The “perfect” mirror kind of exits. In a traditional ruby laser, a 100% is at one and a 99.9% is at the other, which is how the laser “lases”. But its wavelength specific.

Del: I work in the big bad oil industry, i design/build lasers to monitor oil flow using fibre optic.

No possibly about it, its something we do frequently. It does depend on the type of mirror, in your bog standard mirror the silver backing will vaporise long before the glass melts. Theres a lot of other variables though, wavelength, power densities, mode and even the modal distribution will effect what happen to the mirror.

Hell yes.

Those horse ridery types with that kinda of attitude aren’t locals, they’re blow-ins.

Its a nice village, but it will get busy if the weather is good. Couple of good pubs, dog freindly too. Loads of places to walk, but be wary of the horses, they can get a bit aggressive if theres food around and your not giving them any.

[/quote]Does the OP want the bike in the boot, seat up and luggage cover over to keep it out of sight? Not just in the back

That would be nice but the main reason is to load the bike in the car without putting the seats down so as not to take out the child seats. If it fits with the load cover in place, great, but its no deal breaker. The other option is an audi A6 Avant, but im not sure if the bke will fit in there either.

Would you be prepared to have Ton sit on you and have him tickle you with grass on the basis that “some-one” believed you were about to commit an act of terror?

No idea who this Ton fella his, but hope doesn’t take offence at him being used as a method of torture.

Yep.

Not answering for TJ, btw, im sure he can fight his own battles.

If we want to live in world where “torture” is a thing of the past, surely there must come a point where we have say stop. We can argue that in some cases torture is justifiable, but you could use that argument untill the end of time and i’d like to think that as a species we will at some point advance beyond such cruelty.

I was visiting a Chatuea in France, at which they randomly had a torture exhibiton to highlight the fact that toture still goes on. Waterbaording featured and oddly enough so was tickling the feet with a feather. It was morbidly fascinating, i felt compelled to finish the exhibition but i genuinley felt sick to the core at the end

Gore Phantom. Used in temps from 14 down to -12. 14 degrees and its sleeves off, -12 and a mid weight merino is fine. Not claimed to be waterproof, but seems to shrugg off all but the biblical variety of downpours.

Aye Beamers i do have the Britax. I, or more to the point my daughter, doesn’t seem bothered by the recline function. Its set in the reclined position and she seems quite happy. Its not particaluray reclined though, although it might depend on the car its being fitted too.

Britax evolva, goes from around 9 months to 12 years

I have them and they seem okay. They need a good service, after two years of use the’ve gone a bit stiff during the ride. I’d also say that the initial damping is a bit on the slow side, with the compression damping wound out fully i still find it a bit slow. Certainly very stiff. I dont use the albert select and i found that i rarely use the travel adjust. Not particulary hard to set up either.

I very much doubt you will notice the extra 200 lumens, the differences will be down to the optics etc.

I used Exposure lights for about 3 years, after 10 years or so of commuting with battery pack type lights, they were a godsend. Most of the failures i experienced were down to the cables in some way. Water ingress, cable breaks etc. The ease with which the light is attached is a big draw for me too, during the commute i’ll take my light off 2-3 times and the faff with the cable was a pain, especailly when raining or cold and i just want to get going.

As for being the best lights? Maybe, depending on your criteria. I think light and motion have better optics, but thats a bit subjective as some prefer narrow beams, some prefer wide beams. Over all i rate the Exposure lights highly, i’ve owned/own the Joystick, Daiblo, Enduro Maxx, Maxx Daddy & Six pack and not had a problem with any of them.

Apologies for beeing late to the party, btw.

‘Tis an expensive light, but if it lasts longer than all the other rear lights i’ve tried, i’ll be a very happy bunny. I tried various cat eye/blackburn/smart and they seem to struggle with water ingress few lasting a years winter commute. The holy hand grenade lasted the longest, nearly 2 years, and then lugs holding the end cap on broke.

With custom map you often get a smoother power delivery too. My A2 had a very narrow power band, started at 2000rpm and was all over by 3000. Now it starts at around 1700rpm and will only tail off at around 4000. If i can ar5ed, i’ll dig out the rolling road graph that show the before and after traces. The extra power is almost a bonus, it doesn’t affect fuel ecomony, the car drives better for it. In same ways id say why wouldn’t you?

Going back to the original post, chipping cars isnt a bad thing and doesn’t “kill” the car. It might cause problems with bits and pieces that are on their way out though. Avoid the “plug and play” options, get it on a rolling road for a proper remap. As i recall the cost is not too dissimlar.

Aye, very interesting in the wet. I was using a T3 hybrid turbo, on a 1.8 engine it was very laggy. Coming out of a corner at 120+, sideways at full lock took some practice if you wanted to hold it on the throttle. At the time i did these mods, not many people did much with the 200sx so it was very much a suck it and see. The intercooler was from a Saab 9000, turbo from a cosworth. The end result was surprising to say the least, straight line accelaration was something else. On one track day, i hada right royal battle with some uber porche, he gained one hell of a lot of ground into the corners and through them but on the straights the nissain gained it back and then some. We got back to the paddok, my brakes were smoking so much the car vanished in the smoke. Porche driver pulls up, get out of his and throws his helmet on the ground, shouts “i cant believe i been beaten by F****** nissan” and storms off.

