Does everybody else just go round smiling and pretend?

I think we all do this to some extent, and I guess it can help: if someone is manifestly miserable all the time, some people may want to help, but many others will withdraw from them and their work and social lives and relationships will probably deteriorate, which will make things even worse. ‘Faking it to make it’ may help people to soldier on through a bad patch to get to a better place.

However, I think that constantly pretending to be happy or content for a long period when the truth is the opposite, is bad for one’s mental health. Ultimately, we need to be true to ourselves, and creating and maintaining a major disconnect between our outward persona and how we really feel isolates a person from those around and close to them, and makes it much harder to fix the underlying problems.

Grum, I hope you are feeling better, even with the physical injury and pain you’ve got now. I am hoping that rather than getting despondent about the accident and enforced lay off, you can look on it with a sense of humour and positivism (rather than think how bad it was, think how much worse the accident might have been and how lucky you were it wasn’t worse – I’ve read that it’s that mindset, rather than the actual experiences of our lives, which distinguishes happy/optimistic people from unhappy/pessimistic people).

Or are you claiming that because your sale is an easy one they shouldn’t expect their usual return on it?

The way you express this makes it sound as if you think you are entitled to that usual return on every sale. Just because you have a ‘usual return’, that does not automatically make the price for any given item ‘fair’ or even reasonable.

What about when one of your high end, awkward to source parts fails in some way, who has to deal with the warranty angst?

How often do XTR components go back for warranty? The more common it is, the stronger your point, but the rise of the online box shifters, including the german retailers, suggests that the products are sufficiently reliable for consumers to accept poor or even no after sales (warranty) service, because failures are so infrequent.

Or perhaps the margin they make on your sale helps subsidise the hour their mechanic spent trying to find and fit a suitable inner tube to the motability scooter somebody brought in, despite only charging a fiver because it’s a ‘puncture repair’*

Can you not see what is wrong with what you are saying? You mention it was a motability scooter presumably because it shows how charitable you were in charging way below what the job was worth. So you decided not to demand your ‘usual return’ on that job, and you expect the OP to pay top price on what is in many respects a commodity, so that you can pick and choose when to cut your margins on the workshop activity which is key to a LBS. I’m sure the motability scooter owner will praise your shop to the sky to all his mates, and they too will bring their scooters and BSOs to you expecting cheap repairs. In the meantime, those like the OP who spend large amounts of money on their bikes and kit, and to whom sales are in your words, easy ones, will go online, buy what they want, and fit it themselves. And as for after sales problems, the online retailers have increasingly improved their service compared with mail order 20 or even 10 years ago, and they make it as easy as possible to deal with them.

For spring days when it can be very chilly first thing in the morning but very warm later in the day, the most effective bit of kit is an ultra lightweight windproof of pertex or similar. It’s warmer than a gilet, and paired up with arm warmers, knee warmers and thin gloves – all of which can be shoved in your back pockets as it warms up – it can cope with a wider range of temperatures than any single garment like the Gabba.

You are probably saving a fair bit of money on fuel and car wear and tear by cycling, and I think you should not hesitate to ‘reward yourself’, whether that be deciding to take the car some days, taking a holiday etc.

On that note, are there any decent pubs serving food/restaurants on your ride home? If so, how about stopping for a meal on the ride home once a week or once a fortnight, and making that ride a leisurely indulgent affair, and not cook when you get home that evening?

In my experience of inserts, they give poor peripheral vision because they are usually flat (unlike the curved prescription lenses used for example by Oakley). I found it was difficult to properly see what was behind me when quickly looking behind over my shoulder, because the change in view from the precription insert (and its frame), to seeing through the uncorrected tinted lens, and beyond that to seeing through no lens, created a lot of clutter/interference in my peripheral vision.

I had a very nasty near miss once wearing them when I looked over my shoulder before turning right, and failed to see the car behind me. After that I switched to Oakleys with curved prescription lenses, but contact lenses are much better if you can get on with them.

Judging by convert’s posts, the company sounds like a relatively small one, and the industry itself is not that large. Given that, to suggest whistleblowing or that convert’s wife should seek recourse under the Data Protection Act (or that she should encourage clients to do so) is naive.

That sort of approach might be appropriate for large corporations (but see the recent example of Barclays where the CEO tried to identify an anonymous whistleblower), it’s unlikely to be appropriate for a small business, unless in a heavily regulated industry where enforcement action could well result in someone being barred from the industry by the regulator or courts. In comparison to that any enforcement action under the Data Protection Act is likely to be trivial.

If convert’s wife is in something like the recruitment industry, then this is going to be fundamentally a matter of professional reputation and its commercial impact on the business and on the career of convert’s wife. Her problem is that the person who sent the email using her email address is a director and part owner with a lot of influence in the industry. That means convert’s wife is in a very weak position, and the only thing in her favour is that she was not responsible for the mistake.

In the long run it might not be as serious as it seems to you/her right now. Granted, she has been shat on from a great height, but are the long term consequences as severe as you really think?

It’s probably very difficult to keep everything in perspective and take a detached long term view, and obviously only your wife knows what her industry is like and how others in the industry and (potential/existing) clients might react if they learn what has happened, both the untrue version (she did it) and the truth.

