Search found 5819 matches

by drossall
3 Mar 2024, 4:42pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Komoot: how to tell cycling & hiking apart?
Replies: 5
Views: 298

Re: Komoot: how to tell cycling & hiking apart?

In the Scottish countryside, my understanding is that you can cycle pretty-much anywhere that you can walk, provided that you do so responsibly and with respect for walkers and others. See for example the header text on this page.
by drossall
28 Feb 2024, 10:48pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: London underground/tube to transfer between kings cross and paddington with a loaded unfolded bike?
Replies: 25
Views: 1419

Re: London underground/tube to transfer between kings cross and paddington with a loaded unfolded bike?

I too agree that riding is easier, and there are pleasant back-street routes that are not plagued by narrow cycle lanes. London is actually getting better and better for cycling, and has quite decent cycle facilities in many places anyway. Here are the suggestions from CycleStreets: https://www.cyclestreets.net/journey/94610880/#quietest

But don't forget that you can also go on Thameslink from St Pancras, which is virtually one station with Kings Cross these days, and change onto the Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) at Farringdon.
by drossall
27 Feb 2024, 8:34pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: Allen Key Brand - to protect bolt head on Rare EBB
Replies: 54
Views: 3557

Re: Allen Key Brand

The OP might usefully rename this topic as something such as "Unusual eccentric BB". It's interesting - it's just not about Allen key brands, so it's not going to get found by people who might want to see it.
by drossall
24 Feb 2024, 3:25pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: Allen Key Brand - to protect bolt head on Rare EBB
Replies: 54
Views: 3557

Re: Allen Key Brand

I've just ordered a Wera on the basis of recommendations here and elsewhere, for the hinge bolts on my Brompton.
by drossall
19 Feb 2024, 9:32pm
Forum: Bikes & Bits – Technical section
Topic: Brompton rear frame hinge rod?
Replies: 18
Views: 3508

Re: Brompton rear frame hinge rod?

rogerzilla wrote: 27 Jun 2021, 9:12pm They can get corroded in and an M10, or even 7/16", tap rips out. Same problem.

The frame is not scrap as long as some bush is left. They are actually steel with brass facings and an acetal inner liner, so quite hard in the core. You have two options:

1. Get a bearing puller that will expand behind the bush and can then be used to drift it out. This is how Kinetics do it.

2. Carefully cut a slot in the bush with a junior hacksaw blade and then collapse it inwards with a punch (or awl). As soon as it loses most of its grip, it will knock out easily from behind. I did this two weeks ago where the bushes had been in for 16 years.
I'm currently working on my own Brompton and having this issue. The Brompton tap is not ripping out, but the old bushes just won't shift. So it's likely to be the hacksaw method? Anyone tried soaking the things in GT85 or something?

When I did this on a friend's bike, the bushes fell out!
by drossall
19 Feb 2024, 7:58pm
Forum: On the road
Topic: How do you carry big shopping?
Replies: 68
Views: 4514

Re: How do you carry big shopping?

I still have a Bikehod from forty years ago - not dissimilar in concept to the OP's Burley Travoy, but doesn't fold.

For carrying big shopping though, I've still not seen anything to beat what I posted in this thread a few years ago.
by drossall
19 Feb 2024, 2:44pm
Forum: Using the Forum - request help : report difficulties
Topic: Thread derailment
Replies: 19
Views: 896

Re: Thread derailment

A thread can easily provoke a discussion on an unrelated topic. But what I've seen done, and would prefer, is that people announce in the original thread that they have taken up that topic in a new thread, with a link. Then the original topic, which was probably interesting in its own right, can continue too.

Start a new thread with a title relevant to the new topic and heavens, you might even attract others who want to discuss that. Far more likely to get interesting posts about politics if the thread claims to be about Brexit than if it claims to be about pedal bearings, surely? How would people even find it in the latter case?
by drossall
15 Feb 2024, 11:21pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: Mileage declining !
Replies: 23
Views: 2078

Re: Mileage declining !

