Cycling UK Forum

No family history of cycling for me. My dad bought me a bike when i was 14, my best friend's dad worked with a bloke who was a member of the local cycling club and they started a junior section around the time me and my friend joined. Lots of my school friends joined but most gave up after a few months. I loved the freedom of cycling and I kept it up, until I was the only one of the original group left. By that time I'd made friends within the club and just kept going. I raced, toured, did club runs, the whole shebang. I've now been a member of the same club for 40 years. I don't race much anymore but still do club runs and more and more touring as I get older.

My son always wanted to come cycling with me, from being small. When he was 8, I bought him a small Raleigh racer and started taking him out. He's now 25, an elite road racer and still loves cycling as much as I do.

There's a shop near me that doesn't sell bikes, they just build wheels and do repairs. They sell a few accessories, but their main business is repairs. The rise of the MAMIL means there seems to be a market for this type of shop.

http://www.nottinghambikeshop.co.uk/

Most neo-Mamils that I know are pretty clueless when it comes to bike mechanics, but are willing to pay to have even simple jobs done at the shop. A friend thought it was quite reasonable that his recent bike service cost over £200 including a few parts.

Bar end shifters will be indexed for 9 speed, so won't work well with 8 or 7 speed, though they may have a friction mode. I would go with the 12-27 road cassette that I suggested earlier. All Shimano cassettes with the same number of sprockets can be used on the same hub.

I would think that it will be a cassette wheel. If you take your wheel out and spin the sprockets backwards, if the metal ring in the centre moves with the sprockets, then it's a cassette/freehub. if it doesn't then it's a freewheel. If it's a freewheel. then you'll be struggling to get one in different sprocket sizes as they are not widely available.

You'll probably also need a new chain if fitting a new cassette.

Depends on the rest of your set up. Do you have down-tube, bar-end or STI shifters? 7, 8 and 9 speed cassettes have different spacings, so you'll have trouble getting indexed gears (bar-end or STI) to work.

If your wheel is a cassette wheel with a freehub, then 8 speed cassette will fit on the same space as the 9 speed. A 7 speed takes up less space, so you'll need a spacer.

When you say bottom 2 sprockets, do you mean the 11 and 12 or the 28 and 32?

If it's the latter, then I would go for a 12-27 cassette and stick with 9 speed. This will give you more usable gears in the middle range.

Why didn't you just buy a XD2? I bought one recently from Spa and I'm very pleased with it, especially as it was only 30-odd quid. As they say, it has the look of a much more expensive chainset. If your old rings fit, then use them as spares.

We did an organised tour to Cuba in March 2013, using hired bikes and luggage carried by the tour bus. However, we met several people who were touring independently and carrying their kit with them. We stayed in tourist hotels, but ate in small restaurants in people's houses called Paladars. Great meals with fresh seafood including Lobster, and fairly cheap.

Take plenty of spares for your bike - anything you might need as it's virtually impossible to get anything over there.
Take a sink plug. I never found one the whole time we were there. Take toilet paper and/or wet wipes and expect the plumbing not to work and toilets not to flush. They suffer greatly from the US embargo and can't get spares when things break.
Take sun cream, as it's very expensive to buy, if you can get it.

All of our party eventually succumbed to dodgy guts, so take some Imodium with you.

Don't take anything that connects to the internet - they don't have Wifi.

Don't bother taking credit cards. It's a cash society. There are a few cash points in Havana where you may be able to draw cash out with a debit card, but don't count on it. I tried to draw out cash on mine and it didn't work. Change your currency at the airport on arrival. don't rely on hotels or banks being able to change it. They often don't have any local money to give you.

I CUC is worth about the same as a dollar or about 70 pence. We were getting 1.4 CUC to the pound.

Most places have small B&B's called Casa's, where you can stay. We met a Canadian couple who were touring and staying in Casa's. The tourist currency is the CUC (Cuban Convertible Peso) and the local currency is the Peso. We used CUC exclusively and it's accepted in most places except rural shops off the beaten track. Beware if using CUC that you receive your change in CUC too and not in the local currency which is only worth about 1/10th of the value.

Never had a problem with the language and I only speak very basic Spanish.

I have Ortliebs but i use an Altura Fusion for everyday commuting. I like the Fusion but I think Altura have stopped making them.

There used to be a cafe on the Fosse way at Stretton on Dunsmore, but it closed down a few years ago. There's a pub and shops in Brinklow. The Fosse becomes a main A road again at Halford and gets busier, but I'd turn off here and follow the lanes to Winchcombe and Cheltenham.

If the OP still wants to go via Birmingham, from Derby i'd head towards Measham via Chellaston, Swarkestone and Ashby then along the old A453 (now bypassed by the A/M42) through No Mans Heath and Shuttington to just south of Tamworth. From there, it depends wherabouts in B'ham he wants to go.

Tape the brake cables to the bars with insulating tape before you start. If you have Campag or the new Shimano 11 speed, tape the gear cables to the bars as well. Apply the short bits of h/bar tape to the back of the brake/gear levers. Always start taping at the open (end plug) end and finish near the stem. Take care not to leave any gaps. If you make a mistake, you can undo the tape and redo that section. Cut the end of the tape into a spearpoint - this will enable you to get a neater finish. Finish off with either insulating tape or the supplied short bits of tape.

rogerzilla wrote:I tried it once or twice and it was terrifying. I need my ears to tell if a car is going to pass to closely. After a few decades of this you can place a passing vehicle quite accurately from the tyre noise, provided there isn't a strong headwind.

Cars have loud stereos and sometimes double glazing - yes. Cars also have rear-view mirrors.

How can you tell if a car is going to pass too close, just by the sound it makes? Surely, noise location isn't that accurate and a foot or two either way can make a hell of a difference.

And what do you do if you think one is going to pass too close? Brace for impact? Dive for the hedge bottom? Swing in to the kerb?

And if it takes 2 decades to hone this skill, how do we manage in the meantime?

I used to have a Rolls, but found it akin to sitting on a house brick. My son likes the san marco regal but has recently acquired a Specialised Alias, which he also quite likes. I'm about to buy a new bike and i'm wondering what saddle to put on it, but it won't be a Rolls.

TBH if you have OS bars, I'd go for the Profile Century's. You can always trade up later on, if you want something more exotic, and sell the old ones on Ebay. The Decathlon ones won't fit your bars.

I wonder if they are going to re-open the Grantham canal towpath, once the road is built. It's closed at the moment near Stragglethorpe crossroads. I often use the canal as an escape route from Gamston, if I go for a ride after work.

You can get this for £499:

http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php ... b0s21p1992

My wife bought a 49cm Dawes Horizon from Spa and they put a shorter stem on it so that it would fit her. Worth a visit to the shop in harrogate, as they'll let you test ride the bikes and will swap things like stems and saddles to suit.

I find it's waste of time rebuking drivers. It just makes you feel better, but it's the first step on the road to road rage.

I'd say, by all means, be more ascertive in your riding. I often move out to the centre of my lane to block a potentially dangerous overtake. I find if you give a motorist an inch, they'll take a mile. They'll push past given any opportunity, even if they end up in a queue 200 yards up the road.

One of things that really gets me is when we're out on a group ride on a narrow road and we've single out to let an oncoming car through and they don't even slow down, passing within 6 inches of you at 40-50 mph.