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I believe they use an 'open' type cartridge - a E9 or EN9 in the front and a E10 or EN10 in the rear. E9 is 9mm bore, 28mm diameter and 8mm deep, E10 is the same size but with a 10mm bore. I also believe that the hubs later changed to use fully shielded bearings and the front bearing size...

One day some time ago I had a doctor's appointment first thing in the day. As the surgery is only a mile or so away and it was rush hour I decided to use a bike and leave it at my partner's place nearby. While cycling there I felt that something was wrong but couldn't put my finger on it until I...

I've worn a helmet since I was nearly killed in 1999 and I suspect one saved my life during lockdown. I've used a flashing rear light during daylight for about 10 years. I regularly see (and greet) 2 or 3 veteran road men riding without helmets - I think they're foolish but their life - their...

You might, just might, save 100g at most. Unless there's a BB unit that you know will do the job, in all honestly it's not worth the hassle.

We used to run Weinmanns much higher than that, more like 70-80psi. Tyres were the thing though, Michelin and Barums were great, gum wall Hutchinson were awful and would pop off just about any rim at really low pressures. I don't know how modern folding bead tyres would work on Weinmanns.

Staithes. When you go there you realise why Captain Cook was happy to sail to the other side of the world in something not much bigger than a rowing boat. Three times.

That is a thing of beauty.

An open window and a strategically positioned desk fan or a fan heater set on 'cold' can work wonders.

Single phase TIG machines are widely available - most, if not all that you'll come across in MachineMart, B&Q, Halfords etc will be. It's if you buy second hand that you have to take care what you're looking at. An extract fan or some other method of forced ventilation is pretty near essential.

All of the above. I honestly can't remember how long it took for me to treat gas work (welding/brazing) as anything other than worrying. I recall that I was better at it than others on my course but that was probably because I had quite extensive experience of end-feed soldering. I then bought...

I learned at college. As an 'all-rounder' part of an Electrical Engineering course we had a section (6 months I think) where we did workshop and mechanical training which included oxy welding and as what they thought an aside, brazing. By choice I spent my spare time for at least half that 6...

Bicycle-horse racing used to be quite popular. Back in the 1980s both Francesco Moser and Freddy Maertens rode exhibition races against harness racers. Can't find any trace of the Moser event on t'net but I remember seeing a picture in Cycling at the time. More info and a video of the Maertens...

Last time I saw one of those posters sell it went for over £600. Don't remember the exact figure but it would have been close to US$800 and it wasn't in mint condition by any stretch of the imagination.

It was Cinelli Cork that ripped when I tried correcting my wrap. Back when Benotto tape was the thing to use one of my bikes was wrapped with yellow and blue which even though I say it myself, looked something else. Think the only pictures I might have left of it will be black and white.

I haven't wrapped tape around the levers since I changed to dual-control back in 1999 because the hoods had tabs to lock into the levers. I've used Cinelli cork since then too, originally in white but more recently a much more sensible black. Having had cork tape wrecked in the past by the glue...

Wonder Wheels alloy wheel cleaner. It takes baked on brake dust off car alloys so it shouldn't be fazed by bike alloys. I'd test it on a small part first, just in case.

The slight round effect on one of the hex sockets suggests that it's one of the very rare metrinch versions.

That looks like it's been built using random parts found in boxes of junk. The brake levers look like Weinmann to me, the front Q/R skewer doesn't match the hub and why on earth haven't they cleaned all the sh*t from behind the spokes? And I'm not going to mention the paint job. Oh, go on then -...

We aren't allowed to pick over stuff at our sites (all two of them), especially not bike stuff as there's a bike shop in town that has a recycling contract (not a pun, as they recycle scrapped cycles) with the local authority.

I wrote a long post for this and then deleted it in favour of the short and simple. Plastic deforms - and 'plastic' is the property of a material to deform up to the point where it fails permanently. Doesn't matter what is embedded in epoxy, it doesn't change the fact that the stuff is plastic...