Cycling UK Forum

This seems to me to be the problem with the original question. If we make lights mandatory are we going to make the lights I want or the lights you want compulsory.

I don't know what rim tapes you use. Velox used to be the touchstone ('til they stopped sticking to rims) but they're linen and if they get wet they hold water and stay damp. This may encourage your eyelets to rust. Plastic ones don't and there are some reasonable ones now - e.g. Schwalbe, Bike Ribbon, Specialized.

The UK chose a car based transport system back in the 50's and 60's. blissfully ignoring the facts that there wasn't space for this in the UK and cheap oil was never an infinite resource. The collective stupidity that led to these decisions persists and has been reinforced by the pervasive car culture the UK's created for itself. The infrastructure to support other modes of transport have been systematically eliminated and would be very difficult (expensive) to even reinstate let alone make effective.

There's no way this is going to change. I'd guess the transport system will need to collapse completely (it's already failed) before anyone will seriously addres the issues involved in doing anything about it. I'm not sure they would then.

I can see both sides of this. However it just won't work very well in the UK. OK, in Germany utility bikes (but not Race or MTB) are required by law to have lights - so they all have them and dynamo hubs and decent lights are as common as muck. German utility bikes also always come with decent mudguards, carriers, stands, etc. etc. These aren't required by law - there's just a big market for sensible utility bikes in Germany.

I'm assuming that Chris is proposing a similar law to the German one so sports bikes (like the £99 clunker MTB from Halfords) will be exempt so I can't see it'd make much difference anway. You can't create a market for decent utility bikes in the UK by making lights compulsory. When that market exists it might be sensible.

If it's for all bikes then in the same way that people buying decent bikes want to choose the pedal system they use I guess they'll want to choose whether a light system's required and what type it is. Every time a buy a bike off the peg I end up changing the contact points (bars, saddle, pedals) to what suits me. I'd hate to have to pay extra for lights to join this list.

"The" is a model of bar and stem 3T make.

Basically all stems will be available to you 'cos they're all 1 1/8" and you use a shim to fit them to a 1" steerer. Many stems will come complete with the shim but you can get them separately.

To have the bars higher you can cut the steerer long and/or use a stem with a steep angle and fit it angled upwards rather than horizontal - most even have the graphics arranged so they can be 'flipped'.

Guys, thanks for the replies. Bodging or making the washers I think will be the last resort. I should have the SA ones in a day or two and I'm optimistic they'll do the trick.

Hubgearfreak, thanks for those links. They're not retailers I've come across before. One lists the i_Motion 9 fitting kit with the washers so this is a result. I'm often working in Germany or Switzerland but I'm marooned in the UK at the moment so can't go shopping. It's just so much easier to get useful bike stuff over there.

7_lives, these are my concerns exactly. The i-Motion hub shifter is a cable which exits the hub just inboard of the drop outs and the cable attachment fits to and arm with a slotted hole over the axle so any hub rotation would be bad news.

Thanks for the help - I'll post how I got round the problem when it's sorted.

Hubgearfreak, thanks. I'd found this but I can't find anyone who can supply them yet. Fishers do a lot of SRAM hub gear stuff but don't list these.

Interestingly this prompted me to go to the SA site - and they show 3 kinds of washers. 1 has an 7.9mm slot and the others a 9.5mm slot. I'd roughly measured the SRAM washers as 8mm (i-Motion) and 10mm (old SRAM). Fortunately from the Part No. the 7.9's are the ones SJS stock so I'll try those.

I'd be interested to know if you shared my concerns about not using tabbed washers.

Mark, it may be worth checking that the gear changer adjustment is correct. You'll need to find the right pdf on the Shimano website and check it out. I used to have a Nexus hub a while ago and I recall having to adjust the cable to line up 2 painted marks on the changer at the hub.

If it's not that then it's probably an internal problem. These hubs don't seem to have a very good reputation. If I recall correctly Sheldon Brown had some instructions for dismantling the hub and re-lubing it. This might help.

There don't seem to be many shops that know much about internal hub gears at all.

Sorry this isn't much help, maybe someone else has got something more useful.

