I think the easy answer will be reverting to a triple chainset as before. Looking at taking the old XT triple off my geared bike and putting that on the SS with the new chainring on the outer tabs.
I can then put the new SLX double onto the geared bike (which had been converted to a double a while ago) – sort of puts that right.
I’m pretty sure the 9 speed setup on the geared bike will work on a 10 speed crankset.

Cheers Ben – doubt they’re insured specifically although they might be covered on his house contents insurance.

I had a slot dropout inbred for a few years and had the same problem with chain dropping which got progressively worse over the time I had the bike. Ran it with 2 chain tugs and tried different makes, a Surly Chain ring, White Industries Freewheel and SS straight link chain….not a HG geared chain. I had a bolt through DMR SS hub and had even centre punched dropouts to give the rear bolt washers something to grab onto. After every ride or so the chain would still loose it’s tension and would very often chuck the chain.
In the end I found out that it was the rear triangle that was pulling over…..I did the Sheldon Brown Frame alignment check with chord and after 2 or 3 rides the stays would have pulled over 2 or 3mm.
This was the frame without a small Chainstay brace fitted in front of the back wheel so I always wondered if that had something to do with it. I did find it very easy to flex the back end….it is definately much flexierr there than the Cotic Simple I replaced it with.
Have a look on the Sheldon Brown Website and seach out the frame alignment pic so see how to check the straightness of the frame.

Thanks for that Andy!

Try the Renault Kadjar, same engines, mechanics and floorpan as the Qashquai but cheaper, a bigger boot and IMO better to look at and not as common as the Nissan. Got the 1.5 dci but they do petrol and 4wd as well.
Getting about 51mpg on mine. Good equipment levels and nicely built.

All sounds very similar to what I am going through and have been for the last couple of years. Not got the added issue of drinking but everything else rings very true. Spoke to my wife constantly about how I feel and she has been a rock. Spoke to colleagues I can trust who all can empathise with what I have been feeling. Not considered professional help but being able to talk to those closest to me has been what has kept me going……also, Sunday mornings out on the bike with mates gives a few hours of me being able to forget about the crap that drags me down.
Try to care less about what work colleagues think of you, just worry about doing your best when you are there and nothing more.
A good inspirational watch is the Wilko Johnson documentary about him and what he went through and how he came out the other side……in particular he talks about most of the crap we go through life worrying about really doesn’t matter.
Most of all, speak to those around you who care and you will be fine.

Came off Lanaprazole in 2010 and opted for the surgery instead. Totally stopped any acid or reflux. Just have to eat chicken and nan bread slowly.

Not got a Qashqai but got the Renault derivative Kadjar. 1.5 dci Signature Nav so equipment levels are great. Getting 52 mpg on a semi rural commute. Drives fine and is quite lively for a big car with a 1.5 dci engine. 4 months in and no complaints yet.
Went for the Renault only because there are thousands of Nissans about and list price was a bit less with the Renault. It’s my third Renault now and dealers have always been good and had no reliability/build issues despite what most people say.

I helped out when both by boys went through Beavers, Cubs and Scouts. I got CRB’d by them. Helped out on camps, activity nights, painting the hut and odd jobs, days out and also did the accounts for a couple of years. I was happy to do it but there was a bit of ‘guilting’ parents to do stuff although I never saw the helping out as a chore.
I stopped short of doing the leader bit cos I could never commit to a time because of work.
When both kids finished I stopped. There were 60 other parents who would pull up, drop off the kids and drive off and return 2 hours later. As my kids had left I wasn’t prepared to give my time up whilst other parents left their kids with me/us and I wasn’t spending time with my own kids.
Having said all that I would encourage you to help, scouting rely on people giving up their time and it always tends to fall on a small handful who make large sacrifices with their time. You will get annoyed by those who do nothing to contribute. Even helping out by doing jobs around the hut or supervision on marches, camps etc would be greatly appreciated if you decide that fully committing to be a leader is not for you.

I did it 2 years ago on a CAAD 8 with slicks, missed the off-road bits. No problem.

The area banded by the 4 roads around the circle is OK. Thornhill Road, Rosehill, West Hill Avenue, Greenheath Road, Station Road, Bond Way are good IMO. Hednesford Town again is fine – very nice feel to the place and a couple of good pubs and restaurants.
Avoid anything to the north east of Bradbury Lane.
Penkridge is nice and has a lovely village centre but what people aren’t telling you about Penkridge is that it not convenient for the M6 – it is cut in half by it – passes between the high school and village – it is in a cutting but it is noisy.
Huntington and Cannock have a mix of good and bad so choose carefully if looking around there.
(resident of Hednesford, Heath Hayes, Cannock and Huntington for 40 years).

Alan Ford without question.

