Cycling UK Forum

Jdsk wrote: ↑18 Jul 2022, 8:00pm
Thanks

I wouldn't use something that caused irritation.

But I was thinking about that mixture of "chemicals" that he is using in that combination without any long-term testing. Some adverse reactions don't occur immediately.

Jonathan

Couldn't agree more with regards to not using anything without long term testing, in an 'emergency' or otherwise.

Others have asked the same but the reply has been that everything used is available in commercially available products, if only the more expensive ones. He's lasted over a decade and I doubt it's anywhere near as hazardous as some of the stuff many regularly ingest!

Jdsk wrote: ↑17 Jul 2022, 6:00pm

Biospace wrote: ↑17 Jul 2022, 5:52pmWhich is why above mentioned mate makes his own sunblock with Zinc and Titanium oxide and carrier wax/oils - not only does he know what he's using on his body but it costs a fraction of ready-made products.

How does he know whether that mixture is more or less hazardous than a commercial product?

Thanks

Jonathan

A product bought in an 'emergency' didn't work as well as the usual, plus caused some irritation to the skin (I was there and saw the mess) - a pharmacist mate of his set him wondering, reading and on the road to the diy approach. I think originally it was only intended as an experiment, but cost less and worked well.

He has lectured us all about why he doesn't use nano sized particle oxide powders - his homemade block is not transparent - and boasts it lasts way longer between applications than what he used to use.

mjr wrote: ↑17 Jul 2022, 1:12am I read elsewhere that Holland and Barrett is the t place to go for mineral sunscreens.

I also read that all mineral sunscreens tested by Which are "don't buy"s. https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/mi ... a8O8h9oDPW

"18 of 51 products passed the UVA protection test required of products sold in Europe" - https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/report/wh ... -high-spf/

It seems a lot of claimed effectiveness in the skincare industry is incorrect.

mjr wrote: ↑15 Jul 2022, 5:27pm

Biospace wrote: ↑15 Jul 2022, 2:51pm On practical and comfort levels I find it much easier to cover up as necessary rather than carrying a bottle of chemicals, apply them and remember to repeat once they've been absorbed into the body.

Cover up? Full gloves in summer while cycling? Really?

Cowsham wrote: ↑16 Jul 2022, 11:06pm Yep -- a nice light pair of gloves prevents any Ak's on the backs of the hands.

Your skin is the body's largest single organ, what repeatedly goes on it can affect your health. https://www.lawsuit-information-center. ... suits.html

Which is why above mentioned mate makes his own sunblock with Zinc and Titanium oxide and carrier wax/oils - not only does he know what he's using on his body but it costs a fraction of ready-made products.

mjr wrote: ↑15 Jul 2022, 5:27pm

Biospace wrote: ↑15 Jul 2022, 2:51pm On practical and comfort levels I find it much easier to wear a hat which shades your neck and to cover up elsewhere as necessary rather than carrying a bottle of chemicals, apply them and remember to repeat once they've been absorbed into the body.

Cover up? Full gloves in summer while cycling? Really?

And I think sunscreen gets sweated off more than absorbed.

You'll be perfectly safe then and I'm sure marine life isn't going to kick up a fuss!

Interesting point though if sweating, how long does suncream remain effective? A friend found she sweated much more if covered in suncream than if covering up with clothes.

I've never been plagued with sunburnt hands, if the sun is so strong hnads will burn I'll either wear sleeves with cuffs or stay in the shade. Generally hands are less delicate than back of neck and shoulders.

I don't use the stuff except for very occasionally, but know a someone who makes their own for a fraction of the cost.

Tangled Metal wrote: ↑26 Apr 2022, 10:30pm
I once had a friend who was very fair skinned such that she went white as her suntan! Seriously a medical condition that she couldn't be outside in the sun for long at all. She put the rieter on leaving it to be absorbed for half hour, then another layer and half hour wait. Then she applied a SPF 50 on top and waited half hour before going out. Best part of 2 hours routine. The SPF 50 outer layer gets reappl every couple of hours and she often wore trousers and long sleeves plus wide brimmed hat and buff.

