The ship museum is excellent. Holland once rivalled us in world sea trade and exploiting brown people, so it’s crammed with stuff from centuries of seafaring.

Also, Halfords Professional torque wrenches aren’t expensive and are very good.

HTII crank bolts are one thing that you really must torque correctly. The two bolts are pulling one bit of metal together, so they have to be evenly torqued. If they aren’t, the crank arm pivots on the tight bolt, wearing the splines. I’ve seen some properly trashed splines on left cranks because of this.

I’m riding to and from work a lot lately, just to get rides in before the clocks change. Work is 6 miles from home to the North East and I usually do 10 miles in the morning and 12 to 15 in the evening. Trouble is, the sun seems to be bang in front of me in the morning and evening. I guess that’s what the peak on an MTB lid is for.

That’s 26 years of continual improvement in exam pass rates for you.

Undo the bolts that hold the caliper to the bracket a couple of turns, spin the wheel and pull the brake to stop the wheel then, holding the brake on, carefully tighten the bolts alternately. A lot of people tighten one bolt right up which then twists the caliper and they still drag afterwards. Tighten each one alternately and a bit at a time until they’re both fully tight.

Avid Elixirs are simple enough to keep working perfectly (Juicys, particuularly the Threes, are lousy – the pistons stick). First, you have to remember that they’re a closed system, so air in the system stays in the system. You’re best bleeding them with the bleed kit and brand new DOT5.1 fluid from a newly opened bottle, but slightly older fluid is OK if you lock off the syringe and pull the plunger to get the bubbles to accumulate on the walls of the tube. I buy little bottles of 5.1 from Halfords and I bin fluid that’s over 3 months old.

The bleed method in the Avid manual is rubbish – use the one on the Park Tool site. But I also tap the tubes to make air bubbles move up as I syringe fluid through the system.

A couple of things I’ve found:

If the pads are miles from the disc when you bleed them, they will pull back from the rotor and give you too much lever travel before they bite. Removing the wheel and pulling the lever gently so that the pistons extend (but not too much, or the rotor won’t go back in between the pads) sorts this. You need the pads to be closer together than the thickness of the rotor when pulled and to extend back so that you can get the rotor in. If you overdo it, gently push the pads apart with a big screwdriver or the Avid red pad separator thingy.

(This applies to other makes of brake, too) If you’re out on a ride and the lever is coming back to the bar, you can get them to self bleed by leaning the bike so that the hose points directly down from the lever then flick the lever. This allows the air in the pipe to travel up and trough the small top up hole inside the lever reservoir. If you’re doing this to the back brake and it isn’t working, stand the bike on its back wheel and bounce it up and down to move bubbles up the pipe then try again.

I hope this helps.

Would’t it be great if you could order from Wiggle and it turned up the day before?

But if you forgot to order from Wiggle after the stuff had turned up, you would disrupt space time and the universe would implode. And then you’d have to ride at 88mph, go back to 1955 and put it right.

Suzuki SV650S. Mine does around 60mpg, the power delivery gives plenty of low end torque for riding in traffic, the tyres are cheap and good, year-old, low mileage examples can be had for under £5k.

I’d say so. I’ve ridden the route a lot and there are regularly sponsored rides with kids going the distance to Shoreham. Aim for about 7 hours including lunch (there’s a family friendly pub right next to the route just after Christ’s Hospital).

This pisses me off no end because the police KNOW exactly who is in prison and who is out and doing another round of stealing before they get caught again. But they stand in my and your smashed up sheds, looking at the bike shaped holes amngst all the usual shed stuff and they say reassuring but frankly useless things then send you a letter saying “Unfortunately, in this instance…..”.

The job of the police, when it comes to scum stealing your stuff, seems to me to be one of pacifying the public and being tough on the reporting of crime.

Riksbar, I hope you get your bikes back. Print pictures and descriptions and take them to all your local bike shops and the front desks of all the local police stations. Then put up posters everywhere and set up searches on eBay and Gumtree so they email you every day with the details of new sales of whole bikes, frames, forks, wheels, brakes, cranks, etc.

Cheers, rootes. Very helpful.