I would be wary of acting too hastily, whether that be trying to force the company/director to tell all the email recipients that it was not her fault, or going along with any plan the company/director might have to placate clients without telling them the truth or even actively lying to the clients.

I suspect that her best approach may be to be patient and see how events play out, and respond to them accordingly only when they happen and when she can better see the lie of land as it were, rather than trying to force the issue which may be a high risk strategy for someone who is the more junior person in the organisation and industry.

Taking two extremes:

Firstly, this might prove to be a storm in a teacup which becames ancient history in a few years, with no lasting damage to the company, the director, or your wife. If so kicking up a fuss now may be counterproductive.

Secondly, if the incident is going to cause major reputational and commercial damage, it is likely to be something that will take a little while to build up to a crisis point, and in that event the longer it goes on the stronger your wife’s position and the weaker the director’s, for the simple reason that it was the director’s mistake.

Put crudely, if the whole thing can be easily and quickly glossed over by the company with no long term harm, the more likely it is that they will agree to cover up for their fellow director/part owner. It will probably only be if the stakes become so high that the future of the company (and the investment of the other part owners) is threatened, that those other owners would be prepared to publicly blame their fellow director, which would be a nuclear option, especially if it meant having to buy her out/pay her off, and might not be effective damage limitation if the company is fatally hurt by the incident anyway.

My advice would therefore be for your wife to play a waiting game for now and keep her options open. She probably needs to avoid being drawn into any cover up or fake explanation concocted by the company which would entail her telling lies to clients. At the same time for now she probably needs to avoid telling clients it was the director that did it. So she needs to very careful what she says to clients. In her shoes if a client complained to me about what had happened, I would have a prepared script, e.g. maybe something like, “I’m extremely sorry this has happened. I am not in a position to be able to say what happened, but I can tell you that I did not send that email, and was on holiday at the time. I can only apologise on behalf of the company“. The trick is to communicate this message confidently, and not to ‘protest too much’ to clients that it wasn’t her.

If clients complain directly to the directors/owners, and they threaten to blame your wife as part of a cover up, then I guess the gloves are off. Blaming your wife would be a high risk strategy for them, since it would leave them open not only probably to a case for constructive dismissal, but also defamation (destrying someone’s business repution by libel/slander would be an extremely expensive and damaging legal case for them to lose). If it gets to that stage, your wife will clearly need legal advice. Since the email went to your wife’s private email address, she is presumably in a position to (threaten to) email the clients and tell them the truth, although that is a nuclear option. It might well be that the best option would be if the company offered her a life changing sum in compensation with a gagging clause, to enable her to retire early or retrain. If she blows the whistle, the company might be destroyed by the fall out, and your wife’s career might still be harmed, but there would be no financial compensation.

could you drill a couple of small pilot holes where the teeth will go

To be clear, I mean a couple of small pilot holes in the tile. So a large hole for the fixing itself to pass through, and two small shallow holes either side of the large hole (diametrically opposed).

Question on those Fischer things…. The surface is tiled so are those little teeth going to bite in? I could aim for a deeper set and set them through the wood of the cabinet but that would make it difficult to remove.

Could they crack the tile? Suppose if they did that decides I’m retiling

I’ve not had that scenario (I used them to hang a bathroom cabinet, but the wall was not tiled).

I guess the teeth could crack the tile. The function of the teeth is to stop the fixing itself rotating when tightening the bolt. Rather than just using the setting tool to squeeze the fixing with the teeth against the bare smooth surface of the tile, could you drill a couple of small pilot holes where the teeth will go, and then use the setting tool, so that rather than the teeth pressing into the tile, the edges of the pilot holes will serve the function of giving the teeth something to resist the turning of the fixing as you tighten the bolt?

Read this.

The Fischer metal cavity fixing [/url] might be the solution. The recommended maximum loads for a single fixing are given in a pdf on the Downloads tab on that page.

The last time I tried out contacts I didn’t get on very well with them. I already have prescription riding glasses, I’m hoping that prescription safety specs don’t cost as much as they did!

If you’ve already got prescription riding glasses, then I would wear them, unless the tint is too dark to use them for trail building. Although the lenses of my dhb riding glasses do not have the EN mark that is stamped into my safety spectacles, Wiggle do use the term ‘highly impact resistant’ in the product description, and I think most riding glasses are polycarbonate like safety spectacles. Oakley used to advertise their sunglasses by saying that the lenses would stop shotgun pellets.

Safety spectacles are typically cheap and cheerful products, whereas riding glasses which cost a bit more are often more comfortable to wear. I found this especially true with prescription safety spectacles, which were noticeably heavy and uncomfortable to wear. I suspect you need to spend similar money on prescription safety spectacles as precription riding glasses to get something that is comfortable to wear for long periods.

That’s a piss-take…….. right?

I agree it’s very risk averse and I’m not suggesting anyone else should do it, but I am fairly cack handed when it comes to doing anything with tools. I’ve had a couple of near misses where I’ve realised afterwards that it was a close call (one where an object did hit my eyeball while doing something quite innocuous on the face of it, although that occasion was not working on the bike).

