Dr Ferrari's Camper Van (off-topic discussion)

Seamus,

Those mudguards can be fitted much better to give you better coverage from spray. There's room to slide the stay through the little fittings that attach to the guard before you tighten them and then cut down the stay.

Given it's name, I don't think this thread should be a sticky or even consistently inside the Cycling forum.

I think it should move around from forum to forum so as to be hard to find mobile and available on the spot to cater for varied training needs.

Or we could each have a Camper Van nickname. Mine would be Beethoven.



Take the skinheads bowling.

Congrats to anyone who got that one

Bunnyhopper wrote: »

Or we could each have a Camper Van nickname. Mine would be Beethoven.



Take the skinheads bowling.

Congrats to anyone who got that one

It's a Cracker!

seamus wrote: »

Didn't think of cutting the stays actually.
The problem with the front one is that as it is, there's only a couple of mm clearance between the mudguard and the V-brake cable (you can see this in the picture). So if I drop the rear of the guard, the angle of the nose causes it to rub off the brake cable. I suspect the problem is the huge clearance between the tyre and fork crown. I'll need to get some kind of small plate which attaches to both fork and guard and lets me drop the hangar/bridge of the mudguard down closer to the wheel.

Cutting the stays might work for making the rear guard neater though.

I had the same problem for a while, thought it was down to frame size until it dawned on me one day that I could get the guards much tighter.

They are very finnicky but persevere and you can find a good "sweet spot"

Tonyandthewhale wrote: »

Anyone have any advice on hour derailleurs fare on African dirt roads? Is a rolhoff hub going to perform noticably better than a deore front and rear mech tied to some bar-end shifters?

I would think yes, IGH plus chain case equals flawless(ish)

Probably not, I'm sure the deraileur set up would work just fine, but if you're going to continue to use it after the trip then the Rohloff may be a good investment, some people don't seem to like them, my friend is a service agent for them but thinks they're pants, they can be troublesome at the start so I wouldn't buy one and head off on a tour straight away, but after the run in period and some adjustments they work super IMHO, a close second to S.A. but with a wider ratio.

Holyboy wrote: »

I would think yes, IGH plus chain case equals flawless(ish)

(I'm sure you know this, I'm directing this at the Tonyandthewhale)

The major advantage of the Rohloff is that the indexing is internal to the hub, as opposed to Shimano and Sturmey systems where the indexing is in the lever.

I'd expect that this makes the Rohloffs fundamentally more reliable and easier to maintain, because the biggest end-user issues with IGHs are down to cabling issues, and once the shifting is off you can damage the hub internals.

Rohloff uses two cables, and is usually actuated with a proprietary shifter (gripshift, I think). Not sure if it's possible to use friction shifters - you'd need two of them obviously.

I have read that Rohloffs are very draggy in some gears.

In any case, I don't think taking an IGH to the arse end of nowhere is a particularly good idea, as you could be waiting weeks for spares. For the same reason, 26" wheels are apparently preferable to 700c.

At least when a derailleur system goes wrong you can see what's broken and jerry-rig a fix. I crashed a bike earlier and the year, ripping off the mech hanger in the process, and it only took a couple of minutes with a multitool to convert it to singlespeed.

Lumen wrote: »

At least when a derailleur system goes wrong you can see what's broken and jerry-rig a fix. I crashed a bike earlier and the year, ripping off the mech hanger in the process, and it only took a couple of minutes with a multitool to convert it to singlespeed.

Good point, I think I'll stick with what I know and put the extra into a good set of pretty much everything else.

Yeah, it vanishes after a while.

Beasty wrote: »

Anyway - just to keep on topic - that was never a free-kick - we woz robbed of 2 points ....

Your avatar appears to be a white Yorkshire rose but you support Man Utd? Are you Geoff Boycott in disguise?

lpb

Beasty wrote: »

but as there are no football teams in North Yorkshire I felt it appropriate to consider a team from Greater Manchester

Surely the mighty Middlesbrough are from the North Riding in the opinion of any Yorkshire irredentist?

lpb

Beasty wrote: »

A North Yorkshire rose, to be precise (the full Yorkshire one has a blue background;)), but as there are no football teams in North Yorkshire I felt it appropriate to consider a team from Greater Manchester - funnily enough at the time I started being a fan of them City claimed to be the top team in Manchester (although we were European Champions)

Boycott was definitely one of my boyhood heroes, but Bobby Charlton was the main one (although he was from next door in Co Durham)

err york, scarborough,

oops scarborough were wound up

york it is then in the lofty heights of conference north

actually seems to be lifting here !

First day on the singlespeed is the windiest fncker in ages. Typical. Nice freewheel most of the way in. I was even a tiny bit chilly, no chance to warm up. I think I'm going to die on the way home.