Actually yes, (^^) 200+ feedbacks is a bit tall isn’t it? (btw have ou seen the “ebay feedback thread” last week. 😯 )

Perhaps 25 with recent completed purchases would be more sensible.

If you set those kinds of criteria then you have to expect the item to end up selling for less – as serial non-bidders could (for all you know) be bidding your item up even if they’re not the eventual winner

Good point.

I expect this is also a factor in what would seem to be eBay’s disinterest in pursuing non-paying bidders: if your item sells more because someone who wasn’t going to pay for it also bid on it, then your final value fees to ebay will also be higher, ie put the ‘risk’ (of being messed around with a non-completed sale and not getting your money when you hoped) onto the seller (ie their actual “customer”) and maximise your profits.

AFAIK the bidder restrictions options you have are only:
-country
-0 or less feedback
-recent non-payment strikes.

I think that given the frequent “messer”s encountered in sales of phones/ipads etc, ebay would do well to introduce an optional stipulation for sellers to require bidders to have, say “200+ feedback plus recent completed purchases” otherwise it doesn’t let you bid.

Surely the cost of so many relisting credits/refunding fees etc must make it worth it to ebay to offer something like this in some categories with a high rate of non-paying bidders? I know since it is all so automated, we are only talking fractions of a penny/cent in ‘overheads’ to ebay for each auction they offer free relists and refund final value fees on, but then we are only talking a small amount of IT twiddling to introduce this as a trial.

presumably they pass on their business rates to private customers: the two times I have used them (big parcels to europe), the carrier that came to pick it up was our usual local parcelforce delivery man, but it was a good 25-30% cheaper for the same service than if I had gone to the local post office and done it over the counter.

Mud tyres and a santa cruz superlight: best of both worlds (comfort/massive hardtail-beating mud clearance) according to my wife. Also Newnham’s mud seems to suit specialized storm or bontrager mud-x more than trailrakers in my experience.

But we are owed a properly dry one this time round anyway.

This thread badly needs GW and his rad tales of wrenching grips off with his power-man-steering-deathgrip and manly calluses. Whatever happened to him?

Gove and farrage as PM/deputy. That just sounds like a match made in heaven.

In reality I think Farrage is more of an ‘operator’ than he would have us think, and after a walk to the shops and back, I now wonder if his comment about Gove as party leader was meant by him to be as funnny as it sounded. 😀

UKIP can’t possibly be racist: here is Michael Fabricant on telly this morning suggesting a pact with them swapping non-competition on key seats for a referendum if/when they win next time.

…and Farrage has been interviewed today saying the Conservative party would be better off ditching Cameron and getting a strong and capable leader such a Michael Gove.

This gets better and better. 😀

I have encountered a great many patients for whom the “clock stopped” musical-interests-wise roundabout the time of their first big episode of psychosis. So on the basis of how warped his reality is by the end of the book, I would say it’s quite likely that today Bateman would be listening to Genesis, Whitney and Huey Lewis.

just finshed reading ’Choke’, by Chuck Palahniuk.
How timely!

That map brings back memories.

Edukator, in the 90’s my wife used to live about where the “A” in ‘Belgrave’ is, and she and her then boyfriend were the only white faces in her street. Nice friendly enough neighbours, and most of the shops would be open on Christmas Day. 😀 However in those days a white girl walking through Highfields was usually mistakenly assumed to be a prostitute as why else would she be there?

But don’t let bitter lefties like us tell you about ghettiosiation.

Poacher’s choice.

OP, that ‘space’ could be worth £50k in St Ives.

Seriously though, I suppose I would have parked the Luton on the road: like you say, easier to get a roll of carpet out parallel to the pavement rather than perperendicular to it. Is it a busy road?

It was Bill Haydon. Oh, sorry, wrong film. 😀

Bazz has it. Speaking with my professional hat on, I would be very suprised indeed if there is more to it than the political leanings of the foster parents.

The Telegraph reports a great deal from the foster parents and only this statement from the local authority:

A spokesman for Rotherham metropolitan borough council said last night: “After a group of sibling children were placed with agency foster carers, issues were raised regarding the long-term suitability of the carers for these particular children.

