Isn’t that like saying “one of the Titanic’s wettest cabins”

Although I did LOL at this, the Sheffield Hallam constituency covers some of the most affluent areas in the UK, so not really.

Sorry to say I’ve been expecting this news. Parkwood Springs is a five minute ride from one of the city’s most deprived areas.

One the hub is sorted, will you have to mount the none-driveside calliper on the front of the fork, as per the Cotic Roadrat?

I can’t help, but do post the work in progress, I love threads like that.

…proper pay, benefits, pension etc.

No thanks.

Nice.

Interesting to learn that containers float like that. I assumed they weren’t watertight enough to last more than a few hours before being gone forever.

With ships of that size I thought they were the ones that were just towed to that place in india and beached. You can see them all on Google satellite view.

Is that what the salvage guy is planning to do with this ship, or is it one day soon going to be visible from a train window, half way up a stack of scrapped hatchbacks?

I admire how calm and lighthearted you are being about this. You have perspective.

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Moulton’s are iconic (broke a record donchaknow) but they don’t seem to shrink down so well.

Not all Moultons have separable frames, and the ones that do are more like a normal bike with S&S Couplings than they are to any folding bike.

I’d have gone with the Brommie personally, simply because of the size of the fold, but next to the Tern they do look like something from the victorian era.

First link I visited mate, thanks. Thought I’d turn to STW to seek the opinions and anecdotes of those with similar lifestyles to myself.

Rubber floor mats and removable seat covers for the car, drive home in what you rode in.

Boots were fantastic! […] It may be branch dependent, but I suspect the high quality kit is across all their location

Unfortunately I’d have to say it’s branch dependent. The Boots opticians near me is dreadful.

In any walk of consumer life I’d recommend small independents in the same way I’d recommend an LBS over Halfords or Evans, but I’m always surprised by how unpopular a thing this is to say, both here on this forum and also generally in life around the UK.

These pics are great. As a counterpoint to all these stories, the inlaw’s working cocker leaves the room and goes and lays on the cold kitchen tiles even if the radiators are barely warm. Yet he’ll run and swim in freezing rivers all day, and would rather sit in the rain in the garden than be inside. It’s like he actually hates being even remotely comfortable, warm, clean or dry.

On a day working he would likely send himself into hypothermia if he wasn’t forced to dry off and warm up regularly.

I brought a KMC Chain from Planet X. It arrived far too short to be of any use. So i assume it was a cut and shut job of other chain spares which they have cut to length. I didnt bother complaining because I had heard about their service so i cut my losses and took it on the chin.

I had this problem with a PX chain, but I found a workaround that you might want to try. I took my bike to a frame builder and had him chop out the rear triangle and fit new shorter stays around a 20″ rear wheel. That way the chain could reach fine, with the added benefit that it’s great for wheelies. In case I ever buy a normal length chain I had the forethought to have custom-machined 700mm long track end dropouts fitted so I can just move the wheel back until it goes tight.

Blimey, I had a conversation with the neighbour last night about kettles, as she’s just bought a stove top one and said it tastes better but she doesn’t know why. My answer was pretty much word for word this:

grum – Member
It’s a basic cognitive bias in humans which makes us think that things we have expounded more effort on are intrinsically better.

I used the example of Vinyl over CDs over MP3s.

I see it as a return on an investment. If you invest nothing you appreciate the return less.

In answer to the ‘why are kettles crap’ question, I think the safest answer is ‘planned obsolescence’.

There’s a great documentary about planned obsolescence kicking around on the internet somewhere. Interestingly in the 50s it was actually proposed to US congress that the lifespans of goods should be legally limited in order to ensure capitalist consumerism could actually work. Manufacturers actually wanted laws to force people to dispose of and replace goods after a set time.

Obviously it wasn’t passed, but that doesn’t mean it’s in the interest of any manufacturer to build products that never need replacing.

Saw him a couple of years ago. Great show and the best heckler put downs I’ve ever seen. Well worth seeing if he’s in town.

Make a big vat of soup at home and freeze it in portions?

I’ll reiterate what has been said above – do swot up, but whatever you do, you must practise the hazard perception test.

It’s a computer game you have to learn how to play. Driving is a very analogue, nuanced activity, and the digital conversion you get in the hazard perception test throws up some rather strange mistranslations.

