2.5 people, 3 bed semi – ~£60/month leccy and gas. (wood burner with free wood subsidises the gas bill substantially – only pay ~£10 per month for gas)

I don’t see how you can describe his rally accident as bad luck. The team and he should never have concluded it was a good idea for him to do any rallying in the first place. Total idiocy all round.

Would someone tell the MotoGP riders to lay-off the MX-ers as well (although Nicky Hayden’s latest injury was done on a track, for balance)…..

When it comes to the drive train check out the sales but also have a look at some of the german sites they have been very competative ove late.

Been there, done that, made the spreadsheet, saved hundreds 😉

I have not used the hope one but it gets good reviews.

I have a standard 1.125″ Hope headset on my road bike – done thousands of miles and is still buttery smooth. Very tempted.

He’ll be back! Ferrari 2013 alongside Alonso I reckon.

I fear the F1 party is now over for him

It’ll be one of those two – and I really can’t decide which!!!

Thanks Rusty. Yeah, to be honest, for the cost of it, what it’s gone through and how long it’s lasted I really can’t complain. I would be happy to do a like-for-like replacement and just look after it a bit better. The Hope looks like a pretty good ‘bling’ replacement mind – have to see how far the budget stretches as the drivetrain needs replacing as well (not for a lack of TLC this time!).

I believe it is a 50mm OD headtube at the cups (head tube is flared at the top and bottom – will need to get calipers on it to be sure) – the whole thing is jiggered, esp bottom cup/race. Years of trundling around with zero maintenance has taken its toll…..

‘…log, from Blammo’. Even after all this time, this still makes me giggle…. 🙂

On the flip side, our one off payments were limited to solicitors fees and van rental – about 650 in total.

As I said – depends how much you do yourself/you can get away with with the particular property/mortgage product. As a FTB’er, I would expect some caution/hand-holding first time round.

EDIT: The 5K included the stamp duty IIRC, but it was a while ago

Apologies if you have done all your research and know this already, but there will be considerable one-off costs as well from all the carpet-baggers professional services that you are likely need along the way, unless you do the searches, conveyancing, surveys yourself.

The ‘heads-up’ on the stamp-duty kinda suggests you think it will be a case of stopping paying rent one month, moving, then simply making mortgage repayments the next month. I can’t remeber how much all this was last time we moved, but I seem to recall it being a bit north of £5k all in.

I work with R-R and another company that package Trent’s, RB211’s and 501’s into power generation sets. The Trent’s are stored in humidity controlled ‘bubbles’ and transported on shock-isolation trolleys….. the 501’s get bumped around on a pallet with an oily rag stuffed in each end for ‘protection’ 😉

1 – You couldn’t weld just around the perimeter. To have even a fighting chance of the weld having the same strength of the parent you would have to weld across the full cross section. To do this you would need to chamfer the edge of the weld to at least 30 degrees – the amount of weld material to fill that gap up is then massive which will introduce residual stresses and distortion.

2 – You are relying on each pass of the weld being perfectly fused, which, with the best, will in the world it won’t be.

3 – Cranks see massive alternating loads. Simplistically, welds are notorious initiation points for fatigue cracks due to the geometry of the welds, residual stresses and local metalurgy. It will fail at the weld, it’s just a case of when 😉

can you weld alu safely?

Of course – however, the question you are asking is:

‘So regardless of cost – can what I am asking be done safely?’

In which case the answer is, maybe, but probably not – and the cost to guarentee it was safe would be orders of magnitude greater than the base cost of new cranks.

I’m about to learn how to play guitar once it arrives and I find an amp.

Bought a 1997 Gibson Epiphone Les Paul Limited Edition, manufactured in Korea.

Hopefully it will stay in tune and not ber a piece of crap!

Anyone else got a Epiphone Les Paul, how does it play and sound, also what model?

Just bought a Epiphone Les Paul Plus Top for Xmas to ‘compliment’ my ’97 Epi SG Standard. My powers on both are limited, and I’m still getting used to the LP, but the LP is heavier with a lovely tone. I now appreciate how light the SG is in comparison, the practicle benefits of the double cut-away and it’s brighter sound. The body is so thin, I only just managed to fit an N-tune built-in tuner into the SG the other day……

<pulls up chair>

What njee said – basically, you don’t have enough bikes…. 😉

Ace – credit card time…..

