Does LAX still block phone signals in the terminal? A friend due to collect me waited outside with no idea where I was when I got ‘referred to secondary’ at immigration there a couple of years ago.

Apparently I have the same first and last names as a number of people on their ‘list’ (my first and last names are very common but my middle name is unusual and my fingerprints are all my own). The interrogation consisted of being asked things like ‘Were you convicted of illegal gambling and gun running in Florida in 1984’ and replying ‘No’. Apparently a denial is all it needs.

The idea of an international airport blocking phone signals felt very creepy. I guess that’s how it always was pre ubiquitous mobile phones.

Please go back to the top of p2 and help fund the private prosecution. If the money is raised and the case is proved it may help keep us all safe as police and drivers start to think. £5 is great, £10 better, but whatever you can give please.

This article in the Guardian made it pretty unappealing to me:

How penny auction websites can leave you with a hole in your pocket

Somewhere in the UK a person going by the name of “minga60″ must be feeling gutted. He recently spent more than £200 trying to win a 32” LG flatscreen TV at penny auction website Madbid.com, only to see a rival bidder steal in and win it at the last second.

Madbid.com, and rivals such as Bid Budgie and Fastbidding.com, are at the forefront of an explosion in penny auction websites in the UK, with shoppers enticed by gaudy adverts boasting that Sony PlayStations have sold for a fiver or MacBook Pros for £90. But a closer look reveals that consumers can end up with nothing to show for it.

Unlike eBay, where bids are free and you only pay the price at which you win an item, participants in a penny auction must pay to place each bid as well as the final price of an item should they win it. Of course, there can be only one winner so everyone else is left out of pocket.

At Madbid.com it works like this. To place a bid you need to buy credits sold in blocks typically costing £9.99 for 80 or £374.99 for 3,750, meaning individual credits cost 10p-12.5p. You need up to six credits to make a single bid. This means that bidding on some items can cost as much as 75p each time. Each bid raises the auction price of an item by 1p and at the same time extends the closing time of the auction by up to 60 seconds.

Things are even more confusing at FastBidding.com, where some auctions close temporarily and there are different styles of auction, including ones that offer cashback, “equal bid” auctions and “lowest unique bid” auctions. At sites such as this, beginners need to tread even more carefully.

At BidBudgie.co.uk, where everything is apparently “going cheep”, users must make the lowest unique bid to win – an incredibly confusing system where you must ensure you are the only person who has registered a bid at, say, 3p. The trick is that rivals can also bid 3p to ensure your bid is no longer unique, then enter their own unique bid of, say, 4p and take the lead. Bids cost money unless you enter a free auction – to win credit that can only be used on BidBudgie.

With penny auction websites everyone helps ramp up the price and, at some sites, as long as people keep bidding the auction never ends. If you win, how much you eventually pay depends on how many credits it took to place each bid, how many times you bid, and the eventual sale price.

We took a detailed look at the bidding history for Madbid’s recent LG TV auction, which required four credits per bid. We found that 79 people placed bids in total and the winner spent £217.60 on bids to win the TV – at great cost to rival bidders. Thirty nine of them bid once and so lost only 40p (assuming they bought credits at the cheapest rate of 10p per credit); 10 people lost 80p after making two bids; while 19 people wasted between £1.20 and £4.80.

Nine people spent between £5 and £30, but the failed bidder who lost the most cash was minga60, who wasted £211.60 by placing 529 bids.

Madbid can make a lot more than the sale price on each item. On the LG TV, Madbid could have raked in as much as £612, assuming all bidders spent 10p to buy each credit. That’s £162 more than the recommended retail price of £450.

Similarly, we have calculated that by attracting 252,907 bids Madbid could have made £151,744.20 on an Audi A3 Sportback that had an RRP of £18,790 – 600% more than the cost of the car.

But it often loses money too. A pair of hair tongs worth £40 recently sold for 25p, making Madbid as little as £10 from the 25 bids it attracted. A men’s Fila watch worth £139 attracted only 23 bids, worth as little as £9.20 to the website.

