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The large developments, basically new villages, tend to be a little better, and do include pubs, shops, doctors surgeries and schools. The problem is more with the smaller ones where they put a hundred houses on the edge of an existing town, and then a few years later another hundred on the next field.
Even when they are well designed with facilities for pedestrians and cyclists, the distances involved in going into the middle of town are often a bit far for a family with young children.
I agree that the article rather overstates the problem; most new estates either do have basic shops etc or they’re on the edge of an existing town at a distance which is an easy cycle or a slightly annoyingly long but perfectly possible walk. I can well believe there are some estates which are bad, I don’t know any of the ones mentioned in the article.
Cough, cough – Portishead! – cough, cough.
A small town, conveniently close to Bristol and the M5 motorway. Build a few hundred houses. Then a few hundred more. Then fill in the gaps left. “Doctor’s surgeries“, you say? “Schools“, you say? “How the f will I actually get in and out of the town since there are only two small A roads?” you say?
Just get the train.
It sounds to me like we’re
It sounds to me like we’re building houses according to the U.S. philosophy of “everybody drives everywhere”, but we don’t have sufficient space in our cities for all the cars.
I was suspicious of the phrase in the article “too far to cycle”.
So… Are unroasted or roasted beans faster?Unroasted are heavier, so they help more with downhills.
They should ensure that the
They should ensure that the window is slightly open to increase ventilation.
As an American, at least it is perversely comforting to read that Brits suffer the same sorts of polarizing animosities we have been overdosing from, particularly in the past two years. Flaming the judge, who did rule fairly strongly against the motorist, seems a bit misguided. Currently here in Colorado, confusing laws may be enacted, related to the “Idaho Stop” concept, allowing cyclists to roll through stop signs, and even run red lights after stopping. The logic missing is that two riders will surely collide when both consider a right without noting who may already hold the right-of-way, including motorists already obeying requisite stops and such before entering the intersection. The majority of accidents involving acquaintances have been hit from behind on open country roads (several deaths and injuries), or hit by a car turning into them, either from behind or oncoming, at speed or from a stop. Belligerent drivers fortunately have not been the issue overall. In urban areas I consider a marked bicycle lane next to the curb a minimum, and yet still believe riders must abide the same set of rules as every other vehicle, or else there will be zero consistency; by experience over fifty years riding, I see cyclists as opportunists who will ignore or skirt rules to the extent they can get away with, and the trend only increases their risk factors, and to other riders like me. The current fad in “bike friendly” U.S. towns is to see bikes as benign, magical solutions to myriad congestion and traffic problems, without recognizing the reality, that cycles create new sets of issues which deserve and require responsible users, not rude, anarchistic hipsters with attitudes.So, how do you propose that the rude, anarchistic hipsters with attitudes should get around? Would you prefer that they don’t cycle and instead drive? Maybe skateboards only until they can learn to not skirt the rules? I’d propose pogo sticks to make them easy to spot from a distance.
My advice is to ignore the
My advice is to ignore the Canyon unless you can try it before you buy it. You’ll get better value for your money if you buy the bike with the groupset that you want as upgrading can work out costly (depending on how easy it is to sell the old components).
I haven’t tried cable based disc brakes, but there seem to be some gotchas with them – periodic adjusting and variable performance across brands. I’ve tried Tektro rim brakes on an older Synapse and they weren’t much good (great bike, though). I’d go for the hydraulic discs every time.
Ultimately you need to try out some different bikes and see which one makes you grin the most.
Mountain bike tyres will have huge resistance compared to road tyres.Yes, that resistance will be proportional to your speed but the air resistance will be proportional to the square of your speed, so the rolling resistance will only be significant at slow speeds.
True, but the rolling resistance can be significant yet still only proportional to speed – it’s the value of the coefficient that can knacker things. You can easily get 20+W per tyre difference* between decent road tyres and decent, but pretty unsuitable, MTB tyres depending on pressure and speed – Kenda Small Block 8s seem popular but particularly shite in this regard. Tubeless and latex tubes seems to be able to help the MTB tyres significantly that said
https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/specials/tubeless-latex-butyl-tubes
* quick look-up at 25-30km/h at lowish pressures.
Yes, absolutely. Tyre pressure also makes a surprisingly large difference to rolling resistance, but again, once you get over a certain speed, it’s the aero effects that dominate (it’ll just be at a slower speed than with optimised tyres/pressure).
I thought I’d test out the whole “rucsack of bricks” on my commute home this evening by carrying a 2Kg bag of unroasted coffee beans (along with my usual work clothes, mini computer, squirrel suit etc). However, I wasn’t very scientific about it and unfortunately I overtook a cyclist and then had him on my rear wheel for a couple of miles. That wasn’t a problem except that I usually try to drop people off my rear wheel and end up knackering myself in the process. I think the extra weight might have helped on the downhills, but I think he might have turned off rather than me losing him. Still, I’ll count that as a success.
