Cheers, I didn’t know how much they were. The cost Vs service was accounting for paying someone to repair it though. I’m happy to spanner on my bikes and cars, but don’t have much experience with heating and plumbing.

We replaced our heating system a couple of years ago and get the boiler serviced annually as it’s one of  the Valiant guarantee terms.

We’ve already had to have a leaking diverter valve replaced under warranty, I’d imagine the cost of that exceeds the cost of a service.

When buying we did ask if the boiler and fire had been serviced. They hadn’t, but the vendors did have them serviced as they were over 30 years old. However the fire never worked properly.

I bought one based on reviews off here. At first I was a bit underwhelmed by the power, but I’ve grown to like it. I’ve used it for bikes, removing algae from paving and cleaning windows, facia boards and the conservatory roof.

My charger died last year too, but I’ve an Aldi Ferrex cordless fan that uses very similar batteries made by the same manufacturer. The Ferrex batteries work in the Worx tools, but not the other way around due to a slight difference in the battery casing. Although this could be fixed with a file or Dremel, it’s just an extra rib above the battery terminals.

I’d been casually eyeing up both the Camino and the RX9 as a potential replacement for my 2014 Charge Plug 3 and 2014 Giant Defy. I ride a small frame size and was wanting something with better tyre clearance, reduced toe overlap, better standover and thru axles. I know the Camino is well regarded on here, but I’m surprised there’s not much love for the Orange.

I’d been looking at the 2021 and 2023 RX9 frames as they’re both reduced to £240 or £280 for frame only, plus an extra 10% discount. The frame and fork at £500 still seemed too pricey to me as I could source the frame and a fork seperately for less. Can I ask what puts people off them? Is it the price? Qualtiy? Or the geometry? I’d read the Singletrack review of the 2023 RX9 and it seemed positive, but there’s really not much else out there.

Superstar Components are doing their Nana Evo 2.0 pedals at 35% off with code NANOXXX. Takes them from £75 to £48.75, which seems reasonable for a UK made aluminium pedal to me. I’m running a couple of pairs of the Nano Evo and have been happy with them.

Nano Evo 2.0

I’d also not want to ride that.

I know very little about carbon fatigue but that looks to have moved enough to cause the paint to chip off rather than just crack. As it’s the front brake/front wheel area I’d not be comfortable riding it until it was checked over.

As above, QR may be a limiting factor. My old Marin Pine Mountain 1 (think it was 2017 model year) came stock with a Rockshox Recon 27.5+/29er boost fork, and easily cleared the 27.5 x 3.0 Nobby Nics that came with the bike. So  boost 29er Rockshox forks are worth looking for.

Not sure what the wheels are, but I’d double check the end caps are the right way round before making any adjustments. Sometimes they’re sided.

Happy Birthday! And very nice brakes.

Depends on the item. If it’s a major brand I’d assume it’s a knock-off. But that’s also possible if buying from eBay or Amazon too.

If it’s a smaller brand it may well be from the same factory. For example the Juin Tech brakes on AliExpress or eBay are almost certainly the same item. Something branded Shimano I’d not trust to be genuine.

I’ve some Clarks M4 brakes that I bought about 4 years ago, sold by a UK supplier, with Clarks support from the UK . There are some identical looking brakes available on AliExpress branded as Meroca. I’d expect they’re identical and from the same factory, rather than a knock off.

Scary stuff. Get well soon.

@dewd – Wouldn’t recommend getting MT200 anything. They came on an old MTB of mine and they were dreadful.

Granted, that was mostly the long lever being big and flexy that you’d change, and you don’t really need “stop dead in the middle of a rocky chute” power on a road bike as with an MTB so YMMV with those. In fact with good pads they’d probably be fine, just heavy and not as durable.

Cheers. I’ll order the MT410s.

I’d also say both or neither.

I bought a Pela suction pump about 4 years ago after a similar encounter to a post above. When doing an oil change on a Bora 1.9 TDI I was using an 8 litre drain pan. I started pannicking after 7 litres of oil came out of a car which should have had around 5-5.5 litres and had to hastily stick the drain plug back in. In my case the tandem vacuum/fuel pump had a split gasket, allowing diesel to dilute the oil. Suction pumps make oil changes easy.

I’ve started using Mannol oil, same as RustyNissanPrarie, it’s often on offer on eBay for less than £15 for 5 litres. I stick with Mann oil filters too, they’re only £1-2 more than the cheaper brands. Our cars are 18 and 20 year old diesels so not worth much, but still need servicing if you want them to be reliable. They get oil changes between 6-8k miles, a lot of which is motorway mileage.

