Cycling UK Forum

pwa

simonineaston wrote: ↑15 Apr 2024, 11:42am There’s a ton of other articles that describe China’s ‘near monopoly’ - whatever that is… in rare earth elements and how it might become critical in the development of all sorts of important technologies. See below for duckduckgo search, filtered for UK / last 30 days.IMG_0272.jpeg

"Central Asia key to breaking China's rare earth monopoly". Central Asia! So countries close to and potentially highly influenced by China and Russia! Why would anyone imagine that those two totalitarian regimes would meekly allow the West to move in to exploit central Asian resources? The idea is mad. If resources from that region matter to China and Russia, they will have them.

pwa

gbnz wrote: ↑13 Apr 2024, 9:46pm
pwa wrote: ↑13 Apr 2024, 9:26pm We have had a dry, overcast day with a gentle breeze, so I managed to prune the rosemary back and take the dog for a good walk. No rain!
I finally had enough cash to buy a Rosemary specimen, end of December '23. Mine has purely had the tip's to removed, to encourage "bushing" out. May have a BSc Horticulture, formerly member of the Institute of Horticulture, 25+ yr's formerly managing plants !

But both attempts to obtain cuttings when on the bike & root during the past two years and grow from seed, had utterly failed.

We have three rosemary bushes around the garden, all cuttings from the original. They are getting a bit leggy, so I took a few of the longer cuttings today and pushed them into the soil to get the replacements on the way. We get better than 50% success rate doing that. I reckon I pushed about 10cm into the ground, which should be deep enough to stop them drying out before roots form. The old specimens will probably go next year when the new plantings have grown sufficiently. I use a lot of rosemary in the kitchen.

pwa

gbnz wrote: ↑13 Apr 2024, 8:55pm
Cowsham wrote: ↑13 Apr 2024, 11:17am A cold wind howlin round the house today and it's just started raining again -- will wait till after lunch time to see if it clears before contemplating a ride.
Knew it'd be windy, but wasn't anticipating gale force winds. Literally had remains of a sandwich blown out of my hand, late lunch

But incredibly lucky with the rain, had presumed I'd be soaked for a couple of hours, but somehow, the horrific cloud masses developing this afternoon, literally just skirted past me. Was fantastic, I presumed I'd be soaked, instead found myself witnessing absolutely solid, dark grey formations, whilst remaining in absolutely clear, blue skied terrain

We have had a dry, overcast day with a gentle breeze, so I managed to prune the rosemary back and take the dog for a good walk. No rain!

pwa

Brucey wrote: ↑13 Apr 2024, 6:41pm
pwa wrote: ↑9 Apr 2024, 7:44pm I have heard the suggestion that if one goes very slowly indeed, braking all the time, overheating does not happen. But if I remember correctly, the speed at which that holds true is around 4mph. At that speed heating and cooling are balanced. Any faster than that, and you get into the state where heating outpaces cooling while continuous braking is happening. The bottom line is that if you are willing to retard speed to a constant 4mph, you have a means of getting down a very steep hill without severe overheating. Has anyone here tested this? I haven't.
the point here is that this speed is reckoned to be very low; any hint of going faster than that would increase brake temps, unless you just let aerodynamic drag do all the work, which is much more fun....

I heard about it from Thorn Cycles when I was buying a tandem from them, and it was cited as one tactic for getting safely down an extremely steep hill where just letting go is not an option. And it sounds like it should work. You heat the braking surfaces no quicker than they can be cooled. It was made clear that the speed above which constant braking would lead to problems is a very low speed indeed. And as you say, on hills where it is practical, just taking one's hands off the brakes and letting wind resistance limit the speed is always the fun option.

pwa

Is it really worth putting new hardware on these well-used pedal bodies? I ask because in my experience what finally kills my very long lasting (genuine Shimano) SPDs is the aluminium pedal body wearing down, allowing too much play between the shoe and the pedal. New hardware isn't going to rectify that.

pwa

The weather trend for the coming week is better. Some rain forecast, but mostly dry. Hurray!

pwa

Bonefishblues wrote: ↑12 Apr 2024, 10:38pm
pwa wrote: ↑12 Apr 2024, 9:18pm In the end I bet what kills me is my lack of discipline where biscuits and cake are concerned.
Best keep them out of the jaw zone then.

