Cycling UK Forum

As I recall for one or two years Lance Armstrong's Trek bikes used a Dura Ace threaded headset which had been modified to use with a threadless steerer (because at the time the team's equipment supplier, Shimano, did not make a threadless headset, and the team/Shimano were unwilling to use another brand's headset without a sponsorship deal). I think this involved the team's mechanics reaming the thread from the top race and dispensing with the locknut, and presumably that might be an option for you.

It's up to a court to decide if an illegal act has been commited not the police.

That is a fatuous remark. In that the dog was clearly out of control and the OP was threatened as a result, one or more of the relevant pieces of legislation governing the ownership and control of dogs was clearly breached. i.e. a criminal/illegal act. A verdict in a court would only be necessary if the police decided that the circumstances merited submission to the CPS for a prosecution, with the end aim of a conviction and some form of sanction/punishment, e.g. a fine etc. Of course the police do make a decision about whether an illegal act has been committed, since it's the first stage in the judicial process.

I'm saying it's trivial because it is in my opinion. It's something that's happened to me on more than a few occasions over the past forty odd years of cycling in mainly rural areas. Can't say I've been overly bothered about it and see no reason to involve the police. YVMV

The fact that the police sent an officer to speak to the dog owner indicates that they did not consider it trivial. The attitude that dogs which are out of control and threaten pedestrians and cyclists is 'trivial', is one that seems to be common amongst dog owners who are too lazy or too stupid to train and control their dogs.

Woodtourer, when you have worked out your provisional itinery from Reading to Poole, if you post the details (including likely approximate start/finish timings), posters may be able to provide advice.

For example, I had a look at a small section of the route from Reading to Poole suggested by the Cycle Streets website, and it incorporates some gravel/stone tracks, which might be good (indeed very nice, if you like that and your bikes/tyres are suitable) or bad. More importantly the website does not warn you that that part of the route is on gravel, and it also routes you via a stretch of a dual lane 'A' road which is usually fairly heavy with traffic travelling at (or above) the 70mph limit. In other words, although it's perfectly legal for cyclists to use it, and even though the route only uses that road for one mile, it's extremely unpleasant and unnecessarily dangerous, since it's very easy to avoid using it.

If you will have a deadline by which to get to Poole, e.g. if you are planning to catch a ferry from Poole, then it might be useful to know that you would have options to bail out and catch a train from a few railway stations which will probably not be too far from your likely route.

coolmax or similar fabrics

At 35°C I would find pretty much any synthetic fabric to be much less pleasant to wear against the skin than natural fibres, even 'Coolmax' which is still just polyester. I've no personal experience of wearing merino wool in such weather, but I think the likes of Icebreaker do make some very fine knit merino wool t-shirts which are intended for hot weather use (I also vaguely recall reading that the Queen's dressmakers used wool for the dresses she wore when visting very hot countries, because of its superior breathability, although the type of weave and weight of fabric and how the garments were structured were also probably very important, and I think the same can be true for wool suits for men, e.g. using fresco wool cloth which has a very open weave).

Serbring, if you live in Italy, I would suggest you look and see what other stylish cyclists in your town and on the internet in Italy are wearing. Frankly, if I needed to look smart/stylish and ride a bike for 10km in 35°C heat, then I would be considering some chino type trousers (cotton, with possibly some lycra added for a bit of stretch ideally, and preferably not expensive given the greater wear and tear they would suffer on the saddle). With that I would wear something like a cotton (or yes, merino) polo shirt with an open knit (e.g. pique), or if you need to be smarter then a long sleeve 100% cotton work shirt, with possibly a string/mesh cotton vest underneath. You can roll the sleeves up when cycling, and if you can find a jacket that you can put in a pannier or saddlebag without creasing (like some high twist wools or synthetics), you can put that on when you arrive if the building is air conditioned.

The other thing I would do is cycle slowly, and get to my destination 10 minutes early and have un caffè while I cooled down.

I don't think it was an ISO taper BITD, although they may have changed it at some point.

