Check the serial number

Another vote for Tony!

I’ve been looking for quotes for solar panels recently but it’s worse than double glazing, for pricing and tactics.

Could those of you who’ve recently had solar panels fitted please quote the cost and installed kWH? @Northernraider @Willard

Thanks

@rickmeister Thanks, I’ll check them out! No sign yet…

@hardtailonly

Colour? Orange… :D

Size: Large

+1 to ViSpring, and maybe go softer than you think

Down duvets

Tailored clothes

Cat-skiing at Island Lake Lodge in BC

Interesting trips

+1 to the Commandante coffee grinder

+1 to sourdough bread

+1 to the Rega turntable, and good turntables in general.

Roksan Xerxes 20 Plus turntable Mine was expensive, sounds fantastic and is still going strong after many years.

Along the same lines, any of Vertere’s turntables, arms or cartridges. They’re all brilliant engineering, like the Xerxes, formula 1 of turntables. Expensive but definitely worth the money.

37 is a good result, equates to an average BG of 5.5mmol/L according to the online calculator whereas 32 is 5.1mmol/L.

Normal BG is 4-8mmol/L but can spike higher after rapidly-absorbed carbohydrates.

The difference between the two numbers is trivial. As a T1 diabetic I’d be delighted with results like those!

If you want to look at your BG more closely, you could try a Libre sensor for two weeks and see how much your BG is spiking after food.

If it is, the spikes can be reduced by buffering the carbs with vegetables etc, or reducing/avoiding some foods

Grey Poupon, best for flavour.

@dangeourbrain

Yes that one. Otherwise, I think you’re mistaken.

A single-part chuck, depending on the layout of the chuck and the recipient valve, will leak if the valve is open whilst the chuck is removed. If you’re quick and there’s enough volume of air in the shock, it may not affect the pressure much. The OneUp dropper has a small volume of air and a high pressure around 300psi. I was losing 100+psi when I disconnected.

Enduro’s review deals with this:

The myth that the fork or shock will lose pressure as soon as you unscrew the pump head is still propagated on mountain-bike forums. In actual fact, not a single pump does that, as our test with the Quarq ShockWiz showed. It doesn’t matter how slowly you unscrew the pump or whether it has a manual check-valve – which incidentally exists purely because of this myth.

I have three shock pumps; the ‘best’ is the old, well-used two-part Fox which is great. With one of the others I can empty the dropper if I remove the pump slowly.

The two-part chucks avoid the problem – that’s why they make them. And if I can stick a two-part on the end of my digital Fox I get the best of both worlds.

Lots of quiet rural roads but I don’t know any offroad in the area.

You could ride over quiet roads towards Killantringan beach – a good one for the family – and try looping back on the Southern Upland Way.

The SUW goes down towards the beach then along the coast to Portpatrick, and it’s a good walk. The Crown has real ale. Port Pantry is good for lunch.

Cream o’ Galloway make ice-cream from their dairy herd at Rainton, just after Gatehouse of Fleet, and have a park with treetop views and a flying fox. Good day out for the family.

Wigtown is worth a visit – book town with lots of secondhand books, cafes. Bladnoch distillery is nearby and used to do tours.

You’ll probably need an OS map for this; it is fairly scenic, and straightforward ride, starting on road, then forestry tracks, but away from everything.

Take the small roads (Old Military Road / B796) up behind Gatehouse-of-Fleet towards the old railway line; follow that or the road East to Water of Fleet viaduct, crossing at the ford below. Follow forestry roads North past Loch Skerrow, to the A712 SW of Clatteringshaws loch.

From there you can do a loop coming back to the A712. Go round Clatteringshaws to the N end, E route is more attractive, W is shorter; take the Old Edinburgh Road North of Clatteringshaws, then loop round on paths to the A712 just E of Murrays Monument and Grey Mare’s Tail waterfall on your right.

The latter sections are quite pretty.

Pretty close to Kirroughtree here.

I had a few problems getting the dropper to move, due to the outer cable housing being used to actuate it rather than the cable.

The bottom of the dropper is close to the exit port on the seatpost, and the cable routing bends tightly. Like dumbbot’s picture.

The moving cable outer was binding on the edges of the exit. First I enlarged the port but that didn’t help much. Then I ground a chamfer on the inside and outside of the exit which has fixed the problem.

The actuation is usable but heavier than other posts – Thomson, BrandX, Reverb.

