I wish you hadn’t put this up. Despite not having read Asterix since being a child, I can remember so much of it off by heart. I used to re-read them constantly.

And it’s my me realise that I don’t know where my collection is, by Mithras!

Also off to spend silly amounts of money on Amazon……

Thanks everyone (apologies for the slow response – no pc at home).

I hadn’t realised it was such a minefiled and yes I have George’s expression on above reading this!

On the preload thing, I just whip it up until it’s fingertight (I don’t have a torque wrnech for it). Not scientific and probably wrong I know, but it’s what I’ve done on other bikes which have all been fine. Recognising that there are opinios that think it’s a waste of time, the only other option is facing – I will make the long trek to a decent bike shop (my LBS have said in the past that gear indexing is a big job that will take a few days, I won’t bother asking them about facing!) and get it done and report back in 6 months.

Thanks again!

Thanks everyone – terrific stw response. Looks like you yangs, castlemaine or maribymong then – I’ll contact the castlemaine shop too. Cheers again

Save time by doing what I did for a half marathon – just turn up without bothering with any of this “training” or “running” nonsense beforehand. Just be prepared for a deal of agony and to be unable to walk for about a week afterwards, oh yes and an incredibly slow time!

Note – meant tongue-in-cheek before anyone takes me too seriously.

Don’t know about Vectras, but I just paid about £300 for my Audi A4 timing belt and water pump replacement (not at an Audi garage I hasten to add!).

I am in awe at Bunnyhop’s (above) curtain-making for Johnny Marr. Can’t top that!

I rode past Kate Humble on a canal near Brecon last year. She did say hello.

And I think I saw Saddam Hussein at a bus stop a couple of months ago, but I could have been mistaken. He did have a moustache.

Got the same. It’s the monkeys I’m worried about.

The cheese and butter gag is priceless!

Forty-mumble-mumble here and….gout tick (this week), shingles tick, but not the hernia thing though. Currently on crutches as my ankle has given up and needed repairing. I’m viewing crutches as a much-needed upper body work-out.

Just 30 – pah! Youngster.

From time to time. I can’t ride two at once.

I miss Smurfmat’s awesome wisdom on these matters.

I apparently need a mortgage. As if the current one’s not big enough!

Born in deepest darkest Kent, wnet north for a few years, now in the Chilterns.

I wnet through Stanstead last year wearing them and back again at Spain no problems

Ace ride in the dry, all quite do-able but don’t underestimate how our little southern hills do creep up! It’s very well organised and has a great atmosphere.

Enjoy – wish I was doing it. If you see a bloke on crutches looking envious, come and say hello!

Mrs is doing the 84k with a pal as I’m injured – I aim to help out though at start / finish. Will be the first one I’ve missed for years.

To me, the word outstanding suggests an element of the positive, with integrity and achievement etc. So in that rather loose definition, Thatcehr….???!!!! The woman absolutely destroyed the UK through ideological pettiness, so no way would I agree.

In my definition, I think Mo Mowlem would be it.

My rule of thumb is that the bigger the city the more lonely you feel if you’re on your own for a while. It doesn’t last though.

As Bunnyhop said above, the root of everything seems to be the ankle, don’t run away from things (excuse the pathetic pun). Put all of your efforts for now into getting that worked out and break the spiral. I can sympathise, currently on crutches having had mine operated on two weeks ago after the 5 years of hell it gave me, but I was able to keep riding after a style. Get that done and then throw yourself back at biking, running, climbing, biking whatever. It will all come back.

Edited

I find it sad that we live in a country where this sort of attitude is not only acceptable but quite widely held. It leads to a very contemptuous view of cyclists as somehow 3rd class citizens, which leads to the kind of behaviour seen in that other thread about abusive drivers. And a large part of the media is allowed to encourage it.

Like the OP also have been pretty much off booze to help recovery for the last fortnight (I admit I had a pint today, but it was stretched over a couple of hours and it did taste good). I haven’t missed it at all which was a bit of a surprise, haven’t been bothered at all when Mrs O has had a glass of wine with dinner, but then again I have been in some fairly significant pain so I suppose that’s it.