I must admit I assumed that because it was french, it would be JIS, and I only found the old thread topic which I linked to above because I was not certain and wanted to check before posting.

When I have measured the taper on these spindles it has seemed very slightly different from that of other cranks.

Agreed. I've dug out an old original TA axle (stamped "TA344") which was fitted together with a Cyclotourist double chainset by Condor in the late 1980s on a frame with 126mm rear hub spacing. The axle length is 116mm.

Comparing it with a Campag cartridge BB and a Shimano UN55, the taper type is not readily obvious to me. It looks like the amount of chamfering of the corners along the length of the taper has the scope to vary significantly just between two axles of the same taper type, making it difficult to identify a taper by the shape of the flats.

That said, the length of the flats on the non-drive side of the TA axle is only 15mm, whereas they are approximately 17mm on both the Shimano and Campag BBs. I've read that ISO cranks sit more on the end of the taper than JIS cranks, as illustrated by the image below in a velo orange blog, so maybe the shorter length of the TA axle flats is consistant with - or at least closer to - an ISO taper. Furthermore, the cranks have worn away the black surface coating on the TA axles, exposing the silver steel, for approximately 12mm of the taper's length at both ends. The wear starts from the very ends of the axle, whereas the limited wear on the UN55 from brief use, including fitting and removing a Stronglight Impact chainset, starts 2mm in from the ends of the axle.

According to this thread the Cyclotourist crank is ISO taper.

What size bottom bracket will depend on what your road path frame is (and in particular the frame's rear hub spacing, e.g. 120mm, 126mm, 130mm etc.), what chainline you need/want, and how critical it is to get precisely that chainline, e.g. is it a derailleur as opposed to a single speed, hub gear or fixed gear.

A few (disconnected) thoughts:

- What is/was the goal or target of this project, in concrete terms and numbers, and how has it been measured? Has that - or have intermediate targets - been achieved? (and if so, presumably it has reached it's end as far as the DfT is concerned).

- With regard to "several thousand people riding bikes who couldn't before this project", I think the big question is trend and identified/quantified potential for further growth (versus the cost). In other words, will the project continuing just largely keep those same several thousand riding, or will it deliver a similar number of new cyclists every year if funding levels are maintained. I suspect even the latter would not be enough to justify the funding. If I were the decision maker allocating such funding, I would want either the same levels of funding each year to deliver exponential growth (with new cyclists encouraging others to join them, and people generally deciding to get on a bike without any involvement of the CCC simply because they saw so many others riding and were motivated to try it themselves), or I would want the project to be a fixed term of funding which would deliver a permanent, self-sustaining increase in numbers which would remain after the end of the funding.

- Whoever came up with the name 'Community Cycling Clubs' was an idiot. 'Clubs' are by common understanding small groups (even very large clubs are small relative to the population size, especially when considering the numbers who are potentially eligible but who do not join): by very definition the word is exclusionary. The word is suggestive of spending public money for the benefit of a minority special interest group. 'Community Cycling Clubs' is even worse, and sounds like something from the 1940s, and is a term that I could only imagine being devised nowadays by someone with a significant left leaning political bias. Something like 'Urban Cycling Initiative' might have had far more appeal across the political spectrum. Which brings me to my last related point..

- "Birmingham City Council loves the CCCs", but most of the funding came from the DfT. What was done and is being done to convince and persuade the DfT to maintain funding? If it's the Conservative controlled central government that is paying, I can well imagine that 'Community Cycling Clubs' (especially in predominantly Labour controlled cities returning mostly Labour MPs) will have little appeal to them. Boris Johnson was closely identified with cycling in London, and gained publicity and political capital from it. Was any effort made to provide the relevant junior minister from the DfT with opportunities for positive publicity associated with the scheme, such as a favourable article in the national press with a photo opportunity for the minister?

I appreciate some of the above sounds very cynical when considering the political motivations, but if - as is so often the case when dealing with people's lives - you cannot truly measure the benefit that your project is having in cold numbers, then you need to consider winning hearts as well as minds. And it's not just purely about mercenary political advantage: a minister who has had the chance to meet and talk to people involved in the project and heard positive things from the new cyclists might be more emotionally invested in it when the decision about further funding crosses his or her desk in London.

