Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
Hope:
Hope:
Great: Everything except the Head Doctor. Being a heavy rider I particularly like their seat clamps, and I’m a sucker for Hope Orange as it always goes well with blue or yellow frames, which I prefer.
Avoid: Head Doctor – chuck it in the bin and stick a proper SFN in instead, just not worth the hassle
Although, spoke to soon.
Although, spoke to soon. Spent the day bearding a brand new XT 8100 caliper/lever with bleed issues. Fresh out of the box, factory bled, J-kit, lever all over the place and incredibly hard to bleed. Either rock hard with no modulation or straight to the bar. Play abandoned for the day due to bad light in the end
Some positives:
Some positives:
1. Fairlight. Genuinely personal service from Dom and the team to the point it almost feels like you’re buying a bespoke bike. They also have incredible attention to detail.
2. Garmin. Controversial I know but I’ve had zero issues in 3 years with my Edge 130. Same can’t be said for Wahoo, and their customer support was pretty slow.
3. Shimano. It all just works. And, in the MTB world at least, it’s dirt cheap for the quality you’re getting.
Fairlight Strael if you can
Fairlight Strael if you can find one?
I love my Bowman Layhams (rim brake audax) and the Weald looks a great option seeing as you need discs.
PlanetX Hurricane possibly – not sure on tyre clearance though
Popped to Salisbury for the
Popped to Salisbury for the first time since March last week, the temporary cycle lane on Brown Street and down past the Cathedral seems to have confused people no end. Only one motor vehicle lane there now really despite the inevitable SUV drivers trying to make it two. Good to see PFS is coming back, Salisbury has the potential to be Ghent or Antwerp with that massive square, all it needs is a bit of vision
Buy the right bike to start
Buy the right bike to start with. That’s actually pretty tricky but it’s important – first impressions count. Generally, don’t spend less than £500 on a new bike, pretty much anything else in the UK market costing less than that isn’t worth it.
Ignore groupsets – you absolutely don’t need 105/Rival on your bike. Bike tech is so good across the whole range from both manufacturers that you won’t notice the difference as a novice between Claris & 105.
Learn basic maintenance – how to fix a puncture, how to lube your chain, how to set your saddle height, how to use barrel adjusters to tweak the gears so they work on that new bike after a few miles. Learning to fix a puncture in the comfort of your shed/kitchen/living room is the best way to learn, rather than on a wet Tuesday evening in Stoke.
Ride essentials: spare tube, tyre levers, puncture repair kit, pump, something to eat and drink, multitool.
Build up slowly and plan your routes. Start off with a 5 mile circular route so you can bail if you’re getting tired.
Ride primary and assertively, never in the gutter.
Don’t splash out on bib shorts, cycling shoes, jerseys and so on right away. They’re expensive, and if you don’t catch the bug you’ve wasted ~£150. If you’re riding for less than an hour you probably don’t need padded shorts, particularly if you’re on large volume tyres.
Do splash out on gloves – if you fall off your hands will be thankful
Ride flat pedals in trainers.
Realise that you’ll probably want to upgrade/change your bike within a year.
Don’t follow the hype. Disc brakes, gravel bikes, tubeless, frame bags, all that stuff can wait.
Get a cheap lightset from Decathlon – they’re compact, lightweight, charge quickly and are perfect “be seen” lights.
Don’t watch NMOTD or follow Jeremy Vine on Twitter, it’ll put you off.
