People don’t necessarily centre their lives on eBay though.

But that applies for sellers as well as buyers – I try to time stuff so I can post it at a convenient time to me if payment is made within say 18 hours.

It’s the HBSP263N clamps you need with either the I-spec shifters or the I-spec adaptor kit.

Done, HTH. No sevens here! Couple of ones though.

Those camel ‘spiders’ are the stuff of nightmares, there’s a vid on YouTube of one acting aggressive in a room in front of a load of soldiers, halfway through its posturing it stops to eat some unfortunate insect that happened to wander by and then carries on rearing up waving its legs about.

Soundhound FTW.

Our manglement responded to pressure and installed a shower for us to use. The shower was fitted and finished a year ago, unfortunately there has (or, more likely, has not) been wrangling with the cleaning contractor as to COSHH and responsibilities so nobody’s been able to use it yet. Favoured view is to clean it ourselves (our cleaners are not known for their hygiene conscientiousness) but banging heads against walls at the moment. Yes our (upper middle and upwards) management are historically inept.

+1 – I for one will do a little jig outside their last branch when they do go pop.

As for the compo claim comment, you lose your card/details, cost them nearly £10k then get irate when they ask for a breakdown of your claim. Surely they should have just bunged you £5k for the inconvenience? I assume you’d do the same for any customers of yours?

Apart from the fact I know I didn’t lose my card or details, my card had never left my sight and I never used it in a petrol station / restaurant or any cash machine other than inside a bank; from their general ineptitude and lax security I wouldn’t be surprised if it was their end where any breach occurred – yeah why not…

When the money was returned obviously I shifted it to somewhere more credible, not least for the fact that I’d had to make so many phone calls to them that certain members of their call centre probably knew my security info off by heart.

To see if they’d improved their security I later returned a couple of grand to the account and attempted a large (bike related) purchase abroad. No questions asked, transaction went through first time.

When asked later if there was any outcome to the investigation or how it came about they refused to divulge any information, giving a stock reply that ‘we can confirm funds were returned to your account on 9th Sept 2010’ – they couldn’t even get that right, that was the date the money was taken. They eventually refunded my account in the October.

Santander let some scumbag spend over £9700 on my card while I was away in Iceland two years ago. It took about 50 phone calls and weeks (because of their own basic internal clerical ineptitude) to get the money back from what was a straightforward fraud case. When I kicked off (as you would given the circumstances) and asked for compensation for the stress, inconvenience and expense caused they asked for a detailed breakdown of all expenses incurred to the penny and asked for copies of all bills as evidence.

Do not bank with Santander or any of their subsidiaries. Let my experience at least serve as a warning to others. That amount of money should never be allowed to be spent on a card without proper checks (the actual transactions were two plane tickets to Dubai at £4700ish each and a train ticket somewhere in Sweden).

I have no doubt that STWbank would be a safer bet than any Santander group outfit.

Barclays security can be a bit over-zealous, may be a plus or minus for you. HSBC make international payments very easy (Barclays can be a bit over-zealous again & refuse perfectly legit requests).

Santander are beyond rubbish, I can personally vouch.

It’s raining. It rains every June, more often than not it rains so much in June that somewhere floods, yet it still comes as a complete surprise to the nation each year.

One of the XT chainsets from a few years ago (760 or 770) had a different internal diameter middle ring so it could make quite a difference getting the right one.

You’d be fine with a 10 speed crankset & 9 speed chain.

Leeds by any chance? :wink:

There are increasing numbers of guards at are ****s, I can vouch for that as I have to work with some of them (-driver for Northern TOC). Most are OK, but the jobsworth minority are growing at every company. And yes, the bike booking system is just an exercise in frustration. Whatever you do don’t get caught with/using the carriage key (I assume by ‘turnkey’ you have a T-key type carriage key). Unauthorised access of any kind even for access to your own bike could be taken well-over-the-top seriously and you could have all sorts levelled at you. If you’re on a train and you think the guard’s forgotten you at your stop pull the passcomm. You’d be surprised how many numpty guards forget about wheelchair passengers needing assistance off the train, never mind bikes locked away.

Asking very politely to bend the rules before boarding is the only realistic option. Or travelling a bit earlier and travelling by London Midland / Northern (changing at Crewe & Manchester) who you don’t need bike reservations with. Travelling with a bike late at night is risky, engineering works (of which there is a lot at the moment in the North west – and hence rail-replacement buses) could leave you stranded anyway with a bike – the RRBs don’t take bikes.

The little darlings who turn up by the dozen with their bmxs & tend to be antisocial / faredodgers / abusive are one reason the TOCs are being more rigid with the bikes rules.

Ta Specialtes Chinook, although not that much cheaper than Shimano. Shift very well and good longevity.

+1 for poor shifting with Middleburn rings.

+1. Awful customer service when you need to rely on them.

Boots sell clarityn in 30s on a bogof, can’t remember exact price but buying the 7s is a waste of money.

Pollen (or at least the type I’m allergic to) seems a couple of weeks early this year, my birthday is mid-June and normally I get one guaranteed birthday present of a snotty nose starting the next day or so for 3-4 weeks into July. I had to stop riding a few weeks ago this year.

