Gleefully hypocritical!

I was just thinking back to when I started cycling again. I don't mean a few weeks ago, after sitting on my arse and getting fatter during the winter. No, I mean in general again. Like a lot of us, I used to cycle as a means of transport when I was a child, learned to drive, stopped cycling and didn't go near or even think of a bicycle for many years. About four or five years ago, I decided (And I still can't think why) I wanted to buy a bicycle for myself. With that in mind, I went along to the nearest large sporting goods type chain store and bought the cheapest adult bicycle they sold. Needless to say, that bicycle is now no longer in use and would be completely inappropriate for my purposes but it is what got me onto the saddle again and showed me how enjoyable cycling could be.

Anyway, as ever, I'm wittering off the main subject. The reason (If you could call it such) for this post is that recently I've been thinking about how much of a hypocrite I've been since I started cycling. One of the first things I remember thinking when I started my recent foray into recreational cycling was 'Pffft! I'll not be wearing any of that lycra'. For starters, thinking 'pffft' is foolish enough in itself but even more silly is not wishing to wear something which would be more comfortable and save my knackers from too much of a jiggling. Needless to say, I had the world's cheapest pair of paper thin lycra shorts a mere few months later. Mind you, I was enough of an idiot to unstitch and remove the chamois because I thought it 'looked silly'. A bright red arse, bruised bollocks and a rash down one's gusset is obviously a thousand times more attractive than a slight bit of padding in one's shorts.

If you've read this far, you may wonder why this came into my head lately. Actually, you probably haven't been wondering that at all but thanks for reading this far. It shows great patience and possibly a little hint of self-abuse. My recent hypocrisy has been twofold. Well, one was a few months ago when I bought team kit to wear. It's something I thought I wouldn't do as I only cycle recreationally and didn't feel I was in a position to wear team kit. However, the vast majority of competitive cyclists who wear team kit probably aren't in CSC, Liquigas etc. themselves and I do enjoy cycling as a sport to watch on TV and be amazed by. The lat bastion of stubbornness was truly crushed only a matter of days ago when I began wearing those, slightly silly but very comfortable, useful and kind of cute in a goofy way, little cycle caps. They're something I had snidely scoffed at in the past. After all, I do know best and all that, don't I? What do you know? It turns out that's not the case and people wear certain cycling clothing for practical purposes and not so much for the aesthetics.

In summary, I've been a hypocritical oaf and am glad I'm no longer the snide sneerer I once was. Long live the slightly silly looking cycle cap. Let the fools laugh all they want as the peak protects me from a diet of greenfly.

Twat?

Am I a money wasting twat? I broke a spoke in the rear wheel of my Xero Tarmac XBR-1 wheels, took it to be fixed (After not being able to get a 'proper' replacement spoke, but I'll get to that later) and got it back all nicely trued. I went out a couple of times on the bike, noticed a clicking noise and a loose spoke, thought 'I'll tighten that a little. Not much but just enough so it isn't quite so loose', discovered doing so puts a wheel completely out of true and then had the very lovely wheel building man point out a crack in the rim to me. Aaargh!

When I got home from collecting the wheel, I rushed into buying a pair of Mavic Ksyrium Elite wheels (Last year's version, on offer at Chain Reaction) and have since ordered a replacement Xero Tarmac XBR-1 rim from Parker International. I've switched the sprockets over from the Xero wheel to the new Mavic one and put the new wheels on my bicycle but this means I'll have a spare wheelset once I get the Xero rear wheel rebuilt. Rather than spending the £240 odd it was for the Mavics, I could have been patient and waited for the £56 (Including shipping) Xero rim to arrive, have the wheel built and stuck it on. Have I done something a bit stupid?

I don't have another bike I could use a ten speed Campagnolo wheel on, so it's not like I can upgrade a different bike by putting the wheels on it. What it does give me, I guess, is a spare wheelset if anything happens to the Mavics and likewise for my good laydee (Whose bicycle currently has Xero Tarmac XBR-1s on it anyway). I thought that maybe I should put different gearing on each wheel and that might be of use but, realistically, it wouldn't advantage me greatly. I like having the gears I already did, find the spacing between gears fine and would miss the lowest gears if I didn't have them.

Getting onto the spoke annoyance; It took ages for me to get a replacement spoke for the broken one on my Xero rear wheel. Even when I did get a replacement, it was only because the guy in the bike shop I got it from cut down a longer spoke and threaded it himself. They're round cross-section straight-pull spokes (ie. They're not bladed and they don't have a 90 degree bend in them at the hubs) in anodised black. The replacement, alas, is silver as it appears DT Swiss isn't too forthcoming in getting such replacement spokes out to people. I'm not moaning about them. I can understand there are so many variables in the world of spokes, it's exceptionally difficult to try to get every variety of spoke available to everyone. All I wish is that I can get a 'proper' replacement spoke for my Xero wheel. If you know of any spare black, round cross-section, 276mm, straight pull, 14/15g gauge, DT Competition spokes knocking about, please don't be backward in letting me share your knowledge.

