Todays Ride

David Waters said:

All told a pretty miserable one today. Road out towards Buxton from
Manchester. The first 10miles or so is along the A6 and is virtually ALL
uphill. Today there was a strong headwind the whole way. Turned off the
A6 at High Lane up 2 massive hills, again with a fierce headwind. The
first major decent crosses over an A road (Possible the A6 again) and as
such I am always wary on the brakes. The rear brake block failed the
test and disintegrated miserably. I didn't fancy riding around with only
front brakes so I bailed and rode home. To make matters worse, I had
misadjusted the saddle and didnt have the correct tools with me and so
suffered some rather unpleasent chafage. Hopefully next week will be
more fun. 🙁

Follow Sheldon's guide to braking and you won't need more than the front
brake except for convenience.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html

Tony

Tony Raven said:

Follow Sheldon's guide to braking and you won't need more than the front
brake except for convenience.

erm....and safety. I certainly wouldn't want to ride too far with only a
front brake (assuming a freewheel).

James
--
If I have seen further than others, it is
by treading on the toes of giants.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/

in message <[email hidden]>, David Waters

(') said:

All told a pretty miserable one today.

[snip]

Quoted message said:

Hopefully next week will be more fun. 🙁

Oh, well, I can gloat a little then. Out of bed at 7:45 and not feeling
like it at all. Out of the house at twenty past eight without even
having got a sip of my morning coffee. Drive to Newton Stewart, knowing
I was going to be late for the nine o'clock start. Got there, found to
my relief people had waited, waited around a bit more, got on the road,
leaving our strongest rider behind to bring on the stragglers.

Officially we were supposed to be going slowly to allow stragglers to
catch up but I dropped off the back on the first hill, struggled to
stay with the group on the second, and on the third realised that at
that time in the morning without breakfast I didn't have the legs and
there was no point burning them. So I eased back to a speed I knew _I_
could do, in the expectation that those behind would catch up.

And then I really started to enjoy it. We were up into the hills above
Newton Stewart again, and they're serious hills - grey granite crags
going up precipitously above woodland autumn painted in golds and
russets and tans, with burns and waterfalls cascading down; and the
weather was struggling to be pleasant. I knew the route, so I rode on
perfectly happily by myself for the next ten miles, enjoying the
scenery and really just meditating. Then, in the carpark at the top,
Janet (of our trusty LBS) was waiting with flasks of coffee and lots of
chocolate cake. We got the message that some stragglers were following
us and were feeling reasonably unhappy about having been left, so I
cycled off down the hill to join up with them and bring them up to the
carpark, where more cake was consumed.

By then the weather was pretty much succeeding in being pleasant - the
last tattered remnants of the front were clearing and the sun was
pouring down out of a mainly clear blue sky, and it had even forgotten
to be cold; so we headed off down the road again in a bunch. And just
as it had been nice going up by myself, it was nice coming down in the
group, chatting comfortably at 30mph and more - a startling difference
from my outbound speed!

Finally back into Newton Stewart and coffee in a friends house, 29.8
miles on the trip in one hour 58 minutes riding time. Not fast, of
course, but very enjoyable. I hope your next week's ride will be as
good as mine.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; 'I think we should trust our president in every decision
;; that he makes and we should just support that'
;; Britney Spears of George W Bush, CNN 04:09:03

In message <[email hidden]>, Simon
Brooke <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Oh, well, I can gloat a little then. Out of bed at 7:45 and not feeling
like it at all. Out of the house at twenty past eight without even
having got a sip of my morning coffee.

Not sure if this counts:
- out of bed at 8.10am after late dinner party (with drinkies) across
town last night that I didn't get home from until at least 1.30am
- on bike at 8.30am
- in swimming pool at 8.45am after 10 minute ride
- 40 or so lengths later, in Caffe Nero with a hot cappuccino and a
muffin in front of me.

OK - not much cycling going on.

--
congokid
Good restaurants in London? Number one on Google
http://congokid.com

Simon Brooke said:

chatting comfortably at 30mph and more

How'd you do that? I've never chatted comforably whilst descending at speed;
I find riders need plenty of room between in such situations -- or is it
just me?

Didn't ride today -- other than into town shopping. But yesterday I headed
out to Stockbridge via Kings Somborne (NW of Winchester) and back along the
same route as I knew I'd have the wind behind me all the way back, which was
nice. I averaged about 41 kph for the 43 km back home!

Should you ever find yourself in NW Hants, there's some great cycling
country around there. The road from Winchester to Kings Somborne, Houghton
and West Dean is the best (bumpy and picturesque) route to Salisbury and the
West from the South East -- quieter in terms of motor traffic than the New
Forest.

