You might want to upgrade your safety razor later to something even better.

That’s the plan…thought I’d give it a go with a cheapy first. Pretty impressed so far. Quite looking forward to having another go tomorrow night…

Prompted by this thread, thought I’d give it a go! Got the cheap Gillette Classic from Boots, some nice soap, brush and styptic pencil. Pretty impressed for a first attempt, much closer than I’ve ever achieved.

One question – if I run my finger along my jawline, still a bit of stubble there. What’s the best approach? Against the grain?

BMW/Merc/MX5 RWD cars should just be banned when it snows. It was ridiculous. I helped push two mercs up a hill on the A3 ffs.

Our Mazda has been ace in the recent snow with bog standard tyres. Does have an LSD though, which seems to help.

Did our village to Farnham, Hogs Back in the blizzard to Guildford, then A3 back home. No problem, other than sitting in all the queues of traffic stuck behind the buses and HGVs that were struggling to get up Stag Hill.

…you dont need 1000lumens for the road, your only annoying others…

See your point, but think I’m OK. When on the road the lamp is pointed at the ground. Goes back to nearer horizontal when off road. I can see where it’s shining, and it ain’t in people’s faces.

’99 XTs and my rear has been weird during the snow. Lever is rock solid, brakes are on/off with no modulation. Seems to be almost back to normal now it’s warmed up a bit.

Front has been fine though. I had assumed it was snow and ice bunging up the calliper.

Thanks for the link to the FAQ. So USE say ok to -20? Impressive!

I charge the light, then it’s left on the sideboard, so stored at room temperature. Think I’ll test it tomorrow and leave it running for the whole ride and see how long it lasts.

For info, I can still adjust my dropout. Bit dark for another pic. The third bolt hole on the dropout itself is slotted too, undo all three bolts a bit, and it slides back and forward.

Notice they’ve gone back to putting mounts on the frame now. Often wondered how much hassle it would be to get mounts put on mine.

Mine with the newer dropouts/extra bolt. Has been solid for six months (geared).

What year is the P7?

Mine (2008ish?) has the disk calliper mounted on the dropout and suffered from this. Mine has gears, but put the rear brake on and the dropout would shift position. Got the newer dropouts with three bolts, drilled a hole for the third bolt, and seems better now.

Why do you need to spend £250 per tyre?

TBH I was guessing. 255/35 on there at the mo, which are about £250 fitted. If the car was mine, I would actually investigate further, but it’s a works car so not mine anyway.

I’ve never had a bad car in snow. I think its your tyres and smooth driving style that counts more.

But for joe public mr average driver (i.e. me) who doesn’t really want to spend a £1k on tyres, one of our cars is much better that the other. I’d be fascinated to know if an expert driver would be capable of getting my 3-series up the big hill just outside the village when it’s covered in snow.

Contrary to what others had said, our little MX-5 has been fantastic in the snow. It’s a later one with an LSD, so assume this makes a difference. Has loads of traction. Other car (3-series diesel touring, loads of torque, big wheels) is less fantastic!

Taff, yeah, we’re not too far from you, and the thaw has started today. Supposed to be cold again tomorrow though, so Christmas shopping today and biking tomorrow for me.

Looking through that camera and found this. Takes pretty decent pics. This was a hoar frost on a Cannock Chase ride years back (2005 according to the camera).

Well spotted! I put them on a couple of weeks ago for a wet South Downs group ride, and they’re pretty good in the snow. Will prob leave them on now. Only had to get off and walk once – on a silly-steep climb that is touch and go at the best of times.

Yes, a compact. Nothing special, an ageing Nikon Coolpix P1, which is 8 megapixels I think. It’s takes an age to start up and take a pic. Recently found it at the bottom of the cupboard, so started taking it out on rides again. Keep my DSLR for special occasions :)

Sounds like Ogg has the answer!

Pics? Sounds wrong. If I’m reading your description right, you’d need 10mm of spacers to centre the calliper.

Mine’s a mkII, so the calliper is mounted on the dropout (which introduces the problem of the dropout moving under braking forces – hence the extra bolt).

I regularly night-ride on some boardwalks over marshes near here.

Last year, somebody was refurb'ing the boardwalk, and had removed a section of planks.

I shot off the end in the dark, front wheel got caught up in all the posts underneath, ejected me off the front and did a perfect swan dive into the swamp.

