Had a montane smock to replace it, but sent it back, very funny shape. Tight on the arms and bixy on the body, or vise versa, was a few years ago now.

I’ve got the black inner and the fleecy green pertex outer. The inner is too cold and draughty on its own, the green outer is boiling and cut way too tight for my shoulders, quite claustrophobic feeling.
The special 6 or mountain shirt, whatever its called, is absolutely magnificent bit of winter kit. Had mine since 1997, bit threadbare now, few holes, but dries quick when soaked through, keeps you warm when soaking, and tough as hell. It was my winter commuting wear for years.
I bought a kestrel6 or 9 sleeping bag , think its a Snugpak, little hexagons sewn into it all over, as a ripstop I think. That was a far superior bag to the Buffalo, it was my bed for a few years before I met the missus and started sleeping in a bed again.

Frame is a nice shape, but the primary school paint job kills it for me. Looks like its been stolen and given a new identity.

I have an allotment and compost everything that i cut with the strimmer, barring orrible stuff like mares tail, bindweed, etc.
What I normally do is get all the green stuff, mix it up, then add something which will kick start it heating up. I piss on it, and sprinkle blood fish and bone in it .
Make sure you get a good mix of green and brown, and what really helps is if you get the odd shovelfull of soil into it to inject fresh micro organisms now and then. I started off using John Seymours recipe and its held me in good stead.
What I do now as well is when im going through it and find bits which havent broken down so well, or have trouble heating it up, i lay a layer of fresh, steaming manure and bedding down, put the troublesome stuff in the middle, then build more manure on top, aiming to get the manure stack big enough so that its as tall as I am, and a pallet wide in each direction. Gravity will collapse it in time to next to nothing.
This then gets absolutely scorching, and anything in the middle will deteriorate very quickly due to the insulating effect of the straw/manure walls around it. I’ve put all manner of rubbish in it, corn stalks, cabbage stalks, twigs, bamboo canes, and all been digested to a beautiful crumbly loam in weeks, not months. Hope this helps. Not much better than a steaming compost heap on a cold winters day.

Fair enough, I did mention I was no expert though. Happy to be corrected, though I wasn’t talking about bolts shearing, I was thinking more along the lines of this:
Rotor made of stainless
Bolt made of stainless
Hub thread made of alu.
Unless of course rotor bolting surface, where it is joined to the hub is alu, which I believe floating rotors are, I’ve never had them.
I was thinking if the bolts slacken enough for the rotors to rotate slightly against the hub surface, as has happened to several people despite thread lock, then the rotor acts as a guillotine against the hub mating face, trying to shear the rotor bolts. Obviously they wont give, so the extra leverage would work against the weakest point, ie the alu thread, and pull them out that way. This is what I was imagini g. Not suggesting it would happen, just wondered if it would be a factor in stressing the hub threads.

Yes absolutely the forks will have to hold the extra leverage, I was thinking more of the extra leverage ripping the rotor bolts out of the hub. I dont think they would, but it might be something to think about, however unlikely. Like I said, not an expert!

Not an expert, but you are adding an extra 20mm or so of leverage onto the retaining bolts which hold the rotor to the hub, which are probably in an aluminium thread. Now I’m sure the engineers at Hope or whatever have accounted for this, but maybe the extra leverage will invalidate a warranty or two?

I did a set of cranks once for a mate who absolutely mullered the threads in his waaaay beyond helicoil repair capability. I bored out the mess, made a threaded insert then installed them using a technique which I think is sometimes called a Dutchman.
They lasted him , and I’m sure he is still using them 11 years or so later.
But yeah, unless you know or work with a machinist or toolmaker, second hand is the way to go.

I think I probably agree with you, but I think Roy is being written off a little too easily. Like I said, I just hope its entertaining one way or another.

Youre right, I havent really followed him since his heyday.
I heard he was doing freakshow fights, etc, but recent training footage shows the handspeed still to be pretty good, with obvious power.
Do you remember how Tysons last few fights went? They werent the Tyson we knew from his heyday either, losing to relative nobodies (lennox aside, obviously). And, they were 15 years ago.

Granted Mike looks the most impressive in his training footage, but these are all clips of him being mostly offensive, and what I remember of his losses, when he came up against opponents who a) werent scared of him and b) could hurt him with shots, he would visibly diminish.
Now RJJ is not known for his chin, and I think i detect a bit of fear in him,but those triple hooks on the way in might make Mike think twice about doing his own thing. I’m not sure its going to be the execution people are expecting. Still though, who knows in heavyweight (ish) boxing. Still got Mike to win though,hope its fairly competitive. What boxing fan doesnt want to see arguably the most skillful, entertaining fighter ever against the notorious ko wrecking machine? Yes its 20 years too late but I for one am looking forward to it.

