SPDs and falling off!

Tony Raven sd / msg
dtd Sat, 15 Oct 2005 21:09:23 +0100:

When I were a wee lad our family car was the original Bond. The front
wheel would turn 360 so reverse was turn the wheel backwards and engage
first gear! On (not so) steep hills we would all have to get out and
walk up as it wouldn't make it with the weight of us all. Eventually my
sister and I grew so that our knees were hitting (the rear seats were
sideways) so it was traded in for a Fiat 500 which had more room!

I recall that in my formative years the family Mini van had a battery
which was long past its sell-by date. On any morning with
temperatures below balmy it required bump-starting, and sisters and I
would then pile into a slowly-moving van through the front passenger
door.

Years later I took the van (with the same battery) to Uni, and
routinely had to bump it in the car park (Tony, Bencraft Court, next
to the Crem on Bassett Green Road), which had a convenient slope for
the purpose. Push out of parking space, turn down hill, shove gently
to get rolling, hop in, wait for speed to build up, select first, drop
clutch, and the engine always caught first time. No problem, and
years of experience had left me thinking this was, if not perhaps
perfectly normal, at least not especially unusual.

One day I did this and Reiner Schmitz, the girlfriend-stealing runty
German with the V6 Capri automatic, laughed at me. As I turned round
he got in his car, turned the key and... Nothing. Can you bump an
automatic? No. Was I in too much of a hurry to stop and help? So it
was stated at the time, m'lud, but my memory is clouded now*. Net
result: exeunt Chapman stage right laughing and waving.

I have a picture of that old van here somewhere... Ah yes:
url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/web/public.nsf/Documents/Harold_the_Barrel.
I think that might also reveal something about my taste in music
(although I freely admit that the van has never, to my knowledge, been
to Bognor, let alone owned a restaurant there).

* Is it ********! I had loads of time :-)

Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

I have a picture of that old van here somewhere... Ah yes:
url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/web/public.nsf/Documents/Harold_the_Barrel.
I think that might also reveal something about my taste in music
(although I freely admit that the van has never, to my knowledge, been
to Bognor, let alone owned a restaurant there).


Did it have the pressed steel grille? A real challenge when you wanted
to change the oil filter

--
Tony

"I did make a mistake once - I thought I'd made a mistake but I hadn't"
Anon

Tony Raven sd / msg
dtd Sat, 15 Oct 2005 21:47:30 +0100:

I have a picture of that old van here somewhere... Ah yes:
url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/web/public.nsf/Documents/Harold_the_Barrel.
I think that might also reveal something about my taste in music
(although I freely admit that the van has never, to my knowledge, been
to Bognor, let alone owned a restaurant there).

Did it have the pressed steel grille? A real challenge when you wanted
to change the oil filter

By the time PCH Chidzhey and his Cortina had finished with it it had a
plastic flip-front - very easy access for everything in front of the
lump and engine-out in 20 minutes for the rest.

But the old van had the pressed steel grille (also the
replaceable-element filter, which was accessible from below OK; it was
the cartridge type which was the real pain IIRC).

Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 20:35:25 +0100, "Tony W"
wrote:


"Kenneth Miles" wrote in message
. uk...
Keith Midgley wrote:
I had been considering switching from platform pedals to SPDs for
sometime
but was put off by all the postings about the seemingly compulsory
"falling off".

I finally took the plunge on Wednesday and tonight when leaving work I
fell off - am I now exempt for life, or can I expect further
embarrassment
in the future?

Keith failing to unclip in time :-(

When you are used to them and think you wont fall off again, thats when
you will.

Oh yes!!


Thought that might be the case. I think Fridays fall was from an excess of
confidence :-(

K.

"Just zis Guy, you know?" wrote in message
...
Tony Raven sd / msg
dtd Sat, 15 Oct 2005 21:09:23 +0100:

When I were a wee lad our family car was the original Bond. The front
wheel would turn 360 so reverse was turn the wheel backwards and engage
first gear! On (not so) steep hills we would all have to get out and
walk up as it wouldn't make it with the weight of us all. Eventually my
sister and I grew so that our knees were hitting (the rear seats were
sideways) so it was traded in for a Fiat 500 which had more room!

I recall that in my formative years the family Mini van had a battery
which was long past its sell-by date. On any morning with
temperatures below balmy it required bump-starting, and sisters and I
would then pile into a slowly-moving van through the front passenger
door.

