Dirt Tracker

he 2020 Tour de France, scheduled to start in Nice on Saturday, is edging closer to collapse after the Alpes-Maritimes region, site of the opening stages of the race, was placed on red alert owing to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/aug/27/tour-de-france-in-doubt-after-covid-red-alert-issued-before-grand-depart-in-nice

I bought a set of the Flow / Hopes at CWC and they have been great so far. For that price I think it's a bargain. They are hand built in house and I've put them through some tough stuff and they have come out fine. You will get some people saying the spokes aren't double butted, brass nipples etc but from my experience they are none the less for it. One benefit to think of is the Hope hubs are very reliable and you can get all the spares you need easily so should last long enough to rebuild with different rims if you want in a couple of years. Edit: The Lyne and the Rapide are also really, really good wheels. I've got a set of the Lynes on a different bike and for the price are just great. I think out of the options you have you're not going to make a bad decision.

All the talk has been around stage 2 being the hard one. Do you think the main players will come out and show themselves so early following such a difficult first page as well?

Seems odd. They are usually amazingly helpful and efficient.

I had a card that was due to expire on the 20 March and they said it's only if your card was valid on or after 26th (I think).

The green jersey hasn’t been a sprinters prize for many years and I don’t think it will really be again. Would be nice if they actually had a sprinters jersey but the tour at least seems to want to knock off time trials and the art of the fast men as it’s not tv friendly enough. I was looking at the sprinters stages as more of a recovery chance for him. This years course is relentless and to duel it out for points with the constantly lumpy to down right hideous profiles in the tour this year and then kick onto the giro. Brutal.

Fair enough that is a hell of a workload especially with only 2 real sprinters days in this years tour.

I’m off the pace here. I thought Sagan was headed to the Giro, how did I miss that.

Pink bike podcast is all about the hardtails this episode. https://www.pinkbike.com/news/the-pinkbike-podcast-episode-19-hardtail.html

Maybe they are looking at a few stems, maybe they bought a different one. Maybe it was too expensive. Maybe it was too cheap. Maybe they just wanted to know. Trying to second guess the motives of that many people seems like worm hole not to go down. I guess you could message them and ask them but seems like a hack.

I'd guess people are asking that because quite often there are ads up where the item is sold and the seller hasn't taken it down for what ever reason or just marked it as sold. I also ask if it's still available as it might be in hold for someone, it might be being viewed, the seller might be waiting for payment. It also might be an advert that is a few days / weeks old so it may be for sale or it might be sold and the seller didn't update anything. Out of interest what is the annoyance of people asking 'if it's available?'. Is it that they don't come back with a 'thanks for letting me know' or something else? I'm guessing people ask if it's still available and then have a think about it and decide not to pursue it any further or get something else. I guess it's like me buying a new TV today. I called 5 different places, asked if the one i wanted was instock then bought from one of them. I didn't call them back and tell them I'd decided to go with someone else. Got the info, made a choice. When I sell I get a lot of the same messages as well as the usual sob stories, no replies to detailed response messages and low ball offers but truthfully it doesn't really derail my day. It's part and parcel. Different people do different things and act in different ways for different reasons. I can only control what I do. I try to reply to all messages and go the route of 'Thanks but the price is good' or 'sorry to hear that but I'm pretty set on the price' etc rather than spit the dummy as some people do, taking it a personal insult. Not saying you do but you see some raging opinions in the various classifieds threads.

Landa not going to do his trademark ‘ship 5 min in the first week and then fight valiantly to make up the difference and get achingly close with a confused look’?

There is a new ‘positive’ now that everyone fears!

Just saw Larry Warbasse tested positive for covid at Il Lombardia but is symptom free.

A super Dom role for a bit as well as chances with a strong team around him for things like Lombardia and week long races. He is a different kind of rider to his brother and probably he sees chances to progress with tie coaching set up. He has GC ambitions but is stuck between the new generation crashing the scene and the leaving of the old order that him and Simon were understuding for. He’s kind of stagnated at MS recently. Sky wanted one of them back before they signed for the Australian team, not sure which it was though. Ineos are looking a bit Brit light at the moment with the leaving of Froome, Teo still a work in progress and Thomas getting older and only 1 season left. The future has been anointed as Bernal, Carapaz and Siv’ but Jim Radcliffe being the champion of British sporting endeavor will want some English figure head for the team.

Don’t think that will work with the GCN app, the iPlayer app and Eurosport app as it’s only really effective at the browser layer isn’t it.

There was a 50% off offer some where and I got it for £19.99 odd. My VPN does bring the overall speed to me device quite alot if you do a couple of speed tests but at the same time its not affected the streaming.

Pretty much on the money there. Only thing is GCN will take your money with what ever card you have.

I'm running ExpressVPN and it works well. Good live support and has solved the issues with BBC player the were making me think twice. Does what it's supposed to and that is all I can ask really. GCN are tied in with Eurosport. It's stated on their apps and it seems Euro might have a stake in the GCN group now.

Italy and Spain is seeing a very big increase as well. I think we'll be lucky to get through this season without it being shut down and infections in the peloton / teams.

Supersport Tiz Steephill I coughed up the subscription for the GCN app as I already have a VPN. Works great ad haven't had it stop, buffer or delay once. Yes it costs but for all the races so far this season and 3 grand tours I think it's a good deal especially as it does't have any adverts and won't hang as they come under the flame Rouge and kick back in once the guys are on the podium. Thing is have Supersport and decided to go with GCN!

This is the only way I've really understood it.

Did you get any joy for this headset? I'm looking for the same and iziko haven't bothered to get back to me so am looking at options / costs.

Words of the wise. Thank you. Too much to over think for sure. I'm very much of the 'buy it because you liked the look of it. Ride it. Like it - keep it. Don't like it - sell it. Could be awesome for someone else' school of thought. No idea why I started to worry about all these things now. I blame the geo thread. Just read back my post and stopped at 66.5. Seems good, strap on a fork. Delete the rest.

Wondering if I can get some opinions on a new frame I'm getting and how the geo might change with some decisions and equipment I'm planning on building it up with. Frame is an 2018 Orange P7 with the following geometry: - HA: 66.5 - Seat Angle: 74 - TT: 622 - Effective TT: 620 - BB from ground: 310 - Chainstay: 445 - Wheelbase: 1181 - Reach: 434 - Stack: 648 Recommended Fork: 130mm / Guessing it's a 51mm offset What I'm planning on using with this is: - Fork: 140mm / 46mm offset - Cranks: 165mm Things that are going around my head on this are: - I know that the HTA will steepen in sag but will that be offset with the longer fork I'm planning on running? - I'm looking at running a 140 instead of a 130 on this hardtail as I really like that length and tend to have my forks set up to run a little deeper with a lot more ramp up. - What will that trade off do to the BB height? Finally I was thinking of getting a Works Components angle offset headset to slacken it out a little as they are pretty well prices but they come in 1, 1.5 and 2 degree options and they use double external cups. I'm getting really confused with how everything is going to wash up in the end. I know there are some people on better pay grades than me that will know this stuff so I am hoping they will give me some direction. Half of me thinks just strap it all together, forget the headset and ride it as I'm not skilled enough to notice I'm running a flat so good luck.