Cycling UK Forum

I bought an alloy frame set and carbon fork from Radial Cycles but the web site today had "out of stock" on every item I looked at (I didn't look at every item though!). Does anyone know if they are still trading? If not a pity as I got what seemed a good product (apart from what I think was a slightly over reamed seat tube) and I think their carbon frame got good reviews.

Reminds me of the old saying that all bikes weigh the same, or rather that all bikes plus suitable lock weigh the same.

Light bike + secure (heavy) lock = heavier bike + less secure (lighter) lock.

Although not strictly true there is some truth in there

I'd agree they probably contravene something (isn't there a rule about things extending in front of a vertical line above the front hub?) But look at all that advertising space Broad down tubes are loved for the advertising space as well as aero effect.

The item referenced below looks ideal for me. Sadly an internet search suggests they are discontinued

Does anyone know of an alternative or NOS source for these?

Brucey wrote:if the bosses are the same spacing you could always pack one of these in your spares kit



It is an Xtracycles 700C adaptor.

[NB it is probably overkill; it is meant for adapting a 559 wheeled setup to use 700C wheels, so moves the brake bosses about 30mm.]

cheers

My preference is to have the chainrings slightly more 'inboard' than 'central'. Reason being is higher chain tension when on the smaller ring for a given pedal push so the chain losses / wear will be worse. This assumes of course that you don't plan to cross the chain on a regular basis!
As for bottom bracket length the limit for me wasn't the inner chainring hitting the chain stay but the crank arm (xd2) touching the splined bb fitting. I carefully removed about 1/2 mm from the outer edge of the bb end of the crank arm with a file.
Try to get several bb on sale or return, I swapped one of mine when it was too long, you can also use 1mm or 2mm bb spacers to fine tune position.

Edited for spelling error.

Ditto, 9 of a 10 on a 7 works well too. See Sheldon Brown pages on this topic.

AFAIK the bolts holding on a disc rotor act like pegs with most of the force at 90 degrees to the thread. The torque they are done up to must be sufficient to stop them coming undone and to resist the (comparatively small) forces of the disc moving sideways.
NB the bolts holding car and lorry wheels are similar, however they have to resist sideways forces from steering or clouting a kerb so must be to a high torque, especially on HGVs. Steering forces don't act on a cycle disc so the fixings don't need to resist those.

Edited for spelling error.

Tangled Metal wrote:Brake levers seem to be too far from the bars. On the drops behind the brake levers she can only reach the levers with the end of her fingers. On the hoods it's even worse.

Looks like the bike industry 'one size fits all' for the brifters (brake & shifters) falls down here. I'm not sure if you could get a version for the brake lever & shifter for those with less reach (is there a youth version?). This may be unlikely as brifters are an expensive piece of kit. The blocks the shop descibes can be fitted and do reduce the reach a little but also reduce the amount of cable pull available. This can be checked by wedging some card between the top of the lever and the fixed part. You could also fit some 'in line' brake levers that look like flat bar ones that operate from the top of the bars but I'm not sure I'd like those to be my main brakes.

As others have said you could just get a tourer with flat bars, you can save about £100 doing this compared to the drop bar equivalent.

Edit to use same word as OP in describing reach reducer pad / block.

alexnharvey wrote:Ideally, the middle ring and middle of the cassette align, maybe not too much difference in practice if nothing fouls.

I did this with my Spa triple with a 9 speed cassette. I had to get a shorter bottom bracket than recommended and even had to remove a tiny bit of the centre of the driveside chainset arm aluminium to clear the spline on the bottom bracket. All seems to line up ok but with more trimming needed when riding on the front changer than desired, perhaps due to 9 speed chain with a Tiagra 10 speed front changer?

Sounds poor to me. At the 'other end' how is the toe overlap with the front wheel? From memory this was seen as a safety issue but AFAIK the construction rules allow designers to get around this by assuming everone has a tiny shoe size, perhaps they do this at the back too? Not sure if construction rules apply to frame & fork sales.

The craze for shaving every gram and every penny off mean chain stays are often the same length or only a small difference for all frame sizes.

Oh no! It's turned into another gear & chain selection thread!

alexnharvey wrote:I'm curious as to whether this is a 7 speed spaced 7 speed or 11speed spaced 7 speed!?

From what I've read it's 7 cogs with 11 speed spacing so you can still use your nice new 11 speed shifters. They can only eat so many of their own words in one go.

Give it time and they will bring out a high strength chain that requires wider cog spacing and then a bit later a slightly narrower freehub so less dishing on the back wheel...

Agree with your post but would add reducing tranmission losses by using a bit of lube and replace drive train components when worn. This isn't rocket science and wont keep the marketing people in employment so they come up with all sorts of reasons for you to spend your money. The latest I saw (I jest not) was a downhill 7 speed cassette (instead of 11) so as to speed up gear changes across the cogs...

"its compact design ensures gear steps to give each shift more purpose and ensure a faster transition through the gears."

That is what I'll say when ever anyone asks why I stick to 7 speed

Edit to add quote.

Been musing about buying the following tyres. I'd swear these were £8 a week or so ago (not on a special offer), now listed at £12 each - I can't think what justifies a +50% price rise...

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/lifeline-essential-road-tyre/

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/lifeline-essent ... -road-tyre


Perhaps these are a suitable alternative (at £10 each for 25mm) in the "budget but not rubbish" class?

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/continental-ult ... -road-tyre

I've now solved the problem (spending an unnecessary extra £20 on my "buy a frame and build a bike from the spares box" project) by buying a 25mm post and a 25 to 27.4mm shim, both from SJS. The shim is sprung wide and so a very tight fit in the tube - not sure if that is going to come out easily. Once in, the shim is the about the correct thickness - the 25mm seat post slides a bit easily in but seems secure once clamped. If I were doing it again I might get a 25.4mm post and get a 25 to 27mm shim for the same effect but where the shim wouldn't be such a tight fit in the seat tube and so easier to extract.