martinhutch – sound advice, I will heed that!

smogmonster – I like the sound of Angry Man!

dangeourbrain – ok nice tweak, as long as it doesn’t upset the Angry Man

footflaps – I agree with you re the last road section. If I remember correctly, this is a big ride and some tarmac was welcome at the end

Ah hey up Ben! Such a good route, one of my favourite ever. Doing it this Saturday.

Ok will check these options out cheers

15.91+VAT to be exact.

No, is there a something I should know?

Bingo! Using the £15 relay I’ve now got a green led when the garage door is closed and a red led when the door is open (ajar or gaping). Both LEDs are housed in a light switch in my living room.

Connecting all the tiny wires was fiddly. I bought some cool little Wago connector blocks but my wires were too thin for them sadly. Used normal connector blocks instead and a £5 adaptable box to house the relay and led driver on the garage wall.

Ok, spoke to an electrician today who said if I add a relay into the circuit I can have a green led for closed and a red led for open. Picking up a relay tomorrow and I’ve got a mini mock up circuit prepared

These are the parts I bought. I’ve forgotten how to post pics of the setup on here :(

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/reed-switches/2897806/?sra=pstk

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/sensor-switch-magnets/2897812/?sra=pstk

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/visible-leds/2285607/?sra=pstk

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/led-bezels/2622999/?sra=pstk

10m of 2 core flux

https://www.cef.co.uk/catalogue/products/3981360-12w-12v-dc-constant-voltage-led-driver?q=1578-9919

Ok, managed to get it working :)

I’ve set it up like this…

3 pin plug into a socket in the garage leads into a 12V LED driver (£14) with 1.5mm 2 core and earth cable.

+ve output from the LED Driver goes into a Normally Open/Normally Closed Reed Switch (£9) which is mounted at the side of the garage door. From the reed switch is a cable running through a hole I drilled in my garage wall with an SDS drill and a long 10mm bit, across the hall and into the back of the lounge light switch to the LED which has a built in resistor (£5.50 for 5). I drilled a hole in the light switch face plate and mounted the red LED into a holder (£6 for 5) in the hole I made in the switch plate then connected the LED back to the -ve terminal on the LED Driver.

Now as soon as my garage opens, the LED lights up red, the moment the door fully shuts, the LED goes off. Really pleased with it.

I’m thinking of improving it.

1. I’ll remove the 3 pin plug and connect it to my garage light for power instead.

2. The LED not lit up could mean either of two things, it could mean the garage door is closed or it could mean something in the circuit has failed and the door could be wide open! The reed switch I bought was a NO/NC one which means it has 3 wires on it. I’m thinking of wiring up a green LED to the unused wire and mounting it in the same living room light switch so that when the door is closed the green LED will be on and when it’s open the red LED will be on. No LEDs on means circuit not working.

3. Also the LED holders I bought are little crappy black things you see in aftermarket LEDs fitted to car dashboard. I’ve seen some nice chrome ones which will match the light switch better.

Yeah the electric door came with the house and while it’s nice and convenient it’s easier than a manual door to leave open accidentally. I sat on the remote when it was in my pocket once and the door opened until I next went outside :-/

Quite like the idea of a magnetic reed switch as supposed to a switch which requires physical contact so that when wind hits the garage door it is less likely to false alarm.

I’m a bit surprised there’s no plug and play wireless option available to buy or maybe there is and I’m searching for the wrong thing.

I’m one of the seemingly few Superb owners on here.

It’s massive, really massive. The space in the rear footwell makes the 5 series space there feel like the back of a Nissan Micra.

As for the rest, it’s a lovely refined big car. Good to drive, good to carry, good value.

Suburbanreuben said they were worried about having the eyesore on the drive and being shouted ‘taxi’ at, I feel sorry for you. That sounds like a shit life you have if you need to worry about that!

Flowerpower I think you’ve got it. Nice one, thanks!

Thanks xcmtb but it doesn’t match the pics online of that. The leaves on mine have a tiny spike at the end whereas those gaultheria leaves are a bit more rounded at the tip. Also the leaves don’t smell of anything other than leaves.

Any other ideas?

You could try Love Home Swap[/url]

Someone I know had a very successful 1 way swap (they went to a house in Sweden, the Swedish owners didn’t come to the UK for some reason).

Went for the first time a few weeks ago. My 8 year old absolutely loved it so for that it was a success.

As above the food is absolutely dire so take your own, the whole place is very tired and needs a massive refurb. Bins were overflowing at 11 am so there’s some sloppy maintenance going on.

My favourite bit was paying the £5 car park charge to get diverted into an overflow then stepping from the car into a muddy field. Customer experience at it’s finest.

I once ended the life of a very battered mouse who’d been mauled by my cat by taking it out onto the drive during a thundery, wet night. When the brick came down on it it popped and splattered its entrails over my work shoes.

Not pleasant at all.

If anyone had seen me I’m pretty sure they’d have called the police. It was like something out of a horror film.

Putting rights and wrongs aside for a moment, how much is the indemnity insurance?

In my experience it’s not expensive (the last one I bought was £12 and i think I paid another at around £120) so in the grand scheme of things it might not even be worth getting stressed over :)

50 hrs (37.5 working, the rest commuting).

Commute each way is either

15 min walk/30 min train/15 min walk – exercise and relaxing seated train journey on clean, punctual (but expensive) electric trains.

or

60 min cycle – great for exercise and problem solving time.

If I could find a job that paid almost as well locally I’d take it but that’s unlikely.

Another vote for the Victorian Spa town of Ilkley. Pootle round the shops, coffee at Bettys (prepare to queue), you might catch a brass band at the bandstand opposite, walk up to White Wells or the Cow and Calf rocks, go down to the river to feed the ducks, go on the playground, walk along the riverbank paths. Loads of food options. Take your mtb or road bike and it’s even better.