Yes mate, thats where I watched it too. I dunno if I agree with the result, dont feel its a robbery though. To my eyes Lopez was the one bringing the fight for the early rounds and throwing with venom, but Loma took the majority of the head shots on the glove and the body shots on the elbows.I had rounds 6-11 pure Loma, with Lopez maybe nicking the 12th.
Look at how often lopez’s head snaps back due to Lomas punches, versus the opposite.
Other than that i totally agree with you, and I was very impressed with how Lopez dealt with Lomas , well, Loma-ness. Also I liked how Loma dug in for a fight too.
Great match up, hope theres a rematch.

How do you feel about the upcoming tyson v jones jr. fight? Roy got mental handspeed and power with it, but looks rooted to the spot . Feel Mikes gonna bullrush him and shove him in a corner and work the body and upoercuts.
Ouch.

Phenomenal display of speed and power by both fighters though, looked like a real fight at some points.

@piha
I watched the highlights this morning, have you seen th ese yet?e
Im presuming you know the result, what do you think of the decision?

Might be the manufactures tap hasn’t gone in far enough and youre bound on the tapered threads at the end of the bore.

Did the BB go in dry, ie alu to alu , with no grease? Thread could have picked up , so first thing to do is put a thin dismantling lubricant like PlusGas or your favourite alternative all over the B B and frame shell. Leave a good 10 mins then gently rock cup back and fore on the thread. It should start to ease up and when it does, back the BB out but dont let it dry out, keep it smothered in lube.
You may feel a tight spot whilst turning, dont panic, keep going because your frame is useless as is anyway, you can only gain in this situation. Try backing out a few turns then a quarter turn forward to try and dislodge any pickup on the thread, like when youre tapping a hole out.
As and when the cup comes out, do not do anything until you have had the frame threads chased out with a tap, probably a bike shop is the inly place youre going to find one of those.
If none of this works, take your bike to a machine shop, pretty straightforward job to bore the guts of it out then get it retapped at the bike shop. Might cost you beer and fags or real money, in fact it might be more than the frame is worth to you.
If this was my frame I’d persevere though.

I meant to get your new Thomson post and put the plug in that. Your old seatpost has now been promoted to Chief Allen Key handle extension. Cooler than anything Park make.

Put a nylon plug in the bore, in the area you want to compress. This will support the tube walls and you can squeeze it as hard as you like then. If youre a clever thing you could get a plug made with a metal thread inserted , so if the wall collapses onto the plug and jams it, you could use a slide hammer to get it out, should you ever need to.
Just an idea like, you could use a Thomson again then.
*assuming that the bore is clear and doesnt have any extrusions in it, ike another post i’ve seen somewhere.

You will probably not outcompete knotweed with any plant which will grow in the UK. As mentioned by jamiemcf, dont waste money on trees that will never grow properly. Just cut some willow branches, then put them in the ground the right way up (IMPORTANT!) and they will most likely take root. Some rooting powders are made with extract of willow, they are that free-rooting. Sounds like a good idea to me.

To get rid of nicks and rolled or damaged edges, a 240 grit waterstone. Rough profiles the edge but will not be razor sharp.

Progress to a 600 grit, then 1000 then 4000. And now the clever bit.

Get a piece of leather. I use a bit of chrome leather welding apron stuck to a handle made of flat plywood. Apply some chromium oxide paste to the leather. Youll know the stuff, its the bright green waxy sticks. Not expensive at all.
Draw the blade at a shallow angle (around 10 to 20 degrees,depending on your blade) BACKWARDS ,ie drag the spine of the blade first, not tbe cutting edge. Do this 10 times a side, lightly, at the same shallow angle. Repeat 8 times a side, then 6 then 4 then 2 then 1 . You should end up with a mirror finish , razor sharp, and I mean you could shave with it, knife blade. Using this method I have always got my grafting knives, kitchen knives and even my felling axes razor sharp.
Top tips for you. Keep your waterstones saturated in a bucket of water, do not wipe away the slurry, keep them flattened by rubbing against a flat surface with a sheet of emery stuck to it.
Oh, and if you find yourself without chrome paste, a piece of corrugated cardboard makes a fair approximation of a strop. Use the same method.
Sounds labour intensive but takes minutes to get a good edge on my knives.
Plenty of youtube videos and instruction online to help you.

@GlennQuagmire
Giggedy giggedy , awright.😄

@p7eaven
Oh you little beauty. Gonna get my old girl onto this. She knocks up a world class bounty -a-like , and something called a Florentine, which is made of secret stuff but tastes unlike anything else in the World.

