If I had a shop and could be a Spesh dealer I wouldn’t think twice. Bikes for all ages and sizes, quality finishing kit and clothes/shoes as add-on sales.

I wouldn’t trust a builder to clean my car to be honest, rubbing that cement dust in with a sponge used to grout tiles equals paintwork death…… Just park your car away from the house for a few days.

The next day you could do a similar route up Snowdon then ride down the Rhyd-Ddu path, that’s what I’m doing next time. Drop down to the village, turn right and ride to the Snowdon Ranger station, up Rangers a bit then turn left to go down Telegraph road again!

I would start as soon as it starts to get light in the morning, maybe even start riding before it’s fully light – you wont be going very fast uphill so if it’s still a bit dark it won’t matter.

Ride up the railway path to the summit (summit of Snowdon isn’t necessary but you may as well if it’s your first time) then down Rangers and turn right, go uphill for a few minutes to drop down Telegraph road. It’s very east to miss the turn so be careful, but it’s a great descent IMHO and well worth it.

The main issue you will have doing it in the morning is that if it busy with walkers you will be riding head on into them as you ride down the mountain. A lot of walkers start very early especially on BH’s so you will have to be very careful not to upset them – no point in risking access for everyone else.

Personally I would do it in the evening as most people will be going down the hill. 2.5hrs to go up is reasonable, leave an hour to get down just in case you get punctures (we did!). The added advantage to this is that you’ll get a lot of respect for riding up and some funny and encouraging comments from the walkers coming down as you go up!! I don’t we saw any walkers at all when we rode back down in the evening down Rangers… which was fantastic.

Fit some tough tyres for the descent down Rangers, the water bars are slate sticking up at angles and they rip through tyres if you catch one the wrong way – which you will do at least once when you are tired from the ascent/descent….

Hmmmmm.

These guys have started nicking bikes????????

Anyone?

My first step is Google maps, it’s surprisingly good at following the cycle ways if you select that option. For a longer route where I don’t know the area it’s my first call.

Great idea, fab it’s down to 45kg but that’s still a decent amount to lug. Once it’s up to speed on the flat it should be fine.

Can’t help thinking it’s needs to be lower down and more aerodynamic in transit mode. A headwind would kill you stone dead.

In Leeds.

Sorry forgot to add that as lot of these USB add ons tend to be pretty ugly and I’m not sure how you mount them on the bike – The Plug is very neat but wow it’s expensive, the rest I’ve seen tend to be just plain boxes with wires coming out.

The Luxus U has the advantage that it has everything you need in one well designed package. It has a great road light (not sure for off road) with the high/low/flash bar mounted switch, rear light monitoring, daylight sensing etc etc. The USB connection can be disconnected too. You can really fit and forget it.

Something you can use for everything will be compromised, you just have to decide what to compromise on! I think I’d rather have 2 bikes, a nice off road one and a road bike. The disciplines are generally very far apart and something in the middle might be a disappointment I reckon.

Do you want off or on road or both? The B+M light is designed for road/path use.

Peterpoddy has one of those lights and I’ll direct him to here, mine has just arrived so no experience yet! Seems very well made to me..

Looks good BUT it looks like a kitchen design rather than a workshop – there doesn’t seem to be much space on the wall behind the worktop for hanging commonly used tools on – unless you have another idea?

I’d probably have some chunky shelves inbetween the two tall units instead, you can tailor the height a lot more, it might feel more open and you can make space for a peg/tool board.

Also – do you have a vice to go in? Have a careful think about where it will be mounted on the worktop as the bolts , may protrude under the counter which might affect drawers maybe?? EDIT also the vice handle may clash against the cupboard handles?

As I said, I love dogs but I now class dog owners in the same category as smokers (My family are all smokers). They somehow convince themselves that what they are doing doesn’t have any effect on others to the point that they will argue black is white to win an argument.

+100

Amen to that.

I have rhe same issues with my wife. She is 4’11” and I struggled in 2002 getting a MTB at a reasonable price to fit her. It got a bit better for a while but the move to 650b makes it even harder now.
She rode a Juliana XS full suss in Moab which was ace – it was the only size in that model that had 26″ wheels, the bigger sizes were all 650b, so there is clearly as issue getting 650b to work for shorter folk.

It was always odd for me as I preferred to grind on the LHS but aired right to left so I struggled doing 50:50’s on ramps.

My TdF.

I’ll take better pics when the light is better, just had a look on the PC and the ones above are awful!

I’ve ordered the Dynamo lights too. Top of the range B&M ones at £100 the set.

Teetosugars – Member
Looked far better with drop bars IMHO.

I’m way past going on fashion and what looks good. Comfort and being fit for the job is the best thing- makes you enjoy the riding and therefore go further.

All finished! Had to wait for a Shimano olive to shorten the brake hose.

