Kebab gels?

Has it actually been raining that much there?

I've just come back from a week's holiday in Northumberland and it rained just once. The rest of the time it was scorching.

If it stays dry, I would imagine the course will be quite fast. Metcheck has it staying dry until Saturday itself at the moment.

(I hope so anyway, as my training recently has been a bit rubbish, and I'm useless even at the best of times).

It's only a bike ride – how hard can it actually be!

I think the worst part is going to be actually getting there – it's a long way from anywhere!

Have you tried just pressing all the connectors firmly into place?

The linux suggestions above are good: for example there's a program called "testpart" under Linux that will scan your disk to try to recover your partition table.

EDIT: just google "live CD". There's lots. I've used http://www.sysresccd.org/ in the past.

Pixellation woes, rubbish colours, and hideous lipsync. Unwatchable.

My 18t regular WI freewheel used a 40 x 52 x 7 MM.

Thinking about it again, I don't think I used the socket until the next section.

I think I just sat and pushed it really hard and eventually it dropped out. I might also have tapped it gently with a hammer and a flat bit of wood just to encourage it a bit.

That first time was just absurdly stiff.

Had the same problem. It can be quite stiff. Do you have a head from a socket-set that will fit into it? That helps.

And re-read their instructions in case you're just trying to push it out the wrong way.

Your therapy group suggested it would be a good way to get more in touch with your feminine side.

North Downs? Lots of train stations in that area.

South Downs? Train to London, then cycle across London and train to Eastbourne.

Get some safety caps.

Not only do they prevent children electrocuting themselves, they also stop the electricity leaking out during the night.

If you've got a leaky socket, then dangerous quantities of electricity can collect in invisible, but utterly deadly puddles on your floor.

Alternatively, replace your carpet with chicken wire.

Shimano hydraulic brakes are pretty easy to sort out – mine need bleeding right now but I think the hardest part of that will be finding the bit of tubing you need. Somewhere in the garage.

Avid BB7s are just as good and easy to setup (but you do need to stop occasionally while riding along).

Decent rim brakes are fine on roads, but it's a nuisance to have to keep replacing rims. And they just don't stop as well in the wet. If you don't ever go very fast, then that's not really a problem.

It's all about choices.

Nice, but where?

I went this way for a while, and it worked better than you might expect.

Make sure to get brake levers that match the size of your hands, as the Tektro ones seem to come in 'regular' and 'absurdly large' sizes.

But I've now gone back to regular bars, partly because it turns out that Dusk-to-Dawn prohibits drop bars.

I remember that disgusting free milk that used to come round in the big blue crates filled with those little bottles of milk-slowly-turning-to-yoghurt.

Especially in the summer, the trick was to get to the front of the queue and then casually feel the milk bottles before picking them.

The ones in the middle of the crate tended to be still relatively cool, and so just about bearable to drink.

If you were unlucky enough to get one from round the edge, it could be anything from just unpleasantly warm to disgustingly yoghurty and clumpy. You'd have to choke back the disgusting vomity warm liquid, without gagging.

Woe betide you if you refused to drink your milk. You only made that mistake once.

And then one day we came into school, and it wasn't there any more.

The rotor on a 29er will be rotating slower than on a 26er (since the wheels are larger) for the same bike velocity.

Power = Force x Velocity

The force depends on the brake materials and how hard you are squeezing the brake pads onto the rotor.

The velocity at the pad comes down to the rotor diameter and how fast it's rotating.

So, if you want to get rid of excess kinetic energy at the same rate on your 29'er as on your 26'er, you want a bigger rotor.

CO2? Or just a lot more soapy water?

What Nezbo said.

Any hints on SS gear ratios?

Thanks!

First, make sure you've really got the latest ralink driver. I've got a couple of those cards here and they work fine now, but certainly started out a bit rubbish.

lspci is your friend here. It would be useful to see the numbers from that for your wireless card.

Don't know about the Uno, but I've had no chain drop problems with a 1×9 using a Surly 36t chainring (11-32 cassette). Nothing holds it in place other than the tall teeth and a medium-cage derailleur. Might depend on how bumpy things get. Obviously this is on a hardtail.

I would think that if it's just a standard ralink chipset, then the Medion drivers are just going to be unhelpful.

Search for linux ralink drivers, install them and see what happens.

Running 'dmesg' might offer a few clues. If you think it might be useful, you're welcome to email me (blind leading the blind, and all that).

Get a single speed. Change is as good as a rest.

@remodiyaz – that looks like an advert you've dropped in there.

You're probably in violation of the forum rules with that unless it's somehow relevant to headaches.

I had a sudden unexpected headache like that. Went to the doctors and the next day they put me in one of those massive CT scanning machine thingummies.

After which they told me to go home and not worry.

EDIT: Talk to a doctor. Could be serious.

Will be there Saturday. Can't stay.

Wifi is great until your neighbours start clogging up all the channels, or your house turns out to have been built full of bits of metal.

There's a common misconception that there are 14 channels available, since you can choose any channel in that range (country regulations permitting).

But actually the channels overlap. So if you're on channel 1 and your neighbour is on channel 2 or 3, then you will be slowing each other down.

802.11a is much better in this respect, but I think it's still quite hard to get 802.11a kit that's actually legal to use in the UK.

I recently had my house networked for under £200 – this did not require any channels chasing into the plasterwork by the way

Did you do this yourself, or did you just pay someone?

Something similar happened to a friend of mine, but with the genders reversed.

Married for ten years, he was thinking about kids, she one day said she was leaving.

At the time it was quite a bombshell.

But five years later he's married to the nicest woman you could imagine, with a couple of children, and bizarrely seems to still be on speaking terms with his ex wife.

Bleeding obvious they don't need bleeding if you read the OP.

Oil on the pads then.

Do they just need bleeding?

I thought it had been closed because the trees are diseased:

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/newsrele.nsf/web-allbysubject/1E927D7BFE9F8D1C802577450058197D

Some fungus that can be spread by (among other things) bikes – gets picked up on the tyres.

So probably a good idea to avoid it.

Not as toe curling as the BT adverts.

Max steerer length 150mm? Is that enough?

I hate Maxxis tyres. Done that to 3 or 4 now!

Yep, that's the second one I've had go like that. That one happened just commuting to work.

Really enjoyed it!

That steep descent off the top of Dunkery Beacon! What a ride. Nice smell of burning rotor at the bottom. But I'll have to come back with a few more gears to try and get up Granny's Ride.

The Q's are a revelation. We'd got some idea there might be a few trails hidden away, but had no idea there were so many gems tucked away in there. We definitely need to return and do it properly. Possibly even going back to single speed (I'd hate it if my chain came off while I was climbing out of one of those combes, full of cream tea…)

Thanks again – very much appreciated!

If it goes with custard it is fruit.

Aubergine, tomato and courgette crumble with lashings of custard. It could actually work.

Dental floss seems to work quite well (well, it's lasted 200 miles anyway).

Tabloid papers in wild exaggeration shocker!