So part of my reason for thinking I’ll use them for working on the bike is that I’m a bit of a klutz, and the other part is that I have already have safety spectacles from work in the tool chest, so it’s not going to cost me anything. The problem with just putting them on when there’s the obvious potential for something to fly up, like cutting a cable end, is that I would never remember/bother to put them on at that point: it’s simpler to use something like putting the bike in a stand as the trigger always then to put glasses on.

In many work environments people are required to wear eye protection at all times, regardless of whether the identified risk necessitating them exists all the time and in all areas of the workplace, and I guess it’s an approach I have become used to.

On the other hand, I will take risks that others wouldn’t, e.g. I like riding my road bikes without wearing a helmet.

CRC are doing Maxxis Chronicle 29+ for £44 right now!

If you buy two then they are only £39 each (£10 off for Clearance items totalling over £75).

I was out in the garden assembling a wooden climbing frame holding a piece of wood when a gust of wind blew dust in my eye..

I’ll let you off in this instance.

Flippancy aside, I’m glad it did not take you too long to get seen and that it was not a major injury.

I’ll admit I’m a bit of a hypocrite, because I do not usually wear safety specs when I am working on my bikes, but I am hoping to get a bike stand soon, and I plan on getting into the habit of putting safety specs on whenever I put a bike in the stand.

It was small fragments of wood and dust that blew into my eye.. Wasn’t using a power tool at the time.

In many factories, safety spectacles must be worn at all times in the workshop, not just by those operating tools (who might be required to wear goggles instead for added protection), or when tools are running. It sounds like the environment in your workshop may warrant a similar approach.

Sometimes the offending article is in the eye protection before put it on.

Eye protection and respiratory protection that are dusty and dirty, usually because they are hung up in a dusty and dirty environment, usually indicate that they are not being used. They should be kept clean, be stored in a clean place, and be on the moment you step into the workshop.

This concluding point is a biggy IMO:

The current classification of careless and dangerous driving offences, how driving standards are assessed, and charging standards, are simply not fit for purpose. They must be changed, with the standard of driving required being more objectively determined. Currently, the law requires jurors to consider whether another driver’s standard of driving fell “below”, or “far below” the standard which they believe would be expected of “a careful and competent driver”, whatever that standard might be. One person might well think they’re a careful and competent driver as they overtake a cyclist whilst speeding, leaving a 30 cm gap. I would disagree, so our perspectives on what falls “below the competent and careful driver” test will be irreconcilable. We are asking jurors to apply a standard that few understand, and which is far too subjective.

It’s easy to blame the jury, and say they simply carry the prejudices and bad habits of drivers in to court with them, but if the measurement of “careless” or “dangerous” isn’t actually defined with clear measurable criteria then prosecutions will continue to fail or defendants plead down to lesser charges…

Such a definition might not be particularly easy to come up with but it would be worthwhile. [/quote]

It’s not a biggy, and not only would it not be worthwhile, it would be a waste of time, effort and resources that could be better directed into actions that would genuinely improve road safety and reduce the number of such fatalities.

The sanctions imposed in the form of fines, points, bans and in extreme cases imprisonment by the criminal justice system probably have a relatively low impact on road safety, especially when assessed against the cost of the system.

If you want people to behave in a certain way, whether that be at work, in the emergency services, in the military, or driving on the roads, you do it best by training them, not by the threat of punishments or sanctions.

aracer

you have to start by changing those attitudes before you can get anywhere with addressing the bigger picture.

With something like drink driving, I agree that the change in societal attitudes over the last generation has been very effective, and probably much more so than the threat of of being caught by the police and prosecuted. However, whereas a driver makes a conscious decision to drink and then drive, there is not a similar conscious decision not to concentrate fully at all times and not to drive carelessly.

I suspect that with careless/substandard driving, we need to focus on changing behaviours first by training, and then people’s attitudes will follow.

I suggested above that there should be more re-testing of drivers, including testing to advanced driver level, to raise standards of driving overall in the UK. What I implicitly mean by this is that there should be more training, since many drivers would probably struggle to pass their test without paying for lessons to unlearn bad habits, and the requirement to pass the test is really a way of getting people trained.

Switching the emphasis from punishment to what is effectively a competency test necessitating training to pass the test, would also change people’s attitudes: people/juries/magistrates/police may have sympathy for someone who was careless and faces a ban, loss of livelihood etc. (there but for the grace of God etc.), but if someone fails to pass their test again when required (or an advanced level test), then others will see that as that specific driver’s problem (“If you can’t pass the test, you shouldn’t be on the road…”). This has the added benefit of making this approach much more acceptable to politicians, who could implement it without being seen as the enemy of all drivers (=voters), and what would really appeal to them is that the drivers would pay for their own training (lessons).

With regard to zanelad’s comment about lacking the numbers of traffic police to make any significant impact on people’s driving standards, I would suggest a fairly ruthless approach making full use of camera technology, probably without even bothering to stop drivers at the time, simply sending notification in the post of having been seen tailgating, failing to use an indicator etc. etc., and a requirement to take the test within 90 days.

