Thank you, eat_more_cheese, that’s really helpful advice – hoping to get my travel plans sorted in the next few days with everyone’s tips on here 🤞

Thank you all again for your help, sorry, didn’t make it onto here yesterday (I know! A day without checking STW 😄!)

eat_more_cheese

Just spoke to KLM guys inbound to Glasgow, they are definitely passenger flights. Only issue is KLM have obviously reduced their service to one flight a day from Glasgow/Edinburgh/Aberdeen to Amsterdam (assuming you’re from Edinburgh area). This means remaining passengers have been rebooked onto these flights-the problem being is that people are not turning up yet the flights are fully booked. Still, definitely worth calling.

That’s very interesting, thank you! So people are booked onto the flights and not turning up for them? Aaargh!

Alternatively Eurowings fly once a day to Cologne from Edinburgh-but I think it’s a DLH flight anyway, so may not be of help.

Ooh, what’s a DLH flight? And also good to know that the Edinburgh-Cologne flights are ‘real’ and not just on their system and then they disappear…

It took me four hours on hold to get through to lufthansa last week.

Throughout the entire time on hold there was nothing after the initial you’re in a queue message, just silence from the other end.

!!! I gave up after one hour of that total silence cause I really wasn’t sure I was still in the queue!

Thank you so much everyone for your answers, some very good ideas there that hadn’t occurred to me.

I’ll definitely look at going from other airports and just thought that maybe I’ll be able to check whether any of these flights are ‘real’ if I look at the live arrivals/departures for a few airports over the next couple of days?

Flight/train combo might work out as well, hadn’t investigated that either.

Also, I can drive, and maybe that will end up being the best option – I almost forgot that hotels are reopening/have reopened in lots of places now, so won’t even have to do a non-stop type journey.

Thanks for the quarantine risk reminder, konagirl, I’m hopeful the situation here won’t get so bad that Germany puts the UK on the quarantine list in July….

We have an island with an induction hob and a flush mounted ceiling extractor fan (falmec). My experience re splatter isn’t too bad – using the cooking fields away from the edge the splatter doesn’t reach the floor, and no splatter marks on the ceiling (kitchen fitted just over a year ago). We didn’t raise the worktop where the “seating area” is and so far no disasters with a four year old sitting there 🙂

Read DC Rainmaker’s reviews of any trainer you’re thinking of.

Thanks, I did – unfortunately for me he rates all of them much of a muchness 😀

Out of stock when I looked on Monday. So I went new on finance via Wiggle

Booo… I just saw they are out of stock as well. Will look at wiggle finance…

No idea how reliable their stock prediction is! Have you tried a local shop? I work in a bike shop and we have both of the elite models you mention in stock.

😳 Guilty, I haven’t – is your bike shop anywhere near Stirling 😉 ?

Thanks for the bluetooth clarification!

trailwagger – Member

I have that elite qubo, the motor cover on it is also really poor, but unless you plan on throwing the thing around it makes no difference.

The Tacx cover “unclipped” itself the third time I used the turbo and the fan then touched the cover all the time, which made a really annoying racket. I guess you’ve been using yours for longer and although poorly made, the cover hasn’t moved?

Don’t know if it makes a difference but I leave mine permanently set up, in fact the bike hasn’t been off it since I bought it back end of november.

Same here, that’s why I can’t work out why it has done that “crack open” thing – and I’m sub 2W/kg, so it’s not my immense power output……

like alpgirl and timidwheeler I was getting some *other* horrible noises from my t2240, which I discovered was due to the plastic body over the electromechanical section coming slightly askew and fouling a moving part. The plastic has a crappy twist-lock fit secured with a t20 torx self-tapping screw. I loosened that and was able to re-engage the twist-fit. That noise has gone now.

Hmmm, maybe I should try that first? a replacement will probably have the same problem soon 🙁 Time to invest in the next model up?

I think Tacx’s quality control isn’t the best. Even the Neo at £1k isn’t ultra reliable.

My Vortex took 2 boxes of vortex’s before I managed to assemble a working unit, using parts from both. It’s a bit creaky at the moment too.

I managed to track down the noise to the motor housing – it seems it’s “split” ever so slightly; it was clipped together with some very small looking plastic ridges and only screwed together on one side. Nothing is broken, but the plastic ridges won’t clip together completely any more.

I’m planning to take it back to Halfords and ask for a replacement – best to take everything and disassemble it I guess? Or leave assembled to demonstrate problem?

Very annoyed 👿

Grrrrrr!!! Complete fail today:

The Zwift launcher crashed every time after I logged in and selected “ride” (I even uninstalled and reinstalled it! and let it do an update that took ages!) 👿 👿

Then I decided to just ride on my Tacx Flow 2240 and listen to a podcast, but all of a sudden the trainer started making a huge racket (a kind of ratchety, clicking noise, no matter what speed/effort I used). I recalibrated it twice, but that made no difference.

Bad day or is my equipment all broken????

Oh, great, thanks for the tips! I’ll look out for the KISS D races and anything called sub2 and check FB.

Who are the riders with the fancy glowing wheels btw??

Okay, I see. Seems there are not that many rides for total weaklings – I’d better try and get a bit stronger before attempting one 🙁

Hmmm, I’ll have to do another ride at a higher effort level to check then, the only other one I did so far was the ftp test and it kept telling me More Power a lot 🙂

If you join an ride and can’t keep up, what happens? Everyone else just disappears into the distance?

Reading your posts about the rides with interest – so as a beginner, I guess I’m just looking for rides that are marked ABCD? And then try and work out if I could keep up with a ride marked only C?

Also, I was trying to do a “custom” easy ride today, but really struggled to keep the Watts steady. Is it harder to maintain Watts at the lower end?

phew, at least I won’t have to repeat that ftp test straight away after the trial week then…
Zwift warned me (“Yikes!”) that my graphics card driver was so old it might not run properly – I checked for an updated driver, but the newest one is from 2012 and resulted in another “Yikes!” from Zwift. I guess the fact that the graphics don’t look brilliant is down to my ancient driver? Unfortunately my ipad is also 5 years old and not compatible with the Zwift iOS app……

Well, I finally got my turbo etc all set up and did the “short” ftp test today – you guys must all be so fit, I found it really hard 😳 As I’m on the 7 day trial, if I join after that, will it save my data?

Well, after the sick feeling subsided & I could read the screen,

!!! how hard is that test??

OH – and one more thing. Pay attention to the delivery time from that seller. I got mine from them too, and signed up to the Amazon Prime trial to get next day delivery – otherwise it’s about 2-4 week delivery…..

Aha! I was just looking at the “sold and fulfilled by” bit and wondered if I was going to have a similar experience to my Halloween decorations order that just about made it from China in time for 6pm on the 31st 😀

So if I go for the Prime trial, it really arrives the next day?

😳 Ahem… just so I get the right one, is it the “first generation” ANT+ dongle on this link I need or the “second generation” one??

link

I do have turbo shoes…

I dabbled with triathlon a while back and tri shoes are much cooler indoors and can be worn sockless so they are now turbo shoes.

Ooooh, finally a use for my summer roadie shoes that are way too cold to use during a UK summer 😛

Do I buy the trainer before Black Friday??? I’m sooooo impatient to try this now….

Depends too if you’re going to ride outside as then you’ll be swapping tyres. My bike doesn’t go outdoors so is never removed from the trainer..

Reading this thread I think my road bike will be staying on the trainer all winter (or longer 😉 ) might be time to buy one of those Sequoia type bikes and make the road bike a trainer bike 😀

Cool, thanks for the confirmation re dongle! I’m planning to use my road bike, so I guess I need a trainer tyre as well so I don’t wreck my “real” road tyre…?

I’m also changing my Christmas list to put a turbo on the top of it 😀 Will I still need a dongle for the TT240? Someone up thread seemed to suggest it? Any chance some of the higher spec smart tacx trainers will be in the Black Friday sale or are they not a typical special sale item…..

How hot though?

Well, so hot that I can’t even touch it properly, like a pot handle when it’s been in the oven for 10 minutes…

What shape and what position (ie height from floor) is the radiator compared to the old one? If it is higher on the wall and more narrow (so the top of it is higher up the wall) then more heat will be heating the top of your room.

The old one was wider, so the towels ended up side by side on two levels, the new one is narrower with towels on four levels. I’d say that the new one is not significantly higher from the floor, maybe 10cm? But yes, the top of it is very high compared to the old one, so maybe all that lovely heat stays hovering on the ceiling 🙁

Hello everyone 🙂

Right, I can now confirm the radiator really does get hot, all the way bottom to top. Doing that lockshield valve thing hasn’t magically cured the problem though, still quite fridgey in there this morning…

Is the floor in the room different?

There were these tiny tiny square tiles on the floor before (ugh), now we have proper big floor tiles. Could be that they feel a bit colder?

Where’s the window?

It’s above the toilet (a big dormer one)

hammyuk,
It doesn’t have a TRV – does your idea still work with a “normal” valve?

Not sure about the surface area, I never measured the old one; however, going by how the towels fit on it, it can’t be that much different (the old one was wider, the new one is higher).

The new one is this one.

FWIW, our towel rail (about 6ft by 2ft6) keeps our en-suite boiling, and has to be turned down almost all the way off.

… but is it chrome 😆 ?

The whole system might need re-balancing – the lock-shield valves on the radiators which have had TRVs fitted may well have been shut off and opened again without noting the setting, and the new rads that have been fitted should be balanced into the system. (Does the room with the new rads get nice and warm?)

The other room with new rads gets very warm… Maybe we really should get the boiler man to come back and balance the system!

Who knows? You’ll get used to it.

Sure, but only once I know I’ve asked on here and that’s the conclusion 😉 😉

Some more good ideas there – maybe the fact that the cupboards are gone and it’s now just a tiled wall makes a difference. I also remember that the guys took out insulation from there to get the toilet cistern into the wall, maybe they didn’t put enough back in 🙄

As johndoh said, the fact that we had a towel radiator style one in there before, and that it was covered in towels all the time but still managed to heat the room is the thing that I don’t understand…

We did have spotlights fitted, but there’s plenty of insulation up in the attic. (Your comment did remind me of the other insulation though, see above…)

Luckily we live in balmy Scotland, so only a few frosty nights up here every year 😆 😆

If it is …. in the re-fit, any messing about with waste/plumbing that goes out side …. ie has a new draft been created…??

Well, the wall that the toilet is on is not ceiling height, but has a big dormer window; previously there were some built in cupboards along it, now it’s just tiled – maybe that makes a difference, too…

Right, the lockshield valve will be the next thing to try, thank you! Managed to turn it 1/2 a turn, which means it’s fully open now…

The room gets a bit warmer if we leave the heating on all day, so after ca. 12 hours 😳

just put a jumper on. 😀

Not a bad idea, have a shower with a jumper on and save doing the washing 😛

Guess it’s also worth checking whether the old radiator was more “powerful” than the new one…

I read on the web (must be true…) that chrome ones don’t heat a room as well as non-chrome ones?

Yes, I know 🙂

Oh, and the door to the adjacent room is shut. Although maybe I should keep it open, that room does get nice and warm 😀

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Should have said that the radiator does get hot, and was bled a few times (had other new radiators installed in kitchen and system was drained).

We tried it with and without towels on; it did not heat the room any better without towels. The old radiator was always covered in towels and seemed to be okay…

The system was not rebalanced when the final new radiator was installed, but would that matter if the radiator is getting hot?

Thank you both 🙂

off to check out Chromecast… and how to do the analog thing perchypanther suggested!

I had the same “discussion” with my insurance company – so echoing all the advice of communicating in writing and not accepting any cheque they might send you.

I involved the ombudsman and in the end got exactly what I needed to replace the car with a like for like.

Funny enough, I am still with the same insurance company, and think my file may be marked “pesky customer” because I had excellent service and insurance quotes ever since… 🙂

Ah, interesting, thank you! The architect is a friend of was recommended by the kitchen designer…. hmmmm…

Loving the stories about the strangers who can’t get in (cats that is, haha) 🙂

But aaargh, I really hope “our” magpies here aren’t interested in following cats home… (they don’t seem to be, just in pooing on everything, car, decking, garden toys)

Disco_Stu,
Yes, sounds interesting – how much would you want for it? Is it expensive to post it with the pesky Royal Mail size constraints?

Oh, cool, thanks – I can’t remember which model I looked at, it said the shortest possible delay was 3 seconds; where we lived at the time, I thought it would have been very easy for the cat that chased ours to come in within 3 seconds of our cat, he was literally right on her tail 🙂

We have moved since though, and so far I haven’t observed any chasers – more likely another cat will come in for a look around 😉

Re magnet ones, we did have one of those, but a) our cat hated collars and managed to get rid of it regularly, so no magnet = no access, and b) like z1ppy said, if other cats have magnets, they can still come in…

I’ll look again at the chip activated ones, sounds like in practice they work quite well!

Great, thanks for the replies – should have thought a route just consists of waypoints and doesn’t carry the “map design” with it, d’oh… the rainmaker site looks like I could spend a few hours reading stuff on there, good recommendation 🙂

Thanks again guys, lots of useful hints!! Will make a list of houses to view next, hope there are enough to actually get to check out quite a few of the places you mentioned 😉 off to rightmove…

Ps genuine lol at the gynae name comment!!!