Sounds fine to me. That’s what axle stands are for.

We’ve got a macpac but I can’t remember which one right now. Very good, confortable to wear with a slidely adjustable thing for tall people and short people…. and for sale!

To be fair it’s very big. It’s more of an “all day outing up snowdon” type pack rather than a “1/2 hr walk round the field with the dogs”

little trb #1 got bored in it after twenty minutes and howled until I took him out
little trb #2 loved it and would happily sit in there for a couple of hours.

Mine are flat on top like crikeys, with the hoods pointing up slightly. But to achieve that The drops are at about 30 degrees and I can’t reach the levers from the drops.

If I put the drops horizontal then the top of the bar is pointing down and it feels like I’m about to fall off the front of the bike.

What are your bars Crikey? I need some like that.

hummph, blocked by the work filter

I just drilled the rear SKS on mine, it fitted fine with no spacers. I cut a notch in the front to clear the mini V. No swearing required.

Eventually the rivets that hold the brackets to the mudguards corroded and had to be replaced with zip ties, then after 5 years and 8,000 miles the rear cracked where I drilled it.

Put a pair of Tortec ones from SJS on there this year. Same fitting issues, but these have got reflector stripes for added side visibility.

For Occasional trips, ours just about fits across the back of the car on a normal rack, with the wheels in the boot and the bars/forks turned backwards. It sticks out either side, but only as far as the wing mirrors.

Yosemite, drive out the back to Mammoth mountain, head up to Mono lake, hang a right to Bodie ghost town, then on to Lake Tahoe
That should take anything from 3 days to a week.

Alcatraz

Rent bikes from Fishermans wharf, ride over the golden gate and up the moutain for a view, Lunch in Sausalito and a ferry back across the bay.

Just drive north up Highway 101 and see where you end up
Just drive South down Highway 101 and see where you end up

Or road trip to Vegas, back through death valley, Mammoth mountain, Yosemite and back is a good loop of 4 – 7 days.

You’ve used the words “Stunning” “Lovely” and “Beautiful”

I’d expect something that looks like it just came out of the shop from your description.

While the reality is that he’s probably just discovered his gear set isn’t compatable with your frame, I feel there’s enough ambiguity that you are destined to lose this one and you’re best off refunding and relisting

Driver did an emergency stop after staring at the light, not me.

I’ve had this while driving the car. Got dazzled by a flashing light. Flashing light + single point meant I couldn’t work out how far away he was. Turns out he was much closer than he looked. I missed him, but he didn’t look happy.
Had he no light at all or just a small constant light I’d have been able to judge the distance much better and stopped in better time.

CTC, the magazine is great, I love reading about the other types of cycling and their letters page has classic moans from old blokes who think MTB is new-fangled.

They also have specialist solicitors in case you end up in any strife (I haven’t checked if BC has the same)

But most important they are the most effective and coherent lobbying group who act on behalf of all cyclists. I don’t always agree with them but in general it’s more good than bad.

You’ll only be dropping your bottom gear by about 15% or thereabouts

That’s cool, I only really want 1 more lower gear anyway, and I already have a 11-27 cassette, I’m going to have to stop blaming my kit and start balming myself if that isn’t low enough.
My riding buddy has just gone all Strava on me so we’re currently trying to beat 95th on the local climb.

but if you actually want to spin up hills you’ll be looking at a triple up front with a mountain bike cassette and rear mech!

Yeah I know, but putting slicks on my MTB would be really admitting defeat.

lovely job. Spinning up hills in the saddle here we come!

just out of curiousity – what tools do you think you use as a gardener ? – and what do you think maintainance is on them ?

My dad is a “retired doing it to fill in time” gardener and he has :
petrol mower x 2
petrol strimmer x 2
petrol hedge cutter
petrol leaf blower
Small trailer to carry it all.

The pro down the road from me can add :
Transit van
Large trailer
Ride on mower
Chainsaws x 2 plus safety kit
Rotovators large and small
Jet wash
Insurance

Add to that all of the hand tools required and you have quite a capital investment to recoup. Then add the cost of being responsible and taking the refuse to the tip.

They have all the right kit so they can do a good job in a short time!

We’d probably die without a TV. Putting Fireman Sam on is the only way I can stop them from fighting long enough for me to cook some tea!