As to whether the numbers involved would have a significant impact, there is not only the deterrent factor, but I suspect also a potential ‘critical mass’ factor. If you can turn 1,000 bad drivers into good drivers, I suspect that they will have a positive effect on other drivers around them. Put crudely, if some people are not bothering to indicate to change lane, then others may be influenced by them and do similar. Conversely, the more people that do follow the rules, the more that others will behave similarly.

It isn’t just infrastructure that makes Copenhagen work. It is attitude. Doing the decent thing. Everybody obeying the rules and respecting each other (drivers, cyclists and pedestrians).

I’d love to see the same thing here, but simply don’t know how such a total change in attitude could be achieved.

Obsessing over the punishment of a tiny minority of drivers whose actions cause a fatality won’t do it. Even if Gail Purcell had been found guilty, it would not act as a deterrent to other bad drivers, because they do not consider themselves to be bad drivers, and they would not identify with her and think that they could just as easily similarly kill a cyclist or pedestrian, and so they will not modify their behaviour and driving.

Every day tens/hundreds of thousands of other drivers drive just as badly as Gail Purcell or worse. Even though 99.999% of the time there is no accident and no one is hurt, that is where we need to focus our attention.

My own view is that some of the approaches used in workplace health and safety and in management systems generally should be introduced. So the priority should be on reducing all ‘deviations’ (bad driving) by ‘corrective actions’, rather than punishing a tiny minority who just happen to fall foul of the law of large numbers and be the one whose mistake causes a death or injury (I’m not suggesting for one minute that they should not be punished, but that their punishment is not the priority when it comes to achieving improved road safety). By ‘corrective action’ I mean things like giving police traffic officers the power to require a driver to re-take their driving test for careless driving (not as a criminal punishment, but as a ‘corrective action’, in the same way a warehouse manager might decide a fork lift driver who has had an accident should undergo early refresher training and testing). Similarly, if a driver exceeds a certain number of points on their licence, take it a step further and require the driver to pass an advanced driving test. I suspect that fear of being required to pass a test would also be a far more effective deterrent than fines and points.

I would even extend the same approach to cyclists, so for example a cyclist who jumps a red light is required to do a cycling proficiency course.

Don’t really fancy the expense of prescription goggles for the amount of use they’d get.

Off the shelf lenses with prescriptions in standard increments for some goggles might be what you want (no need for an exact prescription when your head is constantly in and out of the water as you swim).

For example, Wiggle sell these goggles[/url] which take these lenses[/url].

I don’t have a calculator to hand and my memory of trigonometry is rusty, but it looks like basic trig:

1. an imaginery straight line (A) from the edge of the roof at the ground to the apex, gives a right angled triangle (other two sides are ground to apex vertically and half the ground length, and they are known).

2. use pythagorus to calculate A.

3. calculate angle at which A and the ground to apex line meet (opposite over adjacent equals hypotenuse?)

4. the radius can be calculated then, because it’s a line from the centre of the circle to the middle of A, so another right angled triangle with A/2 as one length, and you have the angle needed from step 2.

5. Once you have the radius, you can calculate the circumference with 2 x Pi x R.

6. Ground length and the radius can then be used to calculate angle between lines drawn from either end of the building to the centre of the circle (again 2 right angled triangles).

7. ratio of angle to 360 degrees gives the length of roof as a ratio of the circumference.

8. Multiply by width of roof for area.

Easier to explain and understand if you draw it on paper.

I don’t know if they are what you need, but Chain Reaction are selling
Maxxis Chronicles for £43.99 (buy 2 and get a further £10 off using their code CLEAR2017).

According to the product description, this is the 120tpi EXO TR version, although I note in the Q&A section, CRC said this was not the tubeless ready version, but that was 7 months ago – I presume they are now using the same webpage to sell the EXO TR version.

It will most likely just be an hour – 90 mins in the evening.

My recollection is that many drivers using the road linking Morestead and Corehampton drive at excessive speeds, and I would avoid it, even outside of rush hour. I would also try to avoid the other ‘main’ roads in that area during rush hour (by main, I mean those marked in thicker yellow on the OS map, especially if they have long straight sections which encourage excessive car speeds).

To state the obvious, the narrower twistier lanes have less and slower traffic, and are safer and more pleasurable to ride on, if you can plot your route to use them.

There’s a nice long climb south of Ovington to the top of Gander Down, which has almost no traffic, but I would only do it during the day outside of rush hour, because you have to cross the A31 and it finishes on the A272.

About 1km north of Upham is a left hand turn that leads to Baybridge. That road climbs for just over a kilometre, and has the added advantages of being relatively little used by traffic compared with many of the other country roads in that area. It has a great view of the valley to your right as you climb, and is a long steady good uphill gradient, which should be perfect for hill reps.

Recovery pint and crisps in the Brushmakers in Upham when you’ved finished.

Assuming you are going to ride out from wherever you are staying, people would be better able to advise you if you answered curto80’s question about where you will be staying.