Also have a lot of love for the Scottish chocolate you used to get in army rat packs. Duncans?
Nothing tasted better when you were absolutely sucked off, soaked through and boted of the nonsense.

Do they have to be current?
Cabana. Best sweetie ever.
Gone but not forgotten.
Notable mentions for Topic and Double Decker.

Terrible chocolates are Spira, Twirl, Flake and all that shite. Tadte like what babys nappies smell like. Buzzing.

I used to have yellow safety specs, made reading tool dials eg micrometers sooo much easier for whatever reason.
Based on this, bought a pair of yellow tinted SunDog glasses at an airport in Canada. These were my biking glasses for years, made picking out a line in a murky forest much easier, it was like the outlines of rocks, roots, etc had been drawn over in heavier pen, if that makes any sense.
Gutted when I lost them somewhere up Afan a few years back.

@ winston
Imagine a scenario where you suspect a dodgy, shitted up bearing, remove said bearing, pop the seals off, give it a clean, pack with fresh grease only to find it wasnt as bad as you imagined. Now, imagine that bearing is some pain in the arse , non standard, cycle specific size which you can only get mail order . You want to go for a spin tomorrow though.
Pop the bearing back in, go for your spin, wait for new bearing to arrive, replace.
Been there, done it.

My dear departed lurcher Bailey would have relished the job, never seen a dog with such a pathological hatred of rats .He could pull them out of everywhere.
Now I am not an expert by any means, never had them in the house due to assorted lurcher and terrier friends, but I have heard that they take new foods back to the nest to see the effect it has on their young. Happy to be corrected here. I would imagine if they die in the nest that is going to absolutely reek.
Can you somehow bait them to go outside then clobber them there? Its windfall apple season so maybe use whats around you as bait, go all Sleepin Beauty on their arses and poison some apples? They arent as daft as youd think. I know they definitely target fallen apples in my area cos next doors rats tunnel under my wall to get at my mini orchard. Until they meet Roary the Destroyer, 12″ tall and packed with Highland fighting spirit.

You keeping the bearing?
Bit of broom handle ( depending on size), hammer, two wood blocks as a support. Tap tap, job most likely done.

The Isotopes opening for CJ Ramone.
Tragedy (metal Beegees) opening for Electric Six
Backyard Babies opening for the Wildhearts.

Yeah, the Clash of the Titans tour.
Slayer, Megadeth, Testament, Suicidal Tendencies.
On the night I went Jeff Hannemans guitars packed up so it was Just Kerry King for most of Slayers set. Never heard Slayer sound…weak before.
Got to meet all of Suicidal Tendencies in the car park later, they came out to say hello. Pretty awesome experience for a 14 year old.
Got my Tour Shirt signed then ome scumbag robbed it off me when I put it down for 5 seconds.

Red Hot Chili Peppers in Birmingham Hummingbird, years ago cos I was still in school. They flat out couldn’t be arsed, put no effort into the performance at all, putting more effort into their “cool”, in jokes and trying to be kooky.
Didn’t help that Henry Rollins at his peak was the warm -up act (doing music not spoken word at this point in time). Bloke made a fan me that night even though I cant listen to his albums.

Pantera on the Vulgar Display tour , supporting Megadeth.
Pantera on the Far Beyond Driven tour, headlining.
Wildhearts and Backyard Babies co-headline tour .
CJ Ramone in a shitty little club woth about 50 people tops.
Michale Graves doing the two Misfits albums he wrote back to back, before he commited career suicide .

Oooh, Elvana too. Fun bit of nonsense .

Thanks for all the tips people!

New bearings, ordered, delivered and fitted.
Bearing cups run smooth as silk again. Easy fix and cheaper than buying new. Time will tell if these bearings are any good, but at £9 a pair I’m not complaining.

@Garry_Lager
The softail frame is the one I always wanted, always had concerns about the skinny CF chainstays though. I’d be looking for a Lefty 9 times out of 10, but I’d settle for a headshock too. I’m not that good of a rider to appreciate the differences to be honest, this desire for a Scalpel is based solely on lust, and the fact that I could never afford one when they were cutting edge.

Been a few tidy looking ones up on fleabay recently. Any issues getting replacement shocks for the soft tail frame? They look as though they might be proprietary to this frame, however happy to be proven wrong.

@footflaps
Lefty was my thinking too, or maybe headshock.

@joshvegas
How so my man?

Mares Tail?
Ammonium Sulphamate, not sulphate.
Kills it dead. Not strictly legal though.

Patagonia for the fishing, or the Kootenays.

@edd
What is the 3d printing process for those ti cranks? Do they have a grain structure as such, or are they more akin to a cast or sintered structure? Not knocking them, i think they’re class, just interested in how they would compare to ,say, a forged crankset.
Beautiful work though.