Anti nostalgia

Pross

secretsam said:

Anyone said rim brakes yet?

On a serious note, I started cycling in the '80s, packed it in when I learned to drive (idiot that I am) and so barely cycled 1990-2005.

I came back to a whole new world, and the following awfulness had gone:

• Terrible lights using D cells or whatever, utterly useless; dynamos were better but used SOOOOO much effort
  
• Single pivot brakes - I had centre pulls, bought some cheap dual-pivots when I started up again, what an improvement
  
• Steel rims - just horrible
  
• Brifters - D/T shifters were an absolute menace, how DID they last so long?
  
• Quill stems - you had to strip your bars to change anything, plus they were about as stiff as a stick of celery
  
• toe clips - I had absolutely nailed my technique, but clipless was just better. Can't imagine what it was like using cleats with them.
  

It's strange how things work, my cross bike has cantilever brakes. I was thinking of doing some long distance "gravel" rides (actually country lanes, cycle paths and a few bridleways) next year to see if I can regain my enjoyment of cycling and my first thought was I must upgrade to disc brakes. I've now found that despite the bike being apparently disc ready it isn't possible to use the latest disc standard.

I then started trying to work out how to improve my stopping power with the existing system before questioning whether I have previously had any issues getting the bike to stop safely which, once I got the badly set up by the shop cables sorted, I haven't. I had some terrible brakes as a kid on cheap "racers" with chrome rims and terrible pads but other than that I've never really had an issue that wasn't down to pad wear or poor setup.

DeVlaeminck

briantrumpet said:

...and the easiest way to put musical quotations in my dissertation was to literally cut & paste handwritten music into gaps I'd left in the text, then photocopy the page.

It's been one of the true joys of my lifetime how far technology has come on. From 1979...

https://youtu.be/vix6TMnj9vY?t=74

I was a 1980s mod and used to put on occasional club nights, a few allnighters etc. Flyers used to be done with lettraset (?) or sex pistols style cut and paste letters from magazines. My girlfriend (now other half) was good at drawing and painting so she used to do the art work. Then off down the library to photocopy a load.

Similar to organising road races back in the day - having to photocopy start sheets which included the course traced off an IS map and stuff 80 envelopes to send them out.

Pross

DeVlaeminck said:

briantrumpet said:

...and the easiest way to put musical quotations in my dissertation was to literally cut & paste handwritten music into gaps I'd left in the text, then photocopy the page.

It's been one of the true joys of my lifetime how far technology has come on. From 1979...

https://youtu.be/vix6TMnj9vY?t=74

I was a 1980s mod and used to put on occasional club nights, a few allnighters etc. Flyers used to be done with lettraset (?) or sex pistols style cut and paste letters from magazines. My girlfriend (now other half) was good at drawing and painting so she used to do the art work. Then off down the library to photocopy a load.

Similar to organising road races back in the day - having to photocopy start sheets which included the course traced off an IS map and stuff 80 envelopes to send them out.

I used to do massive amounts of drawing notes in Letraset when I first started working as my (previously mentioned) pen and stencil skills weren't good enough. We also used to have to prepare land use plans for public consultations that consisted of A0 drawings filled with OS data ton which I had to stick pieces of pantone cut, suing a scalpel, to various land boundaries to reflect what they were (residential, industrial, commercial etc.). Some of the slithers were absolutely tiny and I've never been very dexterous.

Agreed on the road race (and time trial) start sheets plus result sheets with the TT. There was also the hassle of banking cheques as they came through the post and having to transfer all the entry information. TTs were even worse because you had to manually go through the PBs to get the seeding right although that was probably the first thing of use I did with a spreadsheet in Lotus. I also used the aforementioned Letraset to produce a master copy of a results board that I would print the sheets from to write the "realtime" results on at TT headquarters. I genuinely don't think most of the riders who took part realised the amount of work that went into running the events for them and maybe making £50 profit for the club funds.

briantrumpet

Oh, Letraset, yes. Especially if you ran out of one letter and had to buy a whole new sheet for that one letter to finish the job.

Charlie_Croker

secretsam said:

Anyone said rim brakes yet?

On a serious note, I started cycling in the '80s, packed it in when I learned to drive (idiot that I am) and so barely cycled 1990-2005.

I came back to a whole new world, and the following awfulness had gone:

• Terrible lights using D cells or whatever, utterly useless; dynamos were better but used SOOOOO much effort
  
• Single pivot brakes - I had centre pulls, bought some cheap dual-pivots when I started up again, what an improvement
  
• Steel rims - just horrible
  
• Brifters - D/T shifters were an absolute menace, how DID they last so long?
  