Gave the GF a hell of a shock when I opened the front door back at home covered in pond weed :D

There's a matt black M3 Coupe on the M1 most mornings. Thought WTF at first. Quite liking it now…

Well, so far so good. Easy local loop (Crooksbury Hill/Tilford/Hankley/back home) just to ease the bike (and me) back in.

Enough rattly descents to shake down the rear end a bit, and nothing budged.

Beer and tinker a bit this afternoon. Need to re-adjust my rear mech properly (did it in a rush last night), as it's all moved a bit due to the different dropouts.

MikeT, up to a few months back, had no issues at all, P7 seemed bombproof. I would have recommended it to anyone.

Then all of a sudden, the non-drive side bolts seemed to just lose the ability to stay done up, even though they were threadlocked and not overtightened. Then all it took was a few grumpy ham-fisted trail-side adjustments with a multitool to kill them off!

Think I'll hold off the extra bolt for now and see how I go. From the pics of new P7s, looks like they have this as standard, so guess new frames may not suffer so much from this.

Drill my frame? 8O I get nervous hanging a picture.

Used threadlock and my torque wrench last night. Out of interest, what torque did they recommend? Set mine to 8Nm, which is my usual for alloy components.

Yeah, think the dropouts are the P7s achilles heel.

My originals were fine for a couple of years, but the disk brake side started slipping under heavy braking – which needed regular tightening up until I stripped the thread a few weeks back (was getting fed up with it).

Not sure the difference in the thickness of these is poor manufacturing – they look thicker on purpose. Perhaps the spacing between where the dropouts mount is slightly wider on the newer frames (if you see what I mean) resulting in 135mm.

Better MrNutt? In what way? 'cos more material?

Yeah, the Orange web site is where I ordered them from. I'll ring next week.

My dropout spacing is now a few mm less than 135mm – as the material used for the dropouts they sent is thicker. Wheel only goes in if you ease the rear triangle apart.

When you've worked out your shortlist, the benefit in kind tax calculator here can be useful…

Will do FunkyDunc. Just might take a trip out to Wheels in Motion (not too far away) and get the alignment sorted first, and then think about the springs.

Our old Golf had a VW lowering kit installed, which as you say, made it a bit impractical with speed bumps and steep driveways. One of the things I love about the mx5 is it's happy being used as a daily driver – wouldn't want it like a track car (Elise etc.) TBH…

I remember me and some mates having a good look round a blue mk1 in a showroom in Bristol when they first came out. Late 80s (had a Spec Stumpy Rock Combo at the time, so 88??) Wanted one ever since.

Twenty-odd years later, and just got a mk3. Fantastic car. GF uses it during the week, and I blat around the lanes at the weekend. Love it.

Fun in the snow too…

True what somebody said about the slightly soft ride – does lean a bit. Not sure if it's true, but been told that Euro spec ones have longer springs than they should to meet our safety specs – a common mod is to get them fitted with what the car was designed for. Supposed to totally sort the handling.

Also definitely don't part-ex. We we're offered £1.5k part-ex for ours, just sold for double that privately.

DIdn't know about Vodafone not supporting visual voicemail. Pretty poor show. It's a nice feature, assumed I'd lost it when switching to Vodafone cos I'm on a £20 SIM-only and not a 'proper' iPhone contract.

Is the Vodafone outgoing email server any worse than O2 or Orange? Haven't used it for years – way forward (if you are OK with the privacy issues) seems to be googlemail.

Got unlimited txts, so txt thing hasn't crossed my mind. Yep, they all charge for tethering. O2 a bit cheaper than Vodafone if I remember right.

I've had both, was on O2 for a couple of years and now Vodafone.

Depends on where you are of course, but for me, Vodafone coverage is better. Seem to get 3G pretty much anywhere now, with O2 would often only get GPRS/Edge.

Contract deals seem pretty much identical. There is a 1 gig data cap on Vodafone, O2 is 'unlimited' but I was surprised how little data I used when I started monitoring it. Would think I'm an above average user, but use much less than 500 meg a month. Something to be aware of if you plan to tether the phone to a laptop for data.

and another Avast user here.

Avast

I’ve set it up on every PC I’ve built for family and friends, no problems at all. No nag screens, just need to register every year.