Years ago i modified a 200sx, went from 170bhp to around 350bhp. I was waiting on the brakes calipers, i’d finished the work on the engine and the suspension so gave it a quick blast. That was an experience. I got to an indicated 150 before thinking about the lack of brakes…..

It suffered a lot of fade on track days, fitting bigger discs helped and i think this where uprated brakes come into play. Under repeated heavy braking, smaller brakes cant dissipate the heat quick enough. Manufactures may assumne that bigger engined cars travel higher speeds on average, so fit bigger discs to compensate.

I’ve chipped my current car Audi A2 (rolling road remap at stealth tuning)and its improved the overall drive no end. The engine was very peaky before, now it pulls better thoughout the rev range. Not felt the need to change brakes though, they are more than ample to stop the car quickly.

Power wise, the rolling road produced 78 bhp as standard, now 101bhp. Torque was 140 lb/ft to 205 ib/ft. In 3 years, ive had no issues with tyre wear, drivetrain etc. Not sure about the MPG, the car does nearly 70 to the gallon, it got alot worse due to a sticky brake pad, but i cant say its improved MPG any though. Fitting a taller 5 gear obviously made a big difference, which was possible due to the higher torque of the engine.

In fact, of the 4 or 6 cars that i’ve had “chipped” none have shown any problems. In fact the nissan above still gets ragged up and down goodwood, on 150k miles. Drivetrain is largely original, except the rear diff was changed to that from a S14, but only for longer ratio and LSD

Bagaboo, if you want a bit of art work done. I have the large workhorse messenger, used daly for the last 2-3 years carrying probably too much weight with no worries.

I think the howies one are made by Timbuk2

The battery life on the X10 was poor, but a firmware update changed that. On release, i'd struggle to get more than 15 hours out of it. Since the update, i get 60 odd hours use out of it, with browisng over wifi and 3g, bluetooth music to headphones for a couple of hours, a few phone calls and texts, GPS left on. Not sure if that counts as "not using it" but hey ho.

Since the update, i'd say it was great phone.

Id say X10 too, battery life is not an issue unless charging every 3 days is considered poor. Not sure what teh issue with Mediascape, mine plays albums just fine and creates playlist too. If it realy is an issue, just download another media player via teh market.

My in call volume is just fine.

Whats the difference between andriod 1.6 and 2.1? I bet most users wouldn't notice or even care except for bragging rights.

+1 for eating as a family. Our 14 month old eats what we eat, hoofs and all, sometimes she won't eat but we dont worry about it and let her got on with emptying cupboards/climbing futniture/etc. We don't try and give her anything else if she doesn't eat her meal though.

Ive ran shimano deore's on the commuter fro 4 year or so. Must have covered around 8000 miles. They get washed in the winter, new pads when they need them. Not so much as a whimper.

Exposure Flare. The self contained version of their Red eye light, which is v.bright.

It's not out yet, but due end of August/beginning of September i believe

Sony erricson X10

Definately with on the working front Graham 🙂

As far as those apps go:

TuneIn Radio – Ive used internet radio on previous phones, its okay
Shazzam – Had this ability on my phones from 6-7 years ago, the novelty wore off after the first couple of goes. My current phone has a similar ability, never used it though.
iTunes Remote – Not something i'd worry about, my music collection is on a PC (or should i say imac?) but the speakers for it are in the room. If i want to listem to music on it, im in the room anyway, where there is a remote control for it anyhow's.
Spotify – Interesting, whats the quality like? One thing that bugged me about the internet radio was the low bit rate. And the commercials.

I tried PDF reader's, hoping to read the Singletrack magazine on them but i didn't get on with it.

Various gym/training apps that record your workouts. I found them tcaky and so dumbed down that i just stopped using them.

I tried epicurious, but i found that i didn't use it. When cooking a meal and thinking of what to cook, i don't think "ohh, where's my phone…"

Iplayer apps, can live without it TBH. News feeds, mleh. Dont listen/watch the news, anything of importance i hear about eventually anyway.

One thing i do like about the touch is the ability to download podcasts direct to it, rather than go though the process of conecting it to the computer.

I got suckered in by the marketing basically, being all shiny, shiny like.

I'ved messed about with 30 or so apps, none of them had any lasting appeal. The egg timer one was a reference to a incident whilst doing some cooking for a friend. I went to boil some eggs, at which point he pulled out his phone and said "i have an app for that…."

I'd like to say its an isolated incident, but sadly its an all to common phrase.

Horses for courses gents, you find them useful. I find them overated, hence why i said "personally".

Having never looked at all 225,000 of them, i can't say catergorically they are all over rated but from the ones ive used, id say they were.

