a new bike will defiantly be coming sooner rather than later

If you stick around here you’ll be buying a Ti 1×11 29er* before you know it :-)
*Or was that last week’s niche?

If you’ve got a smallest sprocket of 14 at the back then your top gear could be up to 20% lower than your mates. So to keep up with them on the flat you’re going to have to pedal 20% faster than them. Not much you can do to amend that without changing the rear wheel, gears, chainset, shifters etc. which is going to cost a bomb.
Learn to pedal faster or get a new bike (or just enjoy yourself anyway).

Can you remember how many gears there are on the back? If it’s an old style 7 speed you could have a 14-32 freewheel which would put you at a disadvantage in top gear (79″ compared with your mates’s 92″ or 100″)

it appears to be half the size of everyone else’s

Many men suffer from that belief :-)

I can persuade an entire pub quiz team to abandon their correct answer in favour of my incorrect one.
“Thriller? Yes, that was by Abba. Trust me, I’m 100% certain on this one”

They’re not so good on dates though. They told me the last quiz was on Wednesday night, when in fact it was on Tuesday.

you need to pedal faster

To put it in context, top gear of 42×12 on an MTB is 92″, about the same used by top track pursuiters (53 x 15). They can manage over 35 mph with this (at about 140 rpm).

We know this stuff because we lived it, and you don’t know because you weren’t there man.

Adopts thousand yard stare …

100 mile club runs with a pub lunch and a cream tea on the way home
27 inch wheels
Oilskin capes
Alloy water bottles
Barts maps
Greenspot Nomad jackets

I was in the SAS CTC you know.

Please Erase conditional and variant types of technology instructions Your opponents need to manipulate climate, polarity, current, thinking, recall, feelings, temperature, moisture and material – covering their ability to clone themselves or other functionaries – including prompts used to initiate assaults – each with enduring results.

I wonder if I can incorporate that in the presentation I’m giving to the development team tomorrow?

Full of sound, practical advice.

I recommend using the “Print” function in the Chrome browser to make a PDF file of the pages on this site.

If you have limited time to make PDF files, find someone with natural genetics who can ask God which pages you’ll need.

Everyone who is awake needs to leave.

Children under 12 need to leave with colonist parent(s).

Children over 12 (and asleep) should stay with a Reptilian parent.

If necessary, find someone with natural genetics who can ask God who should leave.I think I may have to go and lie down for a bit.

Pah, that’s nothing Shark found on New York subway

I Love his rationale of if you’re pictured with folded arms, you’re an alien

And if you’re not, then you’re still an alien, like Stephen Roche

I could not find a photo of Steve in a royal Osiris pose. He is probably an alien and could be either a non-royal, or a Thothian.

Isn’t the internet a wonderful place, you learn something everyday

I find it better to tell how much discount I got, rather than the actual price

I learnt the “Do you know how much I saved on this” tactic from my wife in the first place. And due to the wonders of the internet I’ve never bought anything that wasn’t half price or less. Honest.

I’ve got an eXotic (Carbon Cycles) bottle cage languishing in the spares bin. Cost very little and is pretty useless. You can have it if you want.

Llyn Gwynant is good

if you use the 8.4’s with shimano you will get a bit more clearance and a bit less power

Yes, that’s what I’ve done. Work well IMO. I think the 9.6s might even be discontinued, certainly none in stock in the UK when I last looked

someone will comment about how close to a right-of-way it’s allowed.

Ok, I’ll bite – from BASC :

In England and Wales it is an offence without lawful authority or reasonable excuse to discharge any firearm within fifty feet of the centre of a highway which consists of or comprises a carriageway, and in consequence a user of the carriageway is injured, interrupted or endangered. [Section 161(2) of the Highways Act 1980 as amended]. It is important to remember that the discharge of a firearm is not prohibited in itself. It must also be proved that there was an injury, or that someone’s passage was interrupted or interfered with e.g. they have been forced to make a detour.

For the purposes of Section 161 (2) of the Highways Act 1980 (as amended), a ‘highway’ is restricted to a public right of way for the passage of vehicles and does not include footpaths, cycle tracks or bridleways. Therefore the fifty feet rule described above does not apply to rights of ways that cross private lands e.g. footpaths.

If you can get any sort of coaching or lessons in swim technique then do so, I found it made a huge amount of difference. Do some winter miles with the local road club as well. And take it easy on the run training – this is where you’re most likely to injure yourself.
I used to love triathlons: coming last out of the swim then barreling past loads of muscle bound swimmers on low-profile TT bikes on the bike leg :-)

I tried to see how long I could keep up the 13mph it takes to do a 2 hour marathon

Did some interval training in my triathlon days; 400m flat out, 400m jog, repeat etc. We were feeling quite pleased with ourselves until someone pointed out that our 400m flat out was slower than the average speed of an elite marathon runner.
Remember, the fast guys (and gals) are VERY fast indeed.