Serious risk of further thread drift here. But the saga of my dietary waywardness is long and originates way back in the mists of time. And whenever a notional risk, such as from cycling on roads, raises its head, I compare and contrast with the greater risk from simply eating a bit too much of the wrong stuff. Or the higher risks other folk accept as a price for doing things that they love, like canoeing or horse riding.

pwa

Nearholmer wrote: ↑12 Apr 2024, 3:42pm Clearly lessons have been learned, I’m not saying that none have; what I’m saying is that road deaths and injuries don’t seem to be investigated with the vigour and rigour that other accidental deaths are.

Compared with any other field of activity they are still high, and in terms of injuries, high too.

Deaths from accidents don’t make up a huge proportion of deaths overall, <3%, most are disease/old-age/natural causes, and the only two categories of accidents that exceed “transport accidents” (of which the vast majority are on roads), are “falls”, and “poisonings” (which surprised me - I think it includes gas and CO).

Maybe road accident deaths and injuries are “low enough” by societal standards, despite me still thinking that they aren’t.

What do others think?

My thinking has always been that I am 100% certain to die of something, some day, and in the meantime I am not going to spend too much time worrying about risks that are, in fact, within the range I consider tolerable. And cycling on the roads (around here) falls into that category. Along with hill walking, crossing a field with cattle in whilst walking with the dog, and occasional visits to London and Birmingham. In the end I bet what kills me is my lack of discipline where biscuits and cake are concerned.

pwa

mattheus wrote: ↑10 Apr 2024, 4:44pm
axel_knutt wrote: ↑10 Apr 2024, 4:19pm
mattheus wrote: ↑10 Apr 2024, 10:22am You don't think injuries are recorded?
Whether they are or not, injuries aren't a reliable metric for measuring risk because the threshold for recording them is subjective, and varies according to the manpower available for collecting the data.
Sure: but you can use them as a sanity check for certain assertions/statements e.g. "cars aren't dangerous to pedestrians on pavements". Or "bicycles probably cause more minor injuries than cars, because those lower-level incidents aren't recorded."

What we can say with certainty is that pedestrians look to pavements as a refuge from vehicles, which is why a pedestrian being run over on a pavement seems even more disturbing than a pedestrian being run over crossing a road.

With regard to the car door thing, a hazard that has often caught people out, when one of the parties dies, and there are no witnesses or camera footage, the surviving party provides the narrative. Whether it be a true one or not. If they say the car door was already open, somebody has to prove otherwise, or their account will be the only one available. I find that as unsatisfactory as anyone else, but it is just how it is.

pwa

To some extent middle sized businesses feed into large businesses, or they have done around here. When Ford pulled out, smaller businesses supplying them lost their main customer. I used to know someone who owned a company making plastic parts for car makers, and as the big car makers have pulled out of the UK their own medium sized business has contracted. Steel maker Tata is contracting its business in Port Talbot, and the umpteen SMEs that deal with them will be affected. SMEs benefit from having much larger businesses to deal with, at least when things are going well.

pwa

mattheus wrote: ↑10 Apr 2024, 10:29am
pwa wrote: ↑10 Apr 2024, 10:09am I used to do a lot of Audax rides, travelling light and not hanging about too much, so sticking carbs in water and consuming on-the-go made sense. But I was always aware that doing that was a compromise for a day or two, and not adequate or sensible nutrition to continue throughout the year.
Have you seen the Mike Hall film about the unsupported Trans-america race? One rider tries to get all his nutrition (10days? 7? dunno ... ) from carb powders, sent in bulk to Poste Restante* every few hundred miles.
Hilarious!

*or some USA equiv.

