New Carlton Thread

Quite right too! I always audition before I risk spending! The Arcam showed me the possibility of improvement, but before the deal is done, I'll audition further later in the year. It is as much an issue of presentation as absolute quality between the various options, and a home dem of the various options is absolutely essential to make the best decision!

A quite exciting prospect actually!

ATB from George

George,

I will bring mine over if you want.

Jono

Dear Jono,

That is a very kind offer! We'll fix it up when we can find a good time.

Thanks from George

One week on with riding the Carlton to work [2.7 miles each way], the benefits are showing with growing muscular strength and confidence. Monday I have my first intensive "physio" when I was supposed to be possibly allowed to use only one stick rather than two, and possibly mount the cycle. I am hopeful that they will discharge me from further physio after that. Being naturally shy and fiercely independent, I do not look forward to this one little bit. So I dicthed the sticks last Sunday, and it is a matter of determination to manage without.

I suspect that I may be totally discharged at the end of the month when I see the consultant. It will take longer till I can hop and run about, but there is no reason to take up these wonderful people's time when natural healing and determination will achieve the same result.

What was curious was how feather light the Carlton felt on first riding it, though I am used to it again now! It always surprises me how stable and comfortable it feels!

ATB from George

Great news! My upstairs neighbour has a Husky [Siberian] puppy! Noisy little man, but sweety pie as well! The little man fell for me as all dogs with character do!

My neighbour is happy that I can tollerate a Husky howl or a severl hundred.

So I guess a few Bach Fugues will be forgiven!

Had a great day watching the Draggon-boating on the river Severn at Worcester today, and covering the Carlton in mud racing the boats on the tow path!

ATB from George

A week on, today I did a pleasant ride out this afternoon. Nothing fast, but nice in the sun. On Wednesday, I should have my final consultation with the "bone doctor" unless he is worried, which is more than I am.

Last Monday I had my first [serious] physio appointment, and that only led to a nice conversation and measuring my knee movemnt, some serious pressing on the joint and thigh muscles, and was followed by the advice that I must not do my normal back strengthening weights incase the leg gave out!

Hopefully I'll be allowed to get on with getting better with only nature's assistance!

ATB from George

Till now I did not feel happy enough to post about my consultation last Wednesday.

The tibia has not kept to schedule in knitting up. Sure, it has started, and with the pins is certainly strong enough to use for weight bearing, but will-power alone cannot heal bones faster than they will.

I have another appointment in the last week of July.

This has been my first set-back, though not one that took more than a few days to get over.

The physio was more pleased with me than the bone doctor!

Well the lady physio was attractive at least!

Back on track for a longer period of recovery than first thought ...

ATB from George

Dear George,

Sorry to hear that your recovery is going to take longer than anticipated. The really important thing is to try not to get downhearted and to maintain a positive attitude. This I think is one of your great strengths anyway!

All will be well in the end I'm sure.

Best,

Peter

Dear Peter,

It's age! A fifty year old heals slower than a juvenile! Nothing to worry about, though as the leg gets stronger each week [muscular improvement], the aching is immense, and is probably going to go on longer than I had hoped. Never mind, it is not an impossible thing to recover in time.

Carlton news. Why would someone pinch a speedo costing less than a tenner? I always take my lights off when shopping, but what earthly use is a speedo without the wheel sender and wires?

People are odd.

But it does not matter, as I know what speed I could do at the best, and I am not there again! In the best situation I could just about break the urban speed limit, but have not yet even found the top cog since the crash!

ATB from George

Christ, George. Stop trying to convince yourself (and us) that you're old. There are guys just 10 years younger racing in the Tour. And crushing it. look at Jens Voight.

Besides....if you're old at 50, where does that leave me at 51?

Winky

Winky, re Jens do you read his blog on Bicycling?

http://bicycling.com/blogs/har...the-good-times-roll/

If anyone could ride the TDF at 50 it is Jens "shut up legs" Voigt, he is a monster.

Dear Winky,

Sorry about that! I am sure you are feeling younger than I do just now. Nothing like limping around for a month following six weeks on crutches to make a person feel at least their age!

I have cranked the old bike to over 20 mph though, but when I get off it is a different situation. 

The leg is getting stronger, but I am impatient with it now.

My work colleagues are actually being very kind, and loads of people have been calling by to see me, but I just want to be back to normal ... like yesterday!

