why do you want to clean the EGR system? If diesel the car may go better with it blocked……

Sorry mate, very very easy mistake to make, but driving into a stationary object (not matter how invisible) can only ever be the fault of the driver. I can’t see any landowner wanting to even talk about liability/damages etc.

You might be able to get your insurance company to sort the windscreen (mine swapped the cracked screen on my van for £80), and keep an eye out for a new bonnet in the same colour (scrappy’s, ebay etc), the rest might polish out?

Put it down to one of those easy mistakes that works out expensive! (Like shearing off the damper rod on forks, or smashing a double glazed window with a mis-thrown ball etc etc)

Cycle to work scheme? That way you save 40% and it is interest free purchase. Or at least it’s a way of persuading otherwise difficult people that these necessities are cheaper than they actually might be…..

Yes, it is expensive.

We went to “Insure” or someone for my lads first year, and it was £2300 for a Fiat Panda 1.1. Adding his gran to the policy took it down £600 even though she will never drive the car. He was a student (occupation does matter, so try a few to see what works and what your daughter could get away with)

2nd year (just renewed) is £700 through “Insure the Box” who fit a tracker and give you bonus miles etc for carefull driving (it’s a limited mileage to 8000 policy. Same car, one years no claims. “Unemployed” status took this up by £160 (he has just got a job so he is expecting a refund!). ANother provide wanted £600 more if he was unemployed!

And if you do have a little accident, any damage less than £1000 is not worth claiming for (although you mustn’t hide it from the insurance company!)

Robbing barstewards.

Go for Sport. You won’t get your arse kicked, there’s always someone faster and slower than you (well, most of the time anyway). If you don’t enjoy it, move up or down a category for the next race. You don’t need a licence for sport either. (Check out XCracer.com for more info). And enjoy it (and remember it’s only a bunch of people riding bikes round in circles!).

But fuel hasn’t really gone up more than the rate of inflation since 2000 when the petrol strike happened. That occurred when petrol /diesel went over £1 /litre and now it’s £1.40 or so. So using very simple maths that makes it less than 4% per year (can’t be asked working out the compounded interest etc). Inflation over the last 10-13 years is going to average out around the 4% mark, so actually we’re paying the same as we were.

And whilst we’re all breathing in a bit with car usage etc, but there’s still a lot of cars on the road, and a lot of people driving less than 2 miles to the shops/school/work etc etc. Not many people agree with me that fuel isn’t priced high enough to help take cars off the road.

It was Kinver Edge I was thinking about, but if you guys are confident it’s not there then it probably isn’t.

Has to be a private estate somewhere with fairly easy access though.

There’s a country park I took the kids to many years ago, can’t remember it’s name, but it was west of Birmingham and had a load of sandstone caves – would fit the bill (from memory) as a place with hills, well drained, and rocky stuff.

Had a few, but the most recent was for a hernia op in November. Woke up next to a lovely brunette nurse, who I started talking to and had to stop as for a minute or so was talking like I’d had 10 pints. After a minute was fine and was chatting to the nurse who apparently lives just down the road from me and knows a few of the people I know, and is divorced. Thinking of going back for another op soon, just not sure what to have done yet.

tis busted

I think it’s crashed – comes up as server not available for me now. I think I’m in, but emails go to my “held and I’ll tell you tomorrow” shit email system

Be good to see the pics of where the fluid is leaking from. As for sponginess – where is the flex happening (spongy brakes can be caused by lots of things:
– bendy lever
– master cylinder pushrod sticking
– flexy hoses (flexy as in they expand rather than bend)
– poor fluid quality (air/water in the fluid)
– caliper rigidity
– seal rigidity
– pad material

So where is your spongy feel coming from?
I am a long time user of Hope brakes, and have only good things to say. Bought some XTs as well this year and they are the same power and feel as my 2002 Hope Minis. As with all things though a few bad components or maintenance can cause lots of issues.

And your reference to all your 20 mates having the same issue – don’t you think that if Hope had a genuine issue with reliability they would have fixed it? Spending money on warranty is wasting money. Getting quality right in the first place costs much much less than a warranty replacement.

Yours, quality advisor to D Hinde

It is cretins.

