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I have just fitted my Conti
I have just fitted my Conti Top Contact winter tyres onto my getting about bike, they are the original ones, with “sharp rubber”, the mark II do everything with lamellae, I have recomended them on this site before, with somewhat mixed results. They will stay on probably until March or April, very road, though 26inch, no tread for mud and they spin and slide a lot muddy grass. For me, they are perfect for this time of year, when that crispy hoar frost gets you in the morning, and for patches of ice. But mostly for when there is only a chance of ice, which may get you suddenly, especially on bridges. They give me that little bit more confidence and I haven’t had the front dissappear on me like I did with the knobblies, which is why I got the spikes and then the winters. They are not full on spike tyres, I have those for the good bike, and they are for proper snow and ice and not needed for me for the past 3 winters, I am a southerner. But I still put the winters on the commuter every year about now, I will not give a full lean into corners, but I can still accelerate and brake when the going gets crispy, not full on, but thats more care than anything else.
Some of the reviews of the mark IIs put them through far more extreme conditions than I would want to.
They work for me, and I really hate losing the front with no warning, less so when slow on a corner and of course it’s fun to get the back out sometimes. But the winters give that bit more traction and confidence.
Cont claim to have brought their winter tyre tech over from their car tyres.
This has been a great thread,
This has been a great thread, apart from disappointment with Cannondale, and various Bad Boys which had been my n+1s long before I knew there was a term for it.
Very informative, and now I know there are products to resist the many effects of road filth, I shall be getting some acf50 when I get my new set of Nokons. If you don’t know it exists you can’t search for it on internet.
Is the Duralac similar to the coppery stuff in assembly compound? And if it is very different, in which situation should I use each?
Who uses them so I can avoid
Who uses them so I can avoid mistakingly buying from them? Most sellers don’t tell you who the couriers are. I know they are not always the best, but I still have a soft spot for Royal Mail (but not parcel force) less now they are part privatised.
Keep the old bike mate, you
Keep the old bike mate, you will love it more. New wheels mind, if they will fit, as the seals will be far better, get something made. But try to keep everything else retro, they often built stuff to last back then. Swissstop make good brake pads that will get better braking than the old ones. LBS for the stem, they know how to sort stuff like that.
I remember that the excellent
I remember that the excellent Pauls rear could be taken apart.
Have a look at this http://singletrackworld.com/2016/11/get-up-stand-up-step-away-from-the-credit-card-ebay-danger/
I don’t really want to move the front, the difficulties of getting it back in the right place vex me, as has been discussed on here recently.
Funnily, ditto. 😀I am absolutely pathetic at lining up a front mech – it drives me mad trying to get it straight. So much that I’m hoping the next frameset I get has a braze on so I won’t have to go through at least a couple of hours of peering through one eye, then the other, from about twenty different sodding angles. Then, after indexing, realising I haven’t got the height right. Or the chain was in the wrong sprocket, and having to start over again…
Get one of these:
https://www.mantel.com/uk/campagnolo-front-derailleur-alignment-tool
Also works for Shimano/Sram.
Sets the space above chainring, and the alignment. Worth its weight in gold!!
please explain more.
Update, feel foolish. Figured it out, Park say to use a “penny”
If anything needs to be
If anything needs to be riding in a “vehicular” manner, I would think it would be a group ride.
CXR94Di2, I applaud your
CXR94Di2, I applaud your obsession and eye for detail.
I seem to remember when I
I seem to remember when I purchased my XTR front, which come to think of it may have been my only ever new front derailleur, it had a little orange plastic thingy in the parallelogram, which I then broke, and may still have in one of the boxes, but can guarantee that if I ever needed it I would never be able to find it. I will probably find it when I finally sort everthing out (wry smile) and fail to recognise what it is. There was also a sticker on the front plate that you could line up with the big ring. I think they were both more for positioning rather than tension. I have used the 5 or 6mm allen key in the past, jammed in there, to help get it in the right place, sort of.
What you might want to do is wind the inner limit screw in a bit, get the tension right, and then back the limit screw off to perfection.
What do you mean he stopped.
What do you mean he stopped. It was him getting out of the car without looking that caused the incident. The driver drove off, without giving any details.
Good luck and you have my
Good luck and you have my sympathies, not that that is worth anything. I had forgotten about the way PlanetX had decided to treat it’s workers. Customer service was always going to suffer. This is the run up to Crimbo with the now privatised Royal Mail getting hit by strikes next week. Internet commerce is over. Long live the non virtual shop.
DPD take a photo of your front door if you are out when they call. You get an email. There was one instance when the bloke just took the picture of the flat from where he had stopped the van. I could predict the spot where he had must of leant out of the window. The other half was in all day. I did get to ride to the weird industrial estates in the odder parts of Reading thet I would never have gone to otherwise. I’m glad I didn’t complain, those blokes are treated something terrible. Those classic white van men do often drive in their sterotypical manner, but their shifts are too long and they are never given enough time to complete their routes at a sensible speed if they want to have a job tomorrow.