I love it, looks great. But I see he’s in Oz. Can you imagine how cold that’d be over here on a day like today, sitting in an office chair in the back of a transit? Brr. Needs more insulation.

But that aside, love it. Minimalist awesomeness. Particularly like how it’s just a normal van from the outside.

Well they’re useless like that but I had mine Push tuned and it’s now much better at low bump sensitivity and berm rebound dampening.

Makes me wonder what tickles his funny bone?

Poor people shivering.

But imagine the reality of a Pinz (swing axle suspension) would be pretty awful on road.

I found the Pinz a damn sight nicer to drive on (and off) road than the Land Rover, and I say that as a (recovering) Land Rover obsessive. Handle way better than they look like they should – that chassis/drivetrain is just genius. The old petrol ones do seem under-engined by modern standards, but compared to a Land Rover of the same vintage (we’re talking the days of 2.25 petrols in 12 seater 109 station wagons…) they start to seem more acceptable. From memory, the 4×4 Pinz is only around 9″ longer than a Landy 90 too, they’re smaller than they look.

Oh cool, tell her thanks. Merry Christmas to you too.

Huh. Every day’s a school day.

Also find it mildly strange that not all of the Peak District National Park is in Derbyshire.

Have no pictures, but I have a skip-find Raleigh for this very job. It’s an atrocious bicycle, perfect for the job. Would have been about £70-90 brand new in about 1994 I reckon. Plastic everything – pedals, cantilever brake arms, brake levers. Frame made of thin scaffold tube, weighs exactly one metric tonne and has a paint job from the factory that looks like I something I could do. Horrible. I can, and do, leave it in town all day without a second thought. For a life-long rider of pretty decent bikes I can’t afford to lose, it’s been a revelation.

Go to your local bike recycling charity, show them your D-lock of choice and say you want a bike worth less than 1-10th of its value. They’ll sort you out.

I had never seen Papillion. I finally got round to watching it this evening. Thoroughly unenjoyable. I’m guessing something went over my head that makes it such a classic?

Anyone fancy filling me in on what I’m missing?

When he got shot with darts then ended up in the idyllic beach tribe with topless women everywhere, who then all suddenly disappeared one morning I assumed it was all a hallucination and he never got further than his first stint in solitary. But no?

Thanks!

Okay, Shazam is awesome.

Now got to wait till the show comes up up on iPlayer.

Cheers gents.

No lyrics. Instrumental, piano tune.

Shazam. Will find out what that is. Ta.

Cheers Tenfoot, I had a look but we’re off the regular playlist for the evening.

Been trying to find name for this track for ages. Grr…

Wow, he’s really ripping along in that^^ video……….

LOL.

Interesting that people are having a go at improving things though. Top man-in-a-shed-ing.

It’s the BB drop that makes it come alive.

I assumed the Giant one in Sheffield to be a single-brand extension of JEJames, operating like a franchise sort of deal.

It amazes me that technology has moved on so far, yet printers are still largely the same as they were 10 years ago.

I don’t know about that. 3D printers are getting quite good these days…

I *hate* consumer grade inkjets.

I acquired an Epson A3 shaped nightmare a few years ago. Last time I bought cartridges it was £80 for the pair. The nozzles dry and clog if the printer is unused for more than a few days, and the nozzle cleaning process uses bucket loads of ink every time you run it. With the last set I had I wouldn’t be surprised if less than 40% of that ink I paid £80 for ever actually got anywhere near a page I actually wanted to print.

Now the colour cartridge claims it is ’empty’, so it won’t even let me just print a page of black copy using the black cartridge which is showing half full. So the hateful, squeaky, brittle plastic pile of shit now resides in its box in the loft. I intend never to own another printer.

Never has any consumer item I’ve ever owned been more deserving of a frenzied, screaming attack with a baseball bat. Awful things.

Get the shifter mounted up by the brake lever, lose the wobbly guard and it’d be rockin.

Wrong. No 26″ can have a 40mm BB drop and it’s the fundamental reason 29″ ride like they do and why no 26″ will feel like a 29″.

Genuine question – why does such a large BB drop feel good?

52? One of the hybrid ones? They’re ace.

The British media would resume it’s role as a government mouthpiece, individual freedom would be ruthlessly repressed and the armed forces and police force would be called on to ensure that both civil disobedience and legitimate protest would be met by violent force without the slightest hope of any accountability.

Many say we’re getting close to this already.