do i buy a thing

as the chain wears, it'll "stretch" (nb it does not actually stretch), and the rear wheel will need to be moved further back to keep the right amount of tension (which, on a geared bike, is maintained by the rear der)

every how many hundred miles on avg?

no clue. I am terrible man for the chain maintenance

it's not very often, i probly do this on my commuter like, every 500 or 600 miles? maybe less frequently than that?

i was not self contained on the trip, gbx, i worked for a cycle touring co for 12 weeks, anacortes, wa to belfast, me. i could just finish my morning chores and get on my bike and ride.

wd all these play nicely together and wd they go on my concorde OK. my new wheels are 10sp compatible

crankset - 50 - tiagra
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shimano-tiagra-4650-compact-10sp-chainset/rp-prod67233
shifters - 54 - tiagra
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shimano-tiagra-4600-double-10-speed-sti-lever/rp-prod69504
front derailleur - 18 - 10sp 105
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shimano-105-5700-double-10sp-front-mech/rp-prod50487
rear derailleur - 29 - 10sp 105
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shimano-105-5701-10-speed-rear-mech/rp-prod85966
bottom bracket - 11
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shimano-4600-tiagra-bottom-bracket/rp-prod67221
chain - 13 - 10sp 105
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shimano-105-5701-10-speed-chain/rp-prod50457
cassette - 15 - 10sp tiagra
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shimano-tiagra-4600-10-speed-road-cassette/rp-prod67228
brakes - 32
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shimano-tiagra-brake-caliper-4600/rp-prod67224

225£ for tiagra/105 mix seems p.good when sora is 210 online

Should do, if you I'd see about 105 shifters although that setup should be compatible.

been offered dura-ace shifters & mechs for the same price. second hand but tempted

not sure now - my concorde is columbus aelle, so fairly heavy. I guess if I upgraded the group on it, I cd transfer the parts to a better frame in time

think it's DA7800. and there's an offer of ultegra cranks too, which wd get me most of the way to a full group. just leaves the 'consumables'

hmmmm

I bought a groupset but

I think I might have bought the wrong threaded bb : /

So....

I got a turbo trainer a few weeks ago. I like it, but I fear it is wearing my rear tyre down quite quickly. Effectively, I only have one bike (my heavy 'winter' bike is now a heavy commuter bike, with carrier fitted and pedals that you can't clip into) and only one set of wheels. I know there are turbo-specific tyres that you can buy, but obviously I'm not going to change the tyre on my wheel every day as I alternate between riding on the turbo and riding on the road. So such a tyre would only be useful if I had another wheel.

So I face a choice: should I buy a cheap back wheel (and cassette), stick a turbo tyre on it and use this exclusively when I want to use the turbo? Or should I upgrade my wheels and use my old rear wheel as the turbo wheel?

My existing wheels are nothing special - Mavic Aksium. I was asking at my local bike shop and new ones of those cost something like £220, I think. To get a cheap new rear wheel, plus cassette, plus tyre, plus inner tube was something in the region of £150. To upgrade to the unpronounceable Mavic Ksyrium would be approx £400. The weight isn't hugely different, so I'm not convinced this would be worth it. I can't even remotely justify spending one or two grand on wheels to get the really good ones.

But....

At my cycling club last night someone was telling me that he got his frame from Velobuild. I don't fully understand it, but it appears to be some kind of forum that somehow acts as a bulk purchaser from China and so gets you products for about a third of what they ought to cost. He got a carbon frame this way and is very happy with it. He reckons I could get carbon wheels weighing just 1300g for only about £300-£400, when they should cost over a thousand. This sounds very tempting. Does anyone know anything about Velobuild?

Also, on a practical level, the velobuild wheels I was looking at earlier said they should be used with SwissStop yellow brake blocks. These are for carbon rims. I've been recommended SwissStop before as the best brake blocks available, and I currently ride with the black ones (for alloy rim, which is what I've got). Hypothetically, if I was doing a circuit race with carbon wheels and got a puncture and took a lap out to put my spare (alloy) wheel in, would these yellow brake pads work OK with the spare wheel?

I decided against it: the more I read about carbon wheels, the more I thought they might not be worth the risk/hassle (especially with the additional complication of trying to get into a group purchase of an unbranded product from China). I've just blown my budget massively and ordered some Fulcrum Racing 1s (lightweight aluminium). I can't really justify the expense, but I feel giddy with excitement.

