Surly Troll with Rohloff and Schwalbe Marathon Extreme tyres, framebag and rack.

Tough, comfy, can carry loads. Pump the tyres up and it can whip along fine.

If you want a bike to do lots of things it’s always going to be compromised no matter what you use it for. Leatherman – the WRONG tool for every job (if you see what I mean).

You could get an old Hardtail for £60 and fit a decent set of tyres and have one tonne of fun with that.

None of that was really an answer but I feel better now.

We did it in one push a few years ago. Last train from Temple Meads down to Penzance then a lift in the back of a T5/open top bus with a chippie (nice).

Started from LE at midnight. Had a couple of good stops (had a 20 minute kip at one), got half a pizza from drunk people in Newquay near 3am, met a man covered in blood in the middle of nowhere at 4am, sun came out, everyone enjoying. Last 30 miles into Bristol were an arse as my GPS died, everyone was knackered, we had no idea what route to take etc.

Avon Gorge just before 17:00. Chippie, lots of good beer, SLEEEEP.

Over 2 would be much more enjoyable but you’d miss all the witching hour antics!

We stayed north but can’t find any notes for the route. Enjoy!

EDIT: We took all the nice wee back lanes along the north side of the peninsula. It was 230 miles all in and loads of climbing.

Too many armchair engineers getting angry about other peoples bikes.
Just because something is heavier doesn’t mean you will notice the difference. I bet most folk would struggle to tell the difference between 1kg and 1.2kg. Even more so if you have 1.2kg in a tiny box and 1kg in a huge box.

Reminds me of the question put to a scientist and an engineer.
A woman/man (delete as appropriate) is standing in the middle of a room and you are at the doorway. If your first move takes you half way to them. Your second move takes you half as far again and your 3rd half again (continue) will you ever reach them?

Scientist: No, there will always be an infinitesimal distance between us.
Engineer: Close enough ;-)

Great. Thanks for the points of view. Will have a look into my own policy.

Cheers!

Doesn’t need to be near boiling, just above gelatinisation temperature. Which for oats is 60 ish depending on yer oats.

When folk say 2 + 1 in the back, is this in addition to the driver and passenger seats – total?

It’ll be used half the time for popping to the shops, playgroup, the beach and the other half of the time it’ll be loaded up for car camping weekends away trips down south to see family.

The speed limits thing is an interesting point. No one seems to be able to give a concrete answer that I’ve see so far.

I’m really interested in the stuff you “couldn’t live without“.

I’m using a Rolhoff for my tourer/commuter bike. I did around 6,000 miles on this sprocket (it was worn when I bought the hub secondhand). The chain was so worn that I couldn’t take up all the slack just with the frames fork ends so i had to make my own chain tensioner out of a PET bottleneck. Inspired by an advert for something similar which shows up on here from time to time! Do it, it works.

I was lucky I changed the sprocket when I did as if I’d let it go longer I wouldn’t have been able to unscrew it without destroying the teeth and having to Dremel the sprocket off 8O

Only thing I notice now is that the bike seems loads more efficient but that
could just be the fact its so much quieter.

So in short. Wear the **** out of it!

If you substitute “bike” or “partner” this thread gets a lot more interesting.

Correlation?

Boggy – exactly, one tooth larger. I used to ride 32 x 19; now 32 x 20. Seem to climb the same as on the smaller wheel and is as spinny as before too! The real test will be the big climb tonight!

Frame arrived yesterday. Boshed the headset in with help from Captain Swavis :D

Rides nicely but I normally take 6 months to form a full opinion. Its certainly a beautiful frame. It climbs fine – not as razor sharp as my only Ti29er but it was 2kg lighter and had skinnier tyres. It descends like a thug!! :twisted:

Very happy!

Johan och Nyström on Söder for espresso
Walk from Slussen down to the south end of Söder
Have 5 interesting beers in Oliver Twist – also Söder

Tuesday night at the bottom of Hammarby Backen at 18:00 for mtbing
Watch out as the Lidingöloppet is end of Sept – the island will be busy!
Ferry out to Sandhamm always good or to ANY island, especially from the centre of town

Gammla stan is where all the tourists are but defo worth a visit.
Second the Vasa – walk from Central station down to the Vasa and then have a wander or cycle around Djurgården
Take the train to the end of the line at Saltsjöbaden – big hotel there for dinner and nice marina boatie feel.

Swim in a lake. Pick any one.

Fab place :-)

Thanks for the info. I’m going to have a go at building a basic Arduino temperature logger first to get a feel for working with it. Then I’ll start building the brew pi part and source a freezer!

The better bottle looks good from a hygiene point of view (small neck opening) but how easy are they to clean?

Had this issue with my wife’s RS7s. Couple of minutes in the vice with a file sorted it out.

My RS7s were on a 68x107mm crank and that was proper tight clearance – super tight on the chainstay too but never an issue.

