£25 this month on £7.5k, better than nothing.

I’m just about to get my second lease (Octavia VRS Estate) and my wife is on her first which she got last year.

Echo the points raised above, I’ve been following this thread for ages looking out for good deals:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=255&t=1955391&i=14620

Key thing to remember is to chase the deal and not a specific make and model.

Due to the current government regulations there aren’t many deals on ICE cars as the car manufacturers need to sell a lot more EV’s to avoid getting fined.

Definitely recommend John Ryan. We got one after recommendations from here and a couple of other places. Phoned them up a few times and their team suggested the Artisan Naturals would be the best option.

It’s so comfortable for both of us we love it.

Also comes with a 10 year guarantee.

£50 for me this month, total for 12 months works out at 3.3%

I try to eat well most of the time whilst training but do find that a shake will help you all a bit of extra protein.

I can’t stomach the whey or egg protein shakes, they have consequences that shouldn’t be discussed in public. I’ve tried a lot of the vegan ones and most taste awful, the only one I actually enjoy is the MyProtein Vegan white chocolate and raspberry, it tastes similar to raspberry ripple ice cream but not as sweet. It’s got a good blend of different veg proteins in it as well.

Nothing for me again, last was £50 in November with £6.5k in bonds.

I got some custom moulded ear plugs made for me about 6 years ago and they have been fantastic. I was cautious about spending that much on a pair of ear plugs at the time but it has been money will spent, and saved me money compared to trying lots of different ear plugs with varying success.

I recommended them to some friends and family and they thanked me later.

I’m in Aberdeen this week, had a very good curry at 8848 on Union Street.

The breakfast at our hotel wasn’t great so we went to the Vegan Bay Bakery instead and they had great coffee as well.

I’ve been using aeropress for years and it makes great coffee. I’ve got the krupps burr grinder (after another thread on STW) which does a good grind. Ordered the new Flow Control Filter which is supposed to produce a more espresso type of coffee, that will turn up tomorrow so I’ll report back.

There was also a premium model announced back in March, but no word on release date yet or price. It’s glass and metal so don’t think it will be cheap.

I’m assuming you guys have received your bikes by now, if so post some pics.

My bike should be arriving this week after I requested a delay due to being in holiday last week and then there was a delay in the Hope hubs delivery to the nest.

Fingers crossed the weather plays nice and I can test ride it one evening this week.

I got some prescription transition mirrors from reglaze glasses direct and they are fantastic. Very slight blue tint when in the dark, almost like the blue light filter you can get put on normal glasses, then when in the sun they look like normal mirror sunglasses.

Try clicking the 3 bars in the top right corner and then go to feeds. Only adverts in about 1 in 5 posts rather than the constant stream of suggested/sponsored posts.

I agree, FB is getting worse with the shitposts, once I had about 50 shitposts between any actual content I follow.

My order progressed to Awaiting build slot on Tuesday. How long do you guys think it will take until it gets built?

I ordered my Blurple Aeris 9 1 week ago, I’m hoping it turns up in a couple of weeks. Can’t wait to ride it.
I’ve had 2 previous bikes from Bird and I can’t fault their customer service, always happy to chat on the phone to help decide specs, parts orders have turned up in record time and when I had a problem they have gone above and beyond.

Thanks Ben, that’s good to know, I’ll place an order in the next few days.

Although a Super Duper Smashing Fandabeedozee Zeb did sound fun.

Oh right, I thought I saw them updating every year over the last few years, thanks for the information.

Interesting about the Formula Mod shock, I wasn’t considering it after the good reviews about the Super Deluxe Coil, but will take a look at it.

I tend to cook on my Weber 57cm several times a week through the summer and using good charcoal is essential. The self lighting bags are usually full of small bits and the lighting fluid produces loads of smoke.
I get my charcoal from a farm shop and they get it from a local producer, it burns very nicely and gives the food a nice taste.
Using a chimney starter is very simple to light, cook the food and then shut down the vents to kill the fire, this usually leaves half the coals left to use next time.
I love BBQ food.

I do think you’ll need to get some more detail from your sister before a course of action can be decided, but as cookeaa says give Pistonheads a try.

There is a general leasing thread here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=255&t=1856732&p=71

Or you could post a new thread in the general Car Buying forum.

It will also be worth having a read through the Porsche EV threads to see how common these problems are as I’m sure there will be people who have gone through the same problems from Porsche and leasing companies.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/forum.asp?h=0&f=275

I only have the Super DH and will put the chin bar on for descents and then take it off for the climbs as my face gets too hot. I’ll either hang it on my bars or on my bag and only takes a few seconds to put the chin bar on my helmet without taking my helmet off.

After smashing my face up from a simple lack of concentration crash, I think it’s worth the faff over several months of stitches and pain whenever I moved my face.

The launch window will open again today at 2:28pm UK time, fingers crossed they get it off the ground this time.

I’ve completed it several times over the past few years and will use it to structure workouts to maintain fitness after completion. Then life gets in the way and lose a bit of fitness so I start it again, everytime it gets easier so I can see that it is installing baseline fitness.

There’s a good FB group as well for support and inspiration.

Thanks, been waiting for these to drop below £30 to get some replacements for when my ones finally rub through the fabric.