I think you did right. If u are racing carbon brake tracks with carbon blocks and you sub in an alloy wheel, you really shouldn't use the blocks on carbon. Metal filings from the alloy get embedded in the block and then score your carbons to hell. Whether the carbon pads work on the alloy anyway is prolly dependent on the pad. I ended up on corks with alloy by accident once and it was veery bad.

Several yrs ago I bought some yushin 60mm deep tubular wheels direct from china for under $450 all in, out of curiosity. Cheap but adequate hubs, good tension, great truing, ride nicely. I use them for tt race only, so they've not been ridden much.

Would not buy a clincher carbon for general or racing use from anyone but a premier manufacturer with good rep and warranty tho.

Sorry it's "yushin". Looked at their current site it's much uh busier now and prices even lower lol. Somehow that's even sketchier to me, but still...my experience was fine. Man I now remember that I had to western union direct to I think maybe guongzhao or something, and thinking as I sent it that it was one of the dumbest things I had ever done.

Gah, it's YISHUN.

Right, Y-u-s-h-i-n, got ya

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b0/Levyashin01.jpg/332px-Levyashin01.jpg

GOAL

Totally agree on no-carbon clinchers except from reputable manufacturers. Also on the call not to get the mysterious chinese wheels. Not least because you can get no-name chinese wheels shipped direct for cheaper. Having a separate wheel for the Turbo definitely helped me use it a little more often.

Off work today and managed to dodge the rain for long enough to ride over to the Hog Hill circuit and do a little bit of trainig. A few laps in and my gears made a horrible crunching sound as I tried to change into the small ring on a short, steep ascent. Half a lap further on, at the next steep climb, I realised I couldn't change onto the small ring at all, even though my front mech was clearly shifting across. On further investigation I discovered that the crank was rubbing against the mech every revolution when it was in the big ring. I asked for assistance, but fiddling with the limiters had no real effect. Eventually the kindly bloke helping me out realised that my cage was far wider than it should have been (must have got distored during the horrible crunching incident) and after squeezing it back in with pliers everything was fixed. But what on earth happened in the first place and why?

Also, a confession: when I got home I decided to carry out a rare wash of the bike which involved taking both wheels off. The rear wheel was incredibly difficult to remove and impossible to put back in again. This was very odd. It seemed to be something to do with the metal skewer which I had put in there last month (supplied with the Cycleops turbo trainer I bought). I removed the skewer and realised that I had idiotically not noticed there were two little springs, and so, thinking there was only one, I had put both of them on the same side (opposite the quick release lever). I really don't know what I'm doing.

Never heard of that during a downshift. Did you by any chance try to force another upshift by accident first, or maybe you also hit the upshift lever by accident while hitting the downshift trigger? If you had very little clearance between the cage and crank arm and there was a little travel left before hitting the limit screw, I can sorta imagine that happening, but otherwise- weird.

Wrt the springs, the issue I usually see is putting the spring onto the skewer in wrong orientation, which causes surprisingly significant problems.

Re: wrong skewer orientation - you mean big-to-small instead of small-to-big (or vice-versa)?

yup yup

By the way, I set off for a ride yesterday and after just 4 miles I was changing gear when there was another horrible crunching sound and the front mech failed to shift again. On closer inspection it had actually split at the narrowest point of the cage, so the pliers trick isn't a permanent fix. I'm getting a new front mech on Friday (when my LBS is fitting my new chain and cassette to put the expensive new wheels into action), this is turning into a very costly month.

I'm too old for it and would look ridiculous, but this shirt is dope

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kid-N-Play-Start-T-Shirt-/140930985686?pt=US_Mens_Tshirts&var=&hash=item20d0242ed6

http://images.oldglory.com/product/066757MITSf.jpg

Def wanna be rollin w kid n play

omg the new Surly ice cream truck and the higher zoot all-city macho men are all I want right now

was playin on internet and saw the og of fat bikes hanebrink now has multiple electric assist bikes.

Want to sell the Tricross and get a steel all-rounder / cx / winter / commuter.

Recommendations circa £1k please...

