Cycling UK Forum

You have experienced - and are experiencing - something which I can only imagine is hugely traumatic and stressful. I guess cycling is something which helps you not only because of the benefits to physical and mental health of the exercise, but also because it provides you with something upon which to focus your attention, interest and efforts.

For anyone who had previously been very unfit and/or overweight, it's probably quite normal that the pleasure and satisfaction (and endorphins) coming from getting fit and losing weight would encourage them to re-double their efforts and try to get even fitter/faster. Cue longer rides, using heart rate monitors and other electronic equipment to measure performance and dictate riding intensity with structured training rides and turbo training etc.

The problem with getting so keen is that there is a high probability of burn out, either physical and/or mental.

My advice to you would be to make sure that you are just enjoying your riding as much as possible. I am not suggesting that you completely give up monitoring your performance, but I would suggest that you go out and ride sometimes without the computer. If you want to go fast/hard, then do so but enjoy it and value it for the experience of feeling your heart pumping, your lungs working and your legs hurting, rather than what the number of mph or beats per minute is on your computer. Enjoy the feeling of the wind in your hair on a nice long downhill. Enjoy the feeling of the sun on your back. Enjoy the scenery. Enjoy the liberating feeling of just following your nose and exploring new roads. Enjoy standing under a tree while you wait for a shower to pass. Enjoy a cake and coffee mid ride. Enjoy a pint in a beer garden at the end of the ride. Enjoy meeting other cyclists on the road and exchanging a friendly nod or greeting. However you do it, just make sure you enjoy it.

As for me, I know I'm doing OK if the wheels are going round.

jimlews wrote:I think the head tube length shown for the 51cm size must be a 'typo'. It doesn't fit into a linear progression with the other sizes

The smaller sized frames are designed for 26" wheels, hence their having longer head tubes than the 51cm.

By my calculations the 51cm Campeur will have a 588mm front centre, which compares with 610mm for the Spa Steel Touring 51cm frame (and the Spa Roughstuff frames intended for big tyres have even larger front centre measurements). 588mm seems a low figure to me, and I wonder how much toe overlap there might be with mudguards and the suggested 38mm tyres.

Gattonero wrote:I have never trusted those grease-ports that are so far away form where the bearings actually are. To effectively reach the bearings and purge away the old grease would require probably many squirts with the grease gun, given the size of the headtube and the area to cover it will be something like 1/4 of a coffee cup? Considering that good grease is not that cheap, it all sounds like false economy to me.

I've got a Campag 1" threadless Record headset fitted to one bike. The amount of grease required to flush it is pretty miniscule in my experience: I don't think the volume of available space between the race, balls/clip and cup can be much more than, say, 2 cubic centimetres at most, and is probably a lot less than that.

I'm not sure what you mean about "grease-ports that are so far away form where the bearings actually are". The Record headset has 4 holes at 90 degree intervals in the bottom cup. I recall that when I regrease the headset, I see visibly discoloured old grease quickly appear pretty much all around the the bottom of the headset and then just as quickly turn white to indicate that it had been completely purged. Given that the holes are in the side of the cup and the exit point for the grease is at the bottom of the headset, I guess it's conceivably possible that some old grease and contaminants at the top of the cup might not be flushed out.

Incidentally, the Chris King bottom bracket grease injector tool also has 4 holes at 90 degree intervals, and the instructions state that the tool should be rotated inside the BB (presumably by less than 90 degrees) while using it in order to ensure that all the old grease is purged. I guess that might be necessary for a BB bearing because it is larger and has greater volume for grease to displace than a headset (although the next time I regrease my Campag headset, after intitially purging with grease I will try rotating the handlebars by 45 degrees and repeat the purging to see if any more old grease comes out - but I doubt it given what I saw the last time I did it).

fausto copy wrote:apart from the fact that she hasn't got the thumb-power to mover the shifter to access the big chainring.