I’m also interested in this as I’m planning on doing similar. In my case I’ve an old steel all road bike with IS mounts. I’ve picked up some used RS-405 (non series Tiagra 4700) gears/brakes that I’m looking to fit to replace the Sora/Juin Tech post mount setup.

I’ve seen that you can get IS to flat mount adapters from AliExpress, but the Deore MT410 post mount calipers are available in the UK for under £20 an end. MT200 calipers are even less, but I think the MT410 is a stronger brake? One of my flat mount calipers is seized, so I’m going to replace the both calipers. Hopefully it’ll all work.

We went for the level 2 survey on our 1960s 2 bed semi 3 years ago. We were encouraged to use the level 2 as the level 1 doesn’t really cover much and we hoped we wouldn’t need the full level 3 survey for a fairly standard house.

In short, it didn’t really offer much beyond what we’d already seen. As others have said it was full of generic disclaimers such as wiring looks original (barring some dubiously relocated sockets with surface mount wiring), should be rewired due to age, roof tiles appear ok but may need replacing in the future, pointing appears ok but may need local repairs soon etc.

It’s a dormer bungalow with flat roof dormers, and they didn’t even check the condition of the flat roof! I think the only thing they did highlight was that the pitched roof above the flat roof had loft insulation installed, which somehow the EPC managed to miss. I was a bit disappointed with how little was checked though.

If you know any builders I’d go level 1 and take a builder. If not, I’d probably go level 2.

You can spend them on eBay if you link your Nectar account. Tie them in with an eBay promotion for extra value.

Cheap ebikes at Merlin. I’ve no idea if they’re any good but might make good commuters?

Gravel bike

https://www.merlincycles.com/metroneer-eg-10-comp-gravel-e-bike-282643.html

Hybrid

https://www.merlincycles.com/metroneer-london-eu700-plus-hybrid-e-bike-279235.html

Step through

https://www.merlincycles.com/metroneer-london-eu700-plus-step-thru-hybrid-e-bike-279250.html

Similar story to others from me. I own a pair of the threaded spring compressors, aka suicide sticks. I’ve successfully used them to replace all 4 springs on my old 2.0 petrol B3 Passat in the past, however, modern cars are heavier and the springs are more substantial to cope with the extra mass.

3 or 4 years ago my Peugeot 307 1.6 HDi snapped a spring. I ordered a pair off Ebay with the intention of DIY replacing them, but when they were delivered they were huge! I double checked they were the right part for the car and promptly booked it in to my local garage for them to replace. The thought of compressing these springs was not something I wanted to entertain. Paying a garage £120 to do it for me was money well spent.

There are better types of spring compressors on the market now that clamp more of the spring, but I’m not sure you’d be able to fit them with the strut assembly in situ.

Sorry to hear this. It looks like Fin had a great life, and it’s always really hard when the time comes to say good bye.

We had to make the same call with our collie 9 years ago. We still miss him, but it does get easier as time goes on.

I’m still awaiting an order placed on the 11th, the estimated delivery date was today or tomorrow. I’ve not heard anything from Wiggle but it was marked as shipped late on Saturday. Evri also state that they’re expecting it, so not sure where it is.

I’ll give it a few days before I chase it up though, one of my previous orders disappeared for a day or two but did turn up eventually.

One of my orders was marked as dispatched via Parcel Force last week, but only half turned up when it was supposed to. CRC live chat told me they were having trouble getting everything out due to how busy they were, but that it was on the way. The other half arrived on Monday.

I had a couple of other orders that were processing since last Thursday. One was dispatched Tuesday evening and delivered yesterday morning, another was dispatched yesterday and is due today. Both via Evri.

I expect people ordering things when they’re available or as prices have dropped rather than combining everything into a single order has impacted order processing too.

I’d either wait it out or contact them via live chat. But expect them to be busy.

Hope Pro 5 rear 6 bolt hubs are now £100, extra 10% off with code EXTRA10 too.

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/p/hope-pro-5-rear-hub

Just got notification of a Hope rear wheel shipped too. I placed another order for some smaller items before I ordered the wheel, but I’ve not got a dispatch notice for that yet.

How does this referral thing work? Considering joining octopus….

Someone gives you a referal code/link which you use to sign up. Octopus credits each person with £50.

I don’t want to queue jump, but can offer a code if anyone wants one.

Yeah, pretty confident you can use a Yari/Lyrik/Pike airshaft to drop to 130mm travel.