I once took some friends kids
I once took some friends kids out in one of my hot hatches to basically show it off and give them a laugh. Back end stepped out on a corner and I just managed to control it, slotting it back in line between a line of trees and an oncoming tractor. With them in the back chances are it would have been them who would have been killed rather than me – I had airbags and a racing seat. That was the end of driving like a dick for me, it was so close and I just could not have lived with the consequences. Sadly families lose teenagers in similar circumstances every few days, and have done for as long as I can remember. This recent case really hit home, not least because I know the coroner who received the bodies – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-53798413
Yep. The only restriction is
Yep. The only restriction is that if you pick up 6 points in the first two years you lose your license. Sadly I know several parents who’ve lost teenagers in fatal car crashes – common theme being inexperienced driver, passengers, showing off, unforgiving country lanes. You do think you’re invincible and kids have been brought up on Top Gear and Gran Turismo. Of course the vast majority are safe and insurance premiums do a reasonable job of keeping a lid on what’s available, but the loophole of being a named driver on a parent’s policy or driving uninsured is still there.
I’m not familiar with bike licenses, are you allowed to pillion as soon as you pass your test?
Guilty m’lud. Whole reason I
Guilty m’lud. Whole reason I wanted a Golf GTI was *that* Paula Hamilton ad.
A ridiculously rich mate of mine (pharama Global CFO) has lived the dream and bought basically every supercar from the 80s, in proper 80s colours. Countach, 288 GTO, 512BB, even an Porsche 959S. Made money on all of them and did actually drive them a bit but found them underwhelming compared even to something like a modern Skyline GTR. He’s settled on an early ’70s Carerra RSR as his “only” classic I think.
My budget limited me to hot hatches and pocket rockets and I still have obsession with stuff like AX GTs and anything with a VTEC badge. And this extended to the bike world of course – very nearly bought one of the Peugeot recreations they did a few years back with the classic logos and white and rainbow stripes paint job
Most of the supercar
Most of the supercar reporting is of the point and laugh variety I think. The real problem is putting stupidly powerful cars in the hands of inexperienced drivers. We don’t allow it with motorbikes yet you can pass your test and drive your Mum’s Audi RS4 home. As soon as my boy passes his test I’m taking him on an airfield and skidpan day so he can see just utterly shite his car control is.
Yeah, me too. Mine used to
Yeah, me too. Mine used to send me under the car to undo sump bolts and the like. I can strip a carb, set points and do a reasonable job with tappets because of him (none of which are much use these days), and I know my way around Japanese 16v late-80s engines too. It was probably the only thing we spoke about (other than footie) throughout my teenage years. It was a huge part of the reasoning behind buying the Volvo because you can see and access pretty much everything.
There are all sorts of exotic
There are all sorts of exotic engine swaps and upgrades for the 940 – the engine bay is mahoosive. Quite a scene around building externally standard sleeper 940s with enough torque to spin the earth backwards. I’m definitely not doing it, honest. But my son gets to do car mechanics and early driving courses in a couple of years at school so that might be the excuse needed. “Here son, just pop this V8 in and don’t tell Mum”
Probably because I’m now a
Probably because I’m now a Dad but I’d like to see limits on horsepower and passengers for newly qualified drivers. I passed my test on a Friday and took three mates out on the lash on Saturday night (I was sensible and didn’t drink). Managed to chuck my Allegro (don’t laugh) off the road on a wet roundabout, fortunately only into the shrubbery rather than the trees a bit further along. And then on my first long trip I’ve still to this day no idea how I missed killing a cyclist on the A27, it felt like I was mm away from him at 60mph (misjudged a gap to a traffic island). Done my fair share of racing and traffic light GPs too, including more off-tarmac excursions.
Thing is, I’m still an enthusiast, it’s just that the enthusiasm is directed towards old Volvos. I absolutely love my 940, love that I can fix most stuff with a hammer and screwdriver, love that my son helped me swap out the radiator. I’m even going to do the cambelt on it myself. Spent ages looking for the right one and the intention is that it will get us through until he leaves school. I’d like him to learn to drive in it but it will be almost 2030 so who knows what will happen to gas-guzzling 40yo motors then. We were going to go touring all over Europe this summer with it (getting it done before Brexit) but COVID intervened so we’ll settle for touring the scenic bits of Blighty instead.
Some more thoughts on car
Some more thoughts on car culture, why people are into it, and how it aligns with cycling.
