577 replies to this topic

[nurseholliday]

I ride a track bike... No room for reflectors.

[joe_m]

if you have lights on i don't see why you need reflectors to be honest.

i have never had them and have never had any trubble with the police so, its ok. . . i think

[camp freddy]

if it was really necessary to have reflecters on your pedals,
with clip on pedals you could stick a self adhesive reflecter
on your shoe heel. I know its technically not on our pedal but it's
pretty near...

Also I read that a flashing front light was only too be used as an
auxilary light to a permanently lit light. plus flashing front lights
won't light your way on a really dark road..

It's the T***s with no lights that all that really p**s me off,
I've had a few near misses with them...

Also has the law changed with regards to stopping at red lights
as I have noticed that a lot of cyclists don't bother stopping
anymore or go up the pavement and cross at the junction!!!
what's that alll about Eh !!!

Edited by camp freddy, 31 March 2009 - 08:52 PM.

[camp freddy]

if you have lights on i don't see why you need reflectors to be honest.

i have never had them and have never had any trubble with the police so, its ok. . . i think

if your lights fail a cars lights will illuminate them..

Edited by camp freddy, 31 March 2009 - 08:53 PM.

[Mark@IR]

If anyone wants to do a little bit of research into something you don't see every day....


I'm seriously within an inch of ordering me a powertap rear hub... How uberly sexual!

Might be selling my Polar F11 aswell if anyone fancies it? Its been used more by my mate then me to be fair.. that said its only been used about 30-40 times riding, the strap is machine washable and all that so don't worry about the sweat side of it.

Anyone else on here using a garmin by the way?

[alicetheauto]

Those powertaps look really good. Apparently Ribble do a deal where you send them a stack of postdated cheques and then pay 50quid a month for it! I have played with the garmins at work, they seem pretty good but I dont like the idea of paying 300quid plus for the unit, THEN having to buy maps ontop!

[Mark@IR]

Those powertaps look really good. Apparently Ribble do a deal where you send them a stack of postdated cheques and then pay 50quid a month for it! I have played with the garmins at work, they seem pretty good but I dont like the idea of paying 300quid plus for the unit, THEN having to buy maps ontop!

I see your point, but my mind works slightly different with it...

Firstly, with regards to the powertap and everything else for that matter, many many big bike places are doing 0% finance on things over about £200 i think, so you can do yourself a nice little upgrade of whatever.

As for the Garmin thing, if your serious about cycling chances are you'll have a decent quality computer, probably wireless and most likely having cadence sensors. This will say set you back about £60 ish for a fairly good one. (more if you want altitude settings etc).

And then you'll have a hrm (heart rate monitor), very important peice of kit! These are from about £100 + for anything decent.

So, thats £160 for bottom end stuff.. Garmin as you say will be £300, with that you get a heart rate and cadence, altitude and a whole gang of other things before you even get into the GPS side of things...

I recon it more then pays for itself personally.. If the person i ride with goes out on a training ride without me, i can go retrace his steps when i got time aswell.. Just another cool little feature.. Particulary nice if its one of those "Rode this yesterday and its absoluely awesome" kinda ones.. Rather then him fooling me into some absolutely beasty hill climbs

Whats really good with that powertap though is on days when you just feel crap, you can see that your say putting out 100watts of power across 3 hours, and normally you put out 150 watts of power over 3 hours, you know that day you wasn't on form, but other days it may be exactly the same, in that case you can just slap yourself in the face and get on with it!

[alicetheauto]

Those powertaps look really good. Apparently Ribble do a deal where you send them a stack of postdated cheques and then pay 50quid a month for it! I have played with the garmins at work, they seem pretty good but I dont like the idea of paying 300quid plus for the unit, THEN having to buy maps ontop!

I see your point, but my mind works slightly different with it...

Firstly, with regards to the powertap and everything else for that matter, many many big bike places are doing 0% finance on things over about £200 i think, so you can do yourself a nice little upgrade of whatever.

As for the Garmin thing, if your serious about cycling chances are you'll have a decent quality computer, probably wireless and most likely having cadence sensors. This will say set you back about £60 ish for a fairly good one. (more if you want altitude settings etc).

And then you'll have a hrm (heart rate monitor), very important peice of kit! These are from about £100 + for anything decent.

So, thats £160 for bottom end stuff.. Garmin as you say will be £300, with that you get a heart rate and cadence, altitude and a whole gang of other things before you even get into the GPS side of things...

