Went out yesterday. Today I'll wash the bike and try to work out what the annoying click is that's coming from my Stumpy's headset.

Same problem here, so I run one of these.

He's 25. Every 25 year old bloke is a cock. 😆

+1 for dehydration.

I feel the same if I do a fairly hefty ride after a day at work where I haven't concentrated on my hydration. I work in an office where I get dehydrated far more than I do anywhere else. Couple that with lots of coffee and I'm peeing dark yellow late in the afternoon. If I'm riding in the evening, I generally (though not always) tend to be aware of my hydration levels and I'm already on the energy drink an hour before leaving work.

Remember that hydration is a slow process and, having become dehydrated, it takes a long while for the body to get fluid to all your cells.

Try this. Hopefully one or two of the routes might be useful.

Cheers,

Ian

Try http://connect.garmin.com

Always the one I don't own yet.

You got that email as well huh?

Yeah, sorry! But that's a very light tent for the money. Somebody on here will be looking for something like that but won't be on the mailing list.

There'll be about 15 more threads with the same link by the end of the day, like the Cheap mmmBop ones a couple of weeks back.

I've ordered a fair amount of stuff over the last couple of weeks and CRC have been a day or two slower than usual to process the order but it shows up quick when they process it. I put an order in last night and they're processing it already today, so maybe the rush is over and they're coping with the workload now.

August is probably a bad time for them – lots of staff on holiday and lots to clear before the new stuff comes along in the Autumn. I bet there was a thread exactly like this one at exactly the same time last year.

I like them – they've been as close to perfect for me as they could be and ever helpful when I wanted to return stuff.

You say the cable goes slack. Front end or back? It's not the cable if the cable's going slack at the back end – if the shifter is giving slack and pushing a loop of cable out the back but the derailleur isn't taking it, you're right in thinking it's a sticky derailleur.

Is it an SRAM X-9? My X-9 used to do exactly this but it's fine now. You can't dismantle the mech but you can remove it, clean it thoroughly and soak it in GT85. Keep blasting it with GT85 after every ride and eventually it'll free up. For the record, my X-9 also wouldn't go into 9th without a bit of a bunny hop to clatter it into submission.

I just discovered my LBS rents out hard cases at £35 per trip. Might be worth giving your own LBS a bell, in case they do the same.

Also, a bloke I work with transports his bike using two bike boxes from his LBS – one stays intact and the other gets cut up to double-line the sides. He wraps towels and clothes around the frame and wheels to pad them out.

Having watched a lot of dangerous sports I've realised that there are two exteremes of rider – the really intelligent ones who analyse everything so that they absolutely know that every risk has been minimized as much as possible, and the really, really dense ones who probably don't realise it's going to hurt until their femur is on its way up through their pelvis – and no-one in between.

I built my lurid orange Summer Season up last year based on a set of 2002 Marzocchi Z1 dropoffs. There's nothing better to ride than a bike you built yourself.

Jesus – look at all the bikes and parts he's sold. I imagine an awful lot of people are without their bikes because of this little sh1t. Well done on tracking your bike and him down.

I've just ordered a Cane Creek S3 as it has replaceable sealed bearings. When it arrives, I shall remove the bearings, prise off the seals, ram them full of marine grease, replace the seals and fit the headset to the bike. When the bearings die, I'll be able to replace them with bearings from a bearing supplier, which will be a fraction of the price.

My carbon stumpy has campy style drop-in headset bearings and I think this is for a very good reason. I can't imagine how much damage your average hammer-wielding home mechanic could do to the headtube of a carbon bike trying to muller home a conventional headset cup.

Did that eTrek survive the dunking?

Curve – Fait Accompli

good shoegazey stuff!

The easiest way to keep it clean is to wash it as soon as you get home. I use nothing more complicated than a good rinse out with hot water and then store it full of water with a drop or two of antibacterial washing up liquid.

I made a thin wire tool to pull lumps of cotton wool through the pipe – much cheaper than Camelbak's tool.

I'm a PC and staying off when I'm switched off was my idea.

😀

Don't use aluminium anywhere except for cosmetic/non-critical stuff. I'm not sure I'd even risk my bottle cage to ally bolts. They're crap. I bought a tub of them from Probolt years ago and they're scarily soft.

Most important bolts on your bike are tensile steel. This is steel with a high tensile strength but it rusts easily so is given a coating. You'll see rust inside the heads of allen head bolts because the coating gets scratched off.

Stainless, depending on grade, can be better or worse than tensile steel. I had a low-grade stanless bolt shear straight off in the yoke of a DRZ400 dirt bike. You know – the ones that hold the front forks on. 😯 Unless you know the grade is good, don't replace tensile with stainless for applications such as caliper bolts.

Titanium is lighter than steel with a similar tensile strength so makes a good substitution for steel caliper bolts. Trouble is, it's expensive and very, very prone to seizure incontact with aluminium. Use shedloads of copper grease and, even then, remove and regrease regularly.

In other words, the humble steel caliper bolt is the best for the job unless you want to die or like spannering stuff regularly and don't mind wasting money on flash metals for minimum weight loss.

I likey!

