Cycling UK Forum

Maybe I overreacted, but it was just how I felt when I read it. Alex Moulton was one of my heroes, but I'm sure that applies to a lot of folk on this forum. The proceeds aren't going to charity or the seller would have said. We don't know the circumstances, right enough, though - it could even have belonged to someone who has since passed away themselves, and they thought it might mean something to someone else. I would neither sell it nor buy it, though.

reohn2 wrote:kylecycler
The Carlton in the photo looks very nice,and it has the original Bluemels fitted too,though I'm not sure about the m/flap.
Those 'guards come up on Ebay NOS occasionally,if you keep your eye out for them.

The mudflap was the same on mine when it was new, so the one in the photo is original, right enough. I just remember it got creased easily. Green NOS guards would be a real find, but that might be too much to hope for. Suppose I could use plastic primer then paint new mudguards though.

Don't ask why I no longer have the components, just the frame and fork. Ok ask - the Carlton sat in a wet, as opposed to just damp, garage for years and at some point I stripped it and threw the components out (although the frame and fork are still perfectly fine). Yeah, I can't believe I did that either, although I suppose if I'd ridden it for all those years I'd have worn the components out by now anyway. I only went back to cycling just over five years ago and my dream is to build the Carlton back up, somehow. I've got the knowledge, experience and ability now (I hadn't a clue back then), but no doubt I'll still need help from you folks. That bicycle means more to me than anything else.

Redvee - I need to 'do the valve thing with the tyre logo' myself' - that p***ture fairy is a wee besom*.

*That should confuse the censoring software - the first attempt was the Scots word for excrement but previewed as [inappropriate word removed] - you'd probably have to be Scottish to know what a besom is...

iandriver wrote:I suspect most would find a phantom chain oiler at bit creepy......

I know how you feel, though, and I was sorely tempted recently to use an Allen key to turn the stem around on a brand new Carrera Subway parked outside my local Asda so that the disc brake was on the left, not the right, and the fork was pointing the right way...
The phantom fork fixer...

That's absolutely foul. You have to wonder where he got it. I hope the seller wasn't there - what kind of 'friend' would that be? Shameful.

reohn2 wrote:

kylecycler wrote:.......... next question is, how to we get tyre stickers off? I'm thinking Conti Gatorskins - I actually like the Conti logo, but Gatorskins just look gross...

The GATORSKIN logos are quite big for small tyres I agree but they don't bother me too much(32mm Gators' on one of the tandems)
The only thing I can think of to remove logos would be a permanent marker pen in the right colour.

Yup. Cover rather than remove - I think that would be the best option, right enough. It's with a view to building up the frame in the avatar - a Carlton 531 TEN. I've got a 'donor bike' - an old Falcon - with 27" Weinmann wheels, etc, and Gatorskins seem to be about the best 27 x 1 1/4 tyres available. When it was 'born' it looked like this, and Gatorskin logos just wouldn't look right (even if they do correspond with the colour! ) Might be better with tan sidewalls, though...


Not mine, but identical - it just showed up recently on the CycleChat forum. 100 per cent original, and beautiful. Short of nicking the keys to the Tardis and going back to 1977 I doubt if I'll ever restore mine to that kind of level, but reproducing the livery or even just the colours would be cool. I really like your bikes, but I think that one ^ also has 'presence'. The old Bluemels mudflaps were a bit vulnerable IIRC, but they were highly effective and quite elegant. I'll try to reproduce that too.

Dave W wrote:Oh lord! I've just noticed you fit your tyres to match the rims and park so that both wheels are the same - you need help!

Jackie Stewart must need help too, then - he used to insist that the Stewart Grand Prix truck driver jacked up the truck in the paddock and positioned the tyres so that the tyre logos were at the top. Every time. Still, if reohn2 used to build furniture he's bound to be fastidious. I'd love to build furniture. I'd also love to build a bicycle frame but I'm never likely to do that either.

reohn2 wrote:Beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all

Get it out with Optrex.

CREPELLO beat me to it about the mudguards, but once you've answered that, next question is, how to we get tyre stickers off? I'm thinking Conti Gatorskins - I actually like the Conti logo, but Gatorskins just look gross...

NATURAL ANKLING wrote:Hi,
Hopefully it will be a british record.

I suppose it's like athletic Marathons. Comparing times set at the London Marathon with times set at the Boston Marathon, for example, would be largely irrelevant because the courses are different, whereas I think all the other athletics events are directly comparable. The distance covered is only really relevant to where the attempt takes place. Let's face it, they'll be heroes if they even keep going for a year.

