Jeez – hope no one was hurt?

Seems spooky how the front door shut itself before flying toward the firefighter!

Wow – that’s bad. Reflectors still in place. V and disk brakes front and back still in place. Bars higher than saddle. Luggage rack. Helmet. Garden in tatters. Cheapo / pointless forks. Warts all over the bar / stem – or are they lights, etc. Still better than mine. And there’s no way I’m posting a picture of mine!

totalshell- Is it me that’s sober /sensible on a Tuesday, or everyone else? In other words – I’m lost – should we all buy Lloyd or should we avoid like the plague – or am I dim?

generally taking the piss out of me. I’m hoping I can return the favour very soon.

I like the sound of that!! He’s probably using this “rest” period to concoct some cracking nuggets for you!

I wish you all the very best – and keep us posted! Uncles are (IME) the greatest – especially for us fellas!

Does he have kids?

What’s your happiest memory of him?

I remember all my uncles, now passed – sadly, after some long fights, but I remember the best bits of being a nephew! So, not on here, write / commit them to memory the bestest / daftest bits. Things you were told not to do, penkives out of bounds, rules to break etc …

God that’s crap! I dont know what that means, but if the care team says not favourable, well, I’d read into that. Thats just me.

Crap.

Jeez – that’s pretty young! Is he comfortable at the minute?

TJ – That’s too good an offer to refuse. email on it’s way!

I’ll think you find most banks won’t give you an account in the first place without a personal guarantee,

My experience is the opposite – they were very very keen to open a business account and wanted personal ID and personal address proof (passport, personal bills) but I’ve never been asked for a personal guarantee for a business current account (even with moderate overdrafts). PG’s only came into play for significant overdrafts and loans. Every bank is different though, and today is very different to last year.

RichPenny

That sounds average. Dont panic. Those with mates in the trade seem to get it done a (good) bit cheaper.I presume the £3500 was BG or similar?

always seems to pull some hair out after use!

Its not just me then! And I cant afford to loose much more hair. Or risk getting sectioned for jumping about yelping on the pavement everytime I take it off!

1- Talk to you accountant. If you dont have one get one.

2- Simple (but really annoying thing) – If you are waiting for your company phone number do not give your home phone number as the company number on any forms. A tesco £10 mobile will do (avoids constant marketing calls to the missus – 10 years later!).

3- Dont use your name in the company name – John Smith Dentistry (lots and lots of reasons).

4- You can buy an off the shelf (XYZ123 LTD) with a vague set of articles of association for maybe £70. Do you really need more than this? You can “trade as” whatever you want.

5- Do you have a relationship with a bank – but not your main personal bank? I would never ever have my mortage and company accounts in the same bank. Recommended by friends – repeatedly.

6- Go for it. A limited company has limited liability legally. Pay your VAT – always on time, pay your PAYE (maybe a bit late if you have to), never trust your bank totally. NEVER EVER agree a personal guarantee on a business loan. Ever.

I’ll think of some more later!

OK – so we’re fleeced here. Then add on a flue here, a doofer there, a thermostat and the OP should get an idea of what it costs in the nice midlands (maybe £800?) versus the nasty cities 😉

May just go down and buy one and swap it over myself.

I dont think you’re meant to swap the gas over yourself – but it is tempting eh!

We were “encouraged” a few years back to get one (MIL factor!).

A bit of research led us to “Kidde”. Sorry I cant find the test of various models – but I agree – some of them are effectively just plastic bricks. And the internetz full of scares.

Anyway £20 later – we’re still alive. Doubtless we would still be alive and £20 richer apart from MIL – but still. It’s winking away at me now as I type.

Reading that back – it’s not much help really is it?

wrightyson

I should go and live where you are then – I’m in Edinburgh 😉 I dont doubt rates vary massively. OP is in London – Edinburgh’s probably not too far off.

So round your way what would a steady co-ordinated stream of plumbers, sparkies, carpenter(ish) guys take for 2.5 days solid work? Excluding bits like flues etc. I’m just curious – ours was v reasonable in comparison to neighbours.

An original bastid.
A mickey mouse bastid.
An mj872.
An XML torch.

Sold : XLM bike light, niterider x2 dual (300 lumens – OMG in its day 3 years ago!).

Broken (at various stages thereof): 3 x MTE SSC P7 torches.

Teaching: kids know it all before their first day in school. If not – just google it ffs!

Medicine: everyone knows what’s wrong with them before they even go to the docs. They just want a rubber stamp on the prescription / post mortem.

Insurance: This will show my age – but my first proper job was looking up tables of factors and vectors for motor insurance. Look up car group -factor 2.2, age 23-27 factor 3.4, inner city factor 6.6, married 0.7, … vectors for combinations, squares and cubes for weird combos.

Day in – day out. All done by paper. Never spoke to a real customer. Now click click click. HOW MUCH!!!

That labour rate seems very high btw!

If you mean mine – then I’m just making the point of it depends on what’s there already and what needs to be done (eg mains pipe needs upgraded, needs earthed, convoluted route for condensate, cupboard needs squaring, flue is complicated etc etc . And what part of the country. And what bits and bobs. We were lucky and fell well below that. Others in our street were way way more for the same thing & company. And I’m just about as far from London as makes me comfortable!

What size house?

What shower(s)?

What size diameter gas main to the boiler?

How far and how easy from boiler location to your drains?

Is the existing gas main earthed?

Guesstimate – £1200 for labour, flues, bits and bobs – making up to current standards (vent in cupboard or something) and some wiring and connecting to drains. Approx £800 for boiler. Plus or minus a few hundred. All inc VAT.

As for margues – get yourself a free online sub to which – they do real good review of boilers – incl advice on property size etc. Free for 1 month. Remember to cancel. Advice changes every year. We got a w-bosch. Toasty. 5 year warranty. I’m not saying that’s for everyone.

