Barfly …. looks good without the stickers.

What did you use to get them off?

26″ version which has seen a lot more use now.
With a reverb & flats these days.

Great fun and more capable than I am.

Good points there.

In Scotland there is / was something designed exactly for your point on keeping teachers in the classroom. Charters Teachers. You can still do the masters but no longer get paid any extra.

I have a couple of batteries fail / come to the end of their life. Not much warning to be honest. First driving along motorway, all the electric displays went mad shortly before engine died. AA swapped battery, on with journey.

Second one. Car had been sitting for a couple of days. Sluggish with starter motor. Next day won’t start. Trip to motor factors for new one. Was a bit relieved that was all that was up. The battery wasn’t dead just not strong enough for diesel startup. Check the records it was 3 1/2 years old.

Not mtb …. cycling to the tennis club when I was a kid. Kids don’t hold the raquet in your hand. Que immediate OTB with raquet handle through front spokes. Sore head but nothing serious. Tennis raquet fine. Forks bent & knackered, wheel not looking too clever. A long walk home.

I have slept in the lower car park, on the far side and I didn’t get kicked out, although I went back later on when everything was closed up.
But I have had a knock from the local police who were doing a wee check.
He didn’t ask me to move though.

Officially I imagine you are suppose to be over where the wigwams (huts)are,on the left up the hill/track near the toilet block, there will be a charge. They have power hookups there too.

Sun going down on Dumyat above Stirling.

Fit Flops are ace. Very comfy cushioned sole. Great for kicking about in.

Loving this thread.

Great ideas, effort and skills on show.

Out of curiosity.
What finish are you putting on the ply doors?

The biggest issue seems to be huge increses in London. I was wondering what the prices would correct to. For example used to live in a rented 2 bed victorian semi in Kingston. At the time i was looking to buy. Pre boom arround 2000 ish these houses went for 150-175k when i left in 2003 it was 250k ish. Out of curiosity had a quick look on rightmove. Same style house in need of modernisation, same location 310k. There are others in the area. Fairly small 2 bed houses for 500k+ . Good location but thats a massive increase.

Cheers for the info mark90. I fancy a day/camper type van (T5 too expensive) but would like 2-3 rear seats and car legal speeds. Do the factory crew cab type vans such as a vivaro come as M1. How do you know which models to look for other than looking at the vehicles reg docs. Versions with seats on rails or folding look the best for flexibilty but i guess these are classed as regular vans.

Is there much difference between M1 passenger vehicle v’s motorhome, same van/engine as far as insurance goes for a daily driver and 12k a year?

What ever you do don’t get wan-li tyres, lethal in the wet. Hannook, Maxxis etc mid range tyres are good.

Bike flat shoes such as 5.10 etc have quite a stiff sole.
Also don’t do them up too tight, esp over the top of your foot.
Change / vary your foot position on the flats. Might help.

A friend of mine helped his sister. (His name may have been on her mortgage, i don’t remmember). No problems with payments etc. But he had a problem when he tried to move house and getting a new mortgage. His sister took a good number of years to get a well paid enough job to take over the full legal responsibilty for the mortgage by herself.

As above in the event of a split with your wife? That would leave you in a tough position.

It takes quite a long time to train and get established as a teacher. Couple of years at least.

I’ve not tried a smorg but the advantage makes for a good rear tyre. Good rolling and decent grip in dry and wettish. Also good volume esp in 2.25, and quite light. I found it does drag noticeable less than a baron & rubber queen on the back. I swap to a deeper tread / mud tyre in the winter/v wet.

Going to try a Hutchinson Toro next time, the 2.15 is small though.
Anyone tried the 2.35 does it have a bit more volume?

Thanks a lot I will have a look for the suggestions.
(I forgot to say in op that the last one was tried on and bought in a shop so the fit was ok).

Tired – the MET Crackerjack is indeed good, my younger daughter has one of them.

I like the look of those vans. A lot of fun to be had.

How much did it cost to have the side window put in?