“With careful consideration, a decision was taken to move the children to alternative care. We continue to keep the situation under review.”

Of course they are not prepared to comment to the public at this early stage (or indeed ever?) on why they removed the children. In my career I have encountered all sorts of reasons for removing children from foster carers, and an almost equally diverse range of ‘understandings’ amongst parents and foster carers of why children were removed from them. Sometimes those understandings are shared/agreed on by social services and the parent/foster carer, and sometimes they are wildly different. Perhaps there is something else/different that the local authority are too professional to tell a newspaper reporter about at this point.

It is also worth noting (as the Telegraph article does) that there is a by-election in Rotheram with a UKIP candiate standing, of course.

takisawa2 – Member

igrf…are you the agent / importer then…?

I am off down the co-op for some garibaldis. 😀

I am ashamed to say that during the film I thought it was pretty cool that they named one of the ships after the dude from Led Zep. 😳

Yes it was utter toss: we only watched it because the film we actually went to see wouldn’t work and they offereed us refund plus whatever other films were showing. One of my ex-matelot friends had a ‘go’ on the USS Iowa when it was operational, and he reckons that in real life the recoil from the guns pointed 90 deg port or starboard could make the whole ship recoil forty feet in the opposite direction. 😯

But of course the handbrake turn was ridiculous! 😆

Many GP practices and most out-of-hours GP services are already outsourced, to Virgin and Serco amongst others.

I would retrain as an interpreter (as in a proper lightning-fast good one with a Masters. I’ve done a lot of “hey, nursie, you speak foreign, gissa hand” interpreting at work but it’s not the same and pays, errr, what I normally get paid ie just below national average wage)

-it’s nearly what I did do 13 years ago. Nowadays I value family/kids/school/living in Devon too much for the travel/lifestyle of that job, mind.

Loooooads of clearance on t’wife’s 2011 (most recent shape) superlight.

Will your new 650b wheels plus 1.8″ tyres come up larger in outside diameter than your current wheels? I would try fitting a bigger tyre on your normal wheels first.

This thread would suggest that the average 2.2″ tyre on the average 650b rim will come up similar size to a 2.5-2.6″ rim on a 26″ rim.

Next you’ll be telling me that they made up Porthemmet beach. [/url] 😆

Northwind – Member

So as I understand it, the government thinks that a union should have to get a majority of all their members to vote in favour of strike action for the vote to have any validity. However, it’s absolutely fine for police commisioners to get in with a majority of the 10% who turned out.

+1

Spoilt votes came a close third for Devon & Cornwall, (we had ten candidates in total, 4 ‘political’ ones and six independents, and spoilt papers beat three of the four ‘political’ candidates). The man that won only had twice as many votes as there were spoilt ballot papers, and only 4% of people that could have voted at all actually voted for him. Good lord. 🙁

Agree with all the above. I thought of a couple more possible but probably smaller/less common factors:

It is suprising how many countries Amazon.com (ie the American one) doesn’t ship to internationally though (including the UK iirc, but that is because we have our own more expensive version 😉 )

If you live somewhere less than “first world”, you may find that private ebay auctions/listings (as opposed to shops selling on ebay) are the only place you can buy some products, because private sellers do not place so many courties on their ‘blocked’ lists. Sometimes this is why ebay auctions seem to go a bit mental: it is two bidders who have the money and just can’t get hold of the product anywhere else. When I used to sell stuff on ebay it was always Italian and Russian bidders who seemed to go the ‘craziest’ on my auctions, presumably beacuse most people refuse to post stuff there and my listing was the only one they could bid on at the time.

People also often ask private sellers to fiddle values on customs declarations as in many cases (eg buying an expensive frame or fork from the states) this can make a lot of difference to the total cost to the end customer even if it looks more expensive on ebay.

Surely the only Cove ever made with rackmounts on the dropouts. Although my wife’s hooker has larger unthreaded holes in the mahoosive dropout plates, and helpfully placed m6 bolts for the rear triangle bracing thing that I bet I could bodge one on to!

