Off topic, but love or hate Russell Brand-

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/13/monkeys-queen-inequality-capitalism-rich-poor-private-security

If we all (we in the broad sense, not just STW) shout load enough the more awful bits may be changed or scrapped- you don’t have to just sit back and take it!

Dunno. I panicked I suppose. I bought one now (frame with forks) while was bidding on the other and it’s rude not to pay for stuff you bid on :lol:

Here’s one we built based on an SR250, quick and dirty-

It’s too high, it could do with lowering overall by around 50mm but it was built on a budget with stuff we had left over from other bikes.

Grey import hen’s tooth, a Yam SRV250-

and finally an XJ550 that never got finished-

Honda 650 singles are a good base (Dominator, SLR etc).

Hose it down and spray the chain and gear gubbins with GT85 then into the house for a G&T/glass of red/cup of tea :D

To be honest, if you’ve bought the bike cheap to strip the parts from then people will still see it as an expensive ‘second hand’ frame even if it had never had a wheel turned under it. I had the same thing with my bike- I bought to strip for parts- but just ended up putting it back together and loving it.

‘Ms’ is ok, I don’t mind ‘ms’ from people I don’t know that well so I’d maybe go with that but it might be a situation where you could just address the letter ‘dear Deidre Shufflebottom’ without using a title.

To someone who’s name you know but aren’t familiar with I’d (personally) go with ‘Ms (insert surname here)’.

It depends, but it’s generally out the door and there are decent trails within 1km. We’ve driven to Hamsterley a couple of times and up to Northumberland but I prefer to start and finish the ride at home, dunno why.

Nah. We started doing it and ended up having a post-ride beer about a week in. We’re grown ups, we don’t drink too much to start with and I did the Dryathlon in January.

‘Merkins, pfft.

750mm bars and a short stem would be a cheaper ‘suck it and see’ option than just jumping (arf!) in at the deep end and buying a new frame. You could pick up some decent stuff for less than £50 if you don’t need badge. Wider bars were a revelation for me :D

If there’s a dog that’s off its lead and heading towards me barking and stuff, I make sure to aim directly at it and put the kindness bomb back in my pocket.

Here’s a proper bargain in loads of sizes-

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/sunn-shamann-s2-suspension-bike-2013/rp-prod121792

and youshe’ll get that lovely new bike glow.

Kindness bomb – Slow down & allow for slowness of thought and righteous indignation, good morning/afternoon, smile, please & thank you, excuse me… BOOM! – it diffuses the situation nicely, makes you feel all warm ‘n’ fuzzy and leaves them thinking they’d have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky manners :D

We don’t do Christmas (or god(s) for that matter) so it’s all just a massive PITA, although there are usually some good programmes on the telly this time of year. As far as presents/tat goes we just buy each other, and ourselves, stuff as and when we feel like it. The whole boom/bust thing got pretty tired a good few years ago.

Hey! It’s not just grown men at it. I’m waiting for this to arrive-

DK General Lee 24- it will be shown some TLC upon its arrival. I’m 40 in January :D

We’ve got an ebay ‘store’ and a separate website, all transactions are done through paypal and our prices are higher on ebay to take the fees and ebay-specific chew into account.

High volume sellers get a larger discount but I don’t know what the numbers are, sorry.

£10 Asda PAYG, in my backpack just in case. It only cost a tenner and the battery lasts ages. I can’t record my awesome Strava times with it though so I have to bungee the laptop and a GPS thinger to the bars when I go out shredding.

Hand/face = nope

Yam TW125s are awesome. I had one a few winters ago and it was loads of fun. Simple, air-cooled 2 valve 4T engine, it’d go anywhere pretty much (just not very quickly!) You can pick them up for less than £1000.

2Ts are brilliant but they’re arsehole magnets and attract thieves like nothing else. I had a WR200 (similar to the DT125, ish) stolen a couple of years ago and I won’t have another enduro type bike now because of it.

The good/bad thing with 125s is that there’ll always be a market for them because of the learner law, so whatever you buy (as long as it’s Japanese (or European to a point)) and you maintain it ok won’t ever drop in value. Chinese bikes aren’t worth looking at (yet)- all of them we had to work on were crap.

For “pootling around/scratch the itch and some green laning-trying” I’d recommend a light-ish (sub 120kg) Japanese 4T 125. Hell’s teeth, you could go green laning on a CG125 if you wanted!

A TW125, yesterday-

edit- yes, it is a fat bike…

Do you know what size they are? We’ve got loads of M3-M8 stuff in the workshop.

This morning-

I’ve got 140mm Raidons on my bike (Sunn Tzar S2) and I find them ok- have you set the sag and stuff to suit you?

edit- just because Suntour aren’t as ‘badge’ as RS or Fox doesn’t mean they’re not as good (or possibly better, for a given price point).

