The phones aren’t out in the wild yet hence me looking for information on the same case for other models. The XS max is barely any different to last years X so if a case worked well on that I presume the same type will work well on the new model.

There are hundreds of different cases available already.

I had a look at spigen and found one I like but its pre-order only at the moment. I might just get one on order and have a look for something to tide me over until it arrives

http://www.spigen.co.uk/cell-phone/apple-iphone/iphone-2018/iphone-xs-max-case-ultra-hybrid-360.html#.W6JhKuhKiUk

5Nm as per the writing on the bars and stem.

5Nm seems pretty standard for carbon parts and is the preset value for my torque clicker

I’m also happy even if it is a placebo. When I get home after a six hour 120 mile ride like today’s and my clothes are wet from sweat with salty white patches i can’t see it hurting to put some electrolytes back in.

If you spend enough time on google you will find scientific papers for both sides of any argument. Some may have even been written by real scientists and everything.

I’m not interested in the slightest what velonews say. You will find as many articles on the web that contradict each other.

all I can tell you is that if I do a hard ride I will get cramp on the night if I don’t have an electrolyte drink. I will wake up in agony and wherever I had cramp will feel bruised for days after. For the sake of £6.99 for a box of 20 nice tasting drinks which last me about a month it’s well worth taking them.

I use them every ride all year to stop cramp during and after exercise. I get terrible cramp in bed on the night if i don’t use them.

They are not energy tablets though. Only electrolyte. They are designed to replace the electrolytes / salts you sweat out during exercise.

As i said i’m a perfectionist when it comes to my walls. It would annoy the hell out of me if there were any marks or lumps.

I have never damaged a wall by steaming but the walls i have repaired have always been skimmed i.e. not just taped and jointed board. if you tried steaming unskimmed board then yes you could damage it.

As above preparation is key. No matter what primer or wonder treatment you put on it will sill be lumpy and look rubbish if there is still glue on the wall. The painting is the quick easy bit at the end if the preparation is done correctly.

I get walls plastered nowadays as i have more £££ than i used to and my time is better spent elsewhere.

Lining paper? Do you want it to look like an old people’s home?

What you need to do isn’t easy or fast but is the only way I have found that works and lasts.

1) strip paper with steamer

2) steam wall surface and scrape to remove remaining wallpaper paste. You need to scrape the glue whilst it’s hot

3) repeat no.2 going over it all again

4) repeat no.3 going over it yet again

5) clean walls with scouring pad and hot water

6) repeat no.5 clean it again

7) repeat no.6 clean it even more

8) repeat no.7 clean it yet again

you get to the point where you can feel the walls are clean enough to be painted. I would firstly give them a good coat  of white emulsion which highlights any problem areas that need filling or sanding.

I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to walls and hate to see lumpy walls and couldn’t stand to see the joints of lining paper. Nowadays I get a good plasterer in to skim the walls as it’s much quicker, easier and less messy. Sometimes I will get walls over boarded which again solves various problems.

I recently tried magnet when having my kitchen fitted. I wrongly assumed they were a premium kitchen brand. They were second worse only to Wren.

I went to two branches and neither seemed like they actually wanted to sell a kitchen. I designed the layout myself and went in with a list of cupboards and all the bits i would need and both branches said they would get back to me with a quote. Neither branch bothered to contact me which didn’t worry me as the kitchens weren’t great quality and they couldn’t do custom size units. I did eventually get a call from Magnet about a month after I went in to see them and the price they quoted was 4 times higher than anyone else (except wren). They tried the fake discounts at which point i told them to stop wasting their time and mine.

I ended up going for a local company who specialise in high end and could make whatever style kitchen I wanted in whatever size I wanted. this allowed me to get more creative and they bent over backwards to make sure everything worked as it should. The price was also very good and cheaper than wrens fake prices who again were limited by standard cupboard sizes and software that wouldn’t allow for deviations off standard.

One thing I was told by the owner of one kitchen company and it rang true the more showrooms I visited is that a lot of smaller independent kitchen companies order doors from the same few manufactures and make their own carcasses to suit. so quality doesn’t vary too much. Good design and fitting can be more important.

Bigger companies like wren make their own but i wouldn’t ever recommend Wren to anyone.

To summarise: You can get much better quality and service for less money.

I have had 3 apple watches and originally thought they were ok. I got fed up with the last one and bought a Garmin fenix 5. Its like night and day. The Garmin is more of a sports watch that does a bit of lifestyle stuff and the apple watch is a lifestyle watch that does a bit of sports stuff. I got fed up of the apple watch poof battery life and inaccurate gps tracking and heart rate monitoring. No good at all for serious training. The garmin is much better. you can tell its a dedicated sports watch. The hr monitoring is constant and accurate and the GPS tracking is very good. The battery last ages too. I would struggle to get a day from the apple watch when tracking.

Garmin are not perfect but they seem to have done a good job with the watches.

