Cycling UK Forum

For the front, I use half of a rubber hot water bottle.
The top is contoured to fit the mudguard well, it's wide enough (~ 6") and long enough (within 1 - 1.5" of the ground) to catch most of what's splashed sideways when the front wheel goes through a puddle or spun off the middle of the wheel on wet roads, flexible enough that catching on things isn't a problem, and heavy enough that blowing backwards isn't much of a problem.


For the rear, I usually use a strip cut from an old 135 column listing paper binder, much the same stuff as the RAW flaps. About 3" wide and about 4" short of reaching the ground. Not fitted at present, on account of a lack of group riding.
The rear flap doesn't need to be very wide, but it should be long enough that a following rider can't see your tyre.

I found the reflective rear flap by the side of the road. At the time, I thought it was off the back of a lorry, but I've since found it's off the side of a reflective bollard. Unfortunately it cracked too easily to last very long (3 or 4 months).

Those Blackburn fittings went into the triangular hole in Campag-style dropouts.
Dropout styles have changed, and most frames wouldn't take them even if you found some, or made some.

Brik wrote: ↑14 Oct 2023, 12:17pmTo be honest I'm usually ghost pedaling and the motor is providing most of the (continuous) torque so I don't think the wear will be so concentrated in those certain spots.

Probably correct.

There's also the anti-drop pin to consider, if there is one. Once it's no longer behind the crank arm, there's a chance that any chainring tattoo could come with added blood.
You can double the life of a single chainring by turning it round to swap inside to outside. With no front mech and a multi-speed cassette/freewheel, chainline isn't that important.


You bought freewheel, chain and chainring as a job lot.
I'd suggest using them as a job lot until they start to give problems (assuming there's no rarity value in the freewheel).

The reason for imposing a wear limit on a chain is that a worn chain wears the freewheel/cassette sprockets to match, and if left too long, a new chain will skip on the rear sprockets. Ignore that, and the chainring will also wear, until that eventually starts slipping.
The theory is that sprockets & chainrings are expensive compared to chains, so it's financially worthwhile discarding a chain with a fair bit of working life left in it in order to preserve the chainring & sprockets.
In this case, with replacement chains at £8, and given that (IME) a chain/sprockets/chainring combo will keep working past 5 times the mileage of the normal replacement wear limit before something starts slipping, you could end up spending double what you'd spent on the job lot just on replacement chains.

531colin wrote: ↑11 Oct 2023, 9:21am Spa are also listing Trucker frames in both rim and disc brake; I didn’t check size availability.

The listing shows 2021 Disc Truckers in all sizes, and 2019 LHT in 42 cm/26" wheel only.

A drawback of the Disc Trucker is that it's through axle, which means new wheels as well as the frame.

Brucey wrote: ↑9 Oct 2023, 5:05pm [

Thank you very much......So many things to note... Maybe too much for doing anything to the frame.
So, can I have everyone here vote simply - should I cold set the frame or not?

FWIW for some years I had my roadbike set to 128mm since then I could use almost any rear wheel

cheers
Brucey

Some manufacturers have also sold frames set to 132.5 mm, on the basis that you can then use either road or MTB hubs.

Cassettes up to 50T exist, together with rear mechs to suit. They are intended for 1x use, but the cassette & rear mech neither know nor care what you've got at the chainset end. The mech capacity will be 50-11=39T, so with a 50/34 chainset, you'll run out of chainwrap using a sprocket smaller than 25T with the small ring, and want to stay on the big ring until you reach about 34 on the cassette.
You may also find a new chain isn't long enough, and have to buy two, and an extra quicklink.

Personally, I'd look at the cost of replacement cassettes, and fit a 110/74 square taper triple with 46 or 44 & 24T rings fitted middle and inner.

ncutler wrote: ↑30 Sep 2023, 10:45am #1 Chain link removal tool.

chain pliers.JPG

Chain quicklinks didn't exist 30 years ago, and therefore neither did the pliers, so meanness doesn't apply

(the 3-piece links for singlespeed chains did, but they don't need those pliers)

rareposter wrote: ↑23 Sep 2023, 5:00pm

mjr wrote: ↑23 Sep 2023, 11:38am Lumens are pretty much nonsense. They're how much light is output, not how much light actually is directed to anything useful in front of you, even ignoring the rampant "rounding up" of lumens by certain manufacturers

It's a legal requirement to specify lumens and it has to be correct. The old method of specifying wattage was power draw for non-LED lights.

There is no UK legal requirement to specify lumens, or anything else, beyond general "don't mislead the consumer" trading standards stuff.
If you think there is, tell us which law, with a link (laws are all available online these days).

