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I'm training to be a speech and language therapist, so if you have some kind of stroke half way up a climb, I can try to help you with communicative rehabilitation ;-)

Yeah - I'd like to do more of these. I'm still chasing the grimpeur ghost of my former self, but he's younger, lighter, and more of a machine.

I'm knackered now, having spent 6 hours with my 7-month-old son. He's definitely a machine. We once watched him rock back and forth on all fours for 2 hours non-stop whilst listening to Venetian Snares...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfmBkaou-xM

"Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes" - is that a reference to gears?

And is M*A*S*H referring to pedalling style?

9am @ Regents Park suits me. I'd have to be back around Old Street by 11ish, so couldn't do The Flask this time. 46x17.

docus I know it's a pain to subsidise fare dodgers, but some people are down on their luck - should we kick them while they're down too? You never know a person's circumstances - maybe they're really desperate - and that might be you one day...

And by religiously paying your fare, you're subsidising the profit-mongers who incrementally make the tube a mode of transport that's priced for the privileged. Soon it'll be cheaper to take a black cab.

Fare-dodging is one of these things that the zero-tolerance brigade get all twitchy about. There are bigger crimes against humanity going on.

Whatever, I don't use the tube anyway.

Yeah, what time?

I desperately need to get out on the bike, but have to take the baby to a surrealist art event at the Barbican where a gourmet chef prepares posh baby food on a first-come-first-served basis - from midday.

Just your average Saturday.

They need some kind of calculator that pro-rates humbler British climbs based on what fixed gear they're ridden up eg. Monte Zoncolan = Highgate Hill West on 106"

(How autistic spectrum is that?)

Have done quite a bit (some pieces here and there on 63xc.com). The 'most' was doing the 80 miles of the original South Downs Way (Buriton to Eastbourne) in a day. About 10 hours including a few stops here and there. I was on a 61" fixed, and my mate was on a 55" singlespeed. Both rigid forks, him on risers, me on flats with bar-ends.

We got lucky with the weather, but due to rain on the preceeding days, it was a pretty quiet Saturday, with the only 'crowds' being around Ditchling Beacon.

As long as I climbed at my pace, I was fine - if I went at my mate's pace (a bit slower) I was often in danger of stalling. Had to walk up about 3 climbs, and had to get off for one drop-off at the edge of a field. To be honest, I'd have done the same with gears and suspension cos I'm not a very technical rider.

Felt pretty rough at lunchtime, but full of beans for the last 20 miles.

Try it - makes boring trails interesting, you can amaze people with your climbing prowess, and you learn the paradoxical skill of 'coasting' on long bumpy downhills whilst turning your legs at 120-160rpm.

Buffalo Bill Try the Essex Road Race League.

Shaving is compulsory in the ERRL, but the hair is kept and distributed to the time-keepers who need a beard-weave to achieve the requisite facial hirsuteness.

A useful (and regularly updated) link for bike/train info:

http://www.atob.org.uk/Bike_Rail.html

You'll be fine off-peak - might have to divvy yourselves up in a number of carriages though.

... except for exceptions like: beige, cleidoic, codeine, conscience, deify, deity, deign, dreidel, eider, eight, either, feign, feint, feisty, foreign, forfeit, freight, gleization, gneiss, greige, greisen, heifer, heigh-ho, height, heinous, heir, heist, leitmotiv, neigh, neighbor, neither, peignoir, prescient, rein, science, seiche, seidel, seine, seismic, seize, sheik, society, sovereign, surfeit, teiid, veil, vein, weight, weir, weird, -cies plurals, etc ;-)

As a vegetarian, I was keen to go for Lorica shoes like Sidis, though a cobbler friend of mine reckoned the chemical effect on the environment was harsher from synthetic leather processing than the real stuff.

Either way, I'm a zero emissions vehicle (and a fairly low-emissions rider), so I don't get too bogged down in the ehtical/sustainable minutiae.

Apart from cycle-related clothing, what are the other vegan areas of concern around cycling? Some saddles, obviously, but there must be other stuff...?

ATACs again. Last time I replaced cleats, the front lip was getting a bit Rizla, but they'd still held up during a lot of high stress climbing.

Sidi sizing - definitely go up one size. I'm a 43 with a very narrow foot, and have 44 Sidis - perfect in the winter with thick socks, perfect in the summer with a 3mm footbed/volume insole thing from outdoor shops (not shaped, just slips under the regular insole).

velocity boy ultra-googleable.

Sounds like a new tyre from Continental.

Could go for the hard sell - 'Buy-k' (no reference to horse tranquilizers intended)

Or Velocicentristicalatarianismesque?

Was the name of a mobile bicycle mechanic venture I operated a while back, chosen because it made sense, plus I rode fixed mostly; no comment about other possible interpretations...

Or go head to head with the big players:

Good Evans

Cycle Insurgency

Condoor

etc

Evans - might as well acquiesce before they close you down with their aggressive clustering strategy.

ssk I'm gearing up for two days of writing hell.

Gears? Here? Surely not. Perhaps you're getting in a fix over two days of writing hell...

Toys Hill is a bastard - just keeps ramping up, saving the worst for last. I've done it on 60" fixed with drop bars, and about 65" on my fixed mtb with wider bars, but I remember being a newbie and cracking on a 36x19 geared (having been through the bonk about an hour before).

It's one of those climbs where as you approach the final 50m, you get an overwhelming urge to shit yourself - all that forced expiration. Possibly something like giving birth...

Have you done Yorks Hill and White (Titsey) Lane? Seminal climbs in the same area... I'm not suggesting you get an overwhelming urge to splurge in your lycra though as you approach the final 50m :-)

You could collect a load of amalgam fillings, and refashion them into a brake lever.

Hovis Brown you could always transfer the bits of your brake lever onto your teeth? waste not, want not.

Sounds like a trend in the making...

The multiply by 27 bit comes from 27" rims though. On 700c 23mm, I think it's more like chainring / sprocket x 26.4

Then you can take that number, divide by 336, multiply by cadence, and you've got your speed.

So you can chuck away your bike computer, ride along looking at your watch whilst counting pedal revolutions every 10 seconds, multiply that by 6, and times that by the figure for your gear inches divided by 336 (which you've had etched into your stem, or airbrushed onto your titanium top-tube).

Like riding brakeless, if you just go with this set-up and resign yourself to transcendental forces of synchronicitous felicity, you'll avoid all collisions, improve your spin, and garner the admiring looks of the global boredoisie. Sorted.

Nice and speedy on Camino too.