As long as your win 7 install is properly activated then you won’t need the key when you upgrade.

FYI if you want to do a “clean” install of win10 then you MUST do the standard upgrade within win7 first. That will use the old win7 license and activate win10.

Thereafter you can do a completely clean install of win10 as Microsoft keeps a record of a unique hardware ID of machines it has previously been activated on, so you don’t need to type a key in then at all.

However whatever you do, don’t do a clean install from Win10 media without activating an upgrade for
Win7 first..

On the tyre front what I meant to say was look at German retailers as schwalbe seems to have more tyres in 24″ size available there than are imported to UK

And look at Schwalbe for 24″ tyres. I got some very fast-rolling folding slicks from one of the German sites…

Oh and superstar have a cheap Bb-mounted chain guide that you’ll probably need if not using a narrow-wide chainring in the Alps

Look at thorn cycles for short cranks, not cheap though. Most 24″ bikes seem to come with 150/152mm cranks.

Light rims hard to come by and not cheap but 24″ dirt jump rims cheaper.. See if superstar still have their 24″ DH wheel set on sale (£99 at one point). I’ve got airnimal 24″ lightweight rims on Deore on my daughter’s.

I’ve found them fine, not as strong as the deore hydo disk brakes I have on one of my MTBs.

In fact, TBH, they aren’t much stronger, or with much more modulation, than the TRP spyres I had before (using jagwire compressionless cables).

I found the initial bleed a bit of a faff, but followed the shimano guide and got there in the end.

Bottom line – they’re absolutely fine but not *amazing* ;)

I’m running Shimano hydro STIs with 11 speed (105/Ultegra mix) on my tripster. I have 11-32 Ultegra cassette and a 50/34 non-series Shimano 11 speed chainset. As a midlander can’t comment on SDW suitability, but I’m not sure why you’d go 46/36 when 50/34 gives higher top-end and lower bottom-end (unlike in CX where you could arguably benefit from the closer ratios that 46/36 brings). I can highly recommend the “30mm” (measure up as 32mm) challenge strada bianca tyres for non-gnarly offroad and excellent on-road (I’m loving the challenge latex tubes I added as well), so much so that I’m about to go back to them for all my on-road riding despite having just bought a pair of GP4000s II (25mm) for the summer…

And if that’s still not clear enough, try reading it as Jon-L

Fine. It’s a 2014 model so same frame geometry as 2015 but came with longer stem than this year’s model. It’s a large frame. Swapped 90mm stem for a 60mm and it still climbs well. The CTD shock on mine doesn’t seem to offer much more of a platform in C mode and thought I’d miss having a lockout coming from hardtail and previous fs with lockout, but it’s fine. NB I’m slow up hills anway…

Had one for a few weeks (similar cracking deal from Evans). Had been riding a 29er hardtail for the last few years and last had a 2000 Santa Cruz superlight. Really fancied a carbon 5010 but demoed one at glentress and didn’t get on with low bb. Really pleased with the sight; rides well and I prefer 27.5 to 29. Make sure you take advantage of the trade in too. I bought a cheap second hand bike for this purpose :)

Does it do it in the stand or on the road or both?

I had some trouble that turned out to be binding freehhub causing chain to come off. Only happened (initially) under load not in stand..

Had signs of ghost pedalling/slack chain when freewheeling with pedals stationary this weekend on my set. Only 200miles on them. Will call the shop tomorrow now I see this is a known issue

Nicely recommended by TiRed too there I see :-)

How about this

I’m having exactly the same issue with their support desk.

I suspect their poor response is due to what I understand is a “special” set up for stw premier subs as opposed to purchasing a sub within their app.

We’ve had all the islabikes from balance to 20″ but I saw 24″ as an interim size. Bought a 24″ carrera blast which is same as luna but green. Put some mosso short rigid 26″ forks on and it’s been great. Got about 10 months out of it before getting onto 14″ inbred.

as an aside – you could try a vpn service and get access to netflix “US only” content from your uk netflix account

ignore me.. google is my friend..

great, thanks. dont like leaving my email on open forum. i’ve updated my profile so please check there. i wont be able to post until friday. have just switched 305 on and it is now picking up satellites so you might be in luck… i’ve got a 200 now anyway which does all i need..

Yes – I’ve got one. Had a go at fixing mine when I had the issue with loose battery connection. It no longer gets a satellite fix so I must have knackered something with my hamfisted repair. Screen is fine. £12 posted? Do you also want the HRM strap for another £10?

We found that not all childseats are equal. We’ve got one with integrated “mini handlebars” – a bit like stoker bars on a tandem, but part of the childseat rather than mounted to to the rider’s seatpost – that they can hold, which all three kids have much preferred over other types of bike seat.

Doesn’t address the van issue directly, but certainly made ours feel happier on the back..

Got one of my boys on the small 20″ Beinn on his 5th birthday. He’s fairly average sized, I think. The frame is quite a bit smaller than other “generic” 20″-wheel frames I’ve seen, but offers the advantages of good size wheels (plus gears and all the islabikes goodness) at an earlier age than staying on a 16″. Check the sizing chart on Isla’s website to see whether it’s do-able. It was close for our lad, but he’s now riding decent bits of off-road at cannock, aged 5.5, with his older brother (on a large 20″ Beinn) and me.

