Cycling UK Forum

al_rypal wrote;

I am just at a loss to understand how piping hot food that's put in a properly prepared Kilner jar for a few days can harbour botulism?

cjchambers explained it very well some way up thread. My microbiology is about 30 years out of date and it was never my main subject.

The villain is the bacterium Clostridium botulinum which produces a very potent toxin.

Clostridium botulinum produces spores (as a means of surviving unfavouable conditions) and it's these spores which can survive normal cooking temperatures. The spores only produce the toxin when they start to grow and multiply. The spores will only grow and multiply in the absence of oxygen. They will not grow under acidic conditions, nor will they grow in the presence of high concentrations of sugar. So pickles and preserves are OK. For a similar reason ingesting food contaminated with the spores, apart from very young infants, would be harmless because the acidic conditions that exist in the digestive system prevents them growing. However for foods that need to be canned, C. botulinum is a real problem.

The canning process, once the can has cooled, provides just the anaerobic conditions that the organism needs and great care has to be taken that no spores can survive the process. Hence the need for the 3min at 121°C.

The availability of supermarket ready meals and home freezers has largely meant that home canning has all but disappeared as a means of preserving food. So, thankfully with it, have incidents of Botulism. If done properly it is perfectly safe but it's not easy to monitor on a diy basis. Given that the food is neither as palatable nor as nutritious as freshly prepared or indeed cooked and frozen food, it hardly seems worth the bother.

al_rypal wrote:

So...presumably you pressure cook everything you eat cooked do you? Must be very inconvenient. We don't even own a pressure cooker? How do you get on when camping?

Oh dear

I'm sorry al_rypal if my reply caused offence, it may have been a bit confusing.

Kilner jars are perfectly fine for pickles and preserves, where acidity or high sugar concentration give protection, provided, as you say, reasonable precautions to achieve sterility are taken.

For preserving other foods like stews and casseroles, home canning must be used. This involves placing the kilner jars and their contents in a pressure cooker and subjecting them to the heating cycle that I described.

I thought that this important point needed to be clarified.

al_rypal wrote

I think the theory of Kilner jars is that there are no bugs in the food because any bugs will have all been killed off by high temperatures during cooking before anything is put in them. You are also supposed to put the jar in the oven at high temperature before putting the food in to sterilise them. In that respect they are no different to a can. They are normally used for fruit etc, but I wouldn't be worried if I was eating a meat dish that had been intelligently preserved in one for a few days. One factor in bug growth is time, shorter time, fewer bugs.

The point is that spores of C. botulinum are not killed by normal cooking. You need to heat to 121°C for at least 3min. This means using a pressure of 1 bar or 15psi above normal atmospheric pressure. Domestic pressure cookers are pretty much at their limit for this type of operation. The difficulty is ensuring that the entire contents has seen the requisite temperature for the full 3min and at the same time preserving palatability.

With the advent of domestic freezers there really are better ways of preserving food. The fact that food born botulism is comparatively rare these days is a reflection that very little home canning is practiced.

With regards to having limited space between the braze on fittings restricting you to a 10 mm bolt.

You could fit a much longer bolt through from the outside so that it protrudes on the inside. Then secure the stays with a nyloc nut and washer. I did something similar with my front Low rider rack. Although I cut off the bolt head once installed and fitted nyloc nuts both ends.

It's worth running a tap through the braze on first.

Yes, it has a three position switch which is rather awkward to use:-

1 USB charging/Light off)
2 Light on automatic (twilight switch)
3 Light permanently on

I don't know if there is an output available for charging when the light is on, if you are going fast enough, as I've never tested this and I cant find the original instructions.

There were four alternative brackets supplied with it, all of which attach to the end of the mounting arm and then subsequently to the fork. Two of them have a single hole for fork crown mounting and the other two look to be designed to be fixed with self tapping screws.
I'm not sure I can download pictures on here but if you pm me with your E-mail address I will try and take some tomorrow and send them to you.