I went up to the Long Mynd for a few days in March – well worth it. I found lots of different ways on and off the tops, it reminded me of the Quantocks in some ways. But I hated Minton Batch as I fell off twice – once really badly! My poor riding.

I ride SS and geared, started SS about 3 years ago. It made a huge difference to my riding, as some say above it really has taught me momentum and how to attack a hill – something I do on geared now as well without having to think about it.

I notice that some other riders in out night group get to the bottom of a hill and then are fiddling with gears and clashing chain etc until they are at walking pace, then grind up slowly. Whilst they don’t need to do that, quite a few do and that is the difference from riding SS – you cannot afford to slow down in that way. They are harder work on a long flattish road section, but then the high speed spin burns calories.

My riding improved significantly from starting SS – don’t know how much is fitness and how much technique, though.

Best wishes onehundredthidiot. A long way away but will have a beer for you.

It will get better. Been in almost exactly the same spot.

Kimbers – seconded. Not broken but on crutches. Another day of lying down looking at the dry weather..Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I taught Mrs Ononeorange how to use cleats – and yes, I had her consent first! – there were a few tumbles, but we found some of those pedals (324?) with flat one side and clips the other. Those just did the trick, knowing she could revert to a flat if she wanted. The only problem is that now she won’t take them off her bike!

I like mine. It does what it should and I think is very good looking too. Oh, and I’m delighted that it’s made in Halifax.

On a tour of an oil refinery in Sardinia. It was a a work-related visit, and I made sure that I “accidentally” sat next to her on the tour bus, then proceeded to bore her solid about the pipework. It worked though (!) and there’s no-one I’d rather be with.

Thanks again. Three Fish, that guide is brilliant!

Cheers everyone. I can’t see for sure – it seemed to be the bleed nipple but I don’t think it is. Will tighten the fitting again as well – good call.

Thanks for the guide. I will think hard about this……

I did try Hope actually (admittedly no piccy) and they suggested I try my LBS (job too small for them, which gave me some “hope” that I could tackle it myself, against my better judgement).

I’ve also found a packet of spare seals floating around, which gave me a rush of ridiculously excessive over-confidence in my pathetically bad skills.

PS – OK, mine could be improved. If it was in orange!

Really like mine too. I picked it up as a frame on the Classifieds for a good price but didn’t have the cash to build it well; recently refurb’d some of the more knackered components and it has transformed it (not that it was bad before). Owing to the failure of other bike just before we left, I took it to Morocco and the Atlas mountains a couple of weeks ago and realised just how good it is – it did everything with no fuss an a lot of fun. Ran U-turn Revs between 100m and 130mm – superb.

Bigger news that Bin Laden (in my opinion). Great man, RIP Henry.

We’ve got two of the soft ones (Evans and Leisure Lakes branded) but they’re both really the same. Been on a number of flights and so far bikes have been fine. I picked them both up off ebay in the autumn which is when they seem to go for a song, although that’s probably not much use to you now.

Agree above that just putting the bikes in properly protected with cardboard etc pretty much gets you to your weight limit.

Oh yes, The Third Man too – a true classic!

IWC at work (Mrs Ononeorange bought it for me and I love it)

Casio watch for £10.42 when on the bike / hitting things with a hammer.

+1 for Goodbye Lenin.

Also Edukators, Quills, Cache, Run Lola Run, Hotel Rwanda.

Coffeeking – you are absolutely right, I think my point was that 1) when your body is really letting you down when it never has before and 2) when many of your peers are – as you say – sedentary and telling you that you should stop (not all admittedly), eventually it’s possible to start thinking that way. A dangerous slippery slope I was falling in to.

As I said, this thread is the perfect tonic! I feel under 75 again!

This has really cheered me up! I was having occasional thoughts like the OP as things seem to break down more as my body is literally coming to bits (I’m off the bike for a while after this weekend as it’s ankle operation time) and I was absolutely dreading having to face winding down; also a lot of people on here recently seem (to me) to be about 10! As someone said above, I hadn’t realised there were so many of us “veterans” – thnaks for the encouragement, I can keep going for a few years yet then!