Have a look on Tartbike website.

i just bought a 2017 Marin Pine Mountain 2 for £1400.

XT drivechain

650b plus

Fox 34 forks

dropper post

Wouldn’t have hurt too much for Leisure Lakes to just phone Cannondale UK ( seeing as they are a Cannondale dealer).

This wouldn’t have cost them much time or effort.

Looks like they have lost a potential future customer, and doesn’t reflect well on them supporting the brands they sell.

i would have seen it as an opportunity to have a new customer, through good service.

Never worked as a salesman, but knew quite a few , if not all, in the last company I worked for.

They work really hard for their salaries, and I wouldn’t begrudge them their hard earned pay.

I could never do their job, it takes a special type of person in my opinion, usually very driven.

Had a look and watched the first two episodes, won’t be going any further with it.

Pretty naff….

Unabomber is addictive though.

I had a Lauf Carbonara on a fat bike (no longer owned by me), and I liked it.

I’m not a fast or particularly skilled rider, but for me they are really good.

Just put the forks that came with my new bike up for sale (Fox 34’s), and have the TR boost forks on order.

I think most people will find them a bit lacking for hard riding, but they are excellent for cross country riding.

Light weight, simple and no maintenance.

Will be used with a 650 b plus tyre, the lower pressure from the wider tyre will give some comfort, but obviously nothing like a modern fork set up.

Yes, I have B12 injections every 12 weeks, have done so for about 25 years now.

I will have a look at the link, thanks, do some more stretching and (attempt) to get fitter.

Perhaps I should have added this.

The cramp(s) are not when riding, about 8 to 10  hours later, usually in the night.

I have a brand new 30.9 mm , 125mmdrop KS Lev Integra for sale.

£165 posted

Yep, thought about the fitness aspect.

cold weather does seem to give me a bit more cramp these days, I am anemic , don’t know whether this is a contributing factor or not.

If I ride my road ebike, then I don’t suffer from cramp, despite being out for about three hours. Could be the assist that is stopping me from too much slogging and enabling me to spin the gears easier.

Will try the bananas, and put the 3/4 bibs on plus the tights next time.

Still hurting today, will stretch out tonight.

Just got back in from a ride around Afan.

Need to get the sag sorted out on the forks, a little too much pressure at the moment.

Tyres were great, 15 psi front and rear.

Stopped in the new cafe at Glyncorrwg for tea and marmite on toast, ummm.

Similar to the Trek Stache 9 I had, but doesn’t feel such a barge.

I have just bought a 2017 Marin Pine Mountain 2 at a bargain price.

Updated spec with Fox 34 forks compared to the rigid version.

Sold up my other two bikes with the recent arthritis in my hip, but have decided to keep riding, albeit on fireroads and some tamer singletrack.

Going out for its first ride today.

Made some changes to the standard spec, just to make it a bit more comfortable really.

Wheels are now tubeless , running 15 psi, changed the dropper post out as I have a Syntace P6 carbon post. Less to go wrong, and I will be sat down for 95% of the time on easier riding.

Thomson bars fitted in place of the stock bars , with ESI foam grips.

Biketart has the very same model (2017) still for sale, for a bargain price.

I suppose the only advice I would give is to start when you are in your 20’s.

If your employer is contributing the same amount as you, then that helps.

I was lucky really in the early days, was told that I had to pay in the company pension as a term of employment. I was 22, and thought that retirement and pensions were a long way off.

Needless to say, as I got older I was grateful for being made to pay into a pension. Subsequently, in my mid 40’s, I started contributing more into AVC’s.

As I got nearer my planned date at 60, I was putting alot in each month for about the last 5 years.

Finding a good IFA is a must. I bulked at the charge at first, and almost considered going it alone with the investments.

One of the best decisions I made was to pay my IFA. No stress, and a healthy return.

Start contributing early, even if it is a small amount.

Already quite committed to a big reduction in our carbon footprint.

Have solar panels , Nissan Leaf Electric car and a Tesla Powerwall 2 battery which stores the energy from the panels for later use.

Apart from the environmental impact of using the EV car, it is proving to be an almost cost free running cost vs petrol or diesel.

The Tesla battery was bought and installed as we won’t be buying another ICE car again.

63, riding a ebike now, road based Trek Super Commuter, about 70 miles a week at the moment.

Still thinking about getting back out on the trails as I miss it so much.

Would have to be fire roads now though, body can’t take the pounding anymore.

No problem, excellent seatpost choice though.

Does what is says on the tin.

Hi,

I have a used 30.9mm x 400m P6 for sale.

email in profile if interested.

In fact all of Animal Magic – Bonobo

1. Heart of Gold – Neil Young
2. Cheese Cake -Dexter Gordon
3. Let it be me -Ray LaMontagne
4. Once in a lifetime – Talking Heads
5. Superstar – Watcher – Yo La Tengo
6. Groove Holmes – Beastie Boys
7. Central Reervation – Beth Orton
8. Kota – Bonobo

8 is my lot for now

Again, The Guardian.

