Cycling UK Forum

nirakaro wrote:My mate Barry, getting on in years, had bad knees.
Doctor told him, Your cycling days are over…
I bought quite a nice bike off him.
Few months later, another doctor told him,
Best thing you can do for those knees, ride a bicycle…
Barry bought a much nicer bike, never looked back.

That's how it's worked out for me too. First couple of years after I went back to cycling (five years ago) my knees hurt like hell, on and off - I could cycle, just, barely walk but couldn't run, but I persevered. Last year I'd get a twinge in my left knee if I overdid things, but now, touch wood, nothing. I'd spent my working life so far seated, so that wouldn't have helped, but I don't know how it works. I'm guessing some sort of calcification or whatever builds up over the years and it takes a while for it get worn back off and that's what hurts. I'm sure that's wrong, but it seems the second doctor was right, thankfully.

I've found saddle position is crucial - high enough and far enough back; while your knees hurt at least they tell you what's right. Also, I stand up far more than I did at first, but your heart and lungs need to be up for that. Funniest thing, though, in the first year I kept having to raise the saddle every few weeks to keep it at the 'right' height. I thought my seatpost was slipping, but it wasn't; I thought my legs were stretching, but they weren't. Turned out I was losing fat off my bum - I laughed out loud when I figured that out (two years later!)! Seriously, that's a big factor for quite a while, and if you don't keep raising your saddle to compensate you'll wreck your knees. I wasn't particularly overweight - 5'10" and just over 12 stone (although that's overweight for a cyclist). Within the first six months I went down to 10 1/2 stone - I could pull my (34") trouser waist band out and pass my fist between the waist band and my stomach - but then I still had no muscle. Now I'm 11 1/2 stone but still need a belt to stop my trousers slipping down. Should be 11 stone though, but the less you hurt the further you ride so that's my target for this year. I cycle everywhere for transportation, haven't had a car for five years, haven't used public transport for two, so I do the mileage. Trouble is, when you get seriously into cycling you also learn to eat!

This lady has ridden more (lovely) bicycles than I ever will. She currently has a custom titanium Seven road bike, a lugged steel 650B Randonneur (she built the frame and fork herself, with the help of framebuilder Mike Flanigan), a Mercian fixie, a Honey cyclocross, a vintage Humber, and a Pashley Millenium post bike (similar to Brucey's new acquisition) which she hopes to restore, but she doesn't have a car, and I think her 'go to' bike is still her Brommie:
http://lovelybike.blogspot.co.uk/2014/0 ... r-you.html

531colin wrote:To get off, kick your leg over the bars, not the saddle.

Like this, except in reverse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwlyWt7H7IA

There's one on ebay just now for £40, Brucey, if you're interested:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PASHLEY-POST- ... 4192419c09

Vetus Ossa wrote:

Des49 wrote:Some nice lugs on display here:-

http://redkiteprayer.com/2015/03/nahbs-2015-part-vi/

Now that man can braze, the chainstay bridge alone is a thing of beauty.

The same builder, Mark DiNucci, recently built a limited run of 74 frames for Specialized to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Allez - the frames were on sale for 4,000 US dollars, the proceeds going to World Bicycle Relief - he was one of the Allez' original builders. The chainstay bridge he built for these was beautiful:
http://www.specialized.com/OA_MEDIA/glo ... AME_V2.jpg
http://www.specialized.com/eg/en/news/latest-news/19793

You can read about what that build involved (sort of) in this thread on the Velocipede Salon, the framebuilders' forum, if you can be bothered wading through the ignorance and bad manners - it's best just to focus on the builder's posts. There was a lot more to these frames than meets the eye - I think it was like the lugged steel framebuilding equivalent of 'marginal gains'.
http://www.velocipedesalon.com/forum/f1 ... 38162.html

Steven Shand - Shand Cycles - showed some understanding and manners on the last page of the thread: "I spent the afternoon with Tom and Keith from Reynolds today and it's pretty clear that an extraordinary amount of work went into this bike. I initially thought it was a very nice, well executed lugged bike but after chatting today I started to pick up on some of the many design features executed on this frame that I didn't pick up on when I first saw it. Top work Mark and all at Specialized and Reynolds who were involved."