• Quill stems - you had to strip your bars to change anything, plus they were about as stiff as a stick of celery
  
• toe clips - I had absolutely nailed my technique, but clipless was just better. Can't imagine what it was like using cleats with them.
  

I’d forgotten all about having to warm your battery up in front of the fire, before going out on the cold night.

Lights have come a long way, even since I started cycling (I’ve never had an acetylene or carbon-arc lamp) Dynamos were the brightest but I was forever blowing blubs

capt_slog

I also remember when I cycled to school that you had to take the guts out of your lights before you left the bike. If you didn't, they wouldn't be there when you got back to it at the end of the day.


you carried all the bits around with you all day. Every bike left was the same, just the empty shell of the light.

Charlie_Croker

Strikes

ballysmate

Depending on your taste, this could go in the other thread.
70s bush.

pblakeney

Anti-Nostalgia, not being able to see all the sorts of "interesting" stuff you got up to on t'internet.
See other thread.

bompington

This is much better than the old anti-nostalgia threads

Charlie_Croker

Having to pay for your bicycle to be carried in the goods area/van of a train

joe_totale-2

Charlie_Croker said:

Having to pay for your bicycle to be carried in the goods area/van of a train

At least older trains had a goods area/van. Most modern trains now have those hanging hooks that only fit certain bikes and have a tendency to damage wheels.

elbowloh

joe_totale-2 said:

Charlie_Croker said:

Having to pay for your bicycle to be carried in the goods area/van of a train

At least older trains had a goods area/van. Most modern trains now have those hanging hooks that only fit certain bikes and have a tendency to damage wheels.

All the trains in our region only have straps. there's space for 2 bikes in every 4th carriage i think. You can also fit a bike in the "vestibule" area at each door.

Tashman

briantrumpet said:

focuszing723 said:

briantrumpet said:

focuszing723 said:

libraries, out of date information and a limited source of references as apposed to the internet where everything is cutting edge and there are many sources to compare.

Physical libraries have certainly lost a lot of their status, for the reasons you mention... whole text searching from academic journals not being the least of the reasons.

When I was an undergraduate, I was for ever waiting for interlibrary loans to arrive (once I'd found something - using basic catalogues/bibliographies - I thought might be helpful), and even had a microfilm of a manuscript posted from some library in Sweden. A lot of the stuff that was got for me is still in the library, untouched since I was there nearly 40 years ago.

Yeah, that's one hell of difference compared to todays information streams.

It did mean you had to plan rather further ahead than you might do these days...

Oh, yes, and my dissertation was printed out using a whizz-bang BBC Micro, which you had to boot up using a floppy disc, and had a daisy wheel printer. Non of this fancy changing fonts lark, unless you got another daisy wheel. And allow a few hours for printing out...

Ah yes, I remember having one of these my dad had acquired from work. We had to sit it on top of a piece of foam sponge to try and deaden the sound a little. Sounded like a secretary on speed!

capt_slog

Like most of us, the Slog household got up to snow this morning, and it got us talking about our first house.

This was a mid terrace cottage. It had the one coal fire with a back boiler. None of the windows were double glazed and it was bloody freezing.

The waste on the bathroom sink was brass, and went through the wall to outside using metal pipe, this meant it used to freeze. Very often in the morning, I would try to run a basin of water to shave, and before the water came warm, the sink would be full because it was not draining. We learned to put a tea-light candle under it at night, and later used a lead-lamp to keep it frost free.

I now live in the house where is was born. I can remember being cold at night as a kid, the piles of coats on the bed and hot water bottles. I helped put in the central heating when i was about 14-15. When I've had to take a radiator off the wall, I see my writing behind it, numbers and marks where I put the brackets. I also helped my dad put in some of the double glazed windows I've now replaced with the more efficient, modern ones.

It's hard to imagine now and when it was -4 outside this morning and it didn't really feel chilly inside BEFORE the heating had come on, I can't say I miss those old days at all.

pblakeney

Ice on the inside of your bedroom window.

Pross

pblakeney said:

Ice on the inside of your bedroom window.

Growing up, before my parents got central heating installed, my sister used to get frost on the inside of her bedroom wall. From memory I think the only heating we had was a gas fire in the living room and a paraffin heater that would get used in the bathroom in winter so we didn't get hypothermia on getting out of the bath.

I would throw in emersion heaters, we could get one bath that was fairly warm out of the hot water tank but it was then either a case of waiting hours for the tank to heat back up or sharing the water. This was the late 70s / early 80s so not back in the dark ages!

bompington

Mug half full of iced over old tea on my bedside table is my PB in the it-were-tuff-back-then olympics.