Tony Raven said:

Follow Sheldon's guide to braking and you won't need more than the front
brake except for convenience.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html

His argument there assumes that you have a front brake powerful enough
to lift the rear wheel by itself under heavy braking. Probably I've
never ridden good enough bikes with good enough brakes, but I've never
been able to do that. My Raleigh Pioneer, with clean rims and nicely
adjusted brakes, stops much more quickly if I use the back brake as
well.

Daniele
--
Apple Juice Ltd
Chapter Arts Centre
Market Road www.apple-juice.co.uk
Cardiff CF5 1QE 029 2019 0140

David Waters said:

All told a pretty miserable one today. Road out towards Buxton from
Manchester. The first 10miles or so is along the A6 and is virtually ALL
uphill. Today there was a strong headwind the whole way. Turned off the
A6 at High Lane up 2 massive hills, again with a fierce headwind. The
first major decent crosses over an A road (Possible the A6 again) and as
such I am always wary on the brakes. The rear brake block failed the
test and disintegrated miserably. I didn't fancy riding around with only
front brakes so I bailed and rode home. To make matters worse, I had
misadjusted the saddle and didnt have the correct tools with me and so
suffered some rather unpleasent chafage. Hopefully next week will be
more fun. 🙁

Has been a tad blustery today; my first 30km today was into the wind -
best I could do was 15kph at times, in 3rd gear 🙁. However, after the
midpoint I found a new definition for a tailwind - 46kph on the computer
and no wind noise around the ears - I was *flying* 🙂

Anyway, clocked up another 60km - it was good to see several other
cyclists out and about too; and all but one said "Good Morning" 🙂

--
Chris

in message <[email hidden]>, Simonb

(') said:

Simon Brooke said:

chatting comfortably at 30mph and more

How'd you do that? I've never chatted comforably whilst descending at
speed; I find riders need plenty of room between in such situations --
or is it just me?

Well personally I'm quite new to riding in a bunch and it still makes me
pretty nervous to be close to another bike at that sort of speed. But
this morning it genuinely felt OK. Obviously at that speed voices are
raised a bit, but... like I say, it worked and it felt OK. A slight
following wind (about 8mph) may have helped by reducing the apparent
head wind, and thus reducing the NEED TO SHOUT.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
.::;===r==\
/ /___||___\____
//==\- ||- | /__\( MS Windows IS an operating environment.
//____\__||___|_// \|: C++ IS an object oriented programming language.
\__/ ~~~~~~~~~ \__/ Citroen 2cv6 IS a four door family saloon.

In message <[email hidden]>, Simon
Brooke <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
.::;===r==\
/ /___||___\____
//==\- ||- | /__\( MS Windows IS an operating environment.
//____\__||___|_// \|: C++ IS an object oriented programming language.
\__/ ~~~~~~~~~ \__/ Citroen 2cv6 IS a four door family saloon.

Viewed on my screen with Arial, regular, 10pt, it looks either like your
car has crashed - or MS Windows has.

--
congokid
Good restaurants in London? Number one on Google
http://congokid.com

On 10/10/04 5:49 pm, in article [email hidden],

congokid said:

In message <[email hidden]>, Simon
Brooke <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
.::;===r==\
/ /___||___\____
//==\- ||- | /__\( MS Windows IS an operating environment.
//____\__||___|_// \|: C++ IS an object oriented programming language.
\__/ ~~~~~~~~~ \__/ Citroen 2cv6 IS a four door family saloon.

Viewed on my screen with Arial, regular, 10pt, it looks either like your
car has crashed - or MS Windows has.

Amateur.. All real net geeks only use fixed width fonts and 80 column
terminals..

Backwards compatible all the way to the jaquard loom..

...d

David Martin said:

Amateur.. All real net geeks only use fixed width fonts and 80 column
terminals..

That's a shame. Sans-serif fonts are so much easier to read than fixed
width. Can't they upgrade? ;-)

On 10/10/04 6:50 pm, in article [email hidden],

Simonb said:

David Martin said:

Amateur.. All real net geeks only use fixed width fonts and 80 column
terminals..

That's a shame. Sans-serif fonts are so much easier to read than fixed
width. Can't they upgrade? ;-)

San-serif and fixed width are not mutually exclusive. At the moment my
screen has san-serif fonts in a fixed width. (Monaco 9 point notional)

San-serif is literally 'without serifs' or the little flicks at the end of
strokes that make typeset body text easier to read.