There is something wrong with this business model. Cut throat competition has only lead to a race to the bottom. I know that posties on bikes might not be able to handle the volume of parcels these days, but instead of a couple of small Royal Mail vans, we get a plethora of large white vans clogging up our streets, with less local knowledge leading to the concomitant decline in driving standards. Not that I have never had run ins with postie drivers, familiarity breeding and all that.
“One thing he did say was that I was cycling too fast, which was not true,” Liu said. “That made me really upset. He made out it was my fault.”you just couldn’t invent this!
Classic victim blaming.
SuperPython59, I am not
SuperPython59, I am not prepared to ever argue with yourself, or doubt your truely extensive and incredible knowledge, but, and I am worried about using the word but here, when I was 13 for my birthday and christmas or christmas and my birthday I got my first proper “racer” a pugeot from the littlewoods catalogue. £89.99. Their cheapest proper racer. It was blue, had those safety brake things and I think it had 10 gears. And it had alloy rims and rubber pads. And cotter pins, one of which got stuck when I completely stripped and rebuilt her just after my “O” levels, before I started work at McDonalds at £1.58 an hour. Showing my age. The old 2nd hand “hack” bike that was stolen when I was 11 had steel rims. I’m 45 now, so that’s 32/33 years back. So what I am trying to say, in the nicest possible way of course, is that you may be underestimating your 32 years of road riding (so you may have even more experience than even you thought you had) or that your first bike had a bit of age when you got it. I have promised to myself that I would never use an emoticon so I cannot give you a winky symbol, but Thank You and Goodnight.
Magic used to make ceramic coated rims, anyone know if they still do?They do not. I don’t think they have for a while. Maybe quite some time.
During last summer my front ceramic wheel (26inch) developed a bad judder on braking, tried getting it trued, made no difference. It was about 15 years old. Could not find a new replacement. The internet quest started, a fair few second hand rims, all very expensive, various ages, and I knew that the rim would probably be good but what if the bearing surfaces were dead. So you might be talking a couple of hundred quid for a rim of some age, and then a rebuild onto my old hub, because mountain bike hubs are all for disks these days, more expense. My front was still rideable, not pleasant but doable. The search went on, week after week, for a couple of months. Different terms, tried googleing everything. Pages and pages of ebay, here, internationally.
Then I found them. Mislabelled disc rims on a small internet site, up north I think. Phoned up to make sure, and they were perfect. Two Mavic X717 ceramics. The had had them for years, ordered for a wheel build that fell through. £200. And they wanted to give me £40 off. Yes, YES. Bought them, then nothing. They were uncertain because they were not disc rims as labelled. But I didn’t want disc rims, I wanted these. Eventually sorted it. Phew. Even paid for courier.
Then I found a late NOS non disc XTR front hub on ebay. £50. BUY IT NOW. BUY IT NOW.
So I then thought, maybe some new pads for my new rims, and I’m a big fan of swissstop, so I go to buy some, and this is the point of my story, apart from my excitement of reliving the frustration and joy of a quest completed, they were not just for ceramics, you could use them on carbide rims.
And you can buy new carbide rims, SJS sell them. That easy. But of course with internet if you’re not asking the right question…
But I do love my Mavics. Got the wheel built at my LBS. Nice. Ridden her a lot this summer, proper off road, like I’ve not done in years. More that I had a chance to, and no judder. Found a new XTR rear as well. £65, not quite the one I wanted, 970, fat pipe, and I’ve not had a good time with the freehubs on my XT fat pipes. But a pair of NOS 960s are £300. Will get that wheel built when I find my new job.
I hope you have enjoyed my little tale, got a bit carried away. You lot are the only ones who could ever understand.
Oh, the braking power is incredible. When they were brand new I managed to momentarily lock up the front zooming down park hill towards the cricket ground in Birmingham. In the dry, on tarmac. Never doing that again. And they seem equally good in the wet. And the Swissstops don’t seem to be building up the glassy surface like the shimano pads. I’m guessing the carbides are very similar. But SJS are selling them as touring rims. 700c and 26″. Big and heavy I suppose, which is why I didn’t mention them until DrG82 bought up ceramic rims.
Cannot compare them to discs mind. Never ridden, the new bike will have them of course, but I’ve been saying that for over a decade.
As I understand it, a lot of
As I understand it, a lot of manufacturers lower the spec on the wheels to bring it down to a price point. Everyone knows about groupsets, so people notice when that has been downgraded.
As you’re talking about disc brakes, the rims are not going to wear out, which is normally the perfect time to upgrade, but if you can afford it go for it. Especially if you can set everything up the same with spare disks and casette. Being able to swap wheels rather than having to change tyres would be a dream for me.
Have you changed the points of contacts yet? Handlebar tape/grips, saddle and pedals make the biggest difference, for me, and are relatively cheap. But anything you upgrade will make it more yours, and even if it might not make that much difference in performance, it will feel like it does.