From putting the Ksyriums on today, I've got to say they seem quite impressive. They appear to be very true and I thought moved more freely than other wheels I've owned. Hopefully this will continue to be the case when my fat arse is on the saddle and they have to suffer the applicable stresses and strains. I hope they're strong wheels and can take some ropey surfaces and possibly the odd light bit of 'pannierage' (No camping for me if I get away, just B&Bs and the like). The Xeros did well and the spoke only broke because I was forgetful, let the hook at one side of the fold down mini-panniers on my rack pack get into the spokes and then cycled a few yards causing it to pull at the spokes. I think that might be what damaged the rim too but I could be wrong.

Hmmm, I wonder if I should use the Xeros as touring wheels and the Mavics for general usage? At least I might get some use from both wheelsets? Then again, the Mavics seem as if they're probably better and I would like to use them when I can.

When I was changing over the wheelset today, I obviously had to put the sprockets on the new Mavic rear wheel. It was astounding quite how minging the cassette had got. What was good about it being a Campagnolo (I just can't bring myself to write 'Campag'. To me, it's like someone who owns a BMW talking about a 'Beamer' or a Cannondale rider referring to their 'Dale'. There's something distasteful about it which sticks in my craw) cassette is that all the sprockets are indeed individual sprockets as opposed to a block made up of numerous sprockets. It let me wipe each of the sprockets and their spacers clean and put a shiny (New looking but old and soon to be replaced) cassette on my new wheel. The sprockets had been completely black with filth. I'm sure that can't be good for the bike either. It then led to my taking the chain off to stick in a tub of petrol (I'll oil it well afterwards, don't worry) and disassembling the right crank and chainrings to give them a thorough clean too. Oh, and I used a bit of cloth to 'floss' the jockey arm and wheels. The muck they gather up is incredible. My bicycle should be lovely and clean for its next journey. I'll have to take a photo.

Going off a bit, I've been using MapMyRide quite a bit since the last babble I did and it's great. About the only problems I've noticed with it are:

• It shows some roads which don't really exist. They may be 'rights of way' but there's no means of cycling along them and it's best to check with an Ordnance Survey map whilst putting the route in. Most roads it has a name on should be okay but it's still worth checking as it claimed one 'named' road existed when it didn't with me.
  
• Make sure you don't go too far ahead when clicking the 'next point'. I've done that, assuming the route will automatically follow the road it's already on, but it can backtrack and then go along a main road or the like because it's a bit shorter. It also has a tendency to go along 'make believe' roads when one gets too far ahead so that's one to keep an eye on.

It really is a marvellous piece of free software and I can't recommend it highly enough. On the off-chance the people involved with it ever read this (They would need to be patient and not easily bored) thank you very much.

On that note, I've realised quite how much I've been going on and should stop. Thanks for reading this and hopefully you'll have been remotely interested in some ramblings, although I doubt it.

Does this work okay?

I was fiddling about with MapMyRide.com (Which seems great) and thought I would try their 'embed a route into your website or blog' gubbins. So, here goes...

That really does seem excellent. I'm very impressed with MapMyRide.com. For starters, I obviously like the fact it's free as I'm a cheapskate but that's not the be all and end all. I've used a few different free GPS course creators and MapMyRide.com seems far and away the best. The map coverage is very good of the area I live in and contains most of the fiddly little roads I like to cycle on but not every map shows. As you can imagine, that's a real pain with a lot of them. I would be plotting routes out for my GPS unit and find they kind of disappeared part of the way through and I had to guess where some roads were. It didn't make for accurate mapping.

Something else I really really really like about MapMyRide.com is the ability to set it to follow the roads between points. I'm probably not explaining this well but basically it means I can put down a two consecutive points along a road and the software is smart enough to draw the squiggly line in between, along which the path of the road actually goes. In the past, I found myself having to draw dozens and dozens of points to follow the shape of the road but thankfully that's a thing of the past. I can even put points a couple of roads apart and MapMyRide.com seems smart enough to usually grasp the way I want to go. This means it takes, I estimate, less than a quarter of the time it used to for me to map out cycle routes. It's also more enjoyable than merely 'clicking' hundreds of waypoints down. Hopefully it will save me from all the 'Off route' messages I kept getting with my self-done waypoints, especially once I got lazy and bored towards the end of a route.