#Edit – for a laugh – get a British Gas estimate. “I could get a car for that”

I was wondering how long it would take for the spammers to get their teeth into this! mtbheather gets the prize!

##Edit – prompt action from the mods there.

My honest answer – time with me: like a weekend away, theatre tickets for something she likes (and I dont), going with her to something etc etc. Beats Clarins tat by at least 100x!

Depends on your frame- I made a CokeBottleGuard for my Ellsworth

Ahe – I can see how that would work but I’m talking about normal bikes here 😉

The modded decathlon on the yeti above never hits the seattube for me. I agree it looks like it might – but it doesnt for some reason.

Its attached using one of the pastic rubbery things that come in the pack along with cable ties. I meant to get some P clips to make it more permanent but never got round to it and it just works so that how its staying for the winter.

The one bit I did grind off with a dremel was the red reflector on the back. Even still it’s fugly!

Ah. You’d want a Ti Ragley then

I might want – but my bank manager is mightier!

If its done via UK “faster payments” (ie you receive the payment the same day they send it) then it’s non reversible from the senders point of view so pretty safe really for the seller.

Even if the payers account is hacked you (the payee) can only be “asked” to return the money. You cannot be forced. Safer than paypal imo.

On the other hand anything overseas, (and to a lesser extent uk bacs) has more holes than a sieve as far as a seller is concerned.

Just for balance – I got rid of my mmmBop as it was so ‘harsh’ and couldnt stick if for more than a few hours off road. Went back to a whyte 19 which seems more comfy somehow but with shorter forks.

A fender bender on the rear is almost useless: it’ll just keep crap off your pivots and shock.

A modified decathlon works a good bit better and depending on how vertical your seat stays are might even keep you clean (mine works from the waist down!). It’s god awful ugly though!

Here’s my modified versions: a fender bender:

A decathlon:

Common scam for service professions. Usually involves either advance payment or overpayment. Service request is then cancelled, and a request for refund for at least part of the payment is requested.

The original payments subsequently bounces, or the card payments goes into chargeback. You loose whatever you refunded them.

Yours must be very very different to both my Garmins (08 and ’10 straps). Both are undone with a 20p or preferable a 50p piece? Whats your model?

Humax direct for the PVR. Genuinely great service. Some of their cheap stuff is “refurb” – usually returned from Comet ex display etc. As good as new and pretty cheap. Usually come with extended warranty and backup direct – routine backup is superb.

I havent bought a tv in years so cant comment.

Unforgiven on ITV here?

If its from a mobile phone – you might be in trouble.

Big prints (eg larger posters) tend to be printed at 154dpi so you can gauage quality from there- but thats assuming a reasonable camera and lens.

Someone will be along in a mo to suggest a way of inventing pixels but I’d suggest a max print size of 11 x 8.5 inches approx (assuming decent lens etc). Be aware that at bigger size other factors can make the print look poor too – focus, noise, small sensors etc.

If you want – email me the original and I’ll give more accurate guesstimate of what’ll look good.

I get prints done up to bus shelter sized ads from some odd sources – so you never know.

Bank name

Alarms bells surely!?

You can guess the next few emails – what’s your account number, passport etc etc

If you use a helmet light only be aware that there are almost no shadows and you wont see bumps / dips / logs / holes in the same way you do during the day. Start with a bar light. Or better still – both.

Be aware that you’ll come home buzzing the first few times and it can be hard to sleep. It’s addictive!

For model advice – search on here for mj872, smudge, xlm : these seem to be this years (cheapISH) favourites.

Ahhh, this man talks sense.

If that’s aimed at me (I doubt it 😉 ) I followed my own advice and now own a commie and a yeti. I prefer single pivots. I’ve no idea why.

A 5 is a single pivot bike (as are most yetis, commencals and lots more). Maybe try a trek or giant or something with a dw link. I’m neutral on this btw – for 3k you can have a lot of fun trying stuff – then be sure of your choice. That’s my 2p’s worth.

Sorry for stating the obvious – you’ve only tried one squishy bike and want to spend 3k on it without comparing it to others? I wish I was that easily pleased! Unless 3k is small change, see what others are using near you / usual routes, and beg borrow steal similar? Or is all that too obviuos now that you’re in “love”?

You’re going to have to give us a clue as to what model this is – and also what you’re used to now!

Teacher. You dont actually have to teach 😉

This is probably overkill but if you charge AA, AAA etc everyday then – Google – Ansmann 16. Around £100+. They do a cheaper 8 and a 4 too (I think).

Everyday for the last 8 years it churns out properly charged cells and about every 2 weeks report a problem with a single dodgy one / slow charging or discharging one. Monitoring is on individual cells. Discharge is automatic if required, Nicad, NiMh, etc.

I charge a lot of AA’s btw. You probably dont need to spend that. Just an option like.

Not a recent problem:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/can-log-on-from-pc-but-not-iphone

We used to get at least one a year – in Nov its dead and now totally pointless destroying it now, ime.

They do however know your roof space and will return, and build a new one on the opposite side (or somewhere more annoying) next year. The trick is to kill them when active – there’s a can of foamy stuff from diy stores that works well IF you can get access under the tiles. But in reality it only works when active.

Otherwise – leave them alone – they have one mega benefit – they eat midges (apparently?).

I use mine on level 2 and 4(max). Poor eyesight innit.

On 2 its still green after an hour (never climb for more than that). After about 3 hours mixed its gone orange. 4 hours red. Still going an hour later and never been out long enough to run it to flashing red. Sometimes the colour goes to the next level down when on max then returns up one level when turned down.

I checked the volts after a ride once when it had just turned red and it was 7.4v.

I’d guesstimate 2.5 hours on max all the time.