A washout happens quickly by the very nature of it, it’s hard to say exactly what happened during that crash, something fairly severe did because even a rim with no spoke takes a fair bit of force to bend.

SS in the hills is fun

Yep, so long as you enjoy walking

Fact remains that some of the steepest parts of the UK (mainly off road I’m talking about here) are simply unsuitable for sustained SS riding / enjoyment, if like me, you enjoy staying on the bike 99% of the time. Or unless your name is Chris Hoy.

No doubt there are some super fit / strong SS’s on here who would grind up a steep, technical asscent faster than Chris himself (he is a roadie after all 8O), but SS is not the answer 100% of the time.

When I lived in Sussex I used to love riding SS, just not where I am now, hence why I said it can be location specific.

Chris is probably a pretty poor hill climber (relatively speaking, I doubt he is world class where as he is world class on the track), also he is a track racer rather than a roadie, although I’m sure he does plenty of road training.

I actually replaced the Freehub? and it bearings etc.?

Sounds like you just removed the freehub and it was the wheel bearings your removed? you can replace the bearing in a shimano freehub but that is all, the paws and springs are not available. If you did not see the paws and springs you only removed the freehub.

Yeah done the bearings part but want to open up the actual freehub body.

There is a whole heap of little bearings inside the freehub on two levels. One above the paws one below. If you can try and keep them separate so that you know how many go on the top and how many go on the bottom. If some fall out and you’re not sure which lot they fell from always make sure when placing the bearings back in the free hub that there will be a little space left, usually enough for one bearing just about so don’t pack them tight.

How old is the wheel? If it is relatively new I would be takng it back from whence it came and demanding an explanation!

He rode he crashed landed awkwardly and it bent. Sh!t happens.

Mavic XM317 are coming up at £23.99 at CRC, so + spoke £12, plus build £15 = £50.99 est

Shops will charge a lot to build a wheel as it is a lot of time to out for their mechanic. See if you can find a local wheel builder who builds wheels in the evenings at home should be cheaper, they may even be a mech during the day looking for extra cash.

I do this myself and have recently just stopped working as a bike mechanic. I have built far more wheels at home than I have ever done working at a shop so don’t be put off by not taking it to a shop. Go on reputation from friends. Personally I charge from £12 lab for a wheelbuild. I have known of people who charge from £10 others £15 – £20. That should give you an idea of labour prices, shop I worked at was £50 including basic spokes, spokes should cost about £12 online inc p&p. Rim obviously depends but that should be enough info for you. (London prices, although I’m no longer in London personally).

^bearing on the hub or bearing on the freehub?

There is nothing complicated about pulling a shimano freehub apart but it is pain in the ass much worse than doing the hub bearings.

Yes you can but replacement parts are not available so if you find anything broken you’re out of luck. It’s a shit job but doable. Freehub lock ring is left hand thread. I’ve used a punch to get one off, a mate did the same recently or you can make a tool from an old freewheel tool.

To the op, you are not the only person with jobs booked in.

An illustrative example – So I order a wheel in to be built. Parts and labour – £120, assume 10% “profit” so £12 for the shop. Today is booked solid, so will be built tomorrow, pick up tomorrow PM.
An hour later man walks in and orders a £2500 bike (10% profit again = £250 for shop), but in a size not built up but in stock. Shop says, oh we can build that that for you in the AM, pick up after lunch. So my wheel is not now built until tomorrow PM. They kindly phone me and say – sorry but we won’t have your wheel ready for collection until day after tomorrow, sorry.
Day 2 another fella walks in and orders a £1000 bike that is built up but wants to swap out some bits which are agreed at another £100 plus another half day to do the work. He can pick up day 3 and 10% profit again so another £110 for shop.

Question – assuming people keep buying more expensive stuff that needs workshop input, how long do the shop keep putting off building my wheel? How many put backs do I put up with before telling em to stuff it and go elsewhere never to return. What happens to shop when it’s that time of year when new bike sales drop off and now there is no work for the workshop as all the after sales customers have gone elsewhere cos the shop only want to do that work when it suits them.

I believe it’s called prioritising? And that doesn’t necessarily mean that the highest paying jobs are always done first. Customer care?

A wheel build take a lot longer than building a bike. Add to the fact that if a customer is there on top of you so to speak then it’s a question of immediacy.

