Ding ding ding! We have a winner (wiener..?)! 😂

Used prices are so daft at the moment that I’ve advised any of my friends who are looking to buy new if they can get hold of something that suits their needs.

Since the start of lockdown last year, I’ve bought and sold:

Gravel bike, bought from a shop online, new old stock, rode it for a couple of hundred easy miles, sold on eBay auction for more than I paid.

Utility drop bar bike for the OH, bought used on eBay, she rode twice and decided she wanted something more off-road focused, sold on eBay auction for more than double what we paid.

Rigid 29er, bought locally (1hr drive) from FB classifieds, did 3 rides, swapped a few bits (cost neutral), sold on eBay auction for 50% more than I paid.

All of the auctions were 99p start with no reserve, so they all found their current market value. Offered post on all of them at £45, first one was collected, the others were shipped with no hassle and buyers very happy. I take lots of good photos, especially of the drivetrain, list a good description and full spec list.

It’s nuts out there at the moment! To replace the above, we got a couple of On One Whippets as it was far better value and easier than trying to find something suitable used.

The worst dogs I’ve ever come across are owned by the childless who then treat their dogs like children instead of dogs

<ahem> Childfree, thank-you, and we don’t all do that..

https://r2-bike.com/SRAM-X-SYNC-2-Eagle-E-Bike-Direct-Mount-chainring-1×12-for-Bosch-Performance-Line-CX-Engines-2020-34-Teeth

Is this not a direct fit on the Bosch?

Beyond, Moving Mountains and Co-op Gro (refrigerated, not the frozen ones) all tie for top spot of the meat-substitute cook-at-home vegan option. Tesco Wicked Kitchen jalapeño ones are also good.

The Greenhouse in Fleet’s takeaway Meatless beats them all hands down though. Their Smoked Bean and Chick’n ones are also amazing. If you’re near Fleet, check them out.

Praxis do one specifically for e-bikes: https://www.upgradebikes.co.uk/Catalogue/Chainrings/4-Bolt/Praxis-eRing-Steel-Mountain-1X-104BCD

Edit: assume you need one now? BikeInn have the SRAM ones at £13 but you’d have to wait for them to come back into stock https://www.bikeinn.com/bike/sram-x-sync-eagle-direct-mount-bosch/137388190/

That’s with the Selcof carbon rigid forks.

OH at 5’5.5″ loves her small, it’s a perfect fit and doesn’t look ridiculously out of proportion either.

Small standover:
Vertically in line with tip of saddle – 680mm
Halfway between tip of saddle and stem – 780mm

Weights (£550 calibrated force gauge, so pretty damn accurate 😉):

Small, stock except for Nukeproof composite pedals, Zee cage, Schwalbe Racing Ray/Ralph 2.35 skinwall tyres, Specialized Format SL ti rail saddle – 11.34kg

Large, stock except for Nukeproof composite pedals, alloy cage, Schwalbe Racing Ray/Ralph 2.35 skinwall tyres, Fabric Scoop Radius saddle, Level TL brakes, GX 11 speed shifter/derailleur, NX 11-42T cassette – 11.11kg

Any of the ELM327 bluetooth readers from eBay for about a fiver plus either Torque Free or Car Scanner apps will do what you need. I’ve used a cheapy ELM327, and currently have a Vgate iCar 2 – both do the same job.

Username checks out…

My aching sides..! Did you come up with that all by yourself?

If a child was hitting you, or stealing your food, and you asked their parent to intervene… would you expect them to refuse and just say “he’s just after your food”, or “he doesn’t usually hit people”.. no, you’d expect them to retrieve their child. If they didn’t your options for your next step would be quite different to dealing with a dog, because, and this hopefully won’t come as a shock to you… children are not dogs, and visa-versa.

Just as there are plenty of idiotic, selfish, entitled dog owners (of whom I despise and despair), there are plenty of parents who are just as bad with their offspring.

Here’s the kicker – as humans, we have the capacity for abstract reasoning, malice, premeditation, and so forth. Dogs, and other animals, do not. They are purely and solely a product of their training, their life experiences, and the situations they have been in, through no fault of their own. Animals are innocents, they cannot be “good” or “bad” in the way that humans can. Which means, if there is a dog behaving inappropriately to the situation, it is never their fault. Your quarrel is not with them, it is with the person responsible.

