carigada

I usually wear Bell helmets because they fit my large head better than any other brand. I have several examples I can recount of when I concider that wearing a helmet saved my life or saved me from serious injury over the last 20 years of cycling, without cycling carelessly in any way. My most recent example, last year I was cycling with my helmet on (slowly and carefully, negotiating a tricky dip) through Sherwood Forest as I do frequently when I suddenly saw stars and heard a huge bang simultaneously. Due to the low sun, I hadn't seen a broken tree branch hanging down which hit me very hard in the front of my helmet which nearly knocked me off my bike. I felt nauseous and dizzy for a few minutes. Had this happened wthout a helmet on I wouldn't have walked away without injury had I not been protected. The crushed polystyrene had taken the blow rather than my cranium. No male gonads from the trolls about riding unsafely due to wearing a helmet. I just didnt see it. Sh*t happens. If we were to follow similar advice to that of the Pedalec trolls, we wouldn't wear cycle helmets because in some way that makes us take more risks. Likewise, we woudn't wear safety belts whilst driving our cars because it would make us less safe as drivers. We wouldn't take out household insurance because the burglars would be more likely to steal something from us. We wouldn't wear safety glasses at work because it would make us more likely to be careless and collect flying debris in our eyes. We probably wouldn't even run a virus scanner or firewall on our computers because it would make us more likely to look at unsafe websites. Gubfr jvgubhg n oenva pna'g vawher vg nal shegure!

This description sounds strangely familiar!

We still have the right to smoke tobacco. Many people who smoke get to live to a ripe old age but this doesn't mean it's safe. You cannot deny the overwhelming evidence that smoking is dangerous to your health and many people who smoke get to die an unpleasant death. Luck is luck, and 63 years of luck is luckier than most but not impossible so congratulations to you. But your luck will run out some time, by law of averages. You may be the most skilled cyclist the world has known, but you can't allow for the drunk driver, the patch of black ice or the teenage idiot etc. It may only be a bit of polystyrene, but it increases my chances of surviving a crash slightly. I don't wish to make you wear a helmet, and I hope you won't try and deny me the right to wear mine. Each to his own. Just a (mischievous) thought - if you aren't physically able to ride over 15mph then you are probably a lot safer than the sweaty brigade

I never used to wear a helmet until I got married and my wife made my life miserable nagging that I should wear one. Several times over the years since then I have been glad that I was wearing one. I would not be posting on this forum had I not been wearing a cycle helmet four years ago when I had a crash. I respect your right not to wear one, just as I respect your right to compete for the annual Darwin award if you so desire.

Going back to your original subject Rod, assembling the wheel usually isn't the hardest bit as you just have to be logical and methodical. Getting it tight, true and centred in my opinion is far harder. Once you have worked out how to do this then as a bonus, re-trueing your wheels becomes an easy DIY job. Wheel jigs can be bought for under £100 but I usually use the bike as my jig so I can vouch for the fact that it is perfectly possible to build a wheel without buying one.

Thanks, Aldby, That's pretty much how I solved the problem, except I used some two core bell wire that I had to hand. I ran some of that along the inside of the mudguard and connected it to the copper rivets so it's pretty much invisible. It does look better without wires running along the frame, I think. I mentioned this problem mostly as a heads-up to the folks on this forum so that those with a similar lighting system to the Agattu's dynamo powered Busch & Müller setup might want to check to see if they were working correctly.

I was recently showing my Agattu off to a friend and as I watched him cycle away from me the rear light went off. When I got the bike back I found that it cut out every time the bike reached a slow walking pace but came back on when the bike stopped. Investigations with a multimeter revealed the problem. There was a high resistance in one of the conductors embedded in the rear mudguard. Just enough voltage was getting through to turn the light on and it was then going into battery backup mode. Speeding up sent the light into dynamo mode but not enough power was getting through to light the LED's so it apparently switched off. Slowing down meant it came back on again! I do frequently check my lights, for example when I stop at a junction. The light always looked as if it was functioning correctly but I was unaware that it turned off as I set off. I have probably been cycling on the dark roads for the last few months without a rear light showing . This is obviously highly dangerous and illegal as well.

There are other reasons for people to ride assisted bikes, other than below average cycling ability. I use my Agattu so that I don't get to work hot and sweaty. I wouldn't classify myself as having below average cycling ability, and I can actually do my commuting trip quicker on my non-assisted Marin but when I do it takes me at least an hour before I stop 'glowing'. :o

GPS systems are future in this area, I'm sure. I used to cycle with a Garmin GPS 40, mainly for navigation but it also gave a useful speed display to check my speedo calibration. The picture attached is of the setup I used on a C2C trip a few years back. Modern GPS units are far smaller than this now.

I find a hard thump with a fist or foot to the side of a car that gets too close always gets attention.

A bit of bad news here: Electric bike man in fatal crash http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7760328.stm Hope this isn't one of our friends from this forum.

The means to charge batteries from a 12v supply (making solar charging easier) would be nice. Also, 0-60 in 4 seconds and 250 miles range? YouTube - Lotus Tesla Electric Car

She goes in the trailer for now, with a fluorescent orange flag flying on a pole on the back of the trailer to make it as visible as possible. I pick my routes carefully so that we aren't on main roads, just quiet urban roads, cycle paths, and bridleways. I will also use a footpath if it's unoccupied as this allows me to remove her further from the traffic. I find that I get an enormous amount of courtesy from motorists. I have never once had a car stop and wave me across the road when I am cycling on my own. This is a common occurrence when I have a Lucy in her trailer on the back. I have unfortunately had to take the stand off my Agattu because the trailer attaches to the frame where the stand is bolted on.