Another factor which might influence recommendations is the time of day you will be riding, i.e. will you be heading out at evening rush hour? and how much time you will have, i.e. an hour or two?

comment he made was the bars seem a bit narrow so maybe we’ll look for some slightly wider ones

Redstripe, unless you plan to change the stem as well, you’ll need to check the diameter of your current bars, i.e. 26mm or 25.6mm. I think there’s not a lot of choice available nowadays in 26mm diameter bars, especially if you want them in silver, and even less in 25.6mm. Nitto probably do some, but I am not familiar with their offerings. Otherwise I think your choice in 26mm is the Deda Elementi Speciale I linked to above (but cheaper from Evans with their free delivery), or the more expensive Cinelli 64 Giro d’Italia, both of which are very similar in shape, i.e. shallow drop. You should note that Deda measure outside to outside, so their 46cm bars are equivalent to other manufacturers’ 44cm bars.

If you are not sure what size to get, my advice would be to go for the widest size available.

Isn’t it the stress riser caused by the recess for the bolt causing it?

Looking at the photographs again I think you’re right. That said, the angled split design allows the bolt head recess to be positioned closer to the steerer (with correspondingly less metal between the bolt shoulder and the steerer). If you look at the photograph of the Bontrager stem I posted above, you can see that if the bolts were rotated 180 degrees, the bolt heads would be further away from the steerer tube.

(An aside – dangerously little steerer engaged with the top/front part of the stem).

If you mean the big cut out in the front of the stem clamping area, this was something Trek highlighted about other manufacturers’ stems in their warning notice. Trek’s stems used to have similar large cut outs, but now they are much smaller.

@slowster the bolts on yours look further away from the top/bottom maybe it is the proximity of the bolt to the end of the steerer tube.

I’m not sure about that, although it could be a factor. Like I said, I would be interested to know the thickness of your stems between the bolt hole and the inside surface of the stem. I am not a metallurgist or an engineer, but from a layman’s perspective the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that this is logically where the cracks must have started (the thinnest and most stressed part of the stem around the steerer). The cracks then propagated diagonally in the same fashion each time, and I suspect those diagonals are similarly the lines of greatest weakness. In other words, the cracks were not vertical because although more stressed, the metal is thickest in that direction; and not horizontal because although the metal is thinnest in that line, it is less stressed in that direction.

I think that Ritchey have shot themselves in the foot with that email. They are now saying it’s best to have the stem clamp the entire steerer with a small spacer on top, which is what Trek/Bontrager says, but which is NOT what Ritchey’s own manual published on its website says, e.g.

“You have installed the correct number of spacers, when the steerer tube ends 2mm below the top edge of the stem”

and

“The space between the steerer tube and the upper edge of the stem should not exceed 2mm-3mm.”

At no point in the manual do they indicate that really what is best is that the steerer protrudes above the stem with a spacer on top.

Back on this thread I posted the following links to Trek’s guidance etc. on this issue. The focus of that guidance was on not damaging/crushing carbon stems, but I guess if the steerer is steel, then if there is overtightening of the stem or a design/casting flaw in the stem, it is the aluminium stem that is likely to fail rather than the steel steerer (so the issue is the same, just a different failure mode).

Trek/Bontrager detailed a few years ago what they considered essential for stems used with carbon steerers in this document:

http://www.bike-manual.com/brands/trek/om/assets/pdfs/BT10%20ca_steerer_stem%200701PN.pdf

which was referred to in the cycling press following a catastrophic failure involving a road racer in the USA (see links below). I suspect the failure was caused by incorrect installation, such as way overtightening the stem bolts, rather than (as Trek suggest) a flawed stem design, but even so Trek’s guidance concerning suitable stems and installation does seem to make good sense to me.

http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/06/news/steered-wrong-racers-concerned-about-broken-carbon-steerer-tubes_121389

http://www.bikerumor.com/2010/06/23/broken-trek-carbon-steerer-tubes-result-of-the-wrong-stems/

I note that Ritchey’s manual is dated 2012, and they have not updated it to match the guidance issued by Trek regarding steerer height (although evidently they agree with it based on their email), and the use of carbon paste on steerers etc., even though they will be aware of their competitors’ guidance and the reasons for it (including the documented reports of accidents).

also tried the xm9 both, which was a good wide fit, but the collar rubbed my fused ankle raw. so a no goer too.

My mistake, I meant I’ve got the XM7 shoes. Given the boot version was a good fit for you, but the problem was the high collar, maybe it would be worth getting a pair of the XM7 shoes from Wiggle to try.

With regard to my own concern about feeling the top of the inside face of the shoe just below my ankle bone, I’ve just checked the removable insoles in the shoes, and they are the usual very thin type, and I think there is plenty of room inside the shoe to accommodate a thicker insole, like the Sorbothane type used in walking boots.

I have a pair of Shimano XM5 shoes. I find them quite wide: for comparison, I take the Mega width fitting in Sidi shoes, and I have to go up a size in Northwave boots.

The XM5s (and the XM7 boot version) have Vibram soles.

