Does anyone commute with a full face helmet?

After reading that post from someone who bashed their face on their stem when their rear suspension failed, it got me thinking.

I’m out in Cheshire. Yeah the Trafford Park one (near Chill Factor) is most accessible for me, cos I don’t live near the Metrolink.

Anyway I only have one bike so there is every incentive to fix things myself than leave it with someone else for X number of days.

Well my local Evans is 8 miles away in a straight line. Could take 1 hr drive at the worst time of day.

If I worked 9-5 I’d probably have to drop it off at the weekend and hope to pick it back up next weekend.

That’s not very convenient

There was a struggling LBS literally 100 m away from my house which closed last year. One guy owned and ran it with a part time helper. It was tiny and had only a few bikes in stock. I’d go in there and the guy would look miserable. Probably is dream which wouldn’t reconcile with financial realities.

A well known LBS in the area closed in the late 90’s. I think Halfords opening helped kill it. This was a really old school dark and grimy shop. Had a big suntour sign on the front.

…and there is a fairly high end LBS about 4 miles away from me which would probably be best candidate for me. But I’ve not been in there in many years.

Well I opted for this in the end: http://www.chainreactioncycles.com//wilier-jaroon-rival-adventure-road-bike-2018/rp-prod165503?utm_source=CRM&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=OrderConfirmation&utm_content=GB

It is kind of heavy I know but I like steel and supposed to be a very stiff frame which I like to. The bike will very rarely see technical stuff so that’s fine for me.

Will change the tyres for 33’s or 35’s.

When was cycling not middle class? It’s been there for years

Well that’s a fair point.

My perception was that in 80’s and 90’s it was mostly kids and working class people riding to work. Yes I know there were recreational riders but it was very rare to see cyclists on expensive bikes in lycra. If you rode a bike to work it was probably ‘cos you were poor.

I lived in Australia in mid 00’s and opened my eyes to a more healthy and pluralistic cycling culture. Loads of random and different people who would go on group rides at weekends or ride on the excellent cycle paths to work. Nothing grim about it. There would be one fast group ride on Sunday which could have hundreds of riders. Never seen anything like that back in the UK.

Then I moved back to the UK and Team GB/Sky took off and now I see loads of middle classes on bikes in lycra and stuff. Cycling now is somewhat glamorous like a new golf, and I read about friction between motorists and cyclists because the number of cyclists have grown so much the last few years.

sometimes the job a professional can do is better, sometimes the cost of paying somebody is worth it for the time you can spend doing something else.

Well that might be true if you were a very busy person whose time was a lot of money, but on the other hand how are they finding time to ride anyway? :D

Bikes mechanically are a step below cars, there are no real mysteries to them. There is nothing you can’t really get to and diagnose and fix. Shifter are complex but invariably get replaced as a unit.

…and you average Evans mech is some 20 year old not some Team Sky professional :D

One woman on the last ride I did had turned her bike upside down and then just got on the phone to the mechanics. She didn’t even know how to remove the wheel. Sadly, that’s the level that the majority of riders are at.

That’s kind of scary. I have had a few years away from cycling but when I used to do group rides in never occurred to me that some of the group would be unable to fix a flat, except one girl who was quite new whose bf was tasked with that stuff.

But then cycling is more middle class and popular now.

But these people will get shock because a geared bike isn’t like a modern car you can 99% drive between yearly service with no issue lol.

Yeah it’s true that some people don’t know one end of a screw driver from another. As you say many middle classes and especially women just don’t get exposed to using hand tools.

And yeah there are some special tools that are unlikely to be worth getting, but even things like headsets can be pressed it by jury rigging a bolt, large washes and nuts.

I’m certainly not the most practised or knowledgable on bikes but info is easy to find on the internet or in the Big Blue Book. I’ve never had something I couldn’t eventually sort myself, except fork service of course, which just posted away in the past. Only had to walk home from a ride once when I was dumb enough to forget a presta valve extension many years ago.