Do you have fun on both bikes?

edit- I meant that if the fat bike is out of its element it may not be as much fun as the road bike.

edit again- although that might be part of the enjoyment.

In addition- and this isn’t aimed at anyone in particular- do videos of people thrashing their bikes and, ahem, shredding trails put a bit of undue pressure on you? Do you think that because you see other people doing that on ‘your’ bike that you should be doing that as well? I’ve been through the same sort of wringer with motorcycles.

I think basic bike skills like being able to bunnyhop and manual can really help here, that way if you do happen to end up a little out of control on the landing or come up short you’ll be able to react to the situation which would/could, in itself, help put you at ease.

It’s Alright, don’t get yourself so Steam-ed up about it…

Do I get to invoice you for any ideas I put forward that you put into production? :wink:

Police? Follow this van!

Police! Follow this van?

Police follow… this van?

Police follow this… van?

Seems a touch harsh for those who list, and genuinely have to end the auction.

Since when did big commerce have a conscience? This is why I have absolutely no compunction in f-ing ebay over at every opportunity, ironically.

With eBay you can agree to sell to the highest bigger and end the auction early, so if he did that he would have incurred the 10% Final Value Fee. If he had ended the auction, for the reasons I gave previously, and then just sold to the buyer as a private sale. Then I can see no way in which eBay could extract a fee.

Ebay changed the selling agreement recently to ‘catch’ this. Any item in an auction type listing is subject to a final value fee regardless of whether the auction ran the distance or not. If you’ve got a bike, say, advertised on Gumtree and want to list it on ebay as well it would be better to list it with a fixed price and best offer than run an auction as you’d only pay the initial listing fee and no final value fee. I’m sure they’ll find a way to shaft sellers doing it that way soon though, under the auspices of ‘improving the ebay experience’.

Ebay now take a percantage of the final price regardless of whether the listing ran its full length or not for auction type listings, ie if you end an item that has been bid up to £150 you will pay a percentage of that amount.

They take a final value fee for fixed price listings (with or without ‘best offer) only if they are bought through ebay.

They charge for ‘classified’ type ads (for bikes and cars) but there’s no final value fee as the sales aren’t concluded through ebay.

I don’t know if there’s a listing fee for auctions or not as I haven’t auctioned anything for ages as it’s too much of a PITA to deal with auction ‘winners’.

R-Tech supply welding gas in various size bottles with no need for a contract (unlike BOC). No, I don’t work for them.

I don’t honestly care what some people think. If I can make it £50 more for me and £50 less for my buyer, then I’m happy with that scenario

I’d imagine the buyer would be happier too, unless they’ve got a carbon fibre broomshank up their bum like some of the people on here :lol:

But you pay an initial listing fee and/or monthly subscription to ebay, surely that is payment enough? What happens if you have an item that is for sale on ebay and also advertised on Gumtree for the same price, say, and sells via that route rather than through ebay meaning you have to end the ebay listing early- is that also ‘fraud’?

Stick a mobile number in a high value ad, if a buyer puts a serious offer in ask them to text an email address to that mobile number (cos ebay blocks email addresses in their stupid message system) and send the buyer an invoice for the agreed amount. The buyer still has ‘protection’ by using paypal and you get to circumvent a 10%-sized bending over from ebay :D I’ve sold a few high(ish) value motorcycle parts this way recently. Obviously this needs the buyer to agree to purchase off ebay first, but you can make it more agreeable by offering to split the saving on the final value fee.

I always make sure I take good photos before, during and after packaging a high value item and email the buyer the photos to cover myself against possible ’empty box’ scams.

edit- dunno how offering to go halves on the saving by selling outside ebay could be considered ‘fraud’, like :?

Stop that, it’s ‘gassed’.

Buy as big as you can afford and house cos you’ll always find something that needs more poke to weld and the more powerful ones can be used to make a mess of ally as well.

Generally if it says it will weld 4mm/5mm/6mm/whatever, it means that it will give a good weld on that thickness material. You could tack thicker stuff togther using it though.

R-Tech do some useful stuff, we had a 160A AC/DC TIG from them and the customer support was very good.

http://www.r-techwelding.co.uk/welding_equipment/Mig_Welder

We run a small motorcycle/try-to-get-into-bicycles project/parts/titanium fasteners business and sales have dropped off over the last month or so. I don’t know why. It may be that we’ve had a particularly good summer which, looking out of the window, is still continuing so people are riding instead of rebuilding/tinkering.

Anybody want some discounted Ti?

We’ve got a 1994 Toyota Lucida which cost £800 a couple of years ago and has only cost us regular oil changes since. We can get a few MTBs in easily or two motorcycles with kit at a push. It’s great for days away :) but there’s no space to store the bikes if you want to sleep in the back overnight :?

The ten commandments, boiled down, distilled and rewritten in BASIC-

10 Don’t be a twat
20 Goto 10

run