The older I get the more I appreciate Spring, especially later spring once the blossom gives way to new leaf cover. Everywhere is a beautiful, vibrant green. Even on the greyest days a spell alone & outside does the world of good. I have to try so hard now to be affected as the Autumn comes to a close. A perfect retirement for me would be chasing the Spring & early Summer around the globe, by bike.

A friends (old…) Leaf has now dropped to around 50-60 miles but he’s had it for years. He bought it knowing it was an early model with a compromised battery & its degradation was expected. But for what it gets used for its still a perfectly useable car (to him).  I would have no issues buying a modern EV with a high mileage & I wouldn’t class 40k as high.

I was after a frame & wheel kit for some inline skates once & I couldn’t buy or order them from anywhere in the UK. So I chanced it on AliExpress. As far as I can tell they are the original parts. It wasn’t a cost thing, simply lack of availability. In terms of cost, I had nothing to gauge it against but after tax & shipping it was very cheap. They took about 6 weeks to arrive though. 

Like most it was a catalogue special that got me into it, Xmas 1982. The bike has long, long gone but like most things cycling; the passion still remains. Old school BMX has a big following with stupid money changing hands for genuine original bikes & parts. I bought a cheap Diamond Back in about 1998 to see if I still had it. I passed it to a nephew & bought a new GT Performer later that year & I still have it now. Its not in great condition though. I picked up some original coaster brake Tuff wheels so at some point I’ll marry the two together & spend the rest of my years staring at it. Its a bit like my 1st gen Niner SIR.9, I’d never sell it.

I follow Logan Martin, the Australian freestyle guy. The stuff they do in a skate park these days defies gravity.!!

I just aim to slow them down with plenty of locks. If they spot a rats maze of cable locks & a decent chain, my hope is that they will slope off & find a easier target. I make sure they are tight so no flapping in the wind. I don’t leave them out of sight at services, ever. At site I keep the bikes completely covered up unless using them. I have a cheap tarp that’s “noisy”, (very rustly…if that makes any sense). I even zip tied a few bells from an old Xmas decoration onto it. Anything that attracts attention, makes a noise, delays them etc, will see most opportunistic tea leaves saunter off to an easier prey. I have a black boot liner I pop over at night & on a dark campsite they are all but invisible.

Presumably much of the Tory owned rag driven furor is down to the difficulty in revenue generation & frustration that folk get around it. Lets face it, if they had a way of taxing bicycles, they would be taxing bicycles. Much as they’d tax fresh air, walking, sleeping. The ruling classes have one agenda & that is their greed through enslavement.

Years ago I suffered with numbness. Bucking the trend for oversize this & that, I ended up with a non OS carbon bars & Lizard Skins slip on North Shore grips. The additional flex certainly helped.

I’ve never worn out or broken a cassette free hub when running SS, got through plenty of cogs/chainrings though. I think SS is lazy way to ride, & that’s not because its easier because in the majority of  cases it isn’t. It’s a grab & go bike requiring virtually zero prep or maintenance, & that suits me for the often short & unplanned rides I do, max of 1 hour or so usually. When riding its pedal or don’t. Pushing is ok. Folk running those 52 tooth dinner gongs as chainrings must be going slower than walking at 32×52 !!.

Current SS on the fatty was just a cheapo kit on a regular On-One fat wheel, Emental I think the hub make is.

Sunday best SS set up is a Surly SS hub with a White Industries trials freewheel. It sounds lovely.

Banjo bolts normally go in to a parallel port form, like a “BSP” or “G” thread, for example.

They can seal in a few ways but commonly use a soft washer to sandwich the banjo body between whatever your putting in to & the underside of the banjo bolt head. Sometimes the banjo body carries the sealing mechanism, a recessed O-ring for example. Sometimes you just pop a copper washer or a Dowty washer either side of the body.

You would probably be better off chopping the hose just after it exits the lever & putting an elbow fitting in.

PBC/D is a thick grease we put in our nuclear assemblies. They come apart without any issues after 20 years so I figure my bike should be ok.

Truthfully, I don’t miss any of the FS bikes I have sold.

The last was the bike I had always wanted, an Orange Five back in 2018.

It came out for the odd trip to Bike Park Wales so I just hired a FS the last few times I’ve been.

In that time I’ve not once considered selling my Niner SIR.9. & for that I am thankful. hell will freeze over before I sell it. I cant imagine ever parting with my fat bike either, its just such a grin inducing behemoth.