One possible solution might be to use a bar end shifter and Paul Components Thumbie for the front derailleur. That would allow her to grip the shift lever with her hand with her palm pressing against the lever, and use her whole hand and wrist muscles to mover the lever.



You can buy just a left hand mount from Brick Lane Bikes:

https://www.bricklanebikes.co.uk/paul-mtb-thumbies-222

However, I did read once that thumb shifters allow more force to be applied to the front mech compared with a standard Rapidfire shifter or similar, and that even just using a thumb there can be a risk of breaking the chain (front mech pushes the chain and rather than the chain being lifted off the ring, the chain stays on the ring and the front mech presses against it until a side plate bends and pops off the rivet). I suspect that other factors are involved such as changing at low speed and the height of the front mech relative to the middle chainring, but if you do go down this route it might be something to be mindful of given how much extra force could be applied using the palm and wrist muscles to move the lever.

It so happened that last year I came across a family on a bike ride where the young son had snapped his chain in this way. They had no tools and the father was trying to bash the bent side plate back on the rivet with a stone . I had a multi tool with integral chain tool, and was able to remove the damaged link and rejoin the chain.

PH wrote:There's also the difference in aesthetics, a long quill stem can IMO look elegant in a way a stack of spacers can't, even if the quill is a little longer.

An alternative option - which might look even better than relying entirely on a long neck quill - is to have a spacer between the adjustable nut and the locknut. As well as the aesthetic factor, another possible advantage of this is that it might mean you do not have to use a long neck quill stem, which would therefore give you a much wider choice of stems. Obviously if you are going to fit a spacer, you need to decide what size of spacer before the steerer tube is cut down.

Brucey wrote:The last of these is very common in A-head headsets; water gets in at the top eg around the handlebar clamp, around the top cap, between the spacers etc and it then dribbles down the steerer and through the split in the wedge ring and thence down into the lower bearings. It can even go through the top bearing (seemingly without causing too much damage) and then sit in the bottom bearing where it causes trouble.

mig wrote:i had a an 'eddie mcgrath' 531 commuter for a good fifteen years with a record threaded headset - never an issue with it in all its days.

swapped to a bike with an aheadset fitted (after the mcgrath was written off) and have had no end of troubles as per your post.

PH wrote:If you like shiny - Campag Record
http://www.highonbikes.com/campagnolo-r ... lwEALw_wcB

The threadless version of the Campagnolo Record headset has grease ports in the bottom cup, but not the threaded version. That does seem to suggest that Campagnolo determined that the threadless design was more prone to ingress of water and/or contaminants, and that the problem was significant enough to warrant providing grease ports.

Try Swrve. These have only a 9" inseam (some of their other shorts are a bit longer):

https://www.swrve.co.uk/collections/shorts/products/lightweight-wwr-trouser-shorts#

They also offer the same style in a heavier cotton/nylon/lycra mix:

https://www.swrve.co.uk/collections/shorts/products/durable-cotton-trouser-short#

They are a better fit and cut, look more stylish/'normal' than shorts with cargo pockets, and are more suitable for cycling than my Craghoppers Kiwi shorts which I would have suggested as the obvious cheaper alternative, but which I see now have been discontinued and replaced by the Craghoppers Kiwi Long shorts.

I am puzzled why they thickened the Stainless steel layer in the V2 Duossal then.....

I don't know. It might be a matter of available materials (I suspect Trangia buys the laminated aluminium/stainless sheet, rather than manufacturing it itself), quality control, durability of the steel layer, the required/optimum thicknesses for bonding the two metals etc. etc.

does the stainless layer need to come up to the lip

I think the aluminium and stainless steel are bonded in sheet form, and then cut and shaped to form the pans, rather than the stainless steel being applied as a coating to the aluminium at the end of the process. In old fashioned copper cookware the lining is tin, which has a low melting point and consequently is applied after the copper has been beaten/rolled into shape, but modern high end copper cookware is now usually made with an inner layer of more durable stainless steel, and generally those pots and pans are straight sided without even pouring lips, despite their extremely high cost, e.g.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mauviel-MHerit ... FNFGNEWP97

I suspect that trying to roll the edge of the bonded aluminium and stainless steel is either not technically feasible or would be prohibitively expensive.

