Cougar – actually, there’s a couple on your list I’ve not tried, so might give them a bash before spunking the cash. Thanks.

I’d like it for playing live TV through the built-in digital tuner (its an all-in-one). I’ve used the Live TV player in Media Center before, and tried a few stand-alone programs….. but Media Center seems to be the slickest way of doing it.

Couple of weeks ago I found some original Hayes HMX-1 hydro-mechanical disc brakes tucked away on a shelf (they use cables from the levers to activate a master cylinder in the caliper – bonkers!).

The seals probably need replacing – no idea where I’d get them from now – but I don’t have the heart to throw out such retro-tastic goodness!

Had an 06 estate and an 08 5dr hatch and they both had split fold rear seats

I got a 2Gb MP3 player with built-in DAB tuner from Amazon (forget the ‘brand’ now for ~£50 specifically to listen to 6M and PlanetRock ont he move. Takes a single AA and lasts ages. Reception on the move can be a bit hit-and-miss, but generally OK.

Yes, No and Yes.

Might have been that I used cheapy ones but they were rubbish. I think they would work if you got a good conformity between the shape of the plastic/adhesive and frame tube…. but with todays carbon and hydrophormed goodness that’s going to be pretty tough.

Bit late now, but bought some medium/high end Diadora’s (2012 X-trail Carbon IIRC) in the CRC sale, pretty much on a whim. £150 of carbon goodness for ~£50. Despite the feel-good-factor from that much discount I am genuinely impressed and will add them to my usual Sidi/Shimano short list when looking for new ones next time.

To make it all properly official there’s also meant to be a notice plate with the stove details – though I’ve not yet heard of anyone actually having one of these.

<waves>Got one with mine </waves>

Also check if your you are in/your prospective stove is smokeless zone rated.

Bought the new Ugly Kid Joe EP on a nostaglic whim last year, which has turned out to be ‘a bit of a grower’

Genius – ordered. That is going to make chain sharpening an even more manly and satisfying experience than it currently already is.

Stoner – I salute you!

*wonders whether a rubber band will keep the throttle open while it’s in the vice….*

That’s what insulation tape’s for, no… ?

Also consider if you are in a smoke control area/will you need a smokeless rated stove. Don’t count on just “winging it” if you are and have curtain twitching neighbours….. though the delight of showing them the relevant paperwork and watching their reaction is priceless 😉

Let’s work on the basis that I will NEVER wear just Lycra…

Thread closed then – nothing to see here, move along…. ‘sore arse walking’

Also i presume you are wearing your lycra next to the skin as it should be?

And this…..

I’ve never really got on with padded shorts

Might be an idea to give it another go – your backside will thank you 😉

there’s no way I’d buy one in the traditional format with a separate screen and CPU. What’s the point?

Same here – just bought an all-in-one for this very reason. More Core i5 power than I need, big graphics card and HD, 24″ touch screen and built in twin freeview HD tuners. Replaces a PVR, TV, desktop PC, and monitor for well under a grand. I see no downside so far as I’m not looking to upgrade the hardware incrementally.

You are wearing shorts with a decent quailty pad for that kind of time/distance?

Going from short bursts to multi-day epics is going to bring any deficiencies in equipment or setup into sharp (and painful) focus pretty quick.

As you say, saddle fit is a persoanl thing – ‘Flite’ shaped saddles suit my ar$e shape – anything from a Spoon to an SLR seems to do the job regardless of the amount of padding, provided I spend the time setting it up properly.

Sir Gary of Moore +Loads. Sadly missed….. <wanders off to mp3 library to find “Blues Alive”>

I have a mate who designs showers – as The Brick says, it is almost certainly the element. He says they are designed with little performance margin to keep costs down and therefore have a finite (and variable) life. The elements are combined into the weater heater and this item represents a signifcant cost as part of the overall shower, so not surprised its boderline uneconomic to replace. He picks new ones up for me off the production line when ours burn out 😉

No, you won’t.

Well, it’s been nearly 2 years now and I really haven’t noticed or missed the extra space – roof box/towbar rack/trailer covers anything ‘exceptional’

Pretty much always when I’m on my own – have done for the best part of 20 years, starting with a mini FM radio before the days of MP3.

Tend to agree with Hora(!) Downsized from a 56 estate to a 08 hatch and not noticed much difference on a day-to-day basis. Roof box and/or trailer covers the count-them-on-one-hand times I need to move lots/big stuff per year.

<waves> 93rd in the XC Champ – one of the first races I ever did and pretty sure I ‘lurked’ at the end of lap 3 😉 Did Plymouth and IoW as well IIRC.

Are the bigger socks causing your feet to feel squashed in the shoes? This can lead to reduced circulation and cold feet in itself.

FWIW, I use Pro H20 Endure (IIRC) as they’re thin enough for just wind proofing in the cold and good enough to keep the rain off for an hour or so when it, er rains.

Also Brizzle….

…..sometimes they take ours, sometimes they don’t. Have often wondered as well. May simply come down to whoever is doing the sorting on the day – had a fairly heated exchange with one collector who wouldn’t take some flattened cardboard boxes as they weren’t ON TOP of the brown food waste bin, and therefore IN THE WRONG PLACE (they were wedged between the brown bin and the black bin as it was a windy day). We had to agree-to-disagree that he was weapons-grade idiot….