Don’t think of it as “right of way” as on the roads there’s no such thing. Think of it as “priority”.

The rules though, are that if a car is turning into a sideroad, traffic already crossing the sideroad has priority (so if someone is crossing the road, the turning car should wait).

But given that a car will hurt a rider more than a rider will hurt a car, do what you would teach your kids to do. Stop, look and listen! (or at least, look).

Best power to weight ratio wins. Gives us this info and we’ll tell you who will win.

If the best offer you could get was £450 would she change her mind? You’ve probably knocked £1000 off the value with non matching valve caps!

I suspect that inguinal hernias cover a multitude of symptons. I have just had mine fixed, but I rode with it for at least 5 years and it never caused any pain whilst cycling. I do about 8000 miles a year on the bike so if cycling was going to cause a problem, I would have known about it. It ended up being about 70mm diameter (not quite half a tennis ball size). Now have a 75mm scar, no hernia and a mesh holding it all in. 4 weeks post op – back on the bike (gently), 6 weeks post op, starting to extend the riding and effort. Consultant says 3 months post op, back to normal. But that’s my experience. Yours may be completely different.

However, I have heard stories about lots of pain (pre-op and post-op) and I guess it all depends on which bit of the muscle is damaged as to how much it will affect your riding. I guess it’s one of those “if it hurts, don’t do it” type bits of advice.

Comfy – tick
Light – tick
cheap – tick
Pack small- tick
Amusing during the night if the balloons pop – tick
PIA if the balloons pop – tick
Takes anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes to set up depending on how good you are tying balloons and how warm/nimble your fingers are.

I use one for single nighters in a tent, but wouldn’t for multi-dayers or bivvying (in a tent you have room to move out of the wind while you spend time setting up, but a bivvy is more open).

Good alternatives – cut down foam mat (£4), Neoair (£50+), Klymit Inertia (£60+), Alpkit jobby (£35).

I suspect if they’re Turkish, not an issue, but it could be how it’s said rather than what is said.

Just watch the Cypriot vs Turkish shenanigans – there’ll be upset if you get that bit wrong!

If only you had overtaken, it would have kept this thread down to 1 page of crap jokes.

Spend some money on it and it will feel like a new bike. Always a winner!
Then add to the collection with a cross bike, hardtail, road bike, winter road bike, 29er, classic bike from 1930, tandem,……..

Never sell bikes – you’ll only regret it (my main FS bike is my 2002 Stumpy FSR – still love it!)

Have Direct Line for our 2 dogs (10 and 4 years). Renewal cost was £49/month, but going online and starting a new policy came to £42/month (for identical cover etc etc). Not had any expensive bills, so I don’t know how they track these things, but if there’s no pre-existing conditions (I know this isn’t for the OP) but try starting a new policy. There were no questions from Direct Line about claim history when I took a new policy out.

Mine wanted a dishwasher, so I got her a drainage stand. It was kind of what she wanted, just £400 cheaper. She was happy, but I do get the pish taken from mates a bit.

The USA has recently introduced a black box requirement, without cameras. It is purely a data recorder that records various bits of data fom around the car. It is normally triggered when the airbags fire, so is a good recorder of who was doing what in an accident.

The technology is available to go further than this, but until there is legislation forcing it, I can imagine car makers will not introduce it voluntarily as there are plenty of customers who do not want “big brother to be watching them”, and therefore would buy their car elsewhere.

Haven’t Renault got a speed sign recognition system in their cars? So if the car knows the speed limit, it could feasibly control to it….

Strength training (especially core strength) will make you faster, in that you’ll get less tired towards the end of a ride. Shoulder strength is also good so you don’t start getting lazy/knackered at the end of a ride and not lifting the bike etc. Fast MTB riding should use upper body strength as well as legs, as you should be lifting the bike and riding it, rather than reacting to it. Riding lots will also help (intervals etc can really help speed).

The other advantage of training off the bike is that it can keep the biking fresh – if all you do is train on the bike it can get a bit tiresome.

Why check it? If a diesel, you most likely won’t need EGR to be working to pass the MOT, so you’ll probably never know if it isn’t (apart from getting slightly better fuel economy).

