Thieving scumbag defeating device: I’ve made something you might like.

Can they be hidden in fork steerers?

Yes – search ‘BikeTag Trail’ on eBay. Full disclosure if you haven’t already realised, I make these for the purpose you describe…

Will the tile do that? Is it directly comparable with an airtag?

Tile will do that (remote tracking on a map) but requires a £30/year subscription and has a smaller network of devices searching for the tag, so will likely take longer for your bike/wallet/keys to show up when you’ve lost them. Personally I think (for bikes at least) you’re better off with an airtag even if you’re running an Android phone, if you’ve got access to an apple device through family or close friends. A Tile Sticker should fit in a steerer on the BikeTag though.

I wouldn’t use either as a backup in case you fall off.

Yes, I sold 5 with hand made rubber washers to test the market/see if there was any interest at all. Needless to say that couldn’t last as I was making a loss on them, particularly if you account for the time and faff involved in hand moulding the rubber washers, it was a real pain but convinced me to invest in the tooling to do it properly.

You could have gone for the Chipolo One devices which integrate into Apple’s Find MY network but the plus side is that they are also compatible with android devices. At 38mm diameter, they are only marginally larger than an airtag

Sadly that’s just too big to go up a tapered steerer. The Tile Sticker would work if you’re an android only household, but if there’s an Apple device in the house I reckon it’s best to stick with the AirTags for maximum coverage.

@tthew That’s a great idea, I’ll get on that now!

Instant £400 spend there… Nice to be able to splash that on a whim!

AirTags a £30 each, or they do a 4 pack for £100. So just £100, not so ridiculous!

Ordered one – Not sure of the name though.

I was hard to come up with a good name! I quite like the BikeTag bit, but needed to come up with something to suggest that it’s mainly for mountainbikes (needs a tapered steer with an open bottom), which is where the Trail bit came from. All ears for better suggestions!

For people struggling to find them on eBay, it’s easiest to put biketag in. For some reason airtag bike tracker works, but just airtag bike doesn’t. I guess SEO isn’t my strength 🤷

Could be used as a Fork Cork? It’s £10 cheaper.

Yes, it would work very well, just needs a 2.5mm hex to remove it so don’t go stashing your multi tool up there 😂

I like the look of the seatpost reflector one for a gravel bike or something without a tapered steerer, I much prefer to run my mtb without reflectors though, and they’re not available to buy as of yet. The BikeTag Trail provides a similar level of sound deadening to the internal speaker thing, it’s pretty hard to hear once installed.

As bfw says:

I have disabled the sounder.

I’m told this is quite easily done, not that I’d know anything about it…

where abouts are you?

Lancaster way

what testing have you do on it?

I’ve been running the various iterations of it on my bike and a few others for about 4 months now (everything takes longer to develop than you think…) and it’s performed faultlessly. I’ve sent friends off to hide bikes around the city and see how long it’ll take to find them on the app and then locate the bike – quite a boring game as they always showed up right away and you just follow the dot on the map right to the bike. I’ve also done tests comparing the signal strength of the airtag in the steerer tube compared to the airtag in the air – the difference is certainly measurable but not enough to make a big difference. In fact when my van broke down in Glen Shiel and I had to leave it for a week or so, I was constantly getting location updates on the airtag in my steerer of the bike in the back of the van.

Is there a decent Android equivalent of the AirTag that’s worth looking at?

There are quite a few alternatives out there, but most of them are too big to conceal nicely on a bike. Tile have just released the Sticker which looks like a good alternative and is significantly cheaper than an Airtag (you can get four packs for about £50), and is iOS/Android compatible, but it doesn’t have a user replaceable battery (boo e-waste).

The trouble with the Android equivalents if the size of the userbase – all these devices work by having everyone in the userbase “listen out” for the tags – all iPhones now do this in the background without the user realising, so the userbase is very large and the AirTag only needs to come within 20m or so of an iPhone to be picked up and report its location to the AirTag owner. For a stolen bike, this is very, very likely to happen. If you’d used, say, a Tile, the chance of it coming in range of an Android phone with the Tile app installed is much slimmer. I think Tile also charge a subscription for their remote premium service.

Would an AirTag inside a frame tube (maybe stuck inside a washing up sponge pushed into the top/downrube via the headtube or BB area. … a be less obvious than a repurposed crud bung

This is a great idea but sadly wouldn’t work as there’s nowhere for the signal to escape from – even deep inside an open ended tube won’t work very well, let alone fully enclosed. You’re basically locking the AirTag inside a Faraday cage.

Problem is if this becomes a normal thing to use, it will be the first thing the scrotes look for and remove. Nice idea though.

That would be a nice problem to have but with over 3 million bikes sold in the UK each year I think it could be a while 😅

Not for three days, and even then doesn’t tell them where it is. I think it needs to be travelling with them consistently to trigger the warning too – plausible if they’re actually using it for transport, but I suspect most get stored and sold on.

