Be Excellent To Each Other

Lidl had SPD compatible shoes for £14.99 and they looked OK. Didn't come with the cleats, though.

Anyway, here's the RTS on Lantern Pike. Which was a fucking big hill. A full suspension bike from the mid 1990s CAN go uphill. The seatpost needs adjustment, as does the riding position.

I have not, at all, 100%, put a bid on eBay for some carbon fibre wheels on account of them 'looking nice'.

Ordered my SPD shoes last night. Finally! Had the pedals for nearly a month.

You are going to love them. You'll never go back. Honest.

Anyway:

I want wheels like this:

Oh, set the release tension to 'not a lot' for the first few rides or so. Then you'll get used to twisting your foot out of them. Then, increase it but a bit a ride.

If I weren't to tell you this, I'd feel horribly guilty, but it's one of the few places I can nerd out about outdated technology on the internet.

Cheers. I indeed am looking forward to getting them.

And a tip in return, if replacing brake pads do not buy resin pads. They are shit compared to metal pads. Alas I knew no better and assumed a pad was a pad.

I might, also, have a bid on ebay with disc brakes that I want to buy to cannibalise it...

Noted, ta.

One "Second Chance Offer", £60 and a trip to Cheltenham and back, and I now own a ProFlex 854.

Good bits:

Frame in excellent condition
LX front hub on a Mavic 238 rim
LX rear hub on a FIR rim
XT Front Mech
Gripshift
Zoom Aluminium bar, decent bar ends
Tyres are in excellent condition and good ones (Panaracer and Ritchey)
LX Rear Cantilever
M525 SPDs
Woman's saddle
Diacompe PC5 levers
Girvin Vector forks
Chainset I suspect is an STX one
Crud Guard and Crud Catcher
Fuck me, this is a light bike

Bad points:

Suspension isn't moving, so I suspect that the elastomers are dead. I think i can replace these with Land Rover bushing of some sort, but I'll ask Grim.. nicely later on if this is the case.
Frame is too big for MrsA, and, I suspect, too small for me.
7 speed.

I'm not quite sure what to do with it.

Had my pedals, and finally had my shoes. Decided to fit the pedals.

Getting the old ones off was a chore. There was a plastic facia over the front bolt that wasn't intended to be removed. Got around it by screwing a self tapping screw into the plastic which enabled me to pull it out.

New pedals on was easier. Shoes were slightly fiddly and needed adjusting.

Tested the pedals in the shed. Clipped and unclipped easily. So I tightened, tested again then went for a ride up the track.

What I didn't realise was that the action of pedalling further secures the shoe. I realised I was unable to unclip, cycled back to the shed and spent the best part of 2 minutes stuck on my bike unable to unclip. Thank god Mrs Chinny was at work.

Further adjustments and I was ready for a ride. First 13 miles passed without incident. However I needed to stop quickly on the side road back to the house. One leg failed to unclip but I saved myself from falling.

You think I'd learn my lesson right? Further down the track I needed to stop. This time I fell off properly.*

Then a further 200 yards down the track my phone rang. Yep, nearly fell off again.

Seems that under normal conditions I am fine but if I need to emergency stop I'm not quick enough unclipping. I'm open to suggestions.




* As this happened in slow motion a man who looked abit like David Mitchell appeared with a half drunk pint in his hand and said "told you so".

Do yourself a favour and learn to habitually unclip yourself while you're still rolling, a few yards before you want to stop. Trying to unclip while standing still is going to go wrong a lot.

This is what I had been doing but needing to stop quickly is harder. I can anticipate a junction or needing to open a gate. I can't anticipate an emergency stop or quickly needed stop.

You do get used to it. I habitually twist my foot when I'm coming to a stop, even if I've got flat pedals.

33 miles. Didn't fall off, so that's a start. But how do SPD's compared on identical rides?



Big big difference.

Good, aren't they?

If I wanted to get a MTB what should I look for.

I have a limited budget.

What's your budget, and what sort of riding do you want to do?

Going to strip the ProFlex today, and begin flogging the bits.

Got my new tyres yesterday, did a short commute to work (4 miles) to start out gently..

I used cyclemeter for the first time too, which told me I hit 29.79 as the fastest speed. I forgot to press the "stop" button though so no idea how long it took or average speed

Have done 300 miles this month so far. Second best monthly total ever.

That's a lot!

Pointless pic:

Just get into biking, my fitness has taken a dive since meeting new G/F, not playing rugby as much, and my lack of enthusiasm for the gym..

Go to eBay, and spend £120 on getting something made by Orange, Marin, Kona or Cannondale.

Just broken yet another chain splitter.

I've taken everything from the Proflex now, and will be keeping the front wheel, chainset and saddle. If I can fix the forks, I'm going to keep them, too. The rest I'm going to hawk on eBay, I'm yet to decide if I want to sell the lot as one box, or individually. And I'll sell the frame separately.

That didn't answer either of the questions!

Budge is minimum.. riding = paths, roads, bridle ways etc..

Finally got round to inflating my front tyre today, in order to ride to a pub. used a short cut in lieu of having any other pump - a car jobby. predictably, valve go boom! still, the shop in town was happy to do me an exorbitant while i waited change so i could go and drink in the sun. yay! i did manage to work out the v brake linkage.

A pal's been planting ideas in my head & as a result I'm going to look at a second hand Kona Stinky* this afternoon. The price seemed a bit too good considering it's "barely used" so I've asked around to see if one's been pinched & all seems well. However never having suspension or gears I've no idea what problems too look out for. HALP PLZ!

*Aye, I'm determined to end my days in a crunched up bone heap at the bottom of a mountain

How cheap? Just had a look and they're a pricey bike new.

