awesome free 100ml travel bottle!
Looks ideal for sticking in pannier/bag for long haul trips.

tap it to M6 or just stick a bolt through it.

I always put a spring washer & flat washer on racks as no matter what it is, the rack and frame WILL be moving about against each other so its really worth putting something better in there.

Also alloy bolts, unless you know they are very good ones, don’t bother, chuck em and put some quality stainless ones in there if you value your frame.

^^ Talking of which, I have 3 terminals going spare (Ingenico TT41+customer pin pad+power supply etc) if anyone wants a cheap spare in good condition*

*Because if you break (spill coffee!) on your hired terminal, they will charge you some daft statutory fee to replace it (around £220 IIRC).

Depends on size & type of purchase. But generally yeah, varies between 3-5% overall cost to us.

And in our business, we’re only operating on around a 5-8% margin (box shifting!) anyway, so regardless of payment method its exceptionally cut-throat out there right now, so generally we decline credit card purchases (as asking a customer for the 3-5% on top is not very professional).

tesco’s value diet cola = real cola.

Seriously, last time I had two bottles back to back, I couldn’t tell, well, I actually slightly preferred the Tesco stuff as it had a cleaner after taste, and I am an UTTER stickler for taste.

Although I hardly drink the stuff, instead I moved into coffee, then more advanced coffee. Now I have half a freezer of the stuff and a nice hand grinder*

*the minutes of faffing with the grinder burns the calories off. Or so I kid myself.

But seriously, you’ll be surprised by how a few VERY minor choice changes make a real difference.

ace!

Mark as PSA as they’ll probably be quite a few would like to watch it.

^^^ you have a warranty with Orange for the duration of your contract (24month minimum) which will include the home button fix.

If they pull the ‘wear and tear’ line, remind them your contracted warranty with them covers the phone to be functional for purpose, and if the button has failed due to normal use in that time it is their responsibility to repair/exchange/replace with (most likely) a factory refurb (it’ll basically be a new phone). Don’t settle for anything less!

I’ve just finished arguing with them to get my 20 month into 24 month SGS1 replaced as it has a hardware fault. Was supposed to be a refurb replacement, but when it turned up was a brand new off the shelf job.

URGH!

Normally they are not bad, but that one looks like its been tarted up by some middle eastern teenager**

** they love the sticky back faux chrome, shiny wheels and general tacky stickers/logos’ stuck on everywhere, which is a pretty good precursor to tell you steer the hell clear of it!

Hundreds of those kind of things about, and for the same price they vary from..
awful, very poorly made, no design work, don’t work as a space, won’t stand upto a mild spring breeze
to
very good, well ‘enough’ made (don’t expect terra nova quality), well thought out, will be the last thing still standing on the drive n campsite.

If your near a decathlon store they sometimes have some OK tents in, but never pay more than half price for them (perpetual sale on perpetually ambitiously priced stuff).

http://shop.squaremilecoffee.com/

I get quite a bit from these guys (know the guy who started it, which helped) and is excellent.

In supermarkets, I really rate tesco’s ‘finest’ columbian supremo beans, for a supermarket job, very very good and only about £3 a bag(a months worth). percol do some good stuff too.

In supermarkets I avoid ALL taylor’s coffee’s, none are that interesting, most are aimed at the 70+ ‘I have no sense of taste’ brigade, and none keep for more than a few days (if you could bare them in the 1st place).

I’ve been using LR for years, the secret of it is to either…

1) allow LR to import your photos, edit them, save them and archive them into batchs etc, and control movement and location of photos around the entire PC/Laptop

OR

2) only import photos into LR from your already saved file and export it back. Doing all your backup’s and saves yourself.

Anything in between makes for a giant logistical nightmare.

I use DOT 4 as its more plentyful to swipe some fresh stuff from work (lots of hill climb cars get built up there, so its pretty good stuff).

Although I wish all bike brakes were mineral, as had (with other peoples bikes) literally dozens of spills and leaks to deal with bare hands and nowhere to clean them = buggered skin (or worse) in remote places. VS. mineral which you could practically bath in and survive.

^^ a decent burner should at least get it white hot, if not red hot, I can with mine.

^^^ Do that, but apply heat from even just a gas tar burner, that will at least help it bend a little.
Then once in please, relieve it by heating up as much as you can (with no force) then slowly letting it cool down (apply less and less heat) in the vice/air over as long a period as you can be bothered with.

seat arosa 1.2 petrol, or diesel (any) or the lupo equiv is the same but 1 group higher (on the older 20abcdef system, still havent’ got my head around the new 40/45 group system).

dropout for that looks pretty damn generic to me. I’d let argo’s have a go, or find a decent road framebuilder nearby and drop it in on them.

