Depends on what I’m riding.

Hacking over the downs and the odd bit of singletrack I won’t bother.

Anything more interesting than that, then yes

It’s mainly a comfort thing. I’ve got big calfs and thighs for my height, so I struggle to find pads that are comfortable

Ive used a buff as a thin beanie for my 3 year old successfully. Inside out, twist and back over on itself.

But, it didn’t leave the factory that way.

To be pedantic, I’m not sure that’s ever been established?

Mines purely functional:

All my riding gear is MTB biased.

Black gear doesn’t get stained by sheep shite.

So my riding gear is mainly black.

But for commuting I use a fluorescent cover on my bag and I’ve got a bright orange waterproof top.

This is the same industry that made an airliner programmed to fly itself into the ground?

Same industry, completely unrelated process.

The story behind that is quite eye opening. BBC did a good article on the history of it. Reassuring (it wasn’t a failure method that could impact other planes) and worrying (how the hell was it allowed) in equal measure.

At best it was incompetence on behalf of the manufacturer and the authority, but some of the decisions make you wonder what was actually going on

Yeah, a second (or even third) line of QC is wise… but no one should be taking away from this that Kingdom don’t do the same. This is just one frame.

One swallow does not a summer make.

🙂

Funnily enough I quite like the Kingdom frames as frames go, although can’t say im sold on LT hardtails in general. I have found it hard to balance travel Vs weight Vs comfort – I always felt like I was under or overbiked for the situation

Is 9001 (or variants) widely used in the bike industry? I work in the aerospace industry and was (less so in the last year) heavily involved in the business management system, which was based on 9001. It’s great having a QC process, but unless you are holding your own internal processes to account it quite quickly becomes wallpaper (learnt this the hard way!).

I said this on another Hambini thread. My guess is that the large-scale manufacturers (Giant, Trek, Spesh/Merida, etc.) will have fairly consistent QC. They turn out frames by the tens of thousands so they can afford to spend millions on factory equipment to keep everything consistent. They can also scrap frames because they will have much lower labour costs than niche manufacturers. When you have a small manufacturer building custom frames, the QC will probably be much more variable. Labour costs will be a huge proportion of their expenses, so there will always be a temptation to let stuff through if you think you can get away with it.

It’s more important for the niche manufacturers as well. They are selling a usually more expensive version of a product and quality becomes a huge part of their USP.

As a more general aside, I worry about the idea of giving allowances for problem frames making it out to the public. A misalignment issue is annoying, a poor weld or other structural concern is a different ballgame…

I agree with Kelvin on this one. It identifies that certain frames/manufacturers have lower standards than others. It tells you nothing about how the industry is overall.

And I’d agree with that 🙂 I was talking cack.

In hindsight, what I should have said was that ‘if it gets to the point where poor factory QA means that an industries products require the consumer to complete home QA, then there is an issue in that industry’.

I/we don’t know if there is and I doubt there is evidence to support that. I suspect most people wouldn’t realise if their BB failing after a few months (as a random example) is frame related, BB related, maintenance related or installation related…

One slightly off frame does not mean there is a problem with this model, or brand, or factory, or brand, or industry. Don’t extrapolate out like that, especially based on the rants of someone after attention to sell you something.

Yup.. as I alluded to above, frames with bad BBs will gravitate towards Hambini so it becomes an echo chamber.

The Kingdom example is just that, a single example and we don’t know the back story of the frame (it could have been a ‘seconds’ frame, or a fake for all we know).

I’d like to think I’d notice during building, but clearly some people haven’t. And if it’s true that some manufacturers are trying to claim a wider tolerance, perhaps a shop doing a lot of custom builds might like to know before getting too far into the build.

To be fair thats true. I think a shop should have to think about something like this otherwise it’s harder to identify faults. Misalignment isn’t very easy to do though.

If a product requires home QA it identifies a serious issue across the industry.

But thats half the point. It could well have left the factory “bang on”

In this case the NDS was out as well – the thread bore isn’t parallel with the shell (or not faced correctly on both sides). You can’t cause that through damage.

It is a sample size of 1 for Kingdom, so they need right of response (although he said he contacted them weeks ago…?) and bad BBs will float towards Hambini for obvious reasons. However, the fact that he seems to have any sort business in selling BBs to repair the symptoms of this sort of problem indicates that poor QA is an issue in the bike industry.