I also found that, unused over the winter, the actuator got quite sticky and the post lost about a third of its pressure and wouldn’t return to maximum height.

Adjusting the air pressure is a faff as the saddle has to come off to reach the valve, and getting it all together again is fiddly.

Quite easy to check the operation off the bike – press the post down on a flat surface, to depress the green actuator at the bottom.

Apparently OneUp are working on a new actuation mechanism which will use cable movement rather than outer housing, which would be a welcome improvement.

@cynic-al Problem with springs in the TD160/LP12 is that the suspended part of the deck can rotate as it bounces. Rotating the springs can alleviate that problem and get a vertical bounce.

Still leaves the belt/motor driving the suspended sub-frame. Xerxes is an elegant solution to the problem.

The two best-sounding decks IMO are the Rega and the Xerxes. I’ve seen Xerxes with Rega arm on eBay for £700 or so.

Suspended decks can be tricky to get sounding good, and inconsistent between different records.

Hi there.

I’ve got a Rega when I was a student years ago, now it’s in a box in the garage, and a friend has a recent one with some fancy valve amplification. They’re well made, well-designed and sound good.

For under £1,000 I think you could do much better with an old Roksan Xerxes, used to be quite a few with Rega arms which is a nice budget combination.

The ‘sound’ is similar to Rega, but more of the same qualities. I always think it sounds like a master tape.

Audio Technica make good moving coil cartridges; I got my last one s/h off eBay.

Assuming you’re not averse to secondhand kit check out Hifi Shark. You’ll probably have to wait for a deck that suits.

A lot of good used hifi equipment is available secondhand if you don’t mind having something which isn’t the latest but sounds great.

As for 70s and 80s records, I’ve been playing them all evening and they sound great. Worst one was Rubber Soul, for left/right stereo, poor mix and not much bass.

CDs are so good that I’m gradually replacing my favourites with vinyl as they become available. For sound quality, despite the ridiculous prices.

I’ve heard CDs with less noise, less crackles, but none as involving to listen to as the vinyl versions. Or with the same dynamic range.

I suggested to an engineer who has been involved in some of the better-known analogue-digital remastering that when digital media were available with the same information as studio recordings, which he says is better than vinyl, that vinyl would be superseded.

His answer was no, because with digital recordings, the cost of the electronics to match or improve on vinyl was well into six figures.

So the hi-end in hifi is still vinyl.

Let us know what you do.

How do you get them on them on the NHS?

I should be a dog :)

Good for tracking BG overnight, and for trends, up or down is advance warning

I suggest the Android application Glimp to calibrate the numbers from the sensor.

@tjagain

NO deal is nver going to happen – that will not get thru parliament either

No deal is the default if nothing else is agreed with the EU; Parliament approved it when they invoked Article 50.

The vote quantifies the numbers – 117 in favour of no deal, 200 soft-brexit or remainers – and keeps the choice of leader out of the hands of party members who’d probably vote for a hard Brexit candidate.

May’s deal seems unlikely to pass; Parliament could propose a second referendum to resolve the stalemate. Corbyn is holding out for a General Election (which he’s unlikely to get) probably to ensure the Conservatives own Brexit, and Labour don’t support a second referendum, then it could be hard Brexit by default.

@out of breath

If there’s no withdrawal agreement, the Government will table a neutral motion; Parliament can amend it. This is effectively advice to the government.

But the UK will still leave the EU on 29th March, as that is a consequence of Article 50, which was approved by Parliament after Gina Miller’s legal challenge. Whilst many of our MPs have reservations about Brexit, they didn’t take the opportunity to debate them then and those arguments are unresolved.

I’ve been using Rudy Projects with inserts for years and they work really well; I got lightweight lenses for the inserts which helps.

For other sunglasses I get lenses fitted, I’ve had lots but opticians lenses aren’t as good as well-made manufacturer’s lenses for specific purposes such as skiing. B<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>y the way, my favourites were Revo. </span>

Pick an efficient vehicle; pension or ISA.

Choose an economical platform – charges will eat into your returns in the long term; look at Interactive Investor or iWeb (by Halifax I think)

Choose your investments. If you have a long-term perspective, say 10+ years, global equities to reduce risks; use a low-cost ETF to keep costs down. A 60/40 split of small/large-cap firms.

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>Managed funds have higher costs and on average perform less well than ETFs which track the market, and have low costs. Vanguard are a well-regarded ETF provider. </span>

Fundsmith is a managed fund, 1% fees so better than many but not cheap. Their flagship fund has performed well.

