So with retirement ages creeping up and me being mid thirties, is there an equation that helps me work out how old I’ll be when I finally meet retirement age? Please don’t tell me it’s n+1.

I can answer that one for you, if your working class you’ll work until you die. Gets my goat stuff like this, at least you will be able to retire.

Is there anything to be saved in building it up yourself, or is that recommendation from a couple of you really about being able to choose from a more exotic range of frames?

I agree with you, with todays prices there isn’t anything to choose between the major brands and boutique brands. But isn’t that the point, boutique was something you aspired to, now the likes of scott and spesh have £6.5k production bikes, WTF!Don’t be sucked in, choose what you want, with what you want!

I’d go for a boutique build, something like a foes xct/fxr, heckler, five with a float/van 36 with flows and depending on budget deore/xt drive train.

I stand by what i’ve said, a modern standard car, owned by a standard driver shouldn’t need the clearances checking and you should be able to hear if they do. But lets be fair, somebody who’s come to you asking for ‘lumpy’ cams to be fitted is hardly a standrad driver, i’m sure they drive it like miss daisy 😉

Don’t agree with that. As Rockhopper says, tight clearances aren’t noisy.

If you read my original post I said that the engine will be running rough or noisy. As the op said he rang up his main dealer and got the same response, if you don’t want to belive me then fair enough thats your choice. Ring up your main dealer and ask the same question you’ll get the same answer. As said before modern engines do not need it, it’s an opinion carried over from times past.

But checking them will never cause problems, unless you drop the gauges down the engine or something equally stupid

I should have explained myself a bit better, an audible check will tell you what you need to know. If the engine is running correctly there is no need to physically check the valves.

As said before modern engines do not normally need checking, the tolerances on modern engines are such that they should never need adjusting. The only reason you needed to checked valve tolerances on old engines was to take up the ‘slack’ of the engineering tolerances of that time.

If the main dealers just do an audible check don’t you think that tells you something (sorry don’t mean that to be as harsh as it sounds)? Somethings are best left alone unless there are problems and valves are one. If you have valve problems it is very evident, the engine will be running rough or top end noisy. They aren’t like filters and oil for example which need changing every x miles. Adjusting them when they don’t really need doing can create bigger problems than leaving them.

I’ve used them (2008’s) for trail riding on a nomad with a coil rear shock. I loved them, i’ve also had 2008 36 talas rc2’s and imo the vans were a lot better. The vans were a lot smoother and I just set the hi/low speed compression up and left it where it was but with the talas I was forever fiddling with them trying to find the ‘sweet’ spot. Even though I had the talas I never really dropped the travel even on the climbs, I found it easier to climb in full travel. I’m reasonably heavy at 15-15.5 stone with kit and I was living in the lakes at the time so they were just the job for me but if your lighter or living somewhere a bit flatter they might not suit you as well. I’ve read good things about the floats so they could be an alternative if you want to save a bit of weight.

Edit : 😳 Just read your living in the Surrey hills but never been there so don’t know if they will be over kill.

One way or the other your going to have to put the frame under a lot of pressure to remove the bb and being carbon would you still trust it? Thats without taking into account what the previous owner has done as he could well have tried to remove the bb himself and sold it on because he couldn’t.

There are, of course, two sides, the other side of teaching is learning. Can you blame the teachers for poor learning?

I’m 39 when I went through the school system it was going through what I would describe as it’s new age/hippy stage. Very little atention or time was given to spelling and grammer it was all about expressing your self. You weren’t marked down for spelling or grammer and correct me if i’m wrong but isn’t this something the school system has now realised was a big mistake? The 3 r’s are now a lot more important due to the poor core educational skills of the nation. Hard to be good at something your not taught properly isn’t it? Of course it’s not all the teachers fault your only following government guide lines but it’s hardly all my fault is it?

@Don Simon – Fair point I missed that as I did scan through parts of this thread as reading all the pointless bickering does get more than a bit tedious. It doesn’t change the fact that imo there isn’t a lot of public support for this strike. If it was about the shambles the education system is in then I think it would be a different story, but then thats not about taking money out of your pocket is it!

I thought i’d read this thread to see if I could understand the teachers point of view on striking because in the press they aren’t coming across very well and I still can’t. I don’t think for a minute it’s an easy job and I personally couldn’t think of anything worse to do for a living but on this point I think you are in the wrong. We all have it tough at the moment and your still better off than a lot of people. I agree with the earlier post about it being as much to do with an ageing population as tough times. Why should the rest of us prop up your pension?

As a side note I can see why so many people feel the need to correct peoples spelling and grammer on this forum as there are clearly a lot of teachers! Mine is bad but correcting it and trying to make me feel small is something which annoys me. It’s even worse from teachers because the reason mines so bad isn’t due to a lack of intelligence it’s down to a poor education as i’m sure it is with many others.

I’d go for the refund via ebay first. They nearly always side with the buyer so you should get your money back less what it costs you to post it back. As said before corrosion between different metals can be bad and really hard to seperate on smaller threads let alone the size and depth of bottom bracket threads. If you have another go and it breaks you have lost your money and why should you when you have been ripped off. FWIW I saw that ad on ebay and thought it was a wrong’un.

Are you sure the brake was working fine before? Otherwise you could have damaged the new end/joint somehow. If you crimped the end it would give pressure but no actual braking power, I’d try re-cutting it.

EDIT: If you press the brake and watch the pistons move at the same time you’ll soon see if there is a blockage. If you try replacing the end and it still doesn’t work my next guess would be you’ve got dirt in the system somehow which would be more of a pain. You’d have to strip down the sytem into it’s three sections and find someone with an air line and blow air from the caliper end of each part.