Great app, and good quality news ( something that is missing in most of the UK press).

Me and my daughter were there for a drink and some smashing Welsh Cakes yesterday.

Good to see the cafe re opened,

Not a very encouraging experience from me.

I had a Bosch CX motor ebike, rode virtually exclusively at Afan, had the bike for about 9 months.

It developed a cutting out problem that was never resolved. Must have cut out and left me with no power at least 20 times. This started happen after about 500 miles.

Eventually Felt agreed to refund me the original purchase price for the bike, as long as I bought another Felt.

Changed to full suspension bike.
First frame, brand new, had play in the rear shock linkage, ok, not a specific ebike issue, but still…..

They exchanged this for another brand new replacement bike.

Again, Bosch powered.
Again, failed after 50 miles.

Had a full refund.
Not convinced that they are up to the required reliability given relatively aggressive off road use, and the mud, grit etc that comes with riding it in all weathers.

Haven’t watched anything so funny in ages.

Great

The balance of electricity generation is shifting to more renewables, and will continue to do so.

Obviously I am not typical of most people, as we have solar panels, Tesla Powerwall 2 battery and a Nissan Leaf.

Just going to quote some data from 14th August to 14th October on the possible electricity generation, from renewables off our roof.

Granted, the figures will be worse for the next few months, but perhaps gives an insight into running costs.

The car will have been charged from our own solar generation over this period, seldom use a rapid charger.

Data period
14th August to 14th October, detached house, four adults.

The home consumed 1220 kw

Solar panels produced 710 kw

The Tesla PW stored 314 kw

We paid for ( drew) from the grid 600 kw

Mass use of EV cars could work, but not without a number of things happening.

Given the discussion above on the limited range of the current EV cars.

More rapid chargers at places where people shop, work and visit. These won’t really work in petrol stations, as there is nothing to do whilst charging.

It will need a change in driver behaviour. Most of the time, your car sits idle, we can use this idle time for charging.

Most of the time we don’t need a tank full of fuel with the capability to drive over 300 or so miles.

Yes, there are issues for lorries, taxi drivers and long distance drivers etc.

But a big impact could be made for the majority of motorists.
Cheaper than petrol or diesel, quieter, better for the local environment instead of being stuck in traffic jams and congestion belching pollutants.

Servicing is quite cheap, but considering what it involves, will be doing it myself once the car is out of the manufacturer warranty period.

Believe it is £110 for a minor service, and £140 for a major service.

Minor is every year or 12,000 miles, major two years .

Its hardly anything really.
General inspection, cabin filter replacement, check brakes , tyres, windscreen fluid, tyre pressures, general look over. Plug into main dealer computer for error codes.

Only difference for major is all of the above , plus brake fluid flush.

Range isn’t an issue for us.

Leaf 24kw version gives a absolute maximum of 90 miles.

But due to our circumstances , more like 70 to 75 maximum.

We have had our Nissan Leaf for nearly a year now, its our only car.

Just some background on our driving requirements, don’t think if anyone is driving alot of miles it will work out at the current time.

We drive about 8,000 miles a year, nearly all of those trips are less than 50 to 60 miles. We don’t work anymore (retired) .

Absolute pleasure to drive, can’t underestimate the lack of engine noise, plus the drive with the continuous drive from the electric motor is something to relish.

Nissan and the government had a subsidized grant in place,whereby the installation of a 7 kw home charger cost just £100. You can also charge with a lead and 3 pin plug straight off the mains.

The 7 kw charger will take approx 3 hours from virtually flat to 100%, whereas the 3 pin plug is around 10 or 11 hours.

In reality it is rare that we would go from a very low battery to full charge.

You do have options to set the car up to charge the car up on a timer, alot of people charge overnight.

Really need off street parking, drive or garage for this to work.

If you relied entirely on rapid chargers at service areas the it would cost a bit more for the charge , but only take around 30 to 40 minutes.

Another downside with the rapid chargers, are some inconsiderate drivers parking the ICE cars and therefore blocking the use of the chargers, think similar to disabled car parking bays.

Personally, will never have another petrol or diesel car.

We do have solar panels and a Tesla Powerwall 2 battery which makes the running cost of the car laughably cheap though.

Any specific questions, my email is in my profile.

I have just reset Chrome, and now it is working fine.

Chrome

We have 4kw (16 panels) on our roof.

For the last 4 years the panels have produced a steady 4.1 MWh of energy.

The roof is totally south facing, with no shade affecting the performance.

We get monthly and seasonal variations, but it seems to even out over the year to the 4.1 MWh figure.

If you are at home alot, then the panels will power the at idle consumption with ease. The trick to reducing your electricity cost from the grid , is using the energy when the sun is out, most people are in work for the majority of the time.