Dr Mark Griffiths, professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University, says bidding on these types of auctions is gambling: “Winning a penny auction is essentially chance-determined and does not depend on any discernible skill – a person can bid again and again with no certainty that they will ever win the product. If there is no real skill in participating and it is essentially a chance activity, how is this not a form of gambling? The vast majority of people who bid on penny auction websites do not get anything for their money, except the hope of winning.”

But the UK’s Gambling Commission has refused to acknowledge penny auction sites are gambling operations, something Madbid.com agrees with. A spokesman says Madbid is an “interactive social auction website … that features a ‘buy it now’ option, refund policies and interactive elements, creating a fun shopping experience that requires skill and strategy to land bargains”. The “buy it now” option allows users to buy a product at a slight discount off the RRP. If it is a product users have bid on already, they can use their spent credits to further discount the price.

The internet is awash with penny auction forums where fans debate strategy and share tips, but there are also threads such as “Penny Burn Out?” for people who have spent too long bidding on auctions. One poster wrote: “I think bidding is taking up too much of my time. I may have to add up all my costs vs wins and decide it [sic] this is really worth it. At the very least, I have to slow down. Its taking too much time away from my relationship. Not cool.”

Griffith has made repeated calls for the sites to be regulated, and in late 2010 the OFT clamped down on the use of auto-bid functions by some companies that were using software programs to place artificial bids against consumers – this led to the closure of BattyBid. But the OFT says it has nothing to add to the work it has already done.

Madbid’s Facebook page attracts many positive comments from its fans, though there are also regular criticisms of the group’s customer service and complaints about the cost and difficulty of winning auctions. Thomas Richards, wrote: “You never win a bid so what’s the point in putting money on the website its all a con.” Another dissatisfied customer, Richard Harrison, wrote: “I wouldn’t bother it’s a joke. Items not sent and the worst customer service in the world.”

The Madbid.com spokesman said it is a “misconception” that penny auction sites are a scam, adding that Madbid does not make false claims in its advertising. “We have been reviewed by the world’s fifth largest independent accounting network, BDO, which looked at the specific control procedures used by MadBid.com to ensure the legitimacy of our auction model. It concluded that MadBid.com winners had average savings of 81% (including final auction prices and cost of bids) when compared to the RRP.” He added that Madbid takes customer complaints “very seriously” and looks into each one, “whether it comes via email, a phone call, Facebook or Twitter”.

Madbid’s parent company, Marcandi Ltd, appears to be in poor financial health. It’s latest report and accounts show it lost £395,915 in the year to 30 June 2010 – a figure one leading accountant called “a substantial amount of money”. He believed Marcandi continues trading only because it received a large cash injection from shareholders and said he viewed the future prospects of this company with deep suspicion.

Perhaps this is unsurprising, given that Madbid is a recent start-up. Indeed, legions of penny auction sites have folded, including Swoopo, Rapid Bargain and Bid Boogie.

Madbid’s spokesman would not discuss the company’s financial health but said its mission is to “revolutionise the way consumers shop online, offering an entertaining alternative to the likes of Amazon and eBay”.

Most of my time is spent lurking on STW as my bike knowledge is limited.

Occasionally something comes up that I do know about and this is one time as I spend most of my days arranging safaris in Africa as one of the team at http://www.aardvarksafaris.co.uk. I’ve travelled extensively on safari over the last fifteen years and been to South Africa on half a dozen occasions or more. There’s a fair chance we work with your GF’s family friends.

There’s lots of good advice above and I’m struggling to improve on it without a bit more input from you:
– What time of year?
– I can’t work out how long you’ll be in each place and when you are free?
– What’s your budget? One man’s ‘expensive’ is another man’s ‘affordable for this special trip’

In the same way a good LBS will help with advice as a long term investment in your and your mates, I’d be very happy to chat you through some thoughts at some stage and point you in the right direction, whether you’re looking at the sorts of things we arrange or not. Good luck, with over 17 rand to the pound right now, I suspect you’ll enjoy SA whatever you do.

Don’t ignore – challenging homophobic, racist or sexist attitudes is the right thing, even if very tough to do.

