Yeah I’m toying with replacing my 10 year old deore (m525 or similar) pair with these, at £30 you’ve basically bought two sets of brake pads and some shimano mineral oil, then got the calipers, levers & hoses free. Freaking ace.

£30 a tub finish line pro ceramic, nothing less 😉

If you book it on the phone, yes you have a cancellation fee, if you book by internet some charge, some don’t, they claim it as an admin as it is a service rather than a tangible product (could be wrong here, am no law professional!), you’ll also be charged a pro rata of the cover (£4 a day for example)

Actually quite fancy a quick blast up there tomorrow, its the smell of the trees. There was a few old tracks that link up some of the fire roads to make it longer, but its probably been years since was last there so no idea if there much there.

Could be the little rubber dabber that pushs on the ‘board is split or stuck, or most likely, full of biscuit crumbs.

Well I live like 10 mins from the whinlatter centre, and have never even heard of this event, so shows how much of a solid gold hit it is with the locals :S

somafunk wins.

Luckily for most of STW, they don’t have an ancient (and pretty ill right now) dog breathing directly at them giving them the full frontal nasal horror of dog breath*

*the dog breath probably smells about as bad as a composting sea mammal.

Oh no, you didn’t just say that…

YES! I have launched yet another word into popular circulation.

also roadie’s are miserable, BrickFact****

****since I have been on skinny death tyres I too have become too fast to bother saying hi to anyone on anything that isn’t made of pure carbon or run on >23c

theres a sticker you can get thats something along the lines of…

“Just because we’re on two wheels does not make us friends”

You’ll be very lucky, thres a small shop in castle douglas that are very good, give them a ring

Normally Scott are spot on, and very quick. Never heard of having to be serviced at a Scott centre befire.,unless its relating to a shock issue?

No

When tapas Cart needs to be bled its a bit of a pain to get right.

And swap the fork out? Though generally find the rear needs a dew more mm of drop.

Or you could build up some 27″ wheels, though quality rims that size are hard to find, tyres aren’t so bad as long as you like continental

Manual grinders are great, but so damn noisy. And if its one you can’t hold in your other hand/cup in armpit/jam between legs then it ends up banging and rattling against the work-surface. trust me early in the morning, *that* noise does not go down well, or the scratchs you will inevitably be left with in said wooden work surface.

Octavia’s also have a common central locking problem (not sure if passat estate is teh same), where the rear washer hose disconnects from frost/ too much pressure and then pisses all over the junction box in the rear arch causing everything to corrode and the car tries to lock you in (and out) all the time whenever it feels like it.

Money is another factor, even at collectors prices you can pickup a decent Bronica or Mamiya 120 system for less than a mediocre crop sensor SLR with a plastic kit lens. AND be safe in the knowledge it will only ever appreciate in value 😛

Why can’t you just take 8 shots with digital? You can apply the same thought process can’t you? If you really don’t have any self control then take a really small memory card.

Same argument applies to SS. 5 years ago when someone mentioned ‘SS’ on any kind of forum (or in public) they would be hammered into the ground with the response ‘why don’t you just keep it in one gear then’.

It is the same, but it is also not the same 😉

Just found them via google images as I couldn’t remember where they were. But anyway, they were taken on a 50s Ensign 820 Special, 105mm Ross lens, pretty wide apeture hence the vig, then a quick scan on a V500. Even 60 year old middle/upper quality 6×9 still produces good images, obviously a more modern rig with a high end lens is going to do better.

Also digital ‘people’ bore the crap out of me. Used to roll round with various high end canons & L glass, but MOST of the time your near other camera people all you end up talking about is the latest IS 400/2.8 lens, or how Nikons aren’t quite as good, blah blah blah go away don’t care, let me sniff my freshly unwrapped Kodak Portra 160NC

35mm yeah the argument against digital has been done to death.

But medium & large format still have a very valid place in current (and TBH for the foreseeable future) photo world.

I have a few different 120 formats (645RF, 645SLR, 66TLR, 66SLR and a monster 69RF) and a few large formats (4×5 & a half plate SLR from the 50s), and yeah don’t shoot that much, but I enjoy spending the time to do it right.

The MAIN benefit of not shooting 5000 18mb RAW files per day is when you get home you just have ONE roll of 8/10/12/15 very good shots (though you miss a few opportunities obviously) that are all a joy to print and the results are always amazeballs.

Cheapest way to do it? Buy/find/borrow a set of dev tanks, buy film in bulk or on offer from where ever you can find it (£2-3.50 a roll for soemthing good, though I freaking love Ilford Delta 100 @ £4 a roll).
I dev for about 10 pence a roll, then get my mate to scan 120 @ £2 a roll, giving approx 36mb tiff files for the 69’s and about 15mb for 645
Or you could buy a scanner, Epson V500/600 at about £150 are very good.

Depreciation is what hurts, a few years ago I worked out it costs you something around the £10/day mark for a standard silver mondeo 2.0 tdci saloon with 12k a year on it over the 1st 3 years.
£10 a freaking day, just for it to sit there, plus everything else, plus the fact (mondeo estate with the higher powerd tdci’s are nice enough) but seriously rather have that kind of money going on something decent.

