News / Tech Corner

  Bent Frame Spotting*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#83) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. When the ancient Egyptians were laying out the great pyramid at Giza over four and a half thousand years ago they had little more than bits of wood and string to help them lay it out. And […]
  Click, click, click..*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#82) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. Click click click. Or if you are running certain cassette hubs; CLICK CLICK BASTARD CLICK CLICK CLICK, or even CKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKCK. Some people seem to like a really loud click when they freewheel, some people hate it. Personally […]
  Living in a Material World…*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#81) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. “Supertherm or Ox platinum? T45 or Reynolds 853? Sanko or Tange? What’s it all about?” Yep, several people have been foolish enough to ask me to write a tech column on all the “fancy” tubes that companies […]
  Handlebars*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#80) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. Handlebars, Bars, Steering wings. Call them what you like we all need them. Personally I always find changing bars to be a bit of an ordeal. Not just because I have to wrestle the grips on and […]
  Bottom Brackets AGAIN!!!*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#79) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. Once again I find myself writing about bottom brackets. Bollocks. I really don’t want to get labelled as some kind of obsessive dude who only thinks about bottom brackets all day long, yet I don’t seem to have […]
  Flying Tonight?*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#78) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK.   Nobody really likes public transport. We would all rather drive ourselves to our destination. Door to door with our own timetable and agenda. Unfortunately there is a flip side to this. I am not talking about […]
  Bottom Bracket Compendium*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#77) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. You may remember that 2 years ago in issue 58 I wrote about the new Euro Bottom brackets that were starting to pop up on some frames. I also predicted that there would be some other new […]
  Steering Geometry*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#76) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. Someone requested that I do a tech column on head angles and steering geometry. I wasn’t sure at first if this was a worthwhile subject, after all, there isn’t that much variation available is there? Most frames […]
  Three Piece Crank Fitting*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#75) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. Once again I find myself sitting in front of the computer wondering how to start my tech column. Every few seconds I turn my head to look out the window for inspiration… or is it distraction.
  They’re playing R-Tune… (groan)*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#74) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. The progress of civilisation is based upon one thing above all others, Albert Einstein put it very well when he said that “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the […]
  What the hell is a Hidden Headset?*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#73) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. What the hell is a Hidden Headset? Good question. And surprisingly hard to answer. Fifteen years go when I became a born-again BMXer, headsets were utter utter shite. You had two choices, a Tioga Beartrap in a […]
  Avoid bicycle maintenance bloodlust*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#72) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. A few months ago I did a tech column moaning about how the parts for your bike often don’t fit together very well, hopefully some people found it interesting but I later realised that it wasn’t a […]