Clubber – good point as always. Running 50/38 on a 130 PCD ‘standard’ chainset at the moment (38 is about as low as I can go on) – just wondered if I could do the same with a compact, with the option of 37 or 36 inner as well. As the standard chainset fits, should be no problem doing the same with a compact (chainline/axle length is the same?)?

Yeah, 110….. so I should have worked that out for myself 😳 It is Monday morning…… Thanks.

I don’t know what to make of Rasmussen. My, perhaps simplfied, reading of his case is that he lied on his whereabouts form – risking the hounds-of-hell-from-WADA and all that goes with it – rather than telling his wife he was shacked with another woman on another continent. I can’t decide if that’s so unbelievable its unbelievable or it’s just mad enough to be true?!?!

no alberto ?

Not yet, you wag – innocent until…. the ink has dried on the guilty verdict 😉

Er, that’s the website being slow right now – I have no idea about the elephants……

Another vote for the Mini Morph – the foot looks a bit fragile, but not broken mine yet in a couple of years of occasional-roadside-ham-fisted use.

As a layman, your’re going to pull it towards you whilst sitting in a tractor/4×4….??

Even if the rope is around the roots, if it’s longer than the tree itself, then shirly no problem with being squashed?*

(* – other problems with this job are available)

Can’t really help, but as a happy amateur, looks like one of those hang-ups that I would cause with a badly placed hinge that takes ages to drop safely. Video of the final solution please 🙂

Fair enough – I’m a Solidworks user and use other 3ds products, so might be worth a look for basic/free work.

Did basically what Shadow suggests to our place downstairs. Much inproved, but not perfect – relatively cheap though.

Thought DraftSight was a 2D/drafting/DWG-based environment?

Almondsbury Forge. Not the cheapest, but did what they said, when they said and are happy to chat and help when they can. Do our sweeping and keep spares as well. The showroom is quite good – wife had to drag me out last time as they had a wood burning Aga on sale….. 😉

Must be the only one left in existance which didn’t snap at one of the lugs (usually the head tube IIRC).

As for value, unless it is in VGC with all the period kit and someone at retrobike with a GT fetish wants it, I imagine it’s worth bobbins now?

Burnin’ Rubber 4 or Metal Mayhem at Shockwave

Why discs? Road bike brakes are plenty powerful enough for the skinny road tyres that they use.

There wasnt too much of the commute in urban stop/start situations so discs would be pointless imo

Please try them and report back – both my road commuters now use BB7 and I won’t be going back to calipers.

it’s not a terrible idea but finding decent price 29er wheels with 15mm front maxle road bike that will fit me and last longer than a trip to the end of the road is tough

FTFY 😉

Might be interested – can you email me some pics of the lamp and what the price would be? Thanks.

gshort AT eatec DOT co DOT uk

I’m guessing this isn’t the best idea…

That would be correct!! 🙂

Woody speaks good sense – go to Halfords or similar and try some road frames to find out your size. The sellers answer is gibberish anyway, so you may be better off just going and looking at it/trying it for size there-and-then.

Depends how sh@gged the drivetrain/wheels/bearings are and, absolutely critically, if it fits. The sellers answer to that very question is less than helpful, no?

starfleet…

I have a 12″ vinyl copy of Brian May, Eddie van Halen and others doing the Starfleet the theme. Drink, Ebay and a credit card were involved……

So the op is saying he’s riding this 21.6mph average speed on an mtb wearing trainers?

Yeah, I’d not be worrying about commuting…. give Team Sky or BC a call QUICK!!! 🙂

Will do – thanks. Was pie-in-the-sky when we got the quote last year but it is becoming dangerously close to being the next thing on the ‘to do’ list!

Clubber – Who did you get that from? Was quoted 1.2k for a loft conversion, to include all dealings with the planning application, plus £500 for the structural engineers calcs. Could do with a second quote……

Even if it’s v hard, you’ll be alright-ish (IIRC) provided you don’t distort the result by fracturing the surface local to the indentor and so giving an aritifically low indentation force.

Go on then, what’s it for… curiosity well and truly piqued 😉