But I’m lucky enough to have been exposed to working on bikes since a kid and got handy with tools working on cars and then servicing downhole tools in the oil business for a few years.

I’m after a Pinnacle Arkose 2018 – either a 2 or 3 in small size …. neither of which have been in stock for months … the 3 was showing delivery for the 4/11 for ages but today has now been pushed back to 02/12 and the 2 which was showing end Nov is now grayed out altogether so I guess they won’t be arriving at all

Yeah I’ve seen that myself for a Large Arkose, mind Dec availability.

Sounds like they are trying to keep stock volumes as lean as possible. Maybe they are in trouble?

I’ll definitely not pre-order a bike from them now.

Shoes – PITA to order online and tie up 3-4x the cost for a week while I decide which fits – walked out with shoes after 15mins – along with a pump and couple of other bits I needed as they had them at a fair price

Almost all retailers offer free (postage paid) returns now.

My mate sells shoes on his e-shop. It’s very common and normal for a customer to order 2 or even 3 different pairs. The keep the one that fits and send the other ones back free.

You gotta get with the 21st century! :D

It would be interesting to see what happens if Halfords buy them. As far back as 18-19 years ago when I was managing stores for them they were trying desperately to crack the ‘high end’ market

Shudder

Halfords used to be a byworld for shitty bikes and bike parts back in the 90’s.

Having said that they do sell so good and cheap tools now. I got a 100 piece socket set from there which is very good quality.

I couple of mates of mine own an e-retail-business. They have grow every year since they started in the mid 00’s and tell me that physical-retailers can’t compete except for certain very niche stuff.

Every LBC near me has closed down.

With the exception of buying some lights and tyres last year (from Evans), I’ve bought everything online for last 10 years or so.

I can wrench myself so don’t need anyone like Evans to butcher my bike :D

I’d like an answer to this also.

I have some cheap semi-trainer SPD shoe and tend to wear an overshoe during winter when the weather is wet. I cycle alot along a part of the TPT and it’s muddy and wet much of the year.

Even with the overshoe (and mudguards) it’s very hard to keep my feet really dry.

Perhaps I should just look for a more waterproof overshoe?

Given that it is head and/or spine related I’d 100% see a GP.

Other stuff I tend to shrug off and let it heal. I’ve had ab and thigh strains/tears before that literally took 2 or 3 years to fully heal. If I had a ton of cash I could probably have got elective surgery and physio and all sorts. Broken ribs before, just let them heal unless coughing blood.

Had a back problem which kept me off the bike for years. Saw a few quacks but nothing could be diagnosed or done about it.

Not as bad as an e-bike though.

When the chain snaps? :D

I don’t really believe in retributive justice and we don’t know a lot of details.

Sometimes people can make a mistake driving, they can be tired or stressed, or make an honest misjudgement.

On the other hand people can drive almost maliciously or recklessly and deserve more punishment.

It took a lot more skill to ride fully rigid MTB’s (or ATB’s as they were called) back in the day.

Not just the lack of suspension but the terrible brakes and 5 sprocket cassetes.

And then front shocks came in that used elastomer and had loads of play.

If it was loose when it failed then the portion still in the threads will still be loose.

If the bolt failed you probably want a metallurgist to look at it and verify it was the ‘correct’ grade (steel) bolt according to the frame manufacturers specs. Also check if the bolt was defective itself either on a micro (too much slag) or macro scale (fatigue or corrosion), and if the threads were machine correctly or were even the right thread form.

I assume you have both parts of the bolt still?

Some suspensions systems would cope better. Single pivot would be hardest to keep the chain on I think?

In the old days they sold MTB’s with a small cages protecting the rear mech.

Like a lot of sensible things though they aren’t cool so they removed them.