I had some done by a local company and there weren’t as expensive as I expected. Its a big kitchen and i had everything under the worktops done and they only cost around £2500 templated and fitted including a table top. Certainly a lot cleaner more modern and less maintenance than tiles. I’m getting our main bathroom shower done next.

As above you can use the zwift companion app to add more bluetooth devices.

I only use the 4k apple tv to run zwift. its been 100% reliable and much easier than messing around with my mac or macbook. Its been so reliable i bought another apple tv just to run zwift in the garage.

Nice

Aside from buying a watch I would put money on the garmin hrm problem just being a worn out strap. Something inside the strap breaks giving you intermittent or no reading. The actual units themselves are very rarely the problem.  Pretty much any strap will work even the cheap eBay ones. I went for a polar one and it solved the issues. You may just have to trim the rubber down around the press studs to fit but it’s easy and pretty obvious.

I had similar on a new bmw m3. It was the squib? Which I seem to remember is an acronym something like the steering wheel input sensor. It houses a sensor that tells the car the steering input and also houses the stalk controls. When it failed the wipers wouldn’t go off and various other systems went crazy.

Apologies cookeaa. My reply wasn’t directed towards you.

It may seem obvious to you but the guy was asking a genuine question and has turned to stw for advice No need to ridicule him whether you meant it or not. Too much of that goes on on here by people like you. I think that sort of attitude has just become accepted as the norm.

Excuse elitist mr Smith above. I think he finds it hard not to be a knob sometimes .

Its doubtful you have bent your stem. You may have knocked something on the headset meaning it’s not seated properly anymore. You may have a tight spot that’s making the steering feel weird. Have you checked the bars are still in line with the forks/wheel. Have you checked the bars aren’t bent?

there are loads of things to check. Best to start with symmetry.  Does the left look the same as the right?

Seems like a stupid thing to do. Most forks are a larger diameter locally where the crown race sits. Also, depending on the shape of the crown race the top of one may not sit nicely against the bottom of the one on top.

I wouldn’t do it.

Another vote for Collinite 476 wax. It’s amazing stuff and really cheap. Two traits that rarely go together. I have payed 5x the price for worse stuff in the past.

I don’t think you love your kids if you put cable discs on their bike. Awful things.

I put hope x2’s on my kids bikes with the tech lever. They are so adjustable with reach and bite point it’s easy to set them up for small hands.

Have a look at the madcats rat9 mouse. It’s completely customisable with various includes pieces and sliding parts. It’s a gaming mouse and looks weird but you can get it to be the perfect shape to suit your hand and wrist postion. They do cheaper similar versions but I have only owned the cordless rat 9. I used to get terrible rsi but don’t get it anymore. I use it for 3D cad 5 days a week.

I recently had some fitted by a local company. They had a few samples that were exactly the same. Not close, exactly the same. They explained that companies buy them from the same supplier and label them up as unique to themselves. I did some research and there are only a few manufacturers worldwide so so it makes sense.

I also visited one of the largest distributors in the country and they said the warranty isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. If it stains it’s your fault. If it breaks it’s probably your fault. There isn’t much to go wrong that would be covered by any sort of warranty.

I bought a mint condition one a few years ago for £100 from an old couple who had it in their shed. I had been looking for one to restore. I had planned on riding it a bit but one ride was enough to make me sell it. Talk about flexy. The whole thing felt like it was made of jelly. Mainly due to the bars but the whole bike was just terrible. I stuck it straight on eBay and it sold for about £700.

Thanks for your reply.

I have raced and trained with a hr monitor and power meter for years on the road so I’m ok on their use in general. I use a garmin one on zwift at the moment displayed and recorded on my garmin because it’s only ant+ and can’t connect with Apple TV  I have ordered the Bluetooth one that links into the Apple TV so all my data will be displayed properly on the zwift screen and recorded in one source. I was just curious if when zwift is receiving my hr it would give actual feedback vs the questions it asks me currently. Maybe telling me my hr was slightly higher for the last interval etc.

I did loads of tt”s before getting a hr monitor and eventually getting a power meter. The biggest piece of advice if you are only racing on one course would be to go and ride the course loads of times beforehand as part of your training. You will learn by making mistakes and learn where to put effort in and where to ease off to recover. I used to go and ride the course 2-3 times per training session. I found that because I knew my local course so well that getting a power meter didn’t make much difference on race day. It helped massively for training though. You also need to exercise some restraint on race day because it’s easy to over do it early on. This is where a power meter can help and a hrm to a degree.

Commuting to new, much lower paid job.

When I got made redundant and had to start commuting to work my whole biking wardrobe was bought from Aldi and Lidl. The Aldi stuff is generally a lot better than than the Lidl but over the years I have bought better kit and come to realise that most of the stuff I was wearing in the past was really pretty rubbish. Odd sizes and fitting. I have had a few really good items but I have pretty much binned everything in favour of better stuff designed for humans. I think most of the Aldi lidl stuff is designed for short fat people who never sweat. I still look every time I go in though.

