Charming, my guess is that you’ve probably not had sex for a very long time, have you?

Either that or he’s getting plenty but it’s always a bit of a let-down.

Froggy went a-courting and he did ride….

scaredypants said… higgo & poly – pop round mine & let me drive your cars, then we’ll see how immovable your racks are

They CAN swing. I do rotate mine by hand when I need to.

Tell you what – you pop round to mine and I’ll show you how to tighten a bolt. If you can swing the rack by hand you are not tightening it up well enough. In which case I’m not sure I’d trust you to give the Saab the ‘spirited’ drive it enjoys.

Brother Will said… At the end of the day this is a Thule “budget” towbar rack. It excels is in 2 areas, one keeping the bike very securely on the rack and two keeping the rack securely attached to the car.

Amen Brother.

… a statement of fact in normal usage it CAN swing, eg if you take a corner too fast. Without snapping bolts/brackets it’s impossible to tighten so much that it couldn’t rotate around the towball

Rot.

If you don’t do it up properly it can (and probably will) swing.

I have never snapped the bolt or bracket. I have never had it swing. It is very possible to tighten it so it doesn’t swing without snapping anything. I do it every time.

There are few things better in life than watching Oliver Kahn cry.

I did a session with Ray Mazey (MBI) at Rivington. I was in a rut of going over the bars and smashing my knees up so I decided to do something about it. The day was basically split into the morning when we did various drills/exercises etc and the afternoon when we just went for a ride (round Healey Nab) putting it into practice.

I didn’t learn a huge amount that I didn’t know theoretically beforehand but one of the drills in particular worked for me. Without going into too much technical detail (that only relevant to me), when coming across sudden, unexpected ‘technical’ features on a trail I was instinctively doing something that made it more likely to go OTB. He got me doing something that makes OTB less likely.

Since the lesson I’ve crashed less so I’ve enjoyed my MTBing more. So it was definitely worthwhile.

I’ve had a 9403 for two years (almost to the day). I use it at least once a week. It lives in the boot and gets used for short trips & long trips with one, two or three bikes. It’s easy to fit, secure once it’s on and easy to take off.

If I had to find fault there are two, nothing serious though.
i) putting a bike on alone is a bit of an art. You kind of need three hands – one to hold the bike and two to do the strap. It doesn’t take long to get theknack though.
ii) the tilt mechanism to get in the boot when it’s loaded has never really worked for me – either the catches doen’t undo properly or it’s difficult to tilt with three big bikes on.

All in all, if I lost mine tomorrow I’d buy another one without bothering to look at alternatives.

Where are you starting from?

When we drive down (in winter to La Clusaz but similar) from Manchester we’ll drive down, cross the channel, stop near Reims and then crack on to the Alps the next day. We tend to stop further up (Lille?) on the way back.

This is family driving though with kids in the car. Road trip driving I’d happily steam through straight to the Alps sharing driving and sleeping.

One last bump than I’ll give up.

Is RRR IWH?

if hitman = hora; yes
else; no

Did anyone note my sarcasm?

Yes.

I’ve asked him to get his mate in the states to post the ti coil out to him or me

Brilliant!!! All this time trying to persuade the sea otters to cross the Atlantic with it and, out fo left-field, someone thinks about using the postal service.

Odds:
Mate goes to retrieve luggage, only to find it stolen – 2/1
Lost in post – 2/11
Coil arrives, wrong size, wrong weight, feels a bit heavy, Ti paint wears off – 3/1
Correct Curnutt Ti Coil arrives at Dan’s house – 1000/1

Anyone?

hora said… Am I missing something?

the bike?
the instructions?
the point?

Are you a human dynamometer (in addition to your other talents)?
Fit fork to bike, see how fork feels on bike.

I’m not sure I should tempt fate by saying this but….

Mine with the new ’09 gubbins have been working fine for a good while now. They’ve done much more riding than I got out of the last two sets (well same fork, different internals).

If they stay this way I’ll be happy. It’s a great fork when it’s working.

I use the ‘resistance halfway’ rule.

In 15 years MTBing I’ve used many different QR and only ever had two problems. For 6 months I used Hope QR on one of my bikes. In that time I had both the front and rear come loose. (Front on stanage Causeway – those will know it will know it’s not a good place to have a flappy front wheel). I took the Hopes off and everything’s been fine since.

Anyone want to a buy an Air Curnutt shock?

There’s a chap in Plymouth might be interested. I heard he had one nicked.

My experience is that I feel quite disinclined to stop in Penmachno village on the way through. There are three reasons for this – they may be linked:
1) there doesn’t appear to be much to stop for
2) there doesn’t appear to be anywhere to stop
3) I feel an almost tangible hostility as I drive through (in a way I haven’t elsewhere in Wales (or anywhere in Scotland for that matter))

I could be wrong about (3), in fact I hope I am. If I did stop maybe I’d feel differently.