Fixed a similar problem on my Relay recently, turned out to be EGR valve stuck open a small amount. Did throw a code though.

Totally against the op but surely a hard tail is what a young whippersnapper should be riding? How’re they going to learn how to ride properly if they start off on a skills compensator?

Do you know what internal width your crests are twonks? My 355s have seen better days and I quite fancy something wider!

Brilliant cheers!

Yeah I think he was being ambitious but he only went into the boat because it was raining, was chatting through the window to start with. Apparently there was no one about but there you go.

Cheers for looking out guys!

Kink in the hose? Happened to me when the hose got yanked in the car – kink was hidden under the strain relief by the lever. Easily fixed by shortening the hose.

You can report the item using the link on the listing. Various catagories including “Stolen Item”, although you have to be a law enforcement official to report something as stolen.

I didn’t dress up for any of mine (current 4th year student), got all my offers. Accademics really don’t care how you dress. To be honest, most unis will invite you to “interview” as an attempt to sell the uni to you and convince you that York really is the place for you, so I don’t think it makes much difference. I went to two of my interviews and got five offers so I wouldn’t worry about attending all interviews.

Mine used to do this, after I’d got them up to temperature they’d be fine for the rest of the ride, and much more powerful, even after they got cold. Getting them hot in the first place wasn’t easy as I’m not a big guy so it was a constant issue for me until I replaced the pads when they wore out…

I’m a student and have a Santander 123 account. Gets good interest and cashback on the credit card. Needs £500 a month into the account but I’m lucky enough to be able to meet this.

May or may not be helpful OP, but when I had a fairly serious injury in France (surgery, week in hospital etc) they couldn’t have been better. Didn’t ask for any details/try to get out of paying, were always extremely helpful and courteous on the phone, put me up I’m hotels etc. Made the whole experience much less stressfull. May be worth considering.

In Sivota at the moment. It’s really, really hot. Ridiculously hot in fact. Other than than no problems.

Hey Jedi,

Just read your blog, looks like an awesome week! I’m going out to Cham in a few weeks with this as an objective. Your route looks particularly good, do you have a GPX for it?

Thanks!

Update!

Just been out on the driveway with the car. Checked the oil level, it’s very slightly over full but nothing that would concern me. After taking some of the decorative engine bay covers off I noticed that an intercooler pipe was just about slipping off one of its connections – I’d have never spotted it without the advice on here, so thanks STW! Popped it back on (no easy feat) and tightened up the Jubilee clip as best I could (needed a screwdriver with a shorter handle really, it’s pretty tight in there) and took her for a spin – good as new :D

I’ve no idea how National could have set this off – the pipe in question is on the other side of the engine bay to the oil filter (although it is low down so I guess it could have been while they were draining the oil), but I’m glad this seems to be cleared up. I’ll keep an eye on it over the coming weeks to make sure it doesn’t slip off again.

Cheers everyone!

Excellent, cheers dirtyboy. I’ll be able to have a better look under the bonnet tomorrow morning when it’s all cooled down. Any other ideas?

Thanks!

I’m surprised by the balance of views presented – Deore is far superior in my mind.

Must say I would have done the same as the athletes. You’ve ridden your lungs out to get into a break, you can see that there’s time to cross, although the barrier is already down. Obviously you’re going to cross! It’s a race, isn’t it? Obviously this isn’t a great situation but I’d be blaming race organisers rather than the riders.

If that train had come through a moment earlier the impact would’ve been horrific…

Just like every time you cross the road then…

Phenominal riding to be had under the Brevent lift, and I think it’s south facing so should be relatively dry low down. It certainly was before the recent snow. I suspect you’ll struggle to get a bike on the lift, and there will (hopefully!) still be snow at the top of the lift. Having said that, I saw a few bikes at the lift station in Verbier two weeks ago :D

Quod is great, if a little pricy, if you want to eat posh. Or Turl Street Kitchen is amazing during the day, not sure if they do evenings or not though.

Proably not worth it, lithium cells are very sensitive to over charging and catch fire in a big old way if they get over charged.

Surprised nobody’s mentioned Gore stuff. My phantom was vastly superior to the Endura Convert that replaced it. The convert just doesn’t breath anywhere near as well, and the stiching is already coming out so that the cuffs are falling apart.

I’m gonna go against the grain here and say that depending on what you’re looking for summer skiing can be great. If you just want to ski the piste then obviously it’s not going to be so good, but if you want to ski park it rocks! Lovely soft landings, and no feeling that you should be elsewhere on the mountain making the most of the conditions.

Well those are incredibly expensive! £60 per month for 2GB? No thanks…

bugcap, you sure about that? Last I checked (recently) France wasn’t on the list. Enjoying my free 4G though!

No, you’ll have a massive stress riser where that crack/rip is.

Have ridden Dolly Wagon and wasn’t a fan of the top, just boring man made slabbyness with big drainage channels. Bottom was great fun though, once you get past the man made stuff.