Cycling UK Forum

Ben@Forest wrote: ↑27 Mar 2022, 9:53pm Zelensky is a politician. He's not just talking to us, he's talking to his own people. Like every politician he's upping the ante to see what he can get. The USA is about to give Ukraine $600 million worth of Switchblade missiles, would he have got them without pressing hard?

Zelensky is a punter just like you or me or anyone else - he might well be an exceptional punter but he's still a punter - yay for all the punters everywhere.

What I don't think anyone has mentioned so far is the aroma like you get in coffee shops. Whenever I've gone over to making coffee in a cafetiere instead of instant coffee, it may or may not taste better (certainly different, not sure about the 'better') but I can't get the aroma like you get in coffee shops, or even get it to smell of anything very much at all - not even coffee!

There's a thread on the US cycling Paceline Forum called 'What's on your coffee bench?' Apparently a 'coffee bench' is a thing ovah theh (like a gun cabinet except not like a gun cabinet)...

https://forums.thepaceline.net/showthre ... ffee+bench

djnotts wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 8:27pm I do wonder about the actual cost of production of 10 grand BICYCLES and conclude about 10% of selling price. Otherwise all the makers of complex m'cycles, with many finely designed and engineered parts, vital to safety at 100+ mph, sold at 10-15 grand are all working at a loss.
The pricing structure is a joke, the whole supply chain laughing all the way to the bank.
AND there is no fundamental difference between a 1 grand bike and a 10 grand one for anyone other than a top pro.

Agree on all counts, except perhaps the last one - I mean, surely the difference between a 1 grand bike and a 10 grand one is... palpable... (/s)

If that needs explaining, 'palpable' is a word I genuinely only ever recall seeing in cycling journalism, as in a road test comparison between two road bikes, one weighing 7.8kg, the other, 8.2kg - on the level there's barely a fag paper between them but at the first sign of an incline, the difference is palpable... Apparently. I guess there might be a little more of a difference between a 1 grand bike and a 10 grand one, just not anything like 9 grand and certainly not anything fundamental, as you say.

(Actually, to be fair, I suspect cycling journalists know perfectly well that at least some of what they write is tosh (at least I hope they do) but they have to make a living just like anyone else.)

Bmblbzzz wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 7:34pm Have you ever read any of Josie Dew's books? There's at least one occasion on which she's asked if she's on a gap year, to which she replies – internally – that's she's taking a gap life.

I'll definitely check them out (I need to get back into reading and get off this here contraption) - I guess that was in this one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Travels-Strang ... oks&sr=1-3

At least she didn't say she's taking a sabbatical - don't know why but that word makes me want to puke. Not because of what it means, it's just so... pretentious, somehow. In Scotland we call it a brek.

I think my entire life has been a gap life, but not it a good way.

m-gineering wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 7:58pm

kylecycler wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 10:50am I believe it's just the bottom right hand corner of NL that has anything approaching actual hills - the province of Limburg.

Nope.
Hills start in Twente with the Holterberg etc ('steeper than the Alpe dHuez' ), there are some proper ones around de hoge Veluwe and Nijmegen, and then there is the bit in Limburg. If you like them longer you could always do them twice

(And if you must insist on the Netherlands the highest point is 887m)

Thanks - shows how much I know - I've only been 'learning' about NL (or not) through following pro cycling, and geography has never been my strongpoint.

Been learning a bit of the language, too - just recently I found out that bakker in Dutch means baker in English. Also that maar means but.

mattheus wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 4:53pm

Richard of York wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 12:00pm To a Buddhist, any bell is empty of inherent existence in and of itself and only exists interdependently - the mineral miners, the lorry drivers, designer, earth's processes that formed the metals and so on. I think it would be helpful if folks meditated on the nature of the bell next time they go out on the bike, cycling mindfully.

Bloody hippies. Get a car. And a job!

I know you were only kidding, but apparently "GET A JOB!" is something US cyclists get shouted at them by car drivers. Thankfully - AFAIK - it hasn't (yet) crossed the pond, although you know what they say about stuff starting over there and finishing up over here. I guess it's just the US car-centric mindset - if you don't run a car, or even if you're just on a bicycle, you don't have a job.

I discovered after I'd known the only American I know, one of my best cycling buddies, for a couple of years, that because I don't run a car he assumed that I'd lost my driving licence (I haven't!). I didn't get as far as asking him what he thought I'd lost my licence for, I just put it down to the US mindset, although I did find myself wondering or even getting a bit concerned about who else might assume the same.

De Sisti wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 4:33pm I think motorists are also very gullible too. Replacing their vehicles every three or four years?
Not necessary in my opinion. Service your vehicle regularly, replace parts when worn and it
will lasts several years. Mine is 19 years old and still going strong. The independent dealer
who has serviced it for the past 12 years has always complimented me on its condition.