You could put the majority into ETFs, and a part into a managed fund if you think you’ve found a good one and like the interest of following it. But be warned that some very successful funds and their managers have gone on to lose their lustre. And investments that shoot out the lights for a couple of years are unlikely to continue to perform.

Bonds are at risk of rising yields / inflation. But if it all goes pear-shaped then investment-grade bonds are the place to be. So there’s an argument for holding some.

Make sure you have #ome liquid assets.

Ps These are examples, by no means the final word.

Got the background but what’s the problem?

I’ve got an old Thule towbar-mounted 3-bike rack with an add-on for a fourth bike. Maybe a 900 or 9000 series; there’s no number on it.

It’s been designed for a maximum wheelbase of 125cm, and the rails are 17cm apart, which makes it quite a challenge to load two large 27.5″ bikes and a small 26″ bike. It used to be tight with four 26″ bikes, always needed padding, and it’s worse now.

Tipping the rack up and down for boot access is a bit of a pain; there’s a long bolt to loosen and tighten underneath the bikes, which isn’t so easy to manage when the rack is loaded.

Otherwise it’s good.

@Mark Couldn’t you load a blank space for the images, then fill it later?

Since we’re discussing functionality, there doesn’t appear to be a tag to restrict searches to a particular forum. So chat, wanted ads, for sale, bike discussion and articles are jumbled up along with adverts – and I’m a subscriber.

There appears to be a cutoff date for older magazine material such as reviews, which doesn’t appear to be available on the site.

Another way of doing it is to replace the manufacturer’s version of the software with the Lineage OS version of Android, which is clean and functional.

That opens up a wider range of phones including Xioami but takes more time and effort.

@Welshfarmer Did I mention the rain was horizontal the day we left? Maybe it never hit the ground :)

Oops… Spoke too soon

Imgur works…

Foiled again by photos. Here’s the URL:

Llanthony campsite

We stayed at Welshfarmer’s field; handy for BMCC and good local riding.

Ah just read you have a Party Wall agreement. Should be a schedule of condition there. Go read the agreement instead of posting here; assume it was drawn up by a surveyor they should come back and identify what needs fixing. Go to tender on the agreed works and fix them.

Dont leave it to your neighbour.

People notice problems when they look for them.

Is there a physical connection between your house and your neighbour’s? Is there a party wall? Is there any reason to suppose your works affected your neighbour’s house?

If not, what do your works have to do with the condition of her house? If so, maybe it’s time to speak to a surveyor.

As you’ve offered to remedy the problems, get your own quotes for the work.

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>It might be worth speaking to a surveyor or solicitor to ensure your neighbour can’t come back for a second bite of the cherry without reasonable cause. </span>

It’s worth getting a schedule of condition to establish a baseline.

Brand X Around two years and fine.

Reverb A year and it’s sticky

Thomson Just got it – so far so good

@welshfarmer I’ve PM’d you

Thanks for the great suggestions.

I prefer natural trails, as long as the riding’s good. Don’t want to do too much bushwhacking through brambles/nettles/bracken! Any resources or suggestions for routes?

If you’re making progress the reason for telling your employer is because they have noticed a deterioration and you’d like to let them know it was temporary.

Are you sure they’re aware of it? If not, don’t introduce it.

Just demonstrate your return to previous performance.

We did Long Mynd, camping, a while ago. Went down well helped by good pubs in Church Stretton, bit of a walk from the campsite. She walked one of the steeper rock descents but otherwise fine.

We stayed in the campsite behind the bike shop; bit noisy due to a school group and overlooking a minor road, but otherwise good.

And Dalbeattie.

Glentress isn’t necessarily better than those and the distance rules it out unless you want to spend a day in the car.

Kirroughtree is at your doorstep. Besides Mabie Dalbeattie and Ae, Drumlanrig is well worth a visit.

Halifax Clarity card. You’ll get Mastercard’s own exchange rates and no fees on conversion. I don’t think anyone else comes close.

After that interest rates are reasonable and you can top up with cash before you go if you want to withdraw cash. But interest for s month is typically smaller than fx spreads.

What’s not to like?

Ebay is dodgy.

Check the under bidder’s history. If they’ve bid before on the same vendor’s sales, it’s shill bidding, which is s criminal offence. Report the vendor to ebay. They won’t tell you what they found.

When you’re bidding, bid as late as possible.