It could be a number of things from wider bars to not being relaxed while you’re riding. For example, I’ve got C5/C6 vertebra problems in my neck that put pressure on nerves and cause neck and arm pain. It’s particularly bad when I’ve been standing on the pedals through technical stuff a lot, as my head’s tilted back more as I look ahead and I’m tense because I’m a wuss. It used to be a problem until I learned to swim properly and started open water swimming, which developed the muscles around the neck.

The important thing is, everybody’s different and bad advice on neck pain can cause even more problems. So I’d go to a good physio and get checked out, rather than ask on a forum and get a thousand answers.

I thought Torx were used because they work better with powered drivers in factories. Torx heads also clog up much more easily with mud.

I’d buy a set of Halfords Professional hex bits, a 1/4″ drive torque wrench with 2 to 25NM range and a big pot of copper grease

I bought these and they’ve been excellent.

Prior to that, I was using these, which weigh practically nowt even though they’re not carbon and are available off the shelf at most Specialized dealers.

DofEers would be fine – each one has a bloody HUGE rucksack to hide behind.

He’s got no time to ride – too busy saving America.

There’s an eye half way round the plastic cable guide that you may have missed threading the cable through. It stops the cable jumping out of the guide.

Thanks everyone, particularly Uplink as your timetable gave me an idea. I’ve booked us via Lille but staying overnight en route to cut the faff of getting us and bike bags from SW Surrey to Waterloo and across rush-hour London to St Pancras for a 7:34am train.

It also protects from corrosion. I grease steerer tubes for the same reason.

Most of these are pretty rational frankly!

The bike might be rational but me buying it wouldn’t be. It’s irrational to buy a £5k streamlined, top of the range road bike when you ride to work on your £1500 one once or twice a week in the summer and do the occasional sunny sportive.

S-Works McLaren Venge:

Tech 3s are excellent. Get the enduro soled ones, not the MX ones. You will need grip when you’re trying to drag your bike out of a rut.

I forgot to mention that I normally ride SPDs but fitted flats and ran and rode in off road running shoes to speed the transitions (plus there’s nothing worse than coming off the ride and putting on cold, wet trainers for the second run).

I saw a bunch of people wearing tri suits but it’s not necessary. I wore lycra shorts and a running shirt, throwing on a really lightweight waterproof for the ride.

+1 for the swiss ball, along with weights and a medicine ball. Get a good book of core exercises and work on all the muscle groups in your core. Your core not only supports your body upright but also while you twist, bend and lift, so you need to do a variety of exercises, not just sit ups or the plank.

Pilates is good, too, although a lot of blokes won’t do it as it’s perceived as a womens’ thing. But I know a few blokes who are doing Pilates exercises – some given to them by physios without referring to them as Pilates. They look gentle and ineffectual but try a few – you’ll hurt afterwards!

I did the Human Race winter duathlons last winter. They were damn hard – a hilly, off-road run of two laps of a course of about 8 to 10km, an 18 to 20km mountain bike ride and another run of half distance, 4 to 5km. The distances varied according to the terrain but I was racing for about 2 and a half hours on average.

Their ride courses aren’t like MTB races – they’re wider and a lot less technical on average. If you’re a half-decent runner and rider, you’ll be down the field after the run, recover a lot of places on the ride and lose a few to better runners again on the last run. A lot of the riders don’t use momentum and look for alternative lines so you can make a lot of places by just being efficient.

I’d encourage you to try it. Just remember to pace yourself carefully and keep gels and fluids going in throughout the race.

Was the hub still clamped in the dropouts after the crash and can we see a pic of the wheel?

Green laning needs a comfortable, reliable bike that will pass MOTs with no issues, isn’t highly strung and has a nice power delivery for all day riding.

Enduros need something that is light, fast and nimble.

I’d avoid anything 2 stroke or any of the higher strung racing four strokes (KTM’s 250 EXC-F) for green laning and you really, realy don’t want anything as heavy as a DRZ for enduro – I know as I raced one for a season.

Having ridden one in both enduros and on green lanes, a Yamaha WR250F is about the best bike you can buy. They’re enduro bikes but with a nice power delivery and they will manage a season’s racing and green laning and still pass an MOT after a quick wash.

