Aren't Bicycles Great.

Johnmcl7

The supermarkets here are 24/7 which is great as I can go late at night as I find it frustrating going during the day, I find it odd how people think it's fine to just block entire aisles while having a conversation or to just suddenly stop and block a busy part of the supermarket.

The weather here has been absolutely fantastic and suspect I'm going to have a bit of sunburn tomorrow - hope you've all be able to get out and enjoy it, almost feels like I've gone abroad. I went up to a trail centre I've been a couple of times which was good and then onto a new-ish one I haven't been to before. I should have gone sooner particularly when the DH guys were complaining about it as that normally means it's up my street, there's a good bit of climbing but the downhill sections are long and flowing making good use of the elevation.







Annoyingly right at the end there's a series of small drop offs which turn fairly tightly and the second drop off was steeper than I realised so when I hit the first one and let the bike roll onto the second it very quickly picked up speed. The bike lurched off the side of the track and down the drop there although I was hoping with the grass I could crash safely but it was completely out of control by that point and when it hit the ditch it bounced and threw me off. Luckily I got away with it though and nothing more than a dunt in shin where I assume the pedal hit it and an array of scratches and bruises where I clipped the bike on departure. I'm always a bit wary when you feel ok at the time as you can stiffen up a lot later.

As I was lying upside wondering what the heck I'd just done, I was a little embarrassed to hear 'are you ok?' by someone passing who looked a bit concerned at my expert dismount - I warned him to take it easy on that section. My friend was amused at my helmet which I couldn't think why until I took it off and found it had picked up a little memento:



This track would have been hard going on the fat bike so was glad to have the hardtail as it's better at speed, I still have a nagging doubt about the full sus 29er and wondering whether I should try putting a bigger tyre on its front to see how I go as it can be tiring on long downhills on the hardtail compared to having suspension at the back. Then on the other hand I was managing to carry plenty speed on the hardtail and was hitting over 30mph on some of the downhill sections so the full suspension may be a bad idea.

nsabournemouth

I've got back in to cycling. Down here in Bournemouth it isn't the most cycle friendly places to be but so far I have only been attacked once for protesting some fool who pulled out and was inches away from knocking me off in to the path of a lorry.

I do about 80ish miles per week to and from work plus what I do with just getting about at weekends so all in all about 400 miles a month. That has seen my car use drop massively, only put in about £10 per week of fuel in the car so the wife can get to where she needs to be.

My current trusted steed is a GT Avalanche 2014. Great bit of kit and serves me well. I'm also taking our 20 month old out more on the back, managed to get up a rather steep hill by Boscombe Pier yesterday with him on the back, felt the front end trying to lift up with the weight on the back so had to lean forwards all the way up. He weighs about 2 stone and a half. Not a chubster mind, he's off the chart for height.

armyknife

So I have this bike, I now just use it for shopping trips and utility rides, the drive train is quite knackered, but I'm not replacing it for another 150 miles because then the bike all told will have cost below 10p per mile over it's lifetime.

Sensible approach to bike maintenance?

brat

Been too busy working, cycling and DIYing to post!

170miles already this week, 200 last week, 250 the week before.

Loving it!!

Retrogamer

I was having a good time on the new bike until it seems i've buckled both wheels after approx 50 miles of use. Pretty disappointing considering the spec and price. Now i need to wait a few weeks until i get spare time to take them into a bike shop (none local really) to get them trued and hope it was just poor quality machine building that caused it.

Johnmcl7

How badly buckled are the wheels? I don't think any of my wheels are completely straight although at least with discs it doesn't matter quite as much.

John

Retrogamer

Very minor buckles it seems but because of the extra wide tyres and the chain tensioner they've started to rub against it now

esuhl

It requires a bit of patience, but it's fairly easy to straighten a wheel by tightening (or loosening) the appropriate spokes.

If you stick the bike in a stand (or turn it upside down) and strap something like a pencil to the forks using a rubber band, you can carefully position the tip to touch the rim, so that when you rotate the wheel you get an accurate idea of where the buckles are.

esuhl

armyknife wrote: »

So I have this bike, I now just use it for shopping trips and utility rides, the drive train is quite knackered, but I'm not replacing it for another 150 miles because then the bike all told will have cost below 10p per mile over it's lifetime.

Sensible approach to bike maintenance?

Sounds good to me! My current bike is the first I've had that wasn't the absolute cheapest ~£100 from Halfords. I looked at the cost of servicing the brakes, suspension, gears, etc. and realised that I could either get a full service every year or, for the same money, run the bike into the ground and throw it away after three years. :eek:

That was the plan... and then minor issues started cropping up that I wanted to fix before I was ready to bin it. I needed to replace a gear shifter and cable... and then I wanted to straighten the wheels... Before long, I either needed to take it to a shop or buy some tools. And the cost of one service was the same as the cost of the tools.

Now, with a set of tools, I can tweak the bike and be much more anal about getting everything "just right" than a bike shop would be! And, I can instantly fix things if anything goes wrong (once I get the bike home).

brat

More fun on the bike today, probably the last day of great weather. Rattled off 60 miles around my local area.

Even the cows like the bike!