BTW better to cover up with clothes than gunk. There's things I'm sunscreen that isn't exactly for you neither.

Couldn't agree more, there's plenty of debate about the safety (or not) of many suncreams.

Questions of safety for humans include some of the chemicals used, contamination with benzene and how relevant and accurate the safety data is when applied repeatedly over many days.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2733085
https://www.health.com/condition/skin-c ... -sunscreen

It's been shown some suncream chemicals (oxybenzone is one) are highly toxic to marine life, including introducing female characteristics for male fish. Suncreams with marine toxicity are banned/discouraged in states and countries where coral reefs are recognised as important to the economy, such as Hawaii, Florida, Virgin Islands and other Caribbeans.

On practical and comfort levels I find it much easier to wear a hat which shades your neck and to cover up elsewhere as necessary rather than carrying a bottle of chemicals, apply them and remember to repeat once they've been absorbed into the body.

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/suns ... orals.html
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... protection
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/most ... 4version=1

I play podcasts through the phone sometimes, although being on the bike is a great way of being more at one with Nature. I delight in the silence of a good bike, especially of a quiet freewheel mech.

Assuming it's possible to tax your way out of a recession is as mistaken as thinking it's possible to reduce taxation across the board to see the same results. Tax revenue is what matters, so we need to look at which sectors are under-performing at the moment in order to improve the economy.

Small and medium size business suffered particularly badly through the lockdowns as huge corporations benefitted, encouraging SMEs to thrive would perhaps make sense. Diversity is the key as Nature so clearly demonstrates, an economy dominated by large business at the expense of smaller ones is not a healthy or vibrant one.

As for the NHS, I'm left wondering how much extra taxation would be required to improve things to the point our cancer survival rates or number of beds were on a par with countries like France of Germany, rather than Turkey. Germany has roughly 3 times as many beds as us, but spends around 1.4x what we do. If the present system was going to cost considerably more to raise our levels to that of similar countries, the system itself needs looking at. One criticism I hear time and again is poor investment in those who work on the shop floor, but more than enough management, to put it politely.

simonineaston wrote: ↑12 Jul 2022, 4:25pm I think a lot of people may miss a couple of serious points - first that centrist political parties, across the piece, have ceded power over the past couple of decades to global finance and commerce. There is very little that they can do now, to resist the demands of their new masters. If people could see the true extent of the intended privatisation of care services, they'd be truly alarmed.

This should be a huge concern to everyone, yet it's so rarely mentioned.

The Tories are mis-trusted on this, which is why perhaps it's under Labour where these things get going - didn't Blair start the ball rolling with private elements working within the NHS? Then there's the whole PFI thing which was started by Major and used to full effect by Brown, costing the tax payer dearly.

Taxation should be fair and not disincentivise any section of society. Unfortunately, I've seen little moving in this direction in the last few decades. At the moment there's a continued, huge movement of wealth towards big business. The lockdowns have speeded up this process hugely.

Coke is good for unseizing rusty steel surfaces, likewise paraffin-acetone in a 95-5 mix works very well.

Leave for at least 24 hours before trying, use some physical shock treatment as needed.

Once freed off and used repeatedly/rinsed out I find a spray white grease as effective as any to keep things moving, especially when worn.

KM2 wrote: ↑12 Jul 2022, 4:37pm Sorry it’s for a sram set of brakes. Cleaning pistons and changing fluids.
How long does a fluid of this sort last, I did read that some absorb water?????

DOT3, 4 and 5.1 all actively absorb water, reducing the failure point markedly. It's generally fairly poisonous stuff and will eat through paintwork. SInce it has to be changed regularly, it's not exactly environmentally friendly. One approach is to approach a local garage and ask for a small amount, that will get around the plastic container for a tiny amount.

High quality DOT4 is generally regarded as much better fluid than DOT5.1. ATE Super Blue one of the best, about £16/litre. Regular DOT4 is typically £6-8.

