The liklihood of Brexit ever being completed has significantly reduced as a result of the election outcome. This was always the danger if there was a general election before negotiations were completed. As it is, it now looks likely that there will be yet another GE before the negotiations are completed.

The longer it goes on, the more the political landscape and public sentiment moves on from the time of the referendum, and the more the actual practicalities of Brexit become clear (especially the extent to which various groups will lose out), the harder it will be to complete the deal.

If the deal that is negotiated is itself put to the country in a referendum, then it’s dead. Slogans like ‘Take Back Control’ and ‘Let’s spend £350M a week on the the NHS instead’ will be replaced by a referendum dominated by hard numbers and actual costings, and the resulting impact on peoples’ pockets and lives. If people stand to lose out in even a minor way, they will vote against the deal and they will not give a damn about immigration or ‘control’.

The irony of this is that one of the chief proponents of Brexit, David Davis, apparently persuaded May to call an election against her own judgement. He may just have derailled Brexit.

But doesn’t that mean the country and the people have to put up with more uncertainty and pain whilst we wait patiently for all this to unravel.

tuskaloosa, it helps if you can maintain a sense of uninvolved detachment and regard politics as entertainment rather than being about policies and principles.

I expect that many Labour MPs – and indeed many voters – who dismissed Corbyn, will now strongly support him because they now believe he is a potential winner. The Conservatives, and May especially, are now on the back foot. The question is whether Corbyn and his front bench can keep them there. Put simply, regardless of his policies, can Corbyn put the boot in at PMQs etc.: does he have the political skills and killer instinct that a PM needs, regardless of their political persuasion? If he does, I suspect even the most Blairite MP will be cheering him on, because winning is what matters. If the Conservatives scent defeat, then they will start to squabble and back bite, which will only make things worse for them.

Another election in the short term is unlikely. The Conservatives know that May is an electoral liability and that they need to have a new leader in place getting favourable polls before they can call another election.

I think an even bigger concern for the Conservatives is the fact that many voters who in this election considered that a vote for Corbyn/Labour was a wasted vote and so voted Lib Dem, Green or other, may now see Corbyn as a genuine contender and Labour as potential winners next time, and be prepared to vote for them: sucess breeds success and Labour and Corbyn now have momentum (pun intended).

So I think Conservatives would fear an even worse result if they go to the polls again quickly. Their problem is that the longer they try to govern with a minority, the more likely it is that they will suffer defeats in Parliament which lead to them being seen as weak and unfit for office, in the same way that the Labour minority government experienced prior to the Conservative victory in 1979.

If the exit poll is accurate, then the overwhelming focus of the political parties will not be Brexit, the economy, terrorism or anything else to do with governing the country: their overriding concern will be the next (likely early) election.

For the Conservatives, that means the most important thing will be to choose a new leader who can win the next election. It will not matter what wing of the party they come from, or whether they were pro Brexit or anti Brexit, or whether they want a hard or soft Brexit; all that will matter to the Conservative MPs is whether the new leader can win the election. So even though many of them believe he put naked self interest above the best interest of the country when he came out in support of Brexit, they will elect Boris Johnson as their new leader, because they think his charisma and political star/celebrity quality will help them win.

I have a Colnago Master X light too that needs built up, suffering from the endless debate about whether to build period or modern.

The Master X Light itself is not a 30 or even a 20 year old frame; it’s the latest and current incarnation of Colnago’s top end steel frame with shaped tubing.

As such, with the colour scheme and chrome, it’s not a question of period or modern, but rather the frame needs silver anodised aluminium components (as opposed to carbon or grey anodised). Campagnolo still make some of their lower tier groupsets using silver anodised aluminium which will match the frame nicely, and probably perform as well as 10 year old Record or Dura Ace. Equally it would look good with some second hand 1990s or early 2000s Dura Ace parts in good condition.

Ambrosio hubs (still available in silver) and grey anodised rims from someone like Harry Rowland would also look good and match the frame.

Nitto do some nice silver seatposts and stems. If possible I would go with a 26mm diameter bar (not so easy to find if you want the grooves for cables under the bar tape) and a Nitto stem like this one.. Saddles are personal, but a Rolls would suit it perfectly.

Now, crack on and build it and then post up some photos to make the rest of us envious.

Deore 3*9.

Paul Components Rear mech.