I think it is at a time like this that you find out who cares enough to bother to enquire, and take the trouble to call, and it has been so nice to see people and talk to others on the phone, which might not otherwise have happened so soon if everything was normal! I have found that people are very kind, and that is a boost! 

ATB from George

Developments concerning the old cycle, and my new residence!

By Thursday I had caught the most ghastly cold, and that was that! You carry on feeling like rubbish.

I have fitted a new crankset to the Carlton. Campagnolo Super Record from 1980, and looking almost perfect. Nothing beyond the usual scruff marks on the arms. Threads and seats oily smooth. and it is a long arm set. 175 mm strada [arm length] , and this is not to get more speed. I am past creating records on that front! But it makes the start even easier, which is useful as I am working back to powering with two legs from about one-point-three!

It is a blissfully relaxed ride though no one should expect me to have the traditionally correct high cadence with this sort of touring crankset!

Well after a weekend of disrupted sleep, this evening the energy returned, and I have been sorting out the parade here in the flat. Winston the Guinnee Pig is now happily in the front room, taking over from boxes of books and general saved rubbish from my past life! In fact I have been throwing old paperwork away for a few weeks now. Correspondence with dead family members is pointless to keep once the other party has died! In fact it is cathartic to finally bury history ...

The insurance have offered an interim payment on the case, as it is clearly going to be months from now before any reasonable guess at the prognosis of my knee/tibia injuries can be satisfactorily made.

So the cycle wheel will be paid for and the bus pass. Obviosly it is a small thing because when there is no money to spend, then few costs actually accumulate!

I am nearly back to full movement in my knee, though as it gets stronger, so it also aches so strongly from time to time. Not the kind of agony that was initially the case before the opperation, but a sort of deep pain from inside that can be like as if a knife had been inserted and turned a bit. Very wearying ....

ATB from George

PS: Some little magpie pinched my speedometer. As this was a very simply wired thing, I never felt the need to remove it when i took the lights off, as it is hardly worth the candle, but someone pinched it, but without the wiring, so it is useless anyway! This world is not only populated by a small proportion of dishonest folk, but these folk are also rather thick!

A nice youtube film that I found, about a fairly eccentric Englishman, who had a bike built!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZtHFxIs6so

ATB from George

That's Rob Penn. He has also written an excellent book called "It's all about the bike"

George,

I have a copy of the Rob Penn book I can lend you next time I am over.

Jono

Dear Jono,

I'll enjoy the book!

Any weekend from the next fortnight on! We fix this up on the phone ...

There was a reference to the Brookes saddle in the "vid" that suggested it gets better by the year! Well mine is almost a year old now, and if it is going to get better then i have an imagination to feed! 

Among the pains in the ar** that cyclist face is the wet ar** on a rainy day of which we have had an un-seasonable number lately. But one never gets a wet ar** from a Brookes! It absorbs to wet and one remains comfortably dry in the nether regions!

And it supports like nothing else once it has shaped itself to one's individual backside profile!

Okay, it is true to say that the first three months were fairly not comfortable, but this is a breeze compared to the longer run. 

And a small mark on leather is no ruin. It smoothes down again and simply adds a sense of patina. Vinyl, plastic, and a leather cover over foam simply looks knackered with damage! Plain leather looks almost nicer for some sign of wear! And is the most comfortable, because nothing yields so nicely to the bumps without actually being too flexible and so ruining the sinse of connection with the cycle ...

ATB from George

I have been thinking that when the medical insurance thing is settled - probably in the long distant future - that I'll get Argos Racing Cycles in Bristol to make a bespoke tourer for me. 28mm on 700c wheels with Schalbe Marathon tyres, and good mudguards, .... , and a Rohloff gear hub, with the rest being contemporary Campgnolo running gear. Brooks B 17 saddle of course!! And enameled GPO red, which is one of the colours they do in the toughest enamel, rather than the usual paint. 

Though many friends and family have begged me to get a motor car again, I know that I cannot bring myself to do that. but if a I get a strong touring type cycle [with no drop handle bar] and mount it on good almost puncture-proof tyres, then I can avoid the roads far more than the Carlton allows.

Argos will obviously fit the frame dimensions to me, so the bike will be ideal as a fit and for my style. If it is a success, I can see the Carlton being cleaned up and hung on the wall!

