Tip I got from Retrobike – if it’s a red ish colour then nail varnish can be very good as a touch up. Lots of colours apart from red/pink but maybe not as many shades though as the red tones. Cheap too.

Chip – your purchase failure seems very like the one my dad had when he went into a Honda dealership to buy a £25k brand new car. Despite standing there for some time no-one ever came to speak to him and it wasn’t busy so he just left and bought a Ford (which was a lot better) instead. 🙂

Somehow I think a touring bike should be a darker colour, no idea why.

I had a place in Halifax bead blast a pair or Marzocchi forks for me, left a nice satin finish.

If you stripped off the paint you really need to polish it up then lacquer it to keep it looking nice, or just polish it on a regular basis to keep the shine.

I used a Scotchbrite pad on a bare alloy 1991 Rocky Mountain Experience frame which gave it a slight brushed finish which was nice.

Tymbian – is that a self design or a kit one you bought? Looks fantastic.

McMoonter – thanks very much, I hadn’t seen the link to your blog before.

How did you secure the posts in the ground? I am concerned about them rotting in the damp ground if I chose that method.

…..this line of work doesn’t have a trace as its all cash……..

Wrong.

They cannot be paid in cash nowadays as action on metal theft has changed the regs – must be paid by cheque or into B/Acc and photo ID has to be shown. Some sites are getting round this in some ways but it’s still traceable. It has made a big difference so far.

ALso the permits waste sites have can now be revoked if the site has been convicted of handling stolen goods, so the site can lose their business if they don’t do the proper checks.

Most of the scrappies driving around make a tidy living, their vans are generally pretty decent nowadays. And yes its true, they still do use horse and carts in Bradford, used to be my patch that area :shuddder:

I’ve been through this and to be honest I haven’t really felt the differnce between sets of wheels. I changed from some PX model B wheels which were minimal spokes, stiff and light to Ultegra hubs on Open Pro’s 36h and didn’t feel much if any difference. Maybe a bit of a smoother ride on the Open Pro/Ultegra wheels but I might have been imagining it to be honest.
Changing tyres can make a bigger difference. I’ve tried a few and I keep going back to Vittoria Rubino Pro’s which seems to be grippy, light, supple and puncture resistant all at the same time.

The biggest difference I have ever felt is changing framesets. I loved my Specialized Secteur but then I changed to a Tricross and it felt awful, dead feeling. Hard to describe really but I think I know what you mean! I swapped to a kinesis Racelight and that’s better but not as good as the Specialized Secteur.

Then, one day, I got a 1990’s Trek steel road bike for a friend and after I restored it for him I had a ride on it. Oh wow, it was so nice. More flexible yes, heavier yes, but such a joy to ride. I hated giving it to him!

So the upshot is…… I’m buying a Genesis steel road bike (TDF) soon. It doesn’t matter what things weigh or what spec the gears are IMHO. People are brainwashed into carbon carbon carbon, lighter wheels, faster faster faster! BUT let’s not kid ourselves, we aren’t fast even compared to a lowly Cat 3 road racer so saving a few grams here and there or buying fancier stuff doesn’t really make much difference to most people, even though they might tell themselves it does (with help from the media/shops/friends!).

Oh, and additionally, get a bike that’ll fit proper mudguards. Makes riding so much nicer round where we live!!

That’s the Tour De Fer frameset only colour scheme someone has built up into a full bike. Looks nice. I really want to buy one of those but the full bike is a bit of a bargain and I like the red colour so will probably go for that.

It does appear that you have to pay for this site if you want it to work properly. In addition it appears that subscribing gives you permission to be a condescending git whenever the issue of the shonky programming of the forum comes up in a thread. 🙄

I’d rather have a Genesis than that gopping Giant…..

Genesis tend to put decent kit on where it matters, my own personal gripe is cheap hubs to save cash but they generally put quality hubs on their bikes. No point in getting a seemingly better spec bike then needing to get new wheels 6 months later as it’s not economical to replace hubs alone. All 3 of my Spesh bikes suffered from this.

