Cycling UK Forum

Borisface is the expert on Portugal, but I had a great tour from the Douro valley down the border to Sabugal, then Viseu and Porto, last year. Very quiet roads (inland), long, but nice gradients, good food and accommodation and especially the people. Very few spoke English, so I had a chance to prac...

Quite right Pete, but the request was to make a tent freestanding, not functional to live in. :) To make it truly useable would be quite a major job and would need extra poles, which means complexity and weight. I customise and modify tents, but I wouldn't try it, unless the complexity and weight we...

This is a long thread and since it diverts into condensation I can't be bothered reading through it all, but assuming it's not already been said, to make your tent freestanding, you really need a couple of poles going from left front to right back and right front to left back. This will push out the...

I'm not sure that story is correct. Both the Force 10 website and Wikipedia say that the F10 tent was introduced in the '60's, which is in line with my memory. Plus Conquest and F10 were on sale at the same time and competing.

IIRC, Vango was producing Force 10's before Conquest began production. They were made in Gosport in Hampshire and were made by the same company which had Safari Outdoors shop in Portsmouth. I looked at getting one in around '77, but saved up an extra £10 to get an Ultimate Super Packer (£75!) Did Va...

I've heard a lot about Recife and it's beaches and those videos make me want to go, but I'm not sure about riding through salt water. For the time being I'll stick to Portugal. A quick question if I may pick your brains. I've been struggling to find the correct word/verb for "cycling" in E...

Now 'A' is a tarp tent with a second complete inner 'nest', where as 'B' is a tarp tent with a bathtub and mesh skirt / doorway. What are the advantages of each type ( 1 skin / 2 skin ) Surely condensation will occuor any way some times, and the inner tent then serves what purpose. I've read about ...

Last winter I cycled quite a bit in a Ventile smock and it was very good. Completely windproof, very breathable and although not a waterproof fabric, it is certainly weatherproof. When it did get soaked, I found the heat generated climbing hills kept the inner surface dry, much more so than when wal...

From Deganwy, you are on roads until Rhos on Sea and then it is off road all the way to the end of Prestatyn Golf Course. If you go ahead through the holiday camp to Talacre, then you will be on the A548 for about 8miles till Bagillt, when you can parallel the A548. It's not too bad for traffic, dep...

Hi there people! Helpful thread thanks. Did anyone have direct experience this year flying with ryanair with 1x checked in bike? If so what were your dimensions? @ Graham O did you have a bike box in the end? and if so what were its dimensions and how was your experience all ok? The box i recycled ...

If you wanted really lightweight, and could remember to pack them properly so they didn't need a stiffened back, panniers made out of cuben fibre would be under 100g each, with most of the weight coming from the fittings. Unfortunately cuben fibre is very expensive and the abrasion resistance is not...

A fair bit of weight comes from the fixings and any stiffening. I recently made a pair of panniers with the intention of stiffening then with the plastic that signs are made from, (can't remember the name of it at present). 2 * 25litre in Cordura came to 480g the pair, but the plastic did not inspi...

Hi, Leaving Rhyl, the cycle path is pretty good. There are a couple of farm gates to open on the way to Rhuddlan, but they open wide, none of the cattle crush type IIRC. The route you have is not too bad. Yes, the climb to Trefnant is pretty steep (= very steep), but the main road from St. Asaph to ...

a dry wind has less mass in it Interestingly, this is the exact opposite of the truth (!) Air density is proportional to the mass of the molecules making up the air. The majority of molecules are nitrogen (N2), mass 28 Water (H2O) has a mass of 18. So at any given temperature and pressure, a given ...

Hi, A question has been puzzling me for some weeks and I'd like to know other peoples opinions about headwinds and their strength. Most of my cycling is done in typical UK weather and headwinds are a fact of life and as the wind speed increases, so does the effort needed. However on a recent trip to...