My <£5 Aldi over shoes – warm dry feet. Lovely.

You might want to read this.

:wink:

smorgasboards don’t seem as grippy as a high roller, but they seem to roll a bit faster.

Thanks for the tip off. Will be sticking to HRs for now me thinks.

I’m thinking of replacing my 2.35 high rollers (leave ’em on all year round) with smorgasboards. Will I die? Any direct comparisons?

Obviously this.

Marmaduke – when you say battery box, do you mean a box to put a battery in or a battery+box? Sorry for being thick. How does the one you have differ from the one I mentioned?

Ta!

If you want technical and rocky, this one will see you right. If you want ~20k, just cut out the western loop.

Oh bugger, looks like I’ve ordered the wrong battery…can anyone recommend one that will fit, run for a decent amount of time and not burn my garage down when I’m charging it please?

I’ve a Solarstorm head unit on order – does anyone know what connector’s on it? I’ve also ordered this battery which looks like the one sold by C and B. Please tell me it’s going to fit…

Joe – the thought had crossed my mind but it’s only the outer edges of my hands (the heels?) that seem to take the pressure so I thought that straighter bars (and poss shorter stem) would help. I’ve got pretty broad shoulders and wrists feel a bit twisted in (if that makes any sense).

As you asked so(ul) nicely :)

[/url] IMAG0803[/url] by jruk*[/url], on Flickr[/img]

This one’s kept me entertained many a time although the western loop isn’t as much fun as the rest so often skip it.

http://my.viewranger.com/route/details/MTYyNzc=

I am in the office which has amazing views – you’re not having my job :)

But even from home we can see Dartmoor and the drive to/from work is just great – I’ve got out of the car to take pics sometimes. Never did that on the misery line.

It’s ace down here.

Totally agree with SprocketJockey.

We moved from London to just outside Exeter 4 years ago. It’s been really stressful at times as the job market sucks down here but I’ve now got a cool job with a cool company and as I look out of the window I can see all the way down the Exe estuary to the beach and across to Haldon. We can be on Haytor in less than 15 mins and the beach in 20.

London is an amazing city, it’s not a great place to bring up kids but is great for careers if you bust your gut. Devon is the opposite. But after realising what’s important in life, I’d pick Devon every day. That said, it has to work financially or it doesn’t matter.

HTH.

If you don’t want a bash (I didn’t), I used this 36t and the short version of these bolts.

I’ve just gone from 3×9 to 2×9 and haven’t missed the top two gears I’ve ‘lost’. Just stuck a 36t on the front with some shorter bolts, lowered the front mech about 20mm and screwed the upper limiter in and job done.

I’m sure I’ll change to 2×10 at some point but I can’t see the point in ditching perfectly good XT mechs and shifters.

Have you posted anything on Twitter? Usually pretty good for getting attention if you include the right people / #.

Give everything a really good clean and check the cable runs before spending any money. I realised I’d very slightly fluffed a cable routing on the rear mech and it caused shifting problems.

But if you do buy some new stuff I’ve gone from 3×9 to 2×9 (36+22) using an SLX 36t, XT chain and SLX cassette and it’s shifting really nicely. Only dropped the top two gears (ish) in terms of range so really happy overall.

I’ve got a Controltech M Post and it does the job nicely – not managed to bend it yet despite being ~95kg and riding a hardtail.

We had ‘comedy’ wiring in our old place – think cooker switch coming off of a light switch – and they worked fine. Borrow some if you can to be safe but you should be fine for normal stuff.

Most of my ‘proper’ riding is on Dartmoor (plus quick blasts around Haldon) and my Soul with 120 Rebas does me poud. Not saying a FS wouldn’t be great fun as well but as a ‘one bike to do it all’, the Soul’s pretty damn close.

Glad it’s not just me! I can use all of them but it gets a bit noisy when using the 11t at the back. Wouldn’t be an issue if I still had thumbies…

Thanks all, thought it was odd that I’d be told it couldn’t be done.

The thing I’m now wondering about is if I’ll be able to use the full cassette with a 36t up front. At the moment, as per the original instructions, when setting the front mech up I have to choose between the chain rubbing on the front mech at the top or the bottom of the cassette, it won’t run smoothly across all of them.

Any ideas?

Don’t know Newbridge but have a good 18 mile route for Lustleigh cleave and hound tor. Email in profile if you want it.

Don’t judge others by your standards Chief :-)

Mindfulness really helps me. And talking to an objective counselor really helped as well – let me see the wood for the trees and help identify what was causing the problems (external factors, not me ‘going mad’). And having a really supportive wife has helped massively. As has being advised by my GP and counselor to get out riding more :P

Email in profile if anyone wants to chat.

Have you tried the rotor on a different wheel to check it’s not the hub? Or even swap the brake to a different frame if poss? Not from experience but you seem to have tried most things.

Why I sold my old ‘proper’ Bontrager Race Lite I’ll never know. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

We had an older tooway system and for general browsing it was fine. Corporate VPN throttled it back really badly but otherwise a good solution if you’re in the midddle of nowhere.

Hitting dirt :-)

I fell over putting the bins out and broke my nose.

I used Viewranger on my android HTC for about 3 hours last week and it used loads of battery. I’ll use it again on short ‘learn new routes’ type trips but I wouldn’t rely on a phone. Which is annoying because viewranger works well (or it did for me on dartmoor).

Hmmm…how about Access, The Bells or Red 2. So many good times, so many lost brain cells…

Buy a Soul if you want one – they’re ace. I’m 95kg in my kit so a pound or two on the bike will make sod all difference.

Really sorry for your news dude, really sorry.

As raw as it is now, the hurt will ease – make sure you keep talking to each other and don’t bottle anything up.

A week ago I was in your situation so I’ve a pretty good idea how you feel. Email in profile if you want to rant to a stranger.

How about Cam’ron – I kid ye not.

Jazz is just wrong and jazzists should be burnt at the stake. :evil:

Big hugs OP. Currently sitting in the hospital waiting for my wife to come out of theatre – had a miscarriage this morning at 11 weeks. Feel like shit but trying to stay positive. Sometimes STW can be a good place.

I love my Soul. It’s sure footed, really capable and very, very orange. They really are awesome bikes.

We bought a new build last year. It’s on a small-ish development (~70 houses) and it’s well proportioned, light, airy and has plenty of storage – so not all new builds are crap (some are def rabbit hutches though). It’s mainly big 3/4 bedroom houses plus quite a few big 5/6 bed houses and there are a few Maserattis (sp?) and Porsches (none of which are mine).

There are ~15 or so ‘social’ houses but all bar one are part ownership for ‘key workers’. So far, so good, everyone is friendly. Whilst we were waiting to move we rented for a bit on a bigger estate were there was more ‘not done a days work in their life housing’ and whilst it wasn’t great, it wasn’t scary with gangs of feral kids roaming around.

So from my limited experience I’d say factor in how big the development is (bigger prob = worse), the type of social housing (rented -v- shared ownership), the % of social -v- private, and the size of the houses and the % make up (if it’s lots of small 2/3 bed houses then they’re more likely to be BTL so could be rented out to anyone).

EDIT: just to add – it’s good that people learn that not everyone is like them so mixing housing stock is a good thing.

HTH.