I work in a school as a technician, I’ve briefly worked as a teacher but it’s not for me. the TAs in the schools where I have worked have been great, hard working and knowledgeable. You might find yourself working in one area a lot, so if you’re good at maths or science you’ll end up helping in those areas more. They still have to do a certain amount of paperwork and rush around as much as the teachers. Pay has never been good unless you get to become a higher level TA and most positions were filled by women in their 30s and 40s as it fits in around the rest of their lives. But, they would usually finish at 3.30pm and go, and get the holidays. Maybe look at something like being an art technician or if you have the skills a science technician, you’ll be working in the same area most of the time, get the holidays and not much stress. I’m looking forward to nearly 8 weeks off soon, I get 3 weeks at Christmas and Easter and half terms, I’m in a private school so longer days but longer holidays … I’m happy!

Thanks for the ideas, one of those drinks cabinets would be good but I don’t think mine would be full for long.

Where are you finding old kitchen cabinets, about 20 years ago I did something similar with some new kitchen cabinets that were very basic but ideal, simple drawer units and the right height but new ones I’ve looked at don’t seem quite so adequate.

The mancave is part of an extension on the house, you can walk through to it without going outside, it’s all built to be habitable so when we move someone else could use it as a bedroom or dining room, I’m trying to make it look good so not keen on using old crates or plastic boxes, although footflaps home made unit looks like something I could do.

What I’m temporary using at the moment is my parents old sideboard, it’s got a set of drawers in the middle and I’ve found them really useful, I’ve put dome plastic ice cream tubs in the drawers and organised things into these, but something like that is too low to put a worktop on.

I’ll keep an eye out in second hand shops and ebay, but I might just have to design and make it myself.

What version Heckler do you have? The 5.0 will be good with older 140 Pikes or bolt through Revs and the 6.0 will happily use a 160mm Lyrik. But you’ll also have to cost in the factor of a new front wheel unless you’re already running convertible Hope hubs.

Second hand prices of 26in 1 and 1/8th forks seem to be going up though from what I’ve observed, some Pikes went for £210 on ebay recently, I got a really nice set for £130 about 18 months ago and old Revelations are going for high BIN prices – I’m on the lookout for spares myself now and then as most of my frames are 1 and 1/8th

Yep, although not a couple of hours, couple of years … I had a perfectly good set of Pikes and Revelations, sold them as I just had them as spares after putting on some Lyriks, both 1 and 1/8th 26in, thought ‘well, I’ll buy some new one’s if I need some’, how wrong was that, can’t get 1 and 1/8th forks anywhere now and second hand prices seem high to me, more than they were a few years ago, specially as these sizes are out of fashion and everyone’s supposed to be flogging them off for peanuts!

This generation of the Heckler are brilliant bikes, I also have a Nomad and newer Heckler but I’d rather keep this one, it’ll go on forever. Change the shock to an RP23 it’ll perform so much better and you can have some pro pedal on the climbs, lighter wheels and tyres will help things (are those 5.1Ds?) should be able to get some nice light 26ers on the classifieds cheap these days, maybe drop the forks to 140mm – I found mine to handle and climb much better with 140mm rather than 150mm, who’d have thought 10mm would make a difference. Stem looks short-ish, don’t follow fashion and get one that makes the bike fit better-er? …unless of course you are looking for an excuse to get a new bike, in which case I’ll have the frame if you sell?

Erm, 😕 … anyone?

Thanks wysiwyg, appreciate it, have emailed you.

Unfortunately, neither of those places are local to me, hoping someone will know the correct size so I can get some delivered in case it happens again, can’t measure mine as I only have 1/3 of it, the rest went flying to an unknown dimension – a quick google brings up similar threads but nothing about the size of them, they are in the service kit but the whole kit costs about £25+ …. anyone know the correct size?

you can’t use laser eye surgery to correct the need for reading glasses, it only works on short-sightedness.