Kids are 16 and 19 so sort of not really kids. Some good deals on airbnb, the Bedford Av apartment can only be rented for a month.
I do prefer mid town, always stayed around 32, 33, 34th street & Broadway but don`t mind something further east or west.
Rooms at a pukka hotel such as Penn or the New Yorker are coming in at around £2000 for the week so something less than that for the accomodation would be nice.

I think I’ve managed to find the apartment on Bedford Av – coded as 2BR? Looks promising thanks. Googling the contempo design suite now.

Cheers.

Apart from occasional heartburn after a curry or eating late my only symptoms were waking myself up in the early hours with a coughing fit. My GP never sent me for any tests. He just prescribed the PPIs from the off. It was only because a colleague had mentioned the H Pylori that I went back and asked for the test. I then asked for a referral to a Gastric consultant who then discussed the option of surgery with me. From the off the GP suggested nothing about diet changes, bacteria or surgery. In my case he was just happy to prescribe the PPis. I wasn’t happy taking them but that’s not to say they aren’t for everyone.
I must also mention that once having being prescribed PPIs I found that as soon as I tried to stop taking them heartburn would come back with a vengeance permanently (whereas before the heartburn was only occasional) so I found myself dependant on them.
Without doubt the condition shouldn’t be ignored because of the long term problems that can develop. If the medication
suits better then taking them has got to be far better than ignoring the condition.
Good luck. there are plenty of options available, meds (over the counter or prescription) , diet, surgery, lifestyle….it’s just finding the one that suits you best.

Ask your doc about the surgery, I opted for it cos I wasn’t keen on chucking the PPI drugs into me every day. I saw those as treating the symptoms and not dealing with the actual problem which in most cases is the loosening of the muscle around the top of the stomach.
Has anyone mentioned the bacteria which cases it as well which can be treated by antibiotics, the doc should routinely test for that if you have any of the heartburn/reflux symptom…….H pylori or something similar.

Simple Minds backed by Lloyd Cole, The Waterboys, BIg Audio Dynamite and Dr and the Medics 22nd June 1986 at MK Bowl.

Bin through all of this, was in 40 mg a day of lanaprazol, if I missed the meds the heartburn would come back with a vengeance. Went and had the Nissen fundithingimejig and it totally worked for me. Six years since having it done and have no meds, no reflux, no heartburn and don’t need to worry about what I eat or when. The only issue I had post op was difficulty in burping for a few months which is now all back to normal and even now I have to eat stuff like bread (especially nan bread etc) steadily cos the entrance to the stomach is much tighter than it was before.
Pre-op I had the manometer test for swallowing and the 24 hour ph test. The actual op (keyhole) was done on a Friday night and I was home on the Sunday, took a week off work and had to eat soft food for a couple of weeks.
The consultant said the success rate for completely curing the condition ( ie being meds free and therefore symptomless) was largely down to the surgeon judging exactly how tightly to sew things up, thankfully my consultant chose well with the surgeon he recommended to me.
I am so glad I got this procedure done. I was lucky enough to have this done through BUPA, I am not sure if NHS would offer this.

Cannock and surrounding areas has had some unfair criticism of late but there’s some really nice bits. The ideal spot would be Hednesford, a nice little town and 5 minutes biking onto Cannock Chase. Also there’s direct trains from Hednesford into Walsall as well.
I’ve lived in Hednesford, Heath Hayes, Cannock and Huntington over the last 40 years, all have good and bad bits but Hednesford would be my choice.

Had a 10 plate V50 estate from new for 3 years. A diesel 1.6 SE DrivE. Covered 60 thousand miles. The only issue I ever had with it was a weird clunking sound when I pulled away which turned out to be something to do with the parking brake.
I thought the 1.6 Diesel was perfectly fine, pulled well especially on the motorway but I suppose it depends what you are used to or want from a car.
Excellent build quality, would have had another but it was replaced by the V60 which seemed to have much less space in the back because of the high boot floor and sloping roof line.

Cheap shot at a supermarket that hasn’t been shafting us for years and paying millions to their top shareholders. Our local one in Hednesford is always clean, has polite staff and as someone who always checks sell by dates I have never seen out of stock produce.

Had similar symptoms with the nightime cough and feeling of mucus and horrible heartburn. Put on 40mg of omaprazole and found that once prescribed it I couldn’t come off it for more than a day without horrendous heartburn. Had all the tests, including 24 hour acid monitoring, camera, pressure test of the muscles at the top of the stomach and then ended up having anti reflux surgery to tighten everything back up. That was over 5 years ago, not a bit of heartburn or reflux now and totally medication free.

This is a hypothetical I have often pondered. I’d avoid high ground cos everyone would go there, I’d melt into the more remote dense woodland up Cannock Chase such as the “area of special scientific interest” and would be hard to spot cos I have a green bike.

Picked up some RS Rev 150s with a tapered steerer and 15mm axle for 231 quid from Rose Bikes last week, you might find something decent on there to suit your budget.

Nice one! Stuff ordered!

