..and that’s how they were damaged….the eggs…you remember…the hard-boiled eggs I was telling you about…they were in a tupperware container, reputedly self-sealing, which fell open upon contact with the tarmacadam surface of the road….the B489…the Dawlish road… That shouldn’t really happen to a self-sealing container, should it? What do you keep your hard-boiled eggs in? I think in future I shall lash them to the handlebars with adhesive tape…this should obviate a recurrence of the same problem…well I can’t stop here all day…I’m on a cycling tour of North Cornwall. Must be off.

as the economy contracted, the total spending grew as a share of GDP, and the cost of debt now being much greater, it’s simply unsustainable.

It was never anyones intention that increase public spending would be sustained

ahhh i see, didnt know the guy had history

Its not just Durkin, since Hamish Mykura took over as head of Documentary at C4 fact has gone down the toilet and the medium has become more important than the message. Programmes are deliberately onesided, flawed and inflammatory because the measure of success has become how talked-about a programme is. Ideally a programme will cause a stir before its even aired, and be discussed in the media and over the water cooler by people who’ve formed opinions but haven’t even seen it.

Mykura is a smart-arsed dangerous idiot frankly, but successful enough that other commissioning editors in other better respected institutions are starting to ape him

not Best of Chums then

I’d be just as concerned who reported the posting as well.

On facebook any of the friends of any of the people who post in the comments can see the whole post, so if there are a few comments then the audience for that exchange is potentially huge. The two people in conversation work for the same company, so all of their collegues that are also on facebook are audience to it, if any of them also comment/like/share the comment then all of that additional persons contacts see that too

Best of chums

A shorter pump, thats the answer.

Pumps shortened while U wait

Does your lovely daughter like Tizer? Eh?
Wouldn’t mind buying her a bottle of Tizer…. if it’s available in this area, that is.

A more truthful sign would have read “Quirrel is following this van, he looks nervous”

But what about fruitcake? In a crash fruitcake would be much better protected on a trailer than in a pannier. If you kept your pump on the trailer its far less likely to get caught in your sock and your fruitcake wouldn’t get damaged on one side.

I’ll have one ready for you on Monday, I take my time but I can be exceptionally accurate 🙂

The ideal with a trailer is you shouldn’t need to change anything about you’re bike, lower gearing is nice, but thats about it. You don’t need to have a dedicated touring frame, or stronger wheels.

A trailer pack isn’t more cash than a pair of panniers, a trailer is more than a rack, but its cheaper than buying an extra bike. It was mentioned above that you could save the money for a trailer and buy a lighter tent, but a hundred and odd quid is only going to shave grams off a tent. If you’re already invested in panniers – you’ve got a bike with braze ons, low bb, strong wheels, racks and panniers and you’re accustomed to riding it then is a bit of a step to switch to a trailer as you make all that other stuff redundant. But from scratch a trailer is the cheaper way to go.

Bar bags give me the boak, if you’ve got panniers on you might as well use one too, but on their own – no chance. But theres a tiny wee pack that topeak make that sits behind the stem and means you’re camera is always to hand, they’re ace.

I look like spike milligan drew me

but I’ve got huge feet infront on the trailer bag

You haven’t seen my skinny legs druidh 🙂

In the context of a thought experiment or in the context of making measurements of effort? At what point do we introduce a theoretical conveyor belt?

That said, do whatever you feel is best, if we were sensible you’d get the bus instead

you have the disadvantage of a trailer in both cases

no – carry a load on a bike only, then carrying the same load on a trailer instead – no load on the bike, then carrying double the load on a trailer with no load on the bike.

In that context you could carry 16kg on the bike or 32kg on the trailer for approx the same effort

the trailer weight isn’t all that significant in the scheme of things, and its tucked right in behind you with less frontal area than two panniers

The amount of marmite I put on stuff makes people wince, I’ve had guests who consider themselves to be marmite lovers politely scraping it off their toast cos I’ve given them way too much. A cafe i used to go to as a student used to put spread marmite on as thick as peanut butter so I developed quite a high tolerance.

