https://www.sigmasport.co.uk/app/Ima...y/MIO60CO2.jpg

I thought only triathletes bought those things - kind of people who put their water bottles where their seat bags should be and flat tire kit where their water bottles should be.

+1,000. CD's and iPods are great for convenience, but a well-pressed LP on a good turntable is simply the best. I've heard records played that, when I closed my eyes, made me swear that the Beatles or Pavarotti or [fill in the blank] were in the room with me. (Granted, they were being played through a sytem that cost more than any three cars I've owned, but still . . . .) CD's and iPods are terrific for good-sounding portability. But digital media simply does not have the same richness and fullness of a good LP.

It's true.

But weren't we talking about bikes and such?

I was in a bike shop while on a three day tour in early August, and the girl behind the counter was looking at me for a while, then asked (with a tinge of horror in her voice):

Is that a cotton jersey?

No, I said. It's wool.

The look on her face was beyond my powers to describe. Maybe she thought I said "steel wool"?

When I got caught in a downpour a few hours later, I was pretty glad to be wearing wool. Ditto two days later, when I rode about 100 miles in drenching rain.

So why'd you switch it from bar-cons to downtube shifters? :twitchy:

Post of the week. :roflmao:

I'm with you on everything but the Beatles reference. Their albums were in mono.

These kids today...


They aren't any dumber or less aware than we older people are. Their experiences and focus are simply different than ours. How could they not be, given all that's changed in the past 20-30 years?

I give mad props (if it's not too corny to say that) to anyone under 40 who hangs out here. We older guys (well mostly guys) are anachronisms, even though we're a bit fixated on things we grew up with. The younger enthusiasts here have taken the proverbial "path less traveled", before they even considered joining us as relics. It is reaffirming at a couple different levels.

I STRONGLY agree with you there, so many of my friends kids don't know how to hold a hammer, or use a wrench, cant blame the child if the parent don't take time to teach. Teaching & learning starts at home IMO the more someone knows the more they want to learn. Of course we all tend to leaarn about things we have a natural talent for, some people have a strong mech aptitud, some don't but one can never cultivate their talent if they don't TRY to learn new things to find out what all their talents are.

I think its sad when I tell a kid "righty tighty, lefty loosy" and he looks at me like I'm a martian, I mean no one else ever said this to him before in his life?

As far as the manual labor and tinkering goes, I think a lot of us have just spoiled our kids, in the name of good intentions, without realizing it. Many of us have more than our parents at the same age and don't realize how that affects us. One of my business partners wanted his son and a friend (18 yr olds) to dig holes to put up a dog pen. The kids had never used shovels before.

I can forgive a lot but that is a crime. :notamused:

My parents had 3 boys for a reason. YARD WORK.

Well, what won't they think of next? If you reverse mount those, can you puncture them for an extra power burst?

A good try, but not so fast, Zorro :)

No switching was done - all I started with was a frame & fork so I had to choose the direction from there. I considered using barcons from the broken donor bike that was the trigger for this Raleigh project, but they were in poor shape, so I opted for a clamp-on set of Suntour "Power Shifters" found, in good nick, for little outlay. I'd had a hankering for a bike with DT shifters for a while. You'll be horrified too, to learn that it is outfitted with 7 speeds - another donor bike hankover. I believe the resulting bike to have a quality and appearence something in keeping with it's origins.

Ed

How do you get those to stay in your ears?

When I'm the last person on earth able to fix a toilet, Bill Gates won't believe what it's gonna cost him to take a dump.

Well met response to an obtuse question. :thumb:

Having a '78 SuperCourse, your initial post prompted the inevitable "what downtube shifters?" from me. I was forced to solve the puzzle - which you so kindly provided the key pieces to.

I don't need to, there's enough real rms in the system that if need I can walk 50 yards down the road and still hear Peter Gabriel loud and crystal clear, no excess bass. Plus this massive powah serves to educate the masses as to what a proper sound system should be like. No, only kidding, I use the diamgnetic properties of copper to cause the speakers to levitate.

The neighbours let me get away with a lot because they enjoy having a madman who has a barnfull of old bikes, restores and rides them. Bikes, hifi, guitars, you name it, if it's vintage and people know that you are really passionate (not obsessed) about it, they'll get interested. If you take pleasure in pointing out what's changed over time, if you share a bit of general knowledge, people will like you. And accept you. And they'll tell you about themselves, or some interesting stories anyway. Oft as not, they'll keep a lookout for old bikes for you.

Beatles albums were released in both mono and stereo.

Sure you don't mean the Beach Boys?

Why would I want to listen to the Beach Boys?

I thought that they were all mono up to Sgt. Pepper.

Cheers!

Yup, luckily I'd done a little background research and found a good Raleigh resource on the net, which provided catalogue images and equipment specs - so I knew where you were coming from with that question :). The bike is great, moreover, being from Nottingham, UK myself, and now residing in California, I appreciate riding a bike that was made in my home county.

My reciever and one speaker can be seen here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/merc2dog...27808080180226

The other speaker was accross the garage at that time. Now they're both in the rafters, turntable, and cassette now reside in a dedicated cabinet.

I don't have mega bass, but the music is clean and clear and easily heard at both ends of the street if I decide to crank it. Normal levels is about 2, much louder and the neighbors have to turn their TVs up.


On the Beatles, most of their albums were available in stereo. What gets a lot of people is that the way many were mixed put vocals on one side, and the music on the other, so they sounded 'normal' if they were played in mono, and odd when played in stereo.

Ken.

Too much young people bashing on this thread. We old timers can complain all we want, in the end we'll all be gone and they'll carry on. Of course by then they'll be the old people complaining about the new young people. And so it goes.

I did have have a similar situation happen once though - a young lady was riding behind me for a while. Then she pulled up along side and looked at my bike and exclaimed as she noticed the shifters, "Oh, so that's why you kept reaching down". And she wasn't even that young, early 30's maybe.

Ok I have to engage in one tiny bit of you person bashing just 'cause this was really funny...when my son was in highschool he took Spanish. He was studying one day and looked at his book and there exercises to make sentences with "Yo quiero..." so I asked him to make up a sentence in Spanish to say, "I like large burritos". And he says he can't. So I ask why. I mean, I don't speak a word of Spanish but I know yo quiero Taco Bell so I figure he can just fill in burrito...and you know what he says? "I don't know the Spanish word for burrito" :twitchy:

OK, staying off-topic, my stereo (not surround-sound) is still powered by the Pioneer SX650 35-watt per channel receiver that I bought in 1977. And yes, it still sounds good, along with the Technics direct drive turntable.

There's been too much rain down here to go for a bike ride. Maybe I should go play a record.

I remember when my dad had to show my grandma how to use a push button telephone. She never really trusted it, though and tended to use the old dial one in the bedroom.

I remember my first cars - NOTHING electronic on them! Ignition points, electro mechanical voltage regulators, DC generators, carburetors...

Can you do long division? I had to teach my 17 year old that math myself.

A friend's son knows all the mysteries of a sophisticated cell phone, but can't read the hour on an analog clock. He's 15.