Very proud of a colleague who told a minicab driver “You’ve just lost any tip for that attitude” after he whinged about a parking attendant at Heathrow who in his words had “come over here on a boat last week and thinks he can tell me where to park”

Report debris to your local parish council or council. It is an offence to leave it on the road, but without reporting poor practice will continue and many more cyclists than necessary will get punctures.

Road names or GPS coordinates help enforcement. Farmers and contractors who know they are going to be reported are likely to work in a more reasonable fashion.

There’s a guy (ponytail I think) races the Soggy Bottom series at Plymouth’s Newnham Park on one – close enough to Exeter to be the same one.

Terribly sorry the OP was put in that situation by what sounds like guards spoiling for a fight.

I had a Cateye Stealth and liked it for exactly the reasons you want it for:

– Didn’t want to use phone batteries on GPS functionality
– Didn’t need all the other things a Garmin can do
– Fed up with trying to get a magnet and sensor to read wheel revolutions on old style speedo/mileage computers

It was great for recording, uploading and charged easily between rides on its cradle.

The cradle however was its weakness in my case as it eventually stopped reading and charging. Wiggle were very good at a refund based on it packing in after six months.

I used a Garmin watch strapped to my stem when I sent the Cateye back and realised that configured properly (which I’d never bothered to do as I just ran with it) the watch was just as good as a bike computer as the Cateye was. That’s the only reason I didn’t bother getting a replacement. I have however recommended them to mates with similar wishes to you.

Thanks for all those. It probably is in the t&c’s and I’ll call Peugeot to double check before I go to my independent if that’s an option (sounds like it will be).

I’m less bothered about cost than convenience. The garage I use is at the bottom of the road from work, so I drop the car and walk 5 minutes. The nearest Peugeot dealer is the wrong direction by 20 minutes drive so leave work early to drop the car one evening or late for work if I drop in the morning. Plus I trust my garage who seem to discuss things and offer options with reasoning rather than plumping for the choice which will make them the most money.

How about this as a crib sheet:

Article entitled 19 Questions Nick Clegg Should Ask Nigel Farage in LBC’s Europe Debate

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/nick-clegg-nigel-farage-debate_b_5028849.html

but the small farmer with a few cows doesn’t stand a chance.

But he never did, without volume you can’t compete – no different to a corner shop.

Unless you offer better service or more convenience which seems difficult for many local dairy farmers nowadays.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural Historu Museum was a super way to spend an hour last week.

I spent what felt like silly money a couple of years ago and bought the Yurbuds with the non-tangle cord from USA. The sound and the function was fantastic, and I was gutted to lose them too soon afterwards.

Funny you should ask that. Good article re light bikes and ‘light riding bikes’ in the current issue. Made perfect sense to me and I found myself nodding as I read it.

I live in Cornwall and work in Hampshire and the latter has many more opportunities for riding off road. Where Cornwall has tiny lane joining single houses, or three lanes without any houses that seem to go to and from nowhere, Hampshire has a big field with a track through it or a bridleway alongside it.

There are bits of bridleway and byway, but you work hard with an OS map to join them into a route, or pinch the odd bit of footpath early in the morning or on a night ride (but many of these mean hopping over a kissing gate or stile at every field boundary).

You can ride the lanes on an mtb and will meet little traffic and get some great views. You’ll also get a good workout as my normal rides here are 50% hillier here than Hants. Many of the lanes will be muddy and potholed, but they’re not swooping singletrack and personally I find an mtb the wrong tool for tarmac riding, even when some of the hills suit an mtb’s gear ratios!

You’ll probably pass Haldon Forest, near Exeter, on your way down and, as has been mentioned, Cardinham and Lanhydrock are about an hour away if you want fun, fairly easy, trail centres with parking and a cafe.

If you want some downhill and will pedal back up then Gawton and Tamar Trails centres are also about an hour away. Both need online payment as a guest. I’ve ridden Gawtons HSD on both a hardtail and FS and had more fun on the latter. I’ve also survived down Proper Job, but need more training and longer suspension to really do any of the others any justice.

