It’d be cool to be a hippy in Marin County now, let alone 40 years ago.

We stayed in a motel at Stinson Beach owner by an ex-hippie. He was probably one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. He knew a couple of the Repack guys and pulled out his Gary Fisher Mt Tam (late eighties vintage I think) and he proceeded to say how Garyhad given him the bike new. We chatted about MTB’s for a while and he said he was excited to try and get up Mt Tam again for the first time in many years. He came back to us the next day so excited to tell me that he’d made it up. He was so chuffed!
He explained he’d been a hippy in the 70’s but then got into stocks and shares or something – he was driving an 80’s Cadillac which did 8mpg – mint condition.

If you’ve been MTBing for years and know a bit of the history then a visit to Marin county is essential one day. Just seeing the signs for the classic Marin Bikes names made me glad I went – we went to Muirwoods/Stinson Beach etc.

What does her union say?

LOL! This is retail mate.

I’d assume the real world will be less generous.

Very much so.

They are basically saying that she should travel 30 mins to another store but cost doesn’t come into it which doesn’t sound right – especially as it’s be £165 a month to get to that store (which is 25% of what she earns) Apparantwly in her contract it says she has to be flexible if she is required to work in another store.

At least he won’t go blind.

Always amazes me how blatent it can be yet nothing ever seems to get done.

True. Unfortunately it’s almost impossible to catch the ringleaders as their main weapon is fear – if the only people that can provide evidence against them are fearful of doing so then it’s very difficult to get anywhere. When they bring people over to work they basically persuade them that our police and other services with mistreat them/abuse them much like they might in their own countries – like bringing brainwashed. Add in language barriers, lack of anywhere else to go, no money etc etc and you start to see where the problems are in racking the issue.
I’ve seen some great work done by the police and partner agencies but it’s a slow process.

Maybe if you clean it yourself so a) you’re not out of pocket and b) you’re not supporting modern slavery.

I’ve worked with the police and it’s a nightmare – most of those car wash places pay the workers far below the minimum wage and they live in atrocious conditions. It’s been worked out that unless you are paying at least £8 for the basic wash the workers won’t be getting what the law demands as far as minimum wage goes.

or 4.3 pence per mile.

That’s pretty impressive. My hybrid (not a plug in) Auris gets 55mpg (lot of driving in traffic) which works out about 10p per mile in fuel.

That truck is stupidly designed cos it’s not aero and wastes battery capacity.

Yes but it’s a truck. Americans love their pick ups and are wedded to the big petrol and Diesel engines in them. If someone can make a vehicle that looks like and works like what they have, is faster than what they have, but has the advantages of less fuel cost then it’ll get people thinking “hey maybe electric can work for me”. They might not buy one but it starts to make it more relevant to them and they’ll consider buying something like that one day maybe a it earlier than if it hadnt been made.

The ludicrous mode in Tesla’s is the same. It’s for the publicity of course because you can’t use it very often at all but it creates desire in people who don’t give a crap about emissions.

I’d eat it no problems.

Do they test sausage consumption?

Edit – oh forget it

Some of the delay can be from the way you paid – if paying by bank card through PayPal the payment clears a lot faster than by direct debit from your bank account. So it might not have cleared INTO PayPal yet, then it has to come back the other way with the same delays. Add in non-working days at the weekend and that probably explains the date stated.

Personally I’d wait until it was 100% cleared back in your account then ask the seller to relist it. They might get some sort of refund on their selling fees as they refunded.
I certainly wouldn’t send the money again outside of the eBay system.

FANTASY IS NOT SF.

Sorry. Pet hate of mine is SF being mixed in with fantasy. Nowhere near the same. I can’t stabd fantasy books (can you tell??)

I found Asimov soooooo dull to be honest. Couple of his books are ok but the foundation series I just couldn’t get on with.

Harry Harrison – Stainless Steel Rat series – also Deathworld trilogy, plus maybe Bill The Galactic Hero. Loved them as a teenager, still love them now. Not kids books but if he’s an avid reader he’ll be fine.

Any sort of surface abrasion is going to be almost impossible to make look even and you’ll end up with a scruffy rough brushed finish anyway.
Aren’t all Surly frames powder coated anyway? If so you won’t get the same effects that you get on painted frames.

I’d say the matt lacquer spray is probably the best idea.

The turntable is probably a lot bigger front to back than a CD player or amp. Mine is by a few CM so it can’t go on top.

I tend to do them if it’s going on Trustpilot as decent companies do respond to problems on there so will leave positive or negative info and try to write a decent amount.

On the other hand I’ve tried to leave reviews on shop sites which have never been published or some error has occurred when trying to submit it – wierdly this is always when I try to leave a poor review – makes you think. 😂

BBC cameraman Martin Roberts said he was driving on the M25 past Heathrow airport at about 17:45 GMT when he saw what he believes was a drone.
“I could see, I’d say around 300 feet up, very bright, stationary flashing red and green lights, over the Harmondsworth area,” he said.
“I could tell it was a drone – these things have got quite distinctive lights – not a helicopter.
“The lights were very close together. It was a very clear night and the object was stationary, it was turning very, very slightly. I could see it very clearly, I’d say for about four to five minutes.”

Professional cameraman, clear night, 4-5 minutes watching it. I reckon that’s pretty conclusive.

Some muppet will pick holes in it though. You lot sound like wacko conspiracy theorists.

What a shame.

Changing the subject completely:

He was driving.

Why does everyone have to be so cynical about the sightings? Can you take a decent picture of a drone 300ft in the air with a camera phone? While driving?

Camera technology on phones is still light years away from the human eye capability. Even if you were a decent photographer with an SLR and a good zoom lens it would be hard to take a decent pic of a rapidly moving object in the dark 300ft in the air.