I need some help from you guys with lots of Hub gear knowledge.

The rim on my Spectro 7 hub wheel finally expired - eaten by V Brakes. Because I hardly ever used all the gears and the click box was a nuisance with the short chainstays (heel clearance) I got an SRAM i-Motion 3 hub built into a new wheel.

The i-Motion 3 doesn't come with tabbed washers, just some heftily ridged flat ones. I'm not too happy with this (I used to bend axles before freehubs arrived) and would rather fit it with them. But it's proving hard to find some tabbed washers to fit.

I need some washers with the tab at either about 90 degrees or parallel with the flats on the axle so that I can run the gear cable up the seat or chain stays. I tried to use the washers off the old Spectro hub but the axles on S7, P5 and T3 hubs are 10.5mm and the new i_Motion hubs are 10mm so there's too much free rotation in the washer. Fishers list lots of SRAM Hub spares but not tabbed washers for i-Motion hubs.

I've tried Shimano Alfine 8 washers. Not good - the hole needs some filing for it to fit but they're also very, very thick and don't leave enough thread for the wheel nuts.

Does anyone know where I could source some appropriate tabbed washers?

Does anyone know what size Sturmey Archer/Sun Race axles are?

Am I just being too cautious anyway - do I really need them?

Is the i_Motion 3 up to the job anyway - should I have got a T3?

Would really appreciate any input anyone has.

I emailed cateye several years ago about fitting a AU100 to the mudguard. They said they didn't recommend because of the weight. Not sure I'd pay much attention to this though - perhaps it's just safer for them to say no.

Lots of quality B&M, Schmidt stuff is available quickly and cheaply from Germany (e.g. Bike24 and Roseversand). I guess retailers here are shafted by the import agents. I went to my LBS to get a 3N80 dynamo hub recently. They couldn't get one 'cos Madison won't import any 'til they've got rid of all their 3N71 hubs first. So I got one from Roseversand - the price was less than the 3N71 in the UK. Took several days and the postage for the whole order was about £5.

I've got one of the JOS mudguard lights - does exactly what it says on the packet.

DaveP,

SRAM hub gears come with a variety of OLN dimensions so check (www.sram.com) on the model you're going to use.

If you use a frame with vertical drop outs you'll need to tension the chain by:
- eccentric BB
- finding the combination of Chainring and Sprocket size that gives the right tension (a half link - hard to find -in the chain might help)
- a chain tensioner, SJS list a couple, Shimano make one for Alfine.

For most hub gears you'll need to use tabbed washers to stop the hub turning in the frame in the indirect gears.

Captain Morgan wrote:Let's see if I can try to summarise what I think stoobs has been saying (no promises at all)

Basically, things don't bend a bit and then snap. Either they get knocked very quickly or in such a direction that they snap immediately (brittle fracture), or they bend as far as they can and then snap/tear (ductile fracture).

A helmet may break as soon as it has hit something, in which case it's absorbed next to no energy and has "failed".
Or it can absorb all the energy it can within the polystyrene and then the helmet may break or not, depending on the accident.

I believe stoobs's point is that a helmet breaking doesn't mean anything about whether the helmet's worked or not. And moreover that you have to be careful to check what you've read, because a lot of people out there spout bad science.

This particular result doesn't add a lot to either side of the arguement/battle I'm happy to say.

Have I got the gist stoobs?

I think I agree with all that. Be very interested about how it works out in practice. Very difficult to estimate or test this. To me Stoobs seemed to be saying that they only failed after they'd after they'd absorbed all they could - which seemed incredibly optimistic. Maybe it's not what he meant.

Chris is right, try http://www.roseversand.de

Going down to 1.5 or 1.75 from 22 is going to be OK. Schwalbe tyres are good - I've just replaced a pair of Marathons after using pretty much daily for 3 or 4 years (commuting) them for. I'd had 1 puncture with them. When I'd taken them off I looked at them - there were many cuts in the tread and quite a few bits of embedded glass and flints - obviously they couldn't penetrate the carcass. I've replaced them with Marathon Plus'es which are even more puncture proof (cowers in fear of the puncture fairy!).