Update: tried the phone number a few times but just rings and nobody picks up. Their social media hasn’t been updated for a while either.

Thanks @dove1 will give them a buzz.

I have a Topeak D2, not sure how accurate it is but it helps with pressure consistency.

For some of them its a business i.e. content creators.

Find a niche (in this case conspiracy theories), create content, attract subscribers, monetize content. Rinse and repeat.

Alex Jones (Infowars) being one major example, the business model of which has been magnified a thousand times by easy access to cheap content creation technology and dissemination platforms like YouTube, FB etc.

I genuinely believe that most of the top conspiracy content creators don’t believe in any of the crap they put out. The aforementioned Jones is on record saying he doesn’t personally believe any of it. It just helps him sell his radioactive water purification tablets and apocalypse survival vitamins.

Show them Watership Down.

Best ‘kids’ film explaining the fragility of life and the inevitability of death there is.

Update: reported to Northumbria Police via 101. Super friendly lady who was happy to put it all through so I have a crime number for the insurance from the UK side of things. Managed to finally get through to Madrid airport police who said under no circumstances would any airport police or customs agents break into a bag, take something, and then not leave a note. They said usually if its a suspicious item they call the bag owner on the tannoy. I have to make the complaint on the way back at the airport police office though as you can do the initial paperwork digitally online now but still need to make a statement in person.

Sounds like someone needed a decent torque wrench but didn’t have the funds to order their own. Such a random thing to steal though.

Thanks for the info all. Yes we’re pretty sure it was lifted in Madrid as have been told by others that Schengen transfers don’t routinely get re-scanned at Schipol. Does stuff get rescanned on arrival in Newcastle though? Could it have been lifted there?

Thanks for the link @konagirl, Swissport gave me a phone number for KLM but when calling it I just get a message saying that the office is closed, so I presume they only open on weekdays. Putting the claim in online looks really simple so I will do it that way today.

Will definitely make a police report in Spain because Madrid Barajas airport has been in the local and international news a lot this year for baggage theft as well as thefts from security trays. They busted 50 baggage handlers in March for breaking into people’s cases so it sounds like an ongoing issue. Not sure if its worth calling 101 and getting a CRN from the UK police too for insurance purposes, or will they just direct me to the airline?

I’m pretty livid about it tbh.

Brand new, £999 reduced from £1,199.

@mattyfez I got it on an offer for the same price as the standard one without dedicated graphics was going for on the Lenovo site, so essentially the GPU was a free upgrade – very happy!

i don’t see this as Israel getting desperate, they’re getting more daring, and nobody seems to care around the planet.

People do care but as soon as you publicly criticise Israel, a carefully orchestrated global “hasbara” network engages to shut you down, i.e. chilling effect.

Just look at what happens when key UN / EU figures pipe up with any form of criticism. The AS card gets delt and they back down.

No end to this madness other than a terrible regional war, that could engulf the world. Ironic that the BBC drama Threads is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. In that show it all kicked off in Iran.

Remind me never to order any electronics from wish.il.

Thanks for all the input everyone. Finally went with the “better the devil you know” option (another Lenovo IdeaPad).

IdeaPad Pro 14″ with Ryzen 7 8845HS,  Nvidia RTX 3050, 16gb DDR5, 512gb SSD, 120hz OLED (2880 x 1800 pixels / 2.8K?),  WiFi 6E.

I had a bit of a reset with alcohol this year, having turned 40 last November and having already cut down my booze intake drastically since my 35th birthday. Been exclusively on the non-alcoholic beers this year, although haven’t really noticed any earth-shattering physical health or fitness improvements. I have had better sleep and seen some mental health improvements overall though.

Friday just gone though, had three 330ml beers, two medium glasses of wine, and a strong G&T spread out from 1pm-9pm at my sister-in-law’s wedding. That would have been a quiet Friday or Saturday night for me back in my 20s and early 30s, but I felt braindead / anxious all day Saturday and Sunday. I really don’t miss it.

Won’t they just try and ramraid it or use a 4×4 with winch to yank the doors off it? Asguard inside a garage makes sense to me but doesn’t putting them outside scream “There are expensive bikes in here, come and have a go.”

Interesting to know about issues with the V3.