Be ready to feel like throwing up, also it’s not always who you think will be quick so it’s worth while everyone having a go. There was a larger gent at ssuk 09 who had an amazing spin, just lost out in the final I think. Excellent fun.

There is a mini radiator under your dash. When you request hot air a valve diverts some of the engine coolent through this radiator.

Wiltshire lardy cake. Sounds horrible but it’s a sweet gooey cake with caramalised sugar, currents and raisins, plus lard of course.

bang!

http://www.63xc.com/

I’ve ridden my fixed gear road bike down a few bridleways before, not sure a I fancy it on a MTB as although it;s tough on the road bike with th skinny tyres and dropped bars at least it’s light to carry and push.

I’m out of it a bit too but nvidia for graphics was slightly better and had better linux support if that matters to you. I remember having problems with my ATI graphics card about 5 -6 years ago but it seems to “just work” now with most flavours that I’ve tried over the past two years.

but Jeremy didn’t you see the once in twenty years snow that happened last year? and the state of the road plus I’ve moved to the country and you need to have a 4×4 to negotiate the roads, plus I need a massive car because once a year I have to carry a lawn mower.

Ranger rover sports are bond to be driven by ****. They are as far from a work vehicle as possible, they are a luxury 4×4 but with the added arrogance of trying to make the drive unlike a 4×4 but with the presence for the “get out of my way” attitude.

roblane65 – Member
why is it people seam to have it in for 4x4s,is it that you notice them more because of there size? well work this out,every 3 out of 10 drivers are shit and drive like there the only vehicle on the road.so 4x4s make up1 out of every 50ish vehicles on the road,work the mathes out youself.By the way I’ve got a 4.0i V8 discovery and it’s great.

This is an excellent post. It dose wonders for the cause of V8 4×4 drivers.

I was a t work. To be honest I didn't think that much of it. I do have compassion so I thought it was terrible thing but I was much less shocked by it than I am when I see some of the shit that is going off in the Congo / Rwanda or when I've read about incidence that happened by pol pot, or the issues in eastern Europe e.t.c. It just never seem like that big a deal compared to most of the other atrocities that occurred over the previous decade.

It all depends how much hike a bike you are willing to do.

I've got a feeling road maps and off road maps store the paths in different methods. The road maps are stored as vectors while the off road are stored more as pictures laying over the GPS grip or something. I forget the details, but the cux was that you couldn't do travelling sales man style algorithm on off road topo style maps or o/s because they did not have the path data in the same format.

one religious nutter burns another religious nutters book.

Sound like one of these stupid bike paths on the pavement where you have to give way at every junction despite the road running parallel having priority. Music aspect seems to be completely irrelevant but it's the current thing to lampoon cyclists over.

I'm in S.E London but in central three days a week minimum. Been building wheels for years, been building wheels for others for about two years. Work in a shop at the moment, but you don't get people asking for wheel builds in shops very often now so many mechanics don't get to practice wheel building that much now unfortunately. I've done far more privately in the last year than I have at work.

Email is in profile I think.

I can see the point in having GPS to plot waymarker to tell you your route easily and quickly but can't see the point in seeing a 3"x3" square of O/S map. You need the big view with an O/S map to use it properly.

Disk stone cutter for the hole. Depending on the height of the wall and the distance from any buttress / corners you might be able to get away without the need to build in a buttress / pillar on the ends of the new entrance but it's unlikely.

I flew Ryan air with a bike about 3 years ago. Had a bike bag (with two bike squeezed in plus some other bits) which came to just under 30 kg. Then had 15 kg of normal check in luggage. No problem, arrive early as checkout opens, have T&C printed out, be polite. We paid extra for the bikes under some sports equipment thing, I think it was about £20 each way.

20 mph sounds like the typical bikers-bullshit. There maybe a few people average 20mph over that route but they will be few are far between, if any.

Sounds like a excellent route good luck.

I PDIed a bike for Liam Gallagher's son, I showed my dislike my working slightly slower than usual. That showed him.
Also PDIed a bike for Stephen Mangan (greenwing actor). I worked at normal pace for him, I was indifferent although I do like the greenwing.
PDIed a bike for Dan Patterson (Who's line is it anyway creator).
Did a service on some DJ's bike who the other mech was getting excited about and another producer who my manger was getting excited about.
Never got to meet any of these guys just peer at them from my cage.