There is a dude that often does XC round our way with a rack on. Respeck! 😀

Do STW get much “click-through” revenue for internet purchases which start via the ads on here?

One (non-bike) forum I frequent runs on next to no proper adverts (like the banners and right hand side here) because of all the revenue it gets on click-though on “bargain-watch” lists/pages for three big online retailers and a few smaller ones.

Thanks for your sagely and helpful observation Razzer. 😀

I bought a fork on the classified once, and the guy posted it to the wrong stw-er (iirc he had sold them something else). I did get the fork a few days late and with a curly wurly in with it. 😀

McMoonter have you bought anything else from the classifieds? I suppose it is just possible that a seller you bought from once with a “lot on thier mind” might have muddled your details with someone with a similar name/email address/etc.

Bearback is talking about Canada though.

Why did companies such as Eisenegger (remember them?) manage to have 80% sales all the time? Because, as long as their clothes were marked at the RRP for a period of time (the exact amount I forget, but not long) they could then legally slash it, thus selling ‘expensive’ kit at a massive discount.

Erm, Halfords/Bikehut have some “crazy” discounts on their low end bikes that remind me very much of the “officers’ club” way of trading. Ditto bikes and bike stuff at JJB and Sports World.

He was pulling your leg. The margin is a fraction of that up front, and gross. The dealers will get back end bonuses based on CS results that will add a few % on, and that’s all. On a 6 month old car they registered as a demo they will get writedown support from the manufacturer, but not to the tune of half the retail value of the car.

I used to work for one of the largest manufacturers in the world. There is a few reasons why the motor trade is on its knees now. One main one being pathetic margins.

A good friend has worked for three or four of the biggies in recent years: I know of one of the largest manufacturers in the world whose slightly necky “list” prices in the UK are 30-40% or so more than a main dealer could actually sell for cash (as opposed to making anything back on finance or trade-in) without making a loss. Although that may have changed in the last few months: I think it was about March this year when I had that conversation. I also know however that the same margin is not nearly as “healthy” for the dealer across the street selling a rival or “superior” brand.

It would seem that the same is being reported about bicycles on this thread. Hey ho.

Four or five independent candiates for Devon & Cornwall.

Email-shot from 38 Degrees is either politicising something that need not be party political, or warning us that this may be another stealth move towards further privatisation/outsourcing of police staff. I’ve no idea how much influence a new police commissioner could bring to bear on this or not.

Anyway, 38 Degrees have collated all our local candidates’ own words on who they would like to run Police services and who they think should employ them to. Locally the independents and Lib Dem bloke talk of being very opposed to any further privatisation (custody Nurses and FME at least have already been outsourced for a couple of years), Labour bloke seems to be vaguely on the fence and Conservative person seems to be making a poor show of not lying but also not being seen to be dead keen on outsourcing. (ie it looks as though he could be if plied with enough golf and dinner 😆 )

When pressed by Denning, the Council stated that a wet summer, coupled with budget cuts, meant that they weren’t prepared to put cycling events on and risk damage to facilities. When asked whether the suspension would also apply to football and rugby, the Council unsurprisingly confirmed that they’d be going ahead as normal.

I recall entering a cross race one sunny but soggy novemeber that took place on a large set of playing fields in the south west. The local council apparently took umbrage at the state of the grass afterwards. The races ran alongside two of the slidiest and muddiest rugby matches I have seen for a long time. I bet they never took that stand with the rugby league organiser. 👿

Biscuits anyone? 😀

IIRC this topic is banned on the southerndownhill/ride io forum. 😆

BTW flashy used to post a bit on BM, but he wasn’t called CaptainFlasheart back then….

Blimey. I seem to remember the “help my bikes gone wrong” threads used to be quite helpful and reasonably quickly replied to, but I don’t think I have posted on there for five years.

[edit] good point kryton. Perhaps I will start a thread about my wife’s new pink Cove Hooker. Nothing like a thread with endless possibilities of inuendo to bump up the post count. 😆

Ouch. Black grips and lockrings for sure. You will be very lucky to get red lockrings that exactly match the frame, and if they don’t quite match it will look wierd. In fact in practice it is often very difficult to get any colours except black silver and white to match up exctly between different manufacturers.