Leave it just as it is. Go out, ride it and make adjustments based on your own personal preference. Try out each change in settings with a very long ride – not for any reason other than it's an excuse to go a long way and have fun. 🙂

I gave up very quickly on the flat/SPD combos because you sometimes don't know that a foot's clipped in. You lift a foot off the pedal for something, put it back on. Meanwhile, the pedal has rotated and – click – you're locked in without knowing. I had more near-offs this way than I did with full SPDs.

Ditto what's been said:

1. Never work alone
2. Get a good chainsaw with a chain brake
3. Get training
4. Wear a helmet, ear defenders, visor/goggles, chainsaw trousers and boots

I'm reading "The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5" by Christopher Andrew. It's been fascinating up 'til now (1st and 2nd wars and the period in between) but I'll be getting into the post-war Soviet era shortly and I'm sincerely hoping it doesn't get too dry.

Hmmmmm – sounds like something to avoid. Cheers!

Slight TJ – does anyone make a T-shirt with "Light, cheap, strong – pick 2" writ large upon it?

It's uphill from Bramley to Rudgwick where there used to be a tunnel, now closed, before descending almost all the way (there are a couple of small hills whenever you leave the course of the original railway line) to Shoreham. I know this because I ran the 22 miles from Horsham to Godalming along it with a mate on a bike as support. Going from Cranleigh to Bramley I was so knackered that I was convinced we were going uphill. My mate rolling alongside, not pedalling, said otherwise.

The hill up to Rudgwick from the Horsham side was going to be so steep that the local landowner refused to let the railway company build on his land until they lessened the gradient (trains didn't have braked carriages then and runaway trains were common). They had already built the line approaching his land including a bridge over a river so had to double the embankments and build another bridge on top of the original.

It's not a mountain bike ride – you can do it on a cross bike, no problem. Average speed is high because it's flat (apart from the small hill at Rudgwick that the line went through but you have to go over) and it's worth doing for the views and a few points of interest along the way. We parked at Guildford station, rode the canal (right bank towards Godalming) then the railway line to Shoreham and the road then cycle paths along Hove and Brighton seafronts to get to Brighton station.

Maps/route guides are here.

There's a pub here, called the Bax Castle, that's almost exactly halfway and good for lunch.

I came to work by motordandyhorse this morning.

I couldn't show my face at school because my sister was the local dandyhorse and all my mates had had her.

I like this!

I think it's the seat clamp. I have an Identiti clamp on my 456SS and the seat post slipped constantly. There's a plastic shim under the lever and it wears. Tightening the screw just makes it wear faster until it eventually splits. Take out the shim and you'll find it clamps really well.

You found grass on Mount Pantokrator?! It's barren up there (but has excellent views of Albania and mainland Greece)!

Try swapping the front and rear rotors to see if it goes away. If it does and the front feels fine, stick with it, otherwise, try and scrub the rotor with a few high speed, fast stops and, if that fails, buy a new rotor.

Vibes tend to occur where the pads have gripped and slipped on the rotor, usually because the pads have been able to move relative to the rotor, either due to the caliper flexing on its mount or when the pads are worn and the pistons are further out of the caliper than usual. It can be started by worn pads but won't always be fixed by new ones.

Sorry – course tracks North West.

Schleck's start time is 15:59 CET, so 14:59 here. Contandor starts three minutes later. The course tracks south east and it's currently sunny with no breeze but an easterly is expected later.

Cancellara is currently fastest, doing the 52km course in 1h 0m 56s (51.2kmh or 32mph). He didn't pre-ride it either!

It's on Eurosport or ITV4

He's recently been coached by Cancellara but, coaching aside, he's just too tall and gangly to be a time trial winner against a shorter, stockier, more powerful opponent. I'd love to see him win a tour but, going into a time trial 8 seconds down on Contador, it isn't looking good for him.

How about covertly taking the same bike with the same problems (like a knackered headset, undertight front mech clamp, knackered BB) to a bunch of different LBSs, Halfords, Evans, etc for a service and see what they find?

You could do a similar test on manufacturers warranties.

When there's a recession, and particularly when you've cocked up badly by thinking you can make better shocks for your own bikes that Fox did, you start to tighten up on warranty. At least that's my experience of Specialized's after sales service.

I have a 2009 Stumpy with a Brain shock. Specialized have reduced the maintenance window on this shock from 250 hours to 1 year or 150 hours, whichever is sooner. They've issued a correction to the manual but, if you have a 2009 bike, you'll never find it because they hid it in the 2007 bike manual section on their website. And they don't bother to post or email anything to notify you of the change even if, like me, you actually bothered to register your bike online with them.

And if, like mine, your shock did die 1 month/50 hours within the 1 year/150 hour window, they tell you that your shock needs a service soon anyway so pay us £95 and, whatever died in your shock will get done along the way. The bag of bits you get back, though, has a large and unusual collection of bits in it (including something that looks like the failed Brain cap) and hints that your shock may have been built with poor quality components. The first service therefore seems to be their opportunity to fix your shock at your expense instead of recalling it.

Personally, I might buy another Specialized one day but I wouldn't but a bike with their forks and/or shock. And I'd only listen to very recent, post recession advice on their almost mythical warranty.

Eurosport's TDF commentator (who rode up the Tourmalet with Sean Kelly yesterday) just tweeted: "The very smallest of bright patches in the sky how here in th tour, the weather last night and ths morning truly dreadful."

To be fair we've put a couple of hundred in our parliament and nobody's noticed, so I think the Argentinians were just unlucky.