beans on cheese on marmite on toast.

surfer said… Tonight I shall mostly be watching Liverpool beating Arsenal!

And for 11 minutes or so last night, liverpool were beating Arsenal. But not at the end.

Oh dear.

They’re not a bad tyre but there are better out there.

On plus side I found them great, confidence-inspiring in the Dark Peak and Morzine.

On the minus side I found them hatefully draggy on tarmac (I often ride from home and can do 5 miles before I’m off-road). They were also utterly useless as a front tyre in some types of mud (like ball bearings on ice). Finally I had two explode on me – literally ‘just riding along’ on a road section both times, sidewall in tatters.

Wonder if I’ve got some spare Goodridge fittings? I may have (having used Goodridge on t’other bike)

(also wonders quite why I need to shorten the hose in the first place – the new bike has the same bars, same stem, same headset, longer headtube & longer fork (Marz 55 vs Pike) but there’s loads of hose flapping around)

Pretty sure mine all came with organics but I’ve had them for ages so…
1) they may have changed what they put in them
2) I may have mis-remembered

Also, my Juicy 3 was an OEM one – bargain from Merlin as it had a very short hose (stripped off a bike – presumably the customer wanted a different brake) so they may have put a different pad in OEM c.f. ‘normal’ sales.

The only criticism I have of mine is that I can’t shorten the front one now I’ve transferred them to another bike.

It might be worth checking the pads themselves too. The organic pads that came in my Juicys all wore out pretty quicky.

For info (and others may have other recommendations) I tend to use Avid Sintered, Goodridge Sintered or Superstars Sintered in all my Avid brakes (two and a half sets). They all seem to work well and last well. I save the organics for the Alps.

If you have to pump the lever to get it to work, it sounds like air in the system so it should be bled.

I doubt the air was from pushing your pads back a bit.

I wouldn’t call it ‘easy’ to do. But it is quite a methodical routine. If you follow the instructions, it will work and give good results. Things to watch out for are:
~ contaminating pads with brake fluid – when you attach/detach the syringes small amounts of fluid can leak out. Just make sure you’ve got a rag to stop it dripping onto pads
~ being too heavy-handed with the syringes – you don’t need to really force them. If you do you might squirt fluid past the connectors (or draw air in)

That looks like the cheapest bleed kit on-line.

you might as well do both ends while you’ve got the kit out.

I’m + for religion.
It gives comfort to the simple-minded and that’s no bad thing.

Betty Blue: where the film is episodic, the book is one remorseless slide – you know exactly where it’s going to end and every page takes you nearer.

Catch 22: the last (or last but one) chapter when he’s wandering around Rome …

Cancer Ward (Solzhenitsyn): well it was never going to be a barrel of laughs, I suppose.

There’s a pattern emerging here but my SSC Sintered are fine too – work well and last well.

One on the drive side.
Unless you’re using a e-type mech or chain device (you’ll know if you are) in which case none.

I am going to an NHS dentist next week though, Steve.
You keep paying your tax, I’ll keep spending it.

I think you’ll find that in these circumstances the better managers are lower down the league.

Then they need to find better agents.

I seriously doubt there are significant numbers of managers with top-flight potential who struggle by day-by-day out of some sort of misty-eyer romanticism.

Well as it turns out I’m not entitled to it. This is (as I suspected) because the insulation improvements are being made as part of a bigger piece of work, loft conversion.

I’ll cope.

Bugger – they’ve changed the date of the (Manchester) derby and I’ve got a ticket.

Are entries transferable if one of my mates wants it?

I don’t think you can understand SAF without the context of Liverpool’s previous success.

It could be argued that without Shankly, Paisley etc there would have been no need for SAF to “come down here to knock those f***ing scousers off their perch“

Why do you think he’s not retired yet? In my view, he won’t go willingly until we’ve matched them in Europe and are one ahead domestically. What’s interesting will be if we stop winning with him at the helm. I don’t think he’ll go himself, how will he be pushed?