And to keep things off topic, a nice bit of footwork from yesterday

cnews ticker suggesting that they’re trying to get Cav ahead before the Col de Mad. so he doesn’t get too far behind on the climb

Customer peers through window full of bikes for a while then enters shop and stands in front of display rack full of bikes.
Staff : “Hello, how can I help you?”
Customer : “Do you sell bikes?”

contador and quintana to put just over 5mins into froome today

About as likely as Belgium winning the Ashes.
Booked into unmissable meetings all afternoon. Maybe I could resign at lunchtime?

The French guy who went down

Péraud, who was riding with a broken collar bone.
According to The Inner Ring

Péraud crashed on the very corner where his family were waiting to cheer him on, his wife could only climb over the barriers to comfort him

Now that’s truly bad luck. Hope he didn’t skid on his own name painted on the road by his family …

Bolleaux, I missed Froome’s ride! Can someone sum it up?

Froome looking like an escaped windmill as usual. Rode a negative split, 11 secs down on Bertie at the first check, swapped bikes just before the second check to confuse the enemy, took it carefully on a wet descent.

Really fast?

9 secs faster than Contador :D

Isn’t Uran penciled in for the Vuelta?

Wow. Wasn’t expecting that. I was following it surreptitiously on my iPhone in a long hot meeting. What? Cav and Contador in a break? Did I read that right? People wondered what I was so shocked about :-)
Real old-fashioned road racing.

I’ve got one, think it’s great. Not bulky at all.
Not tried the full immersion test but it’s been through some rough stuff and the phone’s still working.

The event organiser has a duty of care to provide a safe environment for all competitors, particularly when they are children or vulnerable adults. BC have a comprehensive policy for safeguarding and protecting children in their events and the organiser will have been required to attend a workshop where this policy was explained in detail and agreed to follow this policy before they can put on an event.

the rider came off and sustained grazes to knees/elbows. Not sure if the parent reported it or what action was taken

BC require that all accidents and incidents, no matter how trivial they might appear, should be reported. If they didn’t do this then they’re in clear breach of the policy and failing in their duty of care.
Just because it’s supposed to be fun for the kids doesn’t mean that the organisers can be negligent – they need to be more vigilent in looking after kids than if they were running an adult event.

BC have a clear procedure to be followed for incidents like this – official complaint in writing to the race organiser. Don’t have a quiet word with anybody, make a formal complaint before some kid gets seriously hurt.

Puncture? That’s nothing. Wait till you get a customer drag in a carton containing one of Korea’s finest BSOs and demand that you build it up for him. While he waits. For free. “But you’re a bike shop …”

Don’t think Jens does ‘futile’ Junkyard. When asked why he attacked on stage 6 of the Tour of California he replied “To cause chaos and mayhem. Isn’t that a good enough reason?”

I hope you told them you were a Tory MP and called them scum.

Give the diesel a try and let us know how you’ve gotten on.
Most hospitals let you use phones now

:D
Wheel’s on fire
Rolling down the road
Best notify my next of kin
This wheel shall explode!
(Apologies to Julie Driscoll)

Thanks guys. Washing up liquid and hot water it is then.

Can’t have photos of the Tour without one of Didi

anyone got a link for that spectator getting taken out

http://instagram.com/p/bTmzXvsC5P/%5B/url%5D

Seems that the DfT are already blaming us for not wearing Hi Vis

And also for ‘getting in the way’ !

The Bruce Forsyth of the cycling commentary world

I thought that honour belonged to Hugh Porter, after his lamentable performance in the Olympic RR
HP “I don’t know what’s going on, we’re not getting a lot of information here. But there’s Fabian Cancellara in the unmistakable red and yellow colours of Australia”
Chris Boardman “(sigh) It’s Samuel Sanchez of Spain”

I once gave my wife a beautiful shiny artifact from one of Italy’s top designers. (A Campag Super Record chainset for my new road bike build)
Really, women have no sense of humour have they.

How retro do you want?

Sausage hat for the old-school roadie look?

Cinelli Aero for the ‘just out to smash comp record’ look?

Or something a bit more outre for the ‘yes, I’m a triathlete, how can you tell?’ look

I’d watch it if it went back to how it used to be in early days, stopping off at a cafe for a Martini with brandy chasers followed by Brie and some French bread !

Absolutely; and none of these new fangled ‘gears’ either