Cycling UK Forum

531colin wrote: ↑9 Jan 2022, 5:54pm I'm also interested in PT1029's mountain bike and its wheel flop.
"Low rider" front panniers are designed to get the weight as close as practical to the steering axis,,,,in fact even if the weight is centered on the front wheel axle, then the weight is still in front of the steering axis, by the amount of the fork offset. Any load in a barbag or front panniers makes the steering feel different, and when the load is in front of the steering axis (it usually is) then the load has a sort of "pendulum" effect on the steering, so that once the steering gets moving then the momentum of the load will tend to keep it turning.

I have to say that the sort of maths associated with wheel flop makes my head spin.
Turning the steering makes the front of the bike (frame?) drop.
Does a front (low) pannier also drop? I try to think about it, and my head spins.

I wonder if a load centered on the steering axis has as much effect on the steering feel as a load centered on the front axle?

If the front load exerts its effect on the steering due to wheel flop, then you would get the same effect with the same load carried on the frame eg. where the top tube joins the head tube?

I need to lie down now!

richardfm wrote: ↑30 Dec 2021, 10:35am

geocycle wrote: ↑30 Dec 2021, 10:23am I’d look at Thorn for that kind of trip. Either the Sherpa or a nomad if you can stretch to a rohloff. Personally, I’d think the nomad would be ideal for that trip. Sounds a great trip and one where you want the journey to be the focus not the bike. Lots of good suggestions above as well and you’ll not go wrong with most of these.

Another vote for Thorn from me.

CJ wrote: ↑22 Dec 2021, 3:14pm So: is Cycling UK using any of the half-million windfall from their closure of CTC Cycling Holidays, to pay a first-rate campaigner to get the level of to- and trans-european cycle carriage needed for trains to support international cycle-touring as aeroplanes do now? And why, given the way Cycle magazine has been flight-shaming us with articles pretending it's oh-so-easy to take your bike by train instead, have we seen NOTHING in those pages about these new services?

Because it's not just European Sleeper. After a bit of Googling I discovered that no sooner had Die Bahn axed City-Night-Line, than OBB launched cycle carrying NightJet trains to and through Austria. Admittedly only a paltry six bikes per train (so no use for group travel) and completely useless if you're coming from UK, because the only Nightjet service that comes even part of the way to Little Blighty (to Köln) does NOT carry any. More interesting is the news that from 2024, Midnight Trains plans to connect via Paris, destinations as far apart as Porto, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, Copenhagen and yes - even Edinburgh! There's no little blob on their routemap for London however. Perhaps they're reckoning that by 2024 the 'Auld Alliance' will see Scotland back inside the EU, in which case they'll skip the Untidy Kingdom's inconvenient border and customs hangups by locking the doors and not stopping here!

Anyway: is Cycling UK talking seriously to these companies, or Eurostar at least? I doubt it.

PH wrote: ↑16 Dec 2021, 6:50pm

slowster wrote: ↑16 Dec 2021, 6:45pm others have suggested the Surly Troll, although I think it is uncertain when the distributer, Ison, will again have them in stock.

They won't, the Troll is one of those recently discontinued.

simonineaston wrote: ↑27 Sep 2021, 10:03pm I've refined my answer to that old chestnut down to two words - "gear ratios". If they've got any sense, they think about it and think it over. If they haven't got any sense, it usually confuses them enough for me to escape...

simonineaston wrote: ↑27 Sep 2021, 7:25pm

One looked at my bike and said 'what sort of bike is it, is it a Bickerton?'

If you keep it, you will have to get used to sundry gents telling you a whole load of stuff about Moultons - and yours in particular. Some may be factually accurate, most will be drivel.