Had the same happen to me in a job that suddenly got extremely stressful 3 years ago, was really awful. I needed to get myself a new job but because I wasn’t sleeping I was finding it too difficult to focus on all the effort associated with job hunting. I therefore went to the doc and told him pretty much what you put in your 1st post and asked for some sleeping tablets so I could at least get a decent night’s sleep to hit the job hunting hard and focussed.

They worked a treat and having a full night’s sleep allowed me to rationally deal with the on going stress and job hunt. Didn’t take me long to get another job and get out, hope it’s the same for you. Good luck.

Can’t comment on any of the competition but that Bose is the best bit of tech I have bought for years.

£5k for a complete decent quality overhaul of a main bathroom.

5k to create a downstairs shower room and utility room from an existing bigger utility room plus creating an understairs cupboard and opening up a new door to the utility.

Not exactly an en suite but I’d say 3k+ is a good guide if you are getting someone to do it

When you ask why the threads with the most recent posts don’t appear at the top of the page…

A £2.50 coffee filter holder from clas ohlson

http://m.clasohlson.com/uk/Coffee-Filter-Holder/34-6392?LGWCODE=346392000;83827;4797&gclid=CjwKEAiA9qCnBRCb7ZDhvaHSyicSJABGFFHtMFf2KgMw7Bh1gg2UNXyag1aKNz9rIMiaCcgGw-BUVxoCnvvw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

And 200 filters for £1.99

http://m.clasohlson.com/uk/1×4-Coffee-Filters/34-4295?LGWCODE=344295000;83827;4797&gclid=CjwKEAiA9qCnBRCb7ZDhvaHSyicSJABGFFHtkbuYiz0q3igLpx5yNmQWapBEinmP0jRIUbBhk7gAKRoCkiPw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Cheap, simple and I think it makes better coffee than my aeropress… *runs for cover

Mazda 3. Every 6 windscreen washes it automatically sprayed the headlights twice. The headlight spray also blew up onto the windscreen and the second headlight spray was after the last windscreen wiper pass which meant the now clear windscreen got sprayed with water! Stupid.

Bought a Bose Soundlink Mini last year and I’ve not beaten it for a purchase since. Quality, portable, rich Bose sound. Love it!

Puerto Pollensa is not chavvy at all. Trust me, I would not be going back on Saturday having had the best family holiday ever last year if it was.

Sweeping white beach, lapping Mediterranean shores, stay in the southern part of the resort if you want the beach.

Oh, and the road biking is excellent there too…

PSA update: My unit is going back for a full refund in 1 hour!

I’ve taken it on 3 rides and on each ride it has crashed when I searched for a city destination, losing all my current ride stats and requiring a “Master Reset” to get it alive again.

Garmin support said I have a faulty unit that needs sending to them for a replacement. My friend also bough this same model from a different Halfords after I’d told him the price and his hangs in the same way.

I also managed to miss a turn while following a 120 mile tcx course yesterday and and hour later I realised this but the until had decided to recalculate a new way back to the start and not try and take me back to the course I was supposed to be following, resulting in us being miles off route.

Massively unimpressed with it.

houndlegs yes this is the “special edition” with the out front mount and black silicon case which when on completely hides the white body (which I don’t particularly like but it wasn’t a dealbreaker). It also comes with the standard mounts for bars/stem.

Tested a gpx created from plotaroute.com yesterday and it also worked fine. Paste a link to a tcx file if you like and I’ll give it a go as I have the unit with me today.

Yep, as theflatboy says.

It’s like the Garmin 800 without the training and Ant+ features and the associated price tag. If you need those features this isn’t for you.

It’s basically bike sat nav and can track your rides with the base Strava stats (speed/elev/calories/time/distance). Can load GPX files to it and follow them. It has full Europe maps and as the flatboy said it can upload to Strava with one click via USB.

CHB I live 2 mins walk from the route :-D

Other than Yorkshire and Rawtenstall there’s a few places I’ve never heard of there. Will check them out. Any more ideas?

Skiboy that sounds like a place I should consider then :)

I’m not a fan of Turkey (can’t stand the constant hassle) but will take a look at those suggestions just in case. Thanks.

Any more?

:lol:

I’ve bought from them before and they are fine.

Personally I would strongly recommend a stone tray over an acrylic one. They just feel solid and not flexy. You can get really shallow ones.

We also decided on a large shower enclosure with a sliding door instead of a walk in where the actual shower space is small like in that pic. Very pleased we did as having plenty of space in the shower is great.

It’s a good question. I’ve been particularly careful ever since my dad was almost killed in a nasty trampling incident 2 yrs ago. He did have a dog with him though but I still don’t trust cows one bit and usually take detours to avoid them (including wading through a river once).

http://www.harrogate-news.co.uk/2013/09/10/new-action-packed-mountain-bike-trail-opens-harrogate/%5B/url%5D

Good call, Googled and found that. Only 1.2km but they have to start somewhere

EDIT: Try this too http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/swinsty-woods-new-trails-info

2nd vote for Little Tokyo. Meets your criteria exactly.

Right, thanks for all the replies. I am proud to announce that after a total of 6 hours (tonight’s two being relatively unsweary) I have successfully managed to fit both front and rear guards and can now get back on with riding my bike :lol:

DezB I used that zip tie trick of yours too as my rear brake caliper bolt is well siezed.

Right I’m getting there now – removed the bolt from the back of the crown and you’re right, it is an allen bolt and not designed to accept a threaded bolt into it! With this removed, how do I get the brake off? It could well be seized on so I’ve applied some WD40. Have tried knocking it through gently but no success. Should it just slide out?