As for equipment, you can compare Steve's bike with Tommy's, although even that's barely relevant and their weights are remarkably similar:

road.cc just featured Steve's bikes - Raleigh has provided him with three Raleigh Sojourns (modified with several non-stock components):
http://road.cc/content/news/143511-stev ... ecord-bike

Tommy's Raleigh Record Ace was essentially like this one (although there were a few variations)...
http://threespeedhub.com/pre-war-raleig ... d-ace-rra/
...except his had a 4-speed Sturmey-Archer AF hub, not a 3-speed. He evidently didn't use the heavy dynamo lighting hub all year - about half the photos of Tommy show the Record Ace with the Dynohub, half without. Same goes for mudguards.
http://www.tommygodwin.com/photos/
http://www.sturmey-archerheritage.com/i ... tail&id=56

LollyKat wrote:

CREPELLO wrote:Instead of using those horrible bungy cords to feebly hold the bags at the base of the rack I've deployed 8mm thick quick release cable ties.

Where did you get the QR cable ties? I'm looking for some but google only seems to throw up the velcro kind which I don't want.

Just found these on Amazon - 300 x 8mm, black, £9.19 for 100, free delivery. Good reviews too. I got a pack out of Aldi but they're not reusable, or as long or as thick. These would be a lot more useful, right enough.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cable-Tex-Relea ... NBW03Q28K5

Vantage wrote:I use 3mm rubber sheet from Amazon for mine.

I found this a while ago and thought it looked ideal. Is it what you used?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Neoprene-Rubber ... merReviews

I'm being a bit lazy by just posting a link, but posting a bike is something I've never done - yet - I'm a hoarder, and finding somewhere to store them is more of a problem. I thought this was very well thought out, though, and clearly based on experience - you could adapt it to your own requirements:

http://citybikes.com/how-to/how-to-box-a-bike-pg120.htm

I used to know a girl who had a fetish about bubble wrap, btw. I'd save it if I ever came across any and give it to her. All you'd hear for the next hour or so was *pop"... *pop*... *pop*... etc... She was weird.

Mark1978 wrote:It's arguable that he would benefit even more from drafting due to the lack of elevation and the winds that tends to create.

All these factors crop up when you think it through, right enough - unless you were doing it, it's so hard to get your head around.

According to Dave Barter, Tommy was paced by other riders, at least some of the time, up until July 1939, but by mutual consent with his rival Bernard Bennett the pacing stopped: "In July 1939, Godwin rode a massive 8,583 miles in response, barely pausing for sleep, as both riders were being paced by other riders or their sponsors setting mileage objectives. It had got out of hand, and by mutual consent the pacing ceased, leaving the riders to complete the year riding solo." They were both riding in the UK though, so at least the terrain would have been the same, or similar, for both.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/cycling- ... year-45701

Concerning elevation, I guess the riders in 1939 would have chosen the flattest routes whenever possible. With so few vehicles then (we can't even imagine how few now, I don't think), they would have had carte blanche. Steve surely doesn't have the same options, at least not safely.

You have to spare a thought for Bernard Bennett, btw - he'd already tried, covering 45,801 miles in 1937...

I'll need to follow Grandad's advice (not my Grandad - he's dead - the other Grandad ) and buy the book. It's quite a story.

I think the most credible example of curved seatstays would be Dave Kirk's 'Terraplane' stays. Dave Kirk is an independent framebuilder from Bozeman, Montana, but before that he was R&D tech at Serotta for years. He exhaustively tested and developed fork and seatstay configurations using rigs and road testing - he's vastly experienced, his heroes are Colin Chapman and Alex Moulton, and what he doesn't know about road bike ride and handling probably isn't worth knowing - that's certainly how his peers see him.

In a post on the Paceline Forum, he explained: "I think the orientation of the stays matters much less than the curve's radius and duration, as well as the diameter and wall thickness of the tube itself. Very small changes make large differences in the way the stay reacts and the bike rides. I don't feel that the way a curved stay attaches to the dropout matters much; the diameter, wall, radius and duration of the bend are the things that matter in terms of ride and handling." So as Brucey said, they're not all the same.


This is the full story, from Dave Kirk's 'Smoked Out' entry on the Velocipede Salon, the framebuilders' forum:

"Shortly after I started Kirk Frameworks I started working on what would become the ‘Terraplane’ seatstay option. I’d worked on this kind of thing before when I designed the Serotta Hors Categorie and wanted to build on my previous work. While the Serotta-DKS worked well, I felt it had too much – too much stuff, too much weight, and too much travel. I wanted a more elegant and simple design that would keep the rear wheel firmly planted at all times.

I worked on many designs and settled on a simple ‘S’ curve to the seat stays. I took Kirk frame #1, my personal bike, cut the seat stays off it and set it up so I could try different stays on that same bike. It took a long time to get the radius and duration of the bends right to give the desired spring rate and a lot of steel went into the recycling bin. After testing many stays on the same frame it looked like hell. It had burnt yellow paint, a rear wheel travel indicator brazed onto it and it looked like a school science project gone wrong. But I’d arrived at the final design and it rode wonderfully – stiff and responsive when out of the saddle yet calm and stuck to the ground in corners and when going downhill. Ripping around corners it had that same hunkered down feeling the DKS had but without any feeling of softness. I loved it.