For instance, i installed a fuel tracker thing that logged the MPG of the car. The ipod lives in the car, so its allways availible but in the 6 months ive had the app, i've used it twice. I found out that it didn't tell me anything i didn't already know.

After a software updated stuffed up my ipod, i hadn't re-installed the apps. It took me 2 months before i even noticed i hadn't done so.

I'm not a techno-phobe, nor a apple basher but an app that helps you to boil an egg? Come on…its a bit of fun, but ultimately pointless.

Gotta love apple marketing, i've noticed that when people post on non-iphone related subjects, they will often say such things "I'll post more details later from the PC, on on my iPhone…." going to the trouble of using the capital in the apple way.

I looked at the iphone and didn't think much of it. Personally, i think the apps are over rated, i have a ipod touch and i dont use it for anything else other than music. I'll play with a app for a bit, then forget about it.

I demo'ed a Tracer and it felt "right", bought one there and then. It's built on the heavy side, but its un-flappable in all the riding conditions ive been in. There are times when ive ridden a trail, the trail faires have built a new drop off/ramp/berm, gone in too fast for my skills and the bike just rides it. I rarely want to ride anything else. My only gripe would be the bearings, the grease nipples didn't work that well so the bearings didn't last too long @ 12 months. Since replaced with sealed versions which should last longer.

Maxis Mura. Seems very robust and survived many a jaunt in the Forest. The wheels use Shreider valves, so took the core out and put some sealant in.

My bike probably weighs over 30lbs, not bothered what it weighs:

Intense Tracer VP
SLX groupset
Saint brakes
Thompson Seatpost and stem
Stan flows on CK hubs
Magura Wotans
Easton EA90 bars
High roller Double ply tyres (running stans tubeless)

I'm well aware that it could be lighter and a majority of time i ride it im over biked (certainly in the southdowns), but im 15 stone in my birthday suit, less than 10% boby fat and on the times i've ridden a lighter bike it felt like i was tearing it apart. A bike that flexes so much that the tyres rub on the chain stays, despite having a good inch of clearance, doesn't inspire me with confidence.

I went down the light weight path for a while, things broke, the handling was a bit wayward, it didnt feel "right". What i ride now is an evolution of what i rode before. 32mm stanchion forks became 36mm stanchions and the differnce was night and day. Double ply tyres replaced single ply because slashing the sidewalls at 30mph means a new rim at best……

I may not be the fastest up a hill, but i'm not the slowest by a long shot, going for a lighter build would erode my confidence in the bike in some situations, which ultimatley means less fun, so no deal. It certainly wouldn't feel "better" or ride better if it was lighter, as i wouldn't have the confidence in it.

I have the same problem with a rat. It has so far managed to evade 5 traps, 6-7 feral cats, numerous attempts by my own cats and out classed a terrier dog thing. Damm thing burrows up from the river into the chicken run, and provided the chickens arent out, munches the food. If they're out, they give the it some grief and peck at it untill it scrurries off squealing into the corner. It may be a clever little git, but its not man enough to stand up to the chickens.

Maybe i should get some bombers or wee in its shoes…..

I use a chris king hub, standard qr. The rotor runs very close to the fork leg, about 3mm close. Its never caused a problem. Brakes are avid bb7, 200mm rotor.

There is so much BS that's surrounds the use of steroids, that if you look hard enough you can link the use of them to anything you like.

Having trained with many people that have used them & from having frequent discussions about the subject, i can't say that they are any more or less aggresive. Those that are aggressive, tend to be aggresive any way and those that were laid back remained so.

Go into any A&E department on a friday/saturday night, and i would argue that alcohol is the biggest trigger for aggresive behviour.

Thing is, i think the the iphone did "up the game", with respect to the UI, but when i hear things such as "left the competition in its wake with its new features.", my initial response is "So you got suckered in by the hype then".

Most phones have been able to video call over the mobile network for years, how is the iphone abilty to only video call over wifi to other iphones ahead of the competion?

The other specs of the phone are'nt all that either, 5mp camera? About 4 years behind. HD recording, been done.

Basically the iphone sells on its ease of use and the hype generated from its marketing.

My father in law has a 3GS from work, he loves it. The reception on it is so poor he rarely gets called out of hours. In that respect it has changed his life since he is no longer contactable outside office hours, which hes very happy about.

Bagaboo, if you can wait while its put together.

Friend of mine fitted his using a jam thermometer, plastic bag and a vacum cleaner. Seemed to fit fine, although he sent then back in the end.

Rmaps – As per google maps, but stores the areas viewed so youcan see them offline and has mulitple map layers (Ordannce survey, Cylcemaps etc…

Handcnet – SMS/MMS Messaging that is very customizable.

Spare Parts – If your realy geeky and want to look into the battery usage in a bit more detail than the default app

Be wary of task killers, there's an article on the web about how android uses memory differently to most people experiences i.e. killing idle programs in a windows enviroment is a good thing, but android is linux based and task killers are only required if the app misbehaves.

My problem with motorbikes is the sodding exhausts, i live about a mile from a long straight road and come summer all you can hear is the damm things bouncing off the rev limiters.