StreetCowboy

I am guessing you have more sense than money, but still enough money to replace the bikes if you have to. Assuming you also have plenty of time on your hands… Buy a new cassette and chain of the same number of rear cogs as you currently have. And a chain whip, and a socket to fit the cassette to remove it. And another one, until you get the right one. If it was a modern cassette, and you researched diligently on the internet, you might get it right first time. Buy new cables; consider buying new sheaths, if you really want to push the boat out; and a set of cable cutters, for the sheaths. If you don’t buy sheaths, clean the old ones by feeding string into the sheath so that as you draw the cable out, it pulls the string through. Don’t cut the string short, as it is going to come off, and you are going to have to pull it out the way it went in. Maybe you should’ve soaked it in petrol or meths first, as well. dismantle the derailleurs as far as you can be bothered, and soak them in petrol and scrub them with a nail brush. Your mother would tell you to wear marigold gloves while you are doing this, but then you wouldn’t be able to feel how clean they were. Leave everything to dry in the sun for the afternoon while you enjoy a beer, and come back to it the next morning. Fit back together again as much of it as you can remember, and still find. Put a drop of the heaviest oil you have on the cable sheaths and the end of the cable before you push them through. Fit the new sprocket and chain. Tinker and fettle until everything works fine, or frustration gets the better of you. Lubricate liberally, spin to work the oil in, wipe until there is no visible lubricant, and you’ll be good to go after refreshing your weary brow. Alternatively, if you have more money than any one of sense, perseverance or spare time, take it to a bike shop that has a pub nearby. They could do that four times faster than you could, and you can kid yourself that they did, even though it took one tenth of the time.

My buddy and I were discussing this very subject this afternoon, while undoing any health benefits we may have gained from our cycling. Would you rather be fit, or healthy? There are plenty of tales of athletes passing away on the sporting field, and there is no doubt that they are fitter than a butcher's dog, but my objective is to stay healthy until I die. Few amongst us want to live until we wish we were dead, and fewer still till our families wished we were dead. Now that my children are grown, I would rather die too soon than too late.

Black and white are just extreme shades of the same colour.

there is nothing worse tha... OK - I am not going to talk about the things that are worse, but suffice that it is quite embarrassing to accidentally take a wrong tuning out of one's hotel bathroom and find oneself in the corridor naked. I can imagine that is may be similarly embarrassing for a fellow guest to come across a naked person trying to get into their room, although my view was that it was laughably entertaining - albeit 30 years ago we were all much younger, and times may have changed. My experience is that any time you think to yourself "This could not be any worse", fate conspires momentarily to prove you wrong. So anyway, to respond to 1FO's comment above - lock it securely, and keep the key nearby on the way out.

That is a fair question. There is some doubt about whether our perception of reality is accurate. Harping back to the thread on "Tradition..." I would place my faith in existence, but I am a conservative, while you may be not.

"...only fish on Fridays"

Twains. We should not ridicule speech impediments but one of the fundamental principles is that there is an Up Line and a Down Line, and they are segregated, and any potential cross-over stops the opposite movement, and never the trains shall meet. Neither one of them (how can one train meet?) nor the twain.

There are two views on that. 1. It is fate, and you go when it is time to go. 2. What you do determines when you die. People with the latter view may be less likely to ride motor cycles through red lights, less likely to smoke or drink excessively - I don't have statistics on that.

Who can be bothered counting to 140? I reckon I have two feet of shirts hanging in the wardrobe. I can understand why blokes like that don't have time for cycling, but I reckon their fitness would improve if they spent less time counting their shirts and more time sweating in them.

I hate that; when your brother is bigger than you are, and you go through three years of secondary school with breeks flapping round your shoes and cuffs hanging over your hands. At least it hid the cigarette... SC

Disadvantaged people feeling left out because of commercial pressures applied to the affluent to make them spend more. The abuse of tradition by commercial enterprise. There are different ways of looking at the same circumstance, and Hallmark and the Salvation Army view Christmas differently. I hope I never have to rely on the Salvation Army, but I have much less confidence in Hallmark to help me out if times are hard.

Maybe it is because they do not live in trees. Or maybe because they do. Why are black people so creative and innovative? Why are priests and vicars so creative and innovative? Why are Nobel prize winners so creative and innovative? Why is the bloke that burgled my house so creative and innovative? Why is Jewish people singular, but other people are not? Why is the Jewish people singular when it is made up of so many individuals? If I had more answers than questions, I could have refuted my grandmother's allegation that people were becoming slower and denser, but as I decline into decreptitude, I cannot but concur that those younger than us, despite their tremendous scientific advances, are still unable to answer the most simple of questions, and the fault must lie with them. It is sadly unfortunate that there is not a young person that subscribes to this forum that could provide us with evidence of their increasing knowledge, wisdom and undensity. Or at least an antonym for density.

Back in the day, we did not have internet comments, and we had no way to plumb the depths of stupidity; we laughed when Einstein said “Nothing is infinite but space and stupidity; and we are not sure about space”. Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, and his observation about space, may be of little use in our mundane existences. But never under-estimate the depths of stupidity, quicksand or puddles. Or audits

I’d been struggling to find a route over 100 km that did not involve coming back up the North South Highway - not that we hadn’t enjoyed it last time, in the rain, after being escorted off the muddy construction road by the security guard minutes before the rain started; but traffic is heavier now, and the two junctions we would pass might be hazardous. Anyway, I found a route that Google Maps said was fine, though there was some complexity in the Southern reaches before we got to the dubious highway construction bridge… As if! Google Maps would take us there by this route - This was only about 5 km long, but this was the best part of it. Half as long would not have been an effort, but twice as long would have been tiresome. Some loops and misdirections in steadily worsening rain and I abandoned the construction bridge to a future exploration, and we got back to the pub just in time for our first cider.

And you would be worse off for it, because money will never give you the same self-righteousness as bitter resentments, no matter how ill-founded.

As I get older, I think the people around me are getting denser and dafter. My grandmother told me that forty years ago, but I was too dense and daft to understand. I expect I will have to go into a Home soon as well.

Everyone needs somewhere to sit

I would be drinking less; effect and cause are inextricably linked.

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£30 won’t even put a shilling in the meter nowadays.

You need to get out more; there is far worse twaddle to be read. Do you think you are short-tempered? Are you prone to sudden outbursts? Back in the day we tried to set up a thread for those that suffer from Tourette’s Syndrome, but I can understand how those lacking in patience may struggle to find it

Perpetrators are guilty. People who do not perpetrate crimes are not guilty.

It’s a new commuter railway built by State Railway of Thailand on their existing Right of Way. Back in the previous millennium, it was part of the super-ambitious Hopewell Scheme.

That's pretty evenly balanced

our modesty borders on the pitiful. SAS? Legionnaire? Why would you not claim it? The only time my bluff has been called was when I said I was a dalek, but I blagged my way through