Just a few more details about the PW2.

It has the ability to import electricity from the grid to the battery. There are a few suppliers which are beginning to offer off peak rate energy for as little as 6kw overnight.

So it could be possible to buy your energy overnight when demand is low, and then use the energy through the day.

Needs a little careful planning, but if you are out of the house from 8 till 6 at work, then the home would consume roughly 0.5 kw per hour.

The battery can store 14kw, if you don’t have an exceptionally high usage then this could work for some, even without the solar.

Think this option for importing will be made available soon.

Something will have to be done in this respect though. As the take up of EV cars increase, home charging is the cheapest and most logical method of recharging.

So off peak charging at a lower energy cost makes sense for the individual and the National Grid.

We have had solar panels for the last five years, so benefit from the better feed in tariff that is sadly no longer available.

Bought a Nissan Leaf EV car last December, having wanted a EV car for both green issues and also much nicer to drive, albeit that it’s not for everyone with the range being limited , but it suits our driving requirements and won’t go back to an ICE again.

Just had a Tesla Powerwall 2 battery installed.

Having the solar panels and EV car it makes a lot of sense to store the energy from the panels and use it for charging the car for free. Ok, the Tesla PW2 isn’t cheap at 6K, but looking at it as a longer term expenditure to reduce energy costs, and being an EV car owner it just seems daft to export the solar energy to the grid.

Haven’t had the PW2 long enough yet, but buying from the grid has gone down dramatically.

Thanks everyone.

Painter Essentials looks to be a bargain at the moment, will enable even me to get to grips with drawing something vaguely arty.

Thanks, I’ll have a look at those. Photoshop is a little expensive really, Lightroom does everything I want in terms of photography editing.

Have to say though it does look like it will do everything and more for both of us.

Of to have a look at the suggestions, thanks.

@convert

The rapid chargers don’t do any harm to the battery, neither does charging to 100%.

There are taxi firms in London and other big cities with emission controls, they have Leafs with over 100,000 miles on them in a two to three year period.

They could only manage these sorts of mileages by using rapid chargers.

The normal charging will be fine,

Haven’t read all of the previous posts on this thread, but here is some first hand experience of the current EV car ownership and usage.

Had a Nissan Leaf since December 2016,24kwh version.
Grant for a 7kwh charger funded by Nissan and I believe the government to help promote ownership.

Most of our journeys are less than 5 miles, rarely use a rapid charger except for longer journeys.
Real life range is about 80 miles, bigger battery cars and improvements in battery efficiencies will expand the range in the near future.

I realise that some people will have difficulties in adapting to EV cars, as off street parking is pretty much essential at the moment if you own EV.

There will be the haters, but the technology and infrastructure will improve and develop , even boosting the economy in terms of new technology infrastructure business.

Storage batteries will become a very big thing to cope with the increased demand for electricity, and the demise of the fossil fuels.

Air quality will improve in cities and densely populated areas.

People will have to look out for cars, as they are so quiet pedestrians and cyclists are not tuned in to listen for this type of traffic.

We are lucky, but the type of household I describe will become increasingly more common.

Solar panels on the roof, EV car, and a storage battery to store the excess energy made from the solar panels to charge the car and home.

It will be a big change, but I remember when all the houses had a fireplace, coal bunker and coal deliveries. Very rare now. Smog in towns and cities.

its changing, but probably at least a decade too late.

It’s a roller door. There is a bar that goes the width of the door and locates in the roller door runners.

I was surprised by how well it held up. The bars on either side protrude quite a bit into the roller door frame. Although it was bent a bit, there is little chance of getting enough leverage to pry the door open,

Thinking about modifying the bar though, it is just aluminium section that got badly bent up. If I can replace the aluminium bar with a steel section bar, then it is even more unlikely to pry the door open this way.

Also, thinking of putting a strip of metal bar to prevent anyone getting any leverage in the side of the door in the first place.

Thanks, will take a trip to my local Marlins to have a look.

Looks good.

My favourite all time bike was a Turner Flux 26″ version, over a decade ago now.
Wish I never sold it.

Ricoh GR , wonderful small camera that produces great images. you can take this camera anywhere due to its small physical size.

Fuji X Pro 2, 23mm F2, 35mm F2, 50mm F2, 90mm F2
Great camera, but the lens are fantastic, wonderful colour renditions.

I’m fully converted to the EV car now.

Had a Nissan Leaf for over six months now, drives very well, won’t be getting a petrol or diesel car again.

I realise it’s not for everyone, but it would suit a lot of people .

There are plans to introduce street charging, won’t happen soon, but will happen in the major cities.

Our car energy costs have plummeted, and it is much cheaper than diesel or petrol.

There is a government grant where you can have a 7kw charger installed on your drive , costs £99.

Fortunately we have invested in lowering our electricity costs by having solar panels, and now a Tesla Powerwall 2 battery.
The battery stores the excess solar energy without it being exported to the grid.
Still get the same feed in tariff whether the energy is exported to the grid or stored in a battery.

