Cycling UK Forum

Leave Waterloo via the big memorial arch to where the taxis are, there is a purpose built cycle lane, leading you down a ramp, cycle across the lights on york road, go across and into concert hall approach.

If you are unfamiliar with London, this brings you onto the South Bank, next to the Royal Festival Hall. Turn roughly right, keeping the Thames on your left, you are allowed to cycle along here, being considerate to the pedestrians. Keep on heading along the river, following the thames path until you come to Drakes Galleon, the Golden Hind.

You should hit cobbles now, keep as close to the river as possible until you come onto Montague Street.

London Bridge arches over your head at this point, to your left are 'Nancys Steps'.

Climb up these with your cycle if you can, and cycle north across London Bridge. At the far side there is a filter lane left, avoid this, head straight ahead, you will bear slightly right, but DO NOT turn right.

You are now heading toward Bishopsgate.

After 2-300 meters Liverpool Street should be on your left.

You can avoid the steps at London Bridge by going UNDER the bridge, then turning right at the next junction into Tooley street, then turning right again at the lights onto London Bridge.

Can folk tell me the likely places that manufacturers hide frame numbers please.

I know of: rear drop outs, seat stay, bottom bracket, and I am told head tube and inside steering column, (is this still true as I 've never seen frame numbers there) are there any other places?

Easyjet and most other airlines now do require the bikes to be covered somehow and to answer this need I have sourced for the CTC shop a supply of large poly bags like those British Airways used to hand out. The shop product code is CT224 (we don't have a picture up there yet) and the price is £4, supply your own parcel tape.

We've generally found a clear poly bag gives the least encouragement to chuck the bike around or (the problem with a big box) put it at the bottom of a stack of smaller but much heavier items, whilst protecting other passengers' luggage from a dirty, oily bike - the whole good reason for this new insistence.

Ah yes, but without all that crud it wouldn't actually grip the tyre, and slipped like a very slippery thing. The tubtape trick was perfect, and required there to be muck - I remember that going through fine sand immediately after putting the tubtape on was the best way of getting decent grip. Though if you ever went off road it would gather lumps of muck which would make it rattle, so I'd invert the bike and hold a coin to the roller while spinning the wheel, to smooth it off again - hey presto, smooth as silk again! (...for another ten minutes)

Another trick which worked well was to get a "Sandvik" sanding pad, which was a flat piece of metal with an abrasive surface, curve it round and chop it to length so if fitted exactly around the roller, and stick it on with tubtape - that would go for hundreds of miles before wearing smooth.

All in all though, the Schmidt is preferable!

"schmidt compatible led headlight" - so far I've just seen an advert (in "Cycle" perhaps) for a 3W LED headlight for dynamos, that's all.

You will need to put your bike inside a bike bag.If you go to the s.n.c.f website choose the english version and book it through the website or phone eurorail a london based company on 08705848848 and there will book it

Hi I use GPS all the time, but I favour the Garmin I do have a PDA with O/S map on it but it is not very robust drop it and bang goes £200-300 at least the Garmin can take a bit of a knock. I if were you go for a Garmin with the road maps of Europe can't go wrong, and you can do all your routes ect on your deck top PC and them download it on to your GPS.
Some of the cheaper ones only work on waypoints there OK but the map ones are so much easier to use and as you ride you can watch the map unfold and with out stopping

I cycled up the Saone with my wife a couple of years ago and we were dreading Lyon - I told my wife if it was really bad we would take the train. We stayed overnight in Givors about 10K south of Lyon. Surprisingly the route into Lyon (D15) was not too busy and was pretty in a run-down sort of way. Lyon itself was also fine as we cycled along the west bank of the river. I think you will have to use the east bank going south. The only problem, as we have often found in cities, is finding the route back out again as signposts are geared to motorists. After some effort we crossed the river at Neuville sur Saone onto the D933 which goes to Macon.

If you don't know of it, there is a little steam railway out of Tournon some way (60 miles or so) south of Lyon to a place called Lamastre up in the hills on the west. It is a pleasant detour as it is downhill back to Tournon.

If you are interested we have a rudimentary website of our trip http://www.goodlad.f2s.com/empuriabrava_main.htm

I have a Dawes Galaxy which needs a new outer and inner chain set but I am not sure of the best way to measure them. They are both 5 bolt with 46 and 36 teeth respectively.

There seems to be so many to chose from, does anybody have any recommendations?

Do any readers have good recommendations for information about cycling while pregnant - or your own stories? My partner is going into the second trimester of her pregnancy and we regularly go touring and would like to carry on doing so. Are there any pros and cons / things to watch out for, other than what common sense says...? Thanks.

That is a disappointing response Herrman, I thought there was the chance of a lively debate.
You provoke and retreat, most unsporting.

I have a 4 year old Trek bike fitted with Shimano Deore XT 8 speed rear mech and after a serious accumulation of winter muck I removed the jockey wheels for a deep clean. Being of a age when 'a jockey wheel was just a jockey wheel' I didn't take too much notice of the parts until it was time for reassembly. The Shimano web site didn't have any reference I could find for 8 speed Deore XT (although 9 speed is there) but it would appear from other models shown there's a difference between the (upper) guide pulley and the (lower) tension pulley - different part numbers!!
Is there any way of identifying which is which by looking, does it make any real difference if they're refitted wrong way round, is there any significance to the 2 different washers (one flat, one cupped) and what's the correct assembly?
Lastly how can I get replacements without knowing the part numbers?

Appreciate any help - thanks.

If you want the best, you’ll have to pay Roberts type prices, which are comparable to others of the same quality, Longstaff and Mercian come to mind.
If you want a great bike that doesn’t have to be the best, there’s a lot more options, though I don’t know of any in the SE.
Thorn bikes represent good value. They don’t make any women specific bikes, but the range of sizes and the options for short or long top tubes, makes it unlikely they couldn’t get a perfect fit. Give them a ring, ask to speak to Robin Thorn and you’ll get good advice without the hard sell.
Other framebuilders who could do you a custom fit, at a good price, include; Bob Jackson, Paul Hewitt, Dave Yates, Brian Rouke. Have a Google to see what’s available, all would involve traveling, but the savings might be worth it.

"Rolhoff sounds good, but you could always use an 'ordinary' 7 speed hub gear for (?) £600 less, and (for £200)use a mountain drive 2-speed bottom bracket to double the range (you can choose 1.6 or 2.5 times the range I think)"

I considered this, the prices I was quoted were; SRAM S7 £140, shifter and clickbox £30, Mountain drive £245, so a total of £415. Rohloff £625. So if I was building myself, a worthwhile saving. I couldn’t get 14 different gears, there would be at least one and more probably two duplications. You’d also lose the simplicity of one changer, the ease of removing the rear wheel and the reliability of the Rohloff.
Considering the price of other components, I couldn’t build a bike with an S7 and MD for the price of a Thorn Raven.

Having run long, short, hilly and flat with a leviathan of a Dutch jobbie with a Nexus 7 speed hub I find it very satisfactory and simple. One significant drawback is when you pick up a puncture - there is quite a bit more to do than with a derailleur style gear. I also run a Pedersen replica with an 8 speed Nexus and it is very good. Both hubs have internal drum brakes which work very well, particularly in wet weather. So I would go for it. I have no experience of running multiple front rings on hub geared bikes but intuitively it seems wrong, I don't miss any of the gears on my derailleur set up on another bike of mine and in fact choose the hub geared bike nearly all the time.

Good luck anyway.

Paul

Thank-you CJ for your response. Is there anywhere else that I should look first or shall I just go to Roberts in Croydon. I am based in East Sussex so it is certainly convenient for me to go there.