The advantage of 5.1 is that it remains 'thin' at low temperatures, so great if you're using ABS a lot on snow and ice.

Cyclists do end up paying through the nose for such small amounts, one reason (among many) I seek out brakes which use mineral oil.

horizon wrote: ↑29 Jan 2022, 5:48pm There was time years ago that I looked at better methods of motorised touring than a car and considered a motorbike. But I looked at the possible engine and decided 600 cc could be put to better use in a Deux Chevaux, complete with open top, comfy seats and no need to wear a helmet or leathers.

I hope you don't mind the re-opening of this thread months after your post, horizon, but I think you've put your finger on something. French quadricycles come between bikes and small cars, the best of which by far I'd say is the (electric) Renault Twizzy, but it's not very comfortable and pretty much a single seater. Citroën has recently introduced its electric Ami quadricycle, but it's desperately slow (30mph) and crude. A 2cv was an amazingly versatile, cheap, tough vehicle, there's nothing around today which quite fills its space.

The closest I ever came to what you might consider suitable was a handbuilt open top 'sports tourer' based on a 1970s (Citroën) Ami8 chassis which I bought years ago. It had been constructed rather beautifully by an ex RAF fighter pilot and was a little like an ancient Morgan 3 wheeler. He and his wife had toured Europe in it, "absolute luxury" compared with an aircraft cockpit and being shot at. 60mpg, 95mph if you were really in a hurry, you felt more 'connected' with the road than any motorbike and was so much fun, yet also very tough, practical and capable. There are similar things today named 'Triking', a little pricey and though.

One aspect of all this is perhaps that you've achieved near perfection with your touring on a good bike, with good company, good kit, enough experience to make things well organised and so on. But I do feel there is a market out there for a quadricycle-class vehicle which can achieve the equivalent of 240mpg, sit at 65mph, carry two people plus luggage and ooze charm. It would appeal to commuter, student, world-tourist, and possibly cyclists and bikers who didn't want to have the ignomy of owning a car. We've forgotten how to be innovative in the small vehicle sector, so should legislate for such a thing!

I don't think an electric motor on your bike would actually improve anything for you, I've found ebikes best at doing local trips when otherwise I'd take a car - when time or energy is limited.

Bonzo Banana wrote: ↑26 Jun 2022, 10:12am We really need to legislate for smaller cars, driving around with 1.5 tons of metal around you is so wrong for the environment and bad for wear and tear of the roads. It's also more dangerous to other road users due to size and force of impact.

This cannot be repeated often enough.

Mass is the key to less harm wrt motor vehicles, but it's the most expensive to engineer in. So we have family cars approaching 200hp weighing nearly 2 tonnes. It's utter lunacy, yet the government continues to give even heavier 4x4s tax breaks.

Cugel wrote: ↑18 May 2022, 11:07am
Front hubs have the reputation of interfering adversely with the handling of a bike. They also seem to come with batteries that have to be hung or otherwise clagged to the bike externally, often high up so that handling is further degraded by raising the bikes centre of gravity. But they're easy to fit. The wheel can be got out without too much extra bother - although you can't swap to a different wheelset without including another hub motor.

Rear hubs are unobtrusive and are said to give a better feel in that their "push" is identical in placement (the rear tyre) to the push from the pedalling rider, unlike a front hub. But wheel change and puncture mending gets rather involved. They also tend to have a smallish torque (40Nm rather than 60 or 80).

There are several varieties of mid-motor. They can often improve handling by lowering the centre of gravity and most (not all) come with a frame-hidden battery. Your remark that you have " ....even less wish to push power through chains, sprockets and hub gears that weren’t built with that in mind" ignores the fact that the chains, sprockets and hub gears were designed precisely to handle power put through them. Many fit cyclists can put a continuous 200 - 250 watts through their gearing and those racing fellows can put up to 1400 watts momentarily through the transmission during a professional race sprint! Good time trialists often generate a continuous 300 or more watts for hours at a time.