Here is hoping the RS7s and a 118mm BB work nicely with the Rooster chainstays . . .

That headset had been in for 5 years on a rigid fork and I rode it very hard on rocky Stockholm trails. A combination of the Strathpuffer and a Cairngorm epic finished it off!

Chris King were brill though – sent me a brand new cup and said “make sure the inside of your headtube has a slight chamfer (ie not razor sharp square).

I’ll report back in 5 years as to the efficacy of this!

Another thought is: are your stems “man enough” or are they lightweight flimsy things? I had an issue for ages with a creak in the bars/fork area and it was fixed by changing from a roadie stem to a heft one.

Yet one more point: have you tried a wee plastic washer between the bottom of the stem and the spacers or headset top cap? Chris King supply such things with their headsets. You could probably make one.

Peterfile – what temperature sensor do you use for your Arduino and how is your thermowell situated/constructed? I presume it’s for your plastic bucket fermenters? Does it go in though the lid?

Keeping my eye out for an old chest freezer as I’d love to be able to hit -1C for cold crashing.

Cheers!

Sorry I didn’t “share” it. Try this: Linky

Take out the headset cups and check they are not cracked. I removed a headset recently and this happened:

Could be worth a check.

What was it about Laggan last weekend? My wife also damaged her week old Cotic Solaris by a silly crash on a very pointy rock on the Lower Red.

Argh!!!

(It’s for sale in the For Sale forum if anyone is interested.)

Good point kCal!

Might need to mismatch my grips, pedals and cranks (length, and q-factor).

. . . or maybe not!

Grips certainly – I could go Red – Green: Port – Starboard ;-)

Did I mention I hate it when things match?

Front tyre has a tube, rear is tubeless!

Singlespeed (32 x 20)
Rabbit hole with Chronicle up front.
Knard on Dually 46mm at rear.

Combo headset with Hope bottom cup and a Chris King top
Middleburn square taper cranks.

BB7 front 180mm
SLX rear 160mm

Thomson and Easton bits
Oh and a nice bell from Spurcycle :-)

Just need something to hang all of that off! ;-)

I don’t have the recipe to hand but it was basically one third Munich malt, 2 thirds Pale malt. A sack load of Cascade added 15 mins from the end to get 40 ish IBUs then dry hop for a week with Cascade. West Coast IPA I guess you’d call it?

I’ll do the same again soon but using Simcoe for the dry hop (passionfruit – yum).

I presume you are using stainless FVs then? I’m on 15 litre plastic buckets for 10 litre batches. What FVs are you using?

I’m using a 15 litre pot, BIAB and doing two fly sparges with 75C then 80C water. I get good efficiency and a level of faff I am happy with.

Thanks for the book recommendations and the yeast link. I’ll get reading. Two books I’m interested in: Mastering Homebrew by Randy Mosher (apparently he has lots of focus on how to design for taste/aroma as opposed to style) and The Art of Fermentation which looks at bread, chorizo, beer and other places fermentation is used and how.

Flippin’ ek! That’s a lot of building and a serious set up. A friend runs a brewery and said once you buy stainless FVs then you’re in trouble!

How long can you keep one yeast strain going? Do you put them on agar and freeze? How useful is the centrifuge and how do you use it?

My next process improvement will probably be sorting out fermentation temperatures by building a fermentation fridge. Will take your earlier advice on water analysis too.

Same as you – my actual consumption is quite low. I won the local home brew competition which has nice.

Friday’s Belgian Dubbel went really well and is fermenting just now.
Upcoming brews: Winter ale, oak infused Wee Heavy, Milk or Oatmeal stout.

Babies are up between 6 and 7am so my brewing needs to be at night but it would be nice to do morning brews. Set a new record of 3 hours from mashing in to closing the FV – biggest bottleneck now is waiting for the wort to start boiling on the kitchen stove!

This on Singular’s Facebook page: Linky.

Hopefully we’ll receive our frames this week.

What’s doing Brewerists?

I’ve been brewing like a mad man but tonight will be my first one in 5 weeks as my 2nd son was born 5 weeks ago on Saturday! Naming that wheat beer after him ;-)

I think my biggest improvements recently have been adding a ball valve to my mash tun (makes draining it loads easier). I also realised the stone outbuildings are very temperature stable – this has meant I don’t need to build a beer fridge just yet, but I do need to choose my beer based on the weather conditions.

I’m starting to tinker a bit with water chemistry to get better bitterness from my beers.

Getting a Belgian Dubbel on tonight. Cocked up the calcs for the first one which was 9.3% instead of 6.5%ish.

What recipes are people enjoying right now. Any new kit on the go?
I’ve been playing with making yeast starters and think I’ll make a little stirplate and evens tart propagating from slants as I see this as a big cost saving (buy a liquid yeast for £6.50 once and get several batches out of it).

Cheers!

Friend from northern Spain maintains there are very few blocked drains there due to constant scouring from coffee grounds.

