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Well I see groups of circa 15
Well I see groups of circa 15 drivists driving single file without leaving any gaps every day of the week. And none of them give a toss about blocking the road for the rest of us.
Motornormativity. See Ian
Motornormativity. See Ian Walker’s new paper, precis here: https://twitter.com/ianwalker/status/1615248156186247169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1615248156186247169%7Ctwgr%5E4f832039a7affb05ecda16ddad28d2c6e3e13d38%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencetimes.com%2Farticles%2F42160%2F20230201%2Fbreaking-down-motornormativity-uncovering-bias-behind-car-culture-driving-study.htm
Wipe down, wash with a weak
Wipe down, wash with a weak solution of detergent in warm water, reapply sewing machine oil, wipe off again. I get about 2,500km out of a chain on the winter bike and 6,000km so far on the summer bike without discernable signs of wear yet.
I’m sure someone has based a scientific paper around chain wear, if not there is a potential PhD for someone
Not quite a PhD, but there was an engineering student buying used cassettes on EBay in 2018, who I corresponded with, as he wanted to know the maintenance regime the original owners had used. After detailed examination of wear to cassettes, he said his findings showed that big brand solvent-borne lubricants didn’t do a good job at all, leading to direct metal-to-metal contact, and thus added wear. I seem to remember that he concluded that light machine oil was the best chain lubricant. I’ve used sewing machine oil ever since!
The best advice is:
The best advice is:
1. Test ride them
2. Buy the one you really want!
As it’s a touring bike, I’d
As it’s a touring bike, I’d think of putting it on Cycling UK’s whole bikes forum page. Cycling UK is what used to be the Cyclists Touring Club (CTC):
I’ve found from my
I’ve found from my unscientific survey of five sets of bibs and biblongs that some of the simplest pads are the best for me. So I’ve found a pair of Sportful’s cheapest Giro 2 thermal biblongs are as comfy or more than their top of the range pads. And a pair of De Marchi bibs that were pretty cheap have an absolutely brilliant pad. Whereas I didn’t get on with Castelli’s high end pad… so try some different ones to work out what works for you!
I’m on my second Garmin,
I’m on my second Garmin, first a 500*, now a 520 Plus, which I love. It’s easy to read, easy to program, syncs with add-ones, and so well integrated with the Connect app. What I like is making up a quiet route on the web or the app, syncing it with the Garmin, then riding the route with navigation mode is dead simple. It automatically sends a link to follow my ride to the other half, automatically syncs with Strava, it’s great. There’s a whole ecosystem of people who can fix them, too, so when I snapped off the charger port I was able to get it fixed in 2 days for £21. Of course it has its idiosyncracies but if you get used to it, they’re fine.
*Sold the 500 to a young cyclist for £20 after 5 years, she’s absolutely delighted with it.
marmotte27 wrote:
Yes of course. Slim steel forks absorb a lot of road irregularities.Yeah it’s marvellous how smooth a ride a curved steel fork gives, even with a 23mm tyre – admittedly, on a wide rim.
I’ve often wondered whether the very stiff forks now required for disk brakes have led to a new search for comfort through ever wider tyres.
There’s a good discussion of that in the context of touring bikes on the Thorn cycles ‘Touring Bible‘ (pdf).
SimoninSpalding wrote:
*Unless you actually want to stop.My problem isn’t stopping, it’s going.
My winter bike lives inside
My winter bike lives inside at home and work, and it’s notable how much melted ice drips off at both ends of the trip from the bottom bracket area… leaving salty dried areas on the floor too. And that’s with guards and long mudflaps. I’d be tempted to bring your in to melt the ice off it, rather than letting that potentially build up and cause problems.
At the moment with the roads in London heavily gritted, the rim brakes are working brilliantly, but it must be reducing rim life!!
When my mum was poorly, I
When my mum was poorly, I stayed at her house for a few weeks to look after her, and dragged my old 1970s Raleigh Record out of the shed… I spent a few evenings cleaning it up, laced on some new alloy rims (to replace the old chrome jobs) and then headed out to the hills. Cresting a hill, I let the bike rip and got up to 41mph downhill before realising that the old Weinmann brake blocks on shiny new anodised rims had hardly any stopping power, and the road was horribly mossy and slippery with a gravelly middle strip on some of the corners. Worse, I’d forgotten the bike had a ton of trail and wanted to head in a straight line at speed, nothing like the quick flickable steering you get on a modern bike. It was a close run thing and only by using the whole road – luckily, there was nobody coming up – could I bring the old anchors to bear on the new rims and get the bike down to a reasonable speed and get down safely. Then I had to climb up again… with ‘manly’ 52/42 cranks and a 14-28 block, and a heavy steel gaspipe frame, that was an absolute chore too. I went out and bought a set of Ultegra brake shoes and pads, which made a huge difference, and the rest of the time took it much more gently.
I’ve found Sheldon Fender
I’ve found Sheldon Fender Nuts a godsend for bikes with limited clearance that weren’t designed for mudguards. They add a mount point to your brake nuts. Available from SJS. But they don’t work with disk brakes of course.
My experience is that the tyre wears out the mudguard, not the other way round.
The inner width of chains isn
The inner width of chains isn’t the same. Once you get past 5-6-7 speed, they’re narrower for each successive speed.
Part of my daily commute is
Part of my daily commute is in sun glare at this time of year… I flip the visor on my cap down, as I would the sun visors in a car, and use bright ‘daylight’ lights. And try to get away from the lights fast and get well out in front – aided by a couple of speed cameras set to 20mph, not too difficult.
