Just signed up after being on this forum for many many years, hope you can keep going through these tough times.

Should have said I am after something with roughly 80k miles that I can run again to high mileage. Purchase price 4 to 6k. Needs to be a big estate.

I work with Autodesk Inventor which is a 3D cad package but we also use 3D studio. We had full CAD spec PC’s up untill about 2 years ago when it was decided to use something more akin to a gaming graphics card as it was roughly half the price. We have had no problems really.

Dell XPS range pc
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700 CPU @ 3.00GHz, 3000 Mhz, 8 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
32GB Ram
NVidia GeForce RTX2060

Ok so maybe i hadn’t realised you would need a smart phone to actually see the data. Does anybody know what you can see on the watch itself as she wont have a phone so would need to be linked to my phone which might just make it a pain.

Slight thread hijack but hopefully a simple question.

I am looking for a guitar mini amp or headphone amp that will allow me to still play the guitar when I get kicked out of our spare room (where my main amp is) by somebody else in the family. It would ideally be battery powered so I don’t have to end up near a power socket. I don’t actually mind if I have to use headphones or not.

I was looking at the VOX AC2 for the mini amp or the VOX AC-30 for the headphone amp. I run a spider amp normally not really loyal to a brand, my playing is best described as beginner. I am just after something that is really convenient so that I can grab my guitar and go to another room and practice for 30 mins when I can’t use my normal amp.

Money sent, hope it goes well. All for such a good cause as well.

Sadly QDOS does not work as the VAN is a 54 plate and our other car is a 52 plate and they are too old for them to cover. Any other suggestions.

Anybody else know specifically about fitting PIV to a flat where you don’t have access to a loft space to draw the air from.

Brilliant film, great content and excellent images.

Anybody any other views, it looks like the Coleman event dome is the next best option but only having 2 solid sides and the fact that they only attach with toggles is a down side in my opinion. And its a bit more expensive.

I have used genuine Thermarests for nearly 25 years and the 2 original ones which are 25 years old and have been camped on for a minimum of 3 weeks a year are still going strong and my daughters now use them. Not as quite as soft as an air bed but nice and warm and reliability wins in my opinion.

As for the noise why anybody thinks they can go from sleeping inside a quiet house to outside with all the wildlife and other people making noises is beyond me. I will always use ear plugs, experiment at home to see what is comfortable over night and that should be the noise issue sorted.

Sadly we don’t have the money for sleepers and also can’t really afford to remove width from the already skinny border. No space to slope the ground back either.

My only input is that I have been using the Cero AR24 wheels for a year and have just broken 2 spokes on the rear wheel in quick succession. After the first broke I fitted the spare and had the wheel properly trued by my LBS who is a very good ex Mavic mechanic. When I broke the second I decided to get confidence back in the wheels I have opted for it being relaced with a stronger heavier gauge DT swiss spoke. I am 14 stone so no racing whippet but also not mega heavy either. I agree if you can find something with a few more spokes the slight increase in weight makes for a better more reliable training wheel. I have never had any problem previously breaking spokes.

Thanks for the links, I was hoping somebody would actually have some real world experience of a similar item.

We know that the Coomber kit is good quality from other schools experience so without some actual experience we will probably be forced to go down that route.

Thanks all for your input, some interesting reading. I picked up the line 6 spider last night for £60 and really like it. I am sure there are better amps out there, but this will help me massively to find my style and sound which other than getting much better at playing the guitar is what I need. I can also sell it for close to what I bought it for and buy something else. It’s a massive benefit being able to play after the kids are in bed with or without head phones on and not having to listen to a really loud buzzing. Thanks again for your advice but don’t let this stop an interesting thread.

Bikeboy, what sort of offer would you accept.

I am only concerned with playing at home, my talents are a long way from venturing out. The Line 6 amp was second hand so was only £70 compared to £180 for the boss. I tend towards guitar rock and funky music. Nothing very heavy but some Muse Esque distortion would be nice in the future.

Ok thanks for your help will setup a second Alexa account and see how I get on from there.

I donate regularly, normally twice a year. Around 20 donations so far. All this beef about the system is not really warranted, it always takes me about 1 hour door to door for a donation. Yes there is a bit of sitting and waiting and repeating your address etc but its a painless process. The staff are always excellent. My only problem is I do seem to notice a considerable drop off in fitness when pushing it for quite a few weeks after a donation.

Cero AR24 1500g currently on sale for £189 which I know is over budget but you also get a pair of Continental Grandsport tyres thrown in for good measure.