Cheaper than a week in Arran would have cost me

I think the guy's just used it to run to the shops! It's immaculate, nae dings or filler or nothing.

EDIT: I bought it btw

I have done cycled to work for the first time in months.

I am more dead than I was when I started cycling last year, despite the conditions being perfect, the path being much improved and the bike being better set up.

Healthy eating, less drinking, no smoking bullshit.

At least you have the cycle home to look forward too..

Heh. The shock of every bit of your fitness having disappeared never gets old. You just can't store it; fall behind and you'll pay for it.

Oh yeah, I hadn't looked at it that way.

Bastard.

( )

I bought myself a Santa Cruz superlight of a guy at work, full sus and compared to the £250 full sus I had when I was a kid, it is ridiculously light.

Frame's a little old but the components are quite new and XTR all round so pretty sweet. Only £300 (ahem, the price I told Flis)

Went for my first cycle in about 10 years the other day and my arse is still sore...perhaps I clamped the saddle on upside down.

Last night's ride was more a push up a hill and free wheel down as the hill was too steep and the rocks were too big and slidey for me to ride up. Still, better exercise than playing Fifa.

I didn't have any trouble with saddle-soreness last year, but after last Thursday (cycling to the pub) my arse ached for days, and I had to stand up frequently this morning.

I'm putting it all down to being a touch over a stone heavier than I was last year (in addition to being desperately out of shape).

I knew I should get a new saddle for my cycling round France. I did not. Yesterday, a full week after I'd come back from some great but at times very painful cycling, I could still feel it. I am bewildered by the options, so will have to go and try a few, but does anyone have a recommendation for a comfy saddle? Leather seems to be loved by some, I assume that's on the 'hard but fair' side of soft.

Cyclemeter reckons I did 17.49 mph over my 4 mile ride in this morning.. it's certainly my best time so far.

Just bought a "Trax Outrage" from ebay for £30, (my brother is buying the moped off me) google tells me it's one of the bog standard £100 halfords mountain bikes from a few years ago. It's been used once and then been sat in a shed. The major problem with them that I can see is Halfords not doing a good job of putting them together and the seat being shite, but this one has a new gel seat and basket fitted so I am assuming they've tightened everything as well. There was a nicer one on there but it was screaming "I've been nicked" at me.

I've not been on a bike for 15 years, buyer collects. I hope to god it's this side of town.

Flite titanium.

It'll be uncomfortable for the first few rides, but then you'll 'get' it, and it's the most comfortabel saddle I've ever used.

The bike____long bridal/cycle path______________________main road____my house

Cool, sounds good to me, sure I can get used to it - I've coped with the one I've got for some time, so a decent upgrade ought to make bits of me happy quite quickly.

So it turns out little old ladies selling brand new bikes they have used once and then left in the shed do exist. Didn't have to go get it, turns out they were happy to bring it round, little old man is a biking enthusiast* and got the tiny elderly woman the very large bike so she could join him. She got 400 yards down the road and decided she was too old for this shit. I like that he fitted the old lady basket on the front as a last ditch attempt to get her interested.

*I could see some thing expensive looking on the bike rack on his car, I didn't ask him about it in case he turned into me when talking about cameras.

Only took a couple of weeks to stick a pic on here*

As I said to MaliA last night it climbs like it is, a ton of bouncy metal... but on the way down it makes perfect sense. As long as you go fast enough I reckon you'll struggle to notice hitting anything except trees

*In my defence I've been having good days & bad days but somehow never been quite felt fit enough to do anything all that energetic & when I tried to push myself things got a wee bit dangerous (getting dizzy as hell while halfway up the climbing wall & almost passing out while bouldering spring to mind).

That is a hot bike.

Drop-offs! I just got me a set of triple clamp Bombers, today.

So chums, 12 miles out from home my rear gears screw up (the bike fell over when I was resting, the gears must have got knocked, set off uphill and it all went wrong). I just manage to bodge a fix and tried to limp home with 3 gears working on the rear range. But 3 miles from home the entire rear gear system sheared off looking like this:



What now? I think it's a 9 speed gear system. Do I need a whole new rear gear system including the cogs or just the mechanism thing? And can I do it myself as at this time of year the local bike shop tends to have a 2-3 week waiting list. I assume the mechanism is beyond salvage as bits of metal are missing/snapped and bent.

Bearing in mind that bike gears are relatively new to me... my money's on just needing a new derailleur. The gears themselves will be fine unless the teeth are wearing out or bent & AFAIK it's the derailleur that's responsible for all the shifting.

As far as you doing it yersel... I don't see why not. They look straightforward enough to fit (unless of course you've damaged the mounts) & I assume you already know how to split/join a chain & tension the cable.

It should just be a new derailler I guess. I need to check exactly what I need.

No idea why it broke so easily unless the sheer amount of miles had killed it. The jam didn't seem serious enough to set off a chain of events that would mean the entire thing sheared.

Went to Halfords and got a direct replacement for 50 sovs. Hoorah!

Got home and wondered why it wouldn't fit. Seems to have also sheered off the bit of metal that fixes it to the bike. It looks like some kind of special spacer that bolts to the bike and then the derailler fixes to that.

So I need to try and find such a spacer. Hmmmm.

Also got a new chain as the child in Halfords said with 4000 miles on the clock I really need to change it.

Some of the cogs on the rear wheel look a little worn as well. Don't want to be replacing those quite yet if I can help it.

You should ideally be replacing them at the same time as the chain. They're supposed to fit together perfectly, so any wear on one part will accelerate wear on the other if you only replace one at a time.

Well chains are cheaper than new cassettes. So I'll stick with what I have and do both together next time.

Still can't believe I've racked up that kind of milage since I got the bike just 21 months ago.