Cugel, trying to remain motor-unseduced.

I was aware of this reputation before trying my first ebike which was front drive and with a carrier mounted battery at the back, but completely stable (26" Raleigh). It pulled like stink from rest, yet the front wheel never began to feel wayward, even through greasy corners. Quite the opposite with a Giant, which also had the battery at the back, but as a side-mounted pannier. It had a rear hub motor and you had to watch the power through corners wherever the surface wasn't perfect, a combination of a lot of power going through one tiny contact patch and a centre of mass a long way back. The tyres were good quality. Lovely bike, otherwise.

The third ebike had a mid-mounted motor which introduced some vibration to the frame, which I hated, as well as much more noise than a near-silent hub motor (amplified by the frame). I imagine a £4000 ebike doesn't suffer from either of these issues. Of course a chain and its cogs will withstand a huge load through them, the matter is more of longevity. It was a tedious expense to have to replace these items three or four times more often than on my normal bikes, made all the worse because there were none of the expected benefits of having a geared motor.

My findings were that front drive was more stable, better balanced and with better traction, especially off-road and through fast corners.

Stevek76 wrote: ↑8 Jul 2022, 12:20pm

Biospace wrote: ↑7 Jul 2022, 2:07pm

Stevek76 wrote: ↑7 Jul 2022, 1:41pm Not sure it's really a narrative that needs to be bolstered is it?

Politicians who choose to be involved in war usually prefer for there to be a simple narrative for the public, to minimise any doubters and the negative effect they could have, politically. Blair made it sound like we had no alternative other than to invade Iraq, that our security would be at risk if we didn't. As it turned out, our security has been compromised far more by his invasion.

And Blair's efforts to drive that narrative didn't wash with a great deal of the British public, hence the damage it caused him politically and the massive protests in London at the time. I think there's a risk of overstating the power of government propaganda here.

Certainly there were plenty of geopolitical matters that could have been dealt with better (though hindsight etc) but when it comes to the antagonist here compared with other conflicts I think a big reason for public opinion being as it is on the matter is simply that it's fairly clear cut in this case.

Yes, it is very clear cut in this situation with regards to the appalling Russian invasion, there are no excuses whatsoever. But a series of decisions by The West which affected Russia's behaviour negatively cannot be labelled as 'hindsight' when there have been many learned people, both civilian and military, questioning the integrity of those decisions for years.

In my book, everything possible should be done to try and avert armed warfare. Lest We Forget. The effect on a population is so indescribably awful, from mental illness, orphaned children, physical disabilities and lawlessness to the ensuing, grinding poverty. I'm not at all convinced everything was done, but European leaders (and many American presidents) have been asleep at the wheel for far too long for them to actively realise they were not, increasingly they seem to speak and act from the same book, even using the same phrases.

As to the travelling showman Sir Tony Blair KG, there were millions who protested yet he stayed on as PM for years after we (illegally) invaded Iraq and destabilised the whole of the Middle East and other Muslim nations. The older I grow, the more politics looks more and more like it's a distracting sideshow to what those who hold the reigns of power are up to.

My experience is also that a 250W motor might struggle on steep hills.

I was first made aware of problems going up steep hills on ebikes when, walking our bikes up a 1 in 5 or so in the Lake District, a lady came past in a sweat, standing on her pedals, so out of breath she could barely acknowledge us. Her husband followed on a bike without a motor, then got off to walk the steep bit with us. It turned out that if she stopped, the bike was too heavy for her to be able to push it up the hill.

I found the ebikes I tried a few years ago (viewtopic.php?p=1706036#p1706036) all needed fairly hard pedalling to continue going up a steep hill. The ebike with a mid-mounted motor driving through gearing managed things barely any better, which surprised me.

What perhaps matters most is that there is a 'walk' mode for the motor, which pushes it along at 2 or 3 mph so that you don't have the weight of a bike plus motor, battery and any luggage to push up a steep hill.

Motors vary, suppliers should be able to offer a choice of at least two motors, where one is lower geared.