Another bonus worthy of mention is that MapMyRide.com lets one export a copy of the route as a 'CRS' file. As I've got a Garmin Edge GPS unit, that's very handy. The software (Called 'Training Center') their Edge units use doesn't work well with a number of standard GPS formats ('GPX' files, for example). You can get it to work but it means downloading other software to convert the files over so Training Centre understands it. Thankfully, with MapMyRide.com, this is not a problem. It exports the files in a manner Training Centre and my Edge both understand. I know this doesn't sound like much but it makes things so much easier than pissing about with different file types and attempting (Often failing through my ineptitude) to convert them. By the way, if you do need to convert files for your GPS unit, I recommend looking at this topic here, even if it gets a bit much and might send you to sleep. You can probably find most of what you want to know if the first couple of posts.

Anyway, another little mention MapMyRide.com deserves is for letting you print out a list of the directions on the route you've created. This is marvellous. I used to spend ages writing out big lists of 'TL at TJ, SO at XR etc. etc' and now I shouldn't have to as MapMyRide.com automatically does that when you 'map your ride'. How wonderful! The two pains in the arse for me in devising a route have been covered by MapMyRide.com. No longer will I have to clickety-clickety-click a little series of waypoints vaguely following the contours of a road and no longer will I waste time away writing directions for the cycle I'm planning on. What a super piece of free software it is. I hope it continues to be free and as good as it seems.

So macho!

Whilst I might not be quite the heaving mass of muscle the young gentleman, pictured to the left, is I'm feeling pretty damned manly.

My 'stand in while I've got a broken spoke in my main bike' trusty Peugeot had been giving me a bit of gyp. For starters it's not a great bike but, worse still, the top gear wasn't working and I couldn't understand why.

Yesterday, I tried putting it in the workstand (Already feeling pretty manly at this point purely for owning a workstand) and had a fiddle with the little limit bolts on the rear derailleur, which control how far the derailleur is allowed to move. It turned out that wasn't the problem but rather the chain just wouldn't sit in the top gear no matter what the derailleur's positioning was. I knew it wasn't the chain as it was fairly new and worked perfectly in the other gears. You can see I'm using my super-sleuthing skills here as the Sherlock Holmes of the cycling world.

Here's the bit which made me feel all manly and mechanical. I took the Shimano Tiagra rear derailleur off. No, don't faint with excitement now as there's more. I then put a Shimano Sora rear derailleur on and (This is the bit I've been leading up to) it didn't make things worse. Of course, the chain still wouldn't sit in the top gear but my being able to take a part off a bike, replace it and not have the bicycle any worse off as a result is quite a coup for me. By the way, bike nerds, the reason I replaced the Tiagra (Nine speed groupset) with a Sora (Eight speed groupset) derailleur is that it's only got RSX (Seven speed groupset) on it and it was easy enough to get the Sora derailleur working with it.

As I was already feeling pretty cocky and confident with my derailleur 'success' I took out the back wheel, removed the cassette, gave the smallest cog and freehub a wipe, stuck it all back together again and amazingly it worked fine. Funnily enough, that's not the bit which I'm all chuffed about. It's being able to take the derailleur off and replace it properly (The bike now changes gears more crisply than it possibly ever did for me) which I'm pleased with.

When I first got back on a bike (After many years of laziness from learning to drive and no longer using a bicycle for transport) it was as much as I could do to change an inner tube in the front tyre. Taking the back wheel off was a terrible problem for me (I didn't realise about that whole thing of putting the chain in the two littlest cogs and how that helps when putting it back on). You can see why it's been a reasonable improvement for me. Other than truing and building wheels, I'll give pretty much any fairly standard bike maintenance a go now. I'm not saying I'll be successful with it but I'll give it a go. Now I've got three dodgy bottom brackets to replace. Thank you for reading this borefest and please wish me luck...

My bumhole loves chamois cream

I've been thoroughly useless altogether when it comes to writing in this blog thing. Look at the last time I wrote. May for gawd sake! Whilst I don't imagine many people read my witterings or are 'chomping at the bit' to bask in the glow of my wonderous knowledge, it's still very slovenly of me and I apologise. Anyway, enough of that, now onto the particularly tasteful and tasty subject of my bottom...

For anyone who has been on a bicycle (Which I'm sure covers the majority of us) the jacksee is close to our hearts. Obviously our posteriors aren't particularly close to our hearts in a literal sense but I imagine you know what I mean. We'll obsess about getting a comfortable chamois in our shorts and a suitable saddle but, until recently, the notion of chamois cream seemed pointless to me. I have to admit I was wrong in ignoring this. We recently purchased a trio of Portia chamois cream squeezy tub type things and I've found them super.