You’re 45 mins from Okehampton which gives you access to the northern section of Dartmoor. Be aware how exposed you are on the moor at this time of year and dress accordingly.

Hope you do manage to get out and enjoy the area whatever you decide. The coastal path is spectacular, so if you can bear to bring boots instead of bikes, you might be making the best use of the area.

I’ll now go and was my mouth out with soap for suggesting that on STW

Wifi or standard version?

Thanks chewkw. Problem is a 15 y/o values the fact it looks like a GoPro more than its usability.

Thanks spacemonkey. Will go back and look.

As a tour operator specialising in Africa – http://www.aardvarksafaris.co.uk – this is one of the few questions I feel qualified to answer on Singletrack.

Namibia is great for lots of things including stunning landscapes, huge areas with tiny numbers of people, desert adapted wildlife, interesting cultures, and traditional safari animals. You’ll note I put safari animals last since although they do have good wildlife and Etosha is an easy national park to see them on your own – they are drawn to waterholes in the arid landscape – there are other countries, including Tanzania that feel ‘more safari’. By this I mean the open plains, safari Landrovers, rocky escarpments, and natural waterholes that most people think of when they imagine going on safari.

But Namibia is magnificent, it’s relatively easy to drive yourselves around (although distances are great and a 4wd style vehicle feel more rugged on the gravel roads), the sense of space is awe inspiring, the skies at night are fantastic – I could go on. It’s also currently comparatively inexpensive compared to a couple of years ago as the Namibian Dollar is pegged to the SA Rand and that is down about 20% in the last 18 months or so.

Have a look on the Namibia page of our website – http://www.aardvarksafaris.co.uk/namibia – which links to a map, best times to go and some trip ideas. There’s various ways to travel around, lots of choice of accommodation, to suit a variety of styles and budgets.

If I can help, even with advice, please don’t be afraid to call or email. I’m Richard Smith at work rather than ManVsTarmac and started my tour operating life in Namibia arranging a charity bike ride there pre-millennium and have been back many times since.

There’s recently been a fantastic shared use path put in linking two towns on the edge of Dartmoor. In parts it’s not very wide, only just two bikes width really, so coming at about 15mph towards two older pedestrians walking away from me side by side I decided to pass about 3m to one side on the grass.

This got me yelled at by the old man, so I pulled to a stop about 15m further along to question ‘why?’ Before I could say anything he threatened to put his walking stick through my spokes ‘next time’.

I scooted back to them and asked what they felt I’d done wrong. Bottom line was I’d scared them. They hadn’t heard me coming and despite the clearance. I’d given them they’d been frightened and the old boy admitted he shouldn’t have ranted.

I learned to slow and say hello, even if I can keep my speed and pass anyway, and they learned cyclists are prepared to apologise and listen.

If I want a no compromises quicker ride I’ll go elsewhere in the future. Shared use has its uses but it needs give and take to work.

I interview for managers, customer facing sales staff, and admin staff, and now make it clear to interviewees that we don’t wear suits to work and therefore don’t expect them to wear them to interviews.

How does this help the OP? Not sure it does, but I guess he hasn’t been explicitly given a dress code for the interview. Could perhaps ask though.

We changed from regular breakdown cover to Auto Aid a number of years ago when I heard them recommended on a money programme on the radio.

It costs us about £40 to cover my wife and I in any car and includes cover from home but you do need to be aware of what it is…..

It’s essentially ‘breakdown insurance’. If you break down then you, or they can if you want them to, arrange a local mechanic or recovery truck and you pay. Afterwards you complete a form and send off your receipt(s) and they send you a cheque.

We’ve used it once in about the last seven years when I missfuelled and they repaid the bill for the guy to come and empty my tank. I think my cheque arrived within a few days.

You don’t get:

– a smart membership pack (we made our own cards the first year, but now I just have the number in my phone)

– a van and mechanic wearing a uniform; it’ll be the local garage (or you can call your own garage if you’re near enough)

I don’t think you get (but you can check):

– the chance to upgrade to cover being abroad

– cover for trailers which are too big (we had concerns about towing a horsebox)

It’s been a great money saver for us and I suspect for most people with a credit card in their pocket and a vaguely reliable car it would be a good option (particularly if you’re married as your spouse is covered free).

