Cycling UK Forum

As I see it, if you try to balance a pool cue upright in the palm of your hand, it's much harder with the thick end at the bottom. Balance is maintained by moving the base point around, same with cycling. I carried a big bag of clothes on my crossbar once, was struck by the stability when moving (no...

Maybe the top of Scotland, Sutherland, via a sleeper north, then over to Orkney for a visit. But if I lived in south I'd be tempted to grab a ferry, pedal south, fly back from Nice after a month of cakes and quiet roads and a few big name mountains taken at a leisurely pace. Maybe you've done that t...

meic wrote:Doing a quick search, I see that we have had this conversation a few times before..

Haha, well spotted! That explains the familiarity of it. We should do this again in a few years!

Bit like the Carry Ti - you can weigh the rack on its own at @ 250g but add in your fixings and it could reach 400g easily! I ended up using Ti bolts and dumping the heavy stainless fixings for Tubus' own al blocks which had an added benefit of making it easier to fit on my bikes! SJS lists Carry T...

Tortec ultralights... They only weigh 400g ish. Did you buy at sjs by any chance? It's a fine rack but Wiggle and evans both fixed that 400g "typo" a few years back. Real weight is 560g, I think. I feel a bit sheepish mentioning this - I'm not sure there's great honour in knowing the weig...

willem jongman wrote:This is a shameless copyright infringement of the Trangia original

I wonder if it is possible the relevant copyrights / patents have expired.

Just for those talking about blowing up tube mats - I recommend the £35 thermarest air pump, terrific. 60g or so, reduces my puffs from 16 puffs per inflate to just the one topper-upper. If weight isn't a particular interest for you, you can use a bit of hose and a Maplin keyboard vacuum for £3 to a...

Great bargain, that lux mini and the hexpeak too. It's good they sell the bits separately. My old "silLite" Golite Sangri-la 3 (way back on page 2 in this thread) was £250ish, I think, with the pole and inner, with taped seams (the sil is on the outside and steeped through, I think). Not t...

In similar situation to the OP story before the Fabsil bit, and looking to invest as little effort as possible, I used bike puncture repair patches, the small square self-adhesive ones, not the traditional ones, stuck to outside of groundsheet. Very fast, worked fine.

I think giving weights excluding pegs is a good thing, as the pegs are easily changed but the fly and inner and poles are not. Also it sidesteps the tendency of manufacturers to issue tiny pegs with tents to improve the weight statistics. I just need to add 5g x the number of pegs required to be abl...

I have the alpkit pd 400, mentioned by OP. Nice bag, felt like good value. For me (thin, 45, big airy tent) it was fine in sheltered French campsites, early October, but just a bit higher up, on a clear night, I was fitfully dreaming of another 100g or 200g of down. OP mentions 1kg and £220gbp and 3...

Consider also changes in your normal road surfaces and tyre pressure.

As above, lightweight running shoes are a good bet, worth googling. Try also "aqua shoes". The sn706 for example is cheap and light (£30ish, claims 124g per foot, looks like a Toms slip on plimsol).

Interesting promotional email received just now from BF, tying in with the TdF being in Brittany / Normandy - suggesting I buy a bike + rider crossing at £69, to watch the tour. Intriguing thing is that it says supplements apply to the bike price if I have a trailer or it's a tandem or... if I have ...

All damage in flight I've suffered has been from my own bodged bike re-assembly (almost stripped rear mech hanger bolt thread) or from trying to stuff wheels into the box beside the rear mech (bent rear mech). I take a spare hanger these days, ready for next self-inflicted catastrophe!