Pinion gearbox

I think you’ve got your priorities wrong if you are getting hung up on a brand like Rapha, rather than focusing on the specific items you need.

For example, Rapha make some very nice kit, and some of their bibshorts are reckoned by many to the best for long distance rides, but it makes no sense to use them for a 13 mile commute: for that distance any shorts from Aldi, Planet X, dhb or whoever should be more than adequate providing they fit.

If you are able to choose the days you ride, that will influence your choice of kit. In other words, if you have to ride on a given day whatever the weather, then you will want to get very good waterproofs and wet weather accessories.

Now is the time to pick up the cold and wet weather weather kit that will make Winter commuting tolerable and even pleasurable, since much of that kit is discounted at this time of year.

So in your shoes I would be prioritising:

– cold/wet weather gloves, e.g. lobster claw if you feel the cold
– hat/skull cap/gore tex helmet cover*
– winter buff or similar
– winter socks, e.g. De Feet Woolie Boolie
– overshoes or winter SPD boots
– long sleeved baselayers
– a good waterproof jacket, e.g. gore-tex or event fabric
– whatever wet weather legwear you will prefer, e.g. waterproof overtrousers or softshell type bibtights like the Pearl Izumi Elite Amfib Bib Tight

* I like the Castelli Difesa cap, which is windstopper with some ribbed material to keep the ears warm, and a peak which protects the eyes from rain and also deflects cold air away from the forehead. It’s currently half price at Wiggle Edit – CRC also have them in black at half price.

I would recommend he also take a look at the equivalent Spa offering, the Elan, which is available in hydro or triple builds. Another Spa option more towards the hardcore/roughstuff end of the spectrum which might interest is the Ti Adventure. Link to Spa bikes here.

From your photograph it looks like you should be OK with 240mm, but I note the Alpkit supplied struts are pre-bent, and according to their website the rotation is plus or minus 30 degrees. Presumably 30 degrees will be sufficient even with a straight/unbent strut?

Also, is there any chance you might want to fit mudguards or wider tyres at some point in future? If so, I would check whether a straight strut would be likely to cause clearance issues. That said, even if it did, you could easily buy 350mm struts later (and no need to cut them: just bend them at the point where they exit the fixing).

The 350mm ones would get it dead-level but require cutting down.

Would cutting it be essential? I’ve two different Tubus racks, and on one bike the supplied (short) struts were luckily just long enough to allow the rack to be level, whereas the other rack is a different model and the struts were much longer, but that surplus length simply extends 2 or 3 inches underneath the rack: it’s no big deal and not worth the bother of sawing off the surplus, and so I just fitted the plastic end cap supplied by Tubus with the rack over the end of the strut.

If you can do the same, then in your shoes I would get the longer length because I would rather have a strut that was too long than one that was just ever so slightly too short (which may also make it a bit more difficult to bend [less leverage] and may make getting the bend correct [both correct angle and correct point along the strut] a bit more critical/trickier).

was thinking an old wine or port crate, but that might be a bit too hipster-ish….

Lots of wooden crates here, but £43![/url] seems steep. If you can get hold of one from a local wineshop, presumably all you would need are the fixings which Basil sell separately.

I like the crates that the Dutch make for those front racks: just throw your rucksack, shopping, jacket or whatever in the crate and go.

Tubus struts have an 8mm diameter and are available in 240mm and 350mm lengths according to Rose Bikes. SJS[/url] for example sell them as well.

I am making that. Tonight. Enough to eat all weekend. It looks amazeballs.

I’m still getting the hang of it, and I find that the slice can de-layer when it is being fried (it doesn’t completely fall apart, but a bit might break off, which is not the end of the world).

Because of this I think it’s best to use double ceam (no milk and not single cream) because I think it helps the layers to stay to together when being cooked in the frying pan. For the same reason I think it needs to be cooked fairly quickly in the frying pan: heating it for too long will also cause the layers to come apart (so don’t pre-heat it in the over first, just let it come to room temperature and then fry quickly).

Good luck.

Dauphinoise potatoes are the pinnacle of the art and that’s that.

Nope, the pinnacle is to make dauphinoise, chill it with a weight on top, and then slice it and fry in butter:

From this recipe[/url].

I haven’t studied the details – but did they know that when the approved the design?

