Cycling UK Forum

For reasons of aesthetics, I want to try to destroy my very pricey titanium Tubus pannier rack by drilling a hole in it.

Okay, what I actually want to do is to hide the wiring to the rear dynamo light, and as the Tubus is hollow it has real potential.

It's already open at the bottom of the rack, but where's the best place to drill at the top/rear corner? At the back of the horizontal rail, at the top of the upright stay, or somewhere along the bend where the upright transitions to the horizontal (and if so, whereabouts?).

I know that drilling *anywhere* is going to compromise the strength of the rack, and it’s not got the greatest load capacity as it is. What I’d like to achieve is a hole in a position that compromises its strength the least.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/078O3J4G0p2CchIygiS8IGMaw

Looks like I can answer my own question with YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ56oQ9wuQ8

If cables can travel that way, the wire ought to be okay too.

My new bike is all set up for internal cables, which is how the disc brake hoses and gear shift cables are run. But I’d also like to run an internal cable from the front Dynamo light I’m fitting to the rear dynamo light.

Can I run the wires past the bottom bracket? I can see that there's enough room to do this - it’s a BSA threaded BB - but is there any risk to the cabling from the splines where the two halves of the crankset meet?

The alternative, using the top tube, runs into problems where the seat tube is filled with the seat post, so I’m guessing that the BB route is both standard and fine.

Driving standards get worse every time the clocks go back.

They just fail to get any better after everyone's got used to the clock change

Similar thing happened to me on last Saturday's group ride. I was about 500m behind the rest (courtesy of a dog running out in front of me, forcing me to slow right down and look for the owner). Very narrow lane, van clearly deciding to charge straight down the middle, but he stopped to F and blind (presumably because my mates had given him some lip for doing the same to them).

So he and his mate got out, more F ing and blinding (plus "road tax", obviously), before threatening to stab me! I made myself scarce at that point.

Some bloody nutters driving these days, and I will never again ride anywhere without a camera.

Have they reopened the cycle lane yet, Si? When I went past it last week, the cycle lane itself was barriered off by Amey's finest orange plastic

It wasn’t just the councillor; Andrew Mitchell MP was also complaining about that pop-up cycling lane (though at least he managed not to call anyone a pleb).

elPedro666 wrote:You must be capable of some serious wattage - was it the smell of burning rubber which finally alerted you or did someone else point out your smoke-trail...? [emoji38]

I was getting left behind by the group more and more as the ride went on. At one stage, I hopped off the bike to check all was well, but the wheels span fine (I now realise that it was my weight on the saddle that caused the problem, so of course I’d didn’t manifest when I was standing next to the bike. But it was a few hundred yards from the cafe, riding up an incline, when I felt myself getting slower and slower and slower until I could finally make no forward progress and realised “hang on, this is DEFINITELY not right." Until then I was prepared to blame my woes on a heavy meal the night before!

Galibier Roubaix Vision gloves for me. May not suit people who like a lot of padding, but they’re ideal for this time of year.

https://road.cc/content/review/116110-galibier-roubaix-vision-gloves

I have.

Made several changes over the standard fittings, though. For one, I filed/ground/cut both halves of the QR that clamps to the seat rails flat, getting rid of the original curved profile. That’s allowed me to put the QR clamp further back on the saddle rails. Yes, that’s taking a risk because it reduces the clamping area, and therefore increases the pressure n the rails. But they’re pretty solid.

And I also modified the stays that go to the rack mounting points, by threading the end of the stay and using a couple of M8 nuts on it. In part, that’s because I managed to strip the thread in the original Al fitting. But mostly it provides a stop that absolutely prevents the stay from sliding through the fitting - adding to the strength pretty significantly.

Note that this was all done because (1) the B17 has stupidly short rails, and (2) I had a couple of incidents where the saddle tilted backwards, pressing onto the mudguard which in turn pressed onto the tyre (and I thought I was just having a bad day, getting consistently dropped by the group; Nope, I was trying to ride with the brakes on!). The extra nuts on the stay make the bag support making contact with the mudguard pretty much impossible. Plus that second stay gets close to fouling the rim brake unless it gets significantly modified.

I don’t feel the need to use the second stay; this bike isn’t intended to be any sort of "load lugger" (if it was, I’d use a proper pannier rack).