Anyway, back to the OP – because that wasn’t aimed at calling people of different races names etc, it was asking whether a Chinese Takeaway could or should be referred to as a Chinky?

Does it matter what the Takeaway is called as long as it is not referring to the people who may run it? Or do people consider that calling the takeaway a Chinky has an inference on the people?

Mechanicals I have are mainly punctures – fixed myself roadside with a spare tube.
Have had one broken crank (snapped) – phone call home to pick me up from work then new cranks fitted by me.
One pedal coming loose (thread in crank arm stripped), limped home and new cranks
One snapped chain – phone call home.
Broken spokes – ride on and fix whenever
brake pads worn – ride on and fix whenever
Snapped handlebars (25 years old!) – limped home with one sided bars
Wheel rim split – limped home and spare wheel fitted

All in 12 years, 120 miles/week commuting so not that bad really

Are you offended on behalf of Chinese people, or are you offended because that person doesn’t share your values, or are you offended because you have been personally affected by this name calling?

If it’s the first, I would say that is very patronising for Chinese people.
If the 2nd, grow a pair and accept people are different.
If the 3rd, grow a pair and accept that free speech is exactly that.

However you may or may not want to associate with that person.

I had a Magellan 500 – the unit itself was OK, but the mapsend spftware was shockingly sh…t. Difficult to use, no support, not compatible with other mapping software, routes hard to create. Ok if you’re an IT person, but crap if you’re not.

Mic,
How about an alternative (win win) approach? Write back to Hagley Estates and ask what it would take for them to be happy with people riding on the land – maybe offer up the opportunity for local disadvantaged kids to be using it for some outdoor MTB activity or something like that. If they’re objecting to kids teararsing around and have had reports of walkers etc being harassed then I can understand their objection, but if you can distance yourself from that type of behaviour then he may open the door a fraction for some permitted riding. Often the ranger types are not quite as good at reasonable discussion if you are ever confronted, so it would be better to ride with their blessing. As JD Boy said – try to find out what their objection is (because what they said in their letter is probably not the real reason).

Or, write back and ask that they do not send threatening letters to your 12 year old son called Michael and if they do you will go to the press!

TRy the VW forums – Bikeyard and VWT4, also there is a VW Audi forum – you may get more joy.

Your mate should do some digging to see if a T4 1.9D gearbox could be made to fit a T5 – same(ish) engine so maybe same (ish) box.

Do you mean a VW T5 gearbox, a Volvo T5 or a Borg Warner T5?

VW T5 are not cheap, even scrapyard ones

Yes, my youngest has one. Great fun, great visibility. Bike should go inside not outside!! Economical and cheap to run. And cheap to fill up (just need to do it quite often!)
Get one!

I sent payment to the wrong email address a few months ago (£220 so I was quite worried). Paypal initially didn’t want to know, so I contacted the person and he kindly refunded my money.

I am sure Paypal would have honoured a dispute had the person not refunded my money, but I was glad it never got that far.

In the short time it took, I was all over Facebook, 192.com, google etc etc looking for the person I had sent the money to (luckily his email was his name, not some random callsign).

Good luck!

Always wanted a Mk1 Escort camper conversion. Hideous and so crap it’s cool!

nice one, thanks

And now you know the company phone number etc, get them out to quote for a nice big job somewhere a long way away (that may or may not exist). Do this a few times, and on the last time explain why you are doing it – 2 can play at being a w@n1er.

And, you must report this to the police. At the very least, they may well phone him and have a word.

Chip in the downtube – that’s the old datatag system that I have on my bikes – and they get a sticker, only £20 for the whole setup. Does everything that JohnSW is after but not that effective at preventing bike theft. That’s what a lock is for.

AFter observing some of these people and their rise to the top, my view is that they:
-have a fantastic appetite for learning/information
-can absorb and store information in one reading/glance
-can easily retrieve information
-are very decisive – they know the answer, they don’t seem to have to think
-can see the bigger picture
-are brilliant at delegation and following up tasks
-bring the team with them (rather than dictator type)

At the end of the day, they are in the top 1% of the population (the good ones), so the rest of us just need to accept we are not as good as them! (But learning from them is OK)