So what did you buy at York?

[Tony Raven]

Got a touch of sunburn today at York but managed to be in
the cafe with a bacon and egg bap and cup of tea when the
heavens opened.

ICE were showing a back to back tandem which looked nice -
stoker gets a good view of the cars behind and the wonderful
mechanisms that make it go. Give them a tool kit and they
could fettle the running gear on the go.

Airnimal had a full suspension off-road folder on show. Set
of Rockshoxs on the front. Don't know how well the small
wheels will cope with the lumpy stuff though.

Mike Burrows was there with an interesting carbon fibre city
bike with monostays front and back. Had a nifty Hope QR on
the quill stem to allow the bars to be turned sideways
without tools.

Very thin on retailers this year. Managed to pick up a
couple of front and rear Shimano tandem hubs at a good price
together with SRAM cassettes to go with them but not a lot
else tempted me. I feel some wheel building coming on. What
did you buy?

Tony

[Jon Senior]

Tony Raven junk@raven-family.com opined the following...
> Got a touch of sunburn today at York but managed to be in
> the cafe with a bacon and egg bap and cup of tea when the
> heavens opened.

I too managed some mild sunburn (Only just noticed now I'm
home again!).=20 When I saw the black cloud on the
horizon, I decided to pack up the tent=20 before it got
rained on again, and was just rolling it up to put it
into=20 the sac when it started. I got a little damp when
strapping everything=20 to the bike, but had dried out
nicely within a hour.

> ICE were showing a back to back tandem which looked nice -
> stoker gets a =
good
> view of the cars behind and the wonderful mechanisms that
> make it go. Gi=
ve
> them a tool kit and they could fettle the running gear
> on the go.

ICE were cool. (See below)

> Airnimal had a full suspension off-road folder on show.
> Set of Rockshoxs=
on
> the front. Don't know how well the small wheels will cope
> with the lumpy stuff though.
>=20
> Mike Burrows was there with an interesting carbon fibre
> city bike with monostays front and back. Had a nifty Hope
> QR on the quill stem to allow=
the
> bars to be turned sideways without tools.

Managed to chat with Mike. Very amenable fellow. As a
continuation of=20 the "debate" between Peter Clinch and
myself many months back, I asked=20 what the whole monoblade
thing was about. He then proceeded to explain=20 the
reasoning behind it on every bike he'd built. He had the
Ratcatcher=20 with him, and AVD had brought a Burrows
HyperSport Windcheeta.
=20
> Very thin on retailers this year. Managed to pick up a
> couple of front =
and
> rear Shimano tandem hubs at a good price together with
> SRAM cassettes to =
go
> with them but not a lot else tempted me. I feel some wheel
> building comi=
ng
> on. What did you buy?

Managed to pick up a 20" front wheel for =A33. Low quality
but a vast=20 improvement on the one I was using. The bent
can now stop in the wet! I=20 was quite tempted by the 18
spoke rims in "Hard to Find". Thankfully a=20 small amount
of reason kicked in and I refrained from buying them.
Other=20 than that, some cheap cycling clothes and some
inner tubes.

[General review of York Rally - Saturday]

Turned up on the Saturday morning and missed all the CTC
rides. Pitched=20 the tent, and pottered off to look at the
trade show. My first=20 impressions were that there were far
fewer bents than I'd expected to=20 see, and that upright
trikes look odd! Saturday was mostly spent=20 browsing the
trade show and chatting to a chap from XnTrick Cycles who=20
answers to the name of Wobbly John. I also met up with Mr
MSeries=20 (Martin - I didn't forget your name ;-)) who
become the fourth person to=20 ride my bent (Wobbly John and
another slightly mad chap were the fifth=20 and sixth a
little later in the day!).

While browsing the trade show I saw an advert on the
Velovision stand=20 for their evening ride to a local pub,
and figuring that there would=20 probably be a reasonable
number of "unusual" bikes I turned up for it.=20 The seventh
bike to arrive for the ride was the first conventional=20
upright! A short saunter along a part of the Trans-pennine
way (With a=20 small patch of narrow dirt track... why?)
took us to The Ship, where=20 with amazing misfortune we
discovered that they had a hen night there.=20 The bikes
(trikes etc.) parked outside and we sat under the eaves to
eat=20 dinner. A very interesting (And sometimes eclectic)
group of people.

[Sunday]

A brighter start to the day, and a seemingly busier day. I
decided to=20 pay the Bikefix / ICE "tryout" stand and have
a play on a few different=20 bikes. Things that I
discovered:

The Grasshopper feels quite nippy, but I wasn't comfortable
with the=20 OSS. I didn't feel I had quite the clearance
(And consequently, turning=20 cycle) that I would have
liked, but it was still an interesting ride.

The Hurricane (IIRC) was fun, but gives the impression of
having more=20 traction than it really does. A hard corner
and an attempt to accelerate=20 out of it resulted in a
short slide and some grass stains. Bike and=20 rider
undamaged in all but pride!

The Windcheeta... I wish!

The Trice Monster. I asked the guys from ICE which was their
fastest and=20 most manic trike and then took it for a spin
around the circuit. Aside=20 from a lack of traction from
the rear which resulted in a few wheel=20 spins it performed
nicely. After 2 / 3 minutes I returned it with a=20 grin.

"Looks like you were enjoying yourself there." Says one of
them. "Yeah. Great fun". "Why don't you take it out onto
some tarmac and get a proper feel for=20 it?"

At which point they opened the fence, ushered me out and
told me to take=20 it for a proper spin. A fifteen minute
cruise out of town and back left=20 me with an even larger
grin. The damn thing goes like sh*t off a stick!=20 Now all
I need to do is find the =A33000 it costs to buy one (I
think that=
=20
my engineering skills and materials are a far way from this
territory.