Cost front should be able to sort it for <£50 even if the best answer is to just braze a new dropout in there.

Southern trains (annoying website packed full of tracking cookies) have a booking thing online for bikes, and you can see the availability on different trains, but you have to check some obscure box early on.

I’ve been seen with a Tkey many a time, mostly nobody asks, but once a guard/ticket gadge came up and asked me when he came for tickets later and asked if I was the one who let themselves onto the train, I said ‘yeah I work for Nexus Metro in the north east so carry it around as its useful!’ he said yeah, but just don’t get seen by station staff.

I actually did work for nexus and half their units are actually operated by the things!

Also had lots of chats with TFL & transport police over the years because of my hobbies, but thats another matter, and generally they are sound, bar the odd one.

It is already being replaced? Mftr often asks for the defective product to be destroyed.

I remember Santa Cruz used to ask for you to cut the BB cluster out of the frame with a hack saw and post it to them to proove you have effectively destroyed the frame (whether that was before or after they sent you a new one, I’m not sure!).

unfortunately yes, I am/was a closet roadie.

But can’t stand crabone fibRe, because I am not 45, post mid life crisis and have two kids wanting to go to some pap uni course @ £9k a year, each.

Instead I went retro, and built this thing from scratch in 2010/11. Frame is from 1973 and exactly my size, couldn’t be more perfect if it was made for me (Its 54×54.5cm a non standard size lol) and all the parts bar the crank arms were ‘NOS’ found from many places, some dirt cheap, some free, but most at daft retro bike type prices.

That was when I 1st built it. Now it has a different saddle (brooks swift Ti), much more seatpost sticking out (legs stretched up nicely), and a great saddle to ‘bar drop (back has stretched out too) and a few other things.
Eventually I will have a full generation 1 dura ace groupset (1973/4) which is what it was originally decked out with when new. It actually performs really well (bar the brakes), and 27″ tyres with 28/30c tyres roll a HELL of a lot better on rough Lakeland roads than any 700c 19/23/25/28c tyre does, by a LONG shot.
Its not bad on weight either, about 10.3kg with pedals (DA track pedals) and those massive touring rims/40h wheels/massive anti puncture tyres/brooks. If I put sprints on it (have some campag record on GP4 knocking about) and some 700c x 19c tubs, weight is down to 9.0kg DEAD (with pedals). which I think is pretty competitive with modern alu framed bikes (although they would be a LOT stiffer for the ewight).

Lets face it, CRC are always a better/safer/quicker/reliable bet vs. Winstanleys, and they are also the above vs. ‘Dave Hinde’*

*is he even still in business? IF so I’d like to know how.

my mate bought an early 90s mazda (N reg?) MX5 1.8 (120ps) with 170k on it (but FULL mazda SH), an ebay replacement soft top, for £750 with 12months T&T. I very nearly bought it as it drove great, nothing seemingly wrong with it. And when he gets bored of it he’ll shove it on ebay for 99p/free listing weekend and see what he gets for it. Aces.

‘cheap’ and ‘car insurance’ in the same sentence? Not since at least 2005

Amazingly I actually pay the same now for my insurance with 5+ NCB and being over 25 etc and in the lowest crime rate bracket and a low bracket car, as I did when I was 17 in a modified fiat living in a rough area in the North East etc. WTF!

I prefer what pretty much the rest of the world does, which is insure the VEHICLE, then have a driver license that is validated regularly and then there are clauses on the car (i.e. its insured for over 25 users, or all users etc)

+1 on RRB’s not taking bikes. the line that links our county/area to the rest of the known world is cut off at least at one end thanks to floods/ bridge inspections pending. There was a group of 3 girls waiting to get on train back from their C2C trip only to find trains not going anywhere and bus man is not having bikes, let alone bikers in manky kit on his new plush £260k bus. Cue epic arguments and presumably EPIC last minute taxi bill (or maybe they could have just ridden the 250miles back to Bristol (in time for work in the morning?) I think was one of the comments!
Bloody joke eh.

Oh lastly, I got into road riding loads last year, and was getting bored of riding out and back, so instead booked a train to Lancaster (about 90miles away) then set the task of riding back. Got hyped up, ready and down to the station (sunday so only the morning train thats any good). Got to station and wasn’t allowed on. Why? Because there was 2x prams or wheelchairs already onboard (and maybe 15-20people out of a capacity of 100-120). Despite it being a double train thing with 2x bike areas and 4x wheelchair spaces? Guard was a complete cock, and I was out a ride and my £27.50!! juice stains! Public transport in this country is a bloody disgrace.