Steve – you can buy leather dye which is used for car seats which should be ok as long as your saddle is leather!!

I’ve been looking for some 26” wheels but people seem to want silly money for them.

I’ve recovered a couple of SDG bel Airs.

The best tip I would suggest is don’t get material that it too thick. I used leather both times and the thinner very slightly stretchy stuff was way easier than the thicker stuff.

I used normal contact adhesive from a tube and spread with a bit of plastic worked find. Clamped the edges with bulldog clips overnight and trimmed afterwards. I think the production saddles are stapled to make them quick to produce – my recovered saddles have survived many miles in all sorts of weather without the covers peeling despite only using glue.

Recently my laptop died. I knew the HDD was ok so I took it out and plugged it into an old desktop I had around. After rebooting it a couple of times after it threw a wobbly it then proceeded to work exactly like the laptop did. I’m really don’t know much about PC’s but it seemed to work fine!

It didn’t fit the old HDD mounting points so I just Velcro’d it to the chassis. 😂

I’ve used some leftover 40mm solid oak worktop to make shelves in my kitchen. It certainly is very heavy and doesn’t flex. Not too difficult to work with, seems to take a router bit/drills etc easily.

The only thing I’d say is that it is very thick and obviously worktop, but clever design should make it less obvious. A unit like the one pictured would be very very heavy. Maybe if you found some 30mm ish material that might be better and strong enough?

I had a high end Raleigh steel frame mig welded up and it was fine, file the welds back and it’s good to go.

Took another frame to a local welders and he did the same to the dropout/chainstay junction which had completely snapped, mig welded again – that survived many more jumps and drops.

Inbred frames are basically made of gas pipes, any sort of steel welding will be ok as long as it’s done properly.

If you keep it change the oil twice as often as they recommend, this is good advice for any car but turbo engines especially so.
I don’t trust long oil change intervals on newer cars, changing oil often is one of the best things you can do for a car.
Just doing the basics properly and a bit more often (so correct oil, plugs correctly gapped etc) can make engines last a long long time.

Bit dramatic.

Not necessarily. Bmx went from one of the really big sports in the 80’s to pretty much dying out in the 90’s. If it hadn’t been for the likes of Matt Hoffman and a couple of the big manufacturers who still did bikes it would have disappeared completely. It’s come back obviously but it looks a lot different to before the lull.
This could happen in MTB.

Thanks for the help. As I said, the windows were installed very very well, hardly any trim pieces which was amazing to say that the old windows were in such a state when removed.
I won’t worry about it.

I don’t think making light of what is essentially, pure evil, is an excuse, mate.

Pure evil? You need to get out more.

It’s pretty clear that the majority of dashcam users are unreconstructed hooligans. You only have to look at the YouTube footage to see that – where are the videos of safe driving within the speed limit? If you’re so safe, why not post some footage of responsible driving, eh?

Err the ones I’ve watched are people driving normally and having, or nearly having, crashes through no fault of their own.

It means “I have no idea what I’m talking about and just made this up but used a big word that I don’t really understand so that you’ll think I’m dead clever and it must be true.”

😂

Also interested, I seem to be seeing a lot of driving which makes no sense around me despite me driving like a saint – so many near misses from people not watching/caring, road rage etc. Only a matter of time until I need one I think.

Sarawak is completely right, but it sounds like the OP has started the whole thing off badly, hopefully he can recover the situation.

I’d say get a 3rd party installation expert in to assess the situation while both of you are present, they can give an honest appraisal of the situation and what needs to happen to sort it out. They might be able to indicate who should pay but if it isn’t clear then accepting to both pay 50% would be the best way forward – you’ve both got a fire you want to use so would be equally in need of sorting it out.

Some people can’t accept that things break down/wear out/fall out on their own though. Hopefully you can sort it.

It’s a bit sad people are boycotting companies just because of the way they voted. Very childish. Would you stop one of your employees getting a promotion because they voted leave, or refused a tenancy to someone wanting to rent your house?

I’ll write to their Director and explain why they are being dicks and I’ll use whatever social media is possible to warn others

I wonder if the company will do that for you as well, warning others not to sell to you? 😘

To all those people who are saying he should get the 40% off – I assume when the price goes back up the company are ok to go back and ask for more money from him?

You were happy with the price when ordered so there. If you weren’t in a rush why on earth did you order it anyway? Home improvement stuff is never on offer just before Xmas as that’s when everyone wants it.

But they’d have £2k spare to cushion the blow!

I heard once of someone doing the correct thing and getting 3 quotes done for a new boiler. The quotes they got were around £2k, £3k and £4K. Most expensive was BG but as they didn’t know too much about it they went with them as they had heard of them and thought it was a safe bet.
Install day – the people who turned up to fit the boiler were the people who had quoted £2k, they had been employed as subcontractors from British Gas.

You can have rubbish toilets that are clean and nice ones which are filthy.

It’s a tricky topic.

They are more likely to be BMX style calipers which have a miles longer drop than a road caliper.
Something like this might be an upgrade:
https://winstanleysbmx.com/dia-compe-bulldog-bmx-caliper?gclid=Cj0KCQiAmafhBRDUARIsACOKERMyxyTuoVWrOZxgzPBjelCtxQSmkrDXnm07T_UpNWhbphf6whH0IzwaAu0LEALw_wcB#black-front

Would you have been asking this question if it was a local garage rather than Halfords?
Not all the big chains are bad. I’ve got a Kwik Fit near me whose staff are brilliant, they’ve done stuff for free or very cheap and their servicing/MOT stuff is well priced and very thorough.