Don't know if that's just gullibility but you're right. I ran one car for ~140,000 miles; it was when I was a driving instructor so it was only over a few years, but I learned that a car is just a bunch of bits - I'd never kept a car long enough to realise that. I had a great independent mechanic and no longer had to rely on the dealer I bought it from new, and he kept it in excellent fettle. You can't just put up with a mechanical fault when you're a driving instructor - it's like having the toothache, given how its the tool of your trade - and he was better able to fix and maintain stuff than main dealers ever were.

The car itself had done 140,000 but everything went through cycles, and when I sold it, a fair few of its components - clutch, brakes, water pump, etc. - were newer than they had been at 60,000. You'll know, of course, it's like that with bicycles too - chains, cassettes, tyres, chainrings, whatever...

The great thing with bicycles is that although there are a few frustrating problems that we struggle to figure out, there's almost invariably a way to fix it ourselves (often with the help of this forum!), or if we're stuck, a bike shop can (preferably in that order!).

Richard of York wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 4:11pm Threads on this Forum are sometimes great examples of the restless mind - disappearing along all sorts of alley ways.

Guilty as charged, m'lud.

Bonefishblues wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 2:50pm Please don't ever buy that coffee

If you mean from the animal rights POV, yeah, definitely not.

Jdsk wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 2:35pm

kylecycler wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 2:34pm

Jdsk wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 2:23pm
How about an Asian palm civet rather than a pig?

Shirley

And I thought I had a vivid imagination.

That's a vivverid imagination!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_pal ... Kopi_luwak

Jonathan

You know - seriously - when I was writing that post I kept thinking I'd read something somewhere about something like that, and I guess that's what it was!

Either that or I got all wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey and remembered your post before you posted it...

Jdsk wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 2:23pm

kylecycler wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 2:20pm

Bonefishblues wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 1:54pm Me too - if cleaned, and if fed good beans.

Unfortunately, 'if fed good beans' caught my eye before I read the quote it referred to and I had visions of feeding coffee beans to some kind of animal - a pig, perhaps - and allowing them to pass through its system before drying them, roasting them and grinding them, presumably to enhance and sophisticate the subsequent flavour and aroma of the coffee. It wouldn't be the first time in human endeavour that such strategies had been applied.

How about an Asian palm civet rather than a pig?

Shirley

And I thought I had a vivid imagination.

Bonefishblues wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 1:54pm Me too - if cleaned, and if fed good beans.

Unfortunately, 'if fed good beans' caught my eye before I read the quote it referred to and I had visions of feeding coffee beans to some kind of animal - a pig, perhaps - and allowing them to pass through its system before drying them, roasting them and grinding them, presumably to enhance and sophisticate the subsequent flavour and aroma of the coffee. It wouldn't be the first time in human endeavour that such strategies had been applied.

I've got an overactive imagination (probably as a result of drinking too much coffee).

Enigmadick wrote: ↑25 Mar 2022, 1:37pm Serious reply, - when out cycling I just find that being constantly attentive to traffic, what else is around and your body leads to a state of mindfulness. No need for earbuds or any other distraction.

I know exactly what you mean. It may or may not be mindfulness as such but cycling, certainly in traffic or even just on the limit (meaning your own limit) keeps your mind and body fully occupied and involved.

Notwithstanding the excellent advice and suggestions so far, just a general point...

If your bike is still on its original tyres, bear in mind that it's all part of a manufacturer's/brand's accounting strategy for the tyres to be 'good enough' but far from the best in terms of puncture/rolling resistance. It's not a rule - sometimes the original tyres are ok, but you can almost always do better.

To put it another way, if inevitably more costly tyres with proper puncture protection and low rolling resistance were fitted, the profit per bike would be lower and they probably wouldn't sell many more bikes so they'd lose out. So you often just have to bite the bullet and upgrade. Alternatively just accept that they puncture easier and get good at mending punctures (seriously)! Or you could even just try slime / tyre inserts and see how you get on. Then buy better tyres when the originals wear out.

As an example, the bike I use for club rides and touring came with Kenda tyres that were actually surprisingly good for original tyres - rode and rolled well - but punctured too easily. It now has the other extreme - Schwalbe Almotion tyres that I got at a discount from SJS but were still expensive - but they roll exceptionally well and I've had a lot fewer punctures.

Concerning Schwalbe tyres, btw, if you go for them I'd steer clear of the ones with K-Guard - they're cheaper but I found it was false economy. K stands for Kevlar which suggests they should be good, but the 55mm Big Apples I got with K-Guard punctured at least as often as the original tyres. Go for those with RaceGuard - they're more expensive but worth it.