I went through a few phases.
1) Wanting to be Colin McRae. The rally fans tend to focus on function over form – hence the popularity of the Impreza. Not a looker, terrible interior, but cheap and incredibly capable off road. Oh and highly tunable with simple cheap modifications. Bike equivalent is buying a low-end Giant with Claris on it and upgrading the group and wheels to something more exotic. See also buyers of, for example, Calibre MTBs (guilty m’lud)
2) Showing off to the neighbours. Stupid LCD lights, loads of bling, blacked out windows, massive in-car entertainment system, change the car as often as the contract allows. Not much brand loyalty, buy what’s currently seen to be cool (see Nissan Qashqai from a few years back). Bike equivalent currently will be a gravel bike – probably that Canyon with the hoverbar. It will likely never see much mud other than runoff from fields.
3) Brand Zealots. All other cars except my brand are rubbish. Constantly dreaming about earning enough to own that brand’s halo car even if they don’t have a means to exploit its abilities. They’ll have their brand’s superbike in the shed but hardly ever ride it
4) Tinkerers. Guilty m’lud. I did things like half engine swaps on VWs, ran motorcycle carbs on Yamaha-head Toyota engines, different width wheels front and rear, obscure Japanese suspension, that sort of thing. They’ll refer to cars by engine codes and model years and intimately know performance specs and the like. Bike equivalent is Shimergo drivetrains, or mixing MTB with Road to get wider range gears. You know pull ratios for SRAM/Shimano/Campy and know what works together, and initimately understand and advocate for new BB standards or things like Boost spacing
5) Weight weenies. Guilty m’lud. Strip everything out of the car to lighten it to get the power to weight ratio up (actually, this is the cheapest and most effective mod to start with if you want to improve the performance of a car). Get obsessed by unsprung weight, rotating mass, and rolling resistance (yes, I’m still talking about cars here). Usually end up with a car with no interior, race seat (driver only) and 6-point harness, which is a right pain in the drive thru for MaccyD’s.
6) Style is everything. Basically, you end up driving an Alfa. Getting harder these days because everything looks so similar. When I started driving in the 80s there was still a huge variety of design language – think Saab, VW, Alfa, BMW, Volvo, Renault/Peugeot. There’s a reason those cars are now silly money on the classics market. Bike equivalent – probably a Colnago. Definitely Italian. Ideally with a chromovelato finish.
7) Classic beards. Where I am now (why, hello, Volvo 940). Spend most of their time under the bonnet or under the car, fixing things with hammers and getting oily. No matter what you do the car is still massively slow and thirsty compared to modern vehicles. Car equivalent of Eroica types.
8) Campers. Stupidly expensive driveway jewelry that are a bitch to park and get used for their intended purpose maybe once or twice a year. Why, hello bikepackers with your Bombtracks, Salsas, and Opens
The point is – if you banned performance cars you’d ban all this stuff too. As with cycling, there’s always a subset of drivers who are twats. Of course, the difference is that a cyclist rarely kills anyone except themselves with their twattishness.
One final thing – I just don’t get why people feel the need to spend so much on cars. Even when I was a petrolhead I refused to buy new. I know families who are by no means well off spanking £500 on lease contracts every month for cars they barely use. Madness. You can send your kid to private school for that, or pay off your mortgage years early.
I hitched a lift home from a
I hitched a lift home from a trackday once with a former Le Mans 24h driver in a tricked-out Nissan Skyline GTR. Something like 450bhp which was a lot back in the 90s. Was expecting it to be a white knuckle ride and he just pootled back at the speed limit. When I asked him why he said he saved driving fast for the track, where it was safer for everyone – he’d driven Le Mans style cars through the 70s and seen so many mates die road racing.
I know in my 20s I thought I was (a) invincible (b) Ayrton Senna and (c) didn’t care if I died. I can remember saying to my Mum something along the lines of “I don’t have any passengers, if I do crash it will just be me who suffers”.