The main issue with big fancy cars is if something goes wrong on the wiring/dash computer side of things, or autobox, the cost of fixing or even working out what has gone wrong just starts running away with you. However, at least that money goes towards doing something rather than just catching fire.

FOREGROUND INTEREST!

If it was me, and I was trying to avoid spending money I would…..

Buy the deore brakeset @ £55 per end
buy the XT vented pads & floating (?) rotors £?
buy the XT reach adjust knob £?

perfect.

AFAIK the leverage ratios, piston sizes etc are identical, its just the materials used that affect the weight/performance/price.
Personally I like the deores a lot, and at £60 per end (retail!) they are unbeatable at that money (or nearly double that TBH). their only let down is the cheap looking/heavy rotors, hence I would go for the XT’s

Diesel

or some of that rust convertor stuff might be soft enough. Ano is pretty hard to remove (chemically) anyway so I wouldn’t worry too much.

Erm yeah, a very wet one around Gasgal ghyll, Crummock & Buttermere. Had to miss out the climb up scarth gap pass (and epic descent) as weather was pretty fowl, wind was epic.

And part way down backside of crummock (good but rough) there was a water spout in full force going, prob about 10-12m across (and 20-25m tall) and went for at least a minute. Was too amazed to get a photo of it.

oh, and a random impressive repair from a few weeks ago I just found. A guys tyre ruptured at the bead, no amount of duck tape or plastic rubbish would stem the flow, so got him back home with a set of clicky clacks.

If your in mid Scotland the only VW option you have is arnold clark or verve. Never bought a new car off a forecourt as I don’t care for new cars, also have an irrational hatred of salesmen in general.

Verve are properly bad, they just CBA’d with anything, including answering their phone. Clarks at least answer the phone but often don’t seem to know what they are talking about (RE sourcing & ordering parts for VW’s 2-6 years old), although some of the actual mechanics (if you can get one to answer the phone) seem pretty decent, but not £70/hour decent or whatever amount they charge.

If your feeling really flush you can get a framebuilder to chop the stays and forks down to size to give proper 700c conversion. Generally about £250-350 for that inc a new (basic) paint job

Possibly worn rotor (and too big for that fork) & worn bushs. Some rotors are incompatible with some calipers, essentially the pad area drops down into the spokes of the rotor and causes way more ‘pulsing’ effect than any wavey rotor ever would.

Newest shape deore/slx/xt are amaze balls. Buy them, buy them now.

Normally I would say yes, go hope stainless or even ceramic.

However, been selling the new Rotor BB’s for a little while now and TBH a rotor stainless BB will be my next one. Again replaceable bearings, but more like £35-40 retail rather than £70

Do the 5 ferries!

Yes, one piece of the bush sits directly on frame, retaining bolt then holds it fairly tightly (about 10Nm?) in place against the inner surfaces of the frame. The shock then pivots on the bush/du bush/outer bush componants.

BC has it in one.

Also if it hasn’t been used for s while you can expect a small improvement.t in battery performance from cycling the battery through a few uses.

I’ve seen a few come in my shop, and most were of the Chinese cheap eBay variety, however the electric side if them (although crude) have never given problems, the rest if the bikes are often not very well thought through. Most common fault is crap spoke tension leading to wheel failure and bad shifting due to.bad chainline because of poor / no design.

Yes.

Everyone wants a full frame, but only about 5% actually have the need for one. Your better off spending less on the body and more on.glass and the change in going places to use it.

Its the beginning of the end for stw, next week it’ll be “how to fit panniers and full length mudguards to an ibis mojo for under £10”

That sounds like death, do not ride them anymore.

Take up with the mftr as steerers are not meant to come loose from crowns ever, unless you crashed them.

Pretty much the same. The velodrome and ‘drome staff & coachs are amazing.
Accred 1 is pretty simple, just getting you used to the bike first, then riding with others, then up high on the banking and eventually dropping down to the main line, a little taster.
Accred 2 is a little more involved, accred 3 is 2hours and pretty hard work, much more group movements and manouvres. Accred 4 is even more full on (but haven’t done it yet).

They are great yes.

But not in this country, too wet and drab, you’ll spend your entire time worrying about wipers giving up on you, or inside of screen misting up, or roof leaking down your neck, or the wet seat your already sat on, or the bulkhead leaking water into your shoes whilst driving, or the lump on your knee from being vibrated to hell by the panelling/lack of room, or the fact you’ll be likely killed off by some person on the way to the shops in the ice with misted up windows who hasn’t seen you because your not driving a fluorescent green RangeRover.

The rest of the time, their great though. Although I’ve never had one, I’ve spent enough time borrowing mates Westies/random kits and then fixing them for most of my time off to know that I wouldn’t want one as my only car.

+1

I have a dog of erm, limited intelligence, and a dog of pretty good intelligence.

The clever one doesn’t mind, and understands, never really seems to be bothered by anything.
The erm, not so bright one has terrible separation anxiety and he was a rescue dog. BUT, ignoring him when you come in (over a few weeks) has made a decent enough improvement. Put it this way, the clever dog looks less stressed when we come in, suggesting that the numb dog is not running around the house like a looney and winding him up, therego it must be working (at least better than before).