I rode Cannock the other week for the first time in a long time on my ten+ year old 29er. It still rode well. I was surprised how many alternative lines have formed. Looking at them I assume for powered bikes. I missed my fatty though, I need to get that back up & running.

Very, very sad, condolences to you.

As you say, active until the end is all we can ask.

My parents both went two weeks apart just before Covid, thankfully both on their feet till a few weeks before they left us. There’s a little footpath close by where I used to walk the mighty Fatty McTavish. I often walk the equally mighty Elvis up there & always stop & talk to him as I pass. Folk must think I’m daft. :-)

Oddly, I find a rigid Singlespeed a very lazy way to ride. No thinking about gears just pedal or push. I can grind my way up most stuff (eventually). Its the perfect de-stressing bike. Fat might not be everyone’s cup of tea but it works for me. Good to see so many singlespeeds still out there.

Interesting thread. I had regular skates in my teens. Bought some cheap blades later in life. Never really stuck at it till I turned 50 & got back in to it. Upgraded to some Seba FR1’s & the difference was night & day. If you’re starting out don’t go for 3×110’s. You are pretty high up & they carry a lot of speed. 4×80 is the ideal beginner set up. Game changer for me was going 4×90 on Endless frames. They have  very slight “rocker”, where the centre wheels sit a mm lower. You wouldn’t think it would make much difference but the difference in manoeuvrability is amazing.

Boot fit is critical, take time to get it right. It will hurt at first, you’re working muscles you may not have worked before.

Stsy low, your knees should be over your toes. Staying upright will seem difficult at first but it soon comes.

Unlike some activities, you have to put the hours in to get even a basic level of ability on skates. Watching Ricardo Lino, Sean Unwin, Nico Torelli etc on YouTube, it looks so easy. It’s not.!! Your basic stop is a drag stop, a T-Stop as it’s otherwise known. Get it right & it’s effective at losing speed but it is limited. Powerstops & slides take a LOT of practice.
But get a bit of confidence & nothing comes close.

There’s a group in London called Friday Night Skate, who run a proper marshalled ride on you guessed it… But they do a gentler Sunday ride. My lad was down in London for a show so I joined the Sunday “Stroll” as they call it. Took some guts to meet 100 others in Hyde Park but I can thoroughly recommend it, I learned a lot by watching & asking others.

Get out there & give it a go. !!

DIN912 in A4 stainless.
Job done.

I bagged & pocketed a dog doo once, in a pair of “cargo” shorts. I forgot to bin it. For a fortnight.

We have a couple at work. It’s only a basic nylon they use but if you send me the step file I can ask them to run one off for me.

The armies of orange clad workers who’ve spent the last 2 years stood around in fields doing nothing probably don’t help. The slowest construction project I’ve ever seen. A ten year cash cow for the chosen few construction firm owners who’ve already retired off the back of it.

I used Evans Halshaw recently, smooth service, paid exactly what they quoted online. They settled the outstanding finance directly while I waited, the rest was in my bank in seconds.

What I would say is, get the buyer to send you £1 first, just so the bank details are all good. Banks check account names when transferring online these days, to make sure the money goes to the correct account.

I’m always worried they could somehow claim the money back out so I move it straight away. I’m just old fashioned!!

Had a lovely family walk around here back in the summer. Lovely place.
Trails…no idea. :-)

I did the SSD & more RAM thing on my lads very old i5 last week. If you register the OS with a Microsoft account before starting it will just authorise the new OS without any fuss. It’s in the settings somewhere.
It is surprisingly easy to do.
Download the W10 USB install program first. Run it & point it to a spare USB stick.
Install the SSD & boot up with the USB in place. Change the boot order in the bios if needed but most just work. (Press F12 as it’s coming on).
The thing runs quicker than it ever did when it was brand new !!!
I did have to plug the SSD in with a cable first & format it. I did buy the cheapest Amazon SSD though, 128gb, it was about £25 I think.

Shameless opportunism…did you track down a suitable frame ?
My lads XS (13”) Spesh Hotrock frame is looking for a new owner.

Foresty Forest. Legend.

Bald & Bankrupt is fun too.

We ordered a new Tiguan recently.
The panoramic roof was a £1.2k option!!
They get plenty of bad press on the various forums so spent the budget on a reversing camera & tow bar instead. The demo car we tried had one but we struggled to see how it would justify spending that much money for many of the reasons above.

