Cycling UK Forum

I've been knocked off twice in 40 years and 160,000 miles of cycling. I've fallen off a few times too, usually on ice, and had a few race crashes, but the danger from cars is more perceived than real IME.

I'm considering buying an Extrawheel trailer for camping trips. Has anyone used one? I'd be glad to hear any reports.

How to they compare to a Yak BOB trailer? Is there a UK stockist or is it mail order only?

Mick F wrote:

Brucey wrote:BTW if you are a low mileage user you already pay through the nose to run a car. If you do ~1000 miles a year, then between tax, MOT and insurance it probably costs you the thick end of £1 a mile before you put fuel in. If these other costs were made pro-rata to mileage, fuel would have to be incredibly expensive before low mileage users were disadvantaged.

VED is £200 for us and Insurance is another £200. We do about 4,000miles a year - even though the car only gets used a couple or so times a week - but we need it because there are no alternatives. Thats £400 for 4,000miles is 10p per mile just to own the car and not drive it.

I take it that people with lower mileages would pay more that 10p of course, but it gets to the point that a taxi is cheaper than a car.

We do 4,000miles at circa 40mpg so consume 100gals ..... ie 460L @ £1.35 per Litre = £621.00 just for fuel.
Add the £400 for VED and Insurance, and you get just over £1,000 per year to own and run our particular car in our particular situation.

How much would a Ltr of petrol cost if they did away with VED?
£2.35?
£3.00?

Assuming the average car pays £200 VED, does 10000 miles per year and 40 mpg.

Then they are currently paying 2p per mile in VED. If the cost was put onto fuel then the cost per litre would need to go up by about 18p.

10,000/40mpg = 250 gallons used
VED cost per gallon = 200/250 = 80p
VEd cost per litre is thus 17.6p.

So if you do 4000 miles at 40 mpg you are only using 100 gallons and your extra fuel cost would be £80 per year, so you would actually save money.

Yes, a shame that they are closing but I think that they can't compete with some of the German websites such as Rose and Bike Discount. I've bought 2 Ixon IQ's from Dotbike but they are now much cheaper at Bike Discount.

Does anyone still sprint for signs? As a club, we gave it up probably 20 years ago, though we still have a bit of a gallop for the cafe, so we can get to the front of the queue.

A lightweight tourer is also known as an audax bike. It's basically the same as your road bike with he ability to fit mudguards and racks and slightly bigger tyres (up to 28mm). A more heavyweight traditional tourer can take up to 37mm tyres, sometimes more and will have greater load carrying capacity and heavier, sturdier wheels. The trad tourer will have capacity for a front rack whereas the lightweight is likely to be rear rack only. If you are camping them I think you need a heavyweight traditional tourer - something like a Dawes Galaxy or Surly Long Haul Trucker.

There are variations. Expedition bikes are sturdier still and often have 26" wheels and the capacity for even fatter tyres.
Lightweights are a bit quicker, especially uphill, but a trad tourer can get up to quite a speed once you get it rolling.

It's mainly down to weight of the rider. I can out-freewheel any of my clubmates because I'm quite a bit heavier than them. Getting in an aero-tuck helps and things like tyres, etc make a small difference but weight is the main thing. This works against you going uphill though!

I rarely win our club freewheel comp because the hill has a double bend in it and I always have to brake, but i always "win" when we freewheel down long hills on club runs.

patpalloon wrote:Round our way the taxi drivers are dreadful. They will often drive very unpredictably, don't look, don't signal and on their phones. I give them a wide berth.

Not just round your way. I think taxi drivers must go to a special driving school to learn how to drive badly.

Decathlon do reasonably priced bike clothing and helmets and they are available all year round. They do both road and MTB styles.

If your cousin rides for GB, then surely he already has decent kit? If you really want to treat him then either Rapha or Assos are the top brands but they aren't cheap. You are looking at £200+ for a long sleeved jersey. Speciailzed S Works helmets are top quality.

Running out of gears on long downhills? How fast do you wish to go? I can get up to 50 mph without pedalling, even on local one mile downhills. Faster than that in the Alps.

jezer wrote:I hope that's so, but I recall when I was a BCF Commissaire in the early 90's there were many women only races on the calendar. They were hotly contested, but I'm not aware of any these days. Please correct me if I'm wrong

There's more than ever now. A lot of road race circuits (Hillingdon, Hog Hill, Gravesend) have their own women only races and they get fields of 40-50 riders.

My wife is a cyclist but she's not a member of any internet cycling forums. She's just not interested in discussing gear ratios and the like. She thinks that I "waste" a lot of my time on the CTC forum and can't understand what the fascination is.

Within our club we probably have 5-10 female members, but they almost exclusively ride on our Saturday easy ride. I think this is beacuse they can drive to the start, the route is all on minor roads or cycle paths, and we are only out for 2.5 hours including a cafe stop.

My wife does do the Sunday club run too, but comments on the amount of testosterone on display!

I bought a Planet X Phaart front light for a fiver. The light is still going strong but the bracket broke after a month.

My LBS (not the one I linked to earlier) doesn't help himself. He doesn't seem to open until 10.00am, he only opens 4 days a week (closed Sunday, Monday and Thursday) and he shuts at 4.00pm on Saturdays. He's been closed since Christmas Eve.

Contrast this to the Evans store in town. Open 7 days, open till 8.00pm weeknights.

Guess which one i spend more money at?

I have a pair of Oxford Gloves in Day-glo yellow, which are probably the best gloves I have in terms of keeping warm. They do get dirty quickly though, so I tend to reserve them for solo commuting and wear black gloves for group rides, where there's more muck flying around (even though everyone has mudguards, you still get sprayed with road muck). Decathlon have the Oxford gloves in the sale at £17.99 a pair. I paid £30 for mine.