Sounds like the soil conditions around me, soaking wet clay, boggy all year round. Alder is what grows here, and hazel, you often find them together, along with elderberry trees.

I did exactly the same as you, had a tiny rooted cutting of a variegated ivy and planted it against my north facing breeze block wall to block its grey boringness. It took off like a rocket, now about 10 years later its covering a good 20′ or so of a 6’wall.
Planted tbe same thing against a South facing wall but it was too vigorous there, it bushed out massively and was bushing out from the wall by about 4′ til i eventually dug the whole roo t system out.
I would say think hard on whether you really want the ivy there, ive been toying with the idea of getting rid of it and panelling that wall with fencing but with timber the price it is and the fact the ivy acts as a haven for the birds I’ll probably leave it for now.
Happy to send you some cuttings if you really want it.

I’d be wary of putting any heat on a heat -treated alu frame, especially on an area which is exposed to significant leverage forces like a seat tube. Not a frame builder tbough, so happy to be corrected here. My experience of heating alu components almost always leads to ending up with dodgy grain structure and premature failure.
From the photo it looks like the front section of t he seat tube is thickened in the front, to accept the clamping thread. Is this the case? Youve removed the plastic insert already, i believe. If so, can you drill out the clamping bolt from the rear , then if it doesnt spin with the drill, retap the next siz e up, say go from M6 to M8? Im assuming tbe square black section with the i nscribing on it is just a painted effect, not any kind of insert into the frame.

I’ve got a beautiful Midland Hawthorn in my garden. Paul’s double Scarlett is the variety, beautiful dense fresh green leaves in Spring, stunning acid pink double flowers in Summer, and lively little red Haws in autumn, until tbe blackbirds muller them.
A flowering crab apple like Profusion or Royalty on a semi dwarfing rootstock would be nice too. Mine has gorgeous purple flowers, bronze tinged leaves which go bright orange in autumn and hang on the tree quite tenaciously, then red fruits, like rock hard apples about the size of a Malteser all winter.
That acer shown earlier was beautiful mind.

Can you tap the sheared hex (gently) anti clockwise with a screwdriver or chisel? If you can do this and not cause a burr on the bolt socket, you might relieve the tension on the hex and be able to pull it out with a strong magnet . Might only wrk if the bolt socket is bigger than the hex bit though, ie that any attemots you have made so far havent peened the edge of the socket over and basically trapped the hex inside the socket.

Is the tapped portion of the hole exposed, ie can you see the non- head end of the bolt, the end youd start a nut on?
If so, you can drill through from the non head end, and the bit might catch and spin it out of the thread. This will push the bolt anti clockwise and back it out of the hole. Only attempt this if youre confident that the you can drill pretty much dead central on the bolt end and bear in mind if the drill wanders you might trash your frame.
The bit will take the path of least resistance so if it isnt on centre it will want to burrow into the (presumably) softer wall of the frame.

*make sure the drill bit is smaller than the tapping hole or else youll drill the threads out.

Its black and blue with, i think, sektors?

Thanks to all who contributed so far, just won a boardman fs 650b on evilbay, £400, in my area too so no delivery charges. See if im still so keen when I pick it up.
This leaves a bit of cash to get the shock serviced; any recommendations for this? Cheers.
Thing is, after I’d placed the winning bid, the missus said why dont you buy an Orange 5 and be done with it. What a woman.

Does 26″ v 27″ make that much of a difference then? A quick look at Chain Reaction shows all the tyres I would buy are still available in 26″ still. Is there a plan to phase these out then? Has the cycle industry come out and said that 26″ will no longer be supported? Genuinely ignorant of this.
Dont get me wrong, given the choice between a newer bike with current standards versus a bike with older standards which are no longer supported by manufacturers , id obviously go for the newer version.
However, if both wheel sizes are supported and there is no reason to fear a shortage of future spares, why would I pay extra for current standards when Im not a good enough rider to notice the difference? All my best rides have been on 26″ bikes.
Not being a dick here, just genuinely interested in peoples ideas and thoughts on this. Im just trying to get hold of a decent bike at a decent price to have some fun on. Please keep the suggestions coming..

Ptfe liner is what you want, i think i used to use Jagwire.
Word of warning about filing the cable guides to accept full length outers though. Make sure you put enough chamfer on t he edges! I have a 7″ scar running up my inner left thigh where i slid down the top tube following a massive, tree-induced endo. The sharp edge of the cable guide, filed out for just this purpose, slit my leg open like a kipper.

