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Built this finally. Friends said it wasn't as ugly as they thought it'd be...

What are my options if my chain tension is shocking and I don't have enough lateral movement in the dropouts to remove a link? Change to a smaller chainring?

Chain tensioner + fixie + skid = broken chain tensioner?

Eh, you never know. They might crack down on hunters. I think it'd be a vote winner especially with younger people, and they're scrabbling to claw back any support they can to ensure the party doesn't die with their 60-year-old membership.

They've dropped the fox hunting pledge if you weren't aware. So despite what we all think of the Tories at least that's never going to be made legal again.

What is that, like a 10mm stem?? Sur(e)ly that just rides horribly?

Yeah, but they have to be cheap; those are probably triple what I've spent on the rest of the bike! There's a lot of 650c tri-spokes around from youth bikes or track bikes that had a smaller front wheel and stuff, so I'm just wondering in case I spot a bargain in future.

Edit: In terms of the price it looks like some of the 650c tri-spokes sold for under £100 which I'd maybe consider paying. Also I'm not tied to tri-spokes; a disk wheel would be even funnier considering what a piece of shit the bike is. And there's those absurd 5-spoke magnesium wheel-shaped-objects out there too.

If you're gluing on stuff off the bottom of furniture... how about these?

Because I think it would be funny and/or interesting to ride around on a retro MTB with a very cheap eBay tri-spoke or something similar. Edit: see my username.

We've had a similar discussion in the past; I'm guessing you won't consider this a sensible use of time or money? Fair enough really.

How difficult would it be to bodge a 650c wheel, either front or back, in a retro 26" rim brake MTB? It seems like I'd only need 6mm of vertical wiggle room on the cantis to get them to fit (my working: (571mm - 559mm)/2 = 6mm).

Interesting that you say that. When I was in London recently it felt like there was a vegan burger restaurant on every corner. In Edinburgh it seems like there's only a few restaurants that have more than a couple of options.

Bow Bar is great, good choice

It's hilarious to me that Theresa May holds the same position as Churchill, Atlee, even Thatcher, etc. It seems like back in those days she would have been judged too incompetent to even be a minister. Can you imagine her being in charge during WWII, for example? We would've been conquered in a week.

You misread, it's 83 foot

Yeah, I agree re. the 10% stuff. If you're running 6k a week then increasing to 6.6k is a bit silly.

But @ltc it's your body and you know best. Most important thing is to skip a run if you feel like you're not properly recovered or feel like you're getting shin splints or have a dodgy ankle or whatever. Especially as you're not signed up for any events and there's no pressure to get fit in time. Be liberal with the time off.

Regarding plans, reaching half marathon distance might be a nice few-month's-time goal for you. You could try something like the BUPA plan. I have found the plans are pretty flexible; in your case you can just shift everything back by a day or two if you're especially busy. Or throw in random rest weeks (just try not to take more than 2 weeks off). Basically just have 7 or more days between your long runs and do some short runs in between them. I would recommend you do at least a couple of weeks of 2 or 3 shorter runs before you start that plan though as it's aimed at people who already run twice a week.

Another point I forgot to mention is if you're running in 10-year-old shoes they're going to eventually cause you problems. They have a lifetime and they may not be suited for your gait. Consider getting some new ones if that's what you've got. But you're probably fine with whatever for short distances.

What are the cheapest beans you're willing to pay for? Bonus points if I can get them off the internet in decent quantities or in a supermarket. I'll have no income in a few months and want to a) save money now and b) figure out which cheap coffee I like most. At the moment I'm drinking the Lidl beans.

You could do a couch to 5k, but they're generally designed for people who are much less fit than the average cyclist - first week is stuff like "walk 5 mins". So your other option is to just wing it like I did and loads of others do, doing the obvious things like resting if you're injured or tired and stopping if you're in pain, same as on the bike.

Main point to be aware of is that it's extremely easy to overdo it; as a bike courier you'll have massive cardiovascular fitness but puny weak little knees, ankles, tendons and so on that cannot take the impact of pounding on concrete over and over again. You can run a planned 10k, decide that you feel great and want to carry on to 15k, feel fine all evening, then realise the next day that you've broken yourself. I think nearly every cyclist does this when they start running; I certainly did.

Basically just make sure you rest the moment you have the slightest inkling of an injury and although it's frustrating don't increase your distance by more than 10% a week (I'm pretty sure 10% is the recommendation but advise you do a bit of research rather than listen to me). In the first few weeks I'd suggest you do frequent short runs rather than infrequent long runs (ie. do 3 quick 2.5km jogs rather than the 6km run you just did).

Yeah, was going to say the same thing. Not only is it possible but you can put it on backwards which gives you a far more useful limb than a thigh with no knee joint at all.

Looks a bit weird obviously but who cares? Better to have use of your leg than worry about people being mean to you.

Edit: now that's a new page fail. Really need a bit of context here.

Old post but I've done something similar and ended up using the outer position on a triple. I can't remember the numbers but the chainline was quite wide, over 50mm I think. I can measure it tomorrow if you like. Fair warning: haven't ridden the bike in anger as I've been away over Christmas so the chain could well end up grinding or popping off or something; who knows.

If you decide to buy a cog the cheapest one I found was this from Triton

Beautiful. I especially like the top one; if for some reason you had to share a bike with a small child you could simply swap out the seatpost and both of you would be able to ride it. No doubt this is a common problem that has (until now) been unsolved.

Edit: or even better, get some sort of dropper post with like 50cm of drop and fit that to it. Perfect for MTB.

Interesting link, thanks.

Feeling a bit sad now that I've "finished" all my bikes and can't mess about with mismatched random components any more. The most exciting thing I can do is upgrade my 10-speed SRAM MTB/road mashup groupset to 11-speed. Although I only just bought the 10-speed bits.

I got given a hand grinder for Christmas. I like it but unfortunately on the finest grind settings it's just incredibly slow; like it'll take me 20 minutes to grind 18g of beans. I think that the ceramic burr part is getting jammed up somehow and the grounds are not falling through as they should; they just get pushed around and stick to the ceramic.

Any suggestions? Am I grinding too fine (for an espresso machine)? Do I just need to disassemble the whole thing and give it a good clean? Is that just the way that it is?

It's one of these: https://www.anothercoffee.co.uk/products/item150862.aspx I like the design of it aside from this problem

I (eventually) made this and gave it to my girlfriend. Tastes great! But I just realised it only keeps for 4-5 days!

Sorry but what are you basing this on? I don't think MSG is proven to be bad for you. And ethoxyquin seems to legal in the US and I would assume that it's not being used illegally in the EU.

I don't even eat the fajita seasoning, and I'm absolutely against unnecessary weird additives, but I would like to see some proof before some random ingredient is written off forever.

The problem for me is how do you charge it up? And if you go on holiday and don't ride the bike or charge it, does the tracker go flat and become completely worthless?

I think the best solution would be an alarm/tracker that charges from a dynamo hub. It'd be fine for a cafe/shop run - charge it up on the way then leave the bike locked up with a loud alarm that goes off as soon as someone moves your bike. When you're at home you put the bike in the shed/garage/flat/whatever where presumably you have some additional sort of security.

Great deal. Got a £270 RRP sleeping bag for £165 assuming I get the cashback.