Out of budget  but jit the TPT from Liverpool to the tunnels on the Woodhead on this

Yeah 2k is a bit much for me to justify. I normally do the TPT from Altrincham to Liverpool and back. It’s not a bad ride until you get to Hale, then you have to mostly go on roads until you get to the sea front, and the winds can be murder going in that direction.

Not partially demanding on a bike but too much for a standard road bike, and muddy as an 80’s playing field in winter.

Depends how much you need or want to ride it on black top I guess?

All I know is that MTB’s suck on road compared to anything like a gravel bike, and I’d say 90% of people with an MTB’s have way too much bike and virtually never see gnarly single track.

Are Pinnacle ok because they are Evans cycles own brand right?

Are press fit BB’s really that bad?

So I went to the Doctor today and explained the long term tendonitis and she agreed I might have an reactive arthritis issue especially given my current chronic epididymitis.

I was pleasantly surprised with this GP.

So I have a load of blood samples to be analysed and that might take a couple of weeks.

If I do or did have the issue it would explain my long term bad back – which made me quit cycling – as an inflamed SI joint. It is funny when I had a lumbar MRI done in 2008, a ‘proper’ sports doc told me it was impossible the issue could be from the SI joint. :/ I was sure it was at the time but I thought I wrenched it rather than it being some auto-immune issue or something?

Thanks jb79. If they say no I’ll tell them a Doctor on teh internets said it was ok. ;)

Would it be reasonable to asked a GP to refer to me to a Rheumatologist for this inflammation problem I have been having the last couple or so years?

Sure it us paid for by us but collectively though taxation/borrowing the state raise. The same state then allocates that money and calls the shots; he who pays the piper ‘n all.

So for an individual going to the GP, they are not the hand that feeds (as with a private system) but the mouth that receives, that is to say the whole NHS is a kind of state funded welfare-charity, with the patient necessarily dis-empowered because they are alienated by the state from the decision making/power process that money in ones own pocket gives one.

Charity degrades (can’t remember who said that).

Bushwacked – Member

Perhaps a random question but do you worry you’ll never get better and that every ache and pain may be it getting worse or still being there?

By the way, you’re not mad, just out of the realms of general practice.
Posted 8 hours ago # Report-Post

Well I am prepared to give it time to see if I get better. It is not really getting worse so got to hope for the best. I think to ‘need’ a quick fix only stresses one more and some acceptance is necessary.

jb79 – Member

Doesn’t sound much like fibromyalgia – sounds autoimmune to me (as rydster himself says). The epididymitis could be related, being caused by the same underlying process. In this case (the correct) blood tests are likely to be very helpful though may be falsely negative, especially if not currently ‘flared up’.

You folks really seem to be meeting some crummy doctors… depressing.

When I first got the rotator cuff tendonitis the Doc game me some blood test for something like this but they were ‘ok’ (whatever that means exactly). I did tell my urologist I had some undiagnosed inflammatory-tendonitis thing going on recently, so when I see him again I may raise it again.

I don’t really have a GP I really trust to be honest, especially after that guy told me to just do some swimming. One issue I have with the NHS GP is that I feel like a charity case going in, it is very dis-empowering. My urologist is private and I find it easier to talk as one educated person to the other with him, with the NHS I am just another plebeian in the queue so to speak rendered a kind of passive passenger through the system. I know GP’s see a lot of ‘undeserving ill’ and hypochondriacs etc I can see how they develop a hard skin.

Maybe, but I’m not sure what the point is of being diagnosed with what is just a syndrome and thus having half the medical establishment consider you mad.

So unless it gets worse I am just going to leave it.

My own thoughts are that after I hurt my back in early 2007 I was taking tons of ibuprofen every day, then about 6 months later I got really painful bursitis in my shoulder, kept on taking ibuprofen, then 6 months later got tendonitis in rotator cuff, then over the next 6 months it was just pain everywhere and through this period what seems like minor injuries would just not heal rather inflame up and stay like that. I quit the ibuprofen thinking (because of long term use) maybe my body was fighting against it by making more inflammatory chemicals??

