Screw on adaptors for presta? Never seen them.

Drop handlebars.

Alternatively you could have done what a mate of mine once did….reached through the window, took the keys and threw them into a field.

P.S. This only works if you know that you won't be on that route again.

Hardcore? For a greenhouse? How big is the thing? Lay the flags on a layer of sand – 2" should be adequate. Screw the base to the flags, fix the gh to the base, insert glass, job done. Don't need a membrane. Don't need hardcore.

Main things to remember are:-

1) Lay the flags level.

2) Make sure the base is square, truly square, not just "near enough".

Easy job.

You should have taken her number and reported her for road rage. Knowing plod in this country they would have been interested in a motoring offence and hauled her in. Nothing would have happened, but she'd have sweated a bit.

It would have been public spirited – giving plod something to do instead of beating up innocents in police cells.

loses fix under trees.

The "H" models don't.

At one time that's the only kind of stop that existed. Then came braze-ons. There should be plenty hanging around places like e-Bay or Retrobike

Saw an orange P7 in Bikedebts on Saturday. It looked georgeous. I've got a white one, which I thought looked good till I saw that. Now I'm insanely jealous.

Lives in Rufford.

I hope you can get Bonthrone mail order service working. It's cr@p. They are so bad that I had to get my credit card company to get my money back. Bonthrone took the money and didn't send the goods(which they are not supposed to do), refused to answer emails, and when I rang the guy I wanted was always "on the phone and he'll ring you back". Never did. Even after recorded delivery letters they did nothing. Eventually I went to my credit card co and they gave me a refund and presumably took the money off Bonthrone. I've heard of others with a similar story.

Good luck, and I hope it works for you.

You can make a small fortune by running your own bike shop. All you need to start with is a large fortune.

The frame should be condemned on Health and Safety grounds. Send it to me for disposal.

I've got a business card from a guy near Preston. Will use him myself soon. He removes the lacquer which is where your problems will be, cleans the wheel, then retreats with something more resilient than the manufacturer's cheap, thin coating.

I was unemployed a while back, and worked for the local bike shop doing repairs. This wasn't Halfrods, or an mtb specific place, just an ordinary bike shop. The range of bikes we got in was pretty p*ss poor. Condition was almost always rock bottom, and customers wanted the cheapest possible repairs. 5 speed bottom of the range was the most common, although quite a few Sturmey Archers came by. Fortunately the owner had been around for ages, and had a mound of old bits and pieces that we could use to "bodge" a lot of repairs. That sounds cr@p, but it's what the customer wanted. I was crying out to work on a decent bike, but they never came in. Either their owners took them back to the big boys, or fettled them themselves. Not a job with much satisfaction in it. Can you guarantee that all the bikes you get will be easily repairable? Will customers pay?

As an example – for replacing an inner tube the price was £4 including tube. We were replacing rear mechs for £20, including cable. Not a lot of profit there. I was paid £40 for a 3 day week (cash in hand so no questions). You'll have to go some to make a decent living out of it, even to cover your overheads.

For a quick snack I usually go upstairs at the wine shop next door. Lovely coffee and cakes, and you can buy "something for the weekend" on the way out!

perfect spot for lunch at Wilfs

That's not necessarily an opinion shared by everyone.

Not politically correct, but I've got a collection of Robertson's Gollys. Been collecting since I was a lad and New Labour's inclusivity hadn't been invented.

the big berms are after the slab. The route goes along a fire road for quite some way, ending in a quarry area. You then go onto purpose built singletrack for quite some way inclusing odd jumps as you cross a boggy bit on raised track. This leads into a slightly downhill section with a couple of berms, then a climb. At the top of a climb you run alongside a wall. Here you can either drop right and backinto the section you just did, or left through the wall. as you pass through the wall you are directly below the slab. The trail leads off to the left down through a series of berms (and hip jumps if you are going fast enough). As the berms finish (or maybe before, I've only ridden it once), there's a fork off to the right up to the Slab. If you miss the turning you end up on the fireroad through to the massive bermy rollercoaster

I followed that quite easily, until a rough bit that I could go either side of – right was hard, left was easy – then went through a wall and across some open country, onto a fireroad. Must have been at the high point of the route. Then I saw a sign for the black route, which was the start of the bermy bit. Sounds like there's a turn in there that I've missed, just after the wall and before the bermy bits. Good excusde to go back.

Not much available at Grizedale, though some on the tops.

We had a break in and had the polis round. They suggested using dusk to dawn censors wired to low energy bulbs.

Lancashire – wet. All of it.

Funny OP should think that he's missed the slab. I rode Gisburn and don't think I went own the slab either. Saw the bits he's referring to, but WTF is the turn? Went down the big bermy bits, but is that before or after the slab? Never saw a turn that I didn't take. What have we both missed?

