Cycling UK Forum

I once rode a mountain bike into a pond. Why? I was 15. 'nuff said. All was going well until my feet hit the water, and that caused my back wheel to lift, instantly losing drive, forward momentum, and balance. At one point I was completely submerged, as was the bike.

Being 15, I ignored cleaning it for a while, until it got too hard to ride, then came my first ever bearing strip down and rebuild. I did them all - both hubs, both pedals, bottom bracket, and headset, and it rode better than ever afterwards.

Making good decisions comes from experience, and experience comes from making bad decisions...

Even without biblical floods, I can get to work in the same time with normal traffic, and during roadworks which caused 45 minute delays, I was... 45 minutes faster. My local Facebook group was filled with people bemoaning the traffic and berating the council, seemingly unaware that they ARE traffic, and they were complaining about the state of the road previously. The cognitive dissonance is strong.

I've told him that, and he may be coming round, slowly. He's ordered a Revolution Courier Nexus for £399, we'll see how that goes. If it doesn't last any better than the last one, maybe he'll be persuaded to get a more expensive one.

Both! He regularly rides over 80 miles at a time, and is not even slightly handy - he'll keep riding for weeks wondering why the gears are noisy, and not mention it to me until something breaks. He can just about oil the chain, but nowhere near often enough. I replaced the drivetrain and brakes, greased the hubs, replaced the pedals, and replaced the front wheel not long ago. It's all been cheap stuff, not really expected to last long, but he does around 5000 miles a year, I don't suppose much will. It doesn't help that it's a 7 speed freewheel - seems like only cheap parts are available. I think he's done well to keep a £300 bike on the road for so long.

The Rohloff is of course the gold standard, but he was hoping to get a whole bike for less than the cost of that hub!

As per title - a friend of mine has ridden his hybrid into the ground - and from London to Paris a couple of months ago - and destroyed his 3rd drivetrain this year. He's also gone through a dozen brake block refills, and I think it's time he considered something more hardwearing, hub gears and brakes seem ideal, and he's comfortable on flat bars. The subway 8 seems to tick all the boxes, but despite appearing at a great price on halfords' website, is unavailable. So what else is there?

My heaven would be inappropriate for this forum.

Hell would be having a task, like what-his-name's rock, that just wasn't quite possible, combined with various snide put downs. Much like some jobs I've had!

I don't know what lumens means, all I know is I tried a few in a shop, and bought one with 4 LEDs, which I felt was plenty bright enough for use in dark campsite, and there were others much brighter - mine was only the second one from the bottom. I've never actually used it on the bike, my Cateye 530 is sufficient; but I've sometimes thought it would be a good idea. Some other brands were, frankly, a bit rubbish - claiming the same lumens, or maybe measuring in lux or watts or something equally confusing, which were less bright for the same price, and the £5 Tesco one I bought a few years ago flicked the LEDs on and off to save battery power, at just the right frequency to give me migraine.

How about supplementing with an LED head torch? You can get a very bright 4 LED Petzl for about £30, and blindingly bright for a little more. It ought to help out with clipping in, seeing what gear you're in, and shining at drivers' eyes until they dip their lights.

Planning ahead seems like too much effort, why not have a system of cameras, which when anyone passes them over the speed limit sends a bill in the post? Pay as you go may work out more expensive than a monthly subscription for some, especially as you don't get the phone, no car, no sense of entitlement included.

It looks good, but I'm not sure I'd want to pay for it. I access the forum mostly either from my rubbish work PC, or my iPhone. Safari in landscape mode is good enough, I think.

Dang, I was planning to rob a bank wearing lycra and cycle helmet to ensure invisibility, but what's the point if I can't use a cargo bike to to take home the loot? Ah well, I'll just use a cash machine instead.

horizon wrote:At the moment we have two interestingly different ways of using English - shame if ours was to disappear through carelessness and too much TV.

There are far more than two ways of using English, even in England! I grew up in Hampshire, where Posh English, Saaf London English, and West Country English intermingled. They are different in interesting ways, mostly accent and usage rather than vocabulary. Now I live in Aberdeen, where they speak another completely different language that is nearly English. I've worked with Nigerians, I have relatives in Sheffield and Chester, and hear different dialects all the time. English is and always has been a mongrel language, with words taken from dozens of other languages. Vive la difference!

You're not wrong Kwackers. Also, a picture of a bike in the gutter, and suddenly an extremely dangerous road is perfectly safe for cycling. What is this paint made of? Could it be used on drilling rigs, thus making them so safe they'll never leak?

Wasn't he the first man on the moon? Or was that Buzz Lightyear?

I didn't have many friends at school, and I don't on Facebook either. The boy who I was closest to at school, but haven't seen since he went to university and I didn't, now earns far more than me, and fills his news feed with tales of his trips to Chamonix (6 this year! ) and pictures of his car, which cost more than my flat. I should probably unfriend him, not that I'm jealous or anything, just that we clearly don't share the same values.

I'm at work at the moment, Facebook is blocked, and Youtube doesn't work due to antiquated computers, but I think this is the song everyone should listen to before soliciting random strangers!