I wouldn’t personally buy one as I’ve no need for it. Even if I wanted one I wouldn’t be prepared to spend that much.

For those that are interested in the bike themed tamper but can’t stretch to Chris King money were you aware that Superstar Components make and sell their own version? All UK made.

https://www.superstarcomponents.com/en/coffee-tamper-headset-style.htm

https://www.superstarcomponents.com/en/coffee-tamper-hub-style.htm

Congratulations to you both!

Good luck

I still use my Stooge Mk2 every now and then. It’s set up singlespeed, rigid 27.5 x 3.0 and while it is undeniably a chunky beast it’s great for just popping out for a ride.

I was also considering one of the cheap droppers. Does anyone know the length from the bottom of the seatpost collar to the saddle rail?

I’m 5’5″ and ride a small Big Dog which is very similar to the Scandal. I’ve not tried a medium but I’ve been happy with the small.

I thought that’s was the loco moto was?

No idea tbh. I was just basing it on the Planet X blurb

The On-One Wrekker is the older sibling of our most aggressive mountain bike, the Hello Dave. It keeps the same radical principles as the Dave but goes premium by utilising Aerospace Grade 9 3AL-2.5V Titanium

On the subject of new on one frames. What’s the wrekker? Renamed Titus loco moto?
https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/CBOOWKRGX/on-one-wrekker-sram-gx-titanium-mountain-bike

It’s the titanium Hello Dave

We’re with Petplan lifetime cover and as far as I’m aware you need to maintain the policy throughout to be covered. Not renewing an existing policy and taking out a new policy would mean pre existing conditions aren’t covered.

Or at least that’s what I was told a few years back when I queried my renewal price Vs a new policy for the same pet.

I’d call or email the insurance company and ask them to clarify.

I’m in my late 30’s, skinny but unfit. My bikes are not too dissimilar to yours as I’ve a 2014 steel Charge Plug which has 2×9 gears and disc brakes and can fit a 35c tyre, a geared 29er hard tail, a rigid single speed Stooge MK2 running 27.5. x 3.0 tyres and I’ve recently picked up a 2014 Giant Defy as I was interested to see how I’d get on with a lighter bike.

The Charge Plug is quicker than the mountain bikes and doesn’t feel too slow, but as some others have mentioned I found that it’s hard to maintain a high speed on the flat or slightly undulating roads, and I really feel the weight on the hills. It’s not unpleasant, but it feels heavy. At the same point it feels planted and it’s a great bike for cruising round country lanes, can take full guards and is pretty versatile. It’s more all road than gravel.

The Giant is much better specced and is probably 3kgs lighter than the Charge. It’s easier to maintain speed, feels lighter on the climbs and feels more responsive when you want to pick up speed when already moving. It does feel a bit more nervous on rough roads though, can only just take 28c tyres and rim brakes aren’t as confidence inspiring as discs.

Overall the Giant feels like you get more speed for the effort you put in than the Charge, if that’s what you’re looking for I’d consider looking at lighter road bikes.

Used rim brake road bikes are really cheap right now, you could get something decent to see if you like it and have change from £400.

That said if I could only keep one I’d sell the Giant. It’s a great bike but it’s a bit of a one trick pony.

That’s a good point re air gaps. I was insulating the pitched roof section of our dormer bungalow, so the area above the flat roof sections. I did maintain the existing air gap by insulating up to the purlin but not over the top of it, as that’s where the existing insulation was.

It’s pretty draughty up there and everything was dry, so i’m hoping the ventilation is adequate. I’ll pop up periodically over winter to keep an eye on moisture levels.

I’ve just topped up the insulation in our loft over the weekend. There was already some existing insulation so I used 170mm Knauf Eco Roll. I found it was cheaper in B&Q than Wickes at £24 per roll.

I laid it at 90 degrees to the existing insulation and used a small plank of wood underneath to help jiggle it into position in hard to reach areas. I also installed so LoftLeg XL loft legs and a few boards for storage, so I used those boards as crawler boards to span the joists whilst laying the insulation.

The tip about taping cuffs is brilliant. I was wearing goggles, dust mask, overalls and gloves but was still itchy and needed a shower as soon as I was done.

One thing to be aware of if you do buy a 29er wheelset is the hub standard on the rear hub. The link states it’s boost 148mm QR. If it’s a thru axle rear it’ll be 148mm, but if it’s QR it’ll be 141mm. If you buy a wheel with interchangable end caps you can swap the thru axle to QR and it’ll be fine, but if the hub doesn’t have interchangable end caps you’ll need to make sure it’s the right fitment.