Paypal as a gift, and I'll post it tomorrow. mail me.

I've got one of the proper spanner type thingies with the little things for the tension cap on the other end. Was sent to me with a chainset but I've never used it, and never will £10 posted?

Thanks guys, most helpful and very informative. Looks like I'll be spending more than I originally thought. It seems to be a choice between MTT's Speedmaster, and one from the links you've sent. Will sleep on it tonight. Might have to put the wife on the streets to pay for it!!!

I like Penmachno. Like ^^^^it seems to me to be proper old school riding. It's as close to XC as you can get on a man made trail. So there are no toilets, cafes, bike wash, nappy changing facilities etc. So what? The new loop two is super, it just goes on and on. There's no more fireroad than Llandegla, Marin, Grizedale, Whinlatter, Gisburn or anywhere else.

Thank you alpin. Your post has been reported. We are all entitled to our opinions. Yours doesn't fit in with this discussion, so what are you trying to prove?

I've got thick wrists, but the Timebomb is not for me. I've looked at the Railmaster, but they are deffo too much. Just waiting for replies to a couple of mails, but it looks like I'll be spending more(much more) than my original budget.

MTT has a second mail…..

The man asked for a £700 watch.

That's not set in stone, quality comes first.

Very nice alpin, but IMHO it looks a bit naff. I wear better than that for work, and it gets battered. Why shouldn't men have nice bits of bling? Women do, so why can't we?

Anyway I've found a couple of nice Seamasters that are way over my original budget, but what the heck? It's only money and you can't take it with you. Bugger, I'm beginning to sound like ton. (Note to self – suicide is painless)

Good luck finding your dream watch..

Trouble is….I'm not sure what that is!

Joolsburger has made a very good point, which I shall take notice of. Price is only a guide, quality is more important. But even then I don't think I could stretch to £2k+ for a Rolex – I'd be too scared of losing it!

Nice watch, but being a traditionalist I prefer round ones, otherwise I would have been tempted to haggle!

OK, I've found the link. Try this:-

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12624508&highlight=

Strewth, I'm getting swamped!

I use the maps provided by

http://sites.google.com/site/talkytoasteruk/ukmaps

They are very good, not as good as OS, but not far short. The link will give you all the info you need.

You will need a card to plug into your GPS, but these are readily available. To transfer the data to the card I used IMG2GPS, and a link to that is also included somewhere in the blurb. Worth doing, at least I thought so.

I got the link from a guy called abductee who lives here and on Bike Radar. He's the expert, and will put you right if you look him up.

I've had a couple of e-mails and replied to them. Don't know if they're from you 2^^. If not mail me direct.

Bank transfer is as secure as you can get. Except in exceptional circumstances it cannot be reversed, and the buyer simply can't say to the bank that he hasn't got the goods and wants his money back. They won't send it back without your permission. Only problem might be with eBay, who IIRC insist that all payments are made through Paypal. Could do with someone challenging this in court – is it unfair practice?

If you do get a new HCX, get one each of these:-

http://www.gpsw.co.uk/details/prod2394.html
http://www.gpsw.co.uk/details/prod4137.html

Only cost a tenner or so, and will hold your unit nice and firmly on your bars.

CG, where do you want to start?

I have an SD card in the back, purely because I have some maps on it. Not OS, because they cannot be put onto it, and not GARMIN TOPO because they are cr@p, but some free maps from tinterweb. Can supply a link if you want. They are nearly as good as OS, and quite good enough for my use. The unit itself without the card will hold all the data I ever need to store, prior to down(or is that up)loading to my PC. Others use bikely, bikehike etc, but I've used OS maps all my – very long – life, and feel comfortable with what the OS produces.

I plot routes on Memory Map – other mapping software systems exist – and transfer them to the unit. I follow the directions from the unit when out, and although I always carry a paper map as back up I seldom resort to it. I record my trail and down(or is that up)load it back to my PC when I return, so that I have a track of where I've been. Very useful for finding out where I went wrong, or where to alter the route for next time. Others use the "trail" facility, but I don't find these as easy to follow as the big compass arrow, which just points to the front all the time and is an almost instant check on being on the correct route.

I can make a "mark" on GPS of interesting points and show these on MM on return. Can be useful at times.

A Legend will do so much more than I want it to, but that's true of any electronic gizmo. Really I use mine as a direction pointing tool, with the recording facility for when I get back. I'd be lost without it. Care is needed plotting routes before my rides, but it saves having to stop every five minutes to get the map out.

IIRC there's not a great deal of difference between the Legend and the Legend H models, apart from the vastly superior reception, due to a totally different aerial being fitted.

Enough? If not mail me.