Cycling UK Forum

And the Daddy of 'em all!

What about selecting Areas and then printing off the map(s) from for example

http://www.camping-caravaning-france.co ... rance.html

Seems quite useful to me.

FWIW there is a pair of LX (silver, 32 H if I remember aright) on ebay at moment for 30 quid incl P&P. I WAS going to buy them for touring wheels but decided to keep existing front and picked up an XT rear for 20 quid.

I suspect the rims. I recently built up some Chrinas and completely failed to fit x28 Vittoria Randonee tyres which I would normally expect to be easy. Having tried fitting the tyres without tubes in an attempt to "stretch" them I ended up cutting them off rather than risk further damage to the new rims! Even x25 CHEAP Vittorias (normally slip on) were difficult.

I had planned on a set of Sputniks for the same bike with more off-tarmac rubber. Time to think again....

"...a rear hub with an eccentric adjustment built in .Haven't got it handy so don't know name."

A Whit "ENO". A nice piece of kit, but an expensive solution (c£125 hub-only!) best kept for a much loved, valuable, vertical drop out frame!

In my experience center pulls (Weinmann, if not Raleigh - tho' they are often just re-badged Weinmanns!) work just fine with V-brake blocks. Especially if modern "sprung" levers.

Always seems an excellent (and SIMPLE!) idea to me. Certainly any steel frame will cope with a 130 or 135 oln in a 132.5 spacing!

"This group appears to be very biased towards racing/road bikes"

Actually LESS so than most I think! After all it is the Cycle TOURING Club!

That is really rather nice - lovely job!

"...to ride fixed, it's more pure."

I do mostly! Not that it's "pure", simply lessens the number of decisions in life. I may rarely be in the right gear, but I'm never in the wrong one! And so much quicker to clean the Langster after a potter along the towpath and round the Nature Reserve this a.m. than it would have been with dangly bits....

"could be narrowed down to two such simple bullet points"

My point precisely - it CAN'T be! It's about all sorts of things (design of tubing - of whatever shape, how put together, geometry etc etc plus the other components). What it is not about is the MATERIAL per se.

I've had steel of all sorts, titanium, alu, carbon - singly or in mixtures - and I wouldn't judge any of them JUST by the material.

"also, being steel, it's a lot better bike than either carbon or aluminium"

What on earth makes you think that? Nostalgia? HOW is heavier and subject to rust possibly "better"? Different yes, better? Just possibly for some uses, in general, not!

CS are not the best rubber for grip either! When I returned to engined two wheelers a couple of years ago, the bike had CS as originally fitted. Handling so poor (even in the dry wandered on white lines and other road paint!), that I assumed that I'd simply lost my nerve.
Change to Contis totally changed the bike!

Simply a modern day version of the Manchester Constable who found a dead horse in Piccadilly Gardens and when reading from his Notebook in Court quoted "....in Pik...Pick...Pikdally....so I dragged it to Tib Street".

I'm allowed. Born in Trafford Park when it was still the largest industrial estate in Europe....ahh, waking up to Metrovics' factory hooter every morning...

" The Police who enforce cycle lane obstructions during their hours of operation "

Does "their" refer to the Police or to the "cycle lane"?

I'd always assumed that the Police are operational 24 hours per day!

And yes trials riding over the vehicles would be an excellent jape!