My V2 has been faultless for the past 3 years (albeit serviced / lubes regularly). It does take a bit of force to get it moving with the V3 lever when off the bike but when riding its not noticeable.

Strange that they moved to a sealed cartridge for the V3. I really like the fact that with the V2, you can adjust the return speed by tuning the cartridge air pressure with a shock pump.

You need to get some Audiophile Rocks to improve the sound even further.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18meYHp7D9x4JL2wXAFbopTGxg6sFHhUt/view

What a story! Glad it ended with a (somewhat) happy ending. Surely the police will now have whoever lives at that address you knocked on on their radar now, if they didn’t already.

@mattyfez that Expertbook does look nice. I was budgeting for around a grand to 1,200 so its a little bit over but I’m adding it to the list. No touchscreen / flip screen isn’t an issue, don’t need them.

@Cougar @wbo Huge Lenovo fanboy here – current one is a Lenovo IdeaPad which has been ok but the build quality is average. Would naturally gravitate towards a ThinkPad but I have heard the quality and reliability of those has slipped in recent years too?

@mattyfez occasionally need to to some light audio / video editing and video transcoding so nice to have that grunt available if needed. Also, correct me if I am wrong but I heard the newer Ryzen and Intel Ultra chips are much more efficient than 13th gen Intel (longer battery runtime).

Asus Expertbook – never heard of that series, will take a look.

EDIT: not sure what happened with the code there?

Element or Top Fuel would be perfect choices but I have read that there have been a few issues with premature bearing wear on some Element frames.

Modern short travel 29ers (“downcountry / agro-XC etc”) are the high-water mark of my cycling journey. I can do everything I would personally ever want to do on a mountain bike with one bike.

Trail riding? No problem. 70-mile epic? Just change the tyres. Pootle round the local park with the family? Never over-biked.

If I had more time to drive further afield then I could probably justify a supplementary longer travel trail bike ( 160mmish), but it wouldn’t get ridden much.

I like our gerbil, got more personality than previous hamsters I used to own. Got a bit of swagger about it.

They are stupidly and entertainingly inquisitive

This is very true and made me laugh. :-D

Been many, many years since we’ve had hamsters / gerbils but this is what I remember:

1. Buy two (of the same sex) because they are social animals. If possible buy two females as they are calmer together. We kept two males together for four years without issues though but then one day one decided to bite the other’s hand off.

2. Gerbilariums (think someone mentioned them above) are super cool because they get to build their own tunnels. Makes them a little bit harder to handle and socialise though (they keep bolting underground if you try to pick them up to clean the cage). We transferred ours over to a cage after a couple of years.

3. They LOVE playing with toilet roll tubes.

4. Keep them in a spare room because they are noisy at night.

Some general thoughts on tool-buying;

Screwdrivers, spanners, hex keys, bit sockets etc – definitely pay a bit more because cheaper quality ones strip heads and bolts. No need to buy bike-specific branded general tools as you will get more bang for your buck with non-bike brands.

Torque wrenches – get a good one because there’s nothing worse than breaking an expensive carbon part or even worse, a frame.

Specialist bike-specific tools for specific bike-only jobs – run a cost analysis. “How often will I use this tool vs how much does the local bike shop charge to do this specific job with their own tool?” If you have a lot of riding friends then think about setting up a ‘tool pool’.

If you are OCD (like me) its a great idea, especially if the bike cost a lot of money.

Ryanair have worked out that it’s cheaper to pay the regulator’s fine for not giving refunds when they should than to give refunds when they should. Their business model has always been “we don’t give a fek, take it or leave it.” Good luck getting anything out of them.

Having ran GX / X01 mechanical for the past couple of years, I think I would find it hard to move back to Shimano now.

Still not ready to make the leap to electric though, despite all the positive noise.

If I was building a budget ride, Deore would be my go to though.

You can buy a bag of just the electrolyte powder very cheaply

I do this. It’s dirt cheap from the sports nutrition shop I order it from (3 quid for half a kilo) and you just add it to your own recipes.

Works out miles cheaper than store-bought sports drinks and doesn’t give you stomach issues, especially if you have IBS.

Some great recipes here and loads more can be found online elsewhere.