My bike felt better after upgrading the wheels as they didn’t flex every time I stomped on the pedals.

Upgrading the tyres to something with lower rolling resistance made me faster…. I think

but sometimes lightweight can be slower overall

^ this. Don’t overdo it and spend every ride fixing punctures!

What about the plane? Did that come through the time vortex? If it did then I’d find that as it would still have my packed lunch in it somewhere, plus lots of salvageable bits.

Although knowing STW the tyres would probably out of fashion already and hence no good to man nor sheep.

I’ve paid £18 for a bike before. But to be fair I’m pretty sure this wasn’t nicked as I’ve been leaving it around town unlocked for 4 years now and no-one has nicked it from me, such is it’s desireability and resale value!
I also sold a bike for £5 and a 4 pack of lager back in the day when I had no appreciation of a decent pint.

The White Swan in llanfrynach is nice. Not cheap, but we’ve always felt the food is worth it.
http://www.the-white-swan.com/

We generally then go to the White hart or the Star in Talybont the next night for a burger ‘n’ chips.

After we toured NZ we shipped our bikes & gear home with Seven Seas.

This work well on all fronts for me. Small admin charge for processing at customs was all we had.

As above, the downside is that the quoted delivery was 4 – 12 weeks. Depends how quick they fill the container, how quick it gets on a boat and what route the boat takes. Mine arrived in 3 weeks so I got lucky.

And the NZ environmental people are very picky, nice, but picky. We had to have our bike tyres, shoes and tent groundsheet sprayed before they would let us in, not sure how it works for freight but I’d expect to have your boxes opened and make sure everyting inside is squeeky clean!

I’ve never owned a kiddie trailer, just a kiddie seat, so I’m perfectly qualified to give advice here

IIRC, a lot of kiddie trailers are not designed with helmet wearing as a pre-requisite, and by their very nature have a “roll cage” to protect the little ‘un. So before you go modifying the trailer, consider going sans helmet.

If you’re having this probelem everyone else who owns the same trailer wil be having it as well.

Can I have the 2000 one – on the account that the drugs I was using around that time weren’t actually performancing enhancing as such, more perfomance mellowing.

My Mondeo estate came with 85k at 4 years old. That’s actually pretty low mileage for one of them as 99.999% of them are bought new as fleet cars.

I’ve now put another 25k on it in 3 years and it been great VFM so far.

Our holidays always seem to involve beaches, walking, biking, pub/cafe/taverna lunches and swimming pools.

Swimming pools are a recent addition to make sure the kids are proper tired come bedtime, and kids give me a good excuse to play on the water slides while the missus sneaks off to do her own thing.

If you think about it, you normally spend 3 or 4 hours a day with your other half, often one of you is on facebook and the other is watching telly.
To then spend a week alone with no other distractions is a recipe for arguements – both sober and drunk!!

You have 2 choices :

The best bike for learning to ride on is an Isla bikes Rothan balance bike – other balance bikes are available and most are cheaper, but very few match even come close to Isla bikes for quality. But it won’t be pink or girly.
Little miss trb was tearing up the local skatepark on hers at 2 yrs & 4 months.

But if pink and girly is what it takes to get her riding, then do what Frankers said

I have a slidey drop out inbred, and it works just lovely with either gears or SS. In fact I swapped from 1×9 gears to SS last week in about 20 minutes.

IIRC this is the first year that the Vuelta has been on free TV. So I was so overwhelmed at actually being able to watch it at all that I forgot to pick up all the bad points.

I just assumed the normal commentators where on their holidays after the tour & Olympics

I shall watch with a more critical eye tonight

cardinham is a lovely spot

Clay trails are on your doorstep
http://www.claytrails.co.uk/

Mineral tramways are down west and very nice (good cafe / bike shop)
http://www.cornwallcyclehire.com/

Goss moor trail is very low key but also very flat, traffic free and it goes close to the world renowned “Gnome world”
http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=13487

Camel trail is busy down the padstow end so I’d start at wadebridge and head up to Bodmin and on up onto the moor. Drop into the Camel valley Vineyard up near bodmin.

We did the NHS class which was excellent and skipped the NCT one.