Ah, wasn’t aware of that. I haven’t really researched it, just thought it could be done. Just find it a pain when I forget my glasses for work (even though I have 2 pairs I’ve done this a few times and have to spend the day squinting at things), they slip off my head, find it a real faff when having to look at maps or gps when out on the bike, but really compared to some people this is probably a minor inconvenience.

Thanks for all the replies and links, my better half is keen on a yoga holiday in this area and suggested I should go too, so I could do some yoga in the morning and biking the rest of the day, she went last year, nice healthy food is provided too so we won’t be breaking the bank buying food out … I’m undecided at the moment, been going to Les Gets/Morzine the last few years but fancy a change.

Monday morning bump for all you workers …

Anyone been here?

R_B – where did you get this done and what was the cost if you don’t mind me asking?

This is something I’ve been considering but never looked into it, I’ve only needed reading glasses in the last 3 years or so, so after 45 years without them it’s a real pain. Saw Moorfields mentioned above so looked at them and it’s about £5k to have both eyes done but Optical express prices start from £395 per eye.

probably should read 25% not £25 ?

That drone racing through the trees looks great fun. If this sort of tech continues soon I’ll be able to put on some glasses and virtually go down the trails in my local woods without leaving my bed, no getting wet, cold or spending 2 hours cleaning the bike.

Thanks for the replies.

247blinds was one I looked at that seemed good as they had different widths to choose from and reasonable prices, the local DIY places only do 25mm and the ones from homebase don’t overlap very well, you can see a bit of a gap when closed. Will also check out the other places tomorrow. 🙂

and swamp anyone else trying to use that frequency.

Ah, ok, so is there no way of locking from user to user in some way, so that if I buy 2 or 4 or 10 I can set them up to just communicate to each other?

I looked into this recently after a road trip where we were in 2 cars and thought it would be useful to be able to communicate between each car, also handy for use when out riding, but all the legal ones seem to have the same problem – no range. I’m not going to claim to be knowledgeable but I don’t understand why we are limited to such low power 0.5w, the frequency 446 I can understand so you don’t interfere with other official users but can someone explain why you can’t have a higher power on the same restricted frequency, surely all this would do is increase the range??

Thanks all, I meant ‘Morris’ grease, dunno why I put Morrisons – maybe I’m hungry!I’m near the sea so there must be a boat yard near to get some thicker stuff.

No, wasn’t brittle or breaking, was still flexible, but I’ll check that in the morning too

Not changed anything other than the switch, basically like for like, no messing with wires. The old switch was quite old but just with 2 terminals, new switch has 2 terminals … doesn’t make sense to me.

Only thing I did do was to pull the wires apart a bit more to be able to get them into the switch, peeling back a bit of the outside plastic casing, old one was side by side, new one has the terminals top and bottom, quite sure this wouldn’t cause a problem.

I’ll try a few things in the morning – remove switch and see if light is still on, change the wires around and a new switch, if no joy I’ll do some photos … thanks for any advice

Ok, I’ll try that in the morning (carefully) although I didn’t need to pull the wires or anything, but you never know …

Originally I’d purchased single 2-way switches by mistake, wired this in as per the manufactures wiring instructions but had the same problem, light permanently on, thought this was due to them being 2-way switches so changed them for one-way only, only to have the same problem!

Only 2 terminals on the switch, one at the top, one at the bottom. New switches today, I’ve got a couple more so can try another one in the morning.

Would be a bit odd if both the new 2-way and one-way switch I fitted today were faulty.

Thanks Stoner, I get quite a few of these in the shed, mostly almost black shiney spiders, my mate says kill them, he always mentions a story where someone almost died from a false widow bite! Maybe I need to nuke the shed as it’s long overdue a good clear out 😐

Mmm … if coming by train I wouldn’t start from Brighton – busy roads and a bit of a drag up to the SDW, I’d go to Brighton then get the train out to Falmer (parking at Falmer uni is free on Sundays), from there head north to the SDW, turn right for Eastbourne, ideally you need to look at a OS map for the route.