Luckily (And through being anal about anal hygiene) I've lived my life without any bum infections, fistulas, abscesses etc. but thought I would give chamois cream a go just to make sure something like that doesn't happen in the near future. Well, apart from that element, I've found the chamois cream a great discovery (Especially as it's dead cheap). As a big plus, it seems to lessen that horrendous smell one gets round one's gusset when out cycling for any vague length of time but, more importantly, I feel a bit fresher and comfier than I did without it. My combination of chamois cream, shorts and saddle seems to have been protecting my rear pretty well and I'm going to sing to the world about it. Maybe not sing exactly but I think it's good and I'll mention it to the handful of unfortunates who happen to chance upon here. Having never used more expensive brands of chamois cream, I've no idea how the cream I have been using compares but it seems pretty good and my arse likes it very much.

Thank for reading about this rather unpleasant subject. Maybe I should leave it another two months before writing again...

Moaning pain in the arse

Me being a moan about nothing? Surely not. This time my grump is about the new Eurosport/Yahoo website. I've got to say (Well, I don't 'have' to but I'm going to) I'm not greatly impressed. I know the information is all still there but it looks 'cheaper' than the Eurosport site did before Yahoo got in on the act. 'Cheaper' might seem like a stupid word to use when they were free anyway but I'm sure you know what I'm getting at.

Whilst on the subject of Eurosport, has anyone been watching the Giro? Blimey but there's a lot of falling over and sliding about in it. It's both scary and tantalising viewing. I don't want to see anyone get hurt and yet I can't draw myself away from watching the poor buggers slipping about all over the roads of Italy. Obviously I'm overdoing it somewhat there and there has only been a few major falls but they've been spectacular and poor Paolo Bettini has had the misfortune to get caught up in more than one simply by having someone right in front of him hit the deck. Ouch! Oddly enough, I think a Tinkoff cyclist may have been involved in the main two crashes I can think of. I could be wrong but I think that's the case. Oh, hang on. I am wrong. I think it was a Tinkoff cyclist who went down first yesterday (The finish line crash) but the big spill the other day was initiated by the Liquigas rider who was in the pink jersey at the time (Was it Gasparotto?). Silly me! Sorry Tinkoff.

I wouldn't fancy taking the tumbles some pro cyclists seem to be able to. Come to think of it, I'm sure they don't 'fancy' it much themselves. I think they probably go (Literally) about twice the speed I would (And at least twice the distance on any given stage/race day, racing up mountains I would get tired driving up) anyway so my likelihood of falling and injuries from it is probably considerably lower. So I hope. I did have a skid (At very low speed) along the road a few months ago and got a really itchy bruise from it. More annoyingly, the side of my pedal got all scraped. In good news (As has happened the couple of times I've come off) my bib-tights were perfectly fine. I didn't want to be in that situation where one's arse is hanging out the back. It's rather unseemly.

More tandem thoughts

I know I'm being a complete stuck record here but I've been obsessing over our tandem a bit since we decided to get it. If anything, I'm a little less obsessive than I was when we had just got it and I was sprucing it up a reasonable amount. However, I'm still going to blabber on and bore you, as usual.

This time I thought I would share my initial thoughts with 'tandeming' (Tandemming? Is it even a word?) with you 'lucky' people. As with all my posting, I'm absolutely certain you'll find this positively enthralling reading. Here goes...

Being a highly strung type, I was kind of nervous about going on the tandem for the first time. I was fine when I took it out on my own to make sure everything was working (I thought it better to test the brakes etc. with only one person at risk) but was practically hyperventilating when it came to Kirby Girl joining me.

Despite my earlier claims to be a nervous creature, I was surprised by this response but, thankfully, it passed pretty quickly and we set off on our shaky first tandem ride (As covered three posts below). Getting towards the point of this, I have noticed the main problems in tandem riding seem to be from nerves, rather than any physical inadequacies.

It seems a lot easier for the Captain (Person at the front) to acclimatise oneself to tandem riding than the Stoker (Person at the back, as you would have worked out even if you didn't know). I don't know if I could 'stoke' as I'm so pushy and set in my ways. The Stoker has to put complete trust in his or her Captain and try to remain fairly loose and limber at all times. Initially, for anyone used to riding solo, there's a real tendency for the Stoker to attempt to steer and this causes a surprising amount of nuisance for the Captain. Even though the Stoker's bars are only attached to the Captain's seatpost, the action of tugging at them can almost shunt the tandem round. As you can imagine, that's something which needs to be remedied and only more cycling and confidence can fix it. Thankfully we seem to have reduced that considerably. Initially it was a real annoyance but now it's very rare and doesn't play much of a factor at all, even though we've only 'tandemed' five times together. It's good to see such annoyances disappear so quickly into insignificance. I must credit my very patient and considerate Stoker with doing an excellent job in that regard. So-called Captain or no, I'm sure she has felt like shoving me off the tandem more than once before now.