Nowadays I can nudge the temp up on the Hive from my phone if I can't be bothered to walk the 6 paces to the wall unit...

rjsterry

You can see why our European neighbours look in disbelief at our housing standards.

rjsterry

Single glazed sash windows should definitely go on the list. The trouble is that Local authority conservation officers prioritise historical authenticity over energy efficiency and comfort so these are still mandated over large swathes of London.

Pross

rjsterry said:

Single glazed sash windows should definitely go on the list. The trouble is that Local authority conservation officers prioritise historical authenticity over energy efficiency and comfort so these are still mandated over large swathes of London.

Having worked in offices based in several Georgian buildings in Bristol I certainly agree with this. I really don't see why sympathetic modern replacement windows can't be allowed considering the issues around emissions and climate change.

Dorset_Boy

Pross said:

pblakeney said:

Ice on the inside of your bedroom window.

Growing up, before my parents got central heating installed, my sister used to get frost on the inside of her bedroom wall. From memory I think the only heating we had was a gas fire in the living room and a paraffin heater that would get used in the bathroom in winter so we didn't get hypothermia on getting out of the bath.

I would throw in emersion heaters, we could get one bath that was fairly warm out of the hot water tank but it was then either a case of waiting hours for the tank to heat back up or sharing the water. This was the late 70s / early 80s so not back in the dark ages!

We only got rid of the immersion heated hot water tank in 2013 when we had an air source heat pump installed and went from an 80 litre tank to 200 /2 50 litre tank. We had night storage and a woodburner. Cost us a small fortune to stay warm!

pblakeney

Dorset_Boy said:

Pross said:

pblakeney said:

Ice on the inside of your bedroom window.

Growing up, before my parents got central heating installed, my sister used to get frost on the inside of her bedroom wall. From memory I think the only heating we had was a gas fire in the living room and a paraffin heater that would get used in the bathroom in winter so we didn't get hypothermia on getting out of the bath.

I would throw in emersion heaters, we could get one bath that was fairly warm out of the hot water tank but it was then either a case of waiting hours for the tank to heat back up or sharing the water. This was the late 70s / early 80s so not back in the dark ages!

We only got rid of the immersion heated hot water tank in 2013 when we had an air source heat pump installed and went from an 80 litre tank to 200 /2 50 litre tank. We had night storage and a woodburner. Cost us a small fortune to stay warm!

We are still using one.😱 Our bills remain cheaper than anyone we know, and everyone comments that our house is too warm. 🤔

rjsterry

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

Single glazed sash windows should definitely go on the list. The trouble is that Local authority conservation officers prioritise historical authenticity over energy efficiency and comfort so these are still mandated over large swathes of London.

Having worked in offices based in several Georgian buildings in Bristol I certainly agree with this. I really don't see why sympathetic modern replacement windows can't be allowed considering the issues around emissions and climate change.

Me neither. Looking at the consultation coming through on how we get from here to the emissions targets, there will be a bust up between the building conservationists and the energy conservationists at some point. I hope there is some central government leadership on this, but worry that it'll be the usual "yes, these things are very important, but just not here".

rjsterry

Dorset_Boy said:

Pross said:

pblakeney said:

Ice on the inside of your bedroom window.

Growing up, before my parents got central heating installed, my sister used to get frost on the inside of her bedroom wall. From memory I think the only heating we had was a gas fire in the living room and a paraffin heater that would get used in the bathroom in winter so we didn't get hypothermia on getting out of the bath.

I would throw in emersion heaters, we could get one bath that was fairly warm out of the hot water tank but it was then either a case of waiting hours for the tank to heat back up or sharing the water. This was the late 70s / early 80s so not back in the dark ages!

We only got rid of the immersion heated hot water tank in 2013 when we had an air source heat pump installed and went from an 80 litre tank to 200 /2 50 litre tank. We had night storage and a woodburner. Cost us a small fortune to stay warm!

A (relatively) early adopter. How have you found it?

TheBigBean

rjsterry said:

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

Single glazed sash windows should definitely go on the list. The trouble is that Local authority conservation officers prioritise historical authenticity over energy efficiency and comfort so these are still mandated over large swathes of London.

Having worked in offices based in several Georgian buildings in Bristol I certainly agree with this. I really don't see why sympathetic modern replacement windows can't be allowed considering the issues around emissions and climate change.

Me neither. Looking at the consultation coming through on how we get from here to the emissions targets, there will be a bust up between the building conservationists and the energy conservationists at some point. I hope there is some central government leadership on this, but worry that it'll be the usual "yes, these things are very important, but just not here".

You can replace the windows. It just costs more, and in some cases a lot more. I guess central government could say that window x is a suitable replacement for window y.

rjsterry

TheBigBean said:

rjsterry said:

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

Single glazed sash windows should definitely go on the list. The trouble is that Local authority conservation officers prioritise historical authenticity over energy efficiency and comfort so these are still mandated over large swathes of London.

