Tag: Cycling

Jun 2nd – This is a bit of a geeky one for fellow owners of Garmin Edge bike GPS units: I notice now that under the Garmin ConnectIQ brand, there are a selection of installable, free apps to give new screens and data fields for your device. Most of the stuff available is fitness related, and doesn’t appeal to me; but this app – called My Edge – giving an analogue-style speedometer with clever max and average speed implementation, with other data fields configurable, is really nice. It has a slight bug in that elevation related fields display in feet, rather than the labelled meters but it’s cool. You can investigate the My Edge app here.

There are other interesting apps too – another I’ve loaded shows the current OS grid position you’re at, which I find nicely geeky.

Check out the Garmin Connect service here.

March 26th – There’s times when you just have to give in. For several reasons I’ve recently converted from 28mm Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres to 25mm. the ostensibly small, 3mm change has made a big difference to fitting the tyres, which has led to a couple of tubes being pinched on reassembly – notoriously during my ride around the Roaches a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve been looking for solutions. These tyres won’t be fitted by hand, the combination of Mavic rims and Schwalbe rubber is notoriously tough, so I’ve opted to try a new tool – this plastic hook device made by BBB and costing about £7 pivots like scissors, and you rest one arm on the opposite rim, and hook the tyre on with the other.

I’ve not tried it yet, but it has to be worth a shot. Never known tyres this tight before.

May 20th – Last week, at the floating market, I moaned to my old friend about the p*nct*re palaver I’d had the day before. I arrived home this evening to find a small box sent by my friend, containing a couple of repair kits, some cement, and about 50 extra patches – all my favourite brand – Rema.

It’s a lovely, funny thought. And I’m sure they’ll save my ride many times. Just hopefully not for a while yet…

April 18th – A devil of a day beset by difficulties at work. I rode off early in the morning into an unpleasant headwind with a bad stomach and the day didn’t improve much. I was distracted on the way home by a mechanical issue, and just took these photos of the new pond at Clayhanger, which is greening up beautifully at the moment, but is suffering a little for being a hanging-out place for local kids who are littering a little. 

Hopefully in a few weeks the slopes around the pool will be alive with orchids again, as they were last year. Sadly, it’s a bit too wet down there at the moment to investigate.

Repairs carried out at home, I’m hoping for a better day tomorrow – it wouldn’t be hard to achieve.

April 1st – it’s fitting to note that today, April 1st 2016, April Fools Day is the 5th anniversary of this journal. Apart from the two infamous days of food poisoning over New Year 2011/12 when I was slain by a rogue pie, I have ridden every day, rain, sun, snow or shine. Every day I’ve got on my bike and gone somewhere – for a ride for pleasure, on errands, to work. That’s 1825 days of cycling, and 4 years and 3 months of that on every single consecutive day. 

I must be mad. Or really love cycling. One of the two. Or both.

Today, I found myself riding through Stonnall, and noticed the lovely daffodils around the village bus stop. Wonder what the bunting around the shelter is for?

Thanks for being with me and riding along. If you’re sick of it and think I should stop, or want to shout encouragement, feel free. I’ve really enjoyed the past five years.

March 18th – A bit of a tip for the Brooks saddle owners with a sheared tension bolt, as I suffered last week.

If your saddle hasn’t stretched much, it can be particularly hard to get the replacement bolt in – in the factory, the saddles are stretched on a hydraulic jig, so fitting a replacement can be a struggle to the home mechanic.

The problem is made worse because the pin isn’t threaded all the way up – and an extra 2mm of thread could make all the difference, and did on my saddle.

To make fitting a replacement easier, I took the adjusting nut from the new pin, and turned 2mm off the head on the lathe at work. It’s a steel nut, so there’s plenty of material left, and that 2mm allows the nut to be wound back clear enough to fit the pin with minimum leverage.

If you have this problem and don’t have access to a lathe, just find a handy local engineering company where someone will probably do this very quick task for a pint.

It could make the difference between doing the job yourself and having to return the saddle to Brooks.

March 14th – Brooks Saddles. Made and broken in the Midlands.

I love a Brooks leather saddle – made in Smethwick for a century or more from real leather, they’re a marmite thing amongst cyclists – you ether love them or hate them. I adore them; I’ve ridden on a Brooks for tens of thousands of miles and I’ve never found anything that fits my ample arse better. 

However, some aspects of them are not great. the ‘Brooks creak’, where at an indeterminate point after breaking in, the thing squeaks noisily for 400 miles or so no matter what you do to relieve it; the sometimes middling build quality can be disappointing; but both of these pale compared to the real annoyance – poor quality tension pins.

The two metal objects above should be one piece. This bolt sits in a yoke from the saddle rails to the nose, the nut adjusting the tension of the whole thing. It rarely needs adjusting, but it takes the entire weight of my resplendent girth.

Until it fatigue-snaps on the way home. 

They are a bugger to replace, and cost a fiver a time. To snap like this (and it’s a common, longstanding moan with Brooks customers) the component is poor quality. It would be easier to fit were it threaded to the boss. The whole thing is weak and shoddy. That’s very poor for a £60 saddle.

It left me with an uncomfortable, rattly ride home and a horrid workshop job to do. 

But I still wouldn’t entrust my posterior to any other brand. 

Brooks you muppets, sort it the hell out. Please.

March 11th – A nasty graunching from the rear brake on the way home was severe enough to have me check it out as soon as I got home. Much to my shock, I found the stock, soft resin-organic brake pads in my rear calliper were just a bit worn.

Ahem.

The new sintered metal ones are at the rear, the ones I took out in front. That’s bad. Should have spotted it sooner – luckily I don’t seem to have damaged the disc.

Never take your eyes of those essential maintenance tasks, people!

March 9th – Coming back to Brownhills on the wettest and greyest of evenings, I stopped to take a call at the top of Clayhanger Lane on Lindon Road. The traffic was terrible, it was cold and the rain was penetrating.

It seems a world away from the warmth of a few weeks ago.

Hopefully, spring won’t be far away – and we can at least, hope for warmer rain…

Have to say, if the road surface gets any worse on Lindon Road they’ll have to give up sweeping it and plough it instead.