I have an old retired (!) slimed inner tube hanging up in the garage with over 20 successful patches in it. The only reason I retired it is that I was doing a coast-to-coast ride and with many long steep descents (i.e. The Walna Scar road into Coniston) I had heard that heat generated by braking could make the patches de-bond, obviously catastrophic if travelling at speed. Res ipsa loquitur. I'm convinced, but it doesn't mean you have to be. BTW At the end of the descent, my rims were too hot to touch, and a friend's disk brakes had turned blue with the heat.

For me it does exactly what is says on the tin and I wouldn't be without it. Where I live the Hawthorn hedge cuttings are lethal and in my pre-slime days it wouldn't be unusual to have 5 or 6 punctures in quick succession. Now I seldom if ever have to repair a puncture. When I do get a flat, it is not unusual to find so many sealed holes that it is more practical to swap to my spare tube than repair them (my record is 11 thorns in a tyre that was holding pressure until the last thorn). Mending punctures on a slimed tube is easy so long as you take a few squares of kitchen roll in your tool kit to wipe the outside of the tube dry. I guess it's nice that we have the choice

I hope they dont take the french chalk out! I use it every time I mend a puncture. I just scrape it with a pocket knife I carry as part of my travelling tool kit and wipe the powder over the repair. It stops the uncovered glue sticking to the inside of the tyre.

I have a Hamax Sleepy rear bike seat, an old Burley Solo trailer and a Tagalong. I have three shildren and the two oldest have now progressed through these three options to independant bikes. My youngest is now 4 and she is now a little heavy for me to feel safe with her on the bike seat when I am not riding the bike. I always worry that the bike will fall over due to her weight if I am not astride it. She is not old enough yet that I trust her to hold on for dear life on the Tagalong. I find the bike seat makes it a little difficult getting on and off the bike as you cant swing your leg around the rear of the saddle. If anyone wants the Hamax Sleepy, I am happy to let it go for the price of transport or free if the buyer collects.

I have had cause to contact 50cyles on several occasions regarding problems with my Agattu, some of them being due to mechanical ineptitude on my part. Never have I had to wait long before receiving helpful advice. So far I can't fault the customer serviceand would willingly buy from them again.

Sherwood Forest is my 'local', just a few miles from where I live and work. I know a large number of the folks that work there as well. Outside each villa are bike stands bolted to the wall of the villa. Hire bikes are usually locked to these at night. If you take your own bike it can be taken inside the villa at night (providing it's not too muddy). This is what I did when I took my own bike a couple of years ago. If you use your bike to travel on site, there are bike parks near all the major facilities with the same brackets available to lock your bike to that are bolted to your villa wall. The distances on-site are not that large that you really need a bike and the site doesn't have a great variation in altitude. If you choose to take your own bike so you can sample the excellent trails in Sherwood Pines outside Center Parcs, it's probably worth taking your own bike (I'm in there most Sundays and use the trails for commuting). If you are only going to use your bike for commuting on-site, its probably worth leaving it at home if it's of any value and hiring a bike on-site, for peace of mind. I know a couple of the scallys that have gone on site to take bikes so I know this happens. It's not a huge problem but it still exists so beware Just a word of advice - most activities on site have to be pre-booked. Make sure you book early because things get booked up *VERY* quickly. Even knowing this, the last time we went there as a family for a weekend, all activities we wanted to do were booked up by the time we arrived (and we arrived quite early). I don't know if you can book by phone prior to your visit, probably worth checking if there's anything you really want to do. There are also many good activities off-site, for example Go Ape - Go Ape Locations If you see someone riding an Agattu in Sherwood Pines, it's probably me.

Which one are you going to? I'm pretty sure they will all be similar. I have been to Sherwood Forest several times and Whinfell Forest once so can give you a first-hand account of the facilities there.

So you guessed. Did I do wrong? He has promised that the half a million pounds will arrive tomorrow. I have no reason to doubt his honesty.

Prisoners do have human rights and quite rightly so, but we will have to agree on a definition of human rights. The most fundamental human right is the right to live. If we broaden the description, I would say that things like the right to have food, water and shelter would come into it. All of this I agree with for prisoners. You can add other things but then we start getting to the grey area. For example, televisions and games consoles in prisons are not a fundamental human right, although the PC brigade would probably say different. I think that prison should be a deterrent, and should be made to be as hard and unpleasant as possible to achieve this aim. Our taxi driver example has by his actions indicated that the human rights of others in society are not important to him. I believe that those who have by their actions rejected the fundamental principles of our society do not deserve anything from this society but the most basic of 'human rights’ in return. This happens already. For example, we deprive a prisoner of his ‘liberty’ even though liberty is one of the rights laid down in the Universal Declaration.

Surely this should be 'Hakuna Matata'?

I am running Kubuntu 8.04, the previous (free) edition. However, maybe we should start an OS thread in 'The Charging Post' rather than continue in the 'Electric Bikes' forum?