Genesis website has been updated with 2015 bikes today.

What bike is it fitted to? I would make sure on any bikes I had the shim extended below where the first tube intersected with the seat tube to give it the strength the designed expected maybe?

I have thought that if you wanted to make a longer shim just to make sure you could file the lip off a second shim and lightly glue it lower down the seatpost to provide the extra support. Never needed to do it so far though.

Thankfully my family survived the wars they fought in, I hope you make it to that small piece of England down there…
Thank him from me too.

The Soldier

IF I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

I’ve been the same recently, didn’t really want to ride at all.

I’d set myself the goal once of doing the C2c on my own and I just decided to go and do it and stop making excuses. I found that when I did it (and I still wasn’t excited about doing it the day I started!) things changed and I found something new I liked – am now planning my next tour!

I had a spot of trouble a few years back with getting credit and I got my Experian credit history. I found that I had a CCJ from Yorkshire water for £77 – it was from student days and I think my name was on a bill that didn’t get paid, not really my fault as I know I paid everything but maybe a house mate just pocketed the money.

Anyway i rang yorkshire water and they said they didn’t have the records of my account anymore but they said they could remove the CCJ if I paid their costs to do so which were £20. I paid up and it was done – didn’t have to pay the £77. They were very good about it.

So def worth getting your credit record just to check there aren’t any surprises on it.

I don’t have one but if I were you I’d look at a Genesis too. Their Tour De Fer looks amazing and I’m going to buy one ASAP.

A friend of mine has one and seems to like it, looks very nicely made too. He swapped a carbon on-one 456 for it and hasn’t regretted it.

If you actually read the thread you would know. 🙄

My neighbour trades scrap from his gaff and although he weighs about 30 stone, is quite grubby and smells pretty bad, he is a diamond geezer and would do anything for anyone..

Nice guy? If he doesn’t have the right permit (which I am guessing he doesn’t if it from his house) then he’s running an illegal waste site. He’s not paying the permit fees, not abiding by the rules in such permits which protect the environment, unfairly undercutting legitimate business’s and quite probably (knowing scrappies very very very well as I do) supporting the metal theft criminals by buying their stolen goods off them cos there isn’t any traceability with his “business”.

I take it you know the guy then when you can say all that so confidently? Must be great to have all his personal information and bank records to hand to make such a statement. Tell me though, why are you wasting your talents on this guy and not the ones who owe millions? Methinks you have your priorities wrong somewhere.

Don’t worry, I am, I’ve recovered £105k in the last 4 weeks. I do my work on here for free. 🙂

People are taking the mick but in reality the office environment is really bad for your health, mainly because you have to sit in the same position for hours looking at a bright screen. It’s not natural.

I’ve done manual jobs for years and never had any problems but since working in an office I’ve had a bad neck and back, and terrible skin issues from the air conned air.

I did a manual handling course once to teach me how to teach others and the guy teaching it had been a paramedic until recently. He said one of the worst back issues he had seen had been a guy who wasn’t sitting properly in an office chair, hadn’t lifted something right while sitting down – something went ping in his back and they had to inject something in his back to lift him out of the chair.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/printing/noise.htm

There might be a dB (decibel) level printed on it somewhere or available on the Internet from the manufacturer. Might be sound level at 1m away – you could then compare it against sound pressure level time limits for industry use – basically the louder it is the shorter a duration you can listen to it for without sustaining hearing damage.

It can be surprising how little noise is needed to damage hearing if you’re say next to it 8 hrs a day.

Would you prefer it if he was selling drugs?
Relax, life’s too short

Yeah it doesn’t matter if someone’s doing something illegal right next door, does it? Let’s just ignore the facts that he’s not paying his business rates, or abiding by planning regulations, or paying the correct taxes, or breaking his tenancy agreement, or creating hassle for all his neighbours, it doesn’t matter about rules which make it an easier and nicer country to live in! Let’s all do exactly what we want and expect people just to put up with it, ok?

Muppet.