In general one would use sanserif for headlines and titles, and serif for
body text.

Fixed width is a fixed spacing per character, like a typewriter or computer
terminal. The opposite to fixed width is proportional spacing where each
letter has an appropriate width.

...d

D.M. Procida [email hidden] opined the
following...

Quoted message said:

His argument there assumes that you have a front brake powerful enough
to lift the rear wheel by itself under heavy braking. Probably I've
never ridden good enough bikes with good enough brakes, but I've never
been able to do that. My Raleigh Pioneer, with clean rims and nicely
adjusted brakes, stops much more quickly if I use the back brake as
well.

Now would thus be a good time to invest in some new brakes!

If you have side-pulls, consider upgrading to dual pivots. If you have
cantilevers, consider V-Brakes.

Jon

On Sun, 10 Oct 2004 17:02:47 +0100,
[email hidden] (D.M. Procida) wrote in
message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

His argument there assumes that you have a front brake powerful enough
to lift the rear wheel by itself under heavy braking. Probably I've
never ridden good enough bikes with good enough brakes, but I've never
been able to do that. My Raleigh Pioneer, with clean rims and nicely
adjusted brakes, stops much more quickly if I use the back brake as
well.

Are you sure? Or is it just that you are subconsciously nervous about
doing an endo so find yourself unwilling to apply full welly to the
front brake?

The last bike I had that absolutely could not lift the back wheel was
an old Raleigh with pressed steel sidepulls. OK, that's not quite
true - I haven't managed to lift the rear wheel on the recumbent.
Maybe the Dark Side is calling? ;-)

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

David Martin said:

In general one would use sanserif for headlines and titles, and serif
for body text.

That only holds true for printing. At screen resolution, you con get away
with sans serif in body text most of the time (unless you are onr of those
designers whose choice in point size is ridiculously small).

David Waters said:

All told a pretty miserable one today. Road out towards Buxton from
Manchester. The first 10miles or so is along the A6 and is virtually
ALL uphill. Today there was a strong headwind the whole way. Turned
off the A6 at High Lane up 2 massive hills, again with a fierce
headwind. The first major decent crosses over an A road (Possible the
A6 again) and as such I am always wary on the brakes. The rear brake
block failed the test and disintegrated miserably. I didn't fancy
riding around with only front brakes so I bailed and rode home. To
make matters worse, I had misadjusted the saddle and didnt have the
correct tools with me and so suffered some rather unpleasent chafage.
Hopefully next week will be more fun. 🙁

Too bad, sometimes one has bad rides. I didn't today. Up at 06:45 which is
earlier than I do on a school day, cycled down to Leeds station at 07:30 to
catch the Dales bike bus to Grassington. Started riding again at 10:18 and
had a good tootle up Littondale, this really is a super road. There are only
a few hamlets on the way so there is very little traffic. The road doubles
back on itself as it climbs and gives superb views from whence one came. The
climb is 17% in places but short. The road leads down into Settle. From
there I cut south towards the Lancashire mill towns of Colne, Nelson (home
of Carradice) and Burnley before turning east to come back into Yorkshire.
As I entered Gods Oen County as the locals say the sun came out so the
strong headwind was less cool. At Hebden Bridge I elected to turn right and
head back into Lancashire to Littleborough and climb back on the Roman Road
to Ripponden. The wind was at its strongest here, that, the miles in my legs
and the incline made this climb pretty tough (its the A58). The descent is
usually superb but with the strong headwind was [censored]. Once lower the wind
was easier and I had no problems getting home. Total mileage 100.49 - I took
the 'scenic' route through Morley to clock up the century. Time was 8 hours
5 minutes including all stops for ravataillement, map reading and calls of
nature.

Martin Newstead (MSeries) said:

the Dales bike bus

What's this and where does it go from?

Simonb said:

Didn't ride today -- other than into town shopping. But yesterday I headed
out to Stockbridge via Kings Somborne (NW of Winchester) and back along the
same route as I knew I'd have the wind behind me all the way back, which was
nice. I averaged about 41 kph for the 43 km back home!

I went out to Stockbridge yesterday - going down the Test valley from
the north. Of course the real reason was to visit John Robinsons for a
supply of sausages :-)

This morning I had a 19-year old for cycle-training for a couple of
hours so mileage was low. My daughter then took him for an afternoon a
ride up to Popham Airfield - an excellent Sunday stop for tea and cakes,
while I cooked the bangers.

Quoted message said:

Should you ever find yourself in NW Hants, there's some great cycling
country around there.

Yep - I look out my window at it every day :-)

John B