There is a video on You Tube about the on street charging, existing lamp posts and street lighting are going to be used. This will begin to make quite a difference to the availability for people to charge who don’t have off street parking.

Believe it is on Richard Llewelyn Fully Charged channel.

Have a look at this, might work for you.

Wish I could get this tariff in Wales.

http://www.greenenergyuk.com/Tide

Steppenwolf 1969

Believe it was titled

Born to be wild

Use it for any ride of more than 30 minutes, saddle sores aren’t nice and seem to ages to clear.

Assos chamois cream works well for me.

No, he won’t fit with the rest of the people you have and will probably just be a pain to deal with in the future.

I recently bought the Jagwire brake inner and outer cable kit from Wiggle.

Made a good deal of difference to the feel of the cable operated TRP Spires.

Have a look, thought it was around £20 ish, comes with enough cabling to do this he front and rear brakes.

Hope she stays, she will be great cannon fodder for the next General Election when it comes.

Strong and stable leadership.

Let the tories get on with all the behind the scenes plotting to get rid of her, it will happen.

Weaker brexit now because of the strong and stable leadership that the country wanted.

If she stays , then the tory squabbling will be entertaining, I don’t care who leads them really. Just want a change of government.

Looks like there will be another general election relatively soon, softer brexit that alot of people don’t want ( I’m a remoaner).

Cool, start with looking at getting a few quotes for the panels.

A 4kw system is around £6500 these days.

Will reduce your electricity bill by about £200 per year. Not sure on the reduced payments for the FIT these days, but it will be tax free.

Ideally you need a south facing roof, without any shading.

Typically the panels produce 4 Mwh per year.

The Tesla battery is about £6,500 , but would be cheaper to install with the panels at the same time.

The solar panels are not as good an investment in terms of the return on your outlay these days, due to the government reducing the feed in tariff.

The battery is probably a worse investment , due to its relatively high cost at the moment.

I didn’t do this for the electricity to be mine.

I did it because I believe in a greener future and the fact that the grid is beginning to groan on the demand placed on it at peak times, 4pm to 9pm.

I am on my way to becoming less dependant on the national grid for electricity supply, well, at least a reasonable reduction.

Have had solar panels on the roof for about four years now, bought a Nissan Leaf EV car last December.
The energy from the panels has been used to charge the battery, although the power drain at 7kw still draws some energy from the grid.

Will be installing a Tesla Powerwall 2 storage battery this month to scoop up any energy from the solar panels during the day, for reducing our demand in the Evenings from the grid.

Domestic solar panels and batteries are the way forward, probably take another decade for it to have a serious impact though.

The government should be doing more to promote and encourage domestic solar and battery storage options.

Ride from my house to the local trails.

Just around 10 minutes on the road to get to some good off road routes.

On the way back, back on the road, but there is a local pub just 5 minutes from home.

Smiles all round.

Im a Green member.
Im voting Labour

ton

ygm

Realise it won’t be for everyone, we have solar panels, EV Nissan Leaf and just about to install a Tesla Powerwall 2 battery to store the solar energy during the day (when the sun shines).

There was a good programme on BBC4 last night about a small village in the Cotswolds and the challenges they face to become self sufficient in domestic energy generation.

Good, didn’t know the shop could do it.

Must be ok then, still very exposed to the elements though, not a good design, mine was shot after around 1,000 miles and rumbled badly.

Bosch bottom bracket rumbling or bearings disintegrated means motor out and back to Germany , pretty sure of that.

There are one on two videos online, not user serviceable, really bad design, bottom brackets do need some form of attention when riding off road, even CK bottom brackets need a little love every so often.

Still a long way to go really, I won’t be back on one anytime soon.
Wish I could, as it got me out more, suffering from pain in my hip and adductor again.

Yes, had a full refund after the second replacement bike died.

All the bike manufacturers ( well alot, say 65%) are using the Bosch system. I don’t think its an issue of the actual bike manufacturer, its the Bosch system bolted onto the chassis.

In fairness, the Specialized system looks interesting, but again its Specialized locking you into their design, never been a fan of propriety systems.

The Shimano Steps looks good as well.

And now Rocky Mountain are doing their own thing, but it does use a normal bottom bracket with a low q pedal factor.

The bottom bracket on the bosch system is integrated into the motor. The crank interface is that awful ISIS spline.
If the bottom bracket bearings fail, or start to rumble, then its motor out and off the bosch.

Mine were rumbling from about 750 miles, no power washing done, just normal washing with bucket and water.

I had one (well three actually) in a period of nine months.

Rode about 2,000 miles off road on them.

I wore a pulse meter to see if the effort was significantly less than riding a normal bike. I was surprised by the results!

My average pulse riding a normal bike ( on the same route) was about 145 bpm, the ebike was about 135 bpm.
The biggest difference was that I didn’t get near my max pulse of around 160 on the ebike.

I like them, but had loads of trouble with the motor, thee official fixes via Bosch, broke down about 25 times at least.
Had a complete warranty replacement bike ( twice), first one had mechanical issues with shock linkage, that lasted 50 miles. The second brand new replacement went wrong electrically after 50 miles!