Just to mention, we've noticed motorists continue to be more considerate when we're on the tandem, as opposed to solo bikes. I really don't think this is something we've simply imagined as it seems to continue. Hopefully it'll stay that way. It also makes for a talking point when we're stopping to ask for directions or generally chatting with strangers somewhere. I guess you don't see too many of them around. I can't think of many I've seen around the roads of this country. Maybe four at most in my memory. Well, five including us.


I briefly mentioned about communication a post down. It really is important for the twat at the front Captain to let the poor bullied Stoker know what's going on. I'm a bit useless that way and let Kirby Girl know there was a bump when we have just passed over it rather than forewarning her of them. That's probably not very good and she most likely realises there had been a bump from the pain in her knickers.

Something nice for our Stoker was when we were down along a road at the shore of the nearby lough (aka 'lake') yesterday. It was full of clouds of flies and they all hit the Captain (Climbing round my eyes despite having cycling glasses on) whilst the Stoker pretty much made it out fly free. See, 'stoking' isn't all bad.

I know I'm going off at a tangent a bit here but I'm writing like I think and apologise for doing so. Before we got our tandem people had told me they were great on the flat and downhills but terrible uphill. I don't know if it's because I'm so bad at climbing normally on a solo bike but I think the tandem isn't really too bad. We're not at the point of standing on the pedals yet (Which means we're both sore by the time we get home and don't rest our 'loins' enough) but the gears are low enough for us to eventually grind our way up any hill we've come across so far (Other than the once when it wouldn't go into the 'granny ring' and some man stepped out in front of us, although we've been up that hill since easily enough without pedestrians) and some, whilst short, have been steep wee buggers. I think the lowest gear is 26 at the front and 34 at the back. That's pretty much as low a gear as I could manage. Anything less than that and I don't know if I could spin quickly enough to keep the bike upright. Kirby Girl has helped immensely on the hills too. There are times when I'm completely knackered and her endurance is enough to save me and push over the top of the hill. Phew! That was kind of the point I got off terribly, that you can take it in turns going uphill. One of you can lay off a little and let the other do most of the pushing then change round and it works well. It's surprising how quickly and naturally one gets into doing such things, without verbally having to announce one is going to. It's kind of the same with coasting and pedalling. Initially I was announcing when we were going to pedal and coast but then we decided to try not doing so and it turned out fine. All along we didn't really need to know. Again, I think it was just another nervous/confidence thing we thought we had to do.

Oh, before I go, if you're looking at the way Sheldon Brown recommends getting on and off a tandem on his website, I'm sure it works great and makes a lot of sense for some people but I found it really difficult. We just put our right feet in the pedals, count down '3-2-1 Go!' and set off and that seems to work simply and effectively for us. I don't know how well it would work if our cranks weren't synchronised but they are and, by fortunate coincidence, we both start pretty much identically on solo bikes anyway. I'm in no way saying there's anything wrong with the Sheldon Brown method (It makes a lot of sense and should suit a lot of people very well) just that it was awkward for us and there are other ways to set off safely on a tandem. By all means, try the method Sheldon Brown suggests first (He's working from some considerable experience and knowledge after all) and I hope it works for you but don't forget there are other options to you if it doesn't feel comfortable or natural.

That should cover my enormous rant for the time being. Sorry for boring you.

Spot the difference

It's not actually a 'spot the difference' competition at all (Although I'll be impressed by your bothering to if you can spot them and comment to let me know. Oh what joy! If you do, I might actually send you something for the effort) but rather the latest photo of our tandem.

Giving away one/two differences, you'll probably notice the new saddles and seatposts on the tandem. They are a step up over the dirty old pieces of crud which were there originally. When removing the original seatposts, it turned out there was only about an inch and a half to two inches of seatpost in the Stoker's seat tube. Thankfully there were no problems whatsoever but it's a bit of a scary discovery and I'm glad to have a shiny (Albeit cheap) 4oomm post in there instead. The Captain's wasn't as bad, due to the longer seat tube, but it's good to have a new post there also (Even though the Stoker's stem scratched it to buggery when I was putting the bars on).

The San Marco Rolls saddles (Also cheap) are considerably more comfortable than the saddles we replaced and that's great given how much time I find I spend sitting down on a tandem. As yet, we're not at a stage where we're comfortable pedalling whilst standing. I'm sure it'll happen in time but we'll build up to it and enjoy doing so. My gusset thanked me for the new saddles and I thanked it back for not hurting me. What a lovely pair we make.