In terms of being non-dazzling whist still being able to see enough to make good progress, STVZO is the way to go.

If trying to avoid dazzling when using an un-shaped non-STVZO beam by turning the power down, or by angling the light downwards, you've got to make enough of an adjustment that it will have a significant effect on your own ability to see where you're going.

STVZO battery lights up to £200:
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/lightinglig ... usb-light/
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/lighting/bu ... ower-bank/
https://www.westbrookcycles.co.uk/power ... ight-16240 (lezyne)
Prices may be lower elsewhere.
Check out the available brightness levels and associated run times.
On dark, unlit country roads with no competing lighting, I find about 30 lux to be a suitable minimum for making good progress. In wet weather, on fast downhills, or if your night vision keeps getting spoiled by other lights, you'll want more. You'd use the lowest levels (15 lux?) in areas with street lighting.

Another possibilty you might look at is using an STVZO e-bike headlight with the battery pack from your Gloworm XS.
Some examples: https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/lighting-ebike/
You'd have to make sure that the battery pack voltage is within spec for the light you select, and do something about plug compatibility (I'd suggest a short length of cable with a battery pack plug/socket on one end and a light plug/socket on the other, rather than chopping and replacing a plug/socket.
If the light voltage allows down to 5V, a USB power bank would also be usable.

Cugel wrote: ↑8 Dec 2022, 7:24pmThis will increase the width of the tyre to more than 28mm and give the ability to have a lower pressure in them, giving more comfort and better road grip.

Not necessarily.
As far as being able to reduce pressure is concerned, what matters is not the tyre width, but the height of the tyre above the rim.

An inflated tyre is circular in cross section.
If you take a narrow rim that contacts the tyre at 5 o'clock and 7 o'clock, very little of the tyre cross section is within the rim.
If you take a wide rim that contacts the tyre at 4 o'clock and 8 o'clock, much more of the tyre cross section is within the rim.

The length of the cross section circumference between the two contact points is the same for any given model & size of tyre, so the diameter of the cross section is necessarily larger for the wider rim.

The question is whether the height you gain from the increased diameter is more than the height you lose through having more of the cross section within the rim, or less.
This is less than obvious without resorting to pencil diagrams and a calculator, but the limiting cases (6 & 6 o'clock vs 3 & 9) give the same height, so rim width may well make no difference to the lowest usable pressure.

maximus meridius wrote: ↑10 Sep 2023, 10:16am

freiston wrote: ↑9 Sep 2023, 11:31pm I have a pair of the double SPD sided pedals (PD-T400 iirc) but switched to SPD one side, flat the other so that I could go camping with the one pair of shoes/boots. I hoped to get the Click'R version but couldn't find them anywhere.

Thanks.

I assume those still available are NOS.

It's a shame my T8000s don't have 15mm flats. Because otherwise they're perfect.

Available off the shelf from your friendly not-so-local bike shop
https://www.spacycles.co.uk/m17b0s86p47 ... CKR-Pedals

I dare say that rogerzilla's comment about Click'R becoming defunct means that making a decision on whether pedal extenders are necessary or not would better be done sooner rather than later.

geocycle wrote: ↑10 Sep 2023, 7:47pm Twistleton scar, the road that runs from Ingleton to Chapel Le Dale between Ingleborough and Whernside. An amazingly smooth strip of tarmac.

Taken from the Twistleton Scar road, looking approx. SE towards the shoulder of Ingleborough.
The distant clump of trees breaking the skyline on the right is around White Scar caves.
streetview

maximus meridius wrote: ↑9 Sep 2023, 7:18pm

andrew_s wrote: ↑9 Sep 2023, 5:16pm Q on it's own doesn't relate to heel scrape.

It's the difference between Q and recommended BB length you want to look at. The shorter the BB for the same Q, the more space your heels have.

I'm sorry, I don't understand that.

Q is the distance between the pedal flanges.

You can have the same Q with a short BB, in which case the cranks angle outwards, giving heel space, or with a long BB, with cranks square to the BB axle and no heel space.

I had a go at a DIY dynamo light back in the day, when there was no off the shelf alternative.
The electronics and getting a good amount of light was easy (not that a halogen bulb was much competition), but what was difficult was a moderately sized and neat housing, and the optics.

Looking at the foregoing, I would suspect that the problem will be fitting your circuit board in the scavenged housing.

Q on it's own doesn't relate to heel scrape.

It's the difference between Q and recommended BB length you want to look at. The shorter the BB for the same Q, the more space your heels have.