Thanks all. Now I have to make a choice!

My wife bought a collar with a magnet in for our dog when it was getting old and developing stiffness in the mornings. Like you, I thought ‘snake oil’ and wasn’t too upset to realise the magnet had come out of its plastic case about a week later (I think I’d taken the collar off for some reason to noticed this).

My wife hadn’t see the magnet had come out and continued to see ‘health improvements’ in the dog for a number of week afterwards!

Snake oil – yes, in my opinion.

+1 for Cozi from someone who works away from home and used to struggle to add things to ‘the calendar on fridge’ from afar.

I’m useless with my hands, so we spent a lot of money converting a panelled out base T5 into a camper with South West Camper Conversions. Their advice was great, although perhaps less relevant to you since we have two kids (8 and 11 when we have the conversion and 11 and 14 now).

We have three seats (driver’s and two man bench bench) across the front, two of which fold forward so you can sit on them facing backwards. These two are fine for lunch or supper, but not super comfortable (either facing back or forwards). There’s massive storage space underneath them, which you don’t get with swivels and the leisure battery is under the driver’s seat, which doesn’t move.

We have the two seats/narrow rock and roll bed across the back alongside a set of cupboards. The back cupboard is especially huge and you can get two 11 year olds in there as my son and his mate like to prove. We stick all our camping bedding in there including sleeping bags, pillows air bed and tent (more later on these last two). The rest of the camping stuff – crockery and cutlery, dry groceries, first aid kit, lanterns and torches, tea towels etc all live in the other cupboards in the van. We only really need to grab food and clothes and we’re good to go.

The bed is narrow for two of us used to a king sized double, but as you’re up against the side or the cupboards and can’t fall out, it doesn’t feel too bad. Both kids used to go in the roof space on the double bed up there, but they now prefer to have one out in a tent with the dog – hence the tent and air bed mentioned previously. The roof bed is ok for an adult too, but it’s probably not quite 6′ unless you lie diagonally.

Pop up roof is great to give you height when you’re cooking and generally doing stuff.

Privacy glass in the back is great for getting changed.

What would I change if I did it again? Not much; perhaps curtains or fitted blinds rather than the stick on blinds we have which seem to fall down at first light. Other than that I reckon we were given pretty sounds advice and the work was done to a high standard.

No pics as it’s dark outside I’m afraid.

I had a little badge to wear

Thanks for the replies. I got fed up of different Schwalbes being destroyed by Salisbury Plain flints and tried XC Pros having seen them well reviewed.

I found I could consistently climb a slippy rocky slope we’ve always called the ‘unrideable hill’ and that I got good grip through the winter without having too much drag on firm packed ground.

I’ll see how I get on with the tyres fitted and if I’m not keen I’ll try the Maxxis Ignitors (thanks for that tip jimw)

Chris85 – my kids have had Islabikes right the way through until my daughter got a much more expensive pony. Although the first one you buy is a hard hit on your pocket, the second hand value is so high, the cost per year is probably lower than many cheaper options.

I could eulogise about the fit, the kiddie friendly brake levers, sensible gearing etc but a quick search will get you lots of people doing that. It’s an investment you won’t regret as your son will want to bike with you as his bike will work uphill as well as down.

Good luck

I ride a HT on XC rides. I enjoy technical climbs and absolutely understand that a loop will have as much climbing as descending. Having said that, if I’m on an mtb holiday and I’m offered an A to B which is downhill overall, then I’m all for it. Somehow a train back or a minibus shuttle feels more acceptable on holiday whereas I wouldn’t make the effort in the UK

I sell tailor made safaris for a living, and while it’s not directly comparable, people do use our expertise and then ask others for a quote on the trip we’ve planned. As we don’t own any of the properties or have exclusive deals, they’ll essentially get the same holiday from whomever they buy.