That's our tandem pretty much done, other than the usual replacement of parts and general maintenance. Hopefully we will get to enjoy many miles of pleasure on it over the coming months and years into the future.

We're already making improvements in our tandem cycling (Although I still grump, bitch and moan constantly at my poor stoker) in terms of communication, speed and general enjoyment of cycling on it. Oh, one great thing I noticed on it is drivers seem to give us more space on the tandem than they would on two solo bikes. At first I thought I might have been looking for it and possibly imagining it but we've been out on the tandem a few times now and it seems to be the case. I wonder if they think we're eccentric (That's not in relation to bottom bracket sheathes) fools and take enough pity on us not to run us over? Maybe they think we're (And I use this cliched expression in mockery) 'cycle Nazis' when we're on solo bikes? Whatever the case, I'm glad to (Normally, although there are still inconsiderate twats) get more space and a lower risk of being killed. Hurrah!

Thanks for reading.

Lidl is good

If you live in Northern Ireland, you may be pleased to find Lidl is doing its 'every so often' run of cycling stuff from Thursday the 5th of April.

There doesn't seem to be any of their cheap clothing but I've noticed they often seem to bring something into their 'illustrious' middle aisle and then follow it up with something, normally a little more expensive, in a similar vein a couple of weeks later. If there's any truth to my theory, don't be surprised if they've got a bit more cycling palaver in reasonably soon.

Anyway, what impressed me most was their Cycling Computer with Heart Rate Monitor for £12-99 [GBP]. What a steal! If you ignore the moral thoughts of how little the people making these are getting paid and what their working conditions must be like, it's excellent. I don't think you could even buy a Polar heart strap for that money. Whilst I'm sure 'Tronic' might not be the most amazing make, I recall buying a couple of cycle computers of that brand from Lidl before and I couldn't notice an awful lot of difference between them and the basic models of Cateye computers I was using at the time. Their (The 'Tronics') only bad point was I had to take the backs off them to put a battery in as they didn't have a battery slot. Eventually I think I broke one of them doing that. However, my clumsiness must take at least part of the blame for that.

By the way, in other news, we were out for a quick thirty odd miles of a scoot on our tandem yesterday and we're both alive and still speaking to one another. That's a good start. Something I did notice however is that I've to pedal a lot more on the tandem than a solo bike. Coasting isn't something I can get away with so readily as I've to be in sync with my 'Stoker'. My legs still wanted to pedal hours later. Imagine what it'll be like after a journey of twice yesterday's or more. I'll be pedalling in my sleep.

Maiden voyage

Although it was time consuming and I had a couple of little setbacks, I managed to work round them and get the tandem reasonably roadworthy. All I've got left to do is get new seatposts (So I can fit them and the San Marco Rolls saddles rather than the fairly horrid saddles currently there) and a little bar mounted friction lever for controlling the Arai drum/drag brake.

We ordered two different sizes of seatposts and both were too small. Therefore, we ended up returning them and it's too much of a pain to keep doing that. We'll get the posts or inside of the tubes measured and try to order the right size this time. That will be good as I dislike both the seatposts on it now and the saddles attached to them. All being well, we'll have it totally refurbished by this time next week. It's all very exciting for me.

Today was our tandem test ride and what a day to pick. The weather was fantastic, probably the best this year. In bib-shorts and a longsleeve jersey I was very warm indeed, bald head uncovered and everything. Despite some nerves, we got a little ten miles of scooting about on our tandem (Although the first four were me alone testing the gears, brakes etc.) and it seemed okay. Sure it wasn't perfect and we've both quite a bit to get accustomed to but we will with time and it'll be great once we're more comfortable on it. Long may our tandem cycling continue.

What a difference three days makes

I'm just off the phone with SJS Cycles and am pleased to say the girl I was speaking to this time was very pleasant. Hoorah! Being the fickle and short memoried beast I am, I can now like them a bit more. Anyway, the reason I was ringing them was to see about getting something to control the tandem's Arai drag brake. The first item I saw was this which, so long as it's the right size, would definitely do the job. However, I'm a tight-fisted miser and didn't want to shell out £40 [GBP] for it when I've already got a spare set of decent downtube shifters. In phoning SJS, I was pointed in the direction of these. Again it all depends on the diameter of my handlebars but I could get them (And a barrel adjuster) and use one of the shifters I've already got. I know it'll probably only be a couple of pounds less than the unit I linked to above but somehow it seems like I'm getting more for my money. I guess it would give me a spare if anything happens to the drag brake lever I would be attaching.

