Cycling UK Forum

You can certainly fit a smaller tyre - down to say 700 x 28C, without problems: you have to be sure it has the "700 x" somewhere in its description. A smaller tyre will give you less rolling resistance on roads but not so smooth a ride off-road. Less than 28C would probably not fit properly, your rims are likely to be too wide.

If you go for a larger tyre, you have to check clearances - make sure the tyre won't foul any part of the frame or forks etc.

When choosing inner tubes: most of them are marked with a range of cross-sections e.g. "700 x 28-35C". All you have to do is pick one whose range includes your tyre size. E.g. for your present tyres, that size would be OK, but "700 x 23-28C" would not be. Make sure also that the valve type is the same as your existing tube, Presta (the long thin one) or Schrader (the short fat one)!

You seem to be having difficulties with patches. Perhaps you could explain in more detail? Was it indoors or at the roadside - and what sort of patches did you use?

My first thought, on reading your OP, is that if you are even considering a 22 mile e/w commute - or a 15 mile one on main roads - you are the one with the experience! I am getting the willies about the prospect of an increase to a 10-mile commute (at present it's a paltry 2 miler), even if it would be fair-weather only , on quiet almost level roads, and with both the car and a rail link as backup.

It is true that, about 7 years ago (when I was in my mid 50s) I did a regular 17-miles each way round trip at night, for almost a year - but it was only one day a week, again mostly level, and I had the car as backup...

If you do a few trial runs, you will surely discover for yourself whether you are up to it. Good luck!

Does anyone know how to persuade the local Council to install a depth gauge at a location which is rather prone to flooding? I'm thinking of the sort of thing you see at fords, or other flood-risk places, like the one you can see here.

The locality I'm interested in is here: we often cycle past this spot, but not today: the road was under a good foot of water, possibly two feet, and very muddy and murky: no way of telling how deep without 'experiment' I don't fancy a cold bath nor risking damage to hubs/bb! We've been caught out at this same bridge before today: it's obviously a flood-risk location.

I'm particularly interested because this spot might be on my commute, later this year.

thirdcrank wrote:A lot of people who get a bit of recognition in the Honours Lists have done their fair whack of otherwise unrecognised volunteering at a local level. IIRC, it was John Major's govt which decided that their appropriate award would be the MBE, rather than the BEM. I noticed this time round that the BEM has re-emerged for these salt-of-the-earth (plebeian ?) type of folk. I'm not a regular reader so I don't know when or why this happened.

I see that Mr Ho-Ho is now Sir Bernard Ho-Ho.

According to Wiki, BEM's (which were for ordinary plebs like us, as opposed to the rich or famous) were presented not by the Queen but by some underling. Major declared "let us be classless" (or words to that effect) and hey presto! converted all the BEMs by the process of a simple anagram, into MBEs, which were conferred by HM. Increasing her workload somewhat!

I suppose HM got a bit tired of all that shaking hands with the Great Unwashed (not to say plebs), so the govt of today decided to change them back into BEMs. See also here for a bit of insight...

Sergeant Major Brittain paraded his tin soldiers to the sound of distant drums Bag pipes and YouTube 'Downfall' parodies. The trouble was the sock colour regulations which forbade mixing dayglow colours with invisible black. However, the soldiers all wore fishnet helmets and tin plate medals held together with solder and Bostick, so they rationed elastic bands with Green Shield stamps - enough to purchase a super soaker for pre-Christmas delivery in preparation for The End Of the Christmas Panto.

"He's behind you! Cometh Nibiru Apocalypse!" "Oh no it is!" shouted Marmaduke Hussey fairly quickly. "One, Two, Four! "Shut that door"

"Three, sir. Three." "...point one four..." - splat - "Custard Pi!" acclaimed 3.14217 abruptly.
[NO! It's 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679... ]. A vicious circle said Pythagoras who knew his stuff. "The square of the hippopotamus equals a river horse." divided by the sons of squaws wearing polkadot wellies, for the raindance. Brolly tangos notwithstanding, the River Dance cuckoo flew over the rainbow to the Yellow brick ablutions hut and removed every stitch of badly sewn Poncho hem lines before vulcanising them. "We love rubber!" Butylmercaptan, the smell! "Couldn't afford myrrh." Frank, incensed about gold cards from Wisemans, looked sheepish as he opened the shepherds pi.

"Merry Christmas!" cried the three wise monkeys, drinking beer spiked with pure rosemary and time at Scarborough Fair. Parsely and Sage and Onion stuffing were following behind the leftover turkey scraps and hamster chow. But when the bell tolled the sextant told them, their latitude, attitude and general course of direction replaced the davis quadrant.

Captain John Davis shouted "Quadrant! FOUR!!!!" on the Back-staff hyphens ruled supreme leader of North.

Vorpal's four words echoed through the annals of miscounting. "Following Mick's examples?! Oh.... Er... right."