Stick the serial number in the RS app when it arrives to confirm.

Excellent, thanks 👍

Can the Yari RC 160mm be adjusted to 130mm? Looks like it can by changing the changing the airspring.

Would it be a worthwhile upgrade to Gold 35 RL on a Scandal. Needs a service kit anyway so seems like a cheap upgrade

I’d also like to know the answer to this. The travel adjust part anyway. Anyone know?

So sorry for your loss. Your wife sounds like an amazing person and your daughters eulogy was so touching.

If you’re going to test the mid high input on the speaker, make sure you do it from the mid-high output from the amp. Don’t want to be sending low freqs into the tweeters.

I don’t think that’s applicable on this amp.

It looks like it supports two pairs of speakers wired conventionally, or one pair of speakers bi-wired. So I believe both speaker outputs deliver the same signal to the speakers. The speakers themselves will contain a crossover which will send the high frequency signals to the tweeters and the lower frequencies to the mid/bass divers.

Oh and you can test the tweeters by connecting the speaker wires to the upper binding posts rather than the lower ones. Obviously the bass/mid drivers won’t be driven, but it’ll let you know if the tweeters are working.

As others have mentioned above if you’re running a single pair of cables to the speakers you need to bridge the bass and treble binding posts on the speakers.

You could do this by cutting a small length of speaker cable, trimming the ends and connecting the two + and – binding posts together.

If you run wires from the amp to each pair of binding posts (bi wiried) on the speaker you don’t want any link cables or link plates. That could cause a short and do damage to the amp.

When I topped up our loft insulation last year I added 170mm to the existing 200m that was already down. At the same time I added some Loft Leg XL loft legs which I are 300mm, providing a decent sized air gap with the 370mm insulation we now have.

I only boarded a small section as it’s a very small loft space and we just wanted somewhere to store camping gear and Christmas decorations. But I’d agree it’s much easier to install the legs when the joists are exposed.

I’ve also applied for the Great British Insulation Scheme and am waiting to hear back from Octopus as we are in a dormer bungalow and are interested in room in roof insulation.

As mentioned above I’ve managed to have both cars insured on the same policy for a week or two in the past when I’ve been changing cars.

Last year I was insured with an Aviva online only policy, who let you change insured vehicle online but there was no option to add temporary cover for a second car. As it was online only I couldn’t call up to do it either. So not all insurers and policies allow this, but if you can I’d call them and ask.

I ended up using Cuvva for a temporary insurance policy of about 9 days as it was close to my renewal, then started the new policy on the same car. Cuvva specialise in temporary insurance from  1 hour to 28 days, so handy for short term cover on another car.

So sorry to read this.

Yeah bolts have been checked at the shop. I think the first pic is a normal/good join but the second one is where its starting to come apart? I’d expect to see a seam but not a gap if that makes sense?

I think there’s 4 joins and 3 of them are flush as per the first pic but one has a gap. If it wasn’t for the product recall I’d have assumed its a tiny manufacturing defect but in light of the recall and the knowledge that my cranks fall under the affected products it seems more likely to be an issue?

Ah I see. Yeah on closer inspection the second picture you posted shows a noticably larger gap. I’ve not seen one fail first hand, but I’d try and get yours looked at if I were you.

I’ve an Ultegra 6800 chainset on one of my bikes. I should probably check it over.

Is that gap not just where the outer chainring butts up against the chainset?

Have you checked the chainring bolts? Removed, regreased and retorqued them?

Mine has also arrived but I’ away at the moment. I also have a 10sp (Shimano) road bike which is the one I’m going to use. If anyone has got theirs and knows for sure whether I will need a spacer (i.e. not supplied with it) and the width I’ll get one ordered so it’s there when I get back.

Mine arrived yesterday but I’ve not had a chance to set it up yet. I have unpacked it though and it has two freehub spacers as well as the QR and thru axle end cups, so you shouldn’t need to buy one. Thanks for the PSA OP.

The manual says you need a 1.8mm spacer for eith3r a 9 or 10sp cassette. Helpfully one is included in the box…

Excellent, thanks

I think yes. You need the spacer that usually comes with an 11s Freehub, but not the one that comes with 10s casetttes.

Thanks, I’ll get one ordered.

I ordered one yesterday afternoon. I’ve also received the confirmation and dispatch emails, so hopefully it’ll arrive.

Anyone know if I’ll need a to buy a spacer to use this with a 9 speed cassette?

So sorry for your loss Cougar.