Recent comments

Nice work Blackhound, that is a lot of pedalling in a day!

Todays mid-week ride was a windy 85 miles across the Downs and into Oxford for a pit-stop at Zappi's for a chat, bacon and brie pannini and a Team Casquette, cafe's don't get better than Zappi's.

Most insincere political entity is.........Tory party! This retrograde action speak volumes.

your inseam is 49% of your height which is high but not abnormal, about the same as mine. What I find is that I just tend to run a lot of seatpost, whatever I'm riding. Also, bikes that *look* right when i set them up (ie the seat isn't high) are often a bit long.

There's no substitute for trying a few bikes and seeing what you like the feel of. Go down to your LBS, take a tape measure, try a few bikes and measure the ones you think fit you the best. The next step is to get a proper bike fitting, it'll cost you some money but it's a useful exercise.

Just adorned my TT bike with an FFWD disc wheel last weekend and my road bike with some Hutchinson Fusion 3 tyres, big improvements on both.

Old Cranky...you have seen the malaysian ebayer too then? He seems to be making good money!

I think my next upgrade for the felt road bike will likely be either ultegra 6700 or a move to sram red.

Mor my orbea ora tt bike Id like to get a hed jet rear disc or a pro rear disc.

If you would like, I have a set of silver Rival brakes from a few years ago that I took off and haven't used since. Drop me a line if you fancy them...

James

I cycle this new route three or four times a week. It's not the cycle route that is dangerous, it's the number of pedestrians who don't know that bikes use bike paths. Almost every day a pedestrian will walk out in front of the bike, ignore the bell or shouts, forcing an emergency stop. Yesterday, a builder clutching sandwiches walked up to the railings by the pier as I was approaching, climbed over, and jumped down onto the cycleway, landing on my front wheel. Just didn't look. Fortunately, I'd stopped. 'You wanna watch where you're bloody going' he snarled before marching off. Bells, shouts, they ignore them.

I cycle on the shared bike path on the prom at Brighton. Much the same things happen there. Bikes are not foremost in people's consciousness, either on bike paths, or on the roads. I think the Southsea scheme is an improvement over the previous diagonal parking, where cars would reverse out blindly into the path of cyclists. But Southsea seems to have more than its fair share of the not-very-bright, who can't be bothered to check for traffic on cycle ways. When they do see it, as often as not they run across in front of the bike. Nuts!

Regarding comments that the lanes aren't wide enough, it's not an issue for me, nor are the cars parked close enough for doors to normally hit cyclists. Of course, people sit in their cars with the doors open and a passenger standing in the cycle lane chatting. Nuts squared.

C50 Dura Ace wheels for me - just trying to find the best price (other than the Malaysian ebayer).

Events I also look forward to in 2012...

* The Clarkson Cotswolds 100: in which riders get to tour the picturesque lanes of the Cotswolds while Jezza and his sycophantic hangers-on drive past in 100 different smelly, fume-emitting Land Rovers, shouting out ill-informed and simplistic arguments about how volcanoes are worse than cars.
* The James Martin Yorkshire Audax: excellent food at the feed stops, but anyone seen wearing fluorescent Spider-Man outfits, shades, bum bags or stupid cleated shoes will be eliminated, permanently, by the electric-powered broomwagon.
* The Matthew Parris LimboCycle Challenge: piano-wire obstacles at regular intervals will test even Bradley Wiggins' low aero position.

I don't have much faith at all in dangerous drivers getting caught. A car drove straight at me a couple of weeks ago because he pulled out of a junction whilst he was rummaging on his dashboard for something. Despite the fact the guy was driving dangerously, it was only my fast reactions that stopped me being run down and I got his car details as he drove off, the police did absolutely nothing about it. They said they had no witnesses but they didn't even bother to check. The car was a taxi and I caught it's number on the back as it drove off. The police never even bothered to check to see if the taxi had had a passenger in it who would have seen everything

a bike event run by cycle-hating, narrow minded reactionary inbreds? where do i sign up? will there be tacks in the goody bag?