I’ve currently got a 29er geared hardtail and a 27.5+ rigid singlespeed and enjoy both bikes. The 29er is running 2.35″ tyres and feels more agile, but the way the 27.5 3.0 tyres bounce along always makes me smile. I had a Marin Pine Mountain with a Recon fork and 27.5+ tyres before my current two bikes and loved that too.

As others have said I’d stick with what you’ve got for a while and see how you find it.

I’ve had a few Presta valves with slightly bent stems from using a mini pump without a hose. Since changing to mini pumps with hoses I’ve not damaged any valves. I’ve also never damaged a Presta valve with a track pump.

Schrader valves seem more durable/less susceptable to damage and they can take very high pressure so I’t be nice if they were more popular, but Presta are ok if you treat them with care.

I’ve a WPL C14 KM that I bought during lockdown and it’s ace.

I don’t have any kids but if I did i’d definately get them an FTX tracer or similar (dependant on age). When I was a kid I had a couple of cheap Nikko RC cars before finally getting a second hand Tamiya Lunch Box and they all got abused. Racing in the street, running in grass, jumping off kerbs and raised man holes etc. It was great fun with my mates and from what I’ve seen on YouTube the FTX Tracers can take that kind of abuse all day long. They’re also 1/16 scale so similar in size to the WPL. You’d need a bit more space as they’re much faster than crawlers but they don’t need the same space as a 1/10th scale.

I really like the scale detail and crawling aspect of the WPLs, as well as the cheap spares availability, but I suspect the FTX Tracer would be more durable for bashing and possibly more fun as a first RC. The FTX Tracer spares should be easily available in the UK too. I’d probably order the HBX 16889a Pro for the brushless and better shocks for myself TBH. I don’t think you’d go far wrong with either.

If you’ve not already check out Tomley RC on YouTube. He’s reviewed loads of the smaller and cheaper RCs, he appreciates the cars for what they are and offers a different perspecitve to Kev Talbot.

Well that sucks. Hope the treatment goes well and wishing you a speedy recovery.

Shell Rhodina BBZ – £15 for 400g. Did lots of research into it trying to get something like slick honey/SRAM butter. Its the same viscosity, NLGI number and make up – i.e. its the same stuff. even looks the same…

I’m still working my way through a 50g tube of RSP Slik Kick, but when I eventually run out I’ll give this a shot. Cheers.

I doubt that’s accurate at all!

(So you have nothing else on at all?
No oven/microwave (clocks)
No phones charging
No TV or stereo on standby
Sky box
And don’t forget that the energy meter display uses power also!!)

As I mentioned a couple of posts back, I think these figures need to be doubled as I hadn’t realised Octopus list consumption in kWh but list the consumption in 30 minute windows.

We don’t have anything else on. We got rid of the TV years ago and just watch stuff on our laptops, we don’t leave anything charging overnight. There’s no clock on our oven, we unplug the microwave when not in use so we can leave the door open without the light being on as it fills up with steam/condensation and the clock doesn’t keep proper time. The smart meter monitor is plugged in but the display turns itself off just before midnight, I’m not sure when it turns itself back on.

We also don’t have any smart devices etc plugged in. The stereo is unplugged as we’re decorating the front room, and we use our phones as alarm clocks. There’s literally nothing else on during those times.

The consumption figures where what Octopus are listing on their website from midnight to 7am yesterday morning.

Do you mean some nights you use as little as 0.01kWh in an 8 hour period, ie just over 1W of power on average over this period of time?

I think someone is confused as to units and numbers here.

Or perhaps you switch off at the mains when you go to bed 🙂

No that’s within a 30 minute window. So somewhere between 0.02kWh and 0.06kWh in a one hour window if we double it. I expect the flucuations are from the fridge freezer cycling on and off and the NAS drive spinning up or checking for updates?

And yes everything except the above is switched off, no chargers are left plugged in and nothing is left on stand by.

Here’s the consumption data for that time period. Obviously after 7am the consumption massively increases. I only mentioned what we use as the OP mentioned their consumption.

Consumption (kWh), Start, End
0.01000000000000000000, 2022-06-07T00:00:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T00:30:00+01:00
0.02900000000000000000, 2022-06-07T00:30:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T01:00:00+01:00
0.00900000000000000000, 2022-06-07T01:00:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T01:30:00+01:00
0.02900000000000000000, 2022-06-07T01:30:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T02:00:00+01:00
0.00900000000000000000, 2022-06-07T02:00:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T02:30:00+01:00
0.02900000000000000000, 2022-06-07T02:30:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T03:00:00+01:00
0.01400000000000000000, 2022-06-07T03:00:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T03:30:00+01:00
0.02500000000000000000, 2022-06-07T03:30:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T04:00:00+01:00
0.01700000000000000000, 2022-06-07T04:00:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T04:30:00+01:00
0.02100000000000000000, 2022-06-07T04:30:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T05:00:00+01:00
0.02000000000000000000, 2022-06-07T05:00:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T05:30:00+01:00
0.01800000000000000000, 2022-06-07T05:30:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T06:00:00+01:00
0.02100000000000000000, 2022-06-07T06:00:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T06:30:00+01:00
0.01800000000000000000, 2022-06-07T06:30:00+01:00, 2022-06-07T07:00:00+01:00

0.01 to 0.03 kWh is 10 to 30
Watts!!?!