I have only used them a few times, but so far I am pleased with the XM5s. The only things I would have preferred were different in the design would have been:

a. that the tongue was a few millimetres longer, because the laces tie very close to the top of the tongue, even though there is no liklihood of them rolling over the top of the tongue. However, this might just be a matter of manufacturing variation.

b. the shoe was cut just a little lower where it sits below my ankle bone on the inside face. I have noticed sometimes that I can feel my ankle bone on the side of the shoe: so far it’s not causing any trouble or pain, and if it does I think a thicker insole would be the answer. Being a boot design, the XM7s presumably would not have this issue because the boot material extends well above the ankle.

I’ve just been looking at a few of the stems I have, and a couple of things have caught my eye, which might be relevant.

Firstly, the Ritchey stem uses an angled offset split in the stem clamp, which is intended to spread the load more evenly on the steerer than a vertical split. Trek’s/Bontrager’s stems are similar, but the two bolts are much closer together (further away from the top and bottom of the stem), as this photo from this ad shows

Secondly, based admittedly only on a comparison of a Bontrager stem with an angled split with a couple of stems with vertical splits, it appears that the angled design enables the two bolts to be quite a bit closer to the steerer. I’ve measured the distance from the front of the stems to the bolts using a vernier calliper and the measurements are as follows:

Bontrager – 30.6mm
Deda – 31.4mm
FSA – 31.5mm

So the thickness of metal in the stem clamping area between the bolt and a 28.6mm diameter steerer is only 2mm for the Bontrager, compared with 2.8mm and 2.9mm for the other two stems. I would be interested to know the thickness at that point of the Ritchey stems that cracked.

The Ritchey guidelines are on page 6 of this document, and they specify that the gap between the top of the steerer and the top of the stem should not exceed 2mm-3mm, so the OP appears to have complied with Ritchey’s own instructions.

For carbon forks everyone recommends having a 5mm spacer on top of the stem to give the stem something to ‘grip’ and not crush the top of the steerer tube.

Not every manufacturer specifies that the steerer should protrude above the top of the stem, rather than the stem above the top of the steerer. For example, Trek does but Deda doesn’t, and nor does Ritchey, and that inconsistancy between manufacturers for a safety critical part does seem odd and is frustrating to me as a consumer: presumably one way is right, or at least better engineering practice than the other.

Reading the guidelines, I note that Ritchey also recommend the use of their carbon paste, ‘Liquid Torque’ on carbon steerers, something which Trek and Specialized prohibit on the grounds that the paste may migrate down the steerer, and once it is below the steerer between parts that are not clamped on the steerer, such as the spacers and headset top cap, the inevitable tiny movements of those parts will cause the paste to act as an abrasive on the carbon steerer surface. I think Trek and Specialized are vastly bigger companies than Ritchey, and will have devoted more resources to these issues and be much more concerned about the risks of product liability for faulty parts and damage to their brands and sales, and so would be more inclined to follow their guidance rather than Ritchey’s.

Would a long Audax count as an Ultra Event? While I completely agree with the notion that all road users should be pulling off when tired, I’m also conscious that we could be over-reacting based on one sad incident when similar concepts have been explored for decades.

I think it’s all relative, and you could argue that the participants in the more extreme events, including 1,000+km audaxes, are likely to be ‘fitter’ riders, by which I mean fitness in terms of ability to cope relatively safely with mental and physical tiredness and sleep deprivation. So a hardened experienced audax rider completing PBP may be less of a risk to themselves and other road users (including fellow riders), than a less experienced rider with much lower stamina pushing themselves to their limit to complete a 300km or 400km.

Also, there are both maximum (excluding PBP) and minimum speeds for audax, and once the distances get to 600km, it becomes possible for fast riders to ride long days and still get a night’s sleep, while staying within the time limits (something which I think is not possible for a 400km). Slower riders therefore are the ones likely to find themselves suffering from sleep deprivation as they struggle to keep going and reach each control before it closes, never having enough time in hand to sleep and rest sufficiently.

That said, I can recall reading articles in the audax magazine, Arrivee, where riders mentioned taking caffeine tablets and even hallucinating, and thinking at the time that despite the often humorous and self-deprecating tone of the article, this was not something which should be encouraged or condoned*. I suspect such articles could also be used in court against Audax UK and event organisers as evidence of ‘negligence’/prior awareness of unsafe conditions.

EDIT – * I don’t mean that it’s not OK to use caffeine tablets, I mean that riding whilst so tired that one experiences hallucinations should not be encouraged/condoned.

Interesting videos, but a bike shop owner(?) and a couple of seemingly unimpressive amateur/novice riders are not good evidence for the correctness of the hip tilt approach.

Compare with the positions of road racers of the last couple of generations:

Armstrong

A couple of his bikes

On the drops

Time trial position

Greg Lemond

Descending. To get low, his elbows are bent at 90 degrees. He also used a very deep drop bar (Cinelli model 66 aka ‘Eddy Merckx’ I think), together with the traditional curve and quill stem which put the flats higher than the brake levers, that gave a lot of variation in position.

In the drops with Fignon

The 1989 TDF time trial position

More recently

Pantani

One of his bikes. He was quite short, but even so not much of a saddle to bars drop.