Fair prices, high customer service, and spelling it out are our weapons of choice against people ‘shopping’ us. We have a ‘Guarantee’ that is highlighted on our website and goes out with every quote. Hopefully this means people understand we offer financial protection, a local contact you can ask questions, 24/7 backup when you’re travelling etc. Some of these you’ll get from our competitors in the UK but not if you try and put the trip together yourself or use a tour operator based in Africa.

Perhaps bike shops could have a leaflet entitled ‘Five Reasons to Buy Your Components From Us’ which they hand to all browsers and information gatherers. If the reasons are convincing enough and the price differential is small enough they might win over a few waverers.

My son went through three rigid forked Islabikes before we bought him a Creig 26 when he was 11 years old.

He’d done a lot on the rigid bikes, and they are fantastically capable, but having seen him grimace and heard him complain about aching forearms on a biking holiday in Samoens, I decided it was time to invest in an Islabike with suspension (I honestly don’t believe he was angling for it).

I think it’s a fabulous bike, with all the things Islabikes are renowned for: suitably sized frame, sensible diameter handlebars and grips, brake levers for small hands, and a suspension fork that works for a child built like a stick insect.

When my daughter reached a similar age we bought her a Specialized Hardrock Sport and while it looks the part and cost half as much, it’s half the bike if I’m honest.

My son happily rides his bike and it will allow him to do things his rigid bike wouldn’t. I reckon its low weight also allows him to climb hills other heavier bikes with suspension forks wouldn’t, and that the child friendly hydraulic disc brakes allow him to descend things other bikes wouldn’t.

If you have a child who likes biking and can afford it, I’d thoroughly recommend the Creig 26.

Great to hear. Drop them an email LG.

They’ll be chuffed and if you describe when and where they will know which driver and surely mention it to them. In turn I hope this will encourage other drivers to respect cyclists.

Sorry to hear about your dog.

I think the first thing is to see if the other owner simply pays without question. If she does no problem.

If she doesn’t, I may be able to offer some thoughts from my own similar experience. My dog was bitten by another dog which lunged at her as we passed on a path. She also required stitches and antibiotics. The bill wasn’t as big as yours but I saw no reason that I should pay for something which was someone else’s fault.

Having visited her house and being told she would not pay, I wrote to the other owner and asked them to pay my bills. After perhaps 28 days (there is a ‘how to’ guide on one of the Small Claims websites) I wrote again and said if they didn’t pay I would take them to court to recover the cost. They didn’t so I chose to take the other owner to small claims court. At court the judge listened to the facts as we both explained them, then referred to the law before finding in my favour. The other owner had to pay both my vets bills and the costs of going to small claims court.

As far as I remember there is a requirement for dog owners to keep their dog under reasonable control. I am afraid I don’t remember precise details of the law.

I would write down the facts as you remember them and keep any paperwork such as the exchange of emails/texts.

Hope the dog recovers well.

I think the number you put in (generally something between 950 and 1200-ish) equates to the distance your wheel rolls in mm in one revolution. So you could either:

– find a table on the Cateye website which will tell you the number for that wheel and tyre size (I’m guessing they’ll have this somewhere
– put your valve to the bottom, mark the floor, roll the wheel forwards until the valve is back at the bottom, mark the floor again, and measure the distance between the marks

Hope this helps

I was thanked by a local dairy for bringing to their attention that one of their tanker driver passed me very close and pulled in when he wasn’t really right past me. I pointed out that it didn’t look great for their reputation. They certainly seemed to take it seriously with the ‘transport manager’ calling me back to double check the road number and time of day.

I’d definitely make a call to Argos head office.

I work during the week in Tidworth and stay in Andover. I consider myself fantastically lucky because of the great mountain biking within a stone’s throw of either town. I don’t know much to the east of Andover but there’s masses to the north west and the whole of Salisbury Plain not far away. There’s real variety too from fast flinty farm tracks through to technical singletrack climbs and speedy descents. There really are huge numbers of bridleways out there that don’t get churned up by horses.

The guys from Behind The Bikeshed run mtb rides (see their Facebook page or call them) and are a good group to head out with.