And it’s not really “Just” £600, comes to ~£880 once you bung another £280 on for their wheels;

And don’t forget you also need their really cheap electronic rear mech and front mech too…

I did think about this, but what would they do then? I’m only retrieving data that they make available anyway.

Big difference from getting a bit of data for you to book one holiday and hitting the same site 50,000 for all their holiday data, for example.

I’ve seen sites drop in a CAPTCHA blocker after a certain number of hits from the same IP so you might not get all the data you were expecting.

I might add that the worst offenders are those who look like fairly serious riders, and not the old bloke on his way to the factory.

I do have to say there seems to be an unwritten rule that the roadies round ours try and do a track stand (badly) at the red lights and just seem to trundle slowly through them until they get to the point where they’re through anyway and just crank it back up to speed as if somehow it’s okay to RLJ if you’re going really slowly.

^ Thats impressive.

Friend of the family is a millionaire and I used to do the odd little driving jobs when I was a student for him – dropping them off/picking them up from evening do’s etc. – he had an Aston Martin but I never got to drive it 🙁 – I got the ratty old Peugeot he had and he made me drive around garages to find free air rather than pay the 10p for a top up for the tyres 😯 .

I had the injection a couple of times when I were a lad and suffering badly. They did seem to work pretty well, though it was right in the butt (long time ago, don’t know if there’s a better version these days) and it must have caught a nerve or something as I had a dead leg for a couple of days.

How much is the arrangement fee for the 2 year mortgage? That could wipe out any savings made.

What you want to check is what secondary school the feeder primary school goes into.

We had a couple of school beside us that were both good. One went to a nicer comp than the other.

We moved to a new house prior to having baby Breathe because of the better schools (amongst other reasons) but got a shock as the acceptance criteria meant despite being really close to the school we were struggling as there was a massive influx of siblings in our school year that got first priority.

Sadly to Poland this will be an issue.

Tell eBay they’re fakes and you won’t have to send them back, pretty much assured of your refund regardless.

Fountain pens – do you lot use the left handed nibs or not/ Some nib types scratch the paper when you push them, so you can get left handed ones with a kink at the end.

Tried a left handed fountain pen. It was awful. My natural way of writing left handed seems to involve holding the pen up in a really upright manner (rather than the more typical cack handedness/paper at strange angles) so the nib just kept scratching across the paper.

If you just want to bunn a few calories up then just go out on your mtb. Yes, you won’t be as fast. Yes, you won’t got as far but you’ll be doing a hour or twos exercise.

Gawd bless my mum for letting me grown up as a leftie, rather than succumb to the pressure of my grannie and the school who were trying to force me down the dark right side (showing my age there…).

Oh, and make sure he learns to use a mouse with his right hand, much better – leaves the left free to write notes / type.

That really spooks my missus!

Apart from that, the only other rightie thing I do is play golf – golfing left-handed just seems weird and always has done.

Hit drivers/irons right handed, but putt left handed. The look of confusion on some guys I play with is interesting!

Being left handed is ace at school playing rounders, you can amble round at your own pace when the other team are all running from one side of the field to the other.

I always enjoyed setting up right handed then just before the ball was thrown swap back to left handed – very rarely many fielders on that side of the field by then.

I don’t know if it’s left handedness but I can write mirrored writing almost as fast as I can do normal words!

The hardest thing for me being left handed was to learn to use a chainsaw right handed!

That came pretty natural for me.
Yes, easy for me – I just pointed to the tree I wanted chopping with my left hand and got the gardener to do it 😛

fork and spoon is odd. knife and fork = fork in the left. spoon = spoon in the left. fork and spoon…spoon in the left aand wave the fork about uselessly…well that’s me at least.

You and me both fella. Can never do posh desserts where you need both fork and spoon.

thing I find the worst is posidrive screws that need to be done TIGHT.

Get it in with left, then often swap to right to nip it up.

Maybe there is a correlation between STW and lefthandedness?

If you go down the HTML route than you’ll need to learn both HTML and CSS. The HTML is your content, and the CSS makes it look pretty so they go hand in hand.

Might not be ‘on trend’ but how about just sticking a triple chainset on?

Managed to build up a bike with 175mm on the left and 172.5mm on the right (don’t ask, too many ‘spares’ in the garage…) and never noticed for a bit, though imagine it’d knacker your knees if done longer term.

Fair chance you’ll not notice 2.5mm, but are you only clipping the wheel by 2.5mm or less?

Also – will mtb cranksets fit with a road type Hollowtech II bb? If so it widens my options for finding something cheap and nasty to try out before committing to something expensive.

With a couple of spacers you’d find on the equivalent mtb bb either side it should fit, though that might not leave enough thread inside the frame. Whether the cranks would work on a cross bike, I’m not 100% sure, the inner granny ring/granny ring bolt tabs might catch the stays.

Alas, it’ll be try it and find out. No definitive answer.

The guy is claiming it was the courier services fault for mishandling it but it was basically just dropped in the box with a couple of bits of newspaper along the bottom.

Sellers responsibility to liaise with courier to get compensation, not yours.

Personally I wouldn’t try to ‘fix’ it. Lay one finger on it and then you’ve got no comeback from the seller.

Now, do you send it back without adequate packing and insurance?! 😛

re the Post Office you’ll be looking at their Parcelforce service as anything over the size of a small thimble isn’t in their “improved for the customer” parcel sizings, so immediately looking at £13+ before any insurance etc.

but if it has been damaged by royal mails handling of the package is it the responsibility of the sender or recipient to claim for any damage to the items?

Its seller responsibility. Also assumes you’ve truthfully answered the usual “anything of value in this parcel?” type question and paid accordingly.