TJ made the following comment back on this thread, which I assume refers to where the accident happened:

The reason the council have no defense and will have to pay up is that they commissioned a report from Dutch transport experts on how to get safe cycle provision with the tram tracks along princes street to haymarket – and then completely ignored the results.

do they apply after a construction project is completed and the project is in use?

They do. A key aspect of the CDM Regs is to ensure that H&S is considered right from the design stage, and to ensure that it is considered for the design, for the construction phase (build it safely), for how the building/structure will be used and maintained, and even how the building/structure would eventually be decommissioned/dismantled. Basically it requires architects and other designers to design in safety from the outset and design out avoidable unnecessary risks. If someone is killed or injured later due to a failure to do so, then the HSE can prosecute the designer.

slightly ironically they may have made the council reluctant to make radical improvements – because that would by implications suggest there must have been a fault with the design!

I know what you mean and that some people and organisations will take that approach, but it is flawed and will only make things much worse for them if it goes to court. If it’s work related, they actually have a duty to review the relevant risk assessment in the light of a major accident and if appropriate take corrective action; not doing so and taking no action after multple accidents would put them in a much worse position in defending a civil compensation case, and even more so a criminal prosecution.

I assume any significant payment will come from an insurer?

Possibly, but many councils self insure. Even if they are insured, that will only be an annual insurance contract, and the insurer will increase the price at next and subsequent renewal if incidents like this result in it losing money (the other thread I linked to mentioned 191 cyclists requiring hospital treatment as a result of accidents caused by the tram tracks). Moreover, this is not something where the council could improve its claims experience by better training for employees or issuing them with better personal protective equipment etc., it is something that they have built in to the design of the roads, so any insurer will know that there will be more claims, possibly fatalities, from this next year, and they will charge accordingly.

Actually a FAI is a potentially more embarrassing prospect as (assuming there is no prospect of a criminal prosecution) I think those responsible can by cited and required to answer the questions. Certainly the Scottish media would enjoy that.

If the FAI were to spend the necessary time reviewing the design input and decisions, then that sounds like it would be a good second best to a criminal prosecution.

Poly, thank you for the reply and insight. I appreciate the difficulties in bringing a criminal prosecution, especially so for corporate manslaughter, but I think that the cycling safety campaigning organisations do need to seriously consider pushing this hard.

A few thoughts regarding your comments:

its very unlikely they won’t investigate if it is in their remit, much more likely that they report to the PF (Scottish Equivalent to CPS) and the PF decides there is no realistic prospect of a conviction

I’m somewhat sceptical of this. My understanding is that the HSE could be much more active in the field of work related road safety and accident investigation under current H&S legislation and its existing remit, but has chosen not to, probably because of a lack of resources. I think that like any organisation they will pick their battles, and will tend to shy away from breaking new ground or anything difficult, even when public interest would warrant them doing so.

This case is unusual from a road safety perspective in that the key issue is probably the road/tram line layout design, rather than the actions of the cyclist or the driver, and there appears to be a lot of evidence that the design is dangerous, and that the persons who approved the design knew this and approved it anyway. This is exactly the type of thing that the Construction Design and Management Regulations would normally cover (risk assess at the design stage and design out or mitigate unacceptable risks) and would normally be enforced and prosecuted by the HSE. I don’t know if the design of highways/tram networks would somehow be excluded under the CDM Regs, but I am not aware of the HSE ever undertaking enforcement action with regard to something like this. Maybe this is the case where the HSE needs to be prodded to get out of its comfort zone and break new ground.

A particular challenge in manslaughter cases against giant organisations is determining who really was the controlling mind

I thought that the current legislation for corporate manslaughter no longer made it so easy for organisations to get off such a charge by exploiting the difficulty in identifying the mens rea (which was always crazy, since it made large complex organisations much more difficult to prosecute than small businesses).

Yes – although the JR you suggested would bring the law enforcement agencies under scrutiny not the actual council decisions. But you could expect an almost inevitable civil court case against the council to achieve similar and Thomsons who are representing various cyclists who incurred minor injuries there in the past have already publicly lambasted the council for doing nothing

The civil compensation claims and the associated publicity appear to be having limited effect: apparently no alterations have been made to make it safer. I cannot help but suspect that the authority is not that bothered by the compensation awards, especially since the money comes out of the taxpayer’s pocket anyway. A criminal investigation, and especially a prosecution, even though the penalty for a H&S offence is likely to be a fine less than the civil award, would turn the heat up a lot more under the individuals who were involved in these decisions. A civil claim can be simply negotiated away by lawyers, unlike a criminal investigation with interviews under PACE with the prospect of possibly being called to account for your actions in a criminal court and the resulting publicity.

to all intents and purposes there are no private prosecutions in Scotland. They are theoretically possible but incredibly rare and only with the permission of the crown.