Not sure what the feed in tariff is these days.

The secret history by Donna Tartt

Engelby by Sebastian Faulks

The hero of ages by Brandon Sanderson

igm

Yes , you are correct,

say 10 kWh per day.

igm

Yes , you are correct,

say 10 kWh per day.

There are some finer points on the Tesla Powerwall 2 that may be worth considering, maybe not depending on your circumstances.

Firstly, the capacity of the battery.
The total capacity is 14 kw , you can add additional batteries and diasy chain them together for additional storage.
For domestic use in the UK I think this would be a bit of overkill. Even having a power hungry EV car, the daily charge from the solar to the battery rarely gets near the max 14 kw capacity.

But could be very useful for farms and collective energy usage.

Secondly, and this is where it could hopefully save some extra money.
It is possible ( although not at the moment), to import electricity from the grid.

There are companies supplying cheap off peak electricity for 6p kw from midnight to 6am.
Charging the battery up, especially in the worse of the solar months would be of benefit.
Depending on your household demands, around 14 kw is pretty close to powering alot of homes for 24 hours ish, at roughly half the current cost per kw ( at say 12 p).

Sure there will be further developments once some impetus is achieved.

Cheers,

There is a local development in Neath ( where we live), that is building homes with solar, battery storage and some sort of heat pump to make these new homes as energy efficient as possible.

The company has been in touch with me, and we will be assisting them with real world data from the panels and battery usage side of things.

So, in the coming months they will analyse the death out of this real world data vs their modelling forecasts etc.

Things are beginning to gather some momentum in terms of renewables for homes and transport , although it doesn’t address the congestion issues.

One step at a time I suppose.

@ sharkbait

yes, I agree with you on the return on the initial outlay.

Our decision to go with the PW2 wasn’t entirely based on financial basis.

Now retired, looking to lower our outgoings and run a vehicle that is considerably cheaper than petrol or diesel. Also very good for the environment.

The decision was based on partly ethical grounds of a renewable energy, £6000 in an ISA returns about 1%, inflation running at 2.5%.

May as well spend it on something that reduces our costs, good for the environment,also improves any saleability of the house should we decide to move ( very unlikely).

Could have spent it on all manner of things, which in the main would immediately depreciate, cars, bikes, coke and hookers……

More of a ethical decision than anything else, whilst preventing the inevitable hike in energy prices over the coming years.

Another Fuji owner here.

Recently bought the X Pro 2, there was a promotion on at the time whereby if you bought a certain combination of body and prime lens , Fufi would include the 50mm F2 lens free.

I bought the Graphite body as it was on offer.

Since then I have the following primes, 16mm,23,35,90

Waiting for the free 50mm.

All the lens are very sharp, excellent build quality, tough to pick a favourite, but the 90mm is stunning.

As others have said, jpeg is excellent, sometimes just use the jpeg as the time making the raw file isn’t really worth it.

Yes, we were spending about £50 to £60 a month on diesel when we had the Skoda.

Driving habits and usage hasn’t changed that much, so something like £50 a month that we were spending is now being provided by the panels and battery, will drop off in the worst four months of the winter, but for eight months of the year will pretty much cover the motoring costs.

Molgrips

Getting better mileage this time of year at the moment.

5 miles per kWh, will drop in the colder weather to somewhere around 4 or 3.5 as the heater will be on etc.

Don’t keep an accurate tally of mileage driven, so would estimate about 150 miles that week maximum, at least 100 miles though.

4kw worth of panels, 16 in total.

This is a Solar Edge system , it isn’t dependant on the worst performing panel, they contribute individual performance outputs.They are all about the same with no drop off in performance.

You can monitor each panel individually via the web to see if there is a problem.

performed without a hitch for nearly five years.

Worth buying the solar edge system in my opinion.

Just as an update to last weeks usage, the Tesla PW2 app provides this data.

August 9th to August 15th

Home usage = 113 kWh

Solar generation = 100.4 kWh

To the battery = 59.6 kWh

Used from the battery = 43.9 kWh

Used from the grid = 29.8 kWh

Don’t forget that we have an EV car, so our energy consumption is probably higher than most people’s , we also only charge at home unless going to Cardiff etc.

Quite an initial outlay in terms of the cost of the panels and the newly installed battery.

This is partially offset by us receiving around £800 a year in tax free feed in tariff .

My simple maths tell me this, but this is based on good solar generation figures

Would have bought 113 kWh from the grid = 113 x 0.12 = £13.56

Actually bought , 29.8 kWh = 29.8 x 0.12 = £3.57

Actual paid for electricity = £9.99

But if you cost in the annual feed in tariff , as a weekly amount, then you get £800 a year / 52 weeks = £15.38 per week.

So forgetting the outlay, we are actually about £5 in credit, and running the car for free.