Cycling UK Forum

Cotter pins were one of several curses brought, via a bike, to the attention of a fellow lacking practical skills, when I were a lad learning how to deal with recalcitrant mechanical things. I still recall the frustrations and temper tantrums! Still, those bluddy awful bits and pieces eventually ta...

[…] note also that on a dual pivot brake, as the brake blocks wear, one brake block moves upwards on the braking surface, i.e. potentially into the tyre. And the upward swing needed to cause trouble is less than you might expect, because as soon as wear gives the pad an overhanging lip, that thin l...

I expected this thread to be about the other Argos.

On these catalogue-shop bicycles, is the rear hub cassette or freewheel?

I’m surprised even a terribly elongated chain didn’t skip on those vestigial teeth.

I don’t see them for sale yet at the usual online shops. But they’re listed at €59.99 on CycleTyres.fr and €63.43 on Bike-Discount.de . Those prices won’t last, but I think the new tyre will be significantly more expensive than the Grand Prix 4000 S II, following Vittoria’s price hikes on the Corsa ...

because you do it far less frequently and therefore it doesn't feel as much of a normal movement? I do it often on descents with sweeping curves that don’t require braking, so I don’t think it’s that. The steering simply needs more attention when my mass is lower. It’s harder to follow the desired ...

I weigh only 66 kg and got a pinch flat a few months ago with a 23 mm rear tyre at 100 PSI. I know it was about 100 PSI because I pumped it up that morning. That surprised me, and all the more because the hole that did it was not very sharp-edged (the edge was curved about like a Coke can). I hit it...

Some trends can be observed. There is a trend toward more frequent and more significant change. Change = innovation = business buzzword and necessity for mass-market success circa 2018. Consequently a lot of standards have been thrown out the window in the last ten years and the remaining ones are b...

StephenW: no MATLAB access, unfortunately. countersteering is a standard way of muscling a motorbike into a turn, and is not confined to MotoGP riders. Folk can be doing the same thing on a bicycle and not even know it. Also shifting bodyweight can have a similar (but less dramatic) effect. I realis...

Surly make a point about the low bottom bracket height (78mm drop on mine). I would add that once the wide tyres are fitted the resulting BB height is a bit higher than that on my race bikes! The SPA tourer BB height is quite a bit higher still - how much depends on size. Clearly there are many hap...

I have some Wera Hex-Plus keys that I like for their long handles, ball ends on the handles, colour-coded sleeves, and good steel. Their signature feature is a non-hexagonal shape to the end, which supposedly reduces the risk of rounding the bolt. See the pictures here for more.

The Continental Grand Prix 4-Season is now available in 32 mm and would be a safe choice. Since you mention speed: a faster option would be the Pirelli P Zero Velo 4S. This tyre shares a casing with Pirelli’s racing clinchers but tests slower, which all but proves that the tread compound has higher ...

Right. Note the loose conical race goes above the rollers, not below them. That’s obvious to some but probably not all Spa Audax customers who find themselves assembling these things from a bag of parts with no instructions or diagrams – which is exactly how Spa Cycles delivered it to me. No doubt a...

My Spa Audax frame also came with a Tange-Seiki Terious SRN headset (with roller bearing at the bottom and balls at the top). The bearing preload must be set more precisely than with all-balls headsets, but it wasn’t as sensitive as other people have described. This makes me wonder if these bearings...

Under what circumstances did it break? For example, while making a front shift, accelerating from a stop, etc.

What part of the chain failed?

And what model was it? SRAM make several 9-speed models.