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Well, I was going to say that I think the gold hubs on my 29er look rather tasty, but it turns out I have the brain of a 10 year old girl, so I'm not sure my advice will be that helpful:

28h should be fine in my experience. Mine are on a full-rigid carbon bike, and despite keeping up with some full-sus bikes on some reasonably rocky descent in the Yorkshire Dales on my last proper MTBing holiday the wheels held up with no problems. And I'm not exactly a featherweight rider, either in gravitational attractiveness or riding style...

You can get them direct from 3T or from http://www.i-ride.co.uk/, so unless you're in New Zealand, Australia seems like an odd place to shop. Bear in mind that if you want to use a rise other than 10/20/30/60, you'll need different length bolts.

I tried I-ride, and they said the 60mm risers were discontinued. Not quite sure why I never found the 3T small parts website - probably muppetry on my part.

Whatever socks are clean > Sidi Diablo boots.

Job done even for hours of riding.

SIDI Diablos and ski socks for me. I normally take a 43 Mega in SIDIs, but the 44 Diablos fit pretty well with the chunkier socks, and they've been good so far down to about -4degC.

SWMBO runs North Wave winter boots with Therm-ic electric heated insoles and batteries. They work well apparently, but they're not cheap.

That's very interesting- what tyres are you going to run with the new ones?

What drilling did you go for? Did you get wheels, or rims and then build them?

I'm going to try using Vittoria Cross XG Pros with the new CX wheels. They're 32 hole (to match the cheap Hope hubs I got on eBay) while the 29er wheels are 28 hole on Novatec hubs, laced 2x, with Racing Ralph tyres. Just got the rims and built them myself, with DT Comp spokes for the 29er and CX-Rays for the CXer. Although I haven't built the CX wheels yet as there appears to be a worldwide shortage of 284mm black CX-Rays.

It does, but I think that's due to the angle I took the photo at. In fact, they're slightly below the saddle height albeit not much. At the moment the aero bars are on 60mm spacers lifting them above the base bar. I've also got 10mm and 20mm spacers, so I've got a choice between 60mm/30mm/20mm/10mm of spacers. In fact, what I might well do is machine the 60mm spacers down to 40mm, so I can have anything between 70mm and 10mm in 10mm increments.

I suspect that I'll fairly quickly drop the aerobars and use, at most, 30mm of spacers. But given the immense faff involved in sourcing the 60mm spacers (ended up having to ship them from Australia) I thought I might as well use them for the initial build.

Have a look at what isn't available from a UK supplier, but that people are talking about on forums.

The new wider profile road rims for example, and the clincher 29er/cx rims.

I've got the wider 29er rims from http://www.light-bicycle.com on my 29er and I've been very impressed with them. They've stood up to serious abuse, and they're very easy to run tubeless if you fit Bontrager Rhythm rim tapes. In fact, I've got another pair of rims sat in Customs at the moment to go on my CXer.

If they were available at a reasonable price in the UK (avoiding the delays and the potential customs problems) then I certainly would've bought some.

This is my new TT bike:

Haven't actually got round to riding it yet (or even taking it outdoors) hence the less-than-optimal background. The spacers on top of the stem will be removed once I've had a bike fitting.

does anyone know a decent route north from finsbury park to hertfordshire? i usually go up hornsey road to muswell hill, then cross over and go up the B550 to whetstone, then barnet, then south mims. anyone think of anything better? i've done up the a10 too, and that was equally horrible, both the 'old' a10 and new a10.

In and out of North London I usually go High Barnet - Potters Bar (using Kitts End Road and Baker Street, not the A1000) - Essendon and then onwards. The A1 and A10 are grim, but pretty much all the roads between them are OK.

Yep. Did it last year, for the first time. Bloody hard, but worth it.

It was a jacket, front light, front rack, 2 brake levers and a saddle for me.

And almost my life.

All items that individually cost more than a basic ss ring and together, a lot more than a good one.

Odd, because my SS MTB uses the standard geared middle ring, and I've never had any problems with the chain dismounting. Mind you, my track bike and fixed-gear bikes both have SS chainrings, so to err on the side of caution, a 52t Miche 135BCD chainring is winging its way to me. Means I'll have to use a 1/8" chain rather than the 3/32" one I had set aside, but that's no great hardship, although I suppose I may as well get a 1/8" sprocket for the SA 5-speed hub rather than the 3/32" one I've got at the moment.

I can understand why. Making something from carbon is fundamentally different from making it from steel or even ali given the nature of the material. If you just copy the design but make it from carbon instead then it's very unlikely to work well. I've done a fair bit of work with carbon myself, both wet lay-up and pre-preg (vacuum-bagged in a home-made curing oven) and the only way of making a Brompton-esque frame from carbon would involve high pressure moulds. That would require either an autoclave or inflatable internal bladders, and even a simple mould (machined from a large block of aluminium billet) would cost tens of thousands to produce. Making the fixtures like the frame clamps and pivots together with the pivot tube for the rear triangle would be a total nightmare in carbon.

In some ways carbon would be an ideal material for a Brompton - the stiffness would be useful given that it's essentially a single beam frame. But in lots of other respects it'd be a disaster, I suspect.

A two-speed derailleur set-up might win me points for style, but it won't help get me up to Whitestone Pond - not with gearing that'll help me crack the 40mph barrier (I've wound the current Brompton up to 37mph with the assistance of gravity, so 40mph is the next step).