Don’t know about right size for you, but 18″ in stock here:

http://www.lexs.co.uk/Default.aspx?Product=Ragley mmmBop Alloy Hardtail Frame&ProductId=20912

LMT – it's the car seats that does it. You were probably all sliding around on a bench back seat with your tank tops and stay press trousers (just like I was)

We're on our second Honda CR-V for exactly this reason – three kid seats across the back.

/bump/

Budget?

If he hasn't got one already, a DS (now DSi) is usually a winner..

Try "shifting" with the cable out to see whether the disk rotates around to present the slot in alignment with the barrel where you load the cable.

By the way – since I moved over to GPS and ditched the flightdeck, I've been running with a bit of black ductape too ;)

Not sure whether your mate has chosen to remove the shifter windows or he's busted them and wants a repair. I've got two suggestions:

1. I've got some replacement M952 shifter windows I could sell for a small consideration.
2. I've got a Shimano "flightdeck" computer that fits to the M952 shifters and covers over the old shifter window fittings. The parts that affix to the shifter units could be used on their own and have just a small opening (for a wire) that could be easily sealed.

You can buy continental explorers for 16" and 20" islabikes but unfortunately not for 14". However, a quick google finds these: http://www.petracycles.co.uk/product_info.php?language=en&currency=GBP&products_id=13222

Yes – AFAIK the virgin "lobster phone" (made by HTC) was the only one on the market.

It was actually built for the virgin mobile tv service (now defunct – who remembers the pamela andersen adverts..?) but as a happy by-product it supported DAB. I remember the last units being punted out on one of the freeview shopping channels last year (just flicking through channels by coincidence, honest..)

There's an ongoing debate about the viability of DAB in this (and many other) countries. The recent "digitial britain" report squashed the idea of a forced "switch-off" for analogue radio in 2015, so FM will live on.

In the meantime, we're stuck with the old DAB audio codec (mpeg-2) which produces poor quality sound for a given "channel" than the newer "DAB+" (or T-DMB) systems that other countries (who came later to DAB than we did) have deployed.

THe only reason why we haven't adopted DAB+ is that there are too many legacy DAB radios out there to "drop" (but, ironically, not enough DAB radios out there to drop FM and share out the freed-up radio spectrum to increase the channel size for the stations, which would go some way to overcoming the limitatations of the mpeg2 audio codec). You could have DAB and DAB+ co-existing, with only newer dual-mode receivers (of which there are already several) able to pick up the DAB+, but that wouldn't be a good use of radio spectrum. However, it's the only real solution that gets us out of this mess.

So, why can't you have it on your mobile? Blame the government/ofcom etc for not having the foresight/guts to do something other than watch DAB fade to grey. Next stop will be ubiquitous "internet radio" delivered over IP to your smartphone over 3G/LTE..

Disclaimer – all of this is based on a "little knowledge" from watching mobile digital radio/tv market from a technical perspective..

crepuscular

As above – Oxford itself fairly flat. Shotover wood apparently good for a blast. I used to work in Oxford and live in Watlington – about 12 miles away. Lots of good riding around there (base of the chilterns). I originally went to Loughborough Uni – realised the riding was rubbish around there and (perhaps more significantly) realised that riding was actually quite important to me so left and went to Leeds. Turned down Cambridge too ;).

trouble is we do have an economist rnning the country

Why do people often describe him as being an economist; am I missing something? From what I’ve read, he has a first class degree and a PhD in History (thesis not on the history of economics, either).

It’ll almost certainly be an output. You need to connect an S-VHS cable from laptop to TV. There will then be a key combination or an application to switch-on the S-VHS output. On my thinkpad, it’s Function Key + F7 to toggle between different video outputs. Alternatively you might need to go to the graphics adapter utility and enable the option there.

I had one from new (one of the first 156 sportwagons into the country, natch). As Brant and Jeremy Clarkson agree, there’s something special about Alfas. I loved mine too, but after 4 years the electrics were playing up and the suspension getting clonky. I’m certainly glad I bought the extended warranty too as I got through quite a few things culminating with the timing belt breaking and putting all 16V into the cylinder head. Lucky it had been religiously serviced by a main dealer so they had little choice but to fix it under warranty. I’d still buy another one, but drive a soul-less Golf at the moment for the (perceived by me anyway) reliability and residuals (the Alfa went for £2.5k after 5 years. Was £19k new).

Another balance bike evangelist here. Eldest started with stabilisers at 3 on an Islabikes CNOC14, finally took stabilisers off at 4.5 after much faffing.

Having learned more about balance bikes in the meantime, we’d bought his 20 month younger brother a Rothan (balance bike) at 2. He didn’t use it much for first 6 months, then “rode” it like a demon for 6 months and was riding the handmedown CNOC14 without stabilisers within a day of being given it (on his 3rd birthday)… much to his older brother’s disgust (although he did get a new CNOC16)

So, from this highly controlled statistically-relevant experiment, I’d say a balance bike gets them riding without stabilisers 20 months earlier ;).

I used to live around there. Not much off-road riding at all really. Best bet would be to drive down to Watlington/Wallingford and pick up the various trails in the Chilterns/Ridgeway. There used to be a bike shop in Deddington, just south of Banbury, who you could ask.

If you’re changing the forks and the stem, the only other thing you’ll need to change is the headset itself.

The headtube on that frame is almost certainly 1.125″, which is the same as modern aheadsets, so you can buy pretty much any “threadless” headset you like to go with your new forks and stem.

Beware though that the frame will not like long suspension forks – either opt for short travel, or something with adjustable travel that you can “wind” in.