It’s not actually used on the road and probably never will be again. I bought the tyres about five years ago on rims that had been in a shed for years. They looked good but within a couple of years of being on my car they were cracking and perishing. I’ve got trailer tyres that are similarly knackered yet have tread.

205?! That seems massive for such a small car.

I had a set of Rainsport 3 in 195/50×15 on my Corrado and hated them, soft, wobbly things they were. I then got a set of 3A P606, cheaper but handled and wore much better.

EDIT: 3A’s were about £35 each fitted.

Pah, my Land Rover tyres were 20 this year.

What are they? 145×15?

https://griptyresoftener.com/

?

Hmm, yes I see. I’ll give it a go tomorrow.

Fair point on the arterial bleed, bad example.

As there won’t be a hospital within 30 miles then I’ll just go on-line when I have an arterial bleed then..

Seriously, I can see the way that many admin type things can be done without physical interaction but this plugged-in utopia just won’t cut it in real life.

An awful lot of people don’t work in offices though. There is a lot of physical labour to be done.

I think it was an economist who said something along the lines of; Society is not going to get anywhere cutting each others hair.

Basically, services and admin work will not feed people.

Count zero – as costs of motoring go up perhaps society will change? I am talking over a generation. Already cars are two expensive for many folk to run.

I see society moving in a direction that will overall encourage/necessitate people to travel more and independently at that. Many businesses and services are centralising and closing premises outside of cities. So unless you’re in one then everything is moving further away. Modern society is built around readily available, personal transport and to try and deconstruct that now would be next to impossible.

Here in the south west I couldn’t afford not to drive. Buses here are useless because they’ve not been up to the job for years so nobody uses them and so services get cut, it’s a vicious circle.

15 years ago my small town had a tax office, maternity unit, dwp office and other stuff, now the hospital, police station and library are to shut along with half the banks. People are going to need to travel more not less.

Thank you.

These are the holders I broke:
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That allen bit isn’t really suitable for the vice but I did find a 6 face 10mm socket to use on it instead of the bit holders. Even with cold, heat then cold again I can’t get it to move with a 2 foot bar.

Araldite and ride it fixed?

The thought crossed my mind, closely followed by wondering what life as a double amputee would be like.

I’ve got a meeting in Cornwall tomorrow followed by either a stay in a hotel or a long drive home. Tempted to take the new bike for a ride on Dartmoor if the latter. Now, what’s the weather going to do…

Well it’s been raining most of the day here and the wind is still up which usually means tomorrow will be pretty much the same. I’d stick to the woods if I were you.

I’ve been getting back in to riding this summer after an injury last year and a few lean years before that, I have been loving it! Building up more bikes than I need out of bits I’ve had laying around and a few ebay bargains. Realising that 9 speed and 26″ wheels are not cutting edge any more and then realising I couldn’t give less of a shit, it’s been great.

Just dicking about on bikes, brilliant.

My old cat, dead now, had to have an eye removed after an injury. He coped just fine, better than me anyway, I wept like a child.

Hopefully in twenty years we will have driver training and testing which is worth a damn. No, people can’t be forced to drive well but teaching them how to do so in the first place would be be a good start. The current driving test is a joke.

I know I can be better which is why I’m going to do advanced training, I’m just ashamed it’s taken me nearly 20 years to do it.

I think you’ll find that it’s your view that is blinkered. Just because when YOU were knocked off and the reason wasn’t speed, it doesn’t mean that excessive speed (along with arrogance and impatience) isn’t a danger to cyclists (and walkers and horses) on B roads.

Pfft. Go out on a 60mph road and get hit by a car doing 50 and then by a car doing 70 and tell me if you feel the difference.

Yeah I’m being flippant but you completely ignored the bit about driving safely. Slow driving is not automatically safe driving. Fast driving is not automatically dangerous driving. There is an optimum given speed for every scenario but there is only one standard of driving for all of them and that is safe driving.

I’ve driven, I would estimate, 250k miles in my life and have never had any sort of ticket or fine etc. Although I’ve been involved in collisions (one of which maimed my wife for life) I have never been at fault or held liable for any damages. That is not proof of anything and I’m certainly not trying to “show off” but it does rather conflict with your implication of a habit of excessive speed, arrogance and impatience doesn’t it?

I treat 30 and 40 limits as sacrosanct but empty open country roads have places where I’m quite happy to go over the national.

Another one who apparently never rides a bike on the road

No I don’t now but I did and I’ve been knocked off my bike a couple of times, none were because the car/truck was speeding.

This blinkered view that under the limit=safe and over=unsafe is ridiculous and dangerous.

I go no faster than I can see and stop in and never assume that the road is clear. So whatever the hazard, I’m prepared. Knowing what’s going on around you and driving appropriately is crucial to safety for all road users, to say that speed is bad period is nonsense.

I treat 30 and 40 limits as sacrosanct but empty open country roads have places where I’m quite happy to go over the national.
I’m going to start advanced driver training soon so I can feel superior, I mean be a better, safer driver.

Off topic a bit but one of the types of driver that get me are the ones you overtake between villages because they’re rolling along at 45. Then at the next village you slow to the 30 but they catch up and get right up your chuff because they want to do 45 through the village as well. Fools.

My grandad had a HC Viva,

You bastard, I had an HC viva

I still have one.. In fact I just realised at no point have I been without one since 1999. They were so cheap then.

It sounds flippant but; Find the performance bottleneck, fix it, repeat.

I’ve got a Dell from about 2007 and my next upgrade would be an SSD but that’s only because I already put in a faster CPU, more RAM and a better graphics card. Your situation may well vary.

I run Linux Mint 18.1, very happy with it.