Ages ago, I did some interesting stuff with strain gauge and accelerometer data logging on real bikes/riding and verifying this against FE models for an MTB company – don’t have any of the data any more, but it shows it’s out there.

I know Trek use Abaqus, and the other Dassault Systems products (probably tie it with Catia for developing ply-books for the composite frames directly from the FE results) – they’re always (it seems!) turning up the Simulia news letter.

A rotor with an aluminum carrier does not offer the flex needed to function properly without damage to the carrier; the aluminum would not return to its original shape in the same way as steel after it flexes.

Eh? Are you saying that the carrier is less stiff in bending than a ~2mm sheet of stainless steel machined to within an inch of its life? I run centrelock rotors (not floating) on both my BB7 bikes and have never had an issue (other than having to nip off the inner pad tab as Onzadog says). Can’t comment on floating rotors 😉

It’s actually a real problem these days, not just with natural debris but the amount of artificial crap floating around up there. An errant paint chip can take out a satellite.

Was it the last Stargazing Live where they covered this in some detail? – IIRC satelites may start needing routine matenance as the plasma bursts on the surface panels caused by flecks of paint hitting them is becoming an issue to longevity….and every ~10 years or so a satellite does get destroyed in a collision with something, be it asteroid or our orbiting space junk.

self-destructing explodo-plastic

Quote of the day contender right there. Right up there with ‘weapons-grade idiot’ 😆

Loads round me, on wildlife trust land, that I feel that if they would give me a licence I could happily quit my job and spend the rest of my life bodging in a bender, and make the woods a better place for wildlife in the process

As someone who gets their firewood from coppicing a large wildlife trust woodland:

– letting the public into the woods with a chainsaw is a liability nightmare. Making sure all the tickets and certificates are up to date, who is trained to fell what size tree, etc and keeping everyone pulling in the same direction, with regards to best-practise and the overall conservation aims, rather than just clear felling their patch) is a considerable headache. Everyone seems to have an idea of ‘how it should be done’ and seems to do that, rather than sticking to the agreed plan. People eh 😉

– There is generally little/no commerical value in the wood, but for old coppiced woodland to be restored it needs to be managed/pay its way, hence a bit of Catch 22 situation. Our wildlife trust recognise that, for the overall woodland diversity, the only way they are going to manage to fell sufficent timber is with groups like ours (which effectively do it on a cost-neutral basis – we pay for the insurance, chainsaw tickets and all other costs and get the wood for free), but the trade off is the hastle of doing it (see above) which for a wildlife trust is considerable/a considerable risk on their part.

– The number of mis-informed dimwits out for their Sunday afternoon constitutional who winge like (insert offensive term here) that you are ‘killing their forest’ while passing is incredible….. especially as I have a chainsaw and they have some walking poles and a yappy dog 😉

Don’t see why not -it’ll be bloody hard though, so grinding will be the best way. Two initial thoughts:

– If you cut it off, there won’t be any run-in on the tap thread, so be careful it goes in square/may be hard to start it

– You will lose a lot of the thread on the tap that would be otherwise engaged in the hole as you cut the thread. If you need to put in a lot of torque to make the new thread you could pull/’drill’ the thread out of the hole (badly phrased, I know…)

Isn’t 12% still quite low in comparison to other countries?…. and was that target set before or after all the ash trees are dead and cut out.

Sceptical-of-politician-saying-the-right-thing-with-no-idea-if-it’s-achievable… moi? 😉

I had this happen to me – you’ll be pleased to know you’ll almost certainly be getting a leter in the post asking you to fix it in 14 days or the water co. will send their guys in to fix it and charge you at their rate.

Either get a freeze kit to isolate it to inside/outside…. or get the plumber in anyway to fix the stop tap, and while he’s there/when he’s done it let him have a look.

Can’t say I’ve ever had any probs with threads being damaged during blasting. Likewise, if they have ever seen a bike frame before they will know where to mask and to stuff rockwool in small threads. A few well aimed questions should determine pretty quickly how good a job you’re likely to get 😉

Stiff link maybe

This ^^^

Solidworks 2013. Pretty much the same as last years but newer. Appeals to the MTBer in me.

That’s an entire week of product evaluation cleared from my diary – thanks!

All-in-one PC’s with built in TV card and touch screen. Replaces so many boxs and plugs with one device which does it all.

Have a look at CRC’s ‘price drop’ sale on high end Diadora’s. Picked up some all-singing-all-dancing carbon disco-slippers for around £50 – very happy with them

Was that in the first Olympics

Nope!

Point of order… Track bikes don’t have brakes…..

Irrelevant, to the point that the consolidation method Al is using is perfectly fine, provided the engineering of the joint itself takes into account the effect that the method has on the resulting material strength. Other factors are, of course, at play here… 😉

Greek track teams bikes for the Athens games were made using the ‘reverse insulation tape’ method of consolidation and cured in the back of a car on a sunny Greek day. At the time, they were considered to be more than adequate for the job at hand 😉

Al – for a better finish, you should wrap the tape with the sticky side out (but well done for remembering to puncture the tape to let the air/excess resin out!)

chewkw – think you may have missed the point 😉 I want to get rid of existing my tower and get an all-in-one to replace it and the current TV and HD recorder and free up some space to boot…..

br – yes, they do them…. was looking for real world reviews.