I recon it more then pays for itself personally.. If the person i ride with goes out on a training ride without me, i can go retrace his steps when i got time aswell.. Just another cool little feature.. Particulary nice if its one of those "Rode this yesterday and its absoluely awesome" kinda ones.. Rather then him fooling me into some absolutely beasty hill climbs

Whats really good with that powertap though is on days when you just feel crap, you can see that your say putting out 100watts of power across 3 hours, and normally you put out 150 watts of power over 3 hours, you know that day you wasn't on form, but other days it may be exactly the same, in that case you can just slap yourself in the face and get on with it!

I do understand the advantages of the gps, but to beginwith it wouldnt fit on my bars. The only space I have on my TT bars is filled with a computer (middle of the stem). Also, if I am off for a ride it tends to be local where I either know or I have planned and can follow the signs. Dont get me wrong, its a good piece of kit but at 400quid+ all in, my style of riding wouldnt benefit.

Good thing about powertap is that if you have a ride thats a lower average speed than normal, you can see if the weather was against you or the terrain was steeper than othe rides etc. Gives a better measure of how well your training is going.

[camp freddy]

wanted to change the bar stem on my bike to get a more prone riding
position, the position as standard is too up right for me.
steering stem is the Quill type want to change it for the 'A' type.
Been looking and the Quill to 'A' converter tube are around
£10 and the handle bar neck are around £15. Popped in Halfords today
for a nose round, on the way out noticed they had a reduced price
parts cabinet, had a look in and noticed 'low and behold' , there was
a quill coverter for £4 and a beaut 'Titec' neck for £5 , Bargain so I
got them !! heres a couple of pics....

old Quill stem



new 'A' type set up Mmmmm!!



got to get some bar ends next..

[alicetheauto]

Ahead setup is much better quality bearings, with a better choice of stems, but is less flexible because you essentially have no adjustment in height! Those adjusters are quite good to get the best of both worlds, but MAKE SURE you tighten it regularly. I never trust those extenders much.
I splashed out on one of these the other day...
http://www.halfords....yId_165718#dtab

[camp freddy]

I'd love the Boardman 'hybrid comp pro ' but it's out
of my price range so i'll have to mod the one i've got...

Edited by camp freddy, 03 April 2009 - 09:04 PM.

[AndrewJ530]

Well rode to work this morning. Got there in a record time of 32 minutes and i wasn't even trying :S lol.

The way home went from bad to worse. Started work this morning at 8 and didn't finish till quarter to 7. So i was tired already. Got on the bike at the end of the day and rode to the site gate. Rode a mile and a half to find out the gate was closed . So had to ride an extra mile and a half back down site to get to the other gate. Was not happy.

Then got about a third of the way home and my chain decided to give up the ghost and one of the outer links snapped and jammed my gears . I actually had to ring my dad and ask him to come and pick me up in the car because i couldn't ride home.

I'm really, really not happy at all. Taking my bike back to the shop to see what the guy is going to do for me. I've only rode about 150 miles on it and i've lubed the chain pretty much every time before i went out on it so there is no reason at all for it to fail.

Sorry for the rant but i'm really p****d off.

Andrew

[alicetheauto]

What bike have you got? Although chains are normally not covered under a warranty as they are subject to normal wear and tear, they should last almost indefinately if looked after correctly. Mine lasted 5000miles, with very little wear, because I cleaned and oiled it weekly. The guy should sort you out with a new one at the very least....

[camp freddy]

popped into the cycle shop in the village today for a look round,
came out with some rubber covered bar ends.. as I always seem
to be holding the ends of the bars when riding thought i'd give
them ago ..





will try them out tomorrow morning..

Edited by camp freddy, 04 April 2009 - 06:08 PM.

[AndrewJ530]

What bike have you got? Although chains are normally not covered under a warranty as they are subject to normal wear and tear, they should last almost indefinately if looked after correctly. Mine lasted 5000miles, with very little wear, because I cleaned and oiled it weekly. The guy should sort you out with a new one at the very least....

I've got a Giant SCR3. My sisters boyfriend lent me some bike lube which i use everytime i ride so i don't know why it's broke. 150 miles is bit unreliable for me especially when i've been looking after it.

He seemed like a good guy when i went back in there a couple of months ago so he should sort me a new link if not a new chain.

I'll report back when i've been to the shop on monday night.

Andrew