Surely nobody has pointed out the obvious here – you’ve had ten months waiting for the frame and you’ve STILL not painted that fence…..

Plus Shimano etc. prices have gone mental recently so bikes in WMTB price range that used to have XT (with maybe XTR mech) are now wearing SLX etc. and definitely chunkier tyres.

Market seems to be following most peoples experiences. First mtb was a bit chunky. They liked the biking so then tried to make things as light as possible. Which promptly broke so backed off a little. And the magazines said to be a proper trail bike it needed to be 6inch travel, bolt thrus, 2.4″ tyres, big risers etc. and we all accepted that as gospel and ran out to buy our new Remedies.

And to be fair, manufacturers don’t have to spend as much money with better materials/more research/machining etc. to get midweight stuff so maybe it’s convenient they’ve all decided to make their bikes a little more lardy but still charge the same…

But surely his point would be ‘new’ equals no dirt in the first place….

Feedback? You can either give him/her positive or no feedback at all. Not exactly payback…

+1 for the Smoke. Heavy beast though. Definitely some shop selling them on ebay new for £190+postage or something like that.

Do you think on this series the cameraman said “I’ve got this great idea, lets take all the shots with the blinding sun just behind your head…..”

Have the other houses that sold ‘big’ have offroad parking? I’d always walk away from a place I couldn’t reasonably guarantee I could park in front of (especially as you said parking was ‘tricky’). And don’t forget, even 6 months ago places were selling for more than what they would in these times.

If you like it, think you’ve seen nothing better then go all in. And don’t kill yourself for the rest of your days saying ‘I wish we’d put in a £10k smaller offer’ like my missus would do…

Get it, knock a bit off for any survey issues.

just be mindful that older bikes often (obviously!) have older standards in terms of sizing. 1″ threaded headsets, strange bb lengths etc.

Main gotcha is likely to be 27″ wheels rather than 700c so new tyres/tubes become a bit more of a pain to source cheap.

Like meehaja says, just add on a couple of quid for some worn out bits. Suppose if looking for really cheap then maybe Raleigh, Peugeot steel frames might fit the bill. Or a newer non-fashionable brand like Carerra (Halfords).

When I started the council all those moons ago in a prior job I remember wondering why a load of part-timers went full time just before they retired. Then someone pointed out they’d worked part time all their lives (and hence reduced pension contributions) but the pension scheme was based on your final years salary….

Not to say that’s wrong, and I’m sure there are many other sob stories but just goes to show how you can manipulate even the pension sheme.

I remember some Blackbird pilot on a documentary a few years ago. he pretty much implied the ‘official’ top speed was well off the mark.

Don’t forget, a plane can only outrun missiles if they are behind them. A slow missile coming towards them is gonna make an awful mess of a Blackbird regardless of speed!

Use the security gates on the right. They are normally much quieter than the default one you pretty much walk up to out of the lift/stairs.

30 mins should be fine through security, but do bear in mind 1 minute late and they won’t let you through. But to be honest, as long as you get through the first bit before the security scanners you’ll be fine.

And ideally drop a bag off for the hold. They’ll hang on for you if you’ve a bag in the hold, if you’re travelling lihgt they have no quarms about shutting up shop if you turn up late.

I’ve got some 30c Schwalbe Marathon Racers I use for the odd ride. Wouldn’t say they gave me road bike speed but decent enough for a good pootle.

We’ve pretty much now committed to get rid of Gadaffi with all of our condemnation. If he stays now, and that’s not beyond channce, we’re going to look very silly trying to negotiate with this madman now. If he takes back control of enough of the country are we gonna roll in for ‘regime change’?

and no Flash support.

When Apple brought out the tablet they had something daft like 95% marketshare. Now they are saying this will come down to 30ish%. If the other 70% use Flash, and developers ‘stop’ developing Apple products because of dev costs etc. then I could see Apple climbing down on their decision to ignore Flash.

Could you fit some 700c disk wheels on your GT?

And what kinda of glass/garbage do you currently run over on the commute? Time changing the thin punctured little road tyre will eat into you average speed…

You’d be a lot more if you’d walked out of a shop having given them 4% less than the price ticketed stated

Remember that when you pay by credit card at a shop and the credit card handler gets their percentage of the transaction, thus depriving the shop of it’s full ticket price for the item you just bought….

If I buy something for £50 posted and want to use Paypal (which is easiest for me after all) then I would expect to pay £50 plus the Paypal fees.

So if you sent me a cheque would you add something on for the petrol costs and parking fees for me to drive to the bank to pay the cheque into the bank?

Sounds like the system used on paintball markers – have you got all the rest of the kit that went with the tank you could use? Vaguely remember all those years ago my air rig dropped the bottle pressure with a regulator down to something like that 900psi (maybe less), then a gun mounted reg dropped it down again.

Weren’t burst disks for CO2 bottle valves?

How much money will the Mac mini cost? Surely it’ll take a canny bit of electric to cover the cost of the Mac to start with?

Limited IIRC. Vol up and down, mute and another I can’t remember (sorry, not at home at mo). basically the 4 keys you can see on the top right fo the keyboard.