In other progress, I've got my new brakes, brake levers, grips (Which will have to come off and back on again once I get a drag brake lever), shifters, cabling, cable stops and cable housing attached and ready to be adjusted and my wheels are both in for rebuilding with shiny new spokes. Hopefully they be with me sometime around the weekend and I can get adjusting the components/swearing profusely at how mechanically inept I am. I've also got my wheels, tubes, rim tape, saddles and computer ready to go once everything else is in place. I got the seatposts I had ordered but, alas, I had ordered the wrong size so back they went and another order was placed. Hopefully these seatposts will fit or it'll be the same all over again. In the meantime, I guess I could use the crappy seatposts on it but I'm not fond of them at all. Oh, just remembered, I could do with sticking a pannier rack on it too.

Just totalling up the stuff I bought specifically for the tandem (And that doesn't include the £350 [GBP] we paid for it or the saddles, pedals, pannier rack, wheel rebuilding or bits we already had) we've already spent£250.94 [GBP]. That's turning out less cheap than I may have hoped. Still, hopefully it'll be semi-decent and equivalent to a tandem at least twice that combined price.

There you go. I hope you're as suitably excited to read all that as I imagine you would be.

Cursed?

I don't know whether I'll be doing as much cursing as I thought in assembling some of our tandem parts or whether I'm just cursed when it comes to tandems.

When buying our tandem, the guy selling it gave us a pair of what I would call 'cable stops'. I'm not sure if that's the correct name or not but they're the bits which screw on near the top, at each side of the downtube for the gears' (I think. I'll be sure to check before running the cabling through) cable housing to 'finish off' in. I know I should have checked when we were getting them but it turns out he gave me two right-sided 'cable stops' rather than one of each.

I phoned the surly customer 'service' buggers at SJS Cycles this morning and they were able to add these to my existing order but it was an unpleasant experience speaking to them and I'll not be going there again in a hurry unless I've no other options (Which may well be the case with tandem parts). Don't get me wrong. It's not the shop SJS Cycles which is the problem. It appears to be good and stocks some great stuff difficult to find elsewhere but, to say the least, their telephone operators could be a little more civil. They definitely don't entice one to wish to ring them again with their unfriendly surly attitude. It's a shame really as the shop itself, as I mentioned, is good. Maybe I just caught them on an off day.

It seems also that Wiggle doesn't have one of the cheap seatposts we ordered in stock and will have to put in an order for it. That means my poor Stoker, Kirby Girl, is going to have to make do with an old seatpost for a while, unless Wiggle hurries on with getting the other one in. I know that sounds selfish, with me getting the new seatpost, but it makes more sense doing it that way. The Captain's seatpost is going to have the Stoker's bars and a bottle cage mount on it and I can't be assed taking them off and putting them on again.

On further inspection of the tandem, it seems there's a bit of undesirable motion in both bottom brackets. I think it's not enough to worry hugely about at the moment but it's certainly something to prepare for in the future. I've never changed the bottom bracket on a solo bike let alone a tandem. I hope it's easy. By the way, does anyone know if a tandem uses standard chains and what 'speed' of chain should be used for the left side?

Post 100: Tandem riding here we come

Well, there it is, our new tandem (If you left-click on the picture I think it'll show you a bigger version) in our messy garage. It's new to us but it sure as hell ain't new to the world. We just picked it up today and discovered the brakes aren't working (They just need adjusted) and three of the spokes in the rear wheel are broken so it was out with the wheel, over to our local wheelbuilder's (Who is a marvellous man for such things in all ways; speed, pleasantness, quality and price). He's going to completely respoke the rear wheel for us for a mere twelve pounds and hopes to have it done within four days. That's pretty bloomin' great service!

The frame and rims on the tandem seem pretty good and I reckon the wheels will be fine once they're respoked. At the moment, the front wheel seems okay so we'll not get new spokes on it until they start snapping. Hopefully that will be later rather than sooner.

The seatposts were of that variety where the bit the saddle connects to is a separate part held on by friction, rather than the sort I'm used to. I'm probably not describing it very well but I hope you know what I mean. Anyway, I didn't like them so I've ordered two new seatposts for it. Hopefully they'll be just dandy and I'll find I've ordered the right size. I did measure them but only with a steel rule so I'm not likely to be spot on to tenths of a millimetre.

I felt a bit bad slicing off the old bar grips. There was nothing actually wrong with them and they seemed in perfect condition but we have bought new ones and they're better. Four perfectly good grips chucked in the bin (Which was a cardboard box rather than a proper bin).