Thanks I will have a look at TSOhosts

That was reet bonkers.

On the edge … quality tv … hat of to him & the team. (Nutter).

I was given an uncool sort of gun metal coloured 1998 vectra by my dad as he was offered £300 trade in around 2007.
He had it from new and as far as I know no major problems.
I used it for commuting for 2 years and clocked up another 45k up to 167k. The only repairs when i had it were a new battery, new handbrake cable and a couple of brake pipes. Probably tyres, don’t remember though. Scraped for £130 when the cat converter failed the mot. Still ran fine but i didn’t really need it any more.

I put in a B&Q kitchen myself in my home.
I designed the layout/units etc in CAD and took the drawings to the store. Using the dimensions from the catalogue.
The assistant put them into their design software and put together the order. 20% off doors at the time. Delivered too, I sourced hob, sink, built in oven etc separately new off the internet at good prices.
Quality of units etc was good and the final result very good. The only thing I didn’t like were the plastic feet the carcasses sit on which were duff. I did add some extra support and fixings to the units but I would probably do that with any kitchen. Got a plumber in to connect the gas hob & plumb in the sink, didn’t take him long, peace of mind and I had plenty to do.
A lot of work, looked great and saved a great deal particularly as it was quite a big room and I could sort out the electrics etc in a bare room.

I have also renovated a kitchen reusing some parts etc. But it was easier gutting the room and starting again with new carcasses and materials.

Just tried it on my usual firefox browser (version 22).
Just get a blank backdrop .. no buttons etc.
I would say that is a problem.

Works ok with explorer 9 though.

There was a fatal head on crash at the sloch a couple of years ago where a van was on the wrong side of the road.
The first car coming the other way saw it an swerved off the road. They were ok. The second in line car didn’t and hit head on. They didn’t survive. Where it was you would not expect something coming on the wrong side.

Not related but l totally agree mcmoonter many people drive too close.

Don’t know if anyone has said this already but the A9 is a fairly unique road. It was designed as a dual road which is particulary noticable round about Aviemore. The layout and sweeping bends are for a dual carriageway which most of was never built. There are hardly any straight bits most of which were added / altered later.

Now a lot of these bends you can overtake with a fastish car particularly if a single vehicle. But when big queues for it can get pretty crazy.

The speed difference is the main problem. Personally i don’t really want to drive at 45mph on all the 2 way stretches.

Coming from Inverness originally and still going up the road regularly i have driven it 100’s of times. It is much much more busy in recent years.

My A9 driver grumbles.

1) Nutter overtaking – trying to kill people.
2) Slow 40-45 mph vehicles that never pull over
3) People don’t leave gaps. and you wonder why people overtake 2 lorries and 3 cars in one go.
4) 60 mph or less on 2 way 80-85mph on dual WHY?
5) Wackey races on overtaking lanes & dual sections. hands up myself included.
6) Nutter overtaking followed by 60 ish holding others up.

Recently drove up late evening was bliss cruised up no bother. Will be doing that again.

My dad and a friend were mowed down by a taxi from behind on their commute to work. My dad was wearing a helmet. It was in bits but saved his head. With a nasty broken leg he was off work for 6 months but made a full recovery.
His mate wasn’t so lucky. No helmet, head and neck injuries in hospital for some time. Off work for 1.5 years. Still walks now with a slight stoop.

The police asked to keep the helmet to show kids on safety talks.

I don’t understand why people don’t wear helmets when road riding. Especially roadies. You won’t be so “cool” with a busted head.

Splendid here.
Just been for a ride this morning up Dumyat near Stirling.
Car reading 24oC. Nice breeze, hazy sunshine. Very dry and dusty. Sweaty but great fun.

I have both built up and bought discounted new off the shelf. You are probably going to spend almost as much building it up especially if limited to new parts. I built up a hardtail for commuting and messing about with second hand frame & wheels
, some bits i had already like tyres, handlebars, stem, seat etc and some new parts e.g. cranks. Even as a single speed it still added up to about £500. Enjoyed putting it together. Suspension forks & wheels cost quite a bit.The advantage being you can spec it / customise it to how you like.

