Thorn Cycles Forum
Community => Muppets Threads! (And Anything Else) => Topic started by: geocycle on July 19, 2016, 02:00:49 pm
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For some reason I was trawling my previous posts and noticed I was coming up for a 10 year anniversary. My first post was 22 August 2006!
Quoted here:
'I'm eagerly expecting delivery of a Thorn raven tour and will immediately take it for a spin around the Scottish highlands on a 5 day tour. Would any of you recommend any Rohloff specific tools to carry? Are there any tips you could offer regarding using the Rohloff, or things I should expect in the first few trips? I am a reasonably experienced tourist and have quite a well honed collection of allen keys etc, but I'd be interested in any quirks or info relating specifically to the TRT. Do you all carry an axle ring assembly on short trips like this, or is this really only for round the world types?'
Although the RT had a frame transplant and became a RST, history is repeating itself as I'm about to embark on another Scottish trip.
What was your first post?
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Memories, Geo'!
My first post was on July 24, 2011, though I had lurked for 6+ years before that and had followed the Forum and its players daily.
The post was a typically long one, so just a snipped here... Hi All,
After some years of wanting and waiting, I am now at the point of placing an order for a Thorn Sherpa. I have read Thorn's details for local sales assistance and delivery and am most impressed, but I am unsure how best to proceed for purchase from the United States and delivery to me on the Pacific Coast. I really don't know what path a foreign order takes after it is initiated or what to expect...
...I have sent Thorn an email this weekend with my contact telephone and hope to hear from them at the start of the business week. I've filled out the order form, checked my size, color, options and preferences, and listed my measurements and those of my favorite current bicycle for the setup dimensions; I'm prepared!
I'm most grateful for any thoughts, insight, and advice on foreign purchase and experience with the process and also beyond dealing with Thorn, which seems to provide exemplary assistance and customer service. Their staff were surely kind to answer my early emailed questions promptly and completely and I was most impressed to receive an in-depth reply from Andy Blance himself about the design. That tipped the balance toward an immediate purchase.
I am impressed by the forum and its members and the high quality of interaction here, and I thank you in advance for any information you may share.
6,300+ posts from me since then and I'm still "impressed by the forum and its members and the high quality of interaction here"! :)
Best,
Dan.
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Wow, 6300+ posts Dan, that is quite something!
I wonder if a typical first post is made just prior to placing an order or in the period of anticipation just after? Perhaps there are patterns?
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I wonder if a typical first post is made just prior to placing an order or in the period of anticipation just after? Perhaps there are patterns?
My first post was around the time that I got my Nomad, although I had been a regular reader of the forum for about a year. Part of my reason for getting a Thorn was this forum.
For some reason, I can't find my first post. The earliest post shown under "Show Posts" on my profile is this one, on the topic of spoke length, which was posted months after I got my Nomad:
http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=7719.msg49755#msg49755
There was a major update in the software version of this forum in the past year. Perhaps that update lost some of the history.
Let me also say how much I enjoy reading and learning from this forum. I'm not a frequent poster, but I do read every posting. This forum is one of my most-used browser bookmarks.
- DaveS
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My first post on 3 October 2009 read, stripped of salutation and sig, read in its entirety:
I'm new here. I'm coming up to the first annual service on my Rohloff hub, so I've been reading the excellent archive. Thanks for the good information already received!
I arrived here because, after years of getting my back and wallet done in by the incompetent LBS operators in Ireland, I decided to do what I do well and take matters into my own hands. So, because I had been forced to trust these ripoffs and incompetents because I knew nothing about bikes, first I had to inform myself, and that's how I came across Andy Blance's writings on various components. He impressed me more than the boutique wafflers, and from there I discovered this forum. I lurked for years, but then I decided that soon I would have spent more on inadequate Shimano hub gear boxes than the cost of a Rohloff. I realized that when I went over to Rohloff I would need expert, experienced advice, but all my gurus, people like Jobst and Sheldon, were retired or ill and dying or dead, so I delurked. My early posts were signed "Hobbes".
By 5 October 2009 I'd already received good advice; to quote the end of a message I sent on that day:
"I must say though that I feel better about the process now that I've found a support group. On hand of my experience with the Shimano sprockets, I was anticipating viewing the Rohloff sprocket with some trepidation, now much lessened."
Only too human, feeling trepidation about anything to do with a thousand pound plus bicycle gearbox...
I've been here ever since. I feel at home here. Thanks, fellows.
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Since we're all in sentimental mood: I don't suppose that now I'll ever get to beat Stutho's chain mileage. For newbies: Stu was moderater when I arrived, and he was -- maybe still is -- a four-seasons long-distance commuter in the wet South, and he got absolutely ginormous chain mileages whereas I was replacing chains and sprockets and chainrings at the rate of a set every thousand miles.