The tyres on the tandem were only 28mm thick (And the flipping inner tubes said 20/23mm on them!) so I've ordered some 32mm Schwalbe Marathon Pluses (As mentioned in my previous post). I've read some online tandem nerds rate the Marathon Pluses, so I hope we'll find them good too. Isn't it a bugger trying to get tyres off a tandem? I cut my knuckle open attempting to do so. Funnily enough, it wasn't terrible getting the first side of the tyre off the rim but the 'following' side wouldn't come easily. I imagine it'll be a nightmare trying to get the new tyres on when we get them. Hopefully that means they'll stay on well.

Earlier this evening I ordered some V-brakes and a 7 speed 'shifter pod'. I'm sure I'll be doing some swearing trying to get everything working when it all arrives. After much anger and frustration, everything should eventually come together and we'll have a reasonably pleasant tandem to ride.

So I don't forget, here's a list of the stuff we're changing:

• San Marco Rolls saddles instead of the saddles already there (Euch! Sweaty arses!)
• Respoke wheel(s)
• SRAM brake levers
  
• New seatposts (I can't be sure of the manufacturer but I think it was Push. They were cheap anyway)
• Avid V-brakes
• Replace gear and brake cabling and cable housing
  
• New bottle cages (Highly important obviously. Strangely, there's only a single cage on it) and funny wee bottle cage holder which fits onto a seatpost
  
• Shimano STX shifters
• Ergon bar grips
• TorTec pannier rack
• New pedals (Can't remember what makes)
• Sigma Sport BC1600 computer (Hopefully I'll be able to get the cadence to work with it)

I think that's it. That probably pushes it to about my limit when it comes to bicycle maintenance and that sort of gubbins. The only other thing I had thought of was getting some sort of cable disc brake for it but I need to know what would be suitable for the rear hub currently on the bike. Hopefully I'll find the drum brake currently on it is better than I imagine it might be.

All being well, we should have the tandem ready to use by this time next week. Wish me luck!

Tandem boredom update

As with all blogs on th'internet, this one ain't especially interesting to anyone other than the bugger who wrote it. It's just as well I'm the only person who ever looks near it then I guess.

After having to return our wonky tandem, we've agreed to buy a second-hand one from a bloke who owns a bike shop vaguely locally and should be collecting it towards the end of next week.

Our tandem to be is not a new bike by any stretch of the imagination and is a triple (Of course) seven speed with a Reynolds 531 (Hurrah!) frame (With a 'ladies' bit at the back, which seems slightly pointless as most woman aren't likely to be wearing dresses or skirts whilst cycling), downtube shifters and flat bars with a quill 'rising' stem. It's got an Arai drum brake at the back (Which I might change sometime in the future if I find it's not particularly good) and those cantilevers most touring bikes seem to have. I'm not especially enamoured with such brakes in my experiences with them and may stick some V-brakes on it instead. I'm hopefully (Naively?) assuming they will simply slot into the same holes on the frame currently resided within by the calipers. Obviously we'll stick new saddles on it immediately too. We've no desire to get other people's bum sweat stinking us up.

I've bought some new Ergon bar grips and SRAM brake levers for the tandem already (Presumptuously, as we don't have it yet), all from Chain Reaction. Just on that subject, I recommend Chain Reaction very highly. I know we live within about thirty miles of them and that must help but I seem to get nearly all my stuff the day after I've ordered it and that can include ordering in the afternoon. Their customer services is excellent too and I can't say enough in their favour. By the way, they're not paying me. This is all purely 'satisfied customer gushing'. Now where was I? Oh, that's right, I was going to mention about the downtube shifters et al. I've not used a downtube shifter on a bike for quite some years now. I think I was about thirteen the last time I used a bike with downtube shifters for any longer than a few minutes. To be honest, I'm not a great fan of them and hope I can put little 'stops' in where they are and use some mountain bike shifters instead. There seems to be quite a range of seven speed (Well, twenty-one speed I guess) mountain bike shifters out there and it should work with the low gearing of the tandem. That's the theory anyway. Wish me luck!

I reckon the quill stem might get changed with an Ahead type converter at some point too and the tyres could find themselves making way for some Schwalbe Marathon 32mm efforts as I've only heard good things about them and the Continentals (Which we use on our solo bikes and I rate very highly) currently on it look a bit on the skinny side for tandem usage. I'm sure they can find a home on one of our other bikes. Eventually, I've got an inkling the (700c) wheels might get changed to a different, newer model too but that's all for thought in the future. If everything works well and safely as is, not much will be getting changed at all. I'll stick up a photo of the tandem when we get it. It's not exactly a glamorous bike to look at but it should function.

Hopefully we will find everything to our satisfaction and get many many hours of happy tandeming. Here goes tandem experiment part 2...