Aluminium is used because it is a good heat conductor. To fulfil that function there needs to be enough of it ('thermal mass') to absorb the heat energy from the stove and disperse that energy as uniformly as possible around the bottom and sides of the pan, whence it can be quickly conducted through the thin layer of stainless steel to the food/liquid being heated.

If you cook something in the oven on - or inside - aluminium foil, you will find that you can touch and hold the foil almost immediately after removing the food from the oven, providing the other side of the foil which you touch is not in direct contact with the surface of the food or the baking tray. Although the foil is extremely hot while in the oven, because it is so thin it can neither hold nor conduct much heat energy along the foil (as opposed to through the foil where the foil is sandwiched between a baking tray and the food being cooked).

If thicker stainless steel is used instead for a cooking pan - even with a thin coating of aluminium - it is a poor heat conductor and consequentially heat will not be well dispersed around the pan. Instead the part of the pan directly over the stove will get too hot and food at the bottom of the pan will catch and burn (although it would be fine for just boiling water).

It's the same with copper cookware: the good stuff is made from substantial thicknesses of copper, e.g. 2.5mm, and is very expensive. Cheap cookware with a thin layer of copper is a waste of money because the copper does not improve the performance of the pan but is still subject to the limitations of copper cookware generally (e.g. it should not be placed in a dishwasher, and requires regular polishing if the shiny copper appearance is to be preserved).

Have I understood correctly - the rear mech, cassette, chain and chainrings are all the same as before, and the only changes you made to these were to break and re-join the chain to fit the new front mech, and to undo the rear mech's gear cable in order to connect the new shifter?

If so, I would be examining closely where the chain had been rejoined.

Also I've realised that the Nitto design with the single-piece top clamp means that the screws need to change angle slightly as you adjust the saddle angle. Does anyone know if they use cupped washers under the bolt heads like you get on v-brake pads?

Yes they do. The tops of the recesses in the underside of the top of the seaptpost into which the bolts go are correspondingly concave to accept the convex surface of the washer, and there is also a split washer between the washer and the bolt head.

with the little frame/support that matches it.

I presume you are referring to the Sport version of the Bagman Support. I appreciate that you state that it doesn't sway because you have lashed it down, but I would check that the bottom of the bag is actually resting on and supported by the support.

Something else to beware of is that the bag might be very securely fastened to prevent it swaying, but the contents of the bag might be moving or sliding about inside the bag. Obviously the heavier the contents of the bag, the more noticeable this would be.

Assuming you are in the UK, it's now spring, the weather is getting better and warmer and the evenings are lighter. You would be barking mad to get a bike with the intention of riding it indoors on a turbo at this time of year.

If you are looking to lose a bit (or a lot) of weight and get fitter, you will be far more likely to succeed if you make the process as pleasurable as possible. You might burn more calories and get fitter more quickly by following a structured training programme on a turbo, but the self-discipline required to stick to such a programme is hard and the whole thing can quickly turn into a tedious unpleasant chore after the initial novelty has worn off.

Far better to get a bike and just go out for a ride in the evenings and weekends. It doesn't need to be a hard ride or a long ride every time: just go with the flow and ride as hard or as easy as you feel like, and for as long or as short a distance as you feel like. Ride to the pub for a drink. Ride to the shop to pick up the ingredients for your evening meal. Use your bike to explore the area where you live. The trick is simply to keep doing it.

Providing you do it often enough, e.g. a few times a week, you will probably find that you lose weight and get fitter without consciously trying to do so. If you are very overweight and unfit, you may well find that you do not have to ride very far or fast to start losing weight and get fitter. In that sense you have an advantage over an extremely fit racer: they will already be doing lots of miles and high intensity riding, so it's much more difficult for them to squeeze any further improvements from their bodies.