@dc1988,
Watcha got nice in your garage then? Am curious…
Also , Orange 5 and Prophet is a good shout, i was looking at those and glad to hear theyre a decent ride. Is the Rush , which superficially is quite similar to the Prophet though likely has different geo and role, worth looking into? They tend to appear in bursts on ebay for some reason.
Many thanks for all the help so far!

That Spesh looks ok, my mate had one, i liked it. Dont like the price on servicing that brain though. Arent they famous for being fragile, or am I barking u p the wrong tree?

Im in South Wales and I ride a Large mostly.

I’ve seen plenty of bikes for around £400 in my search but have just missed out each time, seems the popular brands are getting lots of watchers . Looking for suggestions for possibly more under the radar or forgotten classics. Budget is not fixed as yet, could possibly stretch to £600 or so but am allowing a bit of slack in case sjock needs servicing, tyres, etc.
Also my size, Large, is rare as they all seem to be 17.5″ or medium.

I’ve used all sorts of greases industrially, from ones which had the consistency of cake dough for reciprocating chucks to the stuff thats so thin its almost oil. Use the best grease for the job is what I would say, the cost is insignificant compared to the cost of your bike anyway.
For the record, the red teflon grease from halfords with the consistency of those set French yoghurts is by far the best wheel bearing grease I ever used. Not saying its the ultimate but its the best I’ve used at a decent price. Sooooo slippy.

I have used the green sticky motox grease, cant remember the brand name now, for general assembly purposes, i think its a bit thick for bearings, and on wheel and frame bearings i use the red halfords teflon grease. I bought two small tubes years ago and still got plenty left. Both tubes fit inconspicuously in a drawer. Both do their jobs perfectly well.
Contrast with having a 3kg tub hanging around the place. If you have another use for it outside tinkering with bikes then that is a good reason to have 3kg of grease but otherwise, why not just get the nice stuff for your very expensive bike? Assembly grease and bearing grease might have different consistencies and tendencies, i know mine do.

My other daughter, had a ghost sighting the week before last, she saw our deceased neighbour, a lovely old lady, smiling at her through her window opposite wearing a purple dressing gown.
My wife confidently told her that it wasnt possible as she didnt die in the house. Little did she know that I asked her son when he was emptying the house what happened to the lovely old lady, a month or so previously. Had a stroke in the night and hit her head on the ceramic bath, died in the bathroom. Wearing her purple dressing gown.
Asked her attached neighbour if he had a fire as we have seen smoke , thick smoke like coal fire not just gas boiler steam, regularly coming from their shared chimney pot. He doesnt even have a fireplace he told me, and he has witnessed (heard) things moving around her house through the walls for a few months now. House has been empty all this time.

I used to live in a haunted house and would see ghosts regularly, and my daughter, 5 years old at the time, would have back and fore conversations with whatever they were.
They would respond to specific instructions, such as if we wrre talking about a photograph then that very same photograph would move off the top of the telly, and im talki g a good 7 feet horizontally, not topple over weakly, but be propelled with force linearly 7 or 8 feet til it hit a wall or furniture.
I would see them randomly, just going about their business, and they appeared as a humanoid form but looked as if tgey were made of mirage. Think of the scene in Predator where the creature is using cloaking technology and thats more or less exactly what they looked like. They would use doorways and climb the stairs, not just walk through walls like in films. Are they dead people? I never got that impression, they just seemed to be something sharing the same space as us but somehow differently. Just my take on it, who knows?

Some other tales I have are around family members dying.
First one occured the day after my fathers death. My brother, sister, mother and me were all sitting around late at night, reminiscing about tbe old fella. My sister always had very long, thick hair which took ages under the shower to wash, much to the annoyance of my father who had to pay the electricity bill. He would moan constantly about how long she took in the shower.
Trying to cast a bit of dark humour on the situation, I pointed out that it wasnt all bad, at least my sister could take as long as she wanted in the shower now. As I said it, the electric shower upstairs started to run with hot water, we all heard it and went upstairs to investigate. Never happened before or since. Who knows?

Second tale was when I got a paniced phone call from my wife one night when I was working nights, who informed me there was a ghost in the kitchen just doing the dishes. Not really, but acting out the movements, and it was her recently departed, dearly loved Grandmother. My next door neighbours commented that their dogs and mine, who lived outside, had been upset all night and the electric lighting downstairs had been going crazy for hours, they were worried the house had a fault and was going to burn down. A mix of grief and wishful thinking? Possibly, even probably, but this does not explain the electrical phenomena, again, never happened before or since.

