reality was probably 4-6ft.

cookeaa – Member

For the likes of us I think lbs will end up being treated as workshops/distress purchase places.

+1

TBH I don’t see less “Serious” cyclists or new commuters bothering with the “traditional” LBS for much longer, first place anyone looks for anything these days is google, which will take them to CRC/Wiggle/Evans/Halford’s websites and that’s where they’ll buy bikes and kit from 90% of the time… The Web has pretty much done for the LBS, this ain’t news.

What makes more sense is something more like a “service centre” but for bikes…
No glad-handing yuppies into buying a composite ego chariot, no working for biscuits, no glass fronted cabinet full of XTR at full RRP (Which no bugger will ever buy), and no row upon row of bikes that you can’t sell at a profit….

Keep it simple, middle aged woman called Sue who does the bookings, fella called Mike or Dave who runs the workshops and a couple of underlings who have yet to earn the right to be called by name…

They don’t care if you order the parts or pay their exhorbitant markup (to reflect their costs in obtaining your desired parts at short notice), the only stock they might hold should be cables, inner tubes and lubricants.

But they’ll do a quick, professional job of changing pats, doing a full service, full build up of a frame, true a wheel, bleeding brakes… Basically whatever jobs people traditionally use an LBS workshop for, they’ll even come round and pick up your bike in a Van if you like…

I can see it now; small business unit on an industrial estate, opposite an MOT testing centre, No frills…

The workshop is the only element of an LBS left that is even potentially profitable really, do away all the shop front bollocks and loss making overheads and you might make reasonable business out of it.

All IMO of course…

You’re close.
I can’t see an industrial unit working though. In my experience local visibility makes a huge difference. When I moved from a backstreet location to village centre my takings doubled instantly. A sizeable proportion of my customers ride bikes because they do not have cars.
It is still worth having a selection of bikes up to £400 as there are plenty of peple who regard a bike at that price as a luxury item to treat themselves to or want to distance themselves from toyshop bikes.
A selection of accessories is worth the investment too with lights, locks and pumps being the fastest movers.

I went last year for a week. I didn’t notice much off piste but then I didn’t really go looking for it. The smaller Jafferau area is higher and wilder and in far better condition when I finally got to it on the last day as the ski schools don’t appear to go there. It does catch the wind though. We had a couple of days of REALLY warm weather midweek that turned the lower slopes into ice rinks when they refroze overnight, and that was in early February. Our instructor told us that that happens once or twice most years.
High point of the holiday was the evening meal and drinks at the top of the mountain followed by the option of skiing back down by the lights of the piste bashers.

If you go into any of the bars when they’re busy and you’re not either local or young, female and attractive don’t expect to be served in a hurry.

If you’re happy with 8 speed Sora/Ultegra whatever then good for you, why are you contributing to this discussion!?

I was trying to make the point that beyond a certain level returns diminish and buying bling won’t make you a better rider. In my opinion there are far better things to spend money on than adding one or two gears to your bike.

asterix – Member
it is a bit of a silly argument, there isn’t an 8-speed system that is anywhere near as good as a new 11-speed set up like Campag Record or Sram Red ( I havent ridden the Shimano version yet). If you haven’t tried a those then you are missing out even though they are ridiculously expensive

How do you define ‘good’?
My 2×8 Sora set up has 4 gears I regularly use, 4 I occasionally use and another 8 combinations that are never used. If I want to change gear I push a lever and it changes and has done so for the last 7 years with the same cables and only one change of chain. I’ll admit that I have other bikes I ride on wet days but what is not ‘good’ about that?

That’s not necessarily bad service, that’s simply the industry being too bloody minded for it’s own good.

I certainly agree with that and as the industry gets ever more competitive it’s likely to get worse.

250g durable cassettes and steel free hubs for me, I’m no ladyboy

I’m very fond of my 8 speed Sora. Smooth as silk every time.

franksinatra – Member

The basic, fundamental problem is that the LBS isn’t set up for the needs of the STW rider. Many LBSs do very well serving their customers, but you lot aren’t their core customers.

Nail on head time. Makes sense to me.

+1

Keep the 9 speed going for another couple or three years and save your money so you can then blow it all on being one of the first with 12 speed.

Replies to Frank from my own perspective:

franksinatra – Member
I just think a lot of LBS/businesses don’t really have a clue about customer services.

How about they ask you when you need it for? If you say that you want to be riding at the weekend they say fine, but we will need to pay distributor to post it out and re-charge that to you.

It is all about understanding what the customer needs. I am happy to pay a premium if I feel I am getting a premium service. LBS’s can do a lot that online retailers cannot, they just need to think it about it a bit more.

How about these for starters:
• Customer club with deals, servicing etc — Regular coustomers do get better deals but I wouldn’t put out any standard deal as everyone’s different.
• Club evenings — I run the shop on my own, which takes enough of my time
• Service plan (regular payments to cover all servicing) — Servicing and repair costs are too unpredictable to make this work
• Running cycle proficiency at local school — As club evenings
• reciprocal deals with other local retailers (get a cake and coffee in the local cafe whilst getting your bike serviced) — Maybe worth thinking about as the local coffee shop are quieter now Costa has moved into town
• Clean and Lube for fiver — Not really an effective use of my time
• Scheme leasing quality used kids bikes so you don’t need to buy a new one whenever the kids grow — Have you seen how kids treat their bikes?