I can see how that was more interesting than the Ken Block videos. The first video had me wondering up to the end what he was going to do that was exciting. Even the ski jump thing was a bit boring really, just a big straight jump, no?

I got a “show plate” off the internet for about £12. No different from a standard plate as far as I can tell, but I didn’t order anything weird.

It would seem odd to spend £150+ on a bike rack that complies with the law and has somewhere to put a plate on then not bother to use it!

If it had been painted on my property and I wasn’t particularly attached to the house I would sell up. I can’t stand graffiti, no idea why people think it’s ok to vandalise other people’s property. Just because his stuff has become popular doesn’t suddenly make it not vandalism.
If I was asked, as a council worker (which I’m not), to paint over it I wouldn’t hesitate.

When he sprays his oh so clever murals on someone else’s property it is then the property owners right to do anything he or she wants to it. Sell the wall for a fortune or paint over it. End of.

I think it’s a bad idea. I don’t think it’d handle very well at all

How so?
It’ll handle exactly the same, but your hands will be in a different position. I’ve had road bikes with flat bars and they are great, normally feel much easier to control. Go for it!

From wikipedia:

In the meantime, Brown had been selected to take part as an exchange student at the Salem International College, located on the banks of Lake Constance, and it was while there in Germany that Brown was woken up with a loud knocking on his door one morning in September 1939. Upon opening the door he was met by a woman with the announcement that “our countries are at war”. Soon after, Brown was arrested by the SS. Fortunately, they merely escorted Brown in his MG Magnette sports car to the Swiss border, saying they were allowing him to keep the car because they “had no spares for it”.

Amazing!! And funny too… 😉

The most amazing thing about these sorts of guys is that they generally don’t think what they have done is anything special, something very rare in this celebrity obsessed culture nowadays. If any people should be put on pedestal it should be them.

My C2C pootle was perfect.

There was a lot of this:

And this.

And this.

All done slowly along lanes like this

A pootle route should link up as many tea shops and nice benches to sit on as possible.

There should be no sweating or over exertion of any kind.

Some sort of pannier should be used to carry emergency ?cake.

Anyone who brings a stove and a kettle to make a fresh cup of tea should be held aloft on people’s shoulders and given the title of Lord of the Pootle. The prize should be extra ?cake. Or chips.

You could look out for someone selling some standard alloys, where they have upgraded to fancier ones. Might be cheaper than steelies which seem to be expensive now people look out for them for winter use.

Try your local scrappies, they are a great source round here for that sort of thing, they often have oodles of wheels sitting around.

Pootling is the best thing ever! I am of the strong opinion that touring, the type where country lanes, old railway lines and coastal paths are mixed with tea shops, chippies and a warm B+B at the end, averaging 10mph and no more, are the future. 🙂

Sorry this is a long one…..
1991 Haro Extreme – the bright one



1992 GT Tequesta – the stripy one


1994 Kona Kilauea – the “never sell” one



1995 Kona Hahanna the “retromod for a friend” one


2000 Marin Bear Valley – the “retromod for a taller friend”

1991 Dave Lloyd Beez Kneez – the “how thin is that tubing???” one 😉



2009 Specialized Pitch Pro – the modern one

2013 Kinesis Racelight – the road one

My Exposure Flash and Flare lights have never come off when riding off road…..

Is your saddle at the optimum height there? I am thinking if I get a TDF I might go for a 50cm frame looking at that.

You want to do it amicably and you sent them a letter????

FAIL.

What on earth is wrong with speaking to them, you know, face to face? A letter will get their backs up straight away even if it a nice one. I just don’t understand some people.

I would speak to the neighbours and say you’re happy to pay for its removal, which will help them as it won’t be a problem for them in the future. I’m sure if you talked it through and let them know professionals have deemed it a potential nightmare they will let you remove it.

I would say to the manager that part of the work I was doing was picking up the slack from other contractors and this means I am not as effective as I could be if I had all the time I had to concentrate on my own workload. I would say that I would not be comfortable saying who that other party might be as the managers viewpoint and priorities may be different to mine so I would leave the ball in his court to appraise the other contractors as they see fit.