When you book virgin train tickets there is STILL not a way of ‘seeing’ if there is space online, so you have to ring india, and about £5 in calls and fury later you have a ‘booking code’

When you get on the train you are supposed to be able to get a ‘bike reservation ticket’ from the office with the ‘code’.
However the ONLY stations that do that are the London terminus’s, every other station either doesn’t have the system in place, or CBA’d or don’t care. Its just LDN that is the problem.

Also with the train doors, its just a turnkey, nothing fancy about it (I have one and have used it before to let myself on and off trains with bike otherwise I’d have been bolloxed many many many many times when the guard fails to show) if you have a beefy car key or very large flat screwdriver blade you just turn it clockwise or anti-clock and hold it for 5-10seconds until door chimes and then opens; I’m telling you this as a PSA as
1) you might find you need it soon (guards often don’t realise you can’t get off/ or are even there/obscured by platform furniture)
2) DO NO FOR ONE MINUTE think others cannot access your bike, strip the components off it, and/or calmly walk off train from the bike luggage space with your bike (because they’ve made pendalinos’ so its impossible to lock your bike to anything). as this happens more regularly than you would care to know about (and Virgin absolve all responsibility)

Finally got the rear one on!
3 little tubs of stans later and only managed it by rigging up compressor in a pretty dangerous way….

I’ve come to the conclusion that presta valves on tubeless wheelsets are daft, they just restrict the flow too much, but I carried on regardless.

Compressor normally dish’s out 120psi regulated to each hose end, and has a monstrous tank (something like 100gallon or air? its like 2.5m x 1m cylinder, and is driven by a 30hp 3phz motor), but even this was not enough.
Had to hook directly up to compressors release valve right on the side of the tank (around 220psi unregulated) to get enough flow to pop the tyre bead into place. So yeah, dangerous as the flex hose/gun/nozzle/fittings aren’t rated to that, and it would easily have blown the tyre into pieces in my face (goggles people!).

But finally, its up, it holds air, and thats all fine and dandy. But STILL no response from Schwalbe on this!? I’d really expect better of a mftr with what seems to be quite a well known/ wide spread problem, I know 100% I am not the only one with baggy tyres.

You can actually get copper strip on a roll. We have some at work, its about 25mm x 100m and cost something daft like £30. I think they use it for part of chips/electronics (bus bar/earth strap, something like that).

^^^ depends who you get @ KMB. You’ll either get a friendly welcome and infinite useful knowledge, or scowled at until you leave their shop for no apparent reason.

Theres stacks of riding around, but knowing which direction to go on various sections is the all important part.

^^ yes but lower oxygen, a lot lower. With petrols, yes, it can be catered for up until a point. With diesel there is a glass ceiling, and when you go past it, you just get a tonne of extra diesel being thrown into engine, it doesn’t burn (not enough oxygen to work with it) and then throws heaps of fuel out back end. And don’t even try to rev it, you just get knock which wrecks the head.

Also on higher powered models, EGT’s start to get lethal. Every time were climbing for more than 5/10mins straight (and anything required WOT) the stench of hot metal and burning under side protection.

Oh, we did have one breakdown, one of the cold side boost hoses went, leaving us with not enough power to actually move, so had to be recovered to next town, where they made one from a chinese truck fit with some epic sized turbo clips / jubilee clips

ahh ^^ Mr.Savage. yeah he’s a good bloke too.

Caldbeck/Mungrisdale back of skiddaw is a pretty bleak but epic area, in summer there are some Alpine rivalling sheep single tracks that go on for miles, super narrow, super smooth & flowy or steep and technical if you fancy, but its REALLY hard to find let alone link together, local knowledge is a must!

http://www.garden-security.co.uk/AsgardAccess.aspx

That sort of thing?

Waste of space. Too many accesses to it/ can be opened with a hammer and crowbar in any of the moving parts. Don’t bother with them.

We could make you one, out of just about anything you fancy. But I guess the best/ most cost effective is a frame out of angle iron with plate bars welded as a cage internally so yeah you can get your hands in there, but the bike/componants aren’t going anywhere. Then secure by bolting to the floor with Hilti’s & a big mutha of an armored padlock on the front.

I’d say £300-500 inc vat is probably the cost of something like that (a day and a bit in the workshop) + materials.

argh, I used to ride with a guy who does this!

Think he was called Matt? 30 something, runs a light blue VW T4, has a name for his business. Often he just does backup/support for c2c folk, but he gets a few weeks a year of proper guiding in. He might have accom too?
He’s based in Great Broughton, nr Cockermouth. I could literally point you at his house (if he still lives there) but that doesn’t help.
Ring Adam @ FourPlay cycles in Cockermouth, he might know his contact details. As I say, I think its ‘Matt’ but don’t quote me on that.