Bumped into Nicolas Crane coming out of Sainsbury's, wish I'd got his autograph because someone I actually respect.
Saw Reg from the Bill in a tea room in Lymington.
Was given directions by Siobhan Hayes on a bus. That all took some googling to work out their names!

Modern SRAM pulls a different amount of cable to shimano but sram do make shimano compatible shifter. SRAM is 1:1 cable pull shimano is 2:1 or 1:2 I forget.

More info here

http://www.ctc.org.uk/desktopdefault.aspx?tabid=3946

molegrips is bang on about the travelling to other towns aspect that happen when you live in other towns and cities but not in London.

The UK is a varied place and I can't think of any one area, town or City tat represents it particularly well.

duffmiver – Member
london is a shithole!

No different to most larger towns and Cities in the UK then, and to be fair it's better than most of them. Ever been to Birmingham or Liverpool? Any of the large business park towns such as Reading or MK? Post industrial towns with collapsed economies who then get a shopping centre and which is labelled as regeneration as unskilled retail jobs are claimed to be replacements for skilled manufacturing jobs? Or Post industrial towns that don't even have that redevelopment?

ooOOoo – Member
I find the sense of distance of Londoners quite funny.
I know half a mile can make quite a difference in the type of neighbourhood but please, it's only half a mile – It's not some epic journey to another land.

Distance in miles ceases to become relevant in large Cities like London it's all about time. While my girlfriend was doing her teacher training some idiot gave her a placement 15 miles away this took 1hr 45 min to get to, another area 20 miles away could have only taken a little over an hour it just depends on the connections.

This will be zero or near zero dish wheel so will be stronger than most people expect. It's still only 28 spoke though. I'd give it a go but except that it will be a bit of a experiment.

We are only feeding the world now due to to massive use of oil. Using it to drive around is very wasteful. Good lectures here by Al Bartlett on Failure to understand the exponential function.

http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy_video1.html

The current method of governments of just excepting population growth is just pushing back an inevitable problem that nature will solve in a brutal method if people don't take responsibility and stop population growth..

Not carbon effect but actual CF.

http://www.gillesberthoud.fr/anglais/fiche_detaillee/fiche.php?
refArticle=211CAR700/C

brake lever position / clamp rubbing hands?

grips with donuts?

Blue top or preferably gold top to drink. Gold top lovely to make milkshakes with. Perfect post ride drink.

Went out this morning on the BMX only 1.5 hour, back for 09:00. BMX is my first love, I may be shit and have lost all my bottle but I still love it.

Lense design is also very import. It would be good to see more light available with different lenses option depending on how and were you were going to use your lights

Lense design is also very import. It would be good to see more light available with different lenses option depending on how and were you were going to use your lights

Live in London but on a train line / near a road in the direction that you wish to leave London regularly. So if you want to head out to Surrey hills regularly and of an evening live south / south west. If you want to head up north regularly, head for Finchly road area or even Ealing as although West London is easy to get onto the M40.

Don't be seduced by only 45 min to London on the train, add in 10 min walking to the station, 5 -10 min waiting time at the station, 5 min at at least transfer to the tube, 10 min on the tube, 5 min walking to the office then you are quickly at 1:15 min on a good day.

Most of the the countable country side near London is pretty dull. Stay within Zone 3 / inner zone 4 and commuting in by bike will be easy, cheap improve your fitness plus you will still beable to get night buses home if you fancy a night out. Outside zone 3 night busses start to become more spreadout.

Live in London and get the benefits of living in London, commute to London and you get the bad side, over crowding, w@nkers, expensive housing e.t.c., without the good side. The towns commutable to London and housing stock close enough to get on the train are largely populated by arseholes. If you think London is bad…

I say all of this as someone who hates London, grew up a Farmers son and is trying to sort out a Job outside of London, but if you're working in London, live in London and at least get the benfits, but live on the side of London you will want to head out towards most regularly.

I remember in a old magazine seeing a article about some off road hill climb races. I know there are plenty of road ones about but are there any off rad ones still about?

If it's for riding around town why would you want to giver her suspension. The SS may be an issue for her I don't know.

swinley