Apologies for my ignorance of the Scottish judicial system.

However, I presume that there must be other legal avenues which could be explored, e.g. if the relevent public bodies indicate that they will not investigate possible criminal negligence in the design then a judicial review could be applied for to challenge that decision and potentially even compel them to undertake such an investigation.

Even if unsuccessful, just the application for judicial review would bring public scrutiny, and fear of similar scrutiny may cause road designers to be more wary of deliberately ignoring advice and designing road layouts that are inherently and unnecessarily dangerous for cyclists.

It looks like this may be a case where Cycling UK (formerly the CTC) should seriously consider private prosecutions under Corporate Manslaughter legislation and/or under Health and Safety legislation. I appreciate that the police have probably only started their investigation, but I presume that the police will largely confine the scope of their investigation into whether there has been a road traffic offence. An investigation – and possible resulting prosecution – into whether the design and positioning of the tram tracks in conjunction with the road layout was so bad that it constitutes criminal negligence which warrants prosecution under Corporate Manslaughter legislation and/or under Health and Safety legislation would normally be undertaken by the HSE.

At the end of the day, the penalties (usually fines) under H&S legislation are not very severe, but the embarrassment and publicity of a high profile prosecution in this case might be a much bigger deterrent than any fine to those who might be tempted in future to similarly wilfully ignore expert advice on cyclists’ road safety.

The HSE has generally avoided getting involved in road safety, despite there often being a significant ‘work related’ component to many road accidents, e.g. people driving company vehicles and – in this particular case – the dangerous design of the tram line layout, and I imagine that the HSE has little appetite to get involved in this case.

If the campaigning bodies like Cycling UK got together and made it clear that they would launch private prosecutions if the HSE/police did not, that might force the latter to act. If they didn’t, I imagine that a private prosecution would be expensive and problematic, not least because of the difficulty of getting hold of the relevant evidence, i.e. the documentation detailing the decision making and likely also statements from those concerned in the design.

Even so, I still think they should seriously consider it, and if Cycling UK sought crowdfunding or similar to fund the likely high costs of preparing and making a private prosecution, I would be willing to contribute.

If this thread has – in Hannah’s words – “been closely followed by the people developing the new iterations of Kinesis Tripsters”, can I make a plea to Kinesis that they review and revise the sizing charts, which appear to be fundamentally the same for the two frames.

I appreciate the sizing charts are only suggestions, and that people of the same height may need or prefer different frame sizes depending upon their other body dimensions, flexibility, riding style and preferred position etc., but based on the various comments on this thread (not just my own experience) it looks to me as if the height/frame size suggestions are wrong. For example just on this page alone there is mikefella’s post wanting to swap for a smaller size and timeoutformike asking for advice because the suggested frame size is much larger than he has had before.

Given that many people are unable to test ride a bike before ordering a Tripster, they are going to tend to rely on the sizing chart, so it’s especially important that Kinesis get the chart ‘right’ (by which I mean it should give the right size for 95+% of customers, which currently I don’t think it does).

Looking back at many of early pages on this thread, there were a number of people who bought 54cm frames, despite supposedly being too tall based on the sizing chart, e.g. 5’10” or 5’11” or even 6′ in one case. I’m 5’10” and bought a 57cm based on the chart, and although I am in the middle of the suggested height range, it is simply the wrong size, which was confirmed when I bought a 54cm.

I’ve posted on this thread a number of times in response to people asking about sizing, because I don’t want them to make a similar expensive mistake as me, but really Kinesis need to address this and revise the chart. For the 54cm-57cm frames, I suspect that the height ranges need to be revised upwards by around 5cm.

I suspect that the answer to this is that you are not restricted to using each of those numbers once and only once, e.g.

6 x 5 x 2 + 2 x 5

EDIT I would look carefully at how the question is phrased, which may confirm this. Also, the above example solution might not be correct if it requires that all the numbers are used, e.g. my solution above does not include the number 3, but you can easily come up with one that does.

Works as a drag brake, a bit like on a tandem.