Needless to say, I’m not going anywhere near them at the moment, although I’m a fan.

The technology just isn’t up to proper off road riding at the moment.

@mboy

I will probably be selling mine, 31.6mm, hardly used.

Bought it and used it twice on my more xc ti hardtail. Since gone back to a carbon post.

Drop me a pm if interested, like new.

Smith Forefront , on my second one now. Crashed with the first one and it did its job in protecting my head.

Well ventilated, good design, fits goggles easily for wet weather riding.

Cheers, have bookmarked for later, looking at the environmental courses. In particular.

Mark Beaumont – The man who cycled the earth.

Meets cycling and adventure.

I found it to be very inspirational, saw him at one of his shows after the around the world ride.
It was great to listen to him and has inspired me, although never on the the same level.

Good read as well.

I bought one a while ago from Winstanleys.

Had a medium (18″) raw frame and built it up with 2 x 10 XT.

I liked it allot, as said, nothing radical but a good solid 160mm trail bike.
Need to be a little careful on the cable routing to avoid any rubbing etc.

Wish I hadn’t sold it to a mate of mine. he is still riding it very hard, fantastic value for the money.

Perhaps I’m missing the point here, but hitting the baby boomers will surely have a bigger impact on my children’s generation, rather than me.

So, if I eventually go into care and our savings and house value are used to pay for the care, where I can keep the £100,000.

In a lot of cases, the money for my care will be eaten up pretty quickly, the only people who will lose out on this will be my children.
The house will be sold, my children’s generation still won’t be able to afford it, and only the very wealthy will be able to buy it, and then rent it.

So, it would appear that it will be my children who will ultimately lose out financially, I’ll be scattered in the wind somewhere on the Afan trails.

Will be interesting to see the impact of this Tory manifesto in the various election polls in the run up to the general election.

Can only be good for Labour really, looks like Labour will close on the Tories , a lot of marginal older voters will not vote Tory on the strength of this death tax.
As stated earlier, it’s the very properties in the South of England that have the highest market value. Can’t see that many would be Tories voting their inheritance to their children away.

I had an ebike, I don’t anymore, that’s another story though.

Nothing against people riding ebikes, riding an ebike doesn’t mean you are reckless and rude, that can apply to a lot of people who ride almost anything.

Anyhow, on a serious note, how would you ban them?
How could this be enforced and policed?

We are having trouble with Moto crossers ripping up some parts of Afan trails at the moment, a much bigger problem than that of any ebikes.

The police budget has gone for patrolling the trails to catch these Moto crossers, and you can easily identify them , just the sound tells you what they are about.

Becoming more difficult to even tell if a mtb is an ebike or not these days.

Banning them won’t work. Will just create negative impact, far better to have a campaign to ride responsibly for those that need it. But even that won’t work for some…….

Banning anything never seems to do much good, education and understanding seems to do much better.

By the way, I was being sarcastic about the good times in the Thatcher years, just to clarify.

Too many people believe the hype about well off retired people in the so called baby boomers era.
I know a lot of people who struggle to make ends meet.

Doesn’t matter too much what your home is worth really, say £250k for example, if your income is low you can’t spend the equity in your house at Tesco.

Anyway, fed up of justifying any current political issues, brexit, pensions, the world has changed and having large amounts of debt is now the way that society has been fashioned , genuinely this is very unfortunate.

As they say on Dragons Den, I’m out.

Too many variables to consider me and a lot of my generation as lucky baby boomers……

My first house didn’t cost £250k, my current house is nowhere near that either.

Seems to have drifted off topic, but a lot of the wealth came from dual income families , mainly arising in the late eighties and early nineties, the so called Thatcher years when we had it so good……….

That was when we were a family of five, three young children, wife stayed at home , luxury isn’t quite the word I would chose to describe it, no car, rode my bike to work ever day all weathers all year round.

Worked loads of hours, chose not to get into silly debt.

Baby boomer…

I doubt it.

As I said, an awful lot of my generation thought the state pension was the be all and end all to retirement.

hey only had to open their eyes from the glittering spending they made on big mortgages, cars, holidays, holiday homes , timeshare in Spain etc.

We brought up three children, wife stayed at home to give them a good parental upbringing, no car for over a decade.

All choices you can make with a bit of luck and understanding.

So, quite a few disgruntled people on here for my comments.

Nobody made me pay into the final salary pension contributions, in fact alot of people including men and women didn’t.

so not so much tough luck on those that didn’t.

Women have been paid the same rate for the job where I have worked all my life.

My final salary pension was for one company where I worked for 25 years.

Still paid into other company pensions, not final salary, for the remainder of my working life, about another 15 or so years, again, nobody made do this, so not so much tough luck, just different choices.

You see, there will be a big variation of working experiences, I just relayed mine, an awful lot of my generation worked in manufacturing, hourly paid workers mainly. Alot of women as well. Same pay, same conditions, just choose not to pay into company pensions etc.

Of course there are different roles and circumstances, but the workplace equality hasn’t had all the rewards they anticipated.