Portsmouth CTC
Part of Cycling UK
These two videos describe how to make adjustments to your gears:
Set your derailleur limits . Note this video makes no mention of the 'half cock' position that some bikes use to allow the full range of rear gears without the chain rubbing against the front derailleur. If your bike has that feature, you'll need to use it to check all combinations of gear positions work OK.
Portsmouth CTC, in conjunction with Cycle Hayling, will have a stall at the 3 Churches Fete to be held from 12.00 to 16.15 on Wednesday 13th August in Hayling Park. Come along and have a go at our Turbo Challenge (how far can you pedal from a standing start in 1 minute?) - We have 2 bikes (one adult size and one childs size) so anyone can have a go! Call in to find out all about Cycle Hayling and Portsmouth CTC or just to have a chat about any aspect of cycling. Looking forward to seeing you there!
This is taking place over this weekend (26th/27th July) at the Goodwood Motor circuit. I plan to cycle over to Goodwood on Sunday (27th), and have just read that CTC members get a 50% discount on the entry price of £12. If anyone wants to join me I suggest we meet at the Havant Spring at around 09.00. Robert Sebley
I have just purchased a new marathon plus tyre which are notoriously difficult to fit. But I came across this video by Spa Cycles, which may be of interest...
Robert's in-depth analysis of Chris Froome's TDF chances. Nice to see the Portsmouth CTC jersey on show.
I've volunteered to help with Dr Bike sessions being run by the CTC for the Prudential RideLondon event.
To help prepare for the event, I've been sent some links to YouTube videos. I thought they might be of wider interest so I've included them below.
The emails get sent - honest. But several people claim they don't get them, or that they get them intermittently.
There's nothing special or different about the Portsmouth CTC emails. In fact, when people manage to track them down, they usually find emails from other people have gone astray too.
This note will hopefully help you find out where they are going and how to make sure they arrive OK.
It describes:
The road signs and conventions used by the Dutch are a little idiosyncratic. Click the link below to show a video created by a Dutch cyclist to explain how it all works...
Here's some examples of GPX files presented using the [ctc-show-gpx] short code available to authors of posts and pages. The tracks are large so take some time to display.
They show the route taken by the CTC barge tour of South Holland during May 2014. The tour was organised by Pam and Dave Pilbeam. The track is courtesy of Alec Martel of Uxbridge Loiterers.
Having joined the Sarah the previous day, we cruised to our start point in Breukelen and rode to lunch in Oudewater and then to meet the barge again at Vianen.
From Vianen we rode to lunch at Gorinchem and then to Heusden.
From Heusden we rode to lunch at Loevestein Castle and then to Dordrecht.
From Dordrecht we rode to lunch at Schoonhoven and then to Gouda.
From Gouda we rode to lunch at Leiden and then to Oude Wetering.
We cruised from Oude Wetering to Schipol rode to lunch at Muiderslot (an old castle) and finally back to Amsterdam.
Click any of the images in this article to see a larger version
I have three rear lights on different bikes, all Cateye:
TL-LD 600 (costing about £15) is quite an adequate light with five LEDs
TL-LD 650 (about £25 and also known as the TL Rapid 5) has five LEDs. The centre LED is so bright that when set to continuous only the centre and two outer are lit; all are used in flashing mode and in pulse mode the centre LED is dimmed to avoid dazzling following cyclists.
TL-LD 1100 (about £32) has ten LEDs in two rows of five of which three face to the rear and two are angled towards the side.
All can be switched to steady and flashing and maybe several other modes I haven’t discovered.
I can’t compare light output, lumens, candela because I don’t understand things like that, but the 1100 is the one about which I get most comments on how bright it is.
But my intention is not to write just about the lights but to consider how to fit them. Manufacturers seem to be under the impression that all cyclists want to attach their rear light to the seat post and they only supply a bracket which will clamp around a seat post. That is no good to me because I have a saddlebag.
I have two solutions. The first is on my Flying Gate. Trevor Jarvis, who built the frame, also made the detachable pannier rack and his contribution to solving the rear light problem is to braze half of a hinge to the rack. This of course has two convenient holes in it. All that is needed now is to cut a piece of L-shaped steel or aluminium and drill the necessary holes, two to attach it to the half hinge and a third on the return through which is bolted a Cateye bracket (available from many sources for a couple of quid).
The second is on my Hetchins on which I have a Blackburn pannier rack. I cut a piece of handlebar (I think it was, but any suitable tube will do), cut two slots in it to fit snugly over the rack tubing and drilled a hole through it. Others will no doubt be able to do this more neatly than I did.
This bit of tube slides over the pannier rack tubing and is held secure by a bolt through the holes. I can now use the bracket supplied with the light to attach the light to this piece of tube.
