Back to the disco theme, here’s a modern take on it

Oh my god, he’s done it again. TWICE.

I retaliate with

Eek, I appear to share musical taste with TJ. Now I’m really ashamed.

Push up tensioners only work if you’re very close to the ‘magic’ gear without them. They will only take up a very small ammount of slack, far less than a link’s worth.

‘Magic’ gears will cease to be magic after half a dozen muddy rides as the chain wears.

Best solution is to start with a good fresh chain and sprocket and as Sam says, don’t use 9/10 speed, most sprockets are designed for 7/8 speed chains.

When I ran regularly I used to find that I could put in respectable times for short distances (1 mile in 5 minutes, 2 miles in 11 minutes) but anything over that I’d struggle to get much below 7 minute miles.
The guys I could ride and swim with in the tri club would be putting in 33-36 minute 10ks whilst I only once got below 40.

I assume that must be down to genetic factors?

Spoke lengths required would vary too much to be accommodated by your existing spokes if you were planning on re-using them.

when do we get the punch line

Sorry, no punch line, just sharing a genuinely pleasant and unexpected surprise.

A night in the same hotel you had for your wedding night. Worked well for me.

Conti Sport Contacts have worked well for me.

A serious one……….

Gamut chain devices are noisy due to having a nylon chain roller. Cut a section out of a roadie inner tube and slip it over the roller with a bit of glue and the noise goes.

To the OP
Imagine riding everywhere in your 36T ring and 9 speed set up. If you go for a 10 speed cassette you’ll have one lower gear to use. Currently, if you drop down to your 22T ring you will be dropping the equivalent of 3 to 4 gears on the rear shifter.

Sorry pics will have to be tomorrow as I didn’t bring my camera to work today.

I’ve got a very good 24 inch wheeled Gary Fisher Tyro girls that I haven’t got round to putting on Ebay yet. I was hoping to get £90 or thereabouts for it.

If it’s anything like my old 2.4 it’ll be a pig of a job with the injector pump needing to come off.

40mpg

a pub a long way off

You’ve dropped your standards!
You missed a good one. We even did the Hilly Billies on the way back. No-one cleaned the rooty slope this time though.

Caught a little bit of very light rain down here in southern Hampshire last night. Some of the singletrack in well drained, exposed areas was nearly summer-like. Big contrast in the dips though, they’re still swampy.

I always thought the half inch of slack related to motorbikes where the chain tension will vary as the suspension moves. With bicycles I’ve always set the tension as tight as it will go with the pedals still able to turn freely. Bike frames are relatively flexible things and if you look at the lower chain run when you’re really leaning on the pedals you’ll see it sag quite noticably.

Re: nedrapier

That article is written about road, front chain rings ie no mud and the chain tension spread over 20-28 teeth. For a rear sprocket off road conditions are somewhat harsher.

Alloy 14 tooth sprocket = about 8 weeks life expectancy if used off road regularly.

Here’s my Chris King 16 tooth after 3 months

I grew up on the Isle of Wight so in addition to my above link to the Freshwater Beach park in Dorset I can offer the following info on the Island.

Ventnor, pretty but steep and exposed.
Sandown/Shanklin, best beaches, most hotels, most amusement arcades etc.
Ryde, er you can see across the water to Portsmouth, it’s got an ice rink that may or may not be open when you get there (the parent company now has a winding up order against it).
West Wight Freshwater/Yarmouth, scenic, historic but very quiet, retirementville.

Biggest tourist attractions:
Robin Hill Park, mainly animal based with some good activities for school age children.
Blackgang Chine, rides, loads of displays, looks great when illuminated in late summer evenings.
Carisbrook Castle, plenty of history.
Sandown Zoo, lots of tigers and snakes.

Flew them to Tokyo in ’98. Only one of the 4 planes had slightly ‘tired looking’ trim. On all the food was excellent.

I had a very pleasant few days camping at Freshwater Beach Holiday Park[/url] near Bridport with my son a couple of years ago.
Not the cheapest but that keeps the chavs out and the staff all seemed to be making an effort.