Ahh, so that’s the reason. Normally a tandem has a drag brake in addition to the main rear (and front) brake, so I would be interested to hear experience of using it like that on a solo (incidentally, I would have thought that the potential heat build up using a disc as a drag brake on a heavily laden tourer descending an Alpine mountain would have made it preferable to use a large rotor).

I think they may have specced a fork with a little flexibility for riding quality, and believe that a disc will overload it under hard braking.

That’s understandable, but I don’t see the sense then in matching it up with a disc at the rear. It makes no sense having a more powerful rear brake than front brake. A V brake does offer benefits, especially for touring, of low tech simplicity which is very easily and cheaply maintained and adjusted and is very tolerant of abuse and not being set up absolutely correctly, so why not use a V brake on the rear as well in that case?

I think that Thorn are one of those bike brands where if they make exactly what you want/like in a bike, e.g. a 26″ tyred Rohloff tourer, then there will probably not be many alternatives. Incidentally it looks like that many/most of their bikes only have a rear disc brake and a V brake at the front, which seems an odd combination and may not be what you want for cx/gravel use.

In your shoes, I would be looking carefully at the equivalent bikes made by Shand (much better frames and designs, custom built in the UK), and I would not even consider the Thorn unless it was at least 30% or so less than the Shand allowing for a similar specification.

Also, have you looked at Spa Cycles’ offerings?

It seems to me that a lot of custom builders are making very nice looking frames using off the shelf tubing. It’s interesting that we describe them as “custom” yet a manufacturer designing and specifying a custom tubeset in standard sizes would not be.

Not at all. By way of analogy, most Saville Row bespoke tailoring will use standard cloth chosen from a range offered by a limited number of suppliers, but that cloth will be of very high quality, and the custom element is in tailoring it to fit the customer perfectly. Marks and Spencer or Ted Baker or their suplliers may well order a cloth that is to their specific requirements of fabric composition and pattern/colour, but both the cloth and the final finished garment will be inferior to the Saville Row product.

If a standard tubeset does the job, then there is no need for the custom builder to seek anything else. The custom element is in selecting the tubeset (or mix of tubes) to suit the rider and use, and in the geometry.

For what it’s worth, the Columbus stainless tubes used by Pegoretti are extruded specifically for him to his specification. Conversely, the shaped (Gilco) tubing used by Colnago for their steel frames was/is made specifically for Colnago, and was developed in response to a request from pro racers to increase their frames’ stiffness.

when you grab an unbuilt bargain on eBay for £600…luckily a pegoretti 56cm is my size

Mr Smith, you sir are a jammy lucky b*****d. I wouldn’t mind so much were it not for the fact that that’s my size too.

I’m guessing as long as we’re back at the finish by 21:48, we can stop at the pub for as long as we fancy?

The minimum speed (15kph?) applies to the controls as well as the finish, but that will be irrelevant for the information controls and possibly those involving collecting stickers from jars (unless the shops will only have the jars out for a time window based on the pemitted maximum and minimum speeds).

The danger of spending too long in the pub and relying on your speed to get you to the finish under the time limit, is that there could be a secret control after the pub which would be closed by the time you reached it.

A further thought: some of the better coffee shops – but sadly not that many – offer different brewing options in addition to espresso.

According to your profile location, I suspect the best coffee shop near you is Little Red Roaster in Poole (not been there myself, but heard a positive review of it from a friend). According to this 2015 blog post [/url], they offer cafetiere and pour over (i.e. filter, albeit not Aeropress), so you could try the drinks there to get an idea of the difference (although be preparared to be spoilt by getting drinks made with freshly ground high quality beans).

There is a difference between the drinks produced by a cafetiere and an Aeropress. The paper filter of the Aeropress means that you do not get the fines at the bottom of the cup, and cafetiere tends to be a stronger/harsher/more robust/muddier brew (choose whichever adjective you prefer). Conversely filter coffee is usually described as a ‘cleaner’ cup, and will not be as strong as a cafetiere, although the Aeropress is I think a close second to cafetiere.

At the end of the day, the beans will make more difference to the drink than the method of brewing.

Sport Pursuit often have Craghoppers items for sale, and at the moment some, but not all, of the Craghoppers Kiwi trousers are showing on the website at £14, (you’ll need to trawl through the website to see what sizes and lengths they actually have available). Link here, but you will have to sign up to the website to gain access.