That photo pretty much proves my point. You have gone out of your way to take a pic of your bike next to a supercar. Would you of gone out of your way to get a picture of it next to a lesser car that may on paper be as capable? I’m struggling to think of one though! Maybe a Honda NSX back in the day.

I’m not basing a super bike purely on the attention it gains but it is a factor. I don’t think anyone’s dream/ultimate bike has ever been a giant. They end up buying a Giant because they couldn’t afford better and convinced them self that a giant is just as good which in reality it is. Same with other brands. As i said the TCR is as good as anything else out there but a superbike needs to have a wow factor that no giant will ever have.

No idea what you went to work in. Was it a Robin Reliant?

Giant can’t make a superbike. I have 3 giants and am a massive fan of my tcr but even though it’s a top model with top parts and has been ridden to many victories it’s still just a giant. I had a 10 year old £500 bianchi in Celeste green with bottom end Campagnolo that got more attention than my top end giant.

That’s certainly no superbike. A superbike for me is more that a sum of its parts. It has to have heritage and pedigree and be desirable. Only a few manufacturers can make a superbike. Plus it needs to be expensive and out of reach to most people. In the car world its like Vauxhall making a ferrari beater. Its still only a Vauxhall. Back to bikes I think the Giant TCR is a perfect example. Its a race winning bike that is arguably as good as any other bike out there and clad it with the worlds best parts its still only a Giant.

Ha Ha. I have been caught a few times and used the picking up a pen excuse or plugging something into the computer under the desk.

Some interesting variations on the links above. I like the idea of doing some harder variations so will have a look at coming up with a plan.

I like the idea of one arm pushups. I have just tried and managed 8 so this can be improved. I also like the idea of handstand pressups but i’m terrible at shoulder press at he gym which i presume is similar with added balance required.

I hadn’t though if changing position. I’m not great at wide or narrow so I can start adding some of these in.

Non of this was meant as a brag. I can’t help competing with myself and always try and do more than yesterday. That’s how I have ended up at 250 and I won’t lie. it’s hard work now.

Im sure most people can get to a point where they can do some press-ups. The first few days of starting doing them I ached like hell in places I forgot I had places. My 6 year old daughter can do 50 in sets of 10 if she is in the mood.

That music is terrible. Sounds like a really bad start to a James bond film but unlike the bond songs I doubt it will sound any better accompanying the title sequence.

There is a difference between a downhill racers speed and an xc racers dh speed. If you are used to dh racing with good size rock gardens and decent size jumps then ill argue that xc downhills are pretty easy. I have passed many people by taking the risky line but in a dh race it wouldn’t even be considered an obstacle.  I found that even whilst passing people going down hill i was still able to get enough rest to recover for the next hill/effort.

last year I did 4 xc races. I came 3rd, 8th, 3rd and 2nd.

What cat / level / series & how many entered? As they’re impressive results

sorry i did 5 not 4.

2 x elite. the 8th and an 11th

3 x enthusiast ( or whatever its called) 3rd 3rd and 2nd

I have given up worrying about weight on my XC bike. I do mainly road racing and downhill but last year I did 4 xc races. I came 3rd, 8th, 3rd and 2nd. I noticed a few things that made me change my bike to make it faster in certain circumstances.

Firstly I noticed how completely useless a lot of xc riders are at descending, even at the sharp end of a race. I probably made up most of my places overtaking on the downhills. For this reason i put bigger tyres on and a dropper. I was happy to sacrifice a bit of uphill/flat speed for the downhill speed.

I also beefed the wheels up. I used to use stans crest rims but they constantly felt like they were going to collapse. Talk about flexy. I changed them for some mavic 819’s which give the tyres a good round profile which i like for cornering.

I swapped back to flat pedals. Again its amazing how may riders cant get clipped back in after dabbing for a corner or a traffic bottleneck. Coming from road and dh where you don’t unclip much I include myself in this and the rush and heat of the moment of a race doesn’t help. I passed quite a few people on steep uphills by being able to get back on the pedals sooner.

So for me weight isn’t at the top of my list. i need a bike that’s good on the downhills and will suffer a bit of drag on the ups as a trade off.

I just put 12 x 12w Mi-Light downlights in a room a bit bigger. It’s bright but controllable from my phone or wall panel and once set it doesn’t need messing with. The kids also spend ages changing the colours and making them flash to music.

Don’t just assume that 8 will work out best due to joist positions. You are better off having more and dimming than not enough. You also need to consider how the sparky will get power to the lights. Often you will need a new ceiling or overboarding and a skim.

Thanks, I hadn’t seen those wahoo cadence sensors. I have just ordered one. It looks like it will get me part way to where I want and I can add a bluetooth heart rate sensor at a later date.

Thanks again