They don't even pay road tax Joe. **Off topic thread**

bcmf

Inspector Coptoor wrote: »

My shifters for the big ring were being a pain in the arse today.

Wouldn't go into the biggest ring at the front at all.

Any ideas/tips?

Had the same problem a few weeks back.The FD was clogged with ****. Took it off and soakedit hot suddy water. Took a tooth brush to all the moving parts. Fully dried it out and got some spray oil and put plenty on the spring and all moving parts inluding in and around the limit screws. Being working 100% ever since.

CptMackey

Anybody buy a Garmin speed cadence sensor lately? What would be a reasonable price to part with

Zyzz

Will I gain much downhill speed if I jump to a 53 compared to the 50 I have already? I tend to bounce around once I hit around 65km/h..

rollingscone

Zyzz wrote: »

Will I gain much downhill speed if I jump to a 53 compared to the 50 I have already? I tend to bounce around once I hit around 65km/h..

Big gears do feel nice and reassuring on descents that much I can say. 65 is probably my fastest ever speed though.

Wishbone Ash

Zyzz wrote: »

Will I gain much downhill speed if I jump to a 53 compared to the 50 I have already? I tend to bounce around once I hit around 65km/h..

Is your "bouncing around" caused by spinning out?

You will get more out of a 53 but climbing will be more difficult on a 39. What have you on the rear at the moment- a 25/12?

Zyzz

Spinning out yeh! 11-25 I think is whats on the back I think. I've properly spun out at 80km/h with that gearing setup..but I must have looked like I was having some sort of seizure :pac:

Wishbone Ash

Presumably if you move to a 53/39 you'll have to make changes to the front derailleur to accommodate the larger rings.

Time for a new bike!

Zyzz

Knew it, new bike it is! :pac:

Super Freak

CptMackey wrote: »

Anybody buy a Garmin speed cadence sensor lately? What would be a reasonable price to part with

Handtec are normally cheapest around for Garnin

laraghrider

Question for those that own Garmin's actually. I've a 500 and seems to take an age to connect to the sats. Does anyone else have this issue?

Dermot Illogical

laraghrider wrote: »

Question for those that own Garmin's actually. I've a 500 and seems to take an age to connect to the sats. Does anyone else have this issue?

Yes. Sometimes it seems to work better when I clear out FIT files from it.
I don't understand why it takes so long when I'm starting where I left off the last time. I've a 705 which is much quicker.

CptMackey

laraghrider wrote: »

Question for those that own Garmin's actually. I've a 500 and seems to take an age to connect to the sats. Does anyone else have this issue?

It used to for me but I turn it on outside the back now while I'm checking the tires etc and it seems to be better. Think they are just fickle

Wishbone Ash

laraghrider wrote: »

Question for those that own Garmin's actually. I've a 500 and seems to take an age to connect to the sats. Does anyone else have this issue?

Yes -I could be a kilometer up the road before it connects.

(Would it connect faster if I remained static?)

Dermot Illogical

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

(Would it connect faster if I remained static?)

Yes.

laraghrider

Grand so does seem to be a feature of the 500. I've often been standing there waiting for it to connect and thought sod it I'll pedal on and it'll connect when it connects which could well be a km or two down the road.

quozl

Zyzz wrote: »

Knew it, new bike it is! :pac:

I'd guess you're kidding but just to be sure, the front derailleur would only need to be raised very slightly for the bigger ring - http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/front-derailleur-adjustments

So it should be no bother to you. You could take a look at your front derailleur mount in advance and reassure yourself that it'd go up the necessary few mm.

Squidgy Black

So I went to set my da's bike back up for himself after Saturday (I'm well aware that I'm so lazy that it took me 4 days to get around to doing it :P ), and now I can't get the feckin' Time Atacs off it either. Baiting the allen key with a hammer wouldn't even budge them. Going to get some penetrating oil and let them steep over night, otherwise I'll be looking for a room to rent.

seamus

laraghrider wrote: »

Grand so does seem to be a feature of the 500. I've often been standing there waiting for it to connect and thought sod it I'll pedal on and it'll connect when it connects which could well be a km or two down the road.

I have a 500 and Garmin watch for..eh...bikeless cycling, and they can both be pretty slow to get a lock.

In the main, I've noticed that they're slowest when a lot of time has elapsed since you last switched it off, or the device has moved (e.g. you had the bike in the car) since you last switched it off.

My pet theory on this is that when you switch it off, the Garmin stores the locations of the last locked satellites in memory. When you switch it back on again, it uses this information to try and get your initial lock. If you ever stop for a coffee and switch the device off, you'll notice that getting a lock again when you go back on the road is practically instantaneous.

If a lot of time has elapsed, or you've driven 200km away, then the positions of the satellites has changed too much and the device has to start from scratch, which is a very slow process.

If you take your car sat nav on holidays and slot it into a rental car, you'll usually experience the same problem where it takes 30 minutes or more to get a lock, because it's 1000km away from it's last known location.

Dermot Illogical

_Tyrrell_ wrote: »

Baiting the allen key with a hammer wouldn't even budge them.

In which direction?
Towards the back to get them off ftw

Squidgy Black

Dermot Illogical wrote: »

In which direction?
Towards the back to get them off ftw

See this was part of the problem also, it's towards the front of the bike when you have the bike upside down apparently :pac:

So he's probably tightened them making it even harder to get them off.

seamus

_Tyrrell_ wrote: »

See this was part of the problem also, it's towards the front of the bike when you have the bike upside down apparently :pac:

So he's probably tightened them making it even harder to get them off.