We’d be living in a compound, surrounded by a high wall and armed guards “just in case”. During the unrest a few years ago they surrounded it with Tanks, nice.

Would either of you have to commit to staying there (especially for a period of years as opposed to, say, 12 months) with significant financial/contractual penalties if you wanted to quit early and come back to the UK?

A lot could change out there in a relatively short time, and if you are locked in to a 3 year contract or longer, you could find yourself in an increasingly deteriorating situation and wanting to come back much sooner.

if its custom it should fit and no spacers should be need.

According to Trek’s guidance the spacers serve an important safety function:

“Always place at least one 5mm spacer below the stem. This spacer is in addition to the bearing cover), which must be at least 5mm. If the stem rests against the bearing cover, a point load is created on the steerer that could eventually cause the steerer to break.”

The irony of this compared with an old fashioned quill stem, is that combined with the typical 30mm recommended maximum amount of spacers and the need for the bottom of the stem not to be below the bung, it leaves only a very narrow range of adjustment both for initial fitting of the bike to the rider and also for any subsequent alterations the rider might want/need to make later on.

Completely agree with Mr Smith and davidtaylforth: too many of the custom builders named in this thread appear to have gone straight to the low volume/artisan end of the market, without having accumulated the experience of building lots of frames for lots of different customers. Many those artisan builders seem to spend a lot of their time on functionally useless decorative over-ornamentation of their frames to satisfy silly fads and whims of their own and their customers, who seem to value a frame that photgraphs well more than how it rides.

Pegoretti is famous for his fancy paint jobs, but the difference between him and the UK artisan builders is that the paint jobs are simply the icing on the cake (if you like them) on a frame built by probably the greatest custom steel race frame builder (the man who built Pinarello’s team frames for Indurain and many other top riders in the pro peloton, having himself served his apprenticeship under another italian master framebuilder).

Dave Yates used to run M Steel’s frame building workshop, and has built/supervised the construction of many thousands of frames. Like Pegoretti he was a racer himself, and he also was a mile eating audax rider who has completed Paris-Brest-Paris and London-Edinburgh-London, and that experience has strongly influenced what he recommends and builds.

You go to guys like these and Rourke and Shand for their experience and knowledge of what makes a great bike to ride, not for some fancy pointless decoration which took the builder half a week to make.

lunge, you’ve provided us all with some entertainment, but you should ask the mods to delete this thread now. If your bosses ever find it, they will probably not take it in good humour.

As for further rides, what would matter to me most is not whether they were fast or slow, but simply whether they were good company (although obviously you need to factor in the employment relationship as well in this case).

If someone was good company but slow, then I would try to work around that, e.g. maybe use the ride with them as a recovery or low intensity ride and do high intensity the day before.

OK, they’ve made themselves look fairly foolish in your and our eyes by their boasting and not having the fitness to match their fancy kit, but even so, at the end of the day we all have to start somewhere and maybe by riding with you they will improve (the advice on how to get faster is often to go out with faster riders) and also develop a little much needed self awareness and humility.

Slowster, the voice of experience??!

🙂 Yup. I’ve only done it once (and was only ever fit enough for a short while to do it), but it was warranted on that occasion.

+ 1 for Half wheeling, it works a treat and by the sounds of it should be physically nice n easy to dish out whilst still chatting away to them so they take there mind of how much they’re suffering.

The real trick is if you can do it without the other rider being aware of it not only at the time, but afterwards as well. In other words, you want them to eventually blow up badly and realise that you are a bit fitter than them (and respect you as a better rider), but never realise that what you did was calculated and pre-meditated. So you need always to maintain a cheerful chatty demenour, and when they eventually blow, you exhibit concern (‘Are you OK?’ etc.) and always feign innocence of what you have done.

None of the above. Just ride at a tempo that is comfortable for you, but at a pace which is ever so slightly faster than they would normally ride. The trick is not to go so fast so quickly that you drop them, but rather to lead them to keep up with you at a pace which they can manage for an hour or two, but which they cannot sustain for the whole ride.

Usually when you do this, you want to ride alongside them, so that they cannot get the energy saving benefit of sheltering behind you, and you can control the pace. This is sometimes referred to as ‘half-wheeling’, i.e. riding with your front wheel a foot or so ahead of theirs.