As for what bike - to start with any bike as long as it fits you. Given the race bikes to which you have linked and your comment "Maybe when I get more comfortable with cycling I may then look to go out but at this moment it won’t be a pretty sight!", you are possibly wanting to join the MAMILs and don't want to venture out in lycra until you've lost weight first. If so I would say to hell with what other people might think about what you look like in lycra. Lycra is not particularly flattering to anyone. As long as you are riding and enjoying yourself, that's all that matters.

That said, in your shoes I would probably get a mountain bike, because it would offer scope to ride on and off road, and increases your ability to explore. It also looks better with more casual/ordinary clothing (get some padded liner shorts from Decathlon or Aldi etc. to wear under your ordinary shorts or trousers). If I'm riding to the shops or a pub or just riding casually I much prefer ordinary clothing (or outdoors type clothing) rather than lycra race kit.

You could still get a race bike and lycra kit later (and use them on the turbo in the winter), but for now you just need to get out and ride. It doesn't matter how far or how fast - you just need to keep doing it, and for that you need to keep enjoying it.

Dario Pegoretti is considered by many much more knowledgeable than me to be the greatest steel framebuilder, and I am not aware of any other builders with his pedigree, e.g. builder of the frames for the likes of Indurain and other top riders in the 1980s and 1990s, when almost all frames were steel, and one of the pioneers of using TIG welding for steel frames.

To dismiss him simply because of his artistic leanings or a commercial relationship with Rapha, is shallow, foolish and disrespectful of his experience, knowledge and skill acquired over decades. His bikes attract a premium price precisely because he is considered the best, and that status has also allowed him to indulge his artistic leanings. That inevitably annoys some who would like to knock him off that pedestal (tall poppy syndrome). Moreover, it is less likely that any new steel framebuilders will reach his level because the opportunity to develop the skill and experience by building lots of frames for top riders no longer exists as a result of steel being replaced by carbon as the standard frame material.

If I were seeking a touring or audax bike, I would choose one of the UK framebuilders who has similar levels of experience in building that type of frame, but for a classic steel road race frame if I had the money I would choose Pegoretti - probably the Luigino model which is a traditional style lugged and brazed frame with a 1" threaded steerer.

The plants to take a bus with all our gear to Reading. Pend the night,get our kit together,ten ride from there.
Not sure how that would influence which port.

I think your plan is a good one: it will be easier and quicker to get out of Reading and into pleasant riding countryside than cycling from Heathrow.

The distance from Reading to Poole looks to be greater than Reading to Portsmouth, but even then that will depend on your route, and the terrain will also be a factor.

If you ride from Reading to Portsmouth, you will probably need/want to choose a route that uses the country lanes and goes through the small villages. For example, although the A32 from Chawton to West Meon would potentially be the most obvious road for part of your journey, it's not a nice road to cycle along because it's a main road with a lot of fast traffic, and the straightness of much of the road combined with its relative narrowness results in cars and lorries overtaking cyclists at 60mph with insufficient space. Ideally you want to avoid A roads as much as possible, especially those with a one or two number suffix, e.g. A3, A34 or A31, which are generally the busiest. B roads are better, but unlikely to be as nice as the unnumbered country lanes.

So rather than use the A32 I would plot a route using the narrow twisty country lanes that pass through villages like Privett and East Meon. The downside of such a route is that it will be a bit longer, and such a route would probably entail more lumps and hills (which may or may not matter to you depending upon your fitness, gearing and the loads you are lugging)

If you ride from Reading to Poole, the distance will probably be further but also much flatter whilst still being very scenic. One obvious possible section of the route would be to ride down the Test Valley, joining it west of Basingstoke at Overton or Whitchurch and cycling along the country lane that mostly runs parallel to the Test River and passes through villages like Stockbridge, and head south towards Romsey before turning southwest towards the New Forest.