Lots of people here mentioning water getting into boots via the ankles so I’ll repeat what I wrote above. Home-made neoprene gaiters about 4 inches long completely seal the boots and for the last couple of years my feet have been dry and warm at the end of EVERY winter ride.

Winter boots every time here plus home made neoprene gaiters to seal the ankles when it’s wet.

Anyhow, now I’m wondering about what legal hoops there would be to register one here…

Try Googling ‘Single vehicle Approval’.

I put a number of imported motorcycles through a few years ago.
You’d need mudguards for starters. Lights are not compulsory as vehicles can be registered for daytime use only. Speedos are not compulsory on mopeds. The noise test is surprisingly slack.

Certain classes of vehicles are exempt from SVA although I can’t see that one having the 12 inches of ground clearance and 800mm seat height that defines enduro bikes. If you remember the Scrappy Races a few years ago, the Somerset farmers avoided SVA by declaring their build an ‘Agricultural Showman’s Vehicle’.

Not wrong at all, it looks beautiful in a way so many modern bikes don’t. The motorcycling equivalent of a singlespeed?

For:
Loads of good pubs close to the trails.
Good place to chill out and watch the animals.
If the weather’s good enough you can ride off road most of the way to the beach.
Plenty of singletrack if you know where to look.
Good place to introduce kids/novices to mountain biking.

Against:
All the best bits are cheeky.
Can seem a bit crowded at peak times.
Generally flat (if that bothers you).

As TJ said although I’ve thought of an alternative.
If you can find a bearing cone (cheapie wheel cone?) and bearings the right size you may be able to insert them into the old bearing race to give yourself something to push on. I’ve not tried it myself and it sounds a bit fiddly but I’d give it a go if that was my problem.

Tomac Flint, singlespeed with Manitou Minute fork, middling wheels, a bit of sealant in the tubes and carbon bars and seatpost. The bathroom scales say 24lbs and have me wondering how these sub 20lb builds come about. I know I could lose weight off it here and there but I’m struggling to see how it could get THAT much lighter and still keep all the parts required to make it a bicycle?

The big problem with this country is the way successive governments have allowed house prices to spiral to ludicrous levels, primarily fueled by the lenders offering ever greater multiples of income. Anyone entering the labour and accommodation markets today could take the exact same career path as their parents but never be anywhere near as well off. Whether £40k makes you rich depends a lot on your personal circumstances.

Genesis’ Day One either in flat or drop bar versions sounds better for that ride to me.

Chromoto forks are fine. They keep the front wheel pointing where you want it to and in my experience give a slightly more compliant ride than carbon forks.
There’s also nothing wrong with a 97 P7. ‘Modern’ geometry is more biased towards going faster on the downhill bits which as you’re looking for rigid forks, I suspect is not going to be a major part of your riding.

Just remembered, Samos, close to Turkey has both history and trails. It’s about the size of the Isle of Wight but much much taller.

Vassiliki with Neilson was good ten years ago, but even then they were grumbling about EU grants being used to tarmac over all the best trails.

Pie charts?

Mostly Balanced – Member
emma82 – Member
Sex isn’t everything

Perfect illustration of the difference between men and women.

POSTED 8 HOURS AGO #
emma82 – Member
Why?

emma82 – Member
would have done the deed at home. (as an example) I prefer sex to be a bonus to a good loving relationship….

Only a man could describe a thread that is about a bloke asking about needing a boner to get laid, then reporting on his boner and getting laid as ‘warming’. I love STW

I think you may have just answered your own question. Sort of?

In the naughty edition of Trivial Pursuit there’s the question ‘What can a man do that could provoke any of these emotions: anger, humour, sympathy?’.
How many of those could a bloke get away with when his lady’s got a ‘headache’?

emma82 – Member

Sex isn’t everything

Perfect illustration of the difference between men and women.

Don’t expect to have ‘all guns blazing’ from the start. Go in there intent on giving her a good time any way you can and I don’t see why it shouldn’t happen for you.
Nicest thing wifey ever said to me was that she likes to feel it growing in her hands, that totally put me at ease.

For big midrange power and light weight the Suzuki SV1000S hasn’t been mentioned yet. A neighbour had one and reckoned it would wheelspin off the throttle all over the place on wet roads.