Hallett's Howlers

[Bmblbzzz]

Going back to the points raised by CJ: big-big is a combination that's often advised against, although manufacturers vary in their advice and many people use it a lot. More to the point, however much you try to avoid it, you're quite likely to select it by accident at some point, perhaps when tired, in the dark, and almost inevitably going up hill. So it seems unwise to use a chain too short to cope with it at all. If the resulting chain length means small-small rattles and grates, that's merely annoying (on the few occasions you forget to not use it).

[cycle tramp]

....seven.. I reckon, although it depends upon what dance they're doing and how much room they have to give to the band...

Firstly, my thanks go to CJ for reminding me that taking out chain links to improve the gear change does have unintended consequences, which I've not considered (I have a single chainring on the front, so it's some thing I can do safely, but equally because it works for me, there may gave been a time when i may have transferred the same solution to someone else's bike which had multiple chainrings)...
..those who have ever listened to gardeners question time know that they have a panel of experts and given c.uk position it is a shame that they haven't done the same... because if you listen to gardeners question time, you'll hear that the experts hardly agree...
...and thus it is with cycling, we are all prejudiced towards what works for ourselves. In the 1960's to go fast you needed big wheels and narrow tyres, pumped up very hard, then Dr Moulton found that it wasn't true...now its found that a wide supple tyre could be equally as fast or if not more so.. but something that frame builder Tony Oliver wrote about much earlier than the main stream discovered it was true (indeed he was one of the first advocates to suggest returning to the 650b tyre size, when almost every other touring bike was built around the 700 size wheel with 28 or 32 mm wide tyres. Check out the photographs in his book 'Touring Bicycles').. we've always considered that a longer crank length produces more leverage and therefore more power, and speed... now Mr Burrows argues that our legs would find it easier and less tiring to use smaller crank lengths than has been considered... We have journalists press, advertisers and manufacturers arguing that a lighter bike is a faster bike, but equally we have those who have ever ridden a recumbent, and those working the aerodynamics telling us that weight is inconsequential compared with aerodynamic drag..
....I remember speaking with Mr Robin Thorn (a good few years ago) who still produces a great many bikes, concerned that his new 26" wheeled touring bikes were not getting the recognition from some areas of the press, simply because they didn't have dropped 'bars or 28 mm wide tyres on a 700 size wheel and perhaps were even marginalised, and even excluded from road tests because of it.
....It is unfair of anyone to expect anyone else to know all the answers to everything...and it is dangerous to do so...even if they are a technical advisor or even God. I think a panel especially one that disagrees with itself is much more entertaining and will probably present a range of solutions and perhaps by doing so, the person posing the question does not come away with any single answer but rather a more holistic understanding of the problem and hopefully a better understanding of how bikes work, (and sometimes the reasons that they stop working).

[ChrisButch]

Again trying to get back to CJ's technical expertise, and with an apology for thread drift of a rather more constructive kind, I hope, I'd like to take advantage of CJ's rare but welcome reappearance here by asking about something he describes in an equally rare and equally welcome reappearance in the latest edition of Cycle. In describing modifications to a carbon 'gravel bike' to lower the gearing and in other ways improve its suitability for British touring conditions, he tantalisingly mentions an alteration to the bolt-on front mech bracket which makes it work with a 42t outer - but what exactly he did isn't described. Any chance you could share this with us, CJ?

[mattsccm]

Drop it please. It,s like the STW forum. My mum would bang some heads together. Completely spoiling what is generally a pleasant forum.

[mjr]

Drop it please. It,s like the STW forum. My mum would bang some heads together. Completely spoiling what is generally a pleasant forum.

OK. I'm tired of arguing with someone imagining accusations no-one made and using warped definitions.

[nsew]

Can’t we all just get along?

[cycle tramp]

Can’t we all just get along?

I think we can all agree that we like riding bikes.. it's the details we're having difficulty with...

.....And tonight on the news we hear that the populist touring bicycle party have launched a sustained rocket attack at the progressive cycle union, in a response to last week's bloody massacre....

[PH]

I have no idea of the product placement policy, this is surely something the editor has influence and control over. At least there's now a bit more variety and it no longer looks like a cover to cover Spa Cycles promotion.

[pwa]

Going back to the points raised by CJ: big-big is a combination that's often advised against, although manufacturers vary in their advice and many people use it a lot. More to the point, however much you try to avoid it, you're quite likely to select it by accident at some point, perhaps when tired, in the dark, and almost inevitably going up hill. So it seems unwise to use a chain too short to cope with it at all. If the resulting chain length means small-small rattles and grates, that's merely annoying (on the few occasions you forget to not use it).

I have told my wife, on many occasions, not to use big-big or small-small, but I still find her doing it. So giving her a bike that couldn't handle that would be disastrous. My own favourite bike only just does big-big with the mech at full stretch, but it does it. And if it didn't I would put more links in the chain. It is basic.