For me, purpose helps. That's whether it's having a particular place I want to get to for some reason, doing an Audax, riding with others, general utility riding, or whatever. I enjoy solo rides, but I'm better at getting out if there's a reason. So I find reasons!
by drossall
15 Feb 2024, 11:17pm
Forum: Campaigning & Public Policy
Topic: Feedback : 2 year old law junctions
Replies: 623
Views: 36163

Re: Feedback : 2 year old law junctions

AndyK wrote: 14 Feb 2024, 6:46pmBut you're right to point out that it would be better to look at the real-life stats. I think DfT stats for 2022 (but not 2023) are available now but it would take a bit of work to extract the relevant numbers.
Especially because, in some aspects of road safety, making people feel less safe appears actually to make them more safe. The problem is that people who feel safe take more risks. So you kind of have to choose between the two!
by drossall
12 Feb 2024, 6:31pm
Forum: Off-road Cycling.
Topic: Views on shared-use paths
Replies: 44
Views: 2413

Re: Views on shared-use paths

My last visit was some time back, so they could well have improved.
by drossall
12 Feb 2024, 5:24pm
Forum: Off-road Cycling.
Topic: Views on shared-use paths
Replies: 44
Views: 2413

Re: Views on shared-use paths

I still think that sign-posting is critical. Road networks are designed to work for visitors and locals alike. To achieve that, they are signposted for both local and distant destinations - no-one is ever going to "The North", because it's not a place, but it appears on plenty of road signs. The MK cycleways can be tricky in my experience if, like me, you're not a local. The signs tend to be to the next "village", and following them across town is really hard work. I know some go alongside the V and H roads, but even then it's easy to get disoriented.
by drossall
8 Feb 2024, 7:59am
Forum: On the road
Topic: 20mph Did you know, FACT!
Replies: 55
Views: 6193

Re: 20mph Did you know, FACT!

My club and other local ones abandoned some courses a couple of years ago on this basis. I believe the DC encouraged us to do so even then. It's getting increasingly awkward finding courses, as many have said. We're currently using a five-mile circuit twice, even for a '10' (actually it's now an '11.2'). The instruction was simply not to race through 20 zones; the one we're avoiding is actually slightly uphill, after an awkward right-hander on a rolling road, so many of us have never quite made 20 through the village anyway :D
by drossall
6 Feb 2024, 10:35pm
Forum: On the road
Topic: 20mph Did you know, FACT!
Replies: 55
Views: 6193

Re: 20mph Did you know, FACT!

Only just seen this but, for the record...
rareposter wrote: 30 Nov 2023, 11:20amBut yes, speed limits (in general, not just 20mph) do not apply to cyclists because there's no law requiring a cyclist to have a calibrated speedometer.
The italicised bit is false. As someone else pointed out, possibly on here, that argument would allow drivers to escape drink-driving charges unless they had calibrated breathalysers on their dashboards. UK law assumes that, if something is a requirement, it's your responsibility to know whether you're meeting it or not; if you don't, that's your problem, not the law's! The actual reason is that Parliament chose to make a law saying that drivers of motor vehicles may not exceed the designated speed limits. Cycles are not motor vehicles.
Richmond Park in SW London (a hugely popular circuit for cyclists) has tried on various occasions to insist that their park speed limit of 20mph does apply to cyclists before usually giving up and just asking cyclists to be responsible - not caning through a queue of traffic for example!
This one seems to be quite confusing and I've never seen it fully resolved. Sea fronts, parks and Royal Parks generally have speed limits set by the competent authority under bylaws, which is different. Councils doing that generally write the bylaws to include cyclists. I don't live near Richmond Park so I can't comment from knowledge, but the determining factor would be whether the limits are set under national road legislation, or a bylaw, and if the latter how it was drafted.
However you can still be prosecuted for dangerous riding...
True of course, and nothing above changes that.
by drossall
1 Feb 2024, 5:09pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: On pedantry?
Replies: 81
Views: 4557

Re: On pedantry?

Besides, one would need to define in what sense "complete" was being used. I could certainly be a pedant-in-training, but I might even be one-legged as well.
by drossall
1 Feb 2024, 12:35am
Forum: Bikes & Bits – Technical section
Topic: Replacing a CR18 rim with an Exal EX17
Replies: 13
Views: 727

Re: Replacing a CR18 rim with an Exal EX17

I believe I got 601 and 611mm in the pages I found, hence my comment about different versions. But either way, the ERDs aren't the same, so swapping spokes across isn't going to work.