I got one of these from Amazon

Chicklet keyboard

Full size, pretty slim. Not bad for a tenner. Missus prefers it to the older one we had for typing (more for being quieter I suspect…). USB fitting.

Do On-One not use them on their Pompetemine 11speed Alfine jobbie?

I’d be a brave car maker to first introduce a system in their car that recorded your speed etc. in a black box. The insurers would have a field day denying claims due to being above the speed limit etc.

Sometimes technology is being used inappropriately. Think BMW 7 series (or something like that) have little cameras in the front of the car looking left and right to show you traffic coming when you’re at a junction. To my mind that just implies the car is too big if you can’t actually see round the corner from the drivers seat…..

Why do people always recommend the one material most likely to rust in bad/rainy weather (i.e. steel) as an ideal winter bike?

Only real advantage of winter wheels is you can fit some really heavy ones with big clodhopping tyres on them for winter training, then pop on the nice light ones for a race and feel the (tiny) benefit. Apart from that I’ve plodded round quite a few seasons with the same set. Depends if your up with the cleaning malarky or happy to trash a pair and rebuild regularly.

+1 for piedis suggestion of mudguards.

I don’t buy the ‘closer ratios’ angle for mtbing. For road I find its nice to have that next gear thats pretty close, but when I’m offroad I’m often looking to bail out of gears quicker because of changes in incline etc. so sometimes I quite like the bigger jumps on the block – less clicking to get a lower gear.

Kona Smoke maybe if you want flat bars? ebay shop selling them for £200. Stealth black, though do weigh a bit. Failing that I’d go the second hand/eBay route.

Ta. Fotgotten I’d actually done PCP with a Vaxhall when it first came out many moons ago. Need to work out if depreciation is bigger than monthly PCP payments now….

Vita Audio R4 – all in one?

How about black with black reflective lettering? Subtle with mates, lifesaving on the road!!!!

Err – that card has nothing to do with you not being in. It’s that the parcel was TOO LARGE for the postie to deliver.

Err no, the ‘too large’ means it was ‘too large’ to fit through the letterbox (see how that works 😀 )

He/she should still have knocked to allow you to open the door to get the parcel. That’s why Amazon have started sending out multiple CDs on the same order in seperate packing – feedback from posties – they can post 4 CDs in separate packaging (okay, maybe not enviro friendly…) but not a big box containing said CDs.

Up here really large packages (or if I get, say, 4 parcels on the same day) are banded up and a van goes around and delivers. 11 on the dot. If it’s 11.05 I know I’m not getting any shiney bike bits that day…

Write to DVD maybe as the ‘third way’?

Don’t really think getting another single speed bike (however light) is really more suitable.

I’d go for either a road bike (Scott Speedster S65?) or a CX bike like Stuey01 says.

A) will mean you don’t have a pram or your money – eBay will just take it from your account and refund the buyer.

B) Fair chance of this. Ask for a detailed photograph of the damage before anything else and make sure it’s what you think it is. Email and state it was in good working order (it was, wasn’t it, there wasn’t any way this was bent?). Get some dialogue going.

C) Equals A – someone did that for some tyres for me, sent a snotty email to me saying buyer beware etc. etc. – I just forwarded it to eBay and raised a claim. Ebay almost always side with the buyer.

D)Ebay don’t really care. They’ll just see buyer saying it’s damaged. Kerching, refund paid by paypal our of your account.

Ask them to return the stroller then you can assess the damage. State you’ll refund their postage if you are happy with their assesment. Because their payment would be outside of eBay they won’t be able to ‘claim it back’ if you disagree with the damage – that might put them off trying it on with you.

Oh, and have a word with parcelforce or whoever. They might want to see the packaging so do it now before buyer gets rid of it. To be honest you’re cvered for £50, might as well start the ball rolling with the claim regardless.

I can just import/copy compressed music files into my android device but have only lossless imported onto itunes?

Slightly OT but iTunes will store both a compressed and non-compressed version of the same tracks at the same time. That’s what I’ve got, then using a smart-list (select by bitrate) you can synch (in my case an iPod) with the compressed guff leaving the uncompressed stuff available for streaming around the house.

The Escape Prepaid MasterCard is not a credit card

From their site, so basically it’s a reverse debit card, you pay money into it, then use it (like a pre pay sim card for your phone). Suppose a good idea in some respects.

racefaceec90 – I’d say with that card you’ll have no comeback with the credit card company if the goods don’t turn up. Anything over £100 on a proper card is covered and the credit card company will basically sort you out if it all goes horribly wrong.

If you really want to safe I’d suggest maybe getting a pukka c/card just for this purchase.

Arcam one runs phono cables out so would plug straight into the aux in. To be honest I think most of the standalone docks do.

Check out the Blackspire God stuff
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=17279

When dogs hang their heads out of the window when being driven around. They look like they’re having the time of their lives..

Arcam rDock if you want to spend about £100. Though arguments will no doubt reign as to the bitrate your iPod stuff is encoded on as to whether this is a worthwhile investment. I like mine anyway.