There are quite a few more, almost always with witnesses so I can confidently discount psychosis or dreaming in these cases.
I have no idea what is going on, dont think its the spirits of the dead at all, but I believe what I have seen with my own eyes.

Do ypu have the full range of sprockets? For example, if you start in the smallest sprocket, will the derailleur go all the way up to the 10th sprocket? If not, then it could be slack in the shifter cable, which is easily adjusted with the barrel adjuster or just undoing the pinch bolt, pulling the slack through, and nipping up tight again.

The fact youve mentioned new cables suggests its been dismantled recently? Could there be slack in tbe cable due to the pinch bolt not being as tight as you thought on reassembly and the cable pulling back through slightly under tension?
The double clicking could be the ratchet taking up the slack / backlash, then once the slack has been removed the mechanism has enough tension to shift as intended.
This is the first thing I’d check by putting it into the small sprocket and pulling the cable through til you feel tension and nip down hard on the pinch bolt.

Gentlemen / ladies,
Thank you for the help so far. Many thanks to @boblo for the documents.
If anyone else would like to send me any info they have, all donations greatly appreciated.

The blurred vision might be down to the ointment. If we are talking about the same stuff, its quite thick and of a stiff consistency and I noticed a slight blurring when I applied it. This would wear off as the day progressed, o am assuming it was due to the ointment spreading, thinning and getting diluted by tears, etc.
Stick to what the docs say though, you dont see them getting steel splinters in their eyes, far too clever .

I’ve had abrasive grit adnd steel splinters in my eyes plenty of times due to my job, you can see the scars from them if you look closely on the cornea.
No noticeable loss of vision, no lasting side effects, took less than a week to heal each time. That ointment which i used each time (chloramphenicol?) Is your friend, it keeps the eye moist and helps prevent the itching.
Worst thing is when you get a steel splinter and it scratches and cuts the inside of your eyelid, the itching and urge to blink drives you mental.

Its looking like the Genius was not my best idea then. Thanks all, you may have saved me a costly mistake.

A Marin Mount Vision is one of the other bikes I was looking at. Around 2006 vintage , maybe a bit later, the folded and welded frame version (tara?)
Im 6′ with monkey arms, do you reckon the Mt Vision is a safer bet?

I meant a triangle needle file, not diamond. D’oh.

You are very welcome, hope it works for you 👍

You are then in a better position to try and source a die, but be warned they can be ridiculously expensive.
A cheaper option might be, if the thread isnt totally toast, to run a thread file of the correct pitch against it in the damaged area. Dont worry about taking too mu h off, these tend to just reshape damaged threads rather than cut them.

Another option if you are experienced with them is to use a diamond needle file to tart up the thread. These are 60 degrees, just like a metric thread, but will cut material off unlike the thread file, so be careful you dont take too much off.

Last option, and definitely the least preferred, is if the damaged section is only very small and you have plenty of undamaged thread left, is to file tbe damaged thread off until you get the nut the start.

Get an M6 x1 bolt, an M8 x 1.25 bolt and an M10 x 1.5 bolt, as these are the three commonest variations of pitch on M10 threads in my experience.

Ignore the difference in diameters you are only gauging the pitch. Lay the bolts against your forks tbread in turn and see which one lines up with your forks thread. The thread you will require will be M10 x whatever the pitch is on your bolt.

Box spanners will probably do you, so long as the torque isnt excessive. Cheap as chips too.

Looks like you have about 1.4mm to take off, thats too much for a reamer in a single step really.
If you had some adjustable reamers, you could do it in steps, or even if it was a standard imperial size you go up in reamers in stages, but 19.6mm is not really any commonly sized reamer, the nearest youre likely to find would be 49/64ths , which comes out at about 19.4mm, but I doubt you’d find a decent one anywhere.
If you decide to go the dremel or cordless drill route, bear in mind that the soft alu will clog and glaze any abrasive stone used, so maybe make up a simple wooden mandrel and glue emery to it, or even better cut a slot in the mandrel to take easily changed strips of emery. Also you could use a small rotary burr, which takes slivers off, but be warned it can be very aggressive when cutting and leaves a dogshit finish, like very bad chatter. Might not bother you but it would bother me immensely.
Probably your best bet would be take a bit off the bungs and open the hole up slightly with emery, best of both worlds then, no one component is significantly weakened. Not an ideal situation but it is what it is.