Having worked in offices based in several Georgian buildings in Bristol I certainly agree with this. I really don't see why sympathetic modern replacement windows can't be allowed considering the issues around emissions and climate change.

Me neither. Looking at the consultation coming through on how we get from here to the emissions targets, there will be a bust up between the building conservationists and the energy conservationists at some point. I hope there is some central government leadership on this, but worry that it'll be the usual "yes, these things are very important, but just not here".

You can replace the windows. It just costs more, and in some cases a lot more. I guess central government could say that window x is a suitable replacement for window y.

Double glazing is effectively banned in large areas of the capital due to Conservation Areas. So while you can replace the windows, the replacements must also be single glazed. From a heritage point of view it does look different; the question is whether that really is of more importance. We don't insist people still use outdoor toilets or chamber pots, though, and we've outlawed coal burning fires. These also have heritage value but we're quite happy to prioritise people's health in those instances. If we're all moving to air source heat pumps in the next 20 years, that'll really ruffle the heritage feathers.

TheBigBean

rjsterry said:

TheBigBean said:

rjsterry said:

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

Single glazed sash windows should definitely go on the list. The trouble is that Local authority conservation officers prioritise historical authenticity over energy efficiency and comfort so these are still mandated over large swathes of London.

Having worked in offices based in several Georgian buildings in Bristol I certainly agree with this. I really don't see why sympathetic modern replacement windows can't be allowed considering the issues around emissions and climate change.

Me neither. Looking at the consultation coming through on how we get from here to the emissions targets, there will be a bust up between the building conservationists and the energy conservationists at some point. I hope there is some central government leadership on this, but worry that it'll be the usual "yes, these things are very important, but just not here".

You can replace the windows. It just costs more, and in some cases a lot more. I guess central government could say that window x is a suitable replacement for window y.

Double glazing is effectively banned in large areas of the capital due to Conservation Areas. So while you can replace the windows, the replacements must also be single glazed. From a heritage point of view it does look different; the question is whether that really is of more importance. We don't insist people still use outdoor toilets or chamber pots, though, and we've outlawed coal burning fires. These also have heritage value but we're quite happy to prioritise people's health in those instances. If we're all moving to air source heat pumps in the next 20 years, that'll really ruffle the heritage feathers.

I know you have much more expertise than me in this, but I know that you can replace single glazing in a grade 2 listed building with double glazing, so I would have thought it was possible everywhere. In that case, the existing window frames are kept, hence the cost, but it makes no sense to allow an entire window frame to be replaced and to not allow double glazing.

orraloon

My former neighbours were grade 1 listed. They had to resort to internal secondary glazing, external frames remained look a like with what was there before, dating from sometime long after the house was built c. 1600.

rjsterry

TheBigBean said:

rjsterry said:

TheBigBean said:

rjsterry said:

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

Single glazed sash windows should definitely go on the list. The trouble is that Local authority conservation officers prioritise historical authenticity over energy efficiency and comfort so these are still mandated over large swathes of London.

Having worked in offices based in several Georgian buildings in Bristol I certainly agree with this. I really don't see why sympathetic modern replacement windows can't be allowed considering the issues around emissions and climate change.

Me neither. Looking at the consultation coming through on how we get from here to the emissions targets, there will be a bust up between the building conservationists and the energy conservationists at some point. I hope there is some central government leadership on this, but worry that it'll be the usual "yes, these things are very important, but just not here".

You can replace the windows. It just costs more, and in some cases a lot more. I guess central government could say that window x is a suitable replacement for window y.

Double glazing is effectively banned in large areas of the capital due to Conservation Areas. So while you can replace the windows, the replacements must also be single glazed. From a heritage point of view it does look different; the question is whether that really is of more importance. We don't insist people still use outdoor toilets or chamber pots, though, and we've outlawed coal burning fires. These also have heritage value but we're quite happy to prioritise people's health in those instances. If we're all moving to air source heat pumps in the next 20 years, that'll really ruffle the heritage feathers.

I know you have much more expertise than me in this, but I know that you can replace single glazing in a grade 2 listed building with double glazing, so I would have thought it was possible everywhere. In that case, the existing window frames are kept, hence the cost, but it makes no sense to allow an entire window frame to be replaced and to not allow double glazing.

Sense has nothing to do with it. The rules are different authority by authority, but several of the inner London boroughs have a straight no double glazing policy in Conservation Areas, let alone listed buildings. That's not to say that people don't just do it without applying for consent or that there are some situations where it has been allowed - hence the need for clear guidance from above. I've even had a CO insist that we source reproduction crown glass for what was probably a 1980s replacement sash window.