At some point I’ll get around to tidying it all up, painting bits black, chopping off extraneous bits etc.





<edit> Less a garage, more a sort of bike workshop meets general dumping ground. One of my winter projects has to be getting rid of the junk and rubbish, reorganising the limited storage, and returning the space to car parking and woodworking area.

I had a similar problem to the OP - and that was WITH a two-bolt seatpost. I’d tightened the bolts up so much on one ride that it took a blowtorch to loosen them again, and STILL the ruddy thing tilted backwards.

I think I’ve sorted it. Instead of greasing the mating parts that were slipping, I’ve used coarse grinding paste. That gives the surfaces extra "bite".

(Though I made a few other changes too, as when it tilted back on that last ride it left the saddle bag pressing on the mudguard, which in turn was pressing on the tyre. Wrecked the mudguard, the tyre, and made pedalling ruddy hard work. That particular lightning bolt is NOT striking a second time.)

What's wrong with a good, old-fashioned bike spanner? Not going to be able to cope with anything that’s been out on "gorilla-tight", but can cover a lot of bases for a lot less weight than an adjustable wrench.

Having used both, I thought that it was the shape? The bluemels I’ve just taken off have a curved profile, mimicking the curve of the tyre; the chromoplastics are slightly trapezoid. The mounting hardware - stays, bolts and fastenings, bridge etc - were exactly the same. FWVLIW, I favoured matt black bluemels over chromoplastics.

Meanwhile, my replacement mudguards are being repeatedly driven round south London for the last two days, looking for an address that exists in north Birmingham. I’m hoping it stays dry tomorrow ....

I fully intend to try these Galibier mitts when my current mitts wear out and run out. Unfortunately I use Specialized BG 74 S Works mitts - I say "unfortunately", because I bought 5 pairs when they were being discontinued a few years back (cheaper than a decent cloth mitt would have been). And they last. I’ve probably cycled about 10-12,000 miles in them, and I’ve managed to wear out just the first pair (although I killed the second pair a couple of weeks ago by foolishly washing them in the washing machine Whoops. Now they’re a size too small. They should have been washed while wearing them with a very mild soap. But circa 6,000 miles in them meant that they were starting to honk something awful). So at the current rate of progress, I should need new gloves in about another 15-20,000 miles.

Of course, I tend to wear something a bit warmer in winter, and something even cheaper for commuting (leather "weight lifting" gloves. Under a fiver from eBay). The main problem I have is lightweight hot weather gloves; I love the Pearl Izumi unpadded pittard leather mitts, but I’ve destroyed two pairs in crashes (rather the gloves than the palms of my hands), I’m on my third pair - and almost certainly the last pair, as I just cannot find them in stock anywhere.

Why choose the Regale over the Campionissimo, by the way?

willem jongman wrote:So what would my minimum consist of? A light weight solo tent (1.8 kg including footprint), a Neoair and PhD bag (1.2 kg together), a change of clothing, and usually something warmer for the evening. For toiletries a minimalist micro towel, a toothbrush, and that is about it. For food I would probably first take a bowl of cold salad and some bread. If and when I decide I like this format I might get myself a Caldera Sidewinder alcohol stove and pot kit, to heat up some freeze dried meal and make some coffee.

Similar kit here. Originally "forced" on me due to the choice of Tubus Airy rack only really mounting front panniers, so I went looking for kit where low volume was even more important than low weight. Things like caldera cones and speed lite stove (it’s not often that the ultralight item is so cheap - under £4 for the stove); a cheap down quilt that compresses to 1.5L, flat sandles or flip flops for off the bike, tiny (and I mean tiny) USB head torch, and a tent that at 1.8kg is roomier than it has any right to be (Robens Verdin - a tent that proved to be so unpopular it was discontinued after just one season, leaving me to pick one up at half price; head room's lower than I would like, but it’s a small compromise when you’re paying £300 for something so lightweight).

I wondered how little I could get away with for a night or two, and found that there was plenty of space in a bar bag up front for the sleeping bag & mat, with everything else on the back in a Nelson Longflap.

I’ve used the Nelson for commuting for 5+ years now, but it’s usually overkill for that.