Cycling UK Forum

If I persevere a little reon2, I could probably devise a front mudflap that was effective without risking the mudguard (sheepdogs are not often a problem – and it was one that I knew well!). In my experience they don’t actually need to be that close to the ground to keep one’s feet and chain wheels fairly dry.

The rear mudflaps I really do have problems with though. Even quite short extensions to the mudguard do certainly help protect people behind, a fair bit. However I find that even on my “road” bike if the mudguard comes even as far round as the spindle, I break them in short order at some point.

As for the MTB, well it is just not even a consideration – it goes to muddy places, I get muddy. Just keep clear! I do use mudguards on it but they are quite short and a long way from the wheels. They keep most of the mud out of my face and a great deal from my back. Even these sometimes cause problems. Only a few days back, on top of a hill in wet sticky snow the amount of ice going round caused my wheels to jam. That is pretty rare though.

I think it is very much a "courses your bicycle is going over" question.

The bike I most often use across the hills round here is configured very similarly to Andrew_s's. However if I had a rear mudflap, let alone one that long, it would very quickly be disasterous. I need to be able to easily wheel the bike on its rear wheel so that I can traverse places like narrow bridges etc. the width of my shoulders and hips. Doing that the flap will either get ripped off when I tread on it, very likely wrecking the mudguard and causing me to overbalance or else trapped under the wheel - pretty much same result. The front one got ripped off by a sheepdog a number of months ago, this saved it getting ripped off on a step - like a kerb.

So highly desirable for following riders and to keep your chainset and feet dry, but I find, not really practicable.

[quote="...also 25-30mph is rather fast for a bike?[/quote]

Only if going up a hill

I have a rear SKS mudguard on one of my bikes where I had the misfortune of a stick carrying round in my wheel which ripped out the rivets fastening the stays to it. This is now fastened with a little bit of fairly fine wire twisted and crossed over the guard and round the edge of the bridge. I have a spare mudguard but this has worked well for many miles now. Not so sure this is better than original but it works as well.

I have a front deraillieur that got bent and mangled when a broken chain ( Shimano - never again, two in one month) picked it up bent it and broke one of the parrellelogram hinges. I was a long way between places in the mountains at the time. I reformed it with a pair of pliers and fixed the hinge with a piece of copper wire that some kind telephone engineers had discarded. completely as a get me home measure. I have another deraillieur to fit but this has now done thousands of miles and is probably stronger than the original hinge.

It is private property with a public highway over it.

meic wrote:

I just noticed the post above. Car parks if they are for public use, such as supermarket parking are in fact clearly public highways.

Not at all clear to me, they are private land which the public have access to by permission of the owner. That doesnt make them a public highway, the owner can tell you to get out, deny you access and obstruct your way as much as he likes. I think that the law even has a separate description of such areas as being included in addition to public highways when requiring motorists to have insurance.

It has been extablished by precedent that a shop or other business inviting customers to their premises who are not allowed to discriminate as to who visits, even if their shop is on a privately owned access, are causing that access to be a public highway. Notwithstanding that they could discriminate against someone during or after their visit because of behaviour such as shoplifting.
This is not the case for say, country clubs or golf courses where at the entrance clearly displayed is a "members only" or some such dicriminatory sign.

And yes if using a motor vehicle you do need all the usual qualifications with the exception of vehicle duty.

It will take me ages to dig out the actual cases but I think you will find them very quickly by googling.

Thankyou MrJ ^^ I was about to look it all up again, I have it on another harddrive somewhere, it is part of what I needed to know as a transport operator in the past.

The main point being of course, that it is a code that all of us who use vehicles are required to know and if we apply it all the time when we are using one it is a great help in safely negotiating our way round each other with as little impedence as possible.

As I also indicated even on private property where the public are not allowed such as within quarries or on farm operations it is a great aid to safety. Even in the middle of a field you haven't got time to mess around wondering if the man in a 20 ton tractor and trailer coming the other way is going to pass left or right and the results of mistakes are disatrous. One just wants to get on with making money - fast. . .

So; have no doubt:- use the highway code.

Saying all that clearly using shared use paths we are going to be mixing it with other cyclists, who being vehicle users should know (or be learning) the highway code. So if they use it (highway code) our uncertainty is down to pedestrians and we have to accept that that is part of sharing the use. Which is often complicated, as others have said, by the fact that some sections of path often do amount to linear parks in the way that they are used. This coupled to the uncertain and often maverick design features is part of what we have to cope with on them.
So in my view very good for the "scenic" route sometimes and good for diddling along with children but if you actually want to get somewhere usually of very limited use.
So considering sustrans aim of linking communities for commuting, shared use facitlities are at present an incredibly poor idea. They need a lot more very carefull thought put into their design and layout.

I just noticed the post above. Car parks if they are for public use, such as supermarket parking are in fact clearly public highways.

In fact their is no need for a great long debate about this as the situation is perfectly clear.

A highway is anywere the public can go by right rather than privilege and the highway code applies to highways.

However pedestrians, as according to our christian heritage, are moving as god intended and may if they are aware of it follow the advice in the highway code if they choose, but are not obliged to. They also (at least theoretically) take precedence over all other traffic.

I think that especially on the clearly very often too narrow shared use paths one can sometimes expect traffic jams, just as on any other highway.

What I find far more troublesome and dangerous is other cyclists not obeying the highway code especially KEEP LEFT which is an obligation not a choice. Also I have had close encounters with cyclists disobeying this rule as well as disobeying the rule concerning showing lights from sundown till dawn when using them.