£8k sounds an iffy price point for a hybrid. The latest crop of small petrol engines are excellent.

We’ve owned a 1.0 litre, three cylinder Focus since it was a few months old. I have to say, it’s been brilliant. I love driving it. It’s just gets on with it, no fuss, not drama. The turbo gives it just enough kick off the line for pulling in to traffic. It’s on 40k now but it still drives like it did when we first had it. £20 a year tax. 40+ mpg everywhere.

We were shopping for a new family car recently & were ready to press the button on a PHEV but anything decent is hit by the >£40k tax, ramping the road fund license up to £500 a year for the first 5 years. I thought there might be a concession for PHEV’s but no.
We ordered a “normal” model. :-(

Manchester Orchestra – “Million masks of god”. It’s got a lot to live up to though, compared to “Last black mile to the surface”.

Looking forward to Wolf Alice’s new album next month, should be brilliant if “The last man on earth” is anything to go by.

An incredibly risky one to make but thankfully it came across as sincere & respectful. Even now decades later it’s just unspeakably horrific.

I don’t know if any else feels it but when I run through it I feel anxious, guilty & frustrated.

I remember the day it happened. A chap I worked with was in to shooting, including hand guns of all sorts. He told me he had little difficulty giving the hand guns up. He was telling me how he actually felt guilty, like the pastime he considered a sport was responsible.

The background music was beautifully done by James Allan of Glasvegas.

Focus. The base 105hp model with the 3 cylinder, 1 litre engine. Don’t go chasing Titanium this & that, the basic Zetec model has all the toys she’ll need.
I’ve done plenty of motorway miles in ours. I wouldn’t want to be doing that sort of motorway mileage in a tiny car.
105hp doesn’t sound a lot these days but it’s a funny little engine. It has a real punch off the line that makes pulling into traffic safe. It’s not going to win any slip road drag races but it’s got some decent road presence.

32×18 on fat SS is main bike.
33×18 on the 29b+.
SS has been main bike for probably 8 years. It’s a lazy mans bike, get on & pedal, or push & don’t. :-)
Nowt wrong with gears.

We’ve had our Cockapoo-a-lot since a pup.
Looked at a few but went on our gut feeling. The chap we chose was honest about being a breeder. He clearly knew dogs & we spent a good hour sitting with the pups, saw the Mum etc. He asked us as many questions as we asked him.
Very happy with the dog who’s now 3 1/3.
They are a lovely breed, great temperament, but they do need consistency when training.

Ours go on the (car) roof.
It’s a pain getting them up there though so I take one of those lightweight builders hop-up step things.
If it’s just s short trip I might pop them in the caravan but caravan interiors & sharp metal wheeled items don’t get on.

Vampire Weekend in the little side room at the (old) Academy in Brum.
Probably a hundred people there, was fab.
That sounds like I’m a proper gig go’er’er (I’m not).

After wanting to see them for so long, The Twang on their last night in Brum last Xmas.
They 110% lived up to my expectation.

But the above pails against how much I’m hoping to see Glasvegas in Brum next April.
A band I have followed for 10 years but they rarely play anywhere in the Midlands. :-(

My lads have the original On-One Fatty’s &, whilst they ride well, they are not a patch on my second gen Puffin.
It was interesting to read the comments on the Puffin ^^ up there.
I must have low levels of expectations because mine is most definitely a keeper.
Mine is set-up with low rent On-One wheels & singlespeed drivetrain. Apart from the Cargo Bike, its the most grin inducing bike I’ve owned.

“Do I want a fat-bike?
Yes, yes you do.
I sold my FS after buying the Puffin, its been my main bike for 3 years.
Its a keeper.
Try & get a ride on one though, My lads On-One is not a patch on the Puffin, the Puffin is like a Monster Truck Cotic Soul. Its just a laugh, everywhere it goes.

Puffin – just getting on with it. No colour matching here. Or tartan. :-) by pten2106[/url], on Flickr

Is this the wrong place to say I quite fancy an old Volvo V70…. :-)

There’s a market there for an adapter to fit these batteries to more pricey kit. 😁

Use the loo before leaving & walk out in just your boxers.

Niner’s steel rigid is identical except for the cut outs in the drop out. Just to widen the search.

For off hook-up I bought s S/H three way cool box come fridge. On gas it’s excellent, keeps stuff as cold as the fridge at home. It can make ice also.
It’s a bit heavy though.