It’s a bit like boiling a frog in cold water: they don’t realise what is happening until it’s too late and they have blown very badly. It’s far more destructive physically and mentally than just dropping them them on the first climb.

OP, if you are going to mix MTB and road components, be careful that you don’t get caught out by the differing chainlines, and the impact of using an MTB chainset (even a triple with outer ring removed) and a road front mech. Even if the road mech will move out far enough to reach the middle ring, the angle through which it moves inwards when changing down may not work well with the small inner ring, and you may also have to contend with the front mech being obstructed by the chainstay with such a small inner ring. Incidentally, I assume you do not have a short cage rear mech, since that would probably not have enough capacity.

At the end of the day, it may simply be a matter of trial and error to see if you can get your chosen combination of components to work.

I would also suggest you have a look at the various threads on this subject on the CTC forum, e.g. this one. It might even be worth posting your query on that forum.

I dubt any front mech wll shift a 20+T gap.

I put a 24T on my road triple lately, shifting down to it from the 39T was a ‘mare.

30 years ago some cycletourists were using what was called a ‘half step plus a granny’ set up. This was a triple with closely spaced middle and outer rings and a very small inner ring. The idea was that changing between middle and outer gave a smaller jump than shifting one sprocket on the back (bear in mind this was in the days of 5 and 6 speed with big jumps on a wide ratio freewheel). The need for that sort of set up disappeared with the improvements in equipment and gearing brought about by the take off of mountain bikes, and I don’t think any modern triple front mech could cope with it.

I used to use a 40/26 double for cyclecamping with panniers, but I always worried that the aluminium inner ring might fail under the strain of riding a heavily loaded bike up a mountain using a 26/28 gear, so I carried a spare inner ring just in case. If I were doing it now, I would use a steel inner ring.

use the inner 2 on a triple?

Spa sell a £35 triple with 42/32/22 rings. I wonder if you could remove the 32 middle ring and put the 42 in its place*, to have a 42/22 double. I’m sceptical myself whether this would work and whether you might encounter problems trying to do it, but it may be worth investigating.

You would need a square taper bottom bracket, but at least the advantage of square taper is that you should be able to select one to give you the right chainline. You would also need a set of spacers in place of the missing outer ring or double chainring bolts, see here.

You might have problems with the existing front mech because of the 20 tooth gap using smaller rings than it was designed for, and the need to lower the mech (may not be possible to lower it sufficiently if a braze on mech, and also may foul the chainstay with such a small inner ring). Shimano did make a front mech for smaller cyclocross chainsets, the CX70, which is still available and which I believe would work with 11 speed, which I have read of being used with compact chainsets, e.g. see here. Shimano specify a 16 tooth maximum capacity, so it might not work, in which case you might need to buy a larger inner chainring and/or smaller middle ring to reduce the jump. A larger inner chainring would probably be better, e.g. 42/26 or 42/28.

EDIT – * Sorry, lost the plot there, I doubt you could even bodge fitting the outer ring in place of the middle. You would have to buy a suitable replacement middle ring from Spa.

Will an Ultegra inner ring do? I would have thought it was the same dimensions, and since it’s an inner ring any difference in colour should not matter.

Bike Discount for example sell them for 11 Euros, and you have the choice of other izes, e.g. 34t.

I note that Bike Discount sell both Ultegra and Dura Ace spare 11sp rings, but not 105, so maybe 105 spare rings are not available/widely offered.

Whoops, I should have said that it’s a brick shed but with quite a thick wooden door.

As others have said, there is no point fitting a very expensive padlock if it can be easily bypassed. So things to think about:

– is the hasp and staple going to be the weak link?
– similarly, external strap hinges are easy to overcome.
– does the shed have a window? It might not be possible to get a bike out through it, but it makes it easier for someone to look in and decide if its worth going to the trouble of breaking in.
– if you are storing a £5,000+ superbike in there, I would think again. There comes a point where no matter how much physical security you install, the contents are so attractive to thieves that they will spend their time overcoming them, e.g. going in through the roof.

At the end of the day, padlocks are generally low security locks, and the open shackles can be pried open relatively easily. Proper high security padlocks are like these:

Chubb Battleship close shackle padlock

Better still, a concealed shackle padlock

EDIT Check the door frame as well: given the nature of the shed/out house, the frame may not be very well secured to the walls, and might need additional fastenings. You can also fit hinge bolts to stop someone levering the door open from the hinge side.