Just get a dog with a sick habit…. eating/killing/mawling slugs.

He genuinely hates them, we used to get them coming under back door, its as if he could hear them. Would run upto back door barking and if they came more than a foot into the room he would pick them up with tips of his teeth and fling them around, usually not killing them but splatting them against wall, nice!

+1 the 4wd varients do have very poor steering lock (the one we did had buffers installed to prevent the much larger than std wheels/tyres fowling the archs & brake lines etc), and heavy!

the 4×4 one we had actually had softer springs and longer dampers than stock, as yes your right they are usually set up with the arse way high up the air so that when you have a 1t water cube on there + bunch of animal feed they actually ride properly, as lets face it, that is their intended use!

++ we got around 30-32mpg average over 2000km in Peru, about half of that on the Pan America @ 50-60mph unloaded, the other half mud plugging and rock bashing up mountains that make the alps look like telly tuby land.

ALso on the running cost front, if you are a regular vehicle abuser, it has the most rugged suspension out there (but not sophisticated in any way), and cheapest to replace.

I can’t speak for other pickups as I’ve only ever had limited use of them.

But I spent 5weeks driving around the proper back country mountain towns/villages/mining communities in Peru last year.

3 of us, with stacks of gear, twin cab 4×4 hilux with the D4D (?) 3.0l 4pot TD engine. At sea level, enough power, and in 2wd handles like the average 4×4 chelsea tractor, nothing special, but even when badly loaded was stable enough to keep up with cars on pan america around the twisty bits. Gearing was a little ambitous though (more down to the extra massive wheels fitted to that one though), about 1700rpm at 60 mph lol

It was mildly tuned up on the engine dept. (NEEDS IT at high altitude otherwise it simply will not generate enough power to move the thing, even in low range!), was jacked up about 4″ over standard, and had an internal roll cage and tower behind the cab for extra lights (needs it!).

Most of Peru is pretty rough road wise, but we were literally driving for days at a time on the surface of the moon, sometimes wise 2-400kg of equipment in the back + a few locals wanting a free lift**

**its the most comfortable way to ride is standing/squatting with bent knees hanging off the roll cage off back of twin cab as your right in centre of vehicle.

We found it was more than capable off road, locking difs would have been GREAT, and if they are an option, I would spring for them as even on loose gravel/ rocky river crossings its really really a requirement.

At high altitude (4000m+) the power drops off so much that on a cold morning, you need WOT and low range 1st or 2nd just to get any movement out of it. As it warms up (takes ages) you can eventually get into high range, but don’t expect to be able to climb in anything other than 1st.

I think I WOULD have one as an everyday vehicle if I lived in the UK and had a genuine requirement for it. (I.E live on a farm with rough access), but if I didn’t and just liked the scale of a pickup, I’d be looking at a Mitsu Animal pickup, as they are MUCH more suited to the road and a lot more refined on the driving side of things.

^^^ Rotors is where MOST of the contam lives.

It gets in all the cut outs, and the gorges in the actual running surface of the brake.

I find only way to do a proper job is a submerge them in a vat of thinners then shake dry.

* they sometimes just just so rub on the comm, and so the material wears and then the distance becomes too great for a spark to be generated. Get your feeler gauges out and get gapping!

chewkw – Member
BrickMan – Member
^^^ HAHAHAHA thats epic.

the next bearing/weld consumables/printer paper salesman that turns up at work will be getting that treatment. Our workshop lends itself perfectly to that walk through as we have offices at the front and at the back and place is a complete maze.

Ya, but try not to laugh out too loudly or make a big scene of the joke later on because the poor guy might be genuinely needing the sales to meet his target … but then if he is one of those unethical ones then fair game.

But having said that I think I laughed at myself more than the guy …

don simon – Member
Why would you do that and pass up the opportunity of possibly saving the company money/improving something? Seems a bit silly to me.

That’s what I said most of the time when I was doing my sell calls …

Unfortunately its my job to know the finite value of just about everything off the top of my head. I trade all day & night (not even joking) and only just about scratch a living out of it, so I don’t appreciate random forceful, BS spouting sales touts of inferior products on my doorstep 3-4 times a week.

It started when I was about 5 when I turned down my Christmas present from my mum, it was a VHS of Basil Brush that cost about £4.99 in woolies. I turned it down because we were struggling at the time and I knew that Thomas the Tank engine (also £4.99) was a better value VHS @ 88 minutes run time vs. the sub 40minutes run time of the Basil Brush VHS

And yes, those of us who are left are either VERY busy, or next to nothing, and it does vary in demand, wildly and without warning.