[thegeneralist – as far as I know the wife has a very stable job getting paid double what he does so I presume all bills are covered if he needs to take time off. The wife is very career-focussed though and also has a very stressful job as a project manager and I know they have had some marriage counselling recently (which from what he has said, the wife didn’t really want to engage in).]

Some great suggestions. I have shared this thread with my friend.

@thegeneralist – as far as I know the wife has a very stable job getting paid double what he does so I presume all bills are covered if he needs to take time off. The wife is very career-focussed though and also has a very stressful job as a project manager and I know they have had some marriage counselling recently (which from what he has said, the wife didn’t really want to engage in).

@MoreCashThanDash – from how he describes things he works for a Mickey Mouse one-man-band type of company that doesn’t even have a HR department. If he takes time off / gets signed off there is literally nobody to cover the work. Time off then phased return sounds like what he needs but I’m not sure how it would work with a small business like that.

@Kryton57 – sage advice. I gather that the main stressor (70-80%) is the company / boss he works for, but this is very much supplemented by the absolutely normal daily pressures of being an immigrant (I don’t like the word ‘expat’) in another country with very different social norms and cultures. So these daily stresses, which would otherwise be manageable, become bigger problems because of the work situation. 

 retaining the sense of unfairness at having to leave a job youd previously loved before the changes forced upon you.

From what I understand, the company and boss he currently works for has been a nightmare from day 1, but as he’s living in the European city with the highest unemployment rate in the whole of the EU, has little option to move on to something else so easily.

Yep, going by his speech just now it sounds like the British public will be paying for all this again.

All this recent stuff coming out about cronyism and recent appointments doesn’t fill me with any optimism either.

Hot wax is going to be ‘better’ in terms of longevity (time between waxes / reapplication) and long-term cost benefits (providing that you already have the kit to heat the wax). It also gets into the inner workings of the chain quicker during the life of the chain = less wear on the chain = theoretically longer chain life. You can read up on this in serious detail on the Zero Friction Cycling website.

As a long-time Squirt user who is only running one bike and only gets to ride once or twice per week, I prefer the less-faff aspect of dry drip lube though.

Just to add I’ve used a drip on wax-based lube (Squirt) exclusively with my SRAM Eagle drivetrain so that perhaps helps to add some longevity in comparison to wet lube.

I’ve got a SRAM GX Eagle cassette coming up to 3,000 miles. Chain changed at 2,000 miles when it hit 0.5% wear (measured with the Pedro’s chain checker SRAM recommend). Doesn’t miss a beat.

Lasting considerably longer than the Shimano XT 9, 10, and 11 speed stuff I ran for ten years prior.

Just be glad it’s not a Fox fork which needs ten different bespoke tools costing 100 quid each to do a lowers service. ?

[boriselbrus this is exactly what it is.]

just as in an abusive domestic relationship your abuser will tell you they love you and it’ll all be fine. 

Nail on the head @boriselbrus this is exactly what it is.

I’m in the same situation OP so totally feel for you. Been working for a really shitty company for nearly two years and has broken me several times over but I keep “fighting on.” I t has done me absolutely no good whatsoever.

Sadly not easy to just get another job where I am (Spain = worse unemployment rate in Europe) but I am now at the end of my tether so planning to escape within the next couple of months.

Everyone keeps telling me that when you walk away from a crap job / workplace things always get better and staying on when nothing will get better is the worst thing you can do but I must admit for me the thought of packing in a job without another one to go to is a hard pill to swallow.

I have the same brakes and they do have a propensity for sticking pistons.

I made my own version of that R3Pro piston release tool using an old Shimano yellow bleed block and a hacksaw (but then later bought the R3Pro tool as its much nicer :-D) and give the pistons a good preventative clean with isopropyl alcohol every time I change the pads.

There’s also some great guides on Youtube about how to fix SRAM sticking pistons without a tool, as well as advancing the pads evenly and centering them properly  e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY80Zt47M3A

The jury’s also out on whether to lube the pistons with DOT fluid (SRAM say absolutely not, but I’ve tried it and haven’t died yet).

Check out the Enduro mag reviews (German magazine but online in English).

https://enduro-mtb.com/en/?s=epic+8

They preferred the Epic 8 but for general riding I would definitely take the Evo, primarily for the more durable components and suspension.