You’re right, however it’s actually double that I think as Octopus spit it into 30 minute intervals yet report usage in kWh. I missed that when I first checked. Still seems very low though.

what are people using for their energy monitoring? my smart meter isnt smart and i dont have a display for it. ideally i would like a web based reporting tool

Our smart meter is smart, it uploads the data to Octopus so you can view your usage when you log in to your online account. You can view daily, weekly, monthly or yearly data, but it seems to just display the most recent data. So yesterday, going back one week, one month etc. You can download the data too.

We were against smart meters as we generally turn off what we’re not using and weren’t keen on providing our usage data to our energy supplier.

However we bought a house last year and between us having an offer accepted in June and competing the sale in October the vendors had new smart meters installed. By the time we moved the energy crisis had started and there were no cheap fixed deals to switch to, and the heating system is an appoximately 30 year old Baxi gas fire/back boiler combo.

We were really grateful for the smart meter as it’s allowed us to monitor how much energy we’re using, especially gas usage and has allowed us to tweak things and see the effect on energy usage in real time.

Our last place had a combi boiler whereas we have a hot water cycinder here. The first night we turned off the heating and hot water at the programmer but left the boiler on, presuming that if the controller is not demanding heat the boiler won’t fire up. It appears that the hot water controls on our programmer have no impact on when the boiler fires up, if the boiler is on it constantly heats up the water. The smart meter display telling us we’d used £3 of gas between midnight and 7am was handy as it prompted us to look into it right away.

We knew that showers use a lot, but were surprised at just how much it costs. The electric cooker also uses a lot more than we thought. Obviously we need to wash and eat so it’s not something we can eliminate, but reducing time spent in the shower or turning it down a bit and using an air fryer rather than the oven do make a noticable difference to our energy consumption.

Our electricity consumption between midnight and 7am fluctuates between 0.01kwh and 0.03khw according to Octupus’s energy consumption data. That’s just running the fridge freezer, router, phone and a single drive NAS.

Superstar have half price wheelsets at the moment

Element wheels

Arc wheels

I’ve not used either wheelset but I do have a wheel I built using their V6 rear hub and it’s been good. Decent bearings and although the wheels aren’t the lightest they use standard spokes so maintenance etc isn’t likely to be a problem.

I was an early adopter of the Clarks M4 and have to say these look much nicer.

I’m not in the market for brakes at the moment but when I next need some I’d consider these. Are they rebuildable and are spares available?

I’m 5’5 and ride a small Big Dog.

I managed to bag one of the £150 frame deals and built mine as a lockdown budget build with some Suntour Aion 27.5+ forks that I can just squeeze a 29.2.35 tyre in. I built it with stuff I had laying around or could find on sale during lockdown but it rides pretty well.

It is my first 29er so I have nothing to compare it to but I really like it. The orange paint on mine was really soft though.

I think the frames are priced at £600 so they sell more complete bikes than frames. It’ll probably be on sale soon as the Hello Dave frame has been on sale recently.

Similar to funkmasterp I’ve 800mm Stooge Moto Bars on the Stooge and 740mm on the Big Dog.

I’m only 5’5 and slightly built so the Moto bars are overkill really but as it’s singlespeed the extra leverage can be handy. Also the backsweep helps a lot.

The 740mm bars only have 6 degrees of backsweep and I’m thinking of replacing them with something a bit longer and more backsweep as I’ve never been that keen on them.

I went 11 speed from 12 and used a SRAM XD 11 speed cassette with XT shifter and a Deore 12 speed mech. However, it didn’t work (for me). All to do with the length of the mech cage and it being designed for 51 tooth cassette, but I was using 42, so there was way too much chain slack. I found a video on YouTube ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auo8yiPp74c ) that demoed why I was getting the problems I was having, so sold the mech and got an SLX 11 speed instead. Problem solved.

I guess I just got lucky with my setup. That was an informative video though, thanks for sharing.

If I kill this mech I’ll probably replace it with an 11 speed SLX as I’m happy with the range and have no plans to go 12 speed any time soon.