Don’t do what I did and buy one that’s too big. I thought it would be fine and I could just leave it ticking over most most burns, but it doesn’t seem to work like that. I would have been better off with a smaller one and backed it up with an oil filled radiator when it’s really cold.

~10×6? thats a tiny space to heat and you’ll use a lot of it up with the burner and space around.

Mine is in a 12×10 part glazed summer house sort of thing I built. I couldn’t work out where best to put the stove as not only does it take up room but then there’s all the space you need around it. My brother made a great suggestion which was to build a half height “extension” out of one end and put the stove in there, which we did. We made wooden two skin walls and a tin roof skinned on the inside with some 2mm alloy sheet at about 35 degrees to both shoot the water off and the heat in. It seems to work very well, it also means you can make a suitable section for the flue to pass through rather than trying to modify a shed roof.
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Two? shay.

That’s it, I’m going to bed..

I came in here expecting to see a bat that catches men, disappointed.

A bit father ted

The smug bugger at the end does look like Bishop Jordon.

Maserati Ghibli, not the new one, not the old one but the early nineties jobby.

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There was one in an I-spy book I had when I was 12 or so, I don’t know why but it just stuck with me, even now. Basically any Biturbo appeals to my inner masochist.

Touche

2 chain rings…… Pfft . 3 here.

Yep 2 outta 3 of mine have 3 rings up front. The other’s single speed.

You realise don’t you that if non biking other halves find this thread a number of us are going to be up excrement creek without a vessel and means of propulsion!

Try explaining numerous cars of which only one is actually usable!

I’m only a few miles away, I’ll keep my peepers open.

Does he need a temporary substitute bike to keep him mobile/working etc?

I think trying the supplement of an energy drink is worth a try.

I’m not knowledgeable on this subject at all so sorry if it’s irrelevant but; Yesterday I rediscovered the long-forgotten (by me anyway) Lucozade tablet.

^^ My youngest brother couldn’t believe it when our dad knew the lyrics to Maggie’s Farm. The little ignoramus doesn’t know Dylan..

A song; Sublime/Pharcyde – Doin’ Time remix
https://youtu.be/84fhnHhmHTc

A whole album of covers; Six Feet Under – Graveyard Classics
https://youtu.be/BcsMNSbGIaI

A cover of a whole album; Easy Star All Stars – Dub Side of the Moon

Houns, you are me & I am you.

It’s a fupper isn’t it? I briefly rise up out of it quite often but then I’ll be manic which usually leads to the bad things happening. I get myself in to situations that the withdrawn me doesn’t have the will to see out which does nothing to help the associated feelings of dread and despair.

Find myself stuck for the simplist of words that I need to say, can picture what I want to say, but do you think I can translate that picture in to a word and send it out of my mouth?

I don’t know actual sign language but I speak with my hands a lot for this very reason. People I know get it for the most part, I’m on my own with strangers though.

I weigh 110kg clothed and didn’t fanny about with the wheels on my 456. Straight spoked Mavic D521s, a Hope Big ‘un front and Sport rear. I’d much rather lug the extra pound or so around with me than have flimsier wheels to worry about.

Yeah ok, the Big ‘un is OTT and could be replaced by something just as strong and much lighter but I love that hub.

Where’s 165mm through bolt?

Is that the same tit from that joke mag MBUK? If so I thought he was dull, boring and ignorant even in print.

Mind you he should fit in well on that channel..

I use an ex British army sleeping bag cover. The material is MVP – Moisture Vapour Permeable, breathable but waterproof. Great kit, light, rolls up small and cheap.

The advantage of batten is that you could more easily fine tune the position of the hooks at a later date.

Feel free to fire all your queries, ideas or your own builds on here.

This is actually my bike rather than for a kid so I don’t how relevant it is.

24″ Halo rims

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I love the massive tyres.

I think the reason Dave screwed the drop off up was mainly because he wasn’t comfortable doing it.

Personally I wouldn’t have hit that drop, or any feature, that had me that shit scared beforehand. Yes you have to push it and do stuff you’re unsure of to progress in anything but I can’t help but think that the terror did for him on this one. I reckon it was enough to overrule all and any of the theory he knew about riding drops.

I don’t road ride. I used to do only freeride(?) and the easier downhill tracks. But now I’m getting into shorter more technical xc loops as well.

I can’t imagine anything (I could afford) that would be a better compromise than my 456 with heavy duty wheels and forks, 27 gears and a dropper.

1×11 intrigues me though..

I’m not saying that this is the case with bike frame material but there are times where people want to know the ins and outs of something so much that they blind themselves to the reality of the situation.

I was rebuilding my VW Corrado and wanted to change the rear axle bushes. Virtually all the enthusiasts I asked were adamant that standard ones were the ones to get as some genius at VW designed them to make the back end steer to help you through corners. They said that they could feel it happening and wasn’t it amazing..

This sounded like bollocks to me and, looking at the bushes in person, I couldn’t see how it would be the case. It turns out that actually the opposite is true. VW engineers worked very hard to eliminate rear-steer and these bushes were made the way they were to stop it. However, marketing got a sniff of this rear steering and turned it around because they though it would sell (Honda Prelude 4WS had just come out).

Even 20 years later everyone was so convinced by the idea that they put aside objective reason and actually felt dynamic nuances that weren’t really there.

I downloaded an 8 page article on old Hope brakes but can’t for the life of me find out where from. But this is a useful excerpt;

XC4

General Info:

This is a new XC-specific disc brake offered by Hope that uses a closed system consisting of four pistons.

The front and rear rotors are only available in 150mm and 130mm diameters, respectively.

Note: The XC4 must be used with Hope hubs. Other disc-compatible hubs (King DiscGo Tech, Hugi, Shimano, etc.) are not compatible with the XC4. Using hubs other than Hope will place the caliper into the spokes.