There are no bike maintenance guides which give you a complete list of all of the tools you will need to do bike maintenance.

In no Park Tools guide will you ever see a lump hammer and a cheap steel spanner listed.

But these are the tools you need to sort this. The lump hammer because it lets you take really good percussive strikes. And the cheap steel spanner so you don't wreck any of your good ones. Plus they're usually thin enough to let you use the "spanner side" of the pedal - a standard adjustable spanner won't fit.

Allen keys are nice and neat and work fine when you're only applying small levels of torque (< 30Nm) to something. If you need to apply really big torque, such as when you're removing a stuck pedal, allen keys have too much give.

Dermot Illogical

_Tyrrell_ wrote: »

See this was part of the problem also, it's towards the front of the bike when you have the bike upside down apparently :pac:

So he's probably tightened them making it even harder to get them off.

Upside down???? Are you mad?!?!?!!!!
It's much easier to jump onto the allen key when the bike is the right way up. Never known to fail :pac:

laraghrider

seamus wrote: »

My pet theory on this is that when you switch it off, the Garmin stores the locations of the last locked satellites in memory. When you switch it back on again, it uses this information to try and get your initial lock. If you ever stop for a coffee and switch the device off, you'll notice that getting a lock again when you go back on the road is practically instantaneous.

If a lot of time has elapsed, or you've driven 200km away, then the positions of the satellites has changed too much and the device has to start from scratch, which is a very slow process.

If you take your car sat nav on holidays and slot it into a rental car, you'll usually experience the same problem where it takes 30 minutes or more to get a lock, because it's 1000km away from it's last known location.

Good theory. What we are saying here is never switch it off and soon as you get home immediately upload the data to strava. 300km spin with 18 KOM.

Dermot Illogical

laraghrider wrote: »

Good theory. What we are saying here is never switch it off and soon as you get home immediately upload the data to strava. 300km spin with 18 KOM.

I find it's slower to lock in after it's been connected to a computer. It might take a couple of minutes even starting out from the same place, whereas it's almost instant if starting from the same place without having done an upload.

Squidgy Black

seamus wrote: »

There are no bike maintenance guides which give you a complete list of all of the tools you will need to do bike maintenance.

In no Park Tools guide will you ever see a lump hammer and a cheap steel spanner listed.

But these are the tools you need to sort this. The lump hammer because it lets you take really good percussive strikes. And the cheap steel spanner so you don't wreck any of your good ones. Plus they're usually thin enough to let you use the "spanner side" of the pedal - a standard adjustable spanner won't fit.

Allen keys are nice and neat and work fine when you're only applying small levels of torque (< 30Nm) to something. If you need to apply really big torque, such as when you're removing a stuck pedal, allen keys have too much give.

Time Atacs only have an allen key fitting at the back of the pedal, they don't have a groove for a pedal wrench like most other pedals, makes them a pain in the arse. Unfortunately my allen key isn't long enough to get decent leverage, so I'll have to rig up something to make it longer.

rollingscone

Had the bright idea to add some miles to my week by recording my commuting around to meetings in south Dublin this morning on Strava.

Cycled out to UCD first, decent pace on the way out between sets of lights then had a bit of trouble finding a space to lock up the bike. Went into the meeting, finished the meeting headed back out checked my phone.

Strava still running. Discard ride. Guh!

Hmmzis

rollingscone wrote: »

Had the bright idea to add some miles to my week by recording my commuting around to meetings in south Dublin this morning on Strava.

Cycled out to UCD first, decent pace on the way out between sets of lights then had a bit of trouble finding a space to lock up the bike. Went into the meeting, finished the meeting headed back out checked my phone.

Strava still running. Discard ride. Guh!

Or you could just crop the ride? Not sure if it can be done on the phone directly but mark the ride as private when saving it. When you get to a proper browser then use the crop option under the actions drop down. Useful also for when forgetting to switch off strava before getting into the car.

rollingscone

Too late.

Also I finally picked up a chain checker - 8spd chain on commutourer is well past its sell by date...

hueylewis

Nothing more puzzling than another cyclist sprinting past you on the road, only to almost immediately slow down, struggling to maintain the pace they set themselves.

MediaMan

Dermot Illogical wrote: »

I find it's slower to lock in after it's been connected to a computer. It might take a couple of minutes even starting out from the same place, whereas it's almost instant if starting from the same place without having done an upload.

There's a bunch of different factors that affect the time it takes any GPS device to get a fix. The main ones are:

- Clear line of sight to at least 3 satellites. The more the merrier - 5 or more works best as far as I recall. It can be hard enough for the GPS to see enough sky to pick up sufficient satellites, what with buildings and trees and stuff being in the way. Once the GPS has a fix, it can get away with less satellites to maintain the fix. Also I think you need at least 5 satellites to get an elevation reading, and again, the more the merrier (= more accurate).

- Time to download the current position information of the satellites (i.e. where are they in their orbit). This can take quite a while, 'cos although it's not that much information, the satellite downlink speed for this stuff is dog slow - about 1200 baud or something. GPS phones have an advantage in this case, as they can get this info from the internet. This the reason that it takes longer to get a fix when the GPS has been off for a while. The satellite position info is then out of date and has to be reloaded.

- Whether the GPS has been moved since the last fix. As people have said, GPS receivers cheat, and use the last known position to try to get a fast fix. If that doesn't work, they needs to start from first principles.