I’m running an 11 speed XT shifter, 11 speed Sunrace cassette and 12 speed SLX rear mech (bought new in packaging off here in 2020 when 11 speed stuff was either out of stock or more expensive than the 12 speed mech was).

It all plays nicely together and shifts at least as well as the 11 speed SLX shifter and rear mech with 11 speed Sunrace cassette on my previous bike.

I’ve got some G Rack shelving a few months back and am happy with it. I’d read that the MDF can go mouldy in damp envionments so I sealed it with woodstain and it’s been fine so far. I’d happily buy it again.

I’ve a set of the Clarks M4 and they’re ok for the money.

They do come fully bled but mine had a poor factory bleed and wandering bite point.

I re bled them when I shortened the hoses and found it took ages to get all the air out, but that might be my poor technique rather than an issue with the brakes. They’ve been fine since.

Congratulations! The ring is awesome too.

So sorry for your loss TJ.

I bought an X-T20 and an XC16-50 refurb direct from Fuji last year and although I’ve not used it as much as I’d anticipated due to lockdowns etc I’m really happy with it.

I picked up a copy of the Samyang 12mm F2 last summer as I’d like to have a go at astrophotography and have been impressed by the image quality. It’s manual focus but focus peaking makes this easy to live with. I’d like to pick up the 35mm F2 at some point, but I need to get out and use what I have more before before I buy anything else.

Overall I’m really pleased with the X-T20, the only thing I’d like to have is IBIS as I don’t have steady hands, but I’m not planning to upgrade for a long time.

Help needed!

A little sister/crawler accident has resulted in the steering not working on no.1’s RC crawler. The controller/ESC/servo all work as the trim buttons adjust the steering but the steering wheel doesn’t make the wheels turn.

I can buy spares for all three but by the time I do I’m £20 off a complete new car.

Any ideas I could try before I guess at which of the 3 to try first?

I’m not sure what crawler you have but you should be able to swap the plugs for the ESC and steering servo on the receiver. You can then test the steering on the throttle trigger and the ESC on the steering wheel.

It’s a yes from me too. I’m running a 12 speed SLX rear mech, 11 speed XT shifter, Sunrace 11-42 11 speed cassette and a KMC 11 speed chain.

It all works as well as the 11 speed SLX rear mech and shifter, Sunrace 11-42 11 speed cassette and KMC 11 speed chain on my previous bike.

I had one a few years back that I also bought in a sale for half price. I don’t think there’s an internal reservoir that it pressurises, I believe it’s just a pump which builds up pressure in the hose.

For what it is it’s a good product, much better than the 12v tyre inflators but as said it’s really loud. I found it a bit too noisey for my liking as I live in a mid terrace with a small yard and felt it’d anoy the neighbours if I used it on a regular basis.

I gave mine to my dad for car tyres etc and as far as I know he’s happy with it. When I had used it it did a good job on seating tubeless tyres, inflating car tyres and blowing pet hair out of the dog clippers.

I use Lucas Red n Tacky for headsets, hubs, pedal threads and bottle bosses, seat tube etc. I’ve filled a Dualco grease gun with it which makes controlled application much easier. I also use red rubber grease for brake seals and RSP Slick Kick for forks and dropper post seals etc.

Sorry to hijack the thread but I need to get some grease at some point for a DT star ratchet and I’ve heard it’s a special grease and non tacky. Are there any cheaper alternatives or is it worth spending the extra on a small quantity of the DT product?

I’ve tried emailing Clarks in the past too and never got a response. I’m happy enough with their M4 brakes for the money but they were very hard to get a decent bleed. That could be user error though.

I’d certainly consider Clarks brakes again when I next need some.

@Merak that shell looks fantastic, as do the others that you’ve posted on this thread.

@Solarider my brother is currently building the Carisma Coyote kit and a mate has picked up the Range Rover kit. Although they’ve not driven them yet they do seem happy with the quality of the components. I believe some Axial SCX10 parts fit too so there should be plenty of scope to upgrade later on should you wish.

I’m enjoying using my WPL C14 around the house, I’ve seen they can be quite good outdoors too but their size limits things a bit. As such I’m considering building a 1:10 scale crawler/trail truck.

Yeah as said you’d need to change your levers.

I’m running 2014 9 Speed Sora with Acor calipers which are rebranded Juin Tech R1s. I’m happy enough with them but have never used full road hydros.

I’ve a MK2 frame that I got off here last year that was in need of chain stay repairs. I was Stooge curious and this seemed like a good way to try one.

Ben at The Bike Cabin in Chorley sorted out a repair and powder coating for me for a very reasonable price. I’d recommend him to anyone in the area.

Mine is running as a 27.5 plus single speed and is great fun.

I don’t need any brakes but they look like a bargain.