BTW my wife’s new superstar excel grips turned up today. I can confirm that the superstar “baby pink” is not quite the same as hope’s pink, and also that them excel grips really are massive both in width and girth. 😯

I always wanted to try a Salsa Juan Solo.

Lightness-wise you would have to spend a lot of money to get lighter in weight than a whippet or s/h slotty scandal, non? I suppose it depends how much you have to spend…

I will add my voice to the many saying if you rule out too much paint inside the drive side dropout, (which would have been literally a two-minute check-and-fix for Cannondale CS), and the rim is skewed too far in the same direction whichever way round you put it in the frame then it is the frame which is at fault not the wheel.

This is shaping up to be some top PR for Cannondale Customer Services 😆

Yes.

As above, great for being seen on busy or faster roads, but not necessarily for seeing with on dark ones.

Back light is the best I have had over the years in terms of battery life versus brightness and the flash function on the back is good: it is always “on” but pulses extra bright on top of this of you have it on flash function, but I’ve only had it since the summer so I can’t comment on longevity. I put some silicon grease on the threads of the light (you switch it on like a maglight) and hopefully this will mitigate against rain ingress (although there is also a rubber seal in there) and thread wear. The stretchy silicon/rubber thing to attach it to your seatpost is great but I had to put a ruber band around the light itself to stop it rattling inside the mount.

Unless you get a great deal on both (irritatingly you can only get the charger and rechargeables bundled in if you by both for 80-odd quid) I would get a bigger brighter road-specific light for the front and se what works out as a good deal for the rear. The front one shines equally all round so whichever way you put it in the mount some of the light is wasted going upwards and sideways, and as it is so tiny and uses a small battery the advantages are reduced bar clutter and weight not overall brightness.

This thread last week had some good ideas about front lights specially for road riding.

“I’m protesting because the mortgage company tricked me into accepting a €203,000 loan”.

OK Woppit, how about “I’m protesting because the mortgage industry with all it’s financial expertise set the precedent way too high for borrowing versus personal income, and this company misled it’s less well educated and informed customers about the risks of being unable to repay their loans.” Does that sound more palatable?

FWIW we were cautious and ‘under-borrowed’ in relation to our salaries even with our first “110%” mortgage back in the silly days of 2000-2001 (actually it a 95% mortgage and an unsecured loan for the remainder, and it was with Northern Rock!).

But that doesn’t mean I think that everybody who wasn’t as careful as we were should take the full responsibility for not being able to meet their mortgage payments amid pay cuts and cost of living increases.

In 2000-2001 we could have accepted the “professional and impartial” advice of our financial adviser never mind the sales blurb of Northern Rock and borrowed a lot more than we actually did. I suppose one day I should do some sums and work out where we would be now financially if we had.

Wrote my letter last week: for the kids, innit. The plans are nothing to write home about technical-features-wise, but just what the kids and new-to-mountain-bike people could do with round here. Our local schools have recently been doing PE lessons round there with a fleet of basic hardtails, this is of course very popular with the pupils. There is also a great beginners club that meets every week. What a great opportunity to get more folk off the railway paths and onto something a tiny bit more adventurous. BTW it is the National Trust too! 😀

Carl (^^) has been “furious of Plympton” these last 2 weeks. He walks his big daft dawg up there all the time. Of course it’s easier to spot nimby BS when it is also your own back yard 😆

What is most entertaining is that at my last look at the letters bits on the council website, eight of the most stiffly worded “letters of objection”, (three of those eight being from people living in the £600k houses nearby!) were either cut-n-pasted or just plain old photocopies of the chairman of the “opposition”s letter. Weak!

OP, stress/anxiety changed at all lately?

I am also wondering about endocrine upsets, ie you are a tiny bit ill and sort of “cold sweating”? Finally I remember in the “escape artist” Matt Seaton talks about sweating more once he became super super fit: have you been commuting by bike long, and are you getting quicker at it?

I would go see your GP anyway.