Things I would stop for would be mainly food and drink – either coffee, snacks, fruit juices etc before or after a ride or ‘proper’ farm food, meat & veg to take away with me.

A but I’m owed one.

Last time I was there I popped a bit in the box, got about 100m up the trail and felt violently ill (if I turned the cranks one more time I was going to chuck) so I free-wheeled back to the car and drove off.

Invite them in. Explain you have sympathy with what they are trying to do but that you are really not interested as you are comfortable in your own beliefs.

Oh aye. And replying to spam with ‘unsubscribe’ in the title is a good idea too.

I’d be very interested as to where Visa and Paypal could take this now they’re creditors.

My mate ‘kind of’ knows one of the PayPal founders.
My mate has Z1 Bombers on one of his bikes.

http://www.bisselldirect.co.uk/product/1109

Seems to be upright, cheap(ish) and, with a name like PowerForceTurbo, it’s got to have plenty of suck, hasn’t it?

Very impressed.
Ran this over one rug that had been done last Friday (and every Friday before) by the cleaner with our old vac (an Electrolux cylinder one). It filled the new one, not just with dust and fluff but an alarming amount of fine grit too.

and he sounded exactly like Nosferatu the Vampire

It was silent, wasn’t it?

And the ‘Intertoto’ too.

But that’s not a ‘massive club’ thing really.

Newcastle must have won something?!

Since the (second world) war, they’ve won the FA Cup in ’51, ’52 & ’55.
They also won the Fairs Cup in ’69. This was a cup for cities that hosted trade fairs. Uefa don’t recognise it.

Let’s not also forget that huge crowds at Newcastle are a relatively new thing. The song ” where were you when you were #### ? ” has never been truer than for Newcastle. In terms of size, somewhere behind Everton, Villa, Spurs.

Interesting info on Newcastle attendance here. Measured as ‘post war average’ they are behind Everton and Spurs (and obviously Man Utd, Arsenal and liverpool) but ahead of Sunderland, Boro, the massive Man City and those johnny-come-latelys from the Kings Road

http://www.toonarama.co.uk/fans/newcastle_attendances.html

I’ve got a Blur 4X with 160mm forks and a Whyte JW-4.

Very different bikes, each very good at what I use them for.

I’ve also got a 456 with Pikes which is probably the ‘middle ground’ between them.

Just seen on the news that the rain’s even heavier in Devon than it is here. Bloody typical. Lee’s been up all night sorting things out. He’s on his way to the post office this morning but gets hit by a freak flood. Washing all the parcels into the sea.

Where they’re eaten by a whale.

That gets beamed up by an alien craft.

That gets sucked into a black hole.

Morning All.

Anyone expecting anything in the post today? Goods or returned cheques?

Did we ever get the promised pic of RRR and his shock?

And is it p***ing down where you are? I’m thinking of building an ark.

:guffaw:

I don’t know if there are any new pics from tonight but there are few things better in life than seeing leeds cry …

<sheds a little tear>

Yup but relax he’s not deliberately scamming anyone.

It’s society’s fault.

Or Thatcher.

In terms of functionality I’m going to speak to the electrician when he’s back tomorrow. If the thick wire isn’t thick enough for a 10.5kW one I’ll get him to bung a thicker one up there. I doubt it will add much to the cost in the grand scheme and I’ll appreciate it every morning when I’m in the shower.

So how about looks…
any pics of good looking electric showers? Nothing that reminds me of student housing or the portacabin shower block that serves as cyclist change facities at work.

Yep, the dedicated spur is there. Looking at it we can tell which of the wires leaving the ‘fuse’ box in the direction of the attic is the shower wire ‘cos it’s thicker. The builder reckoned that while it was thicker, it wasn’t the thickest he’d seen, hence the guess that it would be OK for 9kW but nothing more.

Cold water pressure here is absolutely no problem so as long as the shower unit can impart enough heat to the water as it passes through it should be OK.

Dan (who is defintely not IWH) said… Well I ain’t terribly happy either – I really wanted a nice Ti coil.

Then return the air shock (which may or may not be owned by an insurance company anyway), tell him to stick it and demand either a nice Ti coil or your money back.

Good luck.

Have to agree with you about the STW vs BM thing though. It’s a bit like watching the Chess Club have a fight with the Dungeons and Dragons Society.

Genuine ‘Laugh out loud’ here!
Spot on.

and tomorrow, obviously, we need a bit of Kylie on the thread too.

what this thread needs is a picture of that geek in downhill gear in his bedroom

and somebody getting owned with Z1s for helping a tripped child to their feet.