So I had a snoop around some Exeter bike shops yesterday. Options available in town at the moment include:

Kona Honky Tonk
Genesis Equilibrium / Croix De Fer / CDF (latter two not on shop floor but orderable)
Charge Plug 3.5
Salsa Vaya
Salsa Fargo
Surly Crosscheck
Specialized AWOL

The Honky Tonk, Salsas, and AWOL are all available on CTW. Pretty sure the Genesis and Charge aren't.

The Fargo and AWOL are crazy options and not really what I'm after, but if I won the lottery, oh boy do they look like fun.

CDF / Honky Tonk / Crosscheck seem pretty comparable, except the latter two don't have disc brakes, which I think I'd like. Geometry on the Crosscheck is a touch old-fashioned, with the horizontal top tube.

Croix De Fer and Vaya seem reasonably comparable too, and are a step up from the CDF / Honky Tonk / Crosscheck (from circa £850 to circa £1200).

I can get approx £250 for my Tricross.

Sense tells me that CDF is the sensible option... But the Vaya is very nice. Small company, bit of exclusivity. I should test ride them all.

The other alternative is see if something secondhand comes up, I guess.

there was a 'honky inc' early stab at the disc roadie, think it's been retired in favour of the rove in the kona range; another all-roads bike with discs in the croix/crosscheck/plug mould. looks fetching in metal blue for this model year.

trek crossrip might be worth a look if you're not too wed to the steal is reel ethos too. I would maybe get one if I could get the work sitch sorted.

I think I definitely want steel; otherwise I could just upgrade all the mech on the Tricross. I also want to steer away from big brands, just out of snobbishness as much as anything else.

u reject their shiny expensive consumerist gear system

Living where it rains seems like a rly good argument for discs on that type of bike.

I'll rep for salsa if only to keep my bros employed

i almost bought a powertap last night (*drinky motion*), like i had the credit card info in place, then thankfully, i realized i TOTALLY DON'T NEED A FUCKING POWERTAP. AT ALL. it was like i was possessed or in a trance.

Was Yoda nearby?

i thought it was just you or some other mantis, shortwaving common sense to me.

i would like to borrow someone's powertap to test the accuracy of my inride's calibration though. some people claim they are +- a couple watts, others say no way, 20 watts off.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/53cm-FR-602-Full-Carbon-3K-Glossy-Cyclocross-Bike-BSA-Frame-Fork-Disc-Brake-/171108271255?pt=US_Bicycles_Frames&hash=item27d6d90497

how about this thing do i buy it

only if you know somebody who already has one, and will rep for it's soundness imo.

I assume you have good health insurance and I know you know some doctors, so sure, why not.

Sorta thought q was a jest that is not the frame of a soul rider like gbx

Review of the charge plug 4 here.

A lot of the negatives sound like positives for this kind of bike.

http://road.cc/content/review/112830-charge-plug-4-road-bike

that q was not in jest, i am A-OK w/carbon

ps - pretty sure that the frame in question is just an unbranded this: http://foundrycycles.com/bikes/auger

i think i stand on my previous, if you can find someone to vouch for it and/or be confident it's a gray-market leak of an identifiable brand, it could be a greatdeal.

i think i mentioned round here that i bought one of these framesets pretty cheap. it is a canti frameset, as it will be raced, and discs are really just extra weight (imo) in colorado most of the time (yes, i know discs are the way and truth). anyway, compare the foundry and the sette frames. they are really verry similar- afaict identical geometry (for a 56cm: 72.5/73 degrees, 65mm(!) bb drop, 42.5 cm chainstay, 155mm headtube), both have the weird double wishbone seatstay, same shape of the chainstay bridge, the weird routing and shape of the f. derailler cable stop. look at the rear derailler cable routing, both have full cable from the top tube to the rear derailler, which is- well maybe that's the norm now, but i'd never seen it til i built up the sette. the big dif is discs and rear brake cable routing.

same factory/mold? coincidence? dunno. i do not have the mileage on my bike that i hoped for, but it handles great so far, the front end is incredibly stable with the 1 1/8 to 1 1/4 tapered head tube and massive fork blades.

what is also funny is that both foundry and sette have four frame sizes, and the geometry is the same across ALL of them. it's gotta be the same frameset updated with discs. even if true though, the disc thing- discs stress frames/forks in very particular and afaik severe ways.