Before you cut a carbon steerer, wrap sticky tape round the area to be cut. Helps prevent delamination and splintering at the cut.

Dunwich Dynamo?

110mile summer night ride out of London up the Essex coast.

Not quite what the OP asked for but pubs en-route stay open late, it’s free to enter and riding all night with a never ending trail of other riders’ lights in front of and behind you makes it special.

Sticks hand up timidly

I don’t get the love for them either. I’ve tried a couple of my friends bikes and they just felt bigger and more cumbersome than a bike should be and also bounced off roots and bumps. Maybe I’m too light for a fatbike? I’ve concluded that the 2.4 ‘love handles’ on my Surly 1×1 are as fat as I want to go.

I was going to write out a post detailing my opinion and observations until I saw this:

If you ****ed off and didn’t post useless comments on threads, would that matter?

Now I don’t think I can be ****ing ****ed.

Update on the Electron Light mount.

To make it easier to get on and off without having to completely undo the screw and have the small silver pivot it threads into drop out, I’ve trimmed 5mm off the plastic moulding on the screw to expose more thread.

With various packing strips the mount fits well on handlebars, some stems, round frame tubes and seatposts.

Please tell me the original Orange Clockwork’s in there, I’ve got very fond memories of mine.

Unemployed: What should I do?

Isn’t it obvious?

RIDE YOUR BIKE MORE…………….

I think I’ll have to agree with Dazh’s missus. If any of my aforementioned 7 bikes aren’t ridden for more than a few weeks I start looking longingly at whichever one it is and making plans for the next half decent day.

Merida road bike
Merida Full suss 140mm travel
Merida MTB singlespeed rigid with slicks for commuting
Surly 1×1 winter snot bike
Dean Ti 26er singlespeed hardtail, formerly the dream bike
Salsa Marmasita hardtail singlespeed, 29ers really are better
Kinesis 5T cross bike 1×7

I’m only available for the Jan 4th event, which will be my first outing in the SOG (Senile Old Git 50+) category. Singlespeedly as usual. Junior Balanced will be doing his first 2hr race in the 14-17s.

Check fuel flows freely from the tank. All GS125s are pretty old now so rust inside the tank partially blocking the fuel tap could be a problem. The bike wouldn’t have had an external fuel filter when new so maybe a previous owner was aware of that as a problem. Drain the carb float bown and check for water in the fuel too.

I-pod fits that description. Make sure he/she leaves it downstairs at bedtime!

mlke. The mount is hinged opposite the screw and the lower half is slotted where the screw passes through so the screw can be pivotted out of the way when the tension has been released. The body is alloy. rather than black plastic, the photo doesn’t make that obvious.

My most expensive bike only ever gets ridden at trail centres. On local trails and commuting it’d be totally wasted. I’ve got other bikes for that, at least one of which I ride almost every day.

Definitely riding from my front door, so I can have a beer or two after the ride.
My current record is a 23 mile mix of tarmac and gravel tracks to the start location of a 20 mile ride and the same back. Singlespeed.

Mine arrived yeterday.
First impressions:
The camera seems to work well. I had a 2GB SD card kicking around from a phone that died and that gives me 15 minutes recording time for now.
I had to find longer screws for the mounting hardware to make any of them work on a bike.
I now ordered one of these mounts for the new Electron F650 light. Gopro (and SJ4000) compatible, £14.99 from any bike shop with a Madison account. At 35mm diameter it will need packing out for most handlebars but will clamp snugly on a lot of stems.

The locking mechanism on the waterproof case is a little delicate. I managed to break the small tab off it in a moment of hamfistedness. Now fixed though.

My 13 year old has been able to outsprint me running since Easter but on bikes I’m still king. He’s not bad though:

10 miles road: 30minutes and 50 seconds
Flying lap of Calshot velodrome (142m): 11.3 seconds
At SSUK this year he rode 3 laps in about the time it took me to do 4.

</proud parent>

and not a dicky bird

You’d be better off looking in Bangkok if that’s what you’re after.

Paceman. I’ll have to measure the forks at home to give you an exact answer but gut feeling is yes, and I’m sure I’ve seen reports on the internet of 3 inch Knards working. As for other tyres more information is needed. Real tyre widths and manufacturers stated tyre widths are often very different.

My Surly 1×1.
Front tyre is a Kenda Nevegal 2.35 which blows up to 58mm width on the Halo T2 rim, the rear is an older Michelin WildgripR 2.25 which measures 60mm. 18psi works for my ten and a half stones.

Hmmmmm. Still waiting for the one I ordered via EvoMTB. </pedant version>

26er + anyone? after the arrival of surly’s instigator 2.0 i’m tempted to stick a trials rim and a 2.75 dirt wizard on the old inbred i’ve got knocking about….

In the US Surly sell a 26×3.0 Knard, which internet wisdom says will fit my Surly 1×1.

BUT.
When those tyres do make it to the UK market the combined cost of them and suitable 50mm rims to mount them on is likely to be pushing £400, so for the foreseeable future I’ll stick with the 2.4s on 30mm rims I’m currently running.

Hmmmmm. Still waiting for mine from EvoMTB.

