Cycling UK Forum

Trust me, it works. The sekrit to the dilemma is in the op’s choice of saddle. I use a Spa Nidd (B17 clone) and as such it has a metal horseshoe at the rear, meaning the saddle has to go back 10mm ish further than a plastic padded saddle, otherwise sitting on the rivets gets painful. Ditto C17, different material and cantle plate, but same design. All those doubters,… move your saddle forwards by 10-12mm then try.

Try pushing the saddle back that extra 5 mm, it can make a BIG difference, before you buy another post.

I would also suggest moving your brake levers in as far as they will go, to the bend, then trimming off the excess length of the bars could be nearly 2 inches each side. That would reduce your reach / stretch, especially if you have shoulder pain. But maybe do it in 1/2 stages, ie 1” just to try.

Well , It's nice and hot today, so I wheeled Olive out into the sun for 1/2hr to warm up the saddle nicely (Spa Nidd), and then proceeded to smear Olive oil over the leather of the seat, let it soak in,then do it again, and now its slowly sinking in and drying off. I do this about 2wice a year, when the leather dries out too much, have done for past 5 years ish. Saddle is prob about 10 years old plus by now, with...Ooooo, must be over 70,000km on it.

What about a Mystique?

^^^^ agree with this. The Police cyclist at the rear , was , considering that he had the WHOLE lane to play with, was well out of position, may be needs to take a ‘cycling proficiency test’ . He may ride a bike, but me thinks he’s not a proper cyclist. Totally agree it’s a bit trumped up. Jeremy does always appear to be a bit of a whinger.

IMG_2424 by mark tilley, on Flickr


Showing the disparity of 150 years of engineering.

I’ve had this and it wasn’ the BB. Stand around the front of the bike, facing the rear, with the front wheel between your legs. Bend over and put your forearms on the bars at the farthest most point front the stem, ie the bit before the brakes, and then push down, each side , alternately, quite hard and see if it clicks. Move the bike forward 1/5 revolution and repeat , then repeat. I found the 2 spokes on the front wheel were clicking loudly, where they cross in the middle, every time the wheel was loaded at a certain point, ( ie out of the saddle/ uphill, but not normal riding) Took me months to track it down. Thin piece of card between the spokes cured it on a test run, so emery cloth and a spot of grease cured it for good. Alternately a thin piece of card between each spoke and try it, if it stops remove one at a time.
But heavy clanking is likely to be BB related.

I’m assuming this was a sort of hostel, for cyclists passing through, that was in fact an old home, rather than a “home for old cyclists”

A chum of mine fell of a ladder, and broke his hip, he now rides with the saddle ‘skew whiff!’ , and he sits slightly to one side of it.
Regarding ‘ sores and pimples’ I seem to get these, and find they are short related, in that the ‘spots’ seem to occur where the stitching of the pad to the shorts occur, just under the buttock cheek, as the stitching is often quite course, and doubled up for strength. I’ve completely gone off padded shorts, the thick ones anyway, and try to get minimal padding. I find the extra wad of padding absorbs sweat, and causes a slight numbness as well, as it bunches up and is like sitting on a slightly higher saddle. I really can’t see the point of all that mass of padding anyway, what’s it for, surely your bum has to get used to the saddle anyway, other than a ‘chamois’ liner for racing, folks never used to bother with such things, are we all now too wussy!, especially as most saddles are padded anyway. I use a Spa Nidd btw, well used now, and I softened it by applying olive oil with my fingers , on a hot day, and leaving it in the sun. Did this 3 times, and periodically now. During lockdown , my spot situation got quite painful, to the extent that I bought a recumbent. Problem solved, I now have 2 tourers.

Why did you pack in last time?

the other day i was tinkering with my recumbent, and got chain oil on my Decathlon over shorts, a sort of buff/black colour. So I sprayed the oil with GT85 and wiped it with a clean cloth. A few times and the oil was gone.

I wonder if the lorry driver actually thought he was right. As you probably know in France , cars emerging from a side road have right of way on to a main road, as long as the side road has no stop markings. I wonder if this is the case in Poland. No excuse for what he did though, as he is in this country now.

If you have cycled with bare hands exposed to the sun, it could be heat rash/ prickly heat. Google for some photos, and see if it’s that.