Without wanting to be too controversial, for that particular job, personally I’d use a none-labelled box, but that’s only as I have some clear ones that allow me to easily see the contents. They’re like a sort of industrial version of Tupperware. I think they’re designed to fit in the racking of a van, but I just have them on a shelf in the garage. They were here when we moved in.

Being so, so unfit at the moment I’m really dreading the climb up Chesterfield road to Meadowhead, if I go that route :-/

It’s not as bad as it looks, that climb. Especially as you get a rest through Woodseats.

It’ll kill you at first, you’ll be demoralised and you’ll hate it. But like all climbs it will get smaller every time you do it, as will your waistline, and before you know it you’ll be blasting up there. You’ll still feel like you’re dying, but you’ll be going a lot faster. And one day surprisingly soon you’ll notice that at some point you got fit again.

Seems about right.

As do you mine. Enjoy your weekend.

OP – You might like this recent thread:

That which has been seen cannot be undone – retro Unimog camper on ebay

Nobody is winning here. There’s nothing to win.

If you’re not happy with the status quo then do something about it. In the meantime don’t look for scapegoats. That won’t change anything.

I’ve thought long and hard about the things I’m saying, Ernie. Enough to become active about it. You don’t know me, nor what I do or do not do, but I can assure you politics for me doesn’t begin and end with voting, nor does it begin and end with online discussion. Both are, however, included. As is moaning. Because sometimes when you’ve had your head buried in this shit for months on end, it helps to vent.

What else is going on?

Well the NHS is being dismantled and privatised, and they’re not reporting on that. The justice system is going the same way, and they’re not reporting on that. As is the education system. All we get to hear from the mainstream media is propaganda that fools us into thinking it’s actually a good thing that a small handful of inherited wealth millionaires are handing control of the country to unaccountable off shore companies owned by their friends.

There’s all manner of things the public need to know that they’re refusing to report on. I’ve seen it first hand. I was on a day long, 70,000 strong march that went entirely unreported. It’s quite amazing.

And terrifying.

Hardly surprising when the main media outlets are the mouthpieces of Viscount Rothemere (Mail) Rupert Murdoch (news international) and the Tories (Chris Patten, ex Tory chair is chair of the BBC trust). And look who’s in charge of the NHS these days.

We’re now governed by a party funded mainly by big business and by personal donations made by millionaires, and run by people up to their eyeballs in private commercial interests in the companies taking on the very state contracts they’re offloading to the private sector. They’re gifting themselves state assets we built, bought and paid for. This isn’t a recession; it’s theft.

And they’re getting away with it with that little bit of help from their friends in media because the only viable political alternative in this broken skewed political system is just as corrupt, just as evil and just as viciously self serving as they are.

On my last car I couldn’t work out how to get access to change the headlight bulb, so after about half an hour I admitted defeat and took it to the local garage. He showed me how you do it – it was surprisingly straightforward, it’s just about having the knack – you simply remove all the components that are in the way, starting at the back bumper.

So if the polo is anything like mine, just look methodically at what’s in the way, and start dismantling. You’ll likely only need a 12mm socket. Might also be worth having handy a Phillips head screwdriver, an engine hoist, a week off work in a fully equipped workshop and a phd in automotive engineering.

This is likely to turn into a debate on the merits of branding. The outcome usually boils down to:

“Companies spend billions branding and marketing their products, so they must think it a worthwhile investment.”

vs

“Yes but I personally am in no way influenced by any branding nor marketing, nor have I ever been nor will I ever be, so it’s clearly a waste of time.”

Another vote for the Stags. It’s just down the road, you can’t miss it. On the right as you get to 1784. Leave your phones outside.

Do you want some realistic advice?

If you don’t want to spanner, and you don’t have a suitably sized and equipped garage, just don’t bother.

The novelty of occasionally driving a ‘fun’ car will wear off very quickly. You just don’t get enough use out of them to be worth owning. Every time you go down that lock up, you’ll find it won’t start for some reason, or it’s dropped oil on the floor, or something else has happened that needs oily handed attention before it’ll even move.

Sponteneity is what’s cool about a fun car. Decide it’s a nice day, go for a drive. Done. But it’s never like that. Old unreliable motors sat in a lock up you have to drive to, and that don’t move when you get there unless you spend an hour on your back covered in crap kind of kill that sponteneity. You don’t cruise around the countryside enjoying the open road. You sit in traffic hoping it doesn’t overheat or you spend your time driving leaning forward in your seat trying to hear what that new grinding noise is. You’ll carry a can of oil and a battery charger in the boot.

Classic car ownership is nothing like you think it will be. You’ll regret it. And having done a fraction of the miles you envisaged, and having not kept on top of the endless upkeep they demand, you’ll sell it as a none-runner, at a loss, in a few years to someone who has to fetch it on a trailer. And when you do you’ll be glad to see the back of the bloody thing.

Buy a posh bike instead.

People prepared to point out the logic that flies in the face of popular ignorance always face resistance.

Get something with a round profile. For example the Maxxis Advantage is a bit square – the grip levels change as they get onto their edges and can feel a bit unpredictable. They bite well but there’s not much middle ground between the straight line and the cornering grip. It’s like flicking a switch.

Also, consider tubeless. Newbies pinch flat a lot.

you haven’t accidentally measured it with a pinkbike or penis ruler have you?

LOL

The Ss and Os don’t look the same as one another, so it could be hand drawn type.

Music has become a disposable consumer commodity, so it’s hard to see how a counter-culture could grow up around it. For a counter culture to develop around music people must feel an ownership over it, but music today is free and abundant. How can anyone feel any sense of ownership over a particular few slots out of 100,000 on an iPod library?

