Malmesbury Bikes

I know it’s not cycling, but my Mizuno Wave Harrier trail shoes have saved me from several ungainly falls over the winter in the mud and snow. Check out a review here.

Your pedals wobble and it’s not a loose crank, so it’s probably the bottom bracket (it’s “BB” in cycle-shorthand) – what do you do:

A – keep pedaling until something catastrophic happens.

B – panic and call the local bike shop.

C – fix it yourself.

When it happened to my old MTB last year I chose option “B”, which in hindsight was probably right, as they had to use a lot of heat to get the old BB out and then respray the frame to get it back together, all for the original quote.

But when my Cannondale hybrid BB started to wobble a few weeks back I went for option “C”. I’ll let Sheldon Brown explain some of the intricacies about bottom brackets – suffice to say that for the majority of Shimano-equipped bikes, the BB will have a standard diameter, so all you need to measure are the width of the bottom bracket housing and the width of the spindle to ascertain what size to order. Alternatively you can just take the old one out and check what’s written on the inside of the BB.

Removing a bottom bracket is where the panic is likely to set in, but rest assured it’s really easy. You will need the Shimano BB tool, which costs about £12, and a very large adjustable spanner (or plumber’s wrench), but once you’ve got those the job is really easy.

There’s a small caveat – if the bottom bracket has never been changed and/or the bike’s had a hard life, then this job could be considerably harder, involved copious quantities of WD40 to loosen the threads… but then, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The bottom bracket on the Cannondale Adventure (hybrid) started to get a bit wobbly a few weeks back. I’ve now got a frame stripped of everything apart from the forks, a tray of old dirty parts, a bin of old knackered parts and a box of new parts (including new cyclocross tyres).

The plan is to get it back together for the end of April… famous last words?

“I wore the sack for about three hours and never really noticed it was there”. . .  read more here.

Managed to get the bike out on Friday. The roads outside were treacherous, but I needed to drop down to school and it seemed a good chance to test the bike. All went well down the hill but, whether the freewheel is a bit stiff or the temperatures got it, once I hit the flat the pedals spun without turning the wheels - which made for a walk back up the hill. . .  ho hum.

Anyway, it proved that there would have been enough grip to cycle properly - I didn’t crash for a change - and the new Wellgo V8 flat pedals worked a dream.

Time to get the site updated regularly again… it’s been a busy few months, with a long commute. The commute’s still long, but I want to resurrect the site for the Spring.

The weather was dire earlier. . .  heavy rain and a gusty wind. . .  but I much prefer being out in extremes of weather, so it was a good run out over the Water Meadows to Cow Bridge and back into twon along the old railway.

The run felt pretty good - I was forced to walk for a while to get past a herd of heifers (male cows), as my yellow Gore jacket was attracting some of their attention. But the rest of the run was pretty painless and I was able to have a sensible conversation with Richard at Leonard Walker butchers, when I stopped to get a chicken for tonight’s tea.

The run back home was then like a strange rugby training session, with a good sized chicken tucked under one arm like a heavy-weight rugby ball.

Check out other triathlon-training sessions on the Tri page.

Bradley Wiggins climbed like a demon yesterday, leaving Lance Armstrong trailing on the way to Verbier, and put himself into third place in the overall GC of Le Tour. He’s only nine seconds behind Lance, so while there’s a very good chance he’ll be on the podium, there’s a distinct possibility that he’ll actually be second!

As for Cav, he seems to have been the victim of a ‘Thor-strop’, but the coverage is really light online. I would have expected there to have been an outcry about the decision to disqualify him from Saturday’s stage, but I had to dig really deep to find the details. Not good. . .  but he’ll get the points back and take the green jersey off of Thor in Paris on Sunday.

I’ve added a page dedicated to the Malmesbury Peleton - if you’re interested in regular rides out from Malmesbury give us a call. We get out most Sundays on mountain bikes or racers/hybrids - all depends on the weather. Today the weather was truly horrendous, but it was a fantastic run out around the Fosse Way and back in across the Common - wet, muddy, but blew the cobwebs away.

Bradley Wiggins has very neatly demonstrated the obvious by losing around 8 kilos in weight, since last years’ Beijing triumphs, and has turned himself into a capable montain climber. He’s moved up to fourth in the General Classification (GC) and stays in a group with Andreas Kloden and Tony Martin between 45 and 60 seconds behind the yellow jersey. It was pleasant, albeit slightly suprising, to see Ricardo Nocentini staying in yellow - he been there for a week and should last today before the peloton hit the Alps.

It was reassuring to see all of the riders wearing rain-jackets today, they suddenly looked like normal cyclists, it was just like a busy Friday afternoon commute up Lansdowne Hill.