I have run them for a year now and just had one broken spoke, other than that they have been great wheels.

https://www.cycledivision.co.uk/cero-ar24-evo-alloy-wheelset-2017

This thread is awesome and I have chipped in to all the Gnusmas threads. That said I can’t help but feeling that Gnusmas is really going to struggle to get 3 kids in the back of a Yaris though especially if the high back booster seats are required. I might have missed it but how old are Gnusmas’s kids roughly so we can try and work out a way. I think I am right that he has 4 kids.

We have the same decathlon one as houndlegs its very very good for £35 much better than the Alpkit ones we had previously that kept failing after about 18 months.

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/onnight-710-trail-head-torch

I would look at a set of cero AR24<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>24 wheels or the prime wheels. They are around your budget and around 1500g which should make quite a difference to the way the bike feels and picks up speed.</span>

I will have to check later but I think it is the semi-vertical drop out.

Done.

Our local seller of such things sells the silky stuff but also stocks a lot of Trojan which they recon a lot of the professionals use and a good deal cheaper. I don’t have any personal experience though as I ended up climbing with a bow saw in the end.

Why do you need a bed of hot embers, this suggests that your wood is not dry enough.

I had to use smokeless fuel when we had the log burner installed in our latest house, the seasoned wood we bought was not dry enough to burn and would only burn on a bed of hot embers.

We now get all our wood green and keep it for 3 years drying so we know what we have and where we stand. No need to ever measure moisture as you know its all dry.

I think you are measuring the moisture of the wood wrongly. You need to split the wood at the time of measuring and check in the middle of the freshly split surface to get a correct reading.

My suspicion is that most of your problems are down to the moisture content of the wood. I have never burnt Larch so can’t comment on that but I would have thought it should still burn ok if it was properly dry

The key to running a wood burner well and easily is a good source of wood that is consistent and correctly seasoned.

Cheers FunkyDunc I order a pair of the Cero’s on Friday for £189 should be with me tomorrow. Hoping they are good, cant really go wrong at that price.

The hope open pros are more like 1750g where as the Cero are 1450g more like 300g difference than 50g unfortunately. I have a bomb proof set of wheels on my winter bike with disc brakes and I know home much difference it makes to the feel of the bike that extra weight on the wheels.

Double post

Would like the security of open pro’s on hope but they are just a bit to heavy. Those Cero’s look very tempting.

We have an Anker one as well and it is surprisingly good for the money.

Really glad she was pleased, hope it helps to relive the tension slighlty.

GNUSMAS – good luck with the physiotherapist hope it goes well, keep us posted.

Amazing total, saw this early yesterday and just checked back to see how it was going. Restores faith in mankind and also reinforces why I use this forum as an oracle on anything. Quite frankly if it hasn’t been discussed on STW then you probably don’t need to know about it.

gnusmas its not begging, if fettling would give you the required head space go for it, swallow your pride and accept the parts required. People (myself included) have an incredible ability to hoard bike bits that do no body any good sat in a box. I try to take them periodically to a cycle charity but your case is just as strong if not stronger. Please accept a little help so that you can keep giving to your family.

I agree with theotherjonv, you have to look after yourself to effectively look after others. I learnt the hard way and in a period of great stress I tried to compensate by packing as much into the weekends for the family as possible and in the end just burnt out.

I also agree with trying to fit in some short sessions of exercise ideally every day even if it is just a couple of minutes. Even better if you can do it early in the day so you benefit from it all day. You will easily get the few minutes back by working more productively but it is hard to see that when everything is stacked up. I do understand how busy mornings are before school etc. but could you do a couple of minutes of HIT type exercise with the kids and try and get into a daily routine.

Really hope you can get out for a ride soon to clear your head. I hope we can raise enough cash to make a decent contribution to wheelchair.

3rd time of doing the Grande and managed a silver time of 7:06 which is an hour faster than last year. I was fighting off cramp in the last 15 miles but that is down to not enough really tough long rides in the last few months. It is just the best organised Sportive I have had the pleasure of doing. the marshal’s are without question the best I have experienced, the food is good and plentiful and the event village was the best I have ever seen it this year. Aim for next year is to break into the 6 hour times.

Thanks for the input, riders are responsible for themselves and it works really well. I was just after other peoples thoughts really.

It doesn’t have to be on the net but it is helpfull otherwise all files have to be transfered onto a memory stick back and forth for ebay adverts, fonts, images etc.