Bit late now as you’ve already offered compensation, but I’d be tempted to get the buyer to post them back.

Drill out the central bit that holds the two ‘SFN washers’ then it’s pretty easy to prise out the two of them seperately.

Anything else I should watch out for?

Can’t remember if this applies to the Mk4 as well as the Mk5 – there is a design flaw that VW recognise on the front wings – something inside absorbs water and expands pushing the wheel liner into the wing lifting the paint.

Check the edges of the front wheel arches for rust, the guy at the garage said it’s common on the diesels for some reason. VW replaced the wings on ours for free but we were the first owner so not sure if you’d get much mileage with it being second hand.

The seller should ship and you should leave feedback. They will then get paid.

That’s assuming the dodgy ‘sellers’ don’t turn into dogy ‘buyers’ and never leave feedback yet strangely get the goods and a refund?

I’d say something like the Schwalbe touring tyres – Marathon (or I think the Mondial is it’s replacement these days). You can get them fairly chunky if you’re worrying about spoiling the looks of your bike.

Or the cheaper ones like the the Schwalbe Hurricane.

I used to sell to the NHS, in two different roles. In each role I was able to take the piss and charge far more than any private, commercial organisation would pay.

Trusts need to think much more commercially and ensure that the non clinical side is managed by people with real world, commercial experience.

This ^^^ . The NHS paying to use their own pharmacies seems a bit barking mad to me….

Whilst we’re all here – I just bought something for £31 and they wanted £15 postage, refusing to allow me to collect which I could have done, thereby increasing the total cost almost 50%.

I’m tempted to leave netural feedback as I think this is unreasonable.

That’s not a neutral feedback issue unless he/she specifically stated collection was possible. Might be an old lady who doesn’t like strangers turning up at her door for instance. You bid for the auction with the postage – the fact you might have lived next door to them really doesn’t matter.

Upgraded some older SLX shifters to some new shiney XT ones. Spend ages getting the cables just right, making sure the shifting and indexing were absolutely spot on, grips/brakes etc. refitted.

’twas a perfect job until I’d realised I’d just taken the SLX shifters off, then put them back on again. The XT ones were still sitting it the box waving at me…

Pros of PCH? Hand back and get a new one

Nah, you’ll never have enough ‘equity’ in the previous lease to cover the cost of the new car you want. The balloon payment will be about the same cost as using it as part-ex, there’ll be next to nowt left, certainly not the thousands you’ll need for the next deposit.

It’s nonsense that riding a fat-tyred bike will make you fitter. Why would you work any harder on a fat-tyred bike than on a skinny-tyred bike? You will simply choose a gear ratio that suits the resistance you’re feeling and give it the same effort, no matter what you’re riding. However a road bike will reward you by travelling at about twice the speed for the same effort.

And working out for half the time … 🙄

Run for years on a 10speed chainset on the road bike with 9 speed chain/cassette without a hitch. I’d say there wouldn’t be an issue.

‘Technically’ you front shifting might be a touch out but you’d have to be a real anorak to probably notice anything.

One of the good things about VED is a lot of people suddenly ‘remember’ to do their MOT or renew their insurance when they need the tax disk (I know many don’t). I suspect that’s more of it’s reason for existence for the government.

What do you want out of your commute? To get there quicker, or to get fitter?

If it’s the former, buy a road bike (or possiby a car!)

If its the latter then having more rolling resistance will make you fitter on the mountainbike.

Road tax/VED/cyclists is just an excuse for these idiots to vent

Yes, get rid of that one and they’ll spout the lack of insurance gem next…

Wot, you didn’t take their rattle keys off of them?

Lol, I saw that happen once. A couple of awesum drivers got into a bit of an argument behind me at some lights. One got out of the car, went over and quick as a flash had his keys out and launched them into the adjoining park….

Was in Boots last week wandering down one of the aisles with a certain brand of product with an F and a C to start (followed by UK) on. My 6 years shouted loudly across at me “Daddy, does that spell …” well, you can guess possibly 😯

On seeing this I was reassured that she didn’t know it was a bad word. She said she got it from a girl at school. I told her it was a bad word and we haven’t heard it since.

Yes, there’s a difference in intent and hearing something that might be possibly rude. A delightful little boy at nursery was passing his knowledge gained from his mother to the other kids. baby breathe tried a ‘fuccoff’ a couple of times without really knowing what it was.

9 spd chain is 9spd chain innit?

Innit. Indeed.

My 10 speed chainset works perfectly well with a 9 speed drivetrain.

But you are correct that (in theory) the cassette, shifters and mechs can’t be swapped ‘twixt Campag and Shimano. Chainsets are fairly agnostic though.

Did he actually say Premiership players, or just players? he was including players from the 70s so presume the latter.

I kinda agree with Waddle in some respects.

“This thing has changed my mind on big wheels..fastest bike I’ve ridden on trail ever!” Credit: Justin Leov

Sponsored rider bigging up latest bike they’ve been given shocker 🙄

Don’t buy Apples memory upgrade – waaaay cheaper to order it from someone else and do the 10 second install yourself.

Gotta give a clue on prices. I don’t want to ring some salesman on a possible premium rate number to find out it’s £400 to ship a set of forks. Even just a “prices from…” would be useful.

… when you’re cycling to work, having to stop to go through a gate and there were to very nice looking girls doing some stretches beside it. And you feel the need to cheerily say “oh, I know where I can park my bike now”…

And don’t throw out the proper lego packaging either – stick them in the loft out the way!

This could be fun. If you prove it’s part of your contract because you’re doing it already, then surely all the shirkers are going to do exactly the same thing too! Then what does the manager do?!