Helmet wearers take more risk, this is a fact that we know,I don’t.
Oh great! I thought this thread was calming down a bit and I thought I’d throw in a drunken squirrel to defuse things, but now you’re just stirring it up again!
So was that a picture of That Very Squirrel (feeling a bit tired and emotional, I guess…)?
I doubt it – the squirrel was caught and thrown out of the window, so it probably didn’t stop for any glamour shots.
However, I’ve found this image which seems very authentic:
Peole confusing their opinion with facts again, I sometimes wonder if they’ve suffered a head injury 😉…but how could you prevent that from happening?
Mountain bike tyres will have huge resistance compared to road tyres.Yes, that resistance will be proportional to your speed but the air resistance will be proportional to the square of your speed, so the rolling resistance will only be significant at slow speeds.
Helmet wearers take more risk, this is a fact that we know,
I don’t.
Oh great! I thought this thread was calming down a bit and I thought I’d throw in a drunken squirrel to defuse things, but now you’re just stirring it up again!
So are clubs good or bad?Probably depends on the club.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-33541502
A “drunk” squirrel has caused hundreds of pounds of damage at a private members’ club.The secretary of Honeybourne Railway Club said he originally thought someone had broken into the premises, near Evesham in Worcestershire.
The floor was covered in beer and glasses and bottles smashed, Sam Boulter said.
Mr Boulter, 62, said he then saw a squirrel “staggering around” after coming out from behind a box of crisps.
‘Turned on the taps’
He added: “There were bottles scattered around, money scattered around and he had obviously run across the bar’s pumps and managed to turn on the Caffrey’s tap.
“He must have flung himself on the handle and drank some as he was staggering around all over the place and moving a bit slowly.
“I’ve never seen a drunk squirrel before. He was sozzled and looked a bit worse for wear, shall we say.”
Mr Boulter, who estimated he lost about £300 in the incident, eventually caught the squirrel in a waste paper bin and released it out of the window.
These are treemendous insights but I need a root and branch review of the data in the absence of graphs, or we could just leaf it!.
However, other things aren’t equal.Extra weight would actually help when going downhill, providing that the weight doesn’t hugely increase your frontal area (unlikely to make much difference unless you’re carrying dustbin lids or something).
Assuming that you’re just coasting and not pedalling, then the forces driving you forwards will be a component of gravity i.e. the steeper the slope, the greater the force. NB. The force increases with increased mass, although in a vaccuum, the acceleration would stay the same as more force is required to accelerate more mass (F = M x A).
The forces acting to slow you down will be mainly the air resistance against you (approximately proportional to your frontal area and the square of your speed) and the rolling resistance. Rolling resistance is proportional to your weight and speed, but is generally quite low compared to the air resistance, so we can forget about it at higher speeds.
So, increased mass will produce a larger downhill force which will be balanced (at terminal velocity) by the air resistance at a higher speed – hence heavier riders will go downhill quicker unless they are bizarrely shaped.
Does this affect how quickly fat and thin squirrels can run up and down trees, too?
Most definitely.
The larger-boned squirrel will quite often mistakenly climb onto a branch that isn’t quite strong enough, so they end up plummetting to the ground. The more svelte squirrel will choose to clamber down the tree trunk which will be slower.
How do you figure? A heavy rider will have more frontal area than a light one, so will experience more air resistance. Other things being equal, they’ll be slower as a result.A heavy rider is likely to descend faster than a light rider, assuming they have the same technique and bravery. I can’t think of many out and out climbers who are also good descenders.However, other things aren’t equal.
Extra weight would actually help when going downhill, providing that the weight doesn’t hugely increase your frontal area (unlikely to make much difference unless you’re carrying dustbin lids or something).
Assuming that you’re just coasting and not pedalling, then the forces driving you forwards will be a component of gravity i.e. the steeper the slope, the greater the force. NB. The force increases with increased mass, although in a vaccuum, the acceleration would stay the same as more force is required to accelerate more mass (F = M x A).
The forces acting to slow you down will be mainly the air resistance against you (approximately proportional to your frontal area and the square of your speed) and the rolling resistance. Rolling resistance is proportional to your weight and speed, but is generally quite low compared to the air resistance, so we can forget about it at higher speeds.
So, increased mass will produce a larger downhill force which will be balanced (at terminal velocity) by the air resistance at a higher speed – hence heavier riders will go downhill quicker unless they are bizarrely shaped.