To answer the OP: Three days between order and delivery is very unusual. Most of the suppliers I use will offer next day delivery on all orders placed by lunchtime, carriage paid or not. For the record, carriage paid thresholds are mostly between £100 and £200 before VAT.

To further the LBS debate: Next spring I’ll be celebrating 10 years in the trade and when I started it was well worth keeping a couple of XT mechs and cassettes on the shelf. Now they’d be a liability and as cybicle said, keeping the commuters moving is the mainstay of the business. There’s a lot of snobbery in cycling and many’s the time I’ve seen riders on ‘enthusiast level’ bikes look through the window at the hybrids and retros I stock and ride off never to be seen again. If I kept enough bling to tempt them in I’d eventually turn into a museum rather than a shop. I regularly hear stories of other larger local shops quoting three weeks for repairs and wonder how they can get away with that.

Did one last night, no problems.

Get on the drops, they are then tucked in out of the cold

Only if your belly is big enough 😉

Wearing a third sock has helped me in the past.

I’ve had some great rides with my now 12-year-old over the last few years but nothing that compares to the C2C. Well done both of you.

A set of 5 Stronglight chromed steel bolts retails at £7.99, coloured alloy ones a bit more. You’d likely get a far better price per bolt if you found the supplier and asked for a few thousand.
You could also spend an hour or so with a file shortening the bolts you’ve got.

No idea, that’s wifey’s job and we don’t have a shared account for me to find out from. If she stops including beer and gooey puddings in the weekly shop I’ll know it’s time to redistribute the responsibilities.

If you like flats, fit flats but make sure you get brake levers with the right pull ratio if you have canti brakes. Maybe ignore the fashion police and fit a set of bar ends for the straighter, faster sections of your rides.

uselesshippy – I have a shed-build SS – its just not sociable when riding in a group.

Since when has singlespeeding not been a sociable activity?

The lead that runs from the headphone socket of my MP3 player to the back of my car stereo was one of my best ever purchases.

It would appear, from conversion – not observation, that female employees are VERY reluctant to execute the no.2 procedure in the work’s toilets.

Reminds me of a bust up I had with Wifey early on in our marriage:
“I want to go home now” she said.
“But why? It’s a lovely afternoon”
“I don’t like the toilets down here”
After several minutes of arguing she stomped off and refused to get in the car, saying she’d walk home rather than get in the car with me.
She got home four hours later having walked sixteen miles, clenching all the way.

She can laugh now about how stubborn she was in her youth. And yes I did go back along the route several times to see if she’d calmed down.

Last year I stopped for lunch under this one
whilst riding back from seeing this one

Before spending lots of money on new brakes/bike have you treated your wife’s bike to new cables (inners AND outers AND noodles) and stripped and greased the pivots? A properly maintained and set up set of vees should be more than up to the job, in the dry at least.

We’ve got an oil filled electric heater but that’s quite expensive to run so on cold dark nights we’ve got a big, thick doubled up curtain we pull across the entrance to stop heat escaping from the living room. That works rather well.

Go out all night and ride into your 30s.

8 speed gear range is about the same as running a single ring with an 11 to 32 cassette. Good for spinny distance type riding but the slow pickup makes anything trialsy a lot harder, which is why I sold mine. I wanted to like it but never could for the type of riding I normally enjoy.

49 here and almost exclusively singlespeed for the last 4 years. Knees are fine but playing footie with my son sometimes makes my hips hurt.

40mpg, were you one of the group from our local club that turned up at Lymington for the Isle of Wight club ride only to be told that there was no space on the ferries for the next three hours due to the numbers of sportif riders?

It is starting to seem to me from the size and frequency of the New Forest events (at least four this year and two on consecutive weekends recently) that the organisers are not considering their perceived impact and leaving those of us that regularly ride in the area to deal with the legacy of hostility and reduced tolerance.

Perhaps the above is more accurate?

This year the New Forest seems more crowded than ever. Hour long queues at the icecream vans at Whitsun for example. For road riding I’ve tended to head more for the lanes of the Test Valley which I’ve found to be largely deserted.

It is starting to seem to me from the size and frequency of the New Forest events (at least four this year and two on consecutive weekends recently) that the organisers are not considering their impact and leaving those of us that regularly ride in the area to deal with the legacy of hostility and reduced tolerance.

I’m thinking that it won’t be too long before the bicycle market resembles the motorbike market where low mileage, lightly used, quality bikes are quite plentiful having been bought with good intentions but then rarely left the garage.

A post script to this discussion:

A week ago I sent a letter to my son’s school asking if there were any activities planned for the week before the half term that it would harm my son’s education to miss. I also stated that I had no intention of taking term time holidays once his GCSE courses start next year.

Today I received a phone call from my son’s year leader in which he told me that although he could not officially sanction absence, in his opinion my son’s progress and attendance were good enough that missing the four days I had identified would not be detrimental to his education.

Half day at work today so out on the road bike for lunch on the beach and an ice cream by a lake half way back. 46 brisk miles with a couple of stops to bask in the sunshine.

KMC Z610HX