If i have my way I’d be retiring to the Kootenays in BC. No idea if thats possible with the immigration rules, but a proper summer, a proper winter, a short spring and a short autumn ,with ample wildlife and riding available , in an area which lives for fun, not liked the rain -soaked misery of my part of the UK.

@a11y,
I saw them on that tour too, Cardiff though. Foo fighters were opening band, Grohl still had his funny little bowlcut and they had 2 drum kits.
Main support was a German break dancing crew , they were great.
And they played the video (the banned one) to smack my bitch up on a big screen. I remember feeling the bass in my lungs . Great gig.

**** brilliant.
Saw Pantera and Megadeth in Newport, back in Panteras heyday. Cost me about £12 I think.
Saw Suicidal Tendencies in Newport too, again about £12.
All the legendary metal bands renowned for their live shows toured regularly and fairly locally to me for a cover charge of not much money at all, i could afford them on paper round money.
Nowadays even the most mediocre bands are charging £25 plus, or so it seems, and possibly only do 3 dates in the UK, usually London , Birmingham or Glasgow.
I miss the 90s, they were so much more fun.

Try The Ungovernable Force by Conflict.
Listened to it for the first time in about 20 years he other day, really enjoyed it.
Anything by Misfits, the 40th anniversary remix Ramones albums cos theyve got a much meatier sound, especially Leave Home.
New Wildhearts album is a noisy bugger, love that.
The first two Machine Head albums are quite noisy too.

Gotta be honest, havent really got excited over anything metal has produced for the last 20 years or so, mostly I listen to the older stuff, or people doing covers of songs on Youtube, cos the extra track in the background tends to give it more bollocks, if you know what I mean.
Am very much liking the Dreadnoughts the last few years. Not metal at all, more folk and punk, but theyre songs are awesome and very very catchy.

Has it got to be a complete bike? You said you had replaced all the components already, and tbe bb shell is the trashed part.
Maybe get the frame you want in the size you want , new or second hand, and have a bit of fun swapping it all over? That would probably be my choice IF I had all the components there already, unless there is a glaring bargain on a complete bike somewhere.

If I had my calipers in the house , not in work, I would have had a go at scaling off the photo to find the thread pitch.
We know the thread diameter is 13.85 according to t he mic, and we could measure the distance between the thread troughs off the part, or try the distance between thread peaks off the shadow being cast by the bolt. Not ideal I know , but I have done similar in the past where necessity called for it.
Or just use a known thread to measure the pitch against.
M6 coarse is 1mm, M8 coarse is 1.25mm, and M10 coarse is 1.5mm.
Try to get as much thread of the known coarse bolt lying against your broken bolt thread as possible to get a good accuracy. I have yet to see an M14x1.1 for example, but no doubt someone somewhere uses one. Its pretty unlikely they have mixed metric and imperial measurements together, like M14 x 26tpi or something.
Most metric machine threads being used as general fixings or those from B&Q are almost always metric coarse.

Does this system have any negatives that you have experienced, other than cost? The racks are obviously secured to the car frame in some other way other than just vacuum otherwise someone could just nick the rack , bikes and all quite easily with a cordless drill, I’d imagine. How secure would you say that connection was? Its not nylon webbing is it? The photos I looked at arent very clear on this asoect of the system.

Holy shit, those are expensive, but to be fair they do look quality. Quality costs.
If I can be cheeky, which model did you choose, and why did you go for this option? If I’m reading this right, these things use high power vaccuum suction to secure to the car, yes? Do you need a vacuum pump or do you rotate that thing that looks like a handle to expel the air from the rubber cup? Interesting solution and I can see how it could very useful due to its adjustability but man, I wasnt expecting about £300.

You could stitch Briton Ferry woods onto your loop if you wanted, some nice trails there, plus you can ride direct from the masts (foel fynyddau) to the fire road which can take you left to Baglan and its various hills or right to Ferry woods , then back to the masts via the Inc!ine dram road.

It will be going on…i dont know yet. Gonna treat myself to a mid 2000’s ebay special as and when I find one. Currently got a GT force but its too small, so maybe a late iDrive?
Just missed out on somebodys beautiful Gary Fisher Roscoe recently, so thats the kind of era I’m looking at. Im a terrible rider so these bikes will be more than enough for me.
Might even buy a frame and build it up with ebay bits n bobs, done that a lot, really enjoy it.
If anyone wants to make any suggestions on great bikes theyve had in the past which might fit the description that would be helpful too.
Cheers.