Interesting, I see what you are getting at now. I must admit I am out of date on bike fit (although humans don’t change, only the science or the opinions/errors of scientists), but about 15-20 years or so ago I think many coaches were advocating rotating the hips forward to get a better aero position, at which point there was a backlash and some studies pointed out that this was causing problems for many riders, e.g. cutting off blood flow to the penis/penile numbness etc. I don’t know what the current state of the science is: a quick google seems to suggest some bike fit advisors are still recommending it, but that others advise against it, e.g. this article on Cervelo’s website on the wider issue of saddle fit etc. mentions similar.

It’s probably the case that there is no absolute right or wrong answer as to whether rotating the hips and pelvis is a good or bad thing, and what will suit one person will not suit another, but I think its use was more associated with the triathlon/time trial side of the sport, i.e. sacrificing comfort to maximise aerodynamics and speed for relatively short distance/durations events.

At the end of the day, we are speculating about the cause of the OP’s problems, and it’s probably impossible to be confident of diagnosing them correctly remotely: all we can do is offer suggestions (some even conflicting) and it’s up to the OP whether he tries any of them, although it sounds like money spent on a high quality bike fit session would be worth while, even if he decides to go with flat bars, i.e. to get at the root of the problem and better understand his own body (what should work for him, and what won’t – as opposed to having spent 10 years peservering with something which might possibly be very easily remedied, and improve riding pleasure and performance hugely).

My own background is coming from the touring side of cycling, and the difference between very fit and fast hard riders and ordinary riders was not the position on the bike: everyone had a similar set up: the fast riders went faster because they were fitter (heart, lungs and legs), and if they needed to get more aerodynamic, they just switched from the hoods to the drops. There were none of the complaints that are so common today about being unable to get comfortable on a bike, and specialist bike fitting was pretty much unheard of. It’s a debatable point whether we were ignorant of the potential performance gains we could have made by changing bike set up, or whether many modern riders are guilty of putting too much focus on improving performance by choosing a fundamentally uncomfortable position (e.g. ‘slam that stem’).

If you’ve come to road riding from an MTB background, I can understand how you might automatically seek to copy the position and set up of the pro road racers, but it might be better to start with a much more relaxed/comfortable position, and improve basic fitness and speed in that position, before experimenting with a more aggressive position.

I think the OP has two options; set his bike up properly like I suggested, and benefit from increased comfort/handling/aerodynamics.

But he himself states that he has back issues and that he is riding more on the flats and the rear of the hoods. If he is already finding the hoods an uncomfortable stretch, then lowering the bars further is simply not going to be the answer.

In general, I don’t necessarily disagree with you about bars the same height as – or higher than – the saddle on a road bike. My own experience is that it unweights the front too much, especially when riding off road (although that can be overcome then by switching to the drops – and there is an argument for higher bars when someone finds it a struggle to stay in the drops for any length of time).

However, simply lowering the bars to the same position as a pro road racer is not the correct answer to what is the most comfortable and best/optimum position for everyone on a drop barred bike. Even pro riders themselves will sometimes raise their bars for more comfort, and Robbie McEwan needed the services of a chiropractor after every race/stage for his back.

Here you go, every MAMILs favourite endurance bike, the Mason Definition. I’m assuming this must be comfy since it gets ridden 4000Km across Europe.

What a super fit cyclist/racer rides, and their position on the bike, is not necessarily what is best for everyone else. I would also be wary of making any assumptions about how comfortable a bike the Mason Definition is based purely on Josh Ibbett winning the TCR on it. Professional and sponsored riders ride what they are given/paid to ride: it’s all part of the marketing to persuade MAMILs to buy those bikes.

I guess we are all coming at this based on our own personal experiences and preconceptions (including me: age and less flexibility means that, like the OP, I find it more comfortable with my hands on the flats of drop bars or behind the hoods rather than on them, and I am going to have to take my own advice and start switching to shorter stems). David Taylforth, I think you are relatively young, fit and flexible, and all I can say is prolong it for as long as you can and enjoy it while it lasts. As you say, the riders in the photograph I posted are old and (maybe) unfit, but crucially they are still riding and enjoying it, and they are probably not complaining on an internet forum that they cannot get comfortable on their bikes.

Classic road bikes are ridden in the drops, not on the hoods though.

I don’t think that’s true: you can find photographs of riders such as Coppi, Merckx etc. etc. on the hoods.

do not copy the position of someone who rides with their bars rotated backward and the levers up in the air. Try and ride quickly down a steep lakeland pass in that position; you’ll probably crash and hurt yourself

I would not expect anyone on that sort of descent to have their hands on the hoods. What I am talking about is relative though: rotating the levers back a matter of millimetres on the bars may make a significant difference to hand position and support/comfort, providing of course that it is still possible for the fingers to reach the brake levers comfortably when in the drops.

What I have found frustrating with modern Ergolevers and STI shifters, is that they seem to be designed such that it is often not possible to rotate the levers even slightly back, depending upon the curves of the bars, presumably because the large flat surface on the top of those levers is intended only ever to be horizontal. An old style brake lever however could be rotated up or down the curve to fine tune the rider’s position on the hoods. I don’t think this is just me: when the second iteration of the Ergolever was introduced, there were reports that a number of pros stuck with the older shape, which meant their mechanics had to dismantle the older levers and rebuild them with the new internals.