The Specialized Romin saddle was developed to address these sorts of problems, if it helps.
http://www.bikerumor.com/2011/12/08/evo ... er-minkow/
http://www.evanscycles.com/products/spe ... RRWidgetID
I've never tried one - couldn't afford it, tbh, unless it was a pressing issue (sorry! ) - although there might well be someone on the forum who has. AFAIK, Specialized dealers have what's known as an 'assometer' to establish what width you'd need.

There are good reports about Selle SMP saddles - the 'fit expert' Steve Hogg swears by them, although again they're expensive.
http://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com/bik ... bout-smps/

Trouble with saddles always seems to be, what suits one person doesn't necessarily suit others, so you have to try them, which is expensive, but I expect you know that, which is why you're asking. Good luck anyway. It takes away the pleasure if you're not comfy.

niggle wrote:Actually I am glad you mention this as I was too embarassed to ask! I cannot help feeling that a straight blade fork is going to be less compliant than a curved one, but have no idea whether this has any sound engineering basis. I guess other factors are tube dimension, tube wall thickness, profile and presence/absence of tapering.

The Geordie framebuilder Dave Yates has a fairly extreme view of straight forks...
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topi ... msg1208639
"Straight fork blades are the work of the Devil, evil devices that rattle your eyballs out. If you ride over a 5p coin you can tell whether it is heads or tails. Avoid like the plague if you want comfort. I always use Reynolds "R" curved blades."
...but many framebuilders (Steven Shand, for one) aren't so convinced.

Here's a very interesting discussion about the subject from the Thorn forum,though. It links to another discussion on roadbikereview and a contribution from Dave Kirk, framebuilder from Bozeman, Montana, who was formerly head of R&D at Serotta:
http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/forums/ind ... 9#msg23739
http://forums.roadbikereview.com/bikes- ... post276129
It's worth reading the whole thread on roadbikereview - Dave Kirk is a gentleman, with a very quiet, mannerly way of putting people down - as well as the thread with Dave Yates on YACF. Like I said, though, a lot of other framebuilders aren't convinced.

I think it was Colnago who first established that a straight fork flexes more or less the same as a curved fork (actually, I think their tests even found that it damped vibrations better), but experience and opinion still seem to vary. I prefer the look of curved forks, if nothing else.

CREPELLO wrote:The base of many an old fashioned ointment.

Yeuch! I think I'd keep the saddle sores! I can't even get my head around using stuff like vaseline or cocoa butter between my bum and my shorts.

The great framebuilder Richard Sachs swears by Vitamin E as a treatment for saddle sores - just prick the capsule with a pin then apply. I can vouch for its effectiveness myself - stuck an electric drill into my leg once - well, three times, actually - the first couple of times I went to pull it out I pulled the trigger again (as one does... ) - which left three holes and a big burn. Treated the wound with Vitamin E and it healed up quite well, eventually.

The orange All-City is a glorious colour and has elegant features - it's a real beauty - although what you said on the other thread about the welds...
http://www.pedalroom.com/bike/nacho-man ... hoto164210
http://www.pedalroom.com/bike/nacho-man ... hoto164213
http://www.pedalroom.com/bike/nacho-man ... hoto164205
Here's the owner's build list:
http://www.pedalroom.com/bike/nacho-mang-21580

It got a poor review on road.cc, although that was for a complete bike and not the disc version. Most of the criticism was about the weight/components, and there might be an element of the usual prejudice against steel, although note what they said about the integral gear hanger when it got bent...
http://road.cc/content/review/94199-all-city-macho-man

niggle wrote:I had my LBS install the headset on my Genesis Equilibrium, but it has alloy cups and they were also facing the bottom bracket for me or I might have had a go at fitting for myself - they only charged £20 for the two jobs. I remember seeing a convincing DIY method using threaded rod, nuts, washers and rubber door stops posted somewhere on the net.