Many thanks for the replies and advice. I had planned to use a syringe fitted with a short length of plastic hose in order to try to deliver the grease as close as possible to the slots in the hollow axle. However, judging by the replies it seems this may not be important as long as there is a reasonable seal between the end of the axle and whatever nozzle is inserted into it, and presumably when the push rod is reinserted it will displace grease in the hollow axle and force it through the slots in the axle.

Since the Britpart SFG is available in bottles with a tapered nozzle, I'll buy one of those and see if it would be possible to squeeze the grease directly from the bottle into the end of the hollow axle.

I have a new bike with a Nexus 3 speed hub. I am planning to buy some semi fluid grease of the type specified for Landrover swivels (i.e. Britpart, Penrite or Landrover own brand), and to inject this into the hub via the hollow axle using a syringe with a short length of flexible plastic tube on the end.

The bike lives in a garage so it would not matter much if any excess lubricant leaked over time through the seals onto the floor, so I figure I could err on the side of injecting too much rather than too little (50ml?) and/or of doing so relatively frequently (every six months?).

I would be interested to know if anyone had any advice before I proceed (especially anyone whose name begins with 'B' ).

You need a Chorus or Record triple (111) bottom bracket. Not a Centaur or Veloce etc. The Chorus and Record are asymmetrical whereas the others are symmetrical.

As per tatanab's comments, Campagnolo made 111mm bottom brackets for double chainsets for the Centaur groupset amongst others (whereas the bottom brackets for Chorus and Record double chainsets were 102mm).

According to Token's website here https://www.tokenproducts.com/bottom-brackets/road/iso-square-taper-185, the 111mm version, e.g. model no. TK8671CM, is for a triple, which implies that it is like the Chorus and Record 111mm bottom brackets. That said, I note that they do not offer a 111mm version for double chainsets, which makes me wonder, since I would have assumed that there would be a larger demand for 111mm double chainset bottom brackets given likely higher sales of the lower tier groupsets.

On their ebay site High on Bikes sell the TK8671CM model but say that it is "suitable for Campagnolo double chainsets", whereas they also sell a Tifosi 111mm bottom bracket on ebay which they say is "suitable for 2006 Xenon, Mirage, Veloce and Centaur double chainsets and older models also. Also Chorus and Record Triple Chainsets":

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Token-Carbon-Square-Taper-Campagnolo-Bottom-Bracket-English-111mm-/311142730771

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tifosi-Carbon-Campagnolo-Fit-Bottom-Bracket-111mm-English/311126596382?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D49481%26meid%3D73eab4d2eb574b09a914a9de3a32f866%26pid%3D100623%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D6%26mehot%3Dag%26sd%3D311142730771&_trksid=p2047675.c100623.m-1

Don't do that as you will break or wreck the ratchet. Ratchets aren't meant for that use. Use a T bar or something else suitable.

You are quite right. I didn't have a breaker bar or similar when I last did it, but I will get one when I next do it. Thank you for the warning.

Mick F wrote:Trouble with a Moulton though, is that they don't have seatstays as such...A good place would be low down on the seat tube just above the crossmember as that would be below my saddle bag, but it's quite a big diameter of 40mm so I'm not sure how I could fit a rear light there considering the available clamps. Tie wraps would do it I suppose but they're not a neat solution.

Supernova E3 Tail Light 2? (The version that uses a stretchy band rather than a metal bracket around the seatpost, assuming the band would stretch enough to cope with the larger diameter of the seat tube, or that otherwise you could get a bigger band.)

https://www.rosebikes.co.uk/article/supernova-e3-tail-light-2-for-installation-on-the-seat-post/aid:783012

Brucey wrote:At risk of coming over as a luddite/reactionary old giffer who makes an art form out of not keeping up with the times, is it just me or is the simple, unfettered joy of getting on a simple machine (a normal bicycle) and going for a ride becoming a lost pleasure?