Beconase makes me sneeze violently when I take it, the resultant eye-watering makes me rub my eyes which starts the cycle of rubbing pollen into eyes. Washing pollen out of bedding & clothing, vacuuming regularly and washing face and hands often helps but I have no choice but to stop riding at this time of year for a few weeks.

That’s uncannily familiar:
Medium 1616g
SID RLT Ti 100, pushloc
Hope Pro 3 SP / ZTR355 / Ralphs
M985 XTR 2×10 42/30 / 11-34 shadow+ / SPDs
Thomson elite stem/masterpiece post
Charge knife
Easton EC90 bars
Tech X2 160/140
King BB & headset
21-and-a-bit lbs all in

The spacers required are the same as normal, have a look at the Shimano tech docs. The q-factor of the M985 double is very narrow though, there’s only 4mm clearance between crank-arms and stays on my (skinny) Ti frame (73mm bb, one 2.5mm spacer). You’ll need to do your homework.

Slightly more long term than what you were after but I’m sure there was a similar thread on here about 6 months ago ie early Jan, someone recommended a weather service that the supermarkets (among others) use. At the time I remember it forecasting a short period of snow in 4-5 weeks time, lo and behold in early Feb 3 days of snow. Pretty impressive.

Fine with Firefox here.

Something not right with what you’ve been told there – the HBSP263s that landed on my doormat yesterday morning have “XT M780-I” stamped on them (as well as “XTR M970-980”). These are the XTR mounts ordered from CRC a few days ago. They’re in silver which isn’t ideal for me but at least I can get on with my build now and look for black ones as and when.

Sent, hope it’s of use.

Having taken one of these apart, converted it to 9 speed and then back again I might be able to help.

Take a 4mm hex key and a square driver bit (robertson #2 might just do it). With the top lid off put the hex key in the bolt in the middle of the spool and the square bit in the bottom receptacle and make sure they’re not loose. Don’t try to tighten them too much as the metal on the bottom is actually cheddar cheese and it’ll just round off.

If that’s not the problem make sure the spiral spring is sat under the discreetly clipped edge towards the middle of the spool (make sure you’ve got the shifter in the highest gear position to reduce tension and make it easier).

Lastly and you’ve almost certainly checked this, the plate screw has to sit centrally over the cover before it’ll screw in. Score marks round the outside of the hole will give it away if that’s not flush when you’ve been trying to screw it down.

I have a picture of mine with the lid off if it’s any use in comparison with yours to check all the springs are located correctly etc, let me know if you’d like to have a butcher’s.

CRC got back to me today and the chap I mithered (Chris) personally checked some stock of the HBSP263s which he found have “XTR M970-M980 XT M780” embossed on them.

Ta. Will mosey on over there.

Hope got back to me confirming basically what I already knew (that the mounts I need must have M970 and M980 stamped on them) and that they are indeed available in black, but annoyingly no further details of where to get them (and no offer to buy direct). Emails or phone calls to bike shops are painfully slow / frustrating, CRC have now taken a fortnight to not answer a simple question. Can anyone confirm if they can sell or know where to buy the new HBSP263s?

There’s a set of instructions for the XTR shifters on Hope’s website, could be similar/equivalent to this for XT?

The glug of wine being poured.

Plink plink fizz in the morning.

Recently I thought it might be a good idea to swap the spools in a couple of Sram X0 front shifters (ie 2sp for 3sp) to make a semi-kosher 2×9. Cue needle nose pliers, springs everywhere and lots of swearing/headache. But now at least I know how to rebuild them. In conclusion it’s not worth the hassle, better to stick with the 3sp and adjust the limit screw/s.

“…Aguerroooooooah!!!!!”

As I understand it* you’d need these and the new HBSP263s.

*disclaimer, I may not be correct!

Hand-reared a bluetit last year that had fallen out of the nest, yes that looks very familiar.

Cheers, yes I’m fed up of waiting for CRC (would have been quicker to just order some and sent back if not right) so I emailed hope yesterday, buying direct would be ideal if they get back to.me. Thanks for letting me know.

I had a feeling the new ones were common to 780 & 980 shifters.

That ache is horrible, no? I have the following lovely procedure waiting for me in August. They’re going to cut into my gum high up and shave the top off one of my teeth, clean it all up a bit and then pack it out with straw before stitching it back up again. Dentists said 50:50 chance we can save the tooth. “I’m not going to lie to you” he said, “you’re going to feel like you’ve been in a pretty nasty fight afterwards.” “And your face will swell up like a football.” Great.

Apicoectomy(sp)? It would have to be a small world but I hope you get the lovely Indian lady surgeon who performed mine – completely painless, needed no painkillers afterwards. I may be lucky.

You say brand new inner and outer cable, are there any tight bits of routing and was the cable outer re-profiled after being cut? Any slack caused in the inner cable when downshifting might present itself at the shifter and jam it.

Merlin have a good price for KMC X9SL chains ATM, very nice they are too.