If coming by car, look into parking in the Patcham area where you can make your way up to the SDW (past the Chattri indian war memorial maybe) turn right to Eastbourne and train back to Falmer to make your way back to the car. Again OS map will show you the routes.

Did you put a new cable in too? This could be sticking if not, I’ve had this and a new cable or take the old one out and clean and grease and it’ll work.

This is crazy, what are these people hoping to achieve?!

I ride through Friston now and then, don’t see it on the main fireroads but remember a while ago finding logs and branches across some of the routes in the woods, never see anyone doing this sort of thing but guess you’d have to be lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Some of those routes throuh the forest are graded for family use so you get parents with their kids riding around. There are some strange people around these days!

Brake hoses or cables loose or zip ties not done up tight – had this on one of my bikes, on another I was sure something was coming from the front end, I checked stem, headset, cables, checked cranks and BB … it was the bloomin saddle in the end!

Ah, ok, I’ll look out for that as I’ll be going down it tomorrow, I was only going up it 2 weeks ago and looked fine to me, wouldn’t say it needed any work on it.

Not quite sure where you mean .. is this that long concrete road that is part of the SDW or something going off the SDW? I’m planning a long loop tomorrow that goes around that area.

Hi LoCo, that’s great, I’ll order 10 so that’ll keep me going for a while, I did check your website but couldn’t see them, what’s the best way to order them – call you?

I reckon tapered steerers will go next, in about 2 to 3 years time when they need to generate another spending boom and we realise that a 1.5in straight steerer is 0.95% stiffer, and faster (and easier to manufacture), than a tapered fork and all new frames will have 1.5in headtubes, meaning all forks will be 1.5in which won’t fit in your retro tapered frames and you’ll panic and buy a new bike.

Wtf happened there??
For a sec I was actually excited..

+ 1

Really like my ’09 Pitch, it really can do a bit of everything, ‘Ooo’ I thought, ‘that could be my next new bike’ … nope, no way, it’s just wrong to use that name on something like that, the original Pitch sold out for good reason and I was hoping for an updated model, I just feel kind of … nauseous

I usually get paid over the holidays but it’s pro-rata, so say I get paid for 10 months of the year (support staff is uaually term-time only) but it’s spread out over 12 monthly payments, so I’m not sure how that effects things as the term finishes around the third week of July and I would of officially only been employed, and paid, by the school for just over 3 months.

The info I can find on the net is that if my new job starts on 1st September then my 4 week notice should end on the 31st August as that’s when my last employment day would be with the school I’m at now and this ensures a continuity of employment, which means giving my notice when i’m actually on summer break?

Blimey, Devils Dyke to Firle Beacon is some distance for the bass to travel!

Where was that rave? I was up around Firle Beacon about 6pm last night and I’m sure I could hear a low ‘boom, boom, boom’ coming from somewhere.

Yesterday was a cracking day, sunny and dry, today it’s been raining all day so far. Friston Forest has a lot of new interesting trails and you can add a loop along the SDW to get a bit of everything, but not sure I’d want to after this rain.

Viewranger looks good, will check it out, thanks.

Quick question about any of these apps mentioned, do any of them have the facility to locate where you are, so could my partner somehow see where I was in an emergency – I remember when someone did the SDW 3 times I could go online and see where they were but can’t remember the app or software they used, but not looking for live tracking just if i don’t come back from a ride when expected someone could see where I was? Any of these do that or something else that will do it?

Jungle UK have some 26″ Santa Cruz Nomads in

Jungle/SCUK don’t have anything as I phoned them earlier today 🙁 … tempted to buy from France

Mmm, I’ve been looking for a 26in Alloy Nomad, I see that Alltricks.fr have some, wonder what the deal would be with the warrenty in the UK if I purchased from France?

Sorry to hyjack, but if any one knows of a UK shop with a large Nomad frame or full bike please let me know, I’ve tried Stif, SCUK and Bikescene, no luck, it’s like they’ve all disappeared.