So how does it ride? Well, err, like a bike. Rode it round the block a few times and it felt like it accelerated pretty well, handled nicely – not too twitchy and not slow, great for commuting as well as touring – and felt sorta nice. Was comfortable straight away it seems which is a new for me.

Spec is (apart from standard)
Mavic XM319 on XT/Exposure Dynamo hub
DMR v8 Mag pedals.
Flat bars
Deore hydraulic trekking brakes
Deore 9sp trigger shifters
ESI grips
Specialized Overends bar ends
Custom leather covered SDG Bel Air saddle
All bolts changed to stainless steel from black where I could including cleaning threads.

My custom SDG Bel Air

I can’t help thinking being concerned about a pound or two when you are putting full racks on it a bit crazy. Remember you could buy a bike which will take racks but unless its been designed to run them (not all of them are!) it could handle like crap with the extra load.

I bought a Catlike Leaf from Halfords recently for £20 brand new.

Russianbob – I thought that was too but wasn’t sure as I haven’t been there for ages.

Pedals are on…… I have to trim the rear brake hose before pictures are taken, I couldn’t stand the abuse if they were wrong!

Touché! ;-)

I think the day you ask advice on a cycling forum about what iron you should buy is the day you need to have a long hard look at yourself and figure out what went wrong….. ;-)

No school run for me – £40 a week on diesel…… :-(

I’d love to cycle to work but I have to have the car available for work purposes so even though my work encourages cycling quite a lot I can’t actually do it.

Seriously though, Abaddon on New Hey Rd at Oakes
01484 659032

they are just up the road from me and removed a tree for my next door neighbours. They are a scary bunch of chaps who have a Unimog as their work vehicle (uber niche!) which is impressive as it is but what was more impressive was the speed and sheer barbaric nature of how they removed that tree, it was a wonderous and scary sight!!

The great thing nowadays is that these crazy cars seem to have a market, no matter how expensive they are. That means they can produce “money no object” cars to push the boundaries of technology knowing that someone will buy it and they can be paid for their efforts. It doesn’t have to be watered down at all to make it mass market and get the thousands of sales.

BTW there was only me and my wife in those cars we had! A family would have been really comfy in them.

We met a party of 4 from the UK in one of the national parks. They had a Mondeo size car and they said they wished they had got something bigger as it was a squeeze getting them and their luggage in.

On my 2 trips to the west coast I went with Budget for no other reason than they were cheap and a decent size company.

As far as the size of the car goes, I figured that it was an expensive trip, I’d be in the car a lot and to pay for something larger or nicer wasn’t much more than a bog standard hatchback. I ordered a Ford Edge both times, think it was £500 for 2 weeks with extras. It was huge and comfy and relaxing to drive for hours, and took is off road (4×4) more than I expected too! Especially useful around Monument Valley area (we did 2 off road drives) and Escalante Hole in the Rock road which I would not have taken a normal car down.

The first time we went we got upgraded for free to a Lincoln MKT – oh my word it was huge. It made an Audi Q7 look small but it was amazing to be in. Did 20mpg with its 3.7l V6 but that was equivalent to 40mpg in the UK with their fuel prices.

We also were able to easily chuck hire bikes in the back of the Ford (could have done it even easier in the Lincoln) without taking wheels off in Moab which was handy.

If you want to look like every other tourist get a mustang convertible. ;)

I very nearly ordered a Dodge Challenger RT – 450bhp V8 muscle car which would have cost £500 for 10 days but I chickened out.

Stick with the US cars and you’ll get a cheap deal. Hiring Euro cars like a Merc is very expensive and the decent US cars are likely. The Ford and Lincoln we had were both easily as well built and nice to drive as a Euro car.

You’re flying 15hrs and spending thousands on a holiday. Why save a few quid on something you’ll spend a lot of that trip in? For me having a big American car was part of the experience!

When I sorted out Ton’s Surly I didn’t think it was particularly well made. It was perfectly adequate but not at the price level they sell at.

I had to retap all the threads on the frame as every one had overspray (actually powder coat) into the threads quite deeply. Don’t they even mask off the threads when they paint the frames?

I love the front rack but it is a bit weighty so I’ve taken it off again until I need it.

IIRC an RS6 isn’t as useful as you might think – you can’t fit a towbar for a rack as the rear bit is different to all the other A6’s.

People on here resort too quickly to heat and other barbaric methods to remove seized stuff. I’ve been a Retrobike regular for a while and have learnt lots of kind ways to do the same job – essential if you have an old valuable frame with a unique paint finish.

When you change your frame to a 650b all you will have to change (as long as you can get your current fork to fit) is the rims and tyres if moving from 26″. Probably a fraction of the whole cost if you’re buying a new FS frame!

Might be one available in the Keighley store as I didn’t pick mine up.