Today's Bike Ride

[wheezing donkey]

It would probably come under the modern genre of "adventure bike" ..... good as an on or off road exploration machine?
Steel is ok..... just a pity that bikes of this ilk are not built with heat treated CroMo, a lot stronger hence they could get away with thinner tube walls
I guess that will be the 8 speed Alfine?
Do you find bottom gear low enough?
How do you find the reliability .... certainly no exposed mechs to take a bashing?
I don't race my old 531 IslaBike, just use it for exploring on & off road. It's great for day rides, but it can't cope with loads for bikepacking / camping .... on steep downhills you can see the top tube shimmying in "S" shapes.
I'm looking to build up a Soma ( www.somafabs.com ) Juice (29er) as a "monster cross" adventure bike. With the right kit it should be quite a bit lighter than a Salsa Fargo.
Soma use heat treated Tange Prestige for all their main/front triangles.

After over 6 months of waiting, the manufacturing facility in Taiwan have got around to producing the suspension corrected, disc specific rigid forks - my set have arrived at the importers in Edinburgh. The Juice frame has been at the importers in Edinburgh for maybe 6 months. I'll be picking them up next week, with a Hope tapered headset; then I can get on with the build ..... really a post for "Today's great excitement"

[noel]

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/s...-2014121093697

[mr brightside]

A short 10m blast on the Alan today left me wondering how the hell top riders ever coped with non-indexing down-tube shifting systems. It's a bit like trying to play that annoying electric buzz wire game on a North Sea Trawler, whilst blindfolded and on rollerblades; for any forumites not currently running this particular gauntlet. You're always thinking three hills ahead and i just love it when you clip a pothole whilst one hand is gently trying to tease it up another cog. It's very much a lost skill, a bit like netting seagulls on St Kilda. How they managed on the Belgian Pave i don't know.

[wheezing donkey]

Just been sent this link, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04v5hhh by a Bowland clubmate. It is still available for another couple of days. Proper "non-poncey" cycling.

[mr brightside]

Came down with a really nasty back spasm today whilst out on the MTB. It's to do with the riding position; my back naturally goes into what is known as the c-shaped curve when i'm riding, which is fine as long as there is no compression of the discs...but the riding position on the mtb is more upright than on either of the road bikes so the discs in my back look to be suffering, as on the road bikes most of the weight is on my wrists...or at least half. I'm fighting on more fronts than the third reich. What i need is a back posture as flat and neutral as someone like Wiggo.

[mr brightside]

There's an ebay seller getting rid of quite a lot of really quite good bike bits at the moment...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/exclusive-...p2047675.l2559

He's got some complete groupsets including triples and compacts, and a Colnago frame that he wants 20 grand for...yes that's not a typo- twenty thousand quid!!!!

[Daletownrunner]

Campagnolo delta brakes, look great, weigh about two tonnes a piece ��

[wheezing donkey]

Plus they don't do a good job of stopping the bike.

[Daletownrunner]

Like a lot of equipment from the 80's looked great but didn't really do what it was designed for, I had a set of modolo Kronos brake levers which can best be described as interesting when coupled with standard single pivot side pulls, they also made plastic delta design calliper which I would imagine was also useless but looked great

[mr brightside]

I like his Stars & Stripes Airplane tubed Colnago frame, but you'll read a lot about these top end frames lacking in durability on cycling forums. I'm on the lookout for a nice Columbus frame, possibly Extra-Light or something like that.