That said mrs trb is still loosely involved with the NCT 5 years on – The Nearly New sales are great for buying a selling kit & clothes!

Mrs trb made a whole new social network via the baby groups, singing groups, messy play group, toddler groups etc etc etc and I made a new network of riding and drinking buddies via the mrs and the kids!

So if anyone knows of a bunkhouse with a decent ale pub and some good walking nearby then let me know please

This place has all those ingredients
http://www.thecastleinn.co.uk/

edit : beaten to it, so it must be good

Anything with a strong smell. Peanut butter beats Nutella which beats a nice mature chedder cheese. Cheese is good as it smells for a long time
But for any of these to work they need to be more attractive than whatever it is that’s attracting the mice in the first place, so work out what that is and remove it.

oh and get a proper trap 😈 Humane traps are only that if the mouse doesn’t die of thirst waiting for you to turn up

If it’s a small, low deck, why not? what’s the worst that can happen – you’ll waste a bit of time and money that’s all.

If we are talking large, elevated, steps, handrails etc get a pro in.

Buy nice new sharp wood saw and take your time and you don’t need a circular saw. A bit of muscle power required but less chance of loosing a digit.

I used screws for mine so that I could take up the odd board when I needed to retrieve bike components that fall beween the gaps 😕

You’ll need to put some weed control fabric and a base over the soggy grass.

Good thing there are people like you donating for no reward beyond a tea and an unhealthy snack

Little trb has cottoned on to this and now insists on joining me so that he can blag free squash and crisps.

I’ve got something like 30 pints in the bank – last week I had to do an extra iron test as I’d been fettling the bike and the grease on my hands made the standard test fail – got stuck in both arms!!

I do find it frustrating when they send you marketing mail wailing about the shortage of donors, then I have to wait an hour to donate (even with an appointmant sometimes)

I’ve just started the complete works of Thomas the Tank engine…. for the 3rd time since christmas!

Stories take me 5 – 10 minutes to read, 3 or 4 small pics per story, and 40 or 50 stories in the book!

The text and pictures are 40+ years old, so expect questions like Dad, whats a “right good walloping”?

ebay – and keep the listing for when you sell them again the day after the event.

They are the work of the devil and (seriously) it took me quite a while to get confident on them, so it’s leaving it a bit late to fit some for a race in september. They all seem expensive to me and unless it’s a proper flat easy course you’ll almost as well off using the drops on a sprint course.

For your first tri, I’d concentrate on getting the transitions right and gaining experience.

Then you’ll realise that you really do NEED a proper tri bike for next season 🙂

So having taken my 5 year old the BMX track near his Grannies house and a skate park having just been built near us, looks like I’ll be spending some time around BMXs for a few years until little mr & little miss trb are old to go on their own.

So what’s the best BMX for a 41 year old newbie to ride a combination of track and park. I won’t be doing any gnarr, but if the kids are going an MTB is all wrong and it’s perfect justification for another bike.

An entry level new one or second hand?

I’ve swum in lots of places that are outside and are not pools since I could swim as a kid. Never though of it as wild swimming though.

However I have now learnt to swim properly and bought a tri wetsit so that rather than splashing about I can swim proper distances. Got a 1500m lake swim next week. Doubt it’ll be very wild apart from at the front of the pack with the keen racers when they start punching and pulling each other.

What you need is a “rock and roll bed” – google it.

And then look at a transit or a merc as they are just as good and lots cheaper due to not being a “lifestyle purchase”

Do they have Death Slides? Probably don’t call them that anymore.

The longleat one has a zip wire – but you have to pay extra to go on it.
The water slides in the pool are pretty good.

As I was on holiday when I went, I was in no rush and found I could walk from one side of the park to the other in less than 30 minutes and so glad I didn’t have to faff about with bikes and locks. Plus it gave me the moral high ground to snarl at any cyclist who neglected to warn me of their approach with an appropriate tinkle on their bell.

We found it a pleasent environment when the cars were gone – but people reverted to type on changeover day and I almost got run over by a BMW!

Much too expensive for me in school holidays mind

Team GB are clearly all about middle class sports…

‘s funny, just had that conversation here in our office. The people I actually know who actually do shoot, canoe or do Judo are no more middle class than yer average cyclist.

Oh, hang on