And then I started doubting myself. I’d cleaned the bike up and emailed photos of it to friends, family and a few customers along with an explanation of how it worked and waited for the positive feedback to come flowing in. It didn’t. Most feedback was negative and centered on how much they disliked the looks of the bike. I was pretty bummed. Even my mom said it looked ‘nice’ and you know what that means...

I kept riding the one and only prototype and despite the negative feedback from others I loved the way it rode. I then thought of a Henry Ford quote from the early days of the automobile. He said, “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” With that in mind I decided to offer the Terraplane to see what would happen. The feedback online, before anyone had ridden one, was much the same as from my focus group – that thing is ugly and no one needs it. I even had ‘experts’ tell me that it doesn’t work. They’d never ridden one and didn’t know much about it, yet they knew it didn’t work. Alrighty then. But I kept it on the price list and over the next few months a few open-minded riders ordered them. Once I got them out there the owners started reporting back how they have never been able to corner so fast before – or they had never felt so confident descending. The customers were confirming what I already knew - that the Terraplane worked. In time other customers took a chance and they too liked the Terraplane. At this point, 6 years later [2010], about 50% of my customers chose the Terraplane seat stay option.

The Terraplane lesson was invaluable. It taught me that if I have a good idea and can back it up, I should get it out there and let the market decide if I was right. If I’d listened to the initially discouraging feedback I’d never have gotten the idea out there to let it prove its worth. It feels good to have done that. Ask any owner how they feel about their Terraplane and I’ll bet they’re glad I stuck with the idea."

http://www.velocipedesalon.com/forum/f2 ... 15424.html

^That whole thread is well worth reading if you have the time.

recumbentpanda wrote:My response is to ride with an inane grin (it comes naturally on a recumbent, especially if, like me, you are inane. )

If a panda came riding towards me on a recumbent with an inane grin on its face, clutching a bunch of bamboo leaves in one hand and waving with the other, I don't think I'd have the presence of mind to wave back.

661-Pete wrote:I sometimes have 'bad days' when out cycling. These are days when I set myself wondering, what's the bloody point* in being out here at all? (those who understand depression will know what I mean).

Churchill said, "If you're going through hell, keep going!" I understand what you mean, I've been there, but there's even less point in not being out there. Trick is to keep going until there is a point, until the feeling passes, however long that takes. The year before last I'd had one of the worst days of my life, went out on the bike, a few miles into the run everything hurt, no energy, what was the point? Two hours later, nothing hurt, I felt I could go on forever, and I couldn't understand the way I'd felt two hours before. Don't know how or why that happens, it just does, provided you keep going.

Gerry - you should market these and sell them to CTC members!

Sheldon wore sandles all year round, with thick socks in the winter - he said shoes or boots restricted his circulation. And Eddy Merckx got off and ran up and down - he said that was sometimes the only way he could warm up his feet. Don't think he ever did it in a race, though. I've always planned to buy a pair of shoes one size too big and stuff the toes with cotton wool, but I've never got around to trying.

I'm sure I don't have particularly good circulation, although I figure your circulation probably improves with fitness through cycling - your blood gets thinner - but I think I wear a lot more clothes in the winter than most other folk (I've only just put the heating on the past couple of days), and I've almost never got cold on a bike. Sometimes, like last Wednesday night, cycling home in a hailstorm, you just have to GO LIKE HELL to stay warm. But as others have suggested, if your core is warm your extremities will warm up too. It might even be a mistake to think of it the other way around.

If it helps, you could even try thinking about this bloke - Andy Hampsten on his way to winning the 1988 Giro d'Italia:
http://cycling-passion.com/wp-content/u ... o-1988.jpg

I've learned a lot from Mick F and others about chain maintenance, and I think I'm still doing it wrong. I think I need to do what Mick does, take the chain off, put it in a jam jar and soak it thoroughly in degreaser, then detergent (shake to agitate), then rinse it with water and dry it in the oven before re-lubing, irrespective of what lube you use (I use Halford's Bikehut wet lube, FWIW, which if you let it dry before you ride, dries 'dry' and stays clean; it certainly keeps the chain ultra-quiet). Sounds like a right faff, I know, but if a job's worth doing...

As it is, lately I've just been using a chain cleaner with Gunk twice, then detergent once, each time blasting the chain with a hose, then letting it dry (probably not) 'naturally', then re-lubing, all while it's still on the bike. However, apparently what effectively wears a chain out is the wear between the pins and the bushings. Unless you get the grit out of there (or stop it getting in), you're wasting your time cleaning or even lubing the chain, and may be doing more harm than good. I reckon Mick's way is the only way.

Aw, gawd, there must be more to life...

(Btw, if you do go the whole hog with the maintenance, DO NOT try to cut corners / save time / save money by drying the chain in the microwave. It will hiss and spark and threaten to blow up the microwave and/or burn the house down until you take it back out. Apparently - so I've been told since, several times - everybody knows you shouldn't put metal in a microwave. Except me. )