Personally I avoid such highways pretty much always because of this (and also other issues such as bollards as discussed elsewhere) unless they take me on a route that I particularly desire.

As a side note; as a person who has/does drive vehcles in off road or private property situations the health and safety demand is that the highway code should be followed at all times - so that we all know what we are doing.

I notice that according to google translate it takes; "102 bikes and 16 normal children" !!!!

I don't think you are cycnical. I was given a direct link to it by B.C. a number of days before C.U.K. brought it to my attention.

That is IMV a circular argument though Rick. The points you raise do not in my view arise from the name but from the way that the charity is/is not promoted. This will not be solved by changing the name but by the way that the charity reaches out.
The (proposed) name change not only is short sighted, expensive, forseably short lived and zenophobic (quite apart from other issues about the way it is occuring) but is also not at all easy to distinguish from BC, which always has had a considerable overlap with the CTC and now, to a person who knows little of the cycling world is pretty much identical.
This name change goes a long way towards divorcing the CTC from it's heritage, which IMV should be used to indicate a long standing organisation that can show its long standing and stable commitment to cycling and the authuority and knowledge on the subject that it has accumulated. Which to put it in a fashionista way, is one of its most powerful "branding" points. The point that you make about others new to cycling not knowing this, is not because of the name but because of the mis-managed way that the organisation has been promoted. This coupled to the diminshment of the (former) club services, which are now absolutely negligible - some of which I have mentioned above amounts to a corporate hijack (as I also mentioned above). The whole organisation is in great danger of going the same way as the RAC and AA as has been explained above.
If the "rebranding" effort had been spent on promoting our interests at all skillfully, we would not now be members of an organisation which is becoming increasingly ridiculed in the cycling world, for wasting our time and money on pointless efforts.

In short, the "club" has been hijacked by sharp movers who wish to acheive self agrandisement, more power, larger paypackets, and a career, in the same way that the RAC and AA were (apparently as above). They have taken advantage of the weakness that we had in the organisation of our "club" and made the most of it. They have turned their back on providing "club" services such as the technical advice, very ably provided by Chris Juden, by kicking him in the teeth. They have (especially noting this weeks "cycle clips") turned their back on the CTC travel agency (the worlds oldest travel agent) which provides a specialist service for cyclists, as well as for the general public. This was as I understand the only part of the "club" which made a profit. They have turned their back on a brand - the CTC - which as I have said before, is potentially so strong that the likes of Coca Cola would be jealous. In short they have absolutely taken the micturate out of the ethos of the CTC.

Cycling UK is now IMO a mediocre campaign group which is psycophantically "sucking up" for government money, and even more substantially overlaps with BC, which has now become a far more effective campaign group - keep your eye on the national press, who is it that gets mentioned the most? I think they have made the CTC no more than a ridiculed organisation.

Personally despite being a third generation CTC member I shall not renew membership but will instead join BC for the insurance and group ride benefits and the TOURING CYCLISTS CLUB in the hope of regaining membership of a member led club providing services for ordinary cyclists. I hope that in the future we will be able to wrestle the CTC name and heritage from these fashion led unethical carreerists, who have "stitched" us up so badly.

Of course you are quite right Brucey, don't know what I was thinking of.

Point being they both have the same angle of taper and the same spindle diameter. I have found a number of times that they do very satisfactorily swap round, with the proviso that when using the type which comes to a smaller cross section one sometimes needs a shim aka large holed washer round the inside of the crank so that it tightens properly. I find that the copper washers used to seat the injectors on a number of diesel engines ideal for this.

It is of course best to have the right parts, but if the axle length etc is right then no reason not to use it as is. I don't think it is very likely that a carbon steel spindle will be at all reshaped by even the best aluminium crank tightened on with only 1/2ton or so, must be around that with the 3/8" - 8mm bolts/nuts that are used.

No doubt worth mentioning that last time I was playing with them, SJS cycles could offer quite a selection. Cheap, but I'am still using one of them five years and over 15,000 miles later, looks as if it will keep on keepin on for sometime yet as well.

Also worth noting that Campag cranks use (I think) a 2 1/2 deg. taper - so typical Campag, they only fit Campag.

Seem to be some good suggestions and advice here. As others have said they are available for Left or Right mounting. Maybe worth knowing that this does not mean to the Left or Right of the bike but mounted with the fork or stay to the left or right of the dynamo.
As mentioned above, I also prefer them mounted on the rear stay. This stops you from being sprayed with the fine mist that can come off them when using them in the rain. I also find that mounted behind the rear stay they fit comfortably under my rear pannier rack, this has the dual advantage of protecting them when leaning the bike against things and also makes them more unobtrusive, particularly when mounted on the chain side - which is the side I normally lean the bike. I find my panniers fit over them with no problem although this does make it a little fiddly to turn on.
The gentle magnetic whine- which occurs when magnetic fields cut across each other and due to the speed that these dynamos turn is audible (if you work it out you will find that a hub dynamo turns at only about 350Rpm at 20Mph)- helps Badgers, Foxes and other wildlife to know my position better, when they are conffuddled by the light. I find it also has the advantage of making pedestrians look round to see what the unaccustomed sound is, very useful on shared use paths.
I have heard good things of the AXA dynamos as well, although I have never used them.

Both ISO and JIS have an eight degree taper on the axle. The JIS one comes down to a slightly smaller cross section. If you have an ISO crank then fit a small shim like a pedal washer round the inside of the crank but this may not be needed. The other way round it fits together anyway.