Buy yourself some new kit to cope with the rubbish weather if the money’s there.

Think of somewhere within biking range you haven’t been for a while and make time to ride there.

Get your new friend to drop you off somewhere with your bike so you have to ride home.

Get back in touch with the crowd you used to ride with.

Surely at least one of the above is doable?

Saw Heaven 17 and Blancmange last weekend, cracking show.
This weekend — a Green Day tribute act.
Coming up — James Blunt (mainly for Wifey although when we saw him at the Wickham Festival he came across as a nice bloke)
Next March, I’m not going to miss the Stranglers again.

Just keep an eye on what Surly are doing, they were first (or thereabouts) with production fatbikes and 29ers, and now they’re pushing the ‘plus’ sizes in both 26 and 29inch variants.

The partnership between Surly and Salsa is both interesting and effective. Surly create the niche and a once it’s established Salsa provide the bling for those who want a little bit more without Surly having to alienate it’s core customers by moving away from it’s ‘steel is real’ and ‘bikes just for riding’ corporate philosophy.

Through the late eighties the government made house ownership more fashionable and ‘the thing to do’. In the same period the lenders fuelled the rises by drastically raising the multiples of buyer’s incomes they were willing to lend and coming up with ridiculous deals such as 105% mortgages and deferred interest that meant your loan increased over the first few years on the assumption that the value of your house would continue to rise ahead of it. I worked with several people at the time who bought back street terraced houses in Swindon for £20000 and sold them less than a year later for £40000. That sort of thing was happening in ripples emanating from London. That was when mega-commutes of 100 miles or more started to become more normal.

The following crash was a result of high interest rates and job losses. Then because house prices had dropped so drastically even people who could afford their mortgages started defaulting and walking away to buy elsewhere as it was cheaper than selling their house for far less than they owed on it. Some people were chased by their lenders, a lot got away with it. In ’91 a girlfriend bought a studio for £22000 that had previously been sold for £50000. 6 out of 12 in that block had been reposessed within 3 years of it being built.

In the current climate there are too many folks now clued up as to the investment potential of property for there to ever be another crash like the early nineties. As soon as there is a small drop they will be rushing in to pick up a bargain.

Fatbikes are the current rebellion against increasing complication but will soon be recognised for the heavy and clumpy things they are and lighter 3 inch ‘plus’ sizes will be widely adopted for trail use.

As the first tier component manufacturers squeeze ever more cogs on a rear hub one of the second tier companies will market a high quality, light and durable 1×7 set up. This will be bought by aging singlespeeders whose knees can’t take any more and bike manufacturers looking to sell quality bikes at a reasonable price.

A few years later that enterprising component manufacturer will upgrade to 8 speed and some time after that 9………………

Another T5 owner here. Mainly because it was the only van I looked at that didn’t require amputation of the middle passenger’s right leg to clear the gear change.

Errrrr…. More clothes?

Nothing else changes.

Hip flask, lights and beer money are year round essentials.

On a grey day with a murky river in the background, believe that the gap you think you can see in the barbed wire fence is real. much claret from the fingers and backs of hands from that one. The nice lady behind the counter in Boots where I went to buy elastoplasts told me her husband did the same the week before!

Ride a very wet, muddy and steep MTB race using Look roadie pedals and shoes because you don’t have the money for SPDs. Couldn’t clip back in and no grip for the unrideable bits.

MB Junior is 13 now and last night declared his intention to attempt a 100 mile sportive for charity next year. Living close to the New Forest has been great for getting him into biking at an early age. Typically on a Sunday we would go out as a family for the afternoon and Wifey would drop me and him with bikes to make our own way home with no particularly big hills in the way. There were a few memorable tantrums:
“I don’t want to ride home. If you loved me you’d let me back in the van. WAAAAAAHHHHHHH”.
He’d always settle once she’d driven off and eventually admit he was enjoying the ride.

Nice write up and pictures, they helped pass a slow afternoon.

Sorry, I can’t help but cringe every time I see peddles instead of pedals. Keep the posts coming though.

I use my i-gotU tracker, reviewed in Singletrack 4 years ago and bought from Maplins for about £30. It’s matchbox sized so dead easy to carry and can create a GPX file that can be manually uploaded to Strava. A little long winded but a fair trade for the ease of carrying and low cost.

In addition to having small oil capacities many motorcycles have wet clutches so any material that is worn off the clutch plates will circulate throughout the engine if not trapped by the filter.

My CBR250R has service intervals of 8000miles and does 90mpg without trying too hard.

If you’re looking at a motorcycle as an economical way of getting about then Harleys should be near the bottom of your list.

We’ve got an Asus that came as an insurance replacement earlier this year. We had a problem with the hard drive last week and the customer service was excellent. Picked up, repaired and delivered back in a week.

I didn’t get THAT much money for my bithday and I think I’ll keep a healthy distance from any hookers that’d do it for the loose change I’ll have left over.

Yup, Surlys make very fine winter bikes.
It’s not a Monkey but any excuse to post a pic

I’m disappointed. I was hoping this was going to be a thread full of tales of awesome night rides lit by only moonlight.