A neat trick is to put the headset cups in the freezer overnight, to 'shrink' them, then tap them in with a soft-faced mallet. I tried it on a discarded aluminium frame (old worn-out steel cups) and it worked a treat. I'm Scottish and skint, though (a double whammy ) and you might not feel it's worth the risk of damaging a headtube to save a tenner.

The programme might be old, but I haven't had a TV for nearly six years now so that might explain why I hadn't seen it - thanks for the heads-up. Fascinating stuff - cycling + maps = p0rn for me. NIcholas Crane might be slightly-too-gushy, right enough, but he's a game lad (baulked at how he forded the river, though, flooding the bearings, probably - he should have carried it, like later on - Brucey and Colin wouldn't have been impressed!)

Here's what can be done with modern, high-tech machinery, though - and *words-fail-me* skills - for anyone who hasn't seen it. I found it on the 'farawayvisions' blog (the lady who writes the blog sometimes posts on this forum). Don't watch it if you're prone to jealousy...
http://www.farawayvisions.com/danny-mac ... skye-ride/
"It's cycling, Jim, but not as we know it," as dear old Spock might have said.

There was a legendary cyclist in Ayrshire called Davie Bell. Between the '30s and the '60s, he wrote a column for the Ayrshire Post called The Highwayman, which was a misnomer - he was off the highway as often as he was on it, and when he couldn't ride 'the machine', as he referred to it (he never told you what type or configuration it was, just called it 'the machine'), he carried it. It was before my time, of course, but some of his articles were compiled into a book after his death and published by the Ayrshire Post, and just recently someone donated a copy to the local library. There's a memorial to hm at Rowantree Toll, at the heart of Ayrshire cycling country, and there's been a Davie Bell Memorial Trophy road race for many years.
http://www.ayrroadscc.com/daviebell/biography.pdf
http://raleightwenty.webs.com/apps/phot ... =193784731

Also, there's a typically thought-provoking post just now on the 'Lovely Bicycle!' blog about surfaces.
http://lovelybike.blogspot.co.uk/2015/0 ... gs-on.html
Just makes you think, if your only bicycle was a flimsy skinny-tyred road bike, you'd be awful compromised.

Merry_Wanderer wrote:I wear either 'technical' boxer shorts or padded cycling shorts and I have found either to be comfy on my commute on a B17. I would like to try the boxers in a longer ride to see if they are as comfy.

I wonder about that myself. I've ditched the padded shorts recently and I've been wearing boxer shorts and long johns (don't laugh!) under my trousers. There is a school of thought that maybe two pairs of boxer shorts offer some padding but are less clingy and therefore work better than padded shorts.

Steve Abraham is running a Brooks B17 (standard, I think, not narrow) on his record attempt - you wonder what he's wearing. Back in 1939, Tommy Godwin was suffering crippling saddle sores until one of the female distance cyclists suggested ladies' silk undies, which proved to be just the job.

Not suggesting, though...

I'll second Psamathe's endorsment of Disconnect, although AFAIK it's only available with Firefox, Safari or Opera, not Internet Explorer (I might be wrong, though - you could always try and see). Nobody who knows ever seems to have a good word for IE; I used it for longest but lately I've used Firefox and I find it hard to fault. It sometimes crashes but I suspect that's due to my wheezy old laptop, not Firefox - it just seems to choke sometimes.