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from November 2010: "Ha! I put down money for a new Nomad on my 55th! I'm expecting a request for final payment maybe this week or next. And I have never even seen a bike anything like it, nor Thorn nor Rohloff nor cetera. Got to keep the spirit of adventure!"
I still have not seen another Thorn! Mine though continues to be my magic carpet to adventure!
(http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r6/kukulaj/Nomad/north%20ogden%20canyon%202016%2007%2006/IMG_2677_zpsmmn7nhhs.jpg)
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Super photo of "the road less travelled", Jim.
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Nice one Jim, great picture! I'm struck by how the first posts are typically aspirational about the bike ordered and several years on many have not been disappointed.
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Mine also 10 years ago. Think we became Thorn equipped about the same time geocycle!
My rst has done about 250miles in last 2 years, lives change! but then if you told me 10 years ago I would be repairing bikes as my own business 8)
Lurk on here mostly thesedays but keeping the rst for when time is back on my side.
cheers
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I'm a newbie by comparison -- registered in mid-January 2013. That was just before a visit to Bridgwater in March of that year, to talk with the folks at SJS Cycles, and look at a Raven first-hand. Later that year, I ordered my frameset & forks, the Rohloff and SON28 hubs, and all the other components. My LBS built these into my Raven in the first few months of 2014. The advice I received from Forum members was invaluable, and that continues, with my thanks to you all.
Just completed my longest tour on Osi, my Raven: 2300+ kms from Hinton, east of Jasper in west-central Alberta, to Whidbey Island, NW of Seattle off the coast of Washington State. My own Petit Tour des Montagnes de l'Ouest! Bike ran like a Swiss German watch! Hard to choose single photo of the 250 or so that I took, but below is an example of the countryside I cycled through for three-plus weeks -- this, a landscape from the first few days of my ride, on the northern part of the Icefields Parkway, South of Jasper en route to the Columbia Icefield atop Sunwapta Pass. (More to come on that.)
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Spectacular shot, John. Glad to hear all went well including your return. Looking forward to more.
All the best,
Dan.
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Welcome back, John! Looking forward to your report and photos of your great adventure.
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no idea when my first post was but it was a long time ago tho. im on my 3rd thorn bike since then well i will be when i get the baby built up..
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Hello everyone.
This is my first post. I only returned to cycling a year ago at the tender age of 70, and bought a Sherpa last month.
I'm delighted with it and have no doubts that it will see me out. I'll be going on a trip down the German section of the Danube this year with a few other wrinklies, following a tour of French and Belgian battlefields last year.
That was my baptism into touring and after the first two gruelling days I found some legs and loved it.
I can't wait for the trip on the Thorn.
Richard
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Magic enjoy every pedal stroke stay safe.
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My first post was in September 2009, shortly after I got my RST
http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=2210.0
unfortunately I must've moved the pictures, but there are others on a second thread in the Gallery. While I am currently Thornless, I like to keep up with all discussions on this forum, it really is a wee gem in the jungle that is the internet.
I miss the RST, and sometimes ponder a new Raven. ;)
Jim
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This is my first post. I only returned to cycling a year ago at the tender age of 70, and bought a Sherpa last month.
Great stuff, Richard! Welcome, and we'll look forward to your stories, comments and photos.
And Jim, go for the Raven, if you can afford it -- no regrets for me, it's been a great bike.
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Don't let Dan know that it's me who let the secret out - but Dans not a person, in the normal sense - He's a team of three.
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I've go to go and see if I can dig up my first post, sometime in early 2012 or late 2011, I suspect. My account was re-set and and so I can't (I don't think) do a search through my own history. But it has to be out there somewhere. With the passing of time, I have no clue what clueless comment I made first. :)
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I've go to go and see if I can dig up my first post, sometime in early 2012 or late 2011, I suspect. My account was re-set and and so I can't (I don't think) do a search through my own history. But it has to be out there somewhere. With the passing of time, I have no clue what clueless comment I made first. :)
I just tried a global search (not Thorn Forum search) using google, was this your first?
http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=143.15
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Welcome to the Forum, Richard!
I've done the route you're contemplating and loved it -- I'm sure you will too.
Great bike to do it on. :)
All the best,
Dan.
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Thanks for the welcome everyone.
From what I can see, this is a much more friendly forum than most without the sniping and insults so common elsewhere.
Richard
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The worst I came across is bike forums.net guaranteed if a thread gets more than fifteen posts someone starts a row.I got into a very aggressive argument with a guy on CTC once he was a nasty piece of work.yeah our man Dan keeps a good house worth his weight in gold I reckon if he ever left here the forum would finish.IMHO.
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I have to say that you lot have swung my decision about a new bike in favour of a Thorn (the bike had something to do with it as well ;).
You are all very friendly and supportive, answering my daft questions and helping me get it settled in my own mind.
Thanks,
Janet
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Welcome, Janet -- and your bike, too, of course!
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Thank you :)