Since then I am not as acute although I am taking Naproxen ATM because of epydidymitis which I think is entirety separate issue. But I am very wary of long term use of this NSAID.

I used on of these since I had rotator cuff problems.

Can I edit that old post to:

Something happened to me from late 2009 to mid 2010 where my body was aching all over and getting tendonitis in Achilles, rotator cuff, bicep, thumbs, neck etc, and just picking up thing seemed to strain muscles and make them ache for ages. For a couple of months just dressing hurt and could not open doors properly. Was awful. Now I feel about 80% ok but my days of being an athlete seem over. It was a real shock and no idea what ‘it’ was. I’d give anything to go back to how my body felt before that because apart from a dodgy back from 2008 on I was almost indestructible. Now I gotta think twice about even pushing hard on a wrench, and I can’t even play guitar for very long because of my thumb.

When I was about 15/16 I felt awful for a year, always sweating, exhausted, dry mouth. Doctor at the time told me to go away and that the most common complaint was from people feeling tired. I then was depressed at stages from about 18 to 22 but managed to stay out of any medical establishments, although for a period it might have been a better place for me.

I tend to stay away from Doctors because I don’t like placing myself in their hands unless I know myself what the diagnosis and prognosis is most likely. Otherwise I feel somewhat on the wrong end of a power differential in a kind of Foucaultian sense.

I did go to the Doc in 2011 about the aches and tendonitis and he just said do some swimming. It was kind of humiliating because for me it was a 100% change in my body and a life changing ‘condition’ of enormous negativity, but he brushed it off as nothing really. I have always been bad at asserting myself with Doctors etc. If it flares up again I will press for blood work because it could be some reactive/auto-immune condition. Most likely though it would be diagnosed by exclusion as a ‘syndrome’ of some sort, and whilst I would have the pointless consolation of having my problem ‘named’ I would be no better off in actuality.

Something happened to me from late 2009 to mid 2010 where my body was aching all over and getting tendonitis in Achilles, rotator cuff, bicep, thumbs etc, and just picking up thing seemed to strain muscles and make them ache for ages. For a couple of months just dressing hurt and could not open doors properly. Was awful. Now I feel about 80% ok but my days of being an athlete seem over. It was a real shock and no idea what ‘it’ was. I’d give anything to go back to how my body felt before that because apart from a dodgy back from 2008 on I was almost indestructible. Now I gotta think twice about even pushing hard on a wrench.

when I was about 15/16 I felt awful for a year, always sweating, exhausted, dry mouth. Doctor at the time told me to go away and that the most common complaint was from people feeling tired. I then was depressed at stages from about 18 to 22 but managed to stay out of any medical establishments.

I tend to stay away from Doctors because I don’t like placing myself in their hands unless I know myself what he diagnosis and prognosis is most likely. Otherwise I feel somewhat on the wrong end of a power differential.

I did go to the Doc in 2011 about the aches and tendonitis and he just said do some swimming. It was kind of humiliating because for me it was a 100% change in my body and life changing, but he brushed it off as nothing really. I have always been bad at asserting myself with Doctors etc. If it flares up again I will press for blood work because it could be some reactive/auto-immune condition.

Your lucky. My wife won’t touch mine even with gardening gloves on :(

I let it hang in the back garden for a while, give it an air.

Sent it direct to Lakes in Nott.

Damn it’s bloody costly to get these serviced.

I wouldn’t mind but I only want to pimp the bike out on eghey. The shock was stood for about 3 years doing nothing so probably why it failed?

They can’t be that hard to service yourself but there are a few proprietary tools right? If I ever get one again I might buy them.

Thanks guys. Bury it probably is. Do you know roughly the cost? I dunno what is wrong? It won’t extend all the way and a bit of fluid came out when I released the pressure….yes I know it sound very euphemistic. ;)