I’ve always fancied trying the swiss version – Cenovis – mainly because the packaging looks nice

maybe not this though, although why not – could be a new avenue for marmite marketing

tried to buy some online but for some reason the vendor wanted about £20 for postage

I’m totally aware of how bikes are balanced when you ride them, but its naive to imagine they are balanced without any input from the rider, I’m not saying its enormous, but when the load is heavy its enough for there to be a benefit detaching that load from the bike. The tests I’m referring to relate to a 16kg load on the bike and comparing to a 16kg load on the trailer and then a 32kg load on the trailer. In a work fleet context so some stop/start and lower speed manouvering in the mix.

Most of your effort, once you get going from stationary is still pushing your bike through the air, and on a hill dragging it against gravity. And the load, even heavily loaded for touring, is still small compared to the rider, so its only that small portion of the effort that we’re talking about.

If your load is quite light though, such as in stoner’s example (or even Ton’s) the efficiency benefit deminishes, but even in that context I still prefer the feel of the bike with a trailer over panniers.

Utter rubbish

I used the word ‘measurably’ – as in weighed loads over timed set routes/distances with heart rate monitors. Subjectively carry a load any way you like; on a fixie with a shopping basket on the front, in a brick hod on a unicycle, on a pogostick with you’re trangia swinging from your pierced nipples. Objectively the best way to move a weight around (that doesn’t have legs) on a bicycle is to have that load rotationally de-coupled from the bike, and that decoupling benefit outweights any weight, wind or rolling resistance penalities, so long as the weight is significant.

But touring is about being happy, so do whatever makes you happy, if panniers feel better to you then do it. If your looking for reasons not to use a trailer, there aren’t many objective reasons not to, but if you don’t want to then fine. Fun isn’t always about doing things in the most efficient way.

How can the additional weight of a trailer frame, two wheels and a large bag not influence the bike?!

They don’t influence the balance of the bike – obviously you are pulling the load along and that takes effort, but you’re not balancing it. If you put half a tonne on the trailer you wouldn’t have to put any effort into keeping the bike upright – if you stepped off the bike the bike would fall over and the trailer and its weight would stay put. If you strap that weight on the bike you have to work to balance that weight, and it takes more effort that you might be aware of.

On sacking his legal team during his swinger-club-slander case

“Tommy Sherridan drops his briefs”

The ikea Jerker desk used to be the case-modder / equipment nerd / people-who-grew-up-watching-80’s-teen-movies-about-cool-geeks-hacking-the-pentagon desk of choice, but they don’t do them anymore. Don’t know if there will be any floating around on ebay

Really can’t see any advantages to a trailer for on-road touring.

on-road is whole advantage. Trick is to get the trailer right. One wheel trailers are better suited for off-road, two wheel trailers are better for on-road.

The key to trailers is they separate the influence of the load from the bike – you put more energy than you’d imagine into balancing the loaded bike, not just propelling the load along. One wheel trailers still need to be balanced by the rider, so they’re not really that much more efficient than panniers, but two wheel trailers don’t. Two wheel trailers (so long as they’re hitched at the dropout and not somewhere higher up like the seatpost) don’t influence the bike at all. Its the removal of that balancing effort that makes the difference – you’ll either travel measureably further for the effort, or move much more weight for the same effort with a 2 wheel trailer compared to panniers, by quite a large margin. Furthermore you can load them as clumsily as you like, you don’t need to spread or balance the load. Other than up hill you forget its there, your bike feels like your bike, it doesn’t feel heavy or loaded (until you go through a narrow gap).

The downside as you suspect is that its an extra item to deal with getting yourself on/off of public transport. French trains are ace for cyclists once you’re on them, but getting around the station and on and off the train can be a bit of a hassle, less so in some stations, but Nice for instance is like the bloody royal tornament, I can’t image there are any wheelchair users in french stations, or anyone elderly getting on and off the trains – in some stations you climb up into them through narrow doors.