I find comfort mostly on the flat part or just read of hoods but still not great for me

That sounds like the distance from saddle to bars is too long for you. Unless your back issues are such that even with a fairly short reach you are going to still have problems, or the top tube is simply too long whatever you do (i.e. too large a frame or a bike designed for flat bars rather than drops), the logical answer would be a shorter stem, assuming it would not need to be so short that it compromised the handling. You’ll know if the stem length is ‘right’ because the instinctive natural place for your hands will be on the hoods. If the curve of the bars and the levers will allow it, rotating the levers on the bars back towards you will also effectively shorten the reach, and may give a more comfortable position on the hoods.

My hands ache. My back hurts. I feel hunched / cramped.

Unless your back issues are again the overriding factor, the fact that you feel hunched/cramped, and yet at the same time do not feel comfortable reaching the hoods, suggests the bars may be too low.

To state the obvious, the optimum position and set up on a drop barred bike for road racing – like in the image posted by David Taylforth above – is unlikely to be the optimum for more relaxed riding or even for ‘letting loose off road’. It’s all about horses for courses. If you are mainly using the bike for commuting and off road, then I would have thought that flat bars were the best choice anyway.

In contrast, if you were spending hours in the saddle and wanted to clock up the miles in comfort, then a classic drop barred touring position is likely to be best, even if it doesn’t look fashionable. The cycletourists in this photograph are not going at any great speed, but are clearly very comfortable on their bikes and could probably happily maintain that position all day long:

If they feel good, that’s all that matters. I only mentioned it because I think a lot of older bikes came with fairly narrow bars as standard (my Claud Butler Majestic had 38cm c-c bars). When I rebuilt my Raleigh last year, the original 40cm c-c bars felt a bit too narrow, so I swapped them for an old pair of ~42cm c-c bars I had lying around, and they made all the difference to how the bike felt.

Excellent work, and pleased to hear you like it.

Incidentally, what centre to centre width are the handlebars? Maybe it’s the angle of the second photograph, but they look fairly narrow. If they are only 40cm or less, then unless you have very narrow shoulders I would suggest trying a wider pair of bars.

I think the rule of thumb about road bars being the same width as shoulders is fine for racing, but for touring and gravel riding, wider bars seem to me to be better and more comfortable and give better control.

You can get something like the Deda Elementi pretty cheaply.

Would look great with black finishing kit, Ultegra and some black Avid cantis

No it wouldn’t, it would look dull.

I like aheadset stems, so an adaptor to replace the quill stem and bars would be fine too

No to that as well. An aheadset stem looks out of place on a traditional horizontal top tubed bike with curved forks; the quill stem just looks right. Moreover, most ahead stems would require new bars with a larger clamp diameter. Whilst the aheadset system and oversized bars on a road bike have some advantages of lighter weight and greater stiffness, for a gravel or touring bike the less stiff combination of a quill stem and 26mm bars is better. If you are Mark Cavendish, you need the stiffness for the sprints, but otherwise for general riding – and especially on gravel – the quill stem and 26mm bars will dampen some of the buzz and be more comfortable.

Redstripe, if you do need to change the stem length and SJS etc. do not have anything at a suitable price, I suggest you post a thread on STW asking if anyone has the length you need. Someone is likely to have a suitable quill stem lying around which they will let you have cheaply. However, you may very well not need to change the stem length, which brings me neatly to my next point…

perhaps a groupset with STIs

And again, No. If it’s 126mm rear hub spacing, then that would cause headaches/hassle getting it to take a 130mm hub. More importantly, the bike as it is already is just perfect for gravel riding. The bike has cost little or nothing, and any damage it picks up riding off road can simply be shrugged off with equanimity. I’m asuming it’s 7 or 8 speed, which is probably the pinnacle of reliable, long lasting, easy and cheap to maintain off-road and touring gearing. 11 speed Ultegra, for example, is very nice to use, but would need a lot more TLC and more frequent replacements of expensive parts, e.g. chains replaced at just 0.5% stretch.

In my experience, another negative for modern Campagnolo Ergolevers and Shimano STI shifters, is that they offer less flexibility for positioning the lever: they are designed so that the top of the hood has a large flat area which pretty much needs to be positioned on the bars so that it is horizontal. It offers a nice big area for the hand to rest on and for support, but it restricts your hand/wrist angle.

I think the ergonomically ideal position of the hoods is such that they are at the same angle as if you were gripping a pistol and pointing it in line with your forearms (so any recoil or road shock is transmitted in a straight line up the forearms and absorbed by slightly bent elbows and at the shoulders). It’s easier to get that pistol grip position just how you like it with the older type brake levers, because they can be rotated back further on the bars (so the stem length choice may be determined by how far back or forward the brake levers are roatated). In my experience, modern Ergolevers and STIs will not rotate back much at all beyond horizontal.

Had a Claud Butler majestic back in early 80s

Me too! (and Trevor Francis and his wife according to the Claud Butler adverts for the Majestic and Majestique)