ATB from George

That is an excellent idea. I commute on a 28mm tyred tourer in the winter. Super reliable. Those Schwalbe marathon tyres are classics too. You can go pretty much anywhere on a bike like that, as you say. Get disc brakes if you can. Much better in the wet (unlike Brooks saddles ).

What Winky says about disc brakes George - I know you don't like them, but they do work.

Disc brakes on a cycle?

If I get a first quality cycle made, I have to consider the long term serviceability of it. I would want it to be suitable to last with constant use for twenty years till I am seventy. Of course the Carlton has already exceeded this time with me and its first owner. In the last three years I have completely brought the old cycle back to the topline, and probably better than new with finer running gear than it was originally fitted. The trouble with disc brakes is not their functionality, but how long they would be serviceable. The calipers brakes on the Carlton are Campagnolo "Gran Sport" short reach, and are as precise and effective - very effective - as any brake on a cycle I have come across even though they were withdrawn from production in the 1960s when the Super Record Series took over as the topline of Campagnolo.

Also sometimes getting wheels in and out can be a right pain with discs. I have a little maintenance job on a work colleague's cycle, and this is a low end MTB, though I pursuaded him to get some Schwable tyres without the knobbly bits to make it better for his commute. The disc brakes on that are diabolical. They work fine, but they can be very awkward if you have to take the wheels out.

And how long will suitable disc brake pads be available for any given model nowadays? We live in a world of in-built obsolescence, and there are new models for each season. Apparently there are hundreds of different and incompatible systems. It is a bloody nightmare.

Any suggestions for disc brakes of the quality and long term serviceability of say Campagnolo would be most welcome at this planning stage.

The Rohloff hub is available with suitable mounts for a disc brake.

ATB from George

Campagnolo Gran Sport was the group-set on my first half-decent bike in 1984. Brakes have moved on a long way from then. Present day Dual-pivot Dura Ace or Campy Super Record leave them for dead.

But NO caliper brakes work as well in the wet as discs. Discs also won't wear out your rims like caliper brakes do in the wet.

If you're worried about pad availability, stock up on 50 years' worth when you buy the brakes. The Avid cable-operated discs are dead simple. Really no more complex than calipers. You don't have to worry about the pads being ejected when the wheel is removed or seal etc. They have some bearings in them, and a cable and that's it.

To be fair, the disc system will be heavier unless you go spending silly money.

Dear Winki,

So long as the proposed cycle does not emerge as a heavy-weight then I am not out for the lightest possible at any price.

I hope for something lightish-to middle weight, with a very long service life without the need for a major refit, during my life as much as its! As for gentle TLC, or even a big rebuild, I enjoy that. Bit like some people like fiddling permanently with an LP 12, and that would drive me crazy!

Point taken about the brakes. Simply get enough brake pads to last say 2000 miles a year for twenty years. 

Before some little magpie half-inched my speedometer a month ago, I had done 1600 miles in nine months on the Carlton - more than a similar period of running my old Volvo. That was a something that could easily be exceeded, if I had a cycle was was easier [and gripped better] in the less pleasant weather than the Carlton. On the other hand I tend not to ride on the brake very much. 

Seems a shame to waste too much effort getting up to a speed and then loose it all to the heat of brake friction!

I took the same approach with my old Volvo 240, and used to get what the local Volvo dealership thought wre nigh incredible fuel consumption results. It was a good discipline to plan ahead - watching the road and not accelerating up to a que or the traffic lights ... 

Sad to say that I have lost my nerve with the Carlton. I'll be fitting one of those handle-bar mirrors to anything new now, even if they look pathetic! I'd rather be pathetically alive than macho-dead! It scares me what the cars are doing in front - pulling out of junctions or leaving the parking bays, but the ones that are really bad are the ones coming from behind that you cannot see till you see the wing mirror virtually touching the handle-bars! I'd like to know what is going on behind!

ATB from George

Pictures added on behalf of George.

Thanks George!

The pictures are scenes by the River Severn, on my ride out this morning exploring my new route to work, avoiding roads!

No roads as such at all this way! No bloody cars either, and the path is now tarmac, rather than cinder, so no reason for a problem with the Carlton!

I started out at quarter to five and ambled about for an hour plus! Lovely at that time of day ...

Afterwards, I had a traditional English  breakfast in The Crown, which is a Wetherspoon, for the princely sum of four earth pounds including a nice big mug of tea!

ATB from George

PS: The Super Record long arm cranks look nice on the cycle don't they!