Where I live I see plenty of ordinary people, including families, riding for pleasure on mostly inepensive/low end bikes. However, I live in a tourist area with roads and tracks that make cycling a very pleasurable, relaxed and relatively low traffic/stress free experience.

And there I think lies the rub: riding on busy roads and in towns and cities, and often even in the suburbs, is very unlikely to be a simple unfettered joy. So I don't think it's a question of the technology, but rather the roads and the traffic. Many cyclists now will put their bike on or in their car and drive to where they want to ride, and that includes both MAMILs on the latest high tech road bikes, mountan bikers wanting to get to the trails, and ordinary people and families riding basic bikes from Halfords.

As for 'simple machine', I suspect that the average man or woman in the street might consider some of your bikes to be rather fancy and not simple: keen cyclists' perspective of what constitutes a simple or normal bike is likely to be more 'refined' than that of the ordinary person who happens to own a bike and ride it occasionally. In that respect, I think the definition of a simple/normal bike is one that you would ride wearing ordinary clothes (which would probably mean non-clipless pedals and flat bars), and there are plenty of bikes sold by the big manufacturers that fit that criteria.

If however you are referring to the technological complexity of the bikes bought and ridden by 'real'/'proper' or keen cyclists, I don't think in fundamentals much has changed, because people have not changed. There is a bit of Mr Toad in most of us to some degree, and the only difference is that more of us are able to gratify the desire to ride high end kit than in the days when Campag Super Record was not something ordinary people could afford. I also think that the sheer rate of change in the technology and kit does become wearing, and after a while people decide that what they've already got is good enough, and they have no desire for further upgrades or replacements. Moreover, many even decide to reduce the complexity and switch to singlespeed or fixed. There are certainly a lot more people riding fixed than when I first started riding.

So, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

It certainly sounds like shallow, superficial and lazy thinking, where (in the minds of the persons concerned at the school) cycle safety and/or the extent to which the school has some responsibility for it has become reduced to wearing (or possessing) a helmet.

I think it's useful sometimes to compare the different approaches of road safety and work related safety, because they can throw an interesting light on the attitudes and approaches of those involved in road safety in any capacity, whether as a planner, policy maker or user.

In this case, I am reminded of the construction industry which has long had one of the worst safety records of any major industry. Although to a significant extent this reflected the inherent higher risks of the industry, it also used to reflect a similar flawed mindset of the senior people in the industry, who were the ones in a position to take decisions which determined and influenced safety. Put simply, many of them resisted the introduction of the risk assessment based approach: they preferred having a simple checklist of things which once completed allowed them to consider themselves absolved from any further responsibility (or legal liability). Unsurprisingly personal protective equipment, including helmets, featured heavily in this approach.

However, the construction industry was forced by legislation and court decisions to recognise that PPE is a last resort, and there is a great deal else that needs to be done first before placing reliance on it. Probably one of the biggest changes to come out of the risk assessment based approach, is the much greater focus on safety related training in the construction industry, such that many workers will not be able even to get onto a site unless they have evidence of the relevant safety training accreditation, such as a CSCS card.

So, rather than complain about the requirement to have a helmet in their possession when entering school, I would instead say to the school that that sounds like a good idea, but ask what are they doing to ensure that pupils are riding safely, since the helmet is an absolute last resort. Dangerous cycling by the pupils on the road or on the pavement may put others at risk and bring the school into disrepute. Obviously there are limits to the school's ability to police such behaviour, but one thing it could do to protect its pupils, itself and other road/pavement users, would be to require that the pupils undertake a suitable training course.

So I would be using this as an opportunity to call upon the school to run Bikeability courses for all pupils who cycle to school.

I use a ratchet handle with a 4' length of pipe over the handle as an extension to remove Campag bottom brackets, but they have never been seized in the frame.

Where something is seized, I would try repeatedly (lightly) tapping the handle of the spanner/driver numerous times with a hammer to try to break the seal first, rather than just going straight to applying very high levels of torque.