If I remember correctly, isn’t there a sign at the top giving the location to tell the emergency services in case of an accident? I’m sure people see this and are already expecting something terrifying.

We were there on Boxing Day, everywhere was under snow and I was riding a new bike on unscribbed Nevegals that offered no grip at all. So I shouldered the bike and walked round the drop. I fell off on flat straights that day – the wheels would just slide out from under the bike. I really must go in Summer.

It’s excellent, isn’t it. Every ride you do now, you’ll look down at your bike and say “I made this!”

It looks like a Shimano 160 rear adapter:

Bastards! 👿

There’s a bunch of things you can do. First, ask Surrey police to tweet the theft. Set up gumtree and eBay searches for the frame, cranks and whichever bits are a bit individual. Print out a description and physically take a copy to each bike shop in your area – they do care and they may see your frame or other bits. And keep looking – if the thieves are smart, they’ll not try to sell it for a month or so.

And install some better security before you build its replacement.

Hindhead – they’ve shut the old A3 now the new tunnel is open. Park up at the National Trust cafe car park, ride around the Devil’s Punchbowl and back to the cafe for lunch. The trails are good and the views, especially from the top of Gibbet Hill, are brilliant.

If you give me an idea of the distance and hilliness you and your other half would like to ride, I’ll suggest a route.

Also, any of the Surrey Hills from Westcott, Holmbury or Peaslake are excellent, too. Or you could head further down the A3 to the Queen Elizabeth Country Park just south of Petersfield.

Being in London, you’re at the hub of a bunch of railway lines that lead to various points along the South Downs Way, so why not do it in sections? Get the train to Winchester and ride to Petersfield then do Petersfield to Amberley, Amberley to Brighton and Brighton to Eastbourne on other weekends.

I use a Minoura True-Pro2 stand. It’s cheaper and better than the overpriced Park stands. The stand comes with a calibration tool, a dishing tool and a spoke key.

I use the tone from plucking the spokes on a correctly tensioned set of wheels to tension the one I’m building.

I hope all you carbon-doubters don’t fly in modern jet airlines when you take your aluminium or steel framed bikes to the alps. That would be very ironic.

Here’s a useful spoke calculator with a database of rims and hubs: http://lenni.info/edd/

Cut the spokes using the wire cutter on the side of a pair of pliers. And leave the rim tape on so that the spoke ends don’t arc across the room and blind the cat.

Geologist,

Thanks for the link. I’ve seen that one both on eBay and on Gumtree – I get this brief moment of excitement when a red/black 456 carbon shows up before a look at the pictures confirms it’s not mine.

I hope you enjoy the bike if you decide to buy it. I loved mine.

I’ve just got some 105s and I think the blocks alone are responsible for at least 50% of the improvement in braking I’m getting. Maybe get some 105 blocks instead of spending lots on the calipers, too.

I’m looking just ahead of the derailleur mount bolt and I’m thinking I see the bit of metal that the adjuster screw (called the B screw, isn’t it?) pushes against. You need to unbolt the mech, turn that metal ring round until the screw is in contact with it, then mount the mech back on the frame. That’ll stop it being pulled so far forward and fouling the chainstay.

LEJOG off road? There’s a route on CTC’s site that takes 40 or more days but you could probably halve that if you can do SDW in a day.

I’ve built four bikes with SRAM, two with Shimano. I’ve only had an issue with one SRAM rear mech – a 2009 X9 that stuck in 1st or refused to go into 9th. The other stuff has worked fine, shifters have been perfect and I’ve been very happy, so much so that I just shelled out for X9 2 x 10.

The XT stuff on the other bikes has been fine, too, apart from a really stupid design on XT shifters that allows a loose cable to be taken round the inside of the shifter, requiring a complete rebuild of the shifter (very fiddly) to get it out.

But I really cannot understand how SRAM can charge, on average, an additional £50 per item compared to a similar quality Shimano part. My X9 2×10 cranks were heavily discounted at £177 from an RRP of £289. They’re no better than XT but cost so much more.