You will find a good spec bike maybe up to half price new a year or more out of date. You can’t beat that for value & new.

Glad its not just me.

Spent half a hour trying to send an important email this morning.
Working on my phone but not on my laptop, both ie and firefox same wifi.

Of course it is now working fine a hour later FFS.

It works ok most of the time but I don’t really understand why outlook is so slow and flaky at times. I rarely had any problems with Hotmail before the switch over.

I nearly always listen to music when riding on my own. And when commuting mostly off road or off main roads. Not so loud as to drown out sounds around. Tend to listen to radio shows such as huey morgan. More like background music than being cut off from round about.

My FS mega came with 760mm bars. Thought they were quite wide to start with. Love them now. Going back to my hartail which i already put wider bars on 710 i think just didn’t feel right. Bought the same 760 bars with the intension of chopping them down a little but feels good as is. So on that bike have gone from 660mm to 760mm with a shorter stem. I know it is the current fashion but i think it improves the handling greatly. And surprisingly the wider nukeproof bars feel stiffer.

With regards to your original post .. the above mtb commuter use did include an occasional clean, regular lubing and some greasing.
Pedals and wheels stripped down a couple of times. Nothing failed but fixed if needed attention.

I used a mtb setup as single speed for 1.5 years over two winters as a commuter traveling 6 miles each way to train station, some off road, every day in all weathers plus other non work journeys up to 100 miles a week. (I guess I did spend some cash on decent waterproof clothing etc but that is still useable now so don’t really count that.)

Once the bike was set up the maintenance over that time was a new chain and a new roller wheel for the chain tensioner.
By far the cheepest travel I have ever done .. even if you include the £400 odd cost of the bike made up of an existing frame I had and some recycled parts, second hand wheels and new drive chain.

I stripped down the drive chain, wheels and pedals recently and the bike still runs great.

I had used another bike previously for a similar journey with gears but found they didn’t last so well in constant wet grimy conditions over the winter. Single speed = less to go wrong & wear out.

I swapped a Rubber Queen for a Baron 2.3 BC on the rear as I was finding the RQ getting really clogged up.
The baron works great for me, good grip all round and less clogging.
Also a decent volume tyre if that matters to you.
(Mud X also great grip but quite a small volume tyre.)

Thanks for the info.

Took my 7 year old daughter up there for an hour tonight.

She loved it.

Having had deore, xt, sram, slx which were / are all fine. I would go for SLX. Good price & nice and stiff. Great product.

I was thinking along similar lines the last time I was out.
Wet soft grass and muddy tracks. My Rubber Queens were loaded with mud when I got back to the car even when the last bit is a blast down hill.

I had noticed this before, how a RQ on the rear really clogged up quickly. I had thought it might be better with the fairly open tyre pattern. Grip seems ok though. And I am going to leave the one on the front on.

On my other bike I started off with a Nobby Nic. Didn’t really get clogged up but limited grip, Rear wheel spinning. Tried a maxxis ADvantage that i had. Not really any better.
Bought a mud-x.Very low volume but works really well.

I am going try a Barron on the rear of my FS see how that compares.

4

160/150 FS (used the most at the moment)
120 Steel Hardtail
130 HT single speed/commuter
(All 26″)

Road bike (summer use mainly)

My folks have been asking me about tablets.

How do the Samsung and Nexus tablets compare to an ipad?

Are these any good for editing photos. Can you run Photoshop for example.
Ipad looks like a great piece of kit, but as they have always used windows based pcs wondering if that is too much of a jump for them.

A likely option is a laptop and a tablet so something that works well together would be good.

Just de-cal the mega

A bit of a stupid question but how do you go about taking the de-cals of a frame?

I have a mega and would quite like to take off most of the graphics.
Great bike BTW.

countzero thanks for the info.I did some more tests still no errors. Says antenna ok. so i will try looking at / cleaning the dvd, dvd drive see if that gets me anywhere.