They have just finished upgrading the M6 at Walsall and all have rear pointing gatso cameras and all lanes are marked. Cameras flash twice.

i think the Gatso uses the markers because it takes two pics at a set time interval (hence the two flashes) and therefore could by comparing the two pics and distance travelled across the markers to calibrate accurately the speed travelled. therefore no markers no speed can be accurately measured. That’s why they sometimes put them on both carriageways so that you don’t cheat and swerve over to the other side of the road to a avoid the markers.
I think the Truvelo with the red lenses that point at you work differently and don’t need the White markers.

Boxelder, that is very helpful and isnt far off a couple of routes we have as options. I think we might just have to bite the bullet and accept a small amount of tarmac from the digs and do something in the area you suggest.

Took another look and got the postcode for the digs where we are setting off from and have found a bridleway loop from there heading West past Devoke Water then looping back Eastbound on the bridleway via Waberthwaite Fell and Whitfell. That bit over the fell looks to be a challenge – anyone done it?

That’s good info thanks. Did a Google image search on the road, looks to be pretty wide rocky bridleway a bit like Peaks Roman Road from Hope Cross.

I did a route a few weeks ago starting in Stalybridge, up Mottram.Road, left up the top of the hill, up the lane then over the farmers feilds to Hobsons Trig. You can then head over towards the reservoirs via the Oldham Way and PBW. The is a Tarmac climb up to Chew Res. I then sort of doubled back then along the ridge line then headed back down around the back of the quarry. The ridge line track from Chew Res (with the drop and Tarmac road climb to the right) is only partially rideable and a bit of a slog to carry the bike. All the bridleway stuff is straight forward and the descent at the start from the trig line and singletrack down to the quarries are pretty good.

There are plenty of guides if you google them. I think I used the cnet one when I trimmed my two kids and my wife’s simms. All worked fine. Iirc I downloaded and printed off a template as a guide. Takes about 5 minutes.

Easy, just be careful and use sharp scissors. Basically you are cutting most of the plastic off the sim. I did 2 a few weeks ago, both worked fine.

Muc Off is £3-99 for 500mls at Aldi or £6-99 a litre at halfords.

I used a DMR revolver rear hub with the Allen screws. Still needed 2 chain tugs and cleaned the paint off the dropouts and centre punched the faces of the dropouts to give some grip to the collars. Chain still kept going loose.

Had exactly the same issue with my slot drop out inbred. Despite running with 2 chaintugs, a 1/8th KMC chain, a WI screw on freewheel and a SS specific chainring I’d have to re-tension every ride.
Eventually The rear triangle would start pulling out of line every few rides and I’d have to straighten it cos I’d lose the chainline.
In the end I swapped everything over to a Cotic Simple and have had no issues at all.
Comparing both frames the Inbred seemed a hell of a lot more flexi than the Cotic, neither had a Chainstay bridge but the indents on the chainstays were far deeper on the inbred – giving a smaller cross section. You could see this was where the frame was flexing from. There was never any chain suck on that frame to explain that.
Not sure what this tells you but swapping for the Cotic was the only variable I hadn’t changed until the end and the only one that cured the problem. I’d tried different chaintugs, chains, chainrings.

I’ve gone from a Picasso 2.0 HDI to a CMax 1.6 D to a Scenic 1.5 D (all from new) and IMO the Picasso was the most reliable having absolutely no issues over the 3 years. The CMax had loads of electrical issues, loss of power on long drives (faulty exhaust valve or something), engine management warning lights for no reason on hard braking and a clock that zero’d itself in bright sunlight……The Scenic was pretty average. I’d have another Picasso.

Thanks, that seems to make sense of what’s happened. I’ll get a seal kit and some oil and grease on order:)

I felt that the V50 struggled under load definitely. Climbing Dinas (sp) on the way to CyB it used to struggle fully loaded up, it depends how you use it, if it’s mostly you, one passenger and a couple of bikes it would be ok. My Renault 1.5 was better, again, dunno why, gearing might be better spaced to suit the torque.

Had a v50 1.6 DrivE SE Diesel for 3 years and 60000. Nice car, drove quite well and could get a bike in the back with front wheel off and Seatpost down otherwise it had to lay flat.
Went to swap it for a V60 until I saw the size of the boot, much higher floor and lower roof so went elsewhere and (waits flaming) chose a 1.5 Megane Estate GT line. Vastly bigger boot, better equipment level and surprisingly felt quicker even though on paper it was 1 second slower 0-60. Rear passenger space is far bigger on the Megane as well.
The downside would be the residual but doesn’t matter to me coz its a company car but it does have CO of 90 which puts it in the lowest tax bracket.
As a private buyer having poor residuals might be an advantage depending on how old the vehicle you are buying is.
The Megane doesn’t quite have the same build quality but it’s still fine and nothing has fell off it yet….after 2 years. It’s certainly a good option for rear space, luggage space, economy and equipment levels…..might be worth a look.