No I haven't seen it, but I know that after 12 hours or so of relying mainly on carbs out of a bottle my guts were not happy.

pwa

al_yrpal wrote: ↑10 Apr 2024, 12:09pm
pwa wrote: ↑10 Apr 2024, 10:00am Even the Ford engine plant, just a few miles from here, upped sticks a few years ago. The workforce were skilled and had a record of producing the goods. The jobs were well paid and seemingly secure, until close to the end. battery manufacturing! Game, set and match?
Sorry you are wrong. The folk in the Ford factory were not mostly skilled people, just skilled in their capacity of a cam belt installer or a head bolt tightener. Thats not the sort of jobs we need.
We need jobs where Engineers innovate, technicians make ideas workable and skilled craftsmen do their stuff building prototypes and tools for manufacture. We dont need Ford or Sony, they will go where politicians weild the largest carrots. There was an attitude in S Wales - " why dont THEY build more factories here." Not the right noises at all. Its what WE are going to do that matters. Employ technology, create and develop product ideas and become expert in services to sell. Are we just going to be 'me too' people or are we going to create and offer unique products protected by patents advanced technology and sheer quality? Politicians have no idea about such stuff and government agencies tend to be staffed by clapped out non achievers IME. They are of no help, peripheral people, a waste of time.

A lot of political useless flim flam here that aint gonna help. Action needed by entrepreneurs and innovators that create wealth that can get taxed to pay for the pensions health and welfare we all need at some time or another.

Al

An hour's drive down the M4 they used to make Dyson vacuum cleaners. Local innovation. Upped and went overseas. HQ now in Singapore or somewhere like that, so not even the admin left in the UK. An R&D unit left here, for now. If the likes of Dyson don't use their success to keep good jobs in the UK, who will?

pwa

I used to do a lot of Audax rides, travelling light and not hanging about too much, so sticking carbs in water and consuming on-the-go made sense. But I was always aware that doing that was a compromise for a day or two, and not adequate or sensible nutrition to continue throughout the year. For more normal life, even when cycling, I prefer to keep sugar(s) intake low. I might have the odd cereal bar or cake, but not rely on that sort of sugary stuff to keep me going through a day. I do reach for carbs, though, preferring starchy things like tiny new potatoes (carried in plastic containers) or sandwiches, with just water to drink. Normal food for slow release of energy, with the cereal bar reserved for close to the end to get me across the line.

pwa

al_yrpal wrote: ↑10 Apr 2024, 7:23am
pwa wrote: ↑9 Apr 2024, 10:43am
Maggie was still at the helm when we moved to S Wales, and under her leadership new foreign investment had brought big factories making TVs, car engines and whatever. But even before the Tories lost power the tide had turned and that short-lived upturn was failing. The huge Sony factory had closed and the site split between several constantly changing tenants, and the engine plant had ceased expansion and was in tenuous stasis before its eventual waning and closure. .
My company moved me to S Wales in 1972 to revive a failing business. By 1978 it had become the biggest and most sucessful company of its type in Europe, and was still expanding its field of activity.
'Screwdriver' plants like Sony only provide crap jobs relying simply on a pool of cheap unskilled labour. As soon as another location becomes available thats cheaper they depart. Its not that sort of business thats beneficial, its the innovative home grown growing businesses that are needed in S Wales and similar areas. And, that needs to be replicated on a national scale. I doubt that any politician can make that happen.

Al

Even the Ford engine plant, just a few miles from here, upped sticks a few years ago. The workforce were skilled and had a record of producing the goods. The jobs were well paid and seemingly secure, until close to the end. These huge multi-nationals make a big thing out of their ties to the local community, until they decide to pack their bags and go. I feel like a Luddite saying it, but Globalisation means that manufacturing flows like water, on the path of least resistance, without regard for people. Car manufacturing is now moving to China, where the electric car manufacturing business is set up and ready to supply cars to the world. In ten years from now the only cars made in Europe may well be niche high end things from BMW, Jaguar and the like. And we needn't kid ourselves that we will be doing all the better paid jobs of R&D because the Chinese can do that themselves now. Apparently they have also cornered a large chunk of the world's cobalt resources, important for battery manufacturing! Game, set and match?

pwa

I have heard the suggestion that if one goes very slowly indeed, braking all the time, overheating does not happen. But if I remember correctly, the speed at which that holds true is around 4mph. At that speed heating and cooling are balanced. Any faster than that, and you get into the state where heating outpaces cooling while continuous braking is happening. The bottom line is that if you are willing to retard speed to a constant 4mph, you have a means of getting down a very steep hill without severe overheating. Has anyone here tested this? I haven't.

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