Can’t be much brake systems are really simple there isn’t a lot to go wrong.

Daddy???

😆

Drink

+1 Zulu-Eleven. The only brakes i’ve owned are shimano and hope and i’ve had one problem a faulty seal on a M4 caliper. Just bought a second hand bike with hayes brakes so that might change shortly 😆
Only ever bleed my brakes when i’ve had to shorten/lengthen cables, can’t understand the logic behind ‘the brakes need a bleed as they’ve been on there a year’.

and her car valeted

he’d been nagged repeatedly to do this work over the last few months

I hope he did that as an extra rather than it being one of his jobs! Sounds like the type that if you gave her a gold bar it would be the wrong colour, get rid. But bear in mind I am single 😀

Get an old skewer and replace the metal bar with a bit of threaded bar cut to length.

Every sram shifter i’ve had has started sticking after a short while, i’ve just taken the cover off and put a bit of grease in and never had any further problems. Even with this still think sram is far better than shimano, less hassle and greater longevity but shimano is smoother shifting(for a week or two until it needs adjusting).

At a guess I would say it’s shadowing/reflection from the glue when sticking the carbon weaves together.

Theres nothing wrong with poop – its all natural goodness

People jump of buildings all the time, would you do that?

A parasite lives in pigeon waste that can make you go mad. The brother of a bloke I worked with was in the mad house because of it and there isn’t a cure. It can also cause Histoplasmosis and Cryptococcosis (fungual disease) amoung numerous others.

I’ve tried several different types and didn’t get on with any of them for various reasons. They seem to work very well for some but not for me. All I would say is if you do try them be prepared that they may have a negative effect on you and don’t just stop taking them. I made that mistake, I had only been on them for 6-8 weeks so I just stopped and I got well and truly put on my backside. It made me a lot more depressed than I was in the first place, couldn’t stop crying, something I never do cus I is a man 😆

Altura gloves, bit on the basic side but they are big gloves.

Insane, as u said the drop in is enough to make u think!

The way i read the situation is the young chap flashed her to pull out 😉

It will only end one way……………

You have to look at whats positive in your life and when you start to lose your temper remember that. Yes you could lose your temper and go on one but what is going to come from that, nothing positive.

I try to remember that as long as your not seriously ill, in prison or dead the rest is just controlable white noise, it isn’t important, it doesn’t matter. You could get out your car and batter the next person who cuts you up but you’ll more than likely end up in jail. It took a few seconds out of your life, so what, big deal.

I don’t know your family or the situation but sometimes life just isn’t fair, you can’t reason with the unreasonable.

Of course all of this is very easy to say 😀

Soak it in white spirt or petrol if it’s off the bike, rinse with water then lube. You’ll struggle with cif, washing up liquid etc

About 10-15 years ago I looked into buying a 750 bmw, £50-£70,000 of car for £2000. I was going to buy one until a seller made the mistake of telling me it was £1000 for a set of tyres! They are a nice idea until something wears out or breaks which it will do sooner rather than later on a 30 year old car.

Do you live miles from a shop, if you don’t my guess would be he wanted to talk to someone. If he wanted a drink that bad he would ask to borrow some cash and buy his own, or he was drunk already.

If you have checked and re-greased everything could well be a cracked frame. Check all the welds, the most likely place for a weld to crack is just above or below the weld in the ‘heat effected zone’. Could also be more obvious and be right in the middle of the weld. Early stages will only look like a little crack in the paintwork.

+1 on the seatpost. I’ve been sure a creak has come from the front end before but it was the seatpost. I have to strip, clean and grease the seatpost/seat rails quite regularly to stop it creaking as just tightening doesn’t stop it.

Sounds like you are leaving the choke on or it’s sticking. Regarding the plug have you still got the old one? If so this site compares the plug numbers.

No special tools needed, just one lock nut (around 13mm) on the outside edge of the pedal. Will most likely be a bush the side nearest the crank and a caged bearing on the outside. Rare for the bushes to be knackered so will be the outside bearing or the lock nut has worked loose. Just knock the bearing out, check and if it’s worn get the bearing number off it and search ebay. Just done my times, £3.39 for two new bearings. I’d replace the lock nuts as well for what they cost.

I’ve just switched to Comodo after recommendations from a similar thread on here. It’s free and a lot better than avg which I now realise was making my computer run really slowly.

Same as i tell the mrs….close your eyes think of England and down it goes!!!

I wondered how long it would be before that one came up 😆

Amazon, Play and Tesco’s are easy targets?

Not the companies. It’s a lot easier to close this particular tax loophole than tackle where the vast majority of tax is lost i.e. companies like vodaphone and the super rich.

I don’t disagree with your point, you are correct in what you say. What I disagree with is a policy like this, as I said pick on the easy targets rather than tackle the real issues.

Would you be complaining if they closed the loophole that allows Vodafone to avoid paying shed loads of corporation tax? – can’t really see the difference, it would all mean higher prices for us, annoying though that is.

But the point is their not closing that loophole are they! Pick on the easy targets.

I wouldn’t, bike tubes are paper thin. Put any heat in the tube you will weaken it and if you put to much in you could distort the tube. Tube bends very easily when welded/heated. If you grind them off you will inevitably take some of the original tube away as well or even worse go through it. Basically a bad idea, you’ll just have to live with it.

I had the free avg and then updated to the new free 2011 version. It caused my computer to run very slowly so I downloaded Comodo which is also free and deleted avg. There was a thread on here which recommended it and it is a lot better than avg.