You know, the way a lot of people on this thread feel about dogs, I feel about children.. Would I be justified in giving one of them a smack or feeding them something poisonous if they wouldn’t leave me alone and the parents refused to call them back? 🤔

Dog owners – you may have got used to it, but your house stinks. Really. You can try and tell yourselves otherwise, but you’re wrong. Dogs are absolutely minging animals.

Yeah, we know, and we don’t actually care.. 😉 😁

Am I understanding this right – someone on this thread has actually, seriously and honestly, admitted to deliberately killing someone’s dog?

I used to use on of the little pocket DSO203 scopes as an emergency backup for work and it was pretty good for £120 – think it’s now been superceded by the DSO213 for about £20-30 more. Should be more than accurate enough for what you’re looking for.

If you want full-size then search eBay for the Tektronix TDS digital range; if you can get one of the EDU versions even better as they’re the educational ones, so have simplified controls and inbuilt guides on how to use them, whereas the little pocket ones aren’t very intuitive tbh.

I quote, from a landlord law blog/site (my bold):

“Damp and mould growth is a hazard relevant to the HHSRS enforcement regime under Housing ACT 2004. Damp and associated mould arising from condensation is particularly hazardous because of the association with asthma and other respiratory diseases.

Provision of clothes drying facilities is mentioned in the Govt guidance document associated with enforcement under HA2004 as something the landlord should do to reduce risk arising from this hazard.

Opening windows to ventilate during the cold season is not a good idea (except perhaps for a short time in a bathroom which has been steamed up) as it results in excessive heat loss; important with the ever upward cost of fuel and the constant urge for us be as economical as possible to avoid the most serious hazard of all (excess cold).

Condensation cause is complex of which occupier lifestyle is only 1 aspect. A residence could be at risk because of inadequate/uneconomic heating system, inadequate ventilation system (reliance on opening windows is not good) or inadequate thermal insulation. These are all the landlord’s responsibility.

If the tenant is living normally (this would include drying own clothes indoors as opposed to taking in washing from others or say using paraffin heaters) then the landlord could be held to be responsible and subject to legal action from a Local Authority especially if there is no provision for drying clothes in Winter.”

I mean, I can go through the actual legislation if you like? I suspect the outcome will still be Suck It Up, Buttercup.

A young couple took a flat, I did the inspection at 3 months, January, I entered the flat my glasses steamed up, I asked wtf you doing. Drying clothes with Windows shut….

Forgive me for asking, but how should they have been drying clothes in January..? And was there something in the tenancy agreement specifically prohibiting drying clothes indoors in the middle of winter without opening a window? Surely if you’re that specific, the onus would be on you to provide a dehumidifier, no..? 🤔

1629 miles & 4 years on my original SRAM GXP BSA in my Aeris. I do generally only ride it in the dry though.

Go WFPB (whole foods, plant-based) – cholesterol is only found in animal products, so that will help lower your levels.

My riding buddy is 6′ 4″ and bought an on one 29er just before lockdown. He doesn’t like it at all

Funny that – I’m 6′ and my OH is 5’5.5″ and we’ve both just got Whippet 29ers and both love them..! Be a funny world if we were all the same..

I think you’ll struggle tbh, XC-biased bikes are all 29er now really. What’s up with the Scale that you’re looking to replace it if it’s already the bike you want..?

Torque/OBD2 won’t necessarily pick up CL or CANBUS issues – a proper VCDS scan will though. My A3 has a broken CANBUS wire somewhere (as mentioned, I’m suspecting the body-to-door loom, which is a common but easy fix) but everything still works. Get it scanned if you can, it could save you chasing your tail swapping parts out.

Edit: you can get clone VCDS cables/software for about £55 which, if you own VAG group cars, is well worth it – if you have no moral objections to hooky software, that is.

T7-OWN is a little Gulfstream, but I did wonder whether it was some sort of training exercise. FAB definitely starting to ramp up the traffic though, or so it seems.

That’s so weird – T7-OWN did 5x touch&go loops around Farnborough earlier today, landed, then did another 4 before heading to Luton. Wonder what that was all about!?