I've got an Axa Luxx 70 plus. I can't comment on the comparison with the B+M offering but I can confirm it's excellent quality and the USB charger works very well. It puts lots of light on the road where you want it. I can also confirm that it is designed for fork crown mounting and it is supplied with a number of brackets to allow for different forks and to avoid conflicts with straddle wires etc.

Whatever method you choose to attach it to your bicycle will need to be strong enough to support it and stop it vibrating. I doubt that a cable tie will be sufficient.

If you can't drill the brake brace I would suggest some form of handlebar mount.

As has been stated, there’s no shortage of B+B accommodation in Oban (Google is your friend)

In addition to the Jeremy Inglis Hostel there is also:-

http://www.corranhouseoban.co.uk/ and http://www.backpackersplus.com/


As for car parking, some information here http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=83453

I don't think you need have any fears. The roads are seldom busy in the Hebrides and if you are used to the pot holed hell of the rest of the UK, you're in for a treat. If you are worried just avoid the “rush hour”. I would be more concerned about the winds, especially where they spill off the tops of mountains. At one point on Harris last year, on a fast descent, three of us were blown right across the road.

It may be that not all polyurethane adhesives are created equal. I recall using polyurethane wood adhesive in the past to laminate a tiller for my boat. If I remember correctly it foamed as it cured. I cant recall the name of it but it may have been Titebond. I also seem to remember using an accelerator.

The stuff I linked to earlier up-thread is specifically recommended for bonding rubber.

http://www.mcnetteurope.com/files/products/4/technical/10116.pdf

I think it would be better at filling holes rather than glueing cuts. I also think it would be good for repairing holes in Ortlieb type panniers

reohn2 wrote

Yep I've tried it recently,it didn't last one ride,useless.

Can I ask what brand of polyurethane you used?

I've not used it for plugging holes in tyres but I have used it for dry suit repairs.

http://www.deepbluedive.com/aquasure.html?source=webgains&siteid=30155


The problem is, as you suggest, that if the cured polyurethane is significantly less flexible than the surrounding neoprene rubber the repair generally fails around the joint. It's not helped by the fact that most repairs are in high flex areas like knees. Significantly it's the neoprene adjacent to the joint that tears rather than the joint failing. I would think that it would work quite well on bicycle tyres.

It has limited shelf life once opened so, if you try it, buy the smallest tube you can get and store it in a refrigerator.

I think Evans are no longer selling the Jamis Quest but, although I can confirm it's a very nice bike, it fails to match your wish list on a number of points. Mine is 2008 model imported from USA before Evans were official UK distributors. I don't know about the current model but on my Quest there isn't clearance for 28mm tyres and although I've run crudracers with 23 mm tyres, I don't think there is room for conventional mudguards. It also has 130mm rear spacing and rim brakes. It does, however, have rack eyes.

I see that the Genesis Equilibrium is also on your list which is a similar bike to the Jamis.

If you are thinking of a bespoke build, Bob Jackson off the peg frames are well worth considering.
http://www.bobjacksoncycles.co.uk/default.php?cPath=28&osCsid=8rnh1k3reaevpkc26ccftvdrt7

Yes, I got an Android Tablet for Christmas and I've been playing with the Memory Map app.

In the context of this thread, which is about paper maps, its worth pointing out that, even if you don't use the gps technology, these devices offer a means of carrying a large library of maps and the means to view them on a decent sized screen.

Yes, access is from the A466. I was riding in the opposite direction but as far as I remember there is a good cycle track alongside the A466. At the other end of the bridge you arrive at the roundabout just below the Aust (now I believe Severn View) Services.

skicat wrote

I liken this to the driving equivalent of having a passenger with a map on their knee who is constantly moving their finger to reflect where you are.

The main difference, of course, is that the size of the paper map on your lap is limited only by the size of your knees but the size of the electronic map on the gps is limited by screen size. For accuracy the gps possibly wins out with the the unerring precision of satellite navigation, whilst the paper map relies on the map reading skills of your passenger.

My ideal gps would use OS mapping and have a minimum screen size of seven inches. Such devices are available for use in cars which have unlimited electrical power but are not yet a practical reality on a bicycle.