Disconnect also works highly effecively as an ad blocker. As I understand it, it doesn't block the ads as such; it blocks the trackers that create the ads. It's certainly the best and cleverest add-on I've ever come across. You wouldn't notice a difference on this forum, but go to the likes of Bike Forums (I go there too sometimes, but not often - honest! ) and you'd see a huge difference (although to be fair, these websites rely on ads to survive).
https://disconnect.me/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefo ... isconnect/

You could also download Piriform CCleaner. It's nothing to do with browsers, and I don't think it helps with SPAM, but it will delete all your cookies except those you elect to keep, and generally clean up your computer. It also has arguably the only safe registry cleaner out there, by all accounts, although even then cleaning the registry is not essential, and steer well clear of these otherwise. Here's a screenshot pre-cleaning (all those in the left pane will be wiped on cleaning):


To download it, click on the download icon under the 'Free' column:
https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download
Here's Piriform's advice for how to deal with cookies (AFAIK it now enables Intelligent Cookie Scan by default, which helps preserve your log-ins, etc):
https://www.piriform.com/docs/ccleaner/ ... es-to-keep

Secunia PSI comes highly recommended - it automatically updates insecure programs on your computer (I use avast free antivirus, which kind of does that anyway, but I think Secunia is more comprehensive, so I'm just about to try it):
http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/

None of that might help with your SPAM, but it helps otherwise. It's all free anyway. Ironically, one thing I haven't tried yet is Mozilla Thunderbird for email. I just use Outlook (formerly Hotmail), which is downright buggy on my laptop - I sent the last two emails twice because it told me they hadn't sent when they had.

It's a Hesling chain case, if that helps. Be very careful not to break it, though, coz it ain't cheap!

Frustratingly, I can only find instructions for the Hesling 'Delgado' chaincase, but I guess the fixings will be very similar to yours (Brucey could advise):
http://www.hesling.nl/delgado/assets/de ... incase.pdf

Here's Hesling's website, set for English language. If you're not sure, you could always email them about how to safely remove the chaincase without breaking it - click on 'Contact' - they might well send you the pdf for your specific Idworx Hesling chaincase (it might just be unique to Idworx bicycles):
http://www.hesling.nl/?lang=en#/Products/Chain%20Cases/

pwa wrote:A car followed me at a respectful distance for over a minute on a hill with no good passing spots. A school minibus did the same a little later...

I would pull over and let the vehicles past in that situation, but I suppose there are different schools of thought. Still, glad you had such a nice ride.

pwa wrote:...And a farmer called his very well behaved sheepdog to heel as I approached and we exchanged cheery hellos as I passed. It was nice to be on the bike.

Not a sheepdog, a snowy landscape (England, not Wales!), but that put me in mind of this, by the cycling artist Frank Patterson:

Simon, that's the first review I've seen of the Esk, and I think that's the one for me. It's the most recent of the Gyes saddles marketed by Spa, and it just looks to me as if you're getting the best of both worlds - wide at the back for support, narrow at the front so no chafing, as long as the bars aren't too low. Also, I spent my childhood by the River Esk!

mercalia, I'm fairly sure Vantage has used a Spa Nidd for a while now, so he should be able to give you further feedback, among others. He also uses a basic Zoom suspension seatpost - I use the same one and I find it helps. You don't tend to feel any difference, your bum just doesn't hurt so much!

Tangled Metal wrote:Don't you have to keep leather saddles dry? Easy with plastic bag but if without then what effect does rain have on the leather?

The Spa/Gyes saddles have a waterproof membrane underneath, which I think helps with that, although it might also be why they tend to be hard.

OpenStreetMap will help you plan your routes. I found it on the forum, can't remember who suggested it, but thanks to whoever it was because it's excellent. Others might suggest alternatives, but it's the best I've found. You'll see there are three options: Bicycle, Car and Foot, so provided you have it set up for Bicycle it should give you the best routes (I think it always tends to incorporate the Sustrans routes). Since you're in the south of England, I've set it up for Chichester to Canterbury, just as an example:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/directions ... 500/0.1483

(Edit: that route might be a bit long for you (and me! ) - it's an example, not a suggestion!)