The stack heights aren’t that low, and you can always get higher rise bars if required. That said, the head tube lengths look fairly standard, and there’s usually about 30mm of spacers on a new bike anyway as steerers don’t tend to get cut too much so as to leave you with room for adjustment.

Everything else looks fairly typical – boost rear end, threaded BB, 31.6mm seatpost – so you should have no trouble swapping stuff over if you find that you need to.

Looks like there’s some Jagwire SRAM-compatible ones on eBay.

Is this going to threaten the availability of fish finger butties?

These are working fine for me..

😁

Kona Hei Hei sounds like it could be a good bet if you can find one.

If you’re on 9sp Shimano, you could just get an XT long cage rear mech as the pull ratios are the same, a cheap narrow/wide ring and a Sunrace 11-40T cassette. Keeps the existing shifters/levers, and would cost less than £100 all-in.

I am also an engineer (well, technician) but I’ve managed to follow this: Thug Kitchen Sweet Potato, Butternut Squash and Black Bean Enchiladas[/url]

They’re honestly amazing.

I think the fork might actually be backwards there – look at the orientation of the brake disc, the studs for rim brakes, and the mudguard eyelet location. Not seen a fork with a forward facing disc mount though!

Have only twice in the last decade used anyone to do work for me: a fork/shock service when I didn’t have the means or time to do it myself (which I now do), and reaming out a seat tube because I didn’t want to buy a reamer for a one-off job (and get didn’t do the job properly anyway). As an ex-maintenance technician for industrial equipment, I’d rather do all my own work.

An example of the current problem with bike shops – I wanted a couple of Specialized Zee cages, standard models, so I phoned the most local to me shop just in case they had any in stock. “No, but we can order them in for you, they’ll be in late next week.” Explain why that’s better than me just ordering them myself and having them delivered to my house for the same price, and not having to make a 10 mile round trip to pick them up?

Roads and bridleways mooch around Runfold & Tilford late afternoon – apart from about half a dozen guys on the road, I saw a family of 6 on a byway and that was it.

As an aside, why is it always that in that situation the dad is on a really nice full-suss (e-bike in this case) whilst the other half is struggling at the back on an early 00’s hybrid or similar? If you want your non-biking partner to enjoy the ride, damn well let them ride the nice bike!

Bird Aether 9c anyone tried one?

New Bike day and first ride: Bird Aether 9c

20k shakedown of the new plastic toy..

…a dropper so she can have the saddle in the correct position when pedaling but drop down to put her feet down when needed. This is the main function of my wife’s dropper as she doesn’t ride gnarr but likes to plant her feet when she stops without having to jump off the saddle

This is a very underrated use of a dropper post, but very applicable in this situation – my OH uses hers similarly.

They claim each bike is built for a specific customer.

Not a claim, they are – I requested a specific routing of cables/hoses and they were more than happy to do that. Try and catch them on the website’s Live Chat; I’ve contacted them twice using that and Richard was brilliantly helpful 👍

I bought the Whippet and immediately swapped the SX Eagle kit out for 11sp SRAM GX – it’s better quality, more reliable, I don’t need the 50T on an XC bike, and because 12sp is out of stock everywhere the cost-to-change is minimal after I’ve sold the 12sp setup. Win-win.

In all seriousness, I think there’s someone on this thread who has properly diagnosable anger management issues that need to be worked through. It’s genuinely worrying.

Eating properly is a big thing, I’ve found. Been eating lots of carby crap lately as it’s easy and comforting, but it makes me feel rubbish, so I eat more out of comfort, and so it continues. It’s all too easy to do though!

Forcing myself back onto the WFPB (whole foods, plant-based) path as of today as I know I always feel better when I do.

Yes, to a degree (and I’m discounting derailleur hangers here).

One of the big selling points when I bought my Aeris was that everything was fairly standard lengths, sizes and fittings as far as BB, frame bearings, shock length, etc.

The OH has a Turbo Levo FSR with the proprietary shock mount, but I knew of BikeYoke before we bought it so wasn’t worried about that. Also knew that there was potentially parts available for the motor as its essentially a standard Brose as well.