But I am not inclined to think that Hallett's opinions are anything other than honest, and just to restore a bit of balance, the frame sets on his site include some that look exquisite. I'm especially drawn in by the stainless ones.

http://www.halletthandbuiltcycles.com/s ... -sets.html

[Brucey]

.....And tonight on the news we hear that the populist touring bicycle party have launched a sustained rocket attack at the progressive cycle union, in a response to last week's bloody massacre....

PTBP...?

splitters!

[tim-b]

Hi

I have told my wife, on many occasions, not to use big-big or small-small, but I still find her doing it. So giving her a bike that couldn't handle that would be disastrous. My own favourite bike only just does big-big with the mech at full stretch, but it does it. And if it didn't I would put more links in the chain. It is basic.

+ 1
Big-big is perfectly doable and should be available to use safely because cyclists will use it. SRAM were happy with it on a mechanical level provided that the chain isn't sawing through the front mech ( https://road.cc/content/feature/213468-cross-chaining-it-really-all-bad )
Friction-wise it's one to avoid; tests on a 2 x 11s showed that the big ring and larger sprockets are generally the most efficient, BUT, big ring to the three largest sprockets begins to ramp up the friction. At this point you should drop to the smaller ring and work up to the larger sprockets as needed
Regards
tim-b

[531colin]

….The moderator has already amended Colin's comments, at my request for a fair and balanced debate, rather than the one-sided pitchfork riot which others would clearly prefer...

The amendment was from "has a bike shop" to "a complicated sentence which means he sells bikes"
That was really worthwhile.

[Bonefishblues]

I have told my wife, on many occasions, not to use big-big or small-small, but I still find her doing it. So giving her a bike that couldn't handle that would be disastrous. My own favourite bike only just does big-big with the mech at full stretch, but it does it. And if it didn't I would put more links in the chain. It is basic.

But I am not inclined to think that Hallett's opinions are anything other than honest, and just to restore a bit of balance, the frame sets on his site include some that look exquisite. I'm especially drawn in by the stainless ones.

http://www.halletthandbuiltcycles.com/s ... -sets.html

I solved that problem at source by her going 1x

re Mr H's work, I was most impressed by the paintwork, oddly, which I thought was exquisite.

[slowster]

If I were Chris Juden, I think I might now feel even more frustrated that the important points I had raised had largely been drowned out by the thread being derailled with a protracted argument/discussion about the question of potential conflict of interest. That was something which Chris Juden did not raise in his OP.

I don't have access to the article in question, and so cannot read it for myself to see if Chris Juden's account of Richard Hallett's advice is essentially accurate, but if it is (and I've no reason to think otherwise), then it does seem that the advice is shockingly bad. Sizing a chain so that it has enough links to cope with big-big is very basic, and I am amazed that Richard Hallett should apparently forget or overlook it. It also suggests that such articles are not checked or proofread by someone with a reasonable degree of knowledge about the technical aspects of cycling. As it is, CUK is now faced with the prospect of needing to print a rather embarrassing correction in the next edition, unless it is willing to find itself on the receiving end of repair bills (and possibly injury compensation claims) from readers who follow the advice.

The breaking spokes issue seems less heinous, inasmuch as - unlike in the issue above - he did not give potentially dangerous advice, but rather did not apparently give a sufficiently comprehensive explanation of the likely causes. At least not in Chris Juden's expert judgement, nor in 531Colin's similarly expert judgement if the importance of stress relieving was not mentioned in the article. Interestingly Richard Hallet advertises his services as a wheelbuilder on his website.

It does seem that there is little or no point in having technical articles in the magazine if they can be so poor. In contrast on this forum if a poster gives bad or dangerous advice, it is usually very quickly corrected by other posters, and there have been many threads where people who have had spoke breakage problems diagnosed by the likes of Brucey, 531Colin and others, once enough information has been provided by the OP.

Given the speed of response and the far greater collective knowledge of forums like this one, I cannot see why anyone would bother to write to the CUK magazine with a technical query. And that is probably the real point of this: the traditional Technical Editor's role is largely redundant. Richard Hallett has had a long run Technical Editor of Cycling Weekly and latterly the CUK magazine. Pre-internet his position as Technical Editor meant that he had privileged industry access. Bicycle, component and frame makers were willing to provide samples etc. for review, and he also had more knowledge than most of his readers. That and the one way nature of the communication (magazine to reader) with little or no feedback, meant that readers generally had to take what he gave them. That is no longer the case with the advent of the internet and forums like this one.

I can understand how galling it must have been for Chris Juden to read that article. All I can say to him - and it is somewhat trite - is that having seen the photographs of tours on his Instagram page, if the best revenge is living well, he seems to be doing a good job of following that advice.

[cycle tramp]

I can understand how galling it must have been for Chris Juden to read that article. All I can say to him - and it is somewhat trite - is that having seen the photographs of tours on his Instagram page, if the best revenge is living well, he seems to be doing a good job of following that advice.

+1