I'll be using a chain tensioner, the standard Brompton one. As mdcc_tester has correctly identified, the effective chainstay length on the Brompton changes when you fold the rear wheel under, so some sort of tensioner is necessary.

As for the chainrings/cranks, the plan at the moment is to dig out a suitably-sized sheet of titanium from my stores, give it to a nice man with a water cutter, and have a titanium chain guard made up and fit that in the outer ring position. I can't see that the ramps and pins will have any effect, but if the lowered teeth are a problem (and at present I suspect they won't be) then a combination of another sheet of titanium, said nice man, and my CAD package (which has a function for plotting chainring teeth) will result in a new titanium chainring with full-height teeth. All other issues should be capable of being overcome with time, and the assistance of my milling machine and lathe...

This is brilliant. I love Bromptons and think they are cool no matter what anyone else says. Shouldn't you be worried about overtorquing carbon bars, as the handlebar bolt design looks rather old school?

Also, what stem are you going to use - M, S, P or H?

Shouldn't be an issue, as the bars are titanium too. They're flat bars, so I'm going to be using an S stem. I'm currently waiting for the stem (2 week order time) but the main problem at the moment is trying to source a Chris King Gripnut headset. It looks like I'll have to order to headset specially, which leaves one burning dilemma - pewter or gold for the headset?

OK, time to 'fess up, it's not going to be fixed - I've got a 5 speed SA hub for it. Even applying Rule No. 5 as much as I can, I need some gears for the routes this'll be doing (like South End Green to Whitestone Pond).

I hadn't thought about getting some custom forks made up. Not a bad idea at all, but I've already got the ti forks, so I think I might as well use them. Personally I've never had any issues with the Brompton brakes. They're not brilliant by any means, but given a good hearty tug I can lock up either wheel if I want to.

My understanding is that Brompton frames are all powder-coated except for the clear laquer finishes which, as the name suggests, is a wet paint.

As for wheels and tyres, all will become clear! Working on the front at the moment, rear will follow shortly. However, I need to make some mods to my wheel-truing stand before it can take weeny 349 wheels.

This is looking very interesting, what are you going to do about forks/bars? Can you get them in titanium too? I am beginning to wish I still had my brompton.

Yep, front forks will be the titanium ones, the handlebars will be some flat 25.4mm straight bars I got from Taiwan via eBay. Can't fit either yet as I haven't got the stem or the headset yet.

It's a personal think AIUI, depending on the mixture of slow and fast-twitch muscle fibres you have. Somewhere between 70-90rpm seems to be generally recommended as a good range to aim for though. My legs seem happiest at 85rpm normally.

OK, so it's a Brompton, and therefore deeply uncool, but bear with me...

While riding to the train station the other day, I had something of an epiphany - I realised that (1) I ride my Brompton more often than any of my other bikes (not in terms of mileage, obviously) and (2) it was shagged. Obviously the sensible option would be to rebuild it. Rather than doing that, I've decided to build a new one. And to make it a bit special.

Starting point - a new clear matt laquer frame:

But I wanted a titanium seatpost, and Brompton no longer make one. Happily, a nice Dutch chap living in Thailand trading under the name Brompfication does make one. And rather nice it is too, along with the other bits he makes. All the components on the seatpost are titanium, even the clamps and bolts:

The saddle's a Charge Knife - like a cut-down Spoon but with titanium rails, sticking to the must-have-titanium theme. Seeing as it's a long way from Thailand, it seemed worth buying a few more bits of Brompfication Bling from him, such as the bronze release clamps:

(which are rather nicer than the Brompton ones since they're cunningly designed so that the V-clamps stay in the right position rather than spinning around in an annoying fashion) together with the aluminium roller wheels and the titanium rear frame clip kit:

Added to this so far is a titanium rear frame and some Campag carbon Record cranks (fitted with a Centaur 115mm sealed bottom bracket). It's early days, but after waving a tape measure over the cranks, I think it'll work. I'll only have the 53t chainring, which I'm planning to swap to the inside of the crank spider.

Next step, some wheels...

Just quickly googled, and it would appear that Internet Wisdom says a 9 speed Shimano MTB mech will work with a 10 speed road shifter, on a 10 speed block.

On this one, Internet Wisdom is correct. My sportive bike has a 9 speed XT rear mech, 6703 Ultegra shifters and an XT 11-34 rear cassette. Works very nicely now it's on a frame which doesn't have major rear dropout misalignment issues.

Up front there's an Ultegra triple for a 'covering all the bases' gear range.

March 2011 is when neberabaltz joined LFGSS. The original message was posted 4 weeks ago. It's a long shot, but you never know...

Dibs. PM sent.

Dibs on the 600 brake levers, rear derailleur and crankset. PM to follow.

Dibs please. PM to follow.

I'm 5'11" with a 31" inside leg. 54" Pre Cursa fits me nicely.

1.tom (tilover)
2.wingnuts + mate from Edinsomewhere.
3.Dan W
4.peter v

1. Mr & Mrs Jingle of the Jangle
   
2. Mrs Tika Gravel Face - I haz unfinished business![/quote]
   7.saarf (work can gtfo)
   8.Rossco13
   
3. Happytramp
   
4. Stedlocks + at least one other
   11.billundben
   
5. tapsnbath
   
6. danstuff and La Cycliste
   
   

We're also first time L'Eroicaistes.