Higs (MUFC)

Days Of Thunder.

(I’ll stop now)

Angel Eyes

Legally Blonde

Jedi said… seen loads of bands live. worst is eric clapton

Saw him at the North Sea Jazz Festival. He’s obviously talented but seemed to be going through the motions that night. I don’t know who was more bored – him or the audience.

Joe Cocker at Glastonbury. When I saw the line-up I thought “Oh dear, some boring American hippy headlining the last night”

He was excellent.

(and not American)

Looks like ‘Rid Of Me’ wins it by a whisker – I’ll give that one a whirl.

I’ve heard (but have no evidence) of a group of riders being ‘done’ in the Dark Peak, where there is a byelaw. Something about encountering rangers on a footpath and either telling them where they were parked or it being pretty obvious and then getting nabbed in the car park. Dunno in what way they were ‘done’ though.

All very vague obviously.

Hmmm… foam’s not a bad idea.

I’ve previously used a rolled up bit of paper to get the battery cover to fit more snugly and that works off-road. I’ve had the same problem with both my Etrex (an old one and a new shaped colour one) and they both work fine off-road but not on my road bike – I guess that shows my forks are working at least!

Are they cheap?
(is there a 105?)

I wonder if your enjoyment would have been marred if there was a nuclear power station in view all the way back down?

Depends on the new designs – I guess some of them will be quite attractive.

I did the Lakeland Loop sportive on Sunday and got a lovely view of Sellafield/Windscale/Calder Hall from Cold Fell. It was like a potted history of pioneering nuclear generation and recycling.

Primark

Blacke Combe is on my ‘to do’ list – I’ve walked up it a few times in my youth (having relatives who live in Silecroft) but never got round to riding it.

Problem is it’s a longish way for me to come to do a ride that’s basically ‘up big hill, down big hill, go home again’.

(Also my ‘to do’ list is getting longer, not shorter! Every new ride I do seems to give me ideas for two more)

I’ve seen a couple of good(y) jokes but both would result in a banning I’m sure.

I use the RSS feeds etc but I want email notification.
It would work better for me that way.
I would spend more time here and look at more adverts making more money for the site.

(although ultimately this will result in me spending more and more money on shiny bike bits and doing less and less work until the work doesn’t sustain the bike bits)

Never tried the Nikon (always had Canon film SLRs and compacts). The canon works fine for me.

Focus your money on the lens(es) whatever body you get.

click
delete
click
delete
click
delete
click (and miss)
delete (whole track by mistake)

re-import track
click
delete

(repeat a number of times)

Don’t like the look of that Hip FAI business. Some of the symptoms seem familiar, pain in front/side of hip and lack of flexibility – it occurred to me the other day that I sometimes struggle to get my sock on my foot on that side.

Obviously website diagnosis is a dangerous thing. Hopefully a slimmed down wallt kept in a different pocket will see me sorted.

A Hope Pro3 hub last weekend… (not the only one I know of either)

Well I’ve had it in a front pocket all morning and the pain’s getting worse.

Maybe it’s my body re-adjusting itself, maybe it’s completely unrelated – isn’t science wonderful?

I’m in.

… she doesn’t really want her job back now … after the HR dept sent scoring results and email threads to the open system they all use – which would mean my wife working with people she has discussed on email

I can completely understand why she wouldn’t. That’s awful. If she ends up deciding not to go back after maternity would it be ‘constructive dismissal’?

I think Mrs Higs came with me to the start, walked through the tunnel under the Thames and saw me again at Cutty Sark then got tube to near the finish, saw me again with about half a mile to go and then made her way to the place I’d arranged a post-run massage.

I’d ask her what tube stations she used but she won’t remember!

I think most people with pikes on their souls are running them wound down to 120 or 130 mm.

Makes no difference to the warranty side of things (and quite possibly the ‘snap-crash-dentistry’ side of things either)…

I remember Cy (on here I think) saying the issue with Pikes was not just the length but their stiffness which (even when wound down) passes more stress forces onto the head tube.