The grounds are only going to stick and build up on gunky stuff (scientific definition) like fats, oils etc, they are not the root cause.

I’m riding a Surly Straggler with 1.75inch Schwalbe Marathon Extremes and full SKS 45mm wide mudguards. Brilliant.

Not going to be competitive in a CX race but it can really handle the rough stuff!

I’d like to register my “stokedness” for one of these nearly being in my hands.

My wife is due with baby No.2 a week tomorrow – it’s a race against time. (Notice how I avoided comparing making a human and welding pipes together ;-) )

Wheels built and tubless’d and all other components ready to go. Apart from coating the inside of the frame with linseed oil and having the headset pressed in the build will take around 30 mins (singlespeed).

Could make a good timelapse video!

Woop, woop!

Textbook reply TINAS.

Thanks!

Expose yourself to the sounds of the language by listening to the radio and podcasts. Just having it on the background at work or when travelling is a great way to pick it up – especially with any simple dialogue like radio phoneins etc.

Memrise is good but tbh I found just getting out and listening and trying speak the language was far more effective. Plus loads of the phrases in Memrise seemed to be straight out of the 1970’s (though I was learning Swedish).

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, trust the words that come to your mind. You have a huge advantage that your colleagues will understand English grammar better than you so when your Norsk grammar or vocabulary is out they’ll still get it.

Be warned though – if you meet someone and speak English with them, they’re likely to only ever speak English with you. The opposite is also true IME. I had lots of friends who I’d speak Swedish and they’re reply in English – must have sounded odd to passersby!

Motivation will determine how much you learn so be honest whether you’ll stick it or not.
Enjoy!

Last climb coming up for Tom – wahoo!

I’ll just weigh in by saying that buying a quality grinder makes a mahoosive difference to your espresso and allows you to “play tunes” on your machine. eg, this morning I made a café crème for my wife and a ristretto for me.

To correct a point above – burr grinders do not produce a single particle size. They (typically) produce 3 particle sizes. All three play a role in extraction of the correct type and amount of lipids and volatiles but also produce the correct structure inside the puck to enable extraction at the right pressure and flowrate.

I have a Rancillio Rocky for sale (VGC) if anyone is interested – email in profile. Shameless I know ;-)

Nettle beer – ace! There was a nettle based drink being made down in Devon and the poor guy was put out of business because HMRC decided it wasn’t a beer so he had to pay extra tax. Sad story.

Peterfile – Grotag, that’s not what I was expecting?! Something to do with Dungeons and Dragons style game?!

I presume you mean grogtag – can’t get their page to open at present.

What are your thoughts on the Grainfather YGH? Any complaints?

Nice set up there YGH!!! I had my appraisal yesterday and received a “clean bill of health” (his words not mine) – so my bonus is en route . . .

Thought I’d share a bit of learning regarding labels for bottles.

I’ve been using canva.com to design trendy looking labels in a few mins.

Then I print them off using a colour laser printer, cut to size and use milk to stick them to the bottles. Yes I said milk.

Soak a sponge in milk, use this to wet the back of your label (like your granny used to do with stamps) then stick to bottle. I find this very robust, quick, cheap and easy to clean them off afterwards.

It doesn’t smell or discolour either. Magic!

End of May – Yarp.

I just hope it arrives before our baby does – early July!

Got a few bottles of my St Austell tribute copy/cock-up (2.5 times to much hops!). It doesn’t come across as bonkers bitter as I expected – Beersmith says 65 IBUs. I bottled 2 litres and have dry hopped the remaining 6L with 10g Cascade and will bottle that this weekend.

It’s quite a hazy beer which I guess must be due to the amount of hops I’ve thrown at this recipe?!

Going to brew on Friday night with the remaining malt I have. I’ve got a Maris Otter/Munich mix and will add Cascade. Going to try for an American IPA style.

First all grain mash done! Lovely smell in the kitchen. Was a little ahead in SG pre-boil but the weakness of my hob meant I ended up a little bit back (I’ll need to tweak the equipment profile).

Biggest issue i faced – scaling the grist and water but NOT scaling the hops. Target was 32, Beersmith estimates 65! Waweee!

So now we wait and see what we get out of it. Itching to get going on another mash at the weekend so might get ordering . . .

Brocks – John is spot on about banana flavours with high temp fermentation.

I’ve just started opening my first brew (a Coopers IPA as well!) and while it is fine to drink the banana nose and flavour is, interesting! I’ll store them away and hope it improves. 3 months noted on the calendar.

Next up for me is a St Austell Tribute copy. I’ve been messing with Beersmith – will keep you posted.

Friend of mine from Holland shared a glorious Tripel he home brewed at the end of last year. That’ll be my third brew sorted then . . .

Question about BIAB bag – I found some viola (curtain backing material) – do I really need to sew it into a bag or could I just stuff it in the pot and throw the grain inside, then hoof the whole lot out after mashing is complete?

Happy brewing!