"And innumerate hamsters", ready to microwave Norwegian Blue parrots and Cornish pasties with crimped shortcrust needed more seasoning and bull's eggs, "should be seared in Stork margarine", said Fanny Craddock. Don't forget theatrical agents like cake, chips and...

"Never microwave pasties!!" Gasp, Shock, Horror, time-travel, causality paradox,

Sergeant Major Brittain paraded his tin soldiers to the sound of distant drums Bag pipes and YouTube 'Downfall' parodies. The trouble was the sock colour regulations which forbade mixing dayglow colours with invisible black. However, the soldiers all wore fishnet helmets and tin plate medals held together with solder and Bostick, so they rationed elastic bands with Green Shield stamps - enough to purchase a super soaker for pre-Christmas delivery in preparation for The End Of the Christmas Panto.

"He's behind you! Cometh Nibiru Apocalypse!" "Oh no it is!" shouted Marmaduke Hussey fairly quickly. "One, Two, Four! "Shut that door"

"Three, sir. Three." "...point one four..." - splat - "Custard Pi!" acclaimed 3.14217 abruptly.
[NO! It's 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679... ]. A vicious circle said Pythagoras who knew his stuff. "The square of the hippopotamus equals a river horse." divided by the sons of squaws wearing polkadot wellies, for the raindance. Brolly tangos notwithstanding, the River Dance cuckoo flew over the rainbow to the Yellow brick ablutions hut and removed every stitch of badly sewn Poncho hem lines before vulcanising them. "We love rubber!" Butylmercaptan, the smell! "Couldn't afford myrrh." Frank, incensed about gold cards from Wisemans, looked sheepish as he opened the shepherds pi.

"Merry Christmas!" cried the three wise monkeys, drinking beer spiked with pure rosemary and time at Scarborough Fair. Parsely and Sage and Onion stuffing were following behind the leftover turkey scraps and hamster chow. But when the bell tolled the sextant told them, their latitude, attitude and general course of direction replaced the davis quadrant.

Captain John Davis shouted "Quadrant! FOUR!!!!" on the Back-staff hyphens ruled supreme leader of North.

Vorpal's four words echoed through the annals of miscounting. "Following Mick's examples?! Oh.... Er... right."

"And innumerate hamsters", ready to microwave Norwegian Blue parrots and Cornish pasties with crimped shortcrust needed more seasoning and bull's eggs, "should be seared in Stork margarine

A somewhat unusual venue.
The station cafe at Isfield Station on the Lavender Line, a heritage railway about 5 miles from Lewes in Sussex. Not to be confused with the much more famous (and expensive!) Bluebell Railway a few miles away....

The cafe on the platform serves nice large mugs of steaming tea, and delicious home-made cakes. You need to check beforehand on opening times: see the website:
http://www.lavender-line.co.uk/photo_ga ... allery.htm
but they're open most Sundays. I don't know if they can manage large groups. You need to get onto the platform to visit the cafe: normally there's a platform admission charge but if you tell them, you're going to the cafe, they'll usually let you in for free. Decent bunch of guys they are, all volunteers, running the railway!

And of course you can always take a ride if it grabs you! The railway can't compare with the Bluebell - it only has a mile of track and one station, not all trains are steam, but it's a lot less touristy! I doubt if they allow bikes on the trains, but since it's a there-and-back trip you wouldn't want to...

Note: don't confuse the station cafe with the Laughing Fish pub next door. We haven't tried the pub so can't report on it. To get into the station go along the service road to the right of the pub.

It depends.
It is only legal to cycle on the pavement when it is marked up as a designated cycle path (shared use or split down the middle, etc.) In other words the blue-and-white cycle symbol must be present - whether on its own or alongside a pedestrian symbol. This law applies to everyone - children are not exempt though they cannot be prosecuted up to a certain age (??)
it may be that the police are adopting a blind-eye policy in certain areas. Certainly, around our way, I doubt if a single one of the dozens of 'offenders' I see regularly, has ever been 'spoken to', let alone prosecuted. But it is stricter in some areas.

I think cycle paths have their place in some situations, but am not at all sure about all this...

Rlj - Redlightjumpium: the unshaken belief that all electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of around 600 nm or greater, is in fact undetectable by the human eye.

Demonstrating to 661 junior (some years ago) how to remove a taper crank.
Using simple taper tool, something like this one. Nothing very complicated, see! I was talking through the operation.
1. Remove dust cap and unscrew and remove crank bolt from bottom bracket spindle.
2. Back off inner part of tool.
3. Screw outer part of tool into crank. Finger tight then just a touch tighter with big spanner. Not too tight.
4. Screw in inner part of tool until it touches b/b.
5. Apply big spanner to tool and screw it in hard, put some wellie into it, until.....
Ooohhh-errrh!!! What did I just do wrong???

I've bookmarked that!

Sm - Sorry Mate ..... etc. I think this (not very newly-discovered) element should go in the PSI section - the spurious belief that the person affected can see the entire area of road around him/her and has taken note of everything in it, when in fact they can't....