If I buy a frame that has an X BB, I should be able to buy an X BB and it will fit as designed. If it doesn’t (and presuming the BB isn’t at fault) then the frame is defective and the manufacturer should repair, replace or refund.

Makes me wonder if there’s a market for a set of go/no go gauges for various bottom brackets. Perhaps even make them deeper and then with an accurate bore and a ground shaft, see how well a pair of them line up.

If bottom brackets are as badly made as some of these, it would be nice to know before building up a frame

If the frame is bad enough to cause a problem, I think you would notice it during installation…

though saying that, he’s a classic example of survivor/selection bias with QC in the bike industry.

There is a bit to this, but it ultimately it shouldn’t leave the factory, or should be rectified by the manufacturer (albeit I’m not sure they were given the chance in Kingdoms case)

The OPEN frame was an interesting example. Assuming that there isn’t some lying going on with OPENS response, and regardless of how Hambini approached it, OPEN look foolish by saying ‘we don’t build to a standard for the BB’ – i.e. we don’t really care if your BB will perform correctly.

Having spoken to composites NDT specialists about assessing carbon frames in the past, I do query his NDT analysis – you need a benchmark to assess against.

Not a fan of his approach (the zyklon B comment was uncalled for, and his fixation on MAB is cringy) but I like the engineering explanations and frame analysis.

The alignment on that BB is pretty shocking, and it should be correct. It shows a poor QA process from the manufacturer.

Really like it. Never been that hooked by star wars (3 ok films, 3 awful films, 3 ok films), but Mandalorian has been fun

Try littlepro

Ref q factor – can’t say I’ve really noticed it.. apparently the bafang crank arms bring it in a bit. Mines a 63mm BB – small spacer on the DS so the drive cover doesn’t hit the EBB body, and the rest of the spacers on the NDS.

I also had to get creative with cut down roofing bolts to secure the torque arm

You can shim the discs easily (I didn’t need to)

I’ve never found I’ve needed to worry about cassette – but a small tweak on barrel adjuster should do it if needed

I was too bloody busy at work and looking after child during the last lockdown to get much riding in.

Suspect it will be same this time.

Whitestone – yeah thats possibly a bit cheeky, but I ain’t telling 🙂

I’m on the island. Drop me a message about which ferry and what you want to do

Season 3 is fine

Starting season 4 this week. Interested to see if it is any good with nearly all of the originals gone

What angers me, is that if they hadn’t dicked around so much with ineffectual lockdowns and slogans, there is a chance we could have been out of this and actually having a normal Christmas.

I dont really care about Christmas myself. My 3 year old may never see a Christmas with his grandad though now 🙁

Have I missed it, no mention of shielding restarting?

That’s because it hasn’t

Why do they keep pushing the Christmas angle? It’s a bit cringey.

I love seeing my family for christmas. However, I don’t want to spend Christmas day wondering whether I’ve just given my parents a disease that has high odds of killing them.

No real definition what constitutes essential, so suddenly every business is essential.

How do they keep making the same errors

Good question by BBC ref the delay in reacting…

Tiers of a clown.

Beautiful 🙂

So…

Another partial lockdown. Are they trying to see how long they can drag this out for?

I don’t think this will change our day-to-day significantly

The data is fine in itself, but who thought presenting it to the nation like this was a good idea?

This is like when you have to do a presentation at work on short notice, so you just throw everything at excel…

These charts are hilariously awful

And 2 slides in…it’s all gone wrong

That would make sense. Therefore you are wrong

Haha!

If he doesn’t do this conference soon the BBC will need him to do it through the a medium of dance

FTFY

Has he just given up?

How can you announce a press conference when you aren’t ready to speak?

I’m expecting a half hearted lockdown that, once again, completely misses the point

Suggestion it is delayed due to this:
https://twitter.com/NEUnion/status/13225­86657535700992

Gone?

Nine months plus, if you go for the case of missing COBRA meetings

It just amazes me. If I run a meeting without an agenda I get chewed out. How can a government work on whims?

Full lockdown

Apart from schools

And apart from essential businesses

Companies can choose to be essential businesses

Oh and hunting, the parliament bar and Dominic Cummings are obviously exempt

Knowing

But I really don’t like LOTR and The Hobbit films. Just so much boring nonsense

I’m amazed how they can be this disorganised and have no plan, after 8 months…

I know Boris is useless…but this is something else