While a trailers is extra encumberance in this situation again 2 wheel ones are better, they unhitch easier and good ones balance well in the hand so you can wheel the bike with one hand, and trolly the trailer along with the other. With a one-wheel trailer you’ve not really got an easy way of dealing with it once its loaded, but off the bike.

if your milage is as low as you’re suggesting then mpg is no issue at all. But then being stuck for 3 days during the snowiest winter for around 20 years shouldn’t tie you down as to what you drive the rest of the year. (I was stuck for a lot longer than that). Even if you can get going in those conditions you’ll often find the way blocked by people that can’t (me)

Big holes hit at road speeds are still going to damage a 4×4 though (or even throw you in a ditch)

I want something just like that but with a good mpg…

define good – even dinky 4x4s like the Kangoo 4×4 thingys have shocking fuel consumption. If the point is to drive off road then you won’t actually drive very far, if it isn’t and you plan to cover distances then fuel bills are something you have to accept you’ll pay for vanity

Just buy some Borax and do it yourself. Be aware though, although its generally harmless to humans it tends to make men extra fertile

aldi do a copy for 30 p ish

but you shouldn’t take supermarket prices as general cost guide – they sell plenty of stuff at less-than-cost, booze for instance.

The Torm stuff wouldn’t look out of place on sale in Aldi 🙂

The funniest thing about the whole MPs expenses scandal is, statistically, MPs are far more honest about their expenses than the rest of us, and look how many of the ‘rest of us’ there are. 🙂

Paper Bicycle

so the pub is safer than the hedge – as there’s no ‘arm in it

pffff

The pub near my folks has a stuffed fox in a glass cabinet, but the glass in the cabinet is frosted so it looks the fox is lurking in a weird box full of fog

cyclo-patisserist

The problem with torture is it only ends when the torturer hears what they want to hear. If they want to hear about WMDs they’ll keep torturing until they hear it, if the person being tortured has to make up stuff to stop the torture then what use is that? Some of the ‘intelligence’ gained from detainees after 9/11 turned out to be tortured suspects blurting out the plot-lines from holywood disaster movies. Then surprisingly you don’t find WMDs in Iraq and you don’t find Godzilla in Afganistan either

most modern suicide bombings are acts of revenge rather than religion.

Thats always been obvious hasn’t it?

reminds me a bit of this

(skip the first couple of minutes)

a nail gun or chisel set would be on the list, but not any more.

A wrecking ball

then next year you can ask for a nail gun and a chisel

wazzock

shenanigans

tomfoolery

abhor

Shambolic

balderdash

I’ve stumbled into a Edwardian tourettes-sufferer’s nightmare

Peter Poddy stooped to pick a buttercup

“Someone’s dropped a buttock” he said

The airnimal’s not a good folder for trains, not compared to a brompton or birdy. the Moulton is hardly a folder at all, its just got small wheels. The Birdy isn’t a dropbar speedster but you can ride it with quite a bit of verve, so if your commute is a bit of an urban hoon rather than a straight slog into a head wind then its worth a try

don’t buy your straps from Halfords though, it would be cheaper to rent a van for the day than do that. If its a one off and you don’t have hundreds of other uses for the straps (or a local cheapo hardware shop ) then rope should be fine so long as you take a bit of time and care over it.

If the surfaces of the doors are precious put something soft between them esp between the bottom door and the roof bars and protect the edges were the rope goes over the corners to stop them cutting/rubbing in.Rope side to side as you would with the ratchets above, to tension them up run the rope across twice and tension them by putting a stick between the two ropes and twisting, tourniquet fashion, then letting the stick jam against the door to lock it.

If you’re not happy you can get a lot of tension to stop the doors from slipping then the main thing to guard against is the doors slipping forward (braking forces are greater than acceleration) so put a loop of rope around the front edge of the doors too.

Birdys are a good laugh, fold almost a quick as a brompton too. The Bike Friday Tikit is worth a look too – a 5 second fold. Unlike a lot of folding bikes its available in more than one size.

The Airnimal bike frequently get recommended for their ride, but they are not frequent folders in the brompton daily communting sense, they’re bikes to take apart occasionally to take on holiday with you.

Birdy is a better handling alternative to a Brompton. There have been issues with spares availability for them, not sure if thats improved though