Sergeant Major Brittain paraded his tin soldiers to the sound of distant drums Bag pipes and YouTube 'Downfall' parodies. The trouble was the sock colour regulations which forbade mixing dayglow colours with invisible black. However, the soldiers all wore fishnet helmets and tin plate medals held together with solder and Bostick, so they rationed elastic bands with Green Shield stamps - enough to purchase a super soaker for pre-Christmas delivery in preparation for The End Of the Christmas Panto.

"He's behind you! Cometh Nibiru Apocalypse!" "Oh no it is!" shouted Marmaduke Hussey fairly quickly. "One, Two, Four! "Shut that door"

"Three, sir. Three." "...point one four..." - splat - "Custard Pi!" acclaimed 3.14217 abruptly.
[NO! It's 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679... ]. A vicious circle said Pythagoras who knew his stuff. "The square of the hippopotamus equals a river horse." divided by the sons of squaws wearing polkadot wellies, for the raindance. Brolly tangos notwithstanding, the River Dance cuckoo flew over the rainbow to the Yellow brick ablutions hut and removed every stitch of badly sewn Poncho hem lines before vulcanising them. "We love rubber!" Butylmercaptan, the smell! "Couldn't afford myrrh." Frank, incensed about gold cards from Wisemans, looked sheepish as he opened the shepherds pi.

"Merry Christmas!" cried the three wise monkeys, drinking beer spiked with pure rosemary and time at Scarborough Fair. Parsely and Sage and Onion stuffing were following behind the leftover turkey scraps and hamster chow. But when the bell tolled the sextant told them, their latitude, attitude and general course of direction replaced the davis quadrant.

Captain John Davis shouted "Quadrant! FOUR!!!!" on the Back-staff hyphens ruled supreme leader of North.

Vorpal's four words echoed through the annals of miscounting. "Following Mick's examples?! Oh.... Er... right."

"And innumerate hamsters", ready to microwave

Sergeant Major Brittain paraded his tin soldiers to the sound of distant drums Bag pipes and YouTube 'Downfall' parodies. The trouble was the sock colour regulations which forbade mixing dayglow colours with invisible black. However, the soldiers all wore fishnet helmets and tin plate medals held together with solder and Bostick, so they rationed elastic bands with Green Shield stamps - enough to purchase a super soaker for pre-Christmas delivery in preparation for The End Of the Christmas Panto.

"He's behind you! Cometh Nibiru Apocalypse!" "Oh no it is!" shouted Marmaduke Hussey fairly quickly. "One, Two, Four! "Shut that door"

"Three, sir. Three." "...point one four..." - splat - "Custard Pi!" acclaimed 3.14217 abruptly.
[NO! It's 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679... ]. A vicious circle said Pythagoras who knew his stuff. "The square of the hippopotamus equals a river horse." divided by the sons of squaws wearing polkadot wellies, for the raindance. Brolly tangos notwithstanding, the River Dance cuckoo flew over the rainbow to the Yellow brick ablutions hut and removed every stitch of badly sewn Poncho hem lines before vulcanising them. "We love rubber!" Butylmercaptan, the smell! "Couldn't afford myrrh." Frank, incensed about gold cards from Wisemans, looked sheepish as he opened the shepherds pi.

"Merry Christmas!" cried the three wise monkeys, drinking beer spiked with pure rosemary and time at Scarborough Fair. Parsely and Sage and Onion stuffing were following behind the leftover turkey scraps and hamster chow. But when the bell tolled the sextant told them, their latitude, attitude and general course of direction replaced the davis quadrant.

Captain John Davis shouted "Quadrant! FOUR!!!!" on the Back-staff hyphens ruled supreme leader of North

Vorpal wrote:I have on several occasions given directions to people that they could not follow legally. Because they were driving & I told them the route I would normally take.

You should be explaining to them, when they come to one of those ubiquitous CYCLISTS DISMOUNT ( ) signs, then is the time to get out of the car and push it!

dodger wrote:BUT - why this emphasis on Empire? What does it mean to be a Member of the British Empire etc?

We've still got a British Empire - sort of. At any rate, we've "got" (acknowledgements Wikipedia):

• Akrotiri and Dhekelia
• Anguilla
• Bermuda
• British Antarctic Territory
• British Indian Ocean Territory
• British Virgin Islands
• Cayman Islands
• Falkland Islands (arguably!)
• Gibraltar (arguably!)
• Montserrat
• Pitcairn Islands
• Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
• South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
• Turks and Caicos Islands

Quite a collection!

But I agree: most people can make up their own minds about who are the most distinguished members of our society, without needing to be guided by letters after or handles before the name.

It leads to social etiquette problems. I've noticed that on the (rare) occasions when I have actually met a Sir Somebody face to face, people (including me) tended to be a bit shy of actually addressing said person as "Sir <firstname>". Don't know why that is. But you can't go on calling them "Mr <surname>" and you certainly can't say "Sir <surname"! So you're either on first-name terms or you keep schtumm....