Saccy, you need to keep a few spares lying around. Even the crappiest crap bike shop 1/2 price special tire would be golden to you right now. But I feel your pain, as I may have to wait for a crank arm to ride the tandem again. Oh, I saw a 486 and was rather impressed. I may have to stop giving you heaps about yours. Hmmmm. Not likely, but good luck with the new chook.

Yeah, I could have had a ****ter actually, but I turned it down. Assumed I could find a store open somewhere. Wont make that mistake again. Think I'll get on the intarweb and order 4 of the things after this debarcle.

As for the chook, thanks. She claims she doesn't like bikes which is a worry. And she also claims she doesn't want a relationship. But I'll see to both of those.

BTW, you'll learn to love the plastic one day, I tell ya. It's inevitable.

Doesn't like bikes?! Drop her at once. As far as plastic, here's a tasty bit.

[edit] Just noticed this frame weighs nearly a whole kilo more than our frame. Who knew pastic would weigh that much more than titanium?

Awards 2004 - Ugliest use of carbon fibre technology, hands down winner.

Sadly can't buy beer so it's a quiet one tonite

So I guess I'll be there on time. Bring water, it will be getting hot (min 21 overnight) by the time we head for home.

Can't buy beer???!!

There's almost as many bottle shops around here as there is bike shops

We've even got a few 24 hr bottle-ohs

W-H-A-T????!!!! Even down here an backwards old Tasmania, we can get to a bottleshop at this time of the night and get satisfaction.

Ya gotta plan ahead, rocky.

What, no Aussies around in over 16 hours?

Where are you boys today? Getting over your hangovers still?

Koffee

The Cricket's on

Aus vs Pakistan

Oops. My bad.

Koffee

P.S. That's a pretty long game too!

Koffee

also great cycling weather (as usual): low to mid 70s and sunny in Melbourne and Sydney

ooohhhh my head!.......I found out WAY to late that the contents of a 15 "C**k sucking cowboy" shooter thingies do not go well with a slab of crownies & 1/2 bottle of Johnnie walker!...who knew?....think I'll go back to bed!

Hitchy

Ahhh CSC's, sooo easy to drink, soo dusgusting to throw up.

Season's greetings folks!! Been all over the country side and have ridden the bike once in 4 weeks. My lumpy riding jersey is even more lumpier.

Hitchy, I loaded up the Trek with the Conti Attacks...very happy with the purchase. it seems to role much more easily. A pity my ride to Frankston this morning still had me wanting to chuck by the time I got to Patto river. The cardio's needs some work.

I took the new singlespeed out yesterday, which is a testament to how little booze I chugged on NYE. Still destroyed my knees though - riding singlespeeds and digging big holes in the back yard don't mix. What a convenient excuse!

Rule number 1, Hitchy - Never start drinking milky drinks after drinking beer, or anything else for that matter. Recipe for disaster. Which you should know by now, right?

My road mileage for '04 is only a smidge over 3,000kms......but I only started road riding in August and I'm a lazy barrrrstid.

Anyone watch Cycling Central today? Naturally it was boring as hell, but at least the interview with Cadel was interesting. He's riding for Lotto Davitamon or whoever this season, so let's hope he makes a show at the tour this year.

Since I ride a mountain bike, I don't have any impressive Km's to post. Can I post my air miles instead? Tonight we decided to see if the pedal would stay in the stripped crank, and did our first night ride to the beach. Just got home. Looks like a good start to the new year.

Yeah same here, except this year the state government went all Catholic and decided that hardly anyone could be open on 25, 26, 27 Dec or 1, 2, 3 Jan. That included supermarkets, bottleshops and even the scummiest of pubs in Maitland I searched long and hard but to no avail. THEN my wife tells me (last night at 9:00pm!) that my mum and dad gave me half a case of beer for xmas. DOH!!!!!

Whoa!!! That is one smooooooth avitar Koffee Congratulations on an excellent selection.

So, you killed her, right?

No, I put some of the beer on ice and drank it. Let me say right now that I don't condone violence against women in any form, especially my wife who (unfortunately) has to put up with me.

Some competition for South Park tonight - Altered Statesmen on ABC at 8:30. If you're into the insane world of American Presidents (sex, drugs, insanity, movie stars, etc.)

Farkin 'ell. Had a crazy hankerin to ride 50 km into a 50 degree howling westerly to see the (hopefully) new lady. Tried breaking in to the two bike shops in town to pinch a tire for my bike but my burgularly skills are lacking sadly. As a last resort I was talking to an old riding mate, who told me he had an old orange Kenda Koncept tire in my size that had been sitting in his shed for a couple of years. Good mate that he was, he sold it to me for $20 (what was I thinking?) so pay the extortion and home I take it. The thing was so old riggormortis had set in, the thing was so stiff to handle. Putting it on the rim, bits of rubber with the consistency of sand were falling off around the bead as I was levering it on. But on I got it, blew it up to 110 and off I set. And fark me!!!! WHAT A TIRE!!! The thing rolls like a dream and rides the **** roads heaps better than what came on the bike. I'd been on half that ride once before and it's a real teeth rattler. But this tire smoothed it out a crazy amount. Riding into the 50 degree gale up about 300 vertical meters (excluding normal up and down stuff) almost killed me though. Most misearble ride I've ever been on. I was in a state when I got to my ladies house. Lovely girl took care of me, ignored my salt stained and undoubedly stinking self and let me sit on her couch to recover while watching the Will and Grace marathon... only to promptly send me home once I was coherant. What a gal! I think I'm in love.

Hey quick noob question. Took the old blown out tire off, and I had a terrible time getting the tube out of it. The tube had stuck almost solid to it like it was glued in. Is this a common thing with the orginal tires on new bikes? Could it have caused my bulged and blown out tire?

Fairly common when you get rubber pressed against rubber over a period of time/heat. Good qaul tubes come with a coating of talc. If your tubes don't have a talc coating you can put some baby powder on yourself before mounting them on the rim.

Your bulge is caused by something else!

Slightly humorous https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycling/81622-think-i-just-broke-my-bike.html, but not as funny as Hayden's calculated risk.

Never seen it in all my years of mountain biking, I guess because I did precisely that (put talc in). Pretty bloody hopeless for a manufacturer to ship a bike like that. Or is it the bike shop that mounts the tires.

Well it seems all my bulges are unappreciated at the minute.

:confused: