If you just want something big standard then just buy a ready made thing. Something that size you could fit it on a trailer and drive it home from the shop.

If you want something a bit different or have an unusual site then give me a shout. I can draw it up for you. Trained as an architect (but not qualified) and I’ve just drawn up a 9*3 metres garden office with 150 page instruction booklet of how to build it for someone.

Otherwise is there nothing on the Instructables website?

Cheers for the comments. I think i’ll try with a chest mount with a bigger plate. Those videos in general maybe don’t show it but when hitting a rougher section with some speed if when it can flap about. I think some stiffer/new elastic might well help and a slightly bigger chest plate. Might try modify the one I have a little!

For reference I use the camera mounted with the smallest/most direct mount so it is pretty close to my chest.

blimmin eck that thing is a beast!

Cheers for the info Hugo, good to read the Buffet article. I have actually already read a bit on MMM and would say that I live a fairly MMM lifestyle. Except for the savings part, but that’s mainly because I’ve never actually owned or made much money to save yet as we started our own business two years ago. Otherwise I don’t spend money on unnecessary things, eat cheaply, have a cheap car, use offers and sign-ups for discounts etc and just generally try to be pretty frugal.

This year and next should see us actually starting to make money though and have an income, hence the decision to start saving!

I also use the Moneysavingexpert site a lot, almost my bible (if any of you don’t then I would definitely give it a go). After reading up on various savings options on there I had already opened an account with Fidelity (via Cavendish so fees are .25%) and invested in a couple of their top 50 suggestions with £100 before starting this thread. I chose that one as it had the lowest fee but most options to invest in whereas Vanguard you could only invest in their funds.

By the sounds of it, it might be better to use Vanguard and just invest in a couple of different their index funds for different sectors/parts of the world? As you’ve mentioned I don’t really see myself investing in specific companies as it is probably more suited to short term/day trading and you’ve got to be more involved. I was thinking to invest for the next 10-20 yrs or until we think about building our own house somewhere.

Poolman – could you link me to some info about that or explain what you mean? What I’ve read is that you need to live and contribute to NI in the UK for at least 10 yrs to access your state pension so I might well be willing do that just to be sure of at least some kind of pension.

I still have a bank account and address in the UK and spend several months of the year there.

Thanks for all the info.

Yes I live in Norway, hence why a British pension doesn’t make sense just now.. I don’t think.

I don’t yet understand pensions here very well, only just getting to grips with setting up the business, doing our accounting and how to pay ourselves (we have a ltd company). Once we’re actually making some money I’ll be setting up a pension here properly.

I have some money in the UK and thought I would put that into a S&S ISA instead of transferring it here, plus we might move back to the UK one day…

Basically this all started because I don’t have a pension but thought I should maybe have one. But then being sort of between 2 countries I don’t really know where to start with pensions so the S and S ISA seemed like a good compromise for now. Plus the stock market seems to be about as low as it can be at the moment so seems like a good time to invest in it.

What am I supposed to do if I don’t know how long i’ll live in Norway for? Or which country I’ll be in when I’m old?

In the part you can read…

She hates cyclists and wishes to swat them away and in the next breath goes on to say she wouldn’t cycle in London because it is far too dangerous… How does she seriously not put 2 + 2 together there?

Pinkbike posted this a couple weeks back. Should keep you entertained for a while

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/16-free-feature-length-bike-movies-to-binge-in-self-isolation.html

I knew the rotors were contaminated so I cleaned them thoroughly with soapy water, alcohol and then sand paper. I’m pretty certain they’re not contaminated any more as they work well and are sharp now, there’s none of the typical contaminated brake feeling.

Also thought it could be that Scotroutes but rotor seems to be sitting nicely in line with the pads.

Good to know goslow, maybe I can use it as anecdotal evidence in my 15 page letter to them. I’m also originally from up north back when I did live in the UK (Northumberland).

I did post links in that last post but it doesn’t seem to have come up

From TFL website

Affected vehicles

Actually yes, Greybeard, now I’ve read it for about the 15th time it seems they only ask you to register if they say the vehicle doesn’t meet LEZ standards.

From TFL website –

Vehicles registered outside the United Kingdom
Register your vehicle with us if:

It is listed by us as NOT meeting LEZ/ULEZ emissions standards but you can provide evidence that it does
It qualifies for an exemption or discount. Read more about exemptions and discounts

Affected vehicles –

Minibuses
Up to and including 5 tonnes gross vehicle weight:

Current LEZ standards continue to apply
Over 5 tonnes gross vehicle weight:

Current LEZ standards apply
Tougher LEZ standards apply from 26 October 2020

I had to read that table about 4 times to understand where our car sits in the regulations and I’m still not 100% clear. Greyboard you are saying the same and I think the point is it isn’t obvious what you should do even if I had known. Obviously in hindsight and knowing what I know now, just registering would have removed any doubt.

All Norwegian cars are serachable on here, that is my car I’ve already search and you can see all the details.

Thanks for the information guys.

Agree that sometimes the signs in Norway are not 100% clear but generally they say toll and have a price with them so you know you’re in a place where you have to pay something (same in Sweden). But yes, at least the bill you get is simply to pay the toll, not unproportionally punitive.

I’ve checked the route we took from over 10km outside the M25 and found 2 signs but I don’t really understand how someone from abroad is supposed to understand that a sign with a green circle saying ‘low emission zone’ means you are required to head to an unknown website and enter your car details?

I can’t really avoid it even if I’m in another country, as tempting as it is, the letter is in Norwegian and is threatening that the next step is ‘Inkasso’ (sort of baliffs/ national credit registry) which is really not good in Norway. I can’t risk it going to Inkasso since we own/run a company here.

I’ve been on the phone with EPCPLC (who sent the letter) yesterday who couldn’t help with anything at all on the phone but explained to send an appeal via email and wait 42 days for a reply. TFL phones is all closed because of Covid-19 so no one that I can contact there to even understand where £1500 comes from or to explain about the address issue, nothing.

Thanks for the info Greybeard, from that chart it does look like our van would pass and not need to pay any charge for the LEZ. I also wrote incorrectly we have 9 seats, it is just an 8 seater.

I called the friends in London (who’ve lived there for 20+yrs) to ask some of the above questions yesterday and he had no idea about it, he only knew about the ULEZ, once I explained to him he seemed to think it just applied to business vehicles. Point being, not all locals know about it either.

What do you mean about doing the floor insulation after the walls? From what I can work out in the photos you’ve already done the floor some posts earlier?

Also Celotex being the rigid board insulation stuff?

Little off topic but I’m considering some panels for someone in the family. Does anyone know a site where you can calculate your estimated annual household energy consumption? And likewise a site you can calculate the size of system you need to supply X amount of kwh?

Cheers people.

Big_scott_nanny – absolutely love the tech so we were in our element up there :D

Happybiker – Cres is pretty far from where we are but we were riding on the mainland just near Opatija last year. There’s some brilliant trails there so it is worth taking your bike. There’s some fantastic stuff in Slovenia too, get yourself to Osp and Ajdovscine, some of my all time favourite trails in Ajdovščine! We had DVO Topaz’s on before and they were pants! Felt like I would quickly find the limit on those over rough stuff, the Öhlins feels way more capable over the rough and i’m hitting stuff much quicker on it! It isn’t quite as supple as I was expecting, everyone goes on about how nice and sensitive they are at the beginning of the stroke but IMO it’s not that amazing. Could this just be to do with the single pivot, linear suspension curve?

Bowglie and 136stu – Cheers, that’s a bit like what I thought. It is a bit boring to watch people shreddin at max speed, I would rather watch a video of someone’s day out on a bit with a little bit of a story telling what they did, so we tried to make one of our own. We’re not quite so confident at talking into the camera yet so might a bit more of a story with more narration in the next one if we make it. That was why Klara made the stop motion, since we’re crap at talking to the camera :D

duncancallum – Enjoy! I worked for Jon in his 2nd year as a company as a guide and had a blast, stayed good friends with him since and inspired us to set up our own guiding company.

spent 2-3 years battling with WordPress trying to understand it all, transferred our business site to Wix about 2 months ago and it is soooo much simpler. I vote Wix.

Agree with the Facebook part for stuff like posting events and announcing info but don’t you find if you go to a ‘Page’ it is such a hassle to navigate? I can understand wanting a couple of decent static pages with all the club info easy to find and read.

I can one up you there, the Schuch outlet store has loads of fancy stuff for cheap.

Only buy if you need it though, it is only a bargain if you need something! To be more sustainable I’ve started trying to avoid anything new unless absolutely necessary. I needed trainers but almost never find any in charity shops. On this site they sell all their 2nds or ‘soiled’ items. So buying a pair of trainers that were dirty form storage seemed more sustainable to me than buying brand new, much less likely to be sold and potentially go to waste. Plus cheaper!

Schuch imperects online store

p.s. Sign up to Martin Lewis newsletter, that’s where I found this.

Otterbox and Liferpoof both look great but I’ve not got one of the mainstream phones so they don’t do their proper fully protected case for it.

I’m thinking to buy some kind of bum bag and maybe try make my own hard case. I’m worried about landing on it and smashing it, even if it is in some kind of soft case it will still smash the screen.

Dunno if I could handle the style points of that frame bag!

lifeproof would be ideal but they don’t seem to make one for my phone :(

Those Velopac cases look great, now just find a hard case version of that!

The waterproof part I’m not too worried about as I’ll just use a sandwich bag or something.

You not worried if you fell on it, it would smash the screen just in that bag?

murica!

Bum bag
hip sack
fanny pack
waist pack
arse sack

Whatever you wanna call it

Anyone?

@33tango – Where did you ride? Looks Swedish?

Tried out a route we scoped on the map in Pelješac, Croatia, great success!

Golden hour

Agree, it just felt like they were trying to out ‘banter’ each other and saying **** far too much, cringeworthy for me and too annoying.

Ooo how exciting, quite tempted to try a 29er wheel in the front of my Swoop just to see…

Water bottle fits with the piggy back on the Öhlins on ours but it is annoying with the position up top as it usually works its way free and falls out.

How do you post Instagram photos?

Here’s mine, had it in yellow originally but just had it repainted in the Land Rover Defender green.

View this post on Instagram

New bike!!! Well… It certainly feels like it anyway! Will had his bike painted a couple of weeks back and it looks so good, feeling inspired by @brendog1's bike at Rampage in the Land Rover Defender green. What do you think? Better than the yellow? . Thanks a lot to Joe @starlingcycles who sorted everything out for us . . #anyexcusetoride #anyexcusetoridenorway #ridenorway #starlingcycles #starlingswoop #newbikeday #newbike #newpaintjob #paintjob #landrover #landroverdefender #defender #landrovergreen #greenbike #hopetech #steelisreal #steelisrealmtb #overlandclothing #theoverlandstore #mtb #vtt #terrengsykkel #stisykkling #mountainbiking #enduromtb #dhmtb #mtblife #endurolife #omiš #visitcroatia

A post shared by Any Excuse To Ride Norway (@_any_excuse_to_ride) on Feb 11, 2020 at 10:58am PST

Got an öhlins coil on now as that DVO was absolutely pants! You can see it in these pics as well as my girlfriend’s matching one in sky blue ;)

https://www.instagram.com/p/B89TLeWHjqs/

Just had this same issue. Searched allll over online at every option going as I thought the Hope ones were a bit expensive too. Here is a link to all your hub options, click on the one you have and you can get a PDF exploded diagram – LINK

You can definitely have cheaper, many of the online bearing shops have options of both those bearings for £2-3 a bearing however you’re then getting a non branded unproven bearing so who knows how long it will last.

The same shops sell Enduro branded bearings for both those sizes and by then you’re pretty much up to the Hope price and probably similar quality.

You can also buy some SKF for about £10 a bearing for the next step up.

So take your pick, cheapest bearings will probably have you replacing again in the not so distant future. Hope/Enduro I imagine you’ll get a year or so riding out of them.

Replacing
As others have said, it is a pretty simply process and there’s a great video here –

It is a brand new headset out of the box so supposedly the correct spacer ring for the headset.

I shall try tighter fitment, kind of thought too tight would put too much pressure on the bearings and that isn’t great?

I’ve used this stuff for frame protection – Biltema car protective film – seems to be better than the bike specific stuff I tried and costs a fraction of the price.

Thank you, I found which worked and realised I couldn’t delete the post so just edited to the actual question I wanted to ask :)

Caher – Ragnarok looks so crap but kinda keen to watch it as it is filmed on the fjord I live on! Also supposed to be learning Norwegian. Cool connection is that the glacier story in this months STW mag is the same glaciers that are in that series above a town called Odda where it is filmed.

Oh well, then I was standing behind the camera watching Lachlan do some sweet stunts. I couldn’t join in as we left the bikes outside overnight and my seatpost cable froze with the saddle stuck at full height. if you look closely in the 1st photo of that article you can see the saddle right up my a**e.

Which house Mick? The one in Kvanndal or the one we’re moving to in Nesbyen this year? Do you live up that way?

Orrrrr mick, the trip was just so cool and interesting it was worth 12 pages? ;) haha

Yeah, that is some of the trails we guide on! Super cool trail from 1200m down to the glacier but we tried the trip all the way to the cabin at 1600m on the glacier and it was quite the journey! Not mentioned in the article but we arrived at midnight under a full moon the day before as it took a little longer than expected to get up there…

Oooo, I guided that glacier trip, that’s me not doing the wheely!

Photo

Not seen the mag buuuuuut are those the glacier shots?

Yeah, come visit us in Norway! Sounds like we can sort all your requests, especially the epic views part! Lots of exciting things going on as we’re moving this season and we’ll have a sweet new house to welcome you into!

Any Excuse to Ride is our website, it is quite basic for now as we’re updating it to reflect the change in location for this season but just give us a shout if you have any questions :)

(I have asked for my forum name to be changed since we became important businessmen but to no avail ;) )

I do listen to R4 a lot and enjoy quite a lot of their programs but my Swedish girlfriend doesn’t tolerate The Archers (she doesn’t know what she’s missing!) and other R4 dramas enough to listen to R4 all day to get to the good stuff, hence why I’m looking for some podcasts.

Can’t stand In Our Time any more, I listened to quite a lot maybe 5 yrs ago and tried again recently but Melvin Brag is too annoying and they are just way too specific, so much so that I just zone out, I feel like I want for them to ‘zoom out’ one step and give me a bit more of an overview.

Butcher, that sounds right up my street.

Well thank you, there is plenty to look through there and I’m sure we’ll find something worth listening to.

I don’t have a pic but we used a bunch of old apple boxes sanded up and stacked together. Looked pretty nice.