Compounding this is the fact that we now live in such an interconnected world that the second any counter-culture gains even the slightest bit of traction it’s recognised, categorised, packaged and sold back to the kids that created it for the profit of their elders.

It’s unlikely the next serious counter-culture movement will be driven by music. And it’s likely that when it comes it’ll terrify the establishment far more than punk ever did.

If it’s just the slanted A you need, can you draw that character? Or edit an existing A from a similar face.

Edit: beaten to it.

If my girlfriend told me i should get a tattoo to make me look manly, i’d tell her to get a boobjob to make her look sexy.

EquaLOLty!

I ride 44-18 in Sheffield (700C).

Bit spinny on the flat and occasionally brutal on the hills, but it’s versatile enough that I can get everywhere if I choose my route. Not always possible to go direct. For instance on the odd occasion I have to ride from Hillsborough to Crookes – there’s no way I can manage straight up the hill, so I generally go via Netherthorpe, Weston Park and Broomhill.

I did however stomp up Blake Street last summer, just to prove a point. I’m just not exactly sure what that point was, and to whom I was supposedly making it. I think I was expecting ranks of beautiful women lining the road, swooning at my masculinity or something. Instead I just ended up falling into the Blake for a pint, which I drank alone and in silence, to no perceptible fanfare.

Whilst we’re on the topic of sturmey archer hubs, does anyone do any service/maintenance of theirs?

You should. They’re making no more until after the war…

[/url]
No More Sturmey-Archers Till After The War.[/url] by Paris-Roubaix[/url], on Flickr

On your marks.

Get set.

Race to the bottom.

That’s actually very interesting.

Sorry to be one of the ones saying it, but offers of freelance aside, what’s actually happening here is they’re trying to make your post redundant, without paying redundancy. They are trying to sidestep their responsibilities as an employer.

At a guess they either don’t like you, or they’re struggling to stay afloat. Either way you’re in trouble. Tread carefully, and good luck.

My missus is open to the idea of going halves on a tandem. She’s a keeper.

They say you can judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable.

I think this concept is fairly extended to restaurants and their toilets.

Be patient, takes a long time to iron out bugs.

You can use another kind of chain tug, but I’m not sure what issue you’re having with the standard part (do they call it “mech tug”?)

Is it due to braking effects rather than pedalling effects?

My SS Rat with the standard setup is fine with a Shimano QR, albeit I tend to do it up pretty tightly. It certainly prevents the axle being pulled forward on the drive side.

Look abroad – especially Germany.

That was my exact thought when I was reading the OP.

The description sounded like every German touring bike I’ve ever seen.

I’d go as I was, and just explain the situation. Probably with an email warning them beforehand. It’s the sort of honest, human approach that’s appreciated by the sort of people I want to work for. YMMV.

I’m in Sheffield. I commute on a SS bike. 44/18, 700c. Quite spinny on the flat, but I can get from and to anywhere in the city with that combo. Occasionally the direct route might be out of the question, but there’s always a slightly longer, less steep way round if there’s a bit you struggle on.

I had an idea for one but never got round to building it:

I used to ride in Greno / Wharncliffe when I lived in Sheffield and never encountered grumpy sods like this lot.

Try doing it while carrying a spade and rake across your handlebars. I did a fair bit of building in Wharncliffe in the late nineties/earlier noughties and lost count of the abuse I used to get from locals accusing me of being an outsider coming in and destroying their beautiful natural habitat.

Despite me repeatedly pointing out that I myself was a born and bred local with an intense love of every square inch of that area, that the trees are a plantation regularly harvested for profit, that there’s been nothing natural about that hillside since it was lowland health and that the entire area is riddled with 12 foot wide gravel roads, drainage ditches and electricity pylons, that if you open your eyes you see it’s littered with the remains of a once thriving ganister mining industry, including a cable car and train track bed, not to mention the neighbouring landfill site, two sewerage treatment plants, a paper mill, the constant hum of traffic from one of the main road routes out of the north of Sheffield and the fact that the place is sliced across its entire length by an active railway that was until relatively recently the main commuter and freight route between Sheffield and Manchester, and that even if I were to somehow boost my trail-building productivity a hundredfold they still wouldn’t actually be negatively affected by my actions nor, more likely, would they ever even see any of it, and that the only alternative on offer in the area for local kids like me was petty crime, drinking beer and taking drugs in the local park, I never seemed to have much of an impact on their bizarre view of the idyllic natural oasis provided specifically and exclusively for the mental wellbeing of local dog owners by God Himself at the dawn of time.

The Shield,

The Shield.

The Shield.

I run bullhorns on my commuter, flat bars with bar ends on the touring bike and drops on the road bike. Can second the points made above – if you’re trying to go more upright than drops, bullhorns are the opposite of what you want. They’re like riding on hoods but with a really long stem fitted – they stretch you out more. Flat bars with bar ends sound like the solution for you.

No, but they have just passed that gagging law

And they’re already working towards getting water cannons on the streets.

And they’ve already tried to give police increased powers of dispersal.

And they’re already dismantling the public’s right to quality legal representation.

That video is overdramatic and silly, but the state is certainly is gearing up for a fight with its public.

If you have a car, nip up to Wentworth on Sunday, it’s nearby and it’s lovely. On Saturday evening, if you like good pubs, I’d recommend doing a few of the good ale pubs in sheffield. It’s a ten minute train ride away, and you can start (and/or finish or even just stay all evening) at the Sheffield Tap right in the station.

Are we to assume people are going up there on their road bikes, ‘stop to move log off track’ just ride over the fecker.

If I were riding a random trail in some woods, or a trail centre, or a bridleway out in the Peaks, and i came up to a log, I’d ride over it. If I were riding on a BMX track and there was a log, I’d get off and move it.

Parkwood is somewhere in between.

Life is too full of greys to ever be cleanly discussed on the Internet.