------

Met up with Martin again, and a few of the riders from the
previous=20 night, and then packed up and went home. All
in... damn good fun. Shame=20 about the weather but it
wasn't anywhere near as bad as expected and=20 didn't seem
to dampen (sorry) the enthusiasm too much. All in, over
two=20 days, I think I probably spent about 3 or 4 hours
talking about my bent.=20 From the standard "Isn't it really
difficult to ride", to "You made it=20 yourself? Wow". Much
flattering of ego and much fun. If I can arrange=20 the time
off work, I'll definately be at Cyclefest!

Jon

P.S. John - I think we spotted you and the girly pink
Roberts when=20 Martin was trying the bent, but you
were heading for the refreshment=20 tent, and I was
holding up a recumbent. Sorry.

[Jon Senior]

Forgot one of the Sunday highlights. The parade from the
church service. I tagged along with the guys from ICE on the
way out and we managed to pick up 4 mounted policemen who
practiced their traffic-stopping routine to give us a clear
run into town. A herd of recumbents with their own police
escort. If only city cycling was always like that!

Jon

[Ambrose Nankive]

In news:MPG.1b49563e7100f616989807@news.clara.net,
Jon Senior <jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOTco_DOT_uk> typed:
> Managed to pick up a 20" front wheel for £3. Low quality
> but a vast improvement on the one I was using. The bent
> can now stop in the wet! I was quite tempted by the 18
> spoke rims in "Hard to Find".

OK, how do you lace an 18 spoke rim? You don't mean 16
spoke, do you?

Other than that, sounds a most excellent way to spend the
weekend. Might well be at Cyclefest.

A

[Jon Senior]

Ambrose Nankivell $FirstnameInitialofSurname$@gmail.com
opined the following...
> OK, how do you lace an 18 spoke rim? You don't mean 16
> spoke, do you?

You take a 36 spoke hub and use half the spokes? That was
the suggestion on the box (Along with drilling another 18
holes in the rim! Aero rims as well. I'm now starting to
think how nice an 18 spoke radial aero would have looked on
the front of the fixer!

> Other than that, sounds a most excellent way to spend the
> weekend. Might well be at Cyclefest.

Cool.

Jon

[Ambrose Nankive]

In news:MPG.1b495e23281cf58198980b@news.clara.net,
Jon Senior <jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOTco_DOT_uk> typed:
> Ambrose Nankivell $FirstnameInitialofSurname$@gmail.com
> opined the following...
>> OK, how do you lace an 18 spoke rim? You don't mean 16
>> spoke, do you?
>
> You take a 36 spoke hub and use half the spokes? That was
> the suggestion on the box (Along with drilling another 18
> holes in the rim! Aero rims as well. I'm now starting to
> think how nice an 18 spoke radial aero would have looked
> on the front of the fixer!

Right, but then you'd have trailing spokes without matching
leading ones, or vice versa. Not sure how big a deal it is
in the end, but I'd not feel happy about it. But I'm not an
expert wheelbuilder. Or even a particularly good one.

>> Other than that, sounds a most excellent way to spend the
>> weekend. Might well be at Cyclefest.
>
> Cool.

Certainly will be if I get to have a look at your bent.

A

[Jon Senior]

Ambrose Nankivell $FirstnameInitialofSurname$@gmail.com
opined the following...
> > You take a 36 spoke hub and use half the spokes? That
> > was the suggestion on the box (Along with drilling
> > another 18 holes in the rim! Aero rims as well. I'm now
> > starting to think how nice an 18 spoke radial aero would
> > have looked on the front of the fixer!
>
> Right, but then you'd have trailing spokes without
> matching leading ones, or vice versa. Not sure how big a
> deal it is in the end, but I'd not feel happy about it.
> But I'm not an expert wheelbuilder. Or even a particularly
> good one.

Hmmm. I'd need to think it through properly, but my gut
feeling is not. Given 36 spokes (18 / side)... Ahhh 9 / side
you mean. For radial this wouldn't be a problem (And it'd
look amazing!). Not sure about other lacings.

Jon

[Mseries]

"Tony Raven" <junk@raven-family.com> wrote in message news:<2k8q47F18qhm5U1@uni-berlin.de>...

> What did you buy?

I stocked up on inner tubes as usual, a pair of tyres, a
couple of jerseys and shorts, handlebar tape. I was
constrained by what I could carry on Saturday since I was on
the tourer but not on Sunday and I had to restrain myself. I
thought the trade stands were reasonably good, plenty of
choice but real bargains took some rummaging to find.

All in all a good weekend, shame I didn't get to meet any
more urc-ers, we really must get that Yorkshire meet up
sorted out that Chris French was talking about.

[Ambrose Nankive]

In news:MPG.1b496c0f49bea0f198980f@news.clara.net,
Jon Senior <jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOTco_DOT_uk> typed:
> Ambrose Nankivell $FirstnameInitialofSurname$@gmail.com
> opined the following...
>>> You take a 36 spoke hub and use half the spokes? That
>>> was the suggestion on the box (Along with drilling
>>> another 18 holes in the rim! Aero rims as well. I'm now
>>> starting to think how nice an 18 spoke radial aero would
>>> have looked on the front of the fixer!
>>
>> Right, but then you'd have trailing spokes without
>> matching leading ones, or vice versa. Not sure how big a
>> deal it is in the end, but I'd not feel happy about it.
>> But I'm not an expert wheelbuilder. Or even a
>> particularly good one.
>
> Hmmm. I'd need to think it through properly, but my gut
> feeling is not. Given 36 spokes (18 / side)... Ahhh 9 /
> side you mean. For radial this wouldn't be a problem (And
> it'd look amazing!). Not sure about other lacings.

Radial, didn't think of that. Makes sense now.

A