Years later I took the van (with the same battery) to Uni, and
routinely had to bump it in the car park (Tony, Bencraft Court, next
to the Crem on Bassett Green Road), which had a convenient slope for
the purpose. Push out of parking space, turn down hill, shove gently
to get rolling, hop in, wait for speed to build up, select first, drop
clutch, and the engine always caught first time. No problem, and
years of experience had left me thinking this was, if not perhaps
perfectly normal, at least not especially unusual.

One day I did this and Reiner Schmitz, the girlfriend-stealing runty
German with the V6 Capri automatic, laughed at me. As I turned round
he got in his car, turned the key and... Nothing. Can you bump an
automatic? No. Was I in too much of a hurry to stop and help? So it
was stated at the time, m'lud, but my memory is clouded now*. Net
result: exeunt Chapman stage right laughing and waving.

I have a picture of that old van here somewhere... Ah yes:
url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/web/public.nsf/Documents/Harold_the_Barrel.
I think that might also reveal something about my taste in music
(although I freely admit that the van has never, to my knowledge, been
to Bognor, let alone owned a restaurant there).

* Is it ********! I had loads of time :-)

Ummm. Remember BGR but not Bencraft Court -- but then I was in Soton some
years earlier.

Ran a Mk 2 Cortina with a dead battery for several weeks by judicious
parking at the tops of slopes.

My mini van (clubman estate actually) was wonderful. Took an entire
electronics lab and kit for a three month stay plus two girls (for a 10 day
stay) to Luneberg and still had room for -- well not much actually. It
could swallow copious amounts of jumble -- including large chairs that would
not fit in a big Rover owned by she who organised jumbles'

Cycling content zero :~(

T

"Keith Midgley" wrote in message
...

Thought that might be the case. I think Fridays fall was from an excess of
confidence :-(

They always say that pride comes before the fall.

At 67 I converted to SPD last October. Day 1 I fell off 3 times, day 2 once.
Day 2 was the most embarrassing. I just coasted up to some traffic lights
and just forgot about the SPD's. As I stopped I just tippled over to the
left -- much to the amusement of the truck driver who pulled up alongside me
to ask if I was ok. I suspect that my spluttering reply of "new pedals! made
me look even more ridiculous. Not fallen off since and I am sooo glad I
converted -- it's like riding a different bike.

--
Trevor A Panther
In South Yorkshire,
England, United Kingdom.
Remove PSANTISPAM to reply
"Keith Midgley" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 20:35:25 +0100, "Tony W"
wrote:


"Kenneth Miles" wrote in message
.uk...
Keith Midgley wrote:
I had been considering switching from platform pedals to SPDs for
sometime
but was put off by all the postings about the seemingly compulsory
"falling off".

I finally took the plunge on Wednesday and tonight when leaving work I
fell off - am I now exempt for life, or can I expect further
embarrassment
in the future?

Keith failing to unclip in time :-(

When you are used to them and think you wont fall off again, thats when
you will.

Oh yes!!


Thought that might be the case. I think Fridays fall was from an excess of
confidence :-(

K.

I've never done it! I have them fairly loose so they pull out quite
easily.
I've got flat/spd reversible - it's quite handy if I want to belt off
to the shop when I'm wearing wellies etc.

Me too. They're on the loosest setting. Mine are also mtb spd pedals so
unclip pretty much any way you turn your foot (but curiously only twice
when riding, and one of those times I was trying to bunnyhop). When I
forget to unclip (and of course I forget all the time) a yank of the foot
gets 'em out every time.

I am of course dead when I wear my new shoes without the mtb clips :-/

On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 21:47:30 +0100, Tony Raven wrote:


Did it have the pressed steel grille? A real challenge when you wanted to
change the oil filter

Arrghh I'd forgotten about that! Yes a Mini Van was my first "car" too.
Later though I've always reckoned that if you can fettle a Mini,
especially one with twin carbs and an LCB exhaust, you'll have developed
double-jointed fingers and a sense of bolt/nut rotation that will work
upside down, with your left hand, and that tied behind your back. Bicycles
are soooooo easy by comparison. Well you can _see_ all of it for a start!



Mike

Mike Causer wrote:
Yes a Mini Van was my first "car" too.
Later though I've always reckoned that if you can fettle a Mini,
especially one with twin carbs and an LCB exhaust, you'll have developed
double-jointed fingers and a sense of bolt/nut rotation that will work
upside down, with your left hand, and that tied behind your back. Bicycles
are soooooo easy by comparison. Well you can _see_ all of it for a start!

With a bike you're also much less likely to cause yourself a painful and
embarrassing injury by connecting your metal expander watchstrap to the
HT lead with a steel screwdriver as I once did under the bonnet of my
first mini :-(


--
Brian G