I used an aeropress funnel to seat mine, perfect fit.

Currys have a good deal at the moment, their Samsung S8 tablets are reduced, plus you can get £200 off if you trade in any tablet. I used one of the original Amazon fire tablets that had been sat in a drawer for years. They didn’t even check if it turned on. Trade-in at the store and they email you a voucher.

I’ll second Optilabs, used them several times and thought that the lenses were actually better than the glasses I’ve got from the local opticians.

IA-8 was the one that took me 50 attempts, but 9 wasn’t too bad, I much preferred the track and car combo so was able to get within 0.01 seconds within a few attempts, then a few more attempts later in the day to get gold I-10 was good fun but I also got one under 0.01 seconds too slow then spent another half hour trying to beat it.

The super licences are full laps so a bit more frustrating if you make a mistake towards the end on the lap as you have to restart the whole thing, 2 gold and 2 silvers so far, and I hear the final one is a real challenge but looking forward to it.

I’m really enjoying it so far, I haven’t played a GT game since GT5 as the wheel I had wasn’t compatible with the PS4. My wife suggested that I get another wheel to use with the PS5 when she saw how good GT7 and F1 2021 looked so got one and a month ago, and she’s enjoying GT7 as well.

The graphics are amazing, and I think the physics is a massive step up from when I last played GT5. My main complaint is the catch the rabbit format for races, I wouldn’t mind a couple of them but every single menu book has been this format so far. It’s just lazy from PD.

The licences have been really challenging, with some taking about 50 attempts to get gold, but then the next one will take about 3 attempts so slightly unbalanced. Got gold on all of them up to the super licences so far.

I don’t mind the unlocking tracks and working the way through different car types, it’s been quite a lot of fun and allowing my wife to get used to racing games.

My username is Markoc_1984 if anyone wants some online races or extra people in the leaderboards

Bump to see if any of the Sciatic Team are about.

I’m still pretty immobile but my consultant appointment is just over a week away so that is a date to hopefully get some progress.

The local MSK unit moved me over to the NHS Osteopath and they were better at relieving my upper back pain which has been caused by the way I have to move around however they said to just move around as little as possible and do no stretches or exercises.

I got a TENS machine which I thought would be snake oil but with the pads placed either side of where I get pain it gives some relief.

How is everyone else getting on?

Hi guys,

Just thought I would resurrect this thread to see how everyone is getting on?

I’ve recently joined the Sciatica club for the second time.

First was about 10 years ago, L4/5 on the right side with Laminectomy surgery to cure the sciatica pain, I was living in London at the time and wasn’t doing much exercise.
I’ve been riding properly for any 6 years now and really been focusing on fitness in the past few years.

Unfortunately since March my back has been slowly deteriorating with pain starting across the top of my right butt cheek. I started seeing an osteopath who had given some relief, and the local NHS physio unit but unfortunately the sciatic pain carried on getting worse getting down into my foot.

I carried on with my stretching/fitness exercises and riding as these always eased the pain. I did something I don’t know what and it suddenly got worse and I’m now at a stage where I can’t stand up straight, walk more than 50m, can’t sit normally, and lying down in most positions causes pain.
I was referred for an MRI which showed bulging L5/S1 disc and I’ve now got an appointment with a consultant at the start of November. I’m on Etoricoxib for anti-inflammatory, Gabapentin for nerve pain, Dihydrocodeine, diazepam, paracetamol but to be honest they just scratch the surface and just make me have naps in inappropriate places.
I’ve also moved from the NHS physio as they did FA apart from 3 exercises which actually made things worse, apparently Physios don’t do any hands on anymore, and I’m now seeing the Osteopath.

Basically I’m just here to hear from people with similar conditions that things will get better. I’ve ordered the book linked earlier.
If anyone has any good exercises that they can suggest to help ease the pain or strengthen the area that would be great. And any recommendations of decent Physios/Osteopath in Horsham area I’ll be happy to give them a try.

Thanks very much

I used puncture repair kit glue on my car.

I just got an alert that they are in stock at Wiggle, order placed, fingers crossed for delivery before the weekend.

I ordered one of these from Tredz 2 weeks ago and they were down to be dispatched yesterday but I didn’t mind the wait. I got an email today saying that their shipment has been delayed until August. Missed several other opportunities to order one from other places as I thought I had secured one.

Has anyone seen any available to order that has stock?

Instead of purchasing the Hope freehub seal tool, I used the funnel from my Aeropress as that was a perfect fit, everyone on STW has one of those.

I worked with a guy who would always answer the phone in about half a second stating the company name and department in a formal way, then transfer the phone to the person on the team they wanted to speak to. If the person calling wanted to speak to him he would put them on hold for a few seconds and then answer the phone again in a different voice. We think he wanted to make it look like he had a secretary.

The same guy also got a wireless headset and would wander around the office whilst he talked on the phone, including into the toilet and take a piss.

I’ve been using the Five Ten Access for a couple of years but just split the sole, been looking for a reasonable priced replacement and found the Five Tennies reduced direct from Adidas in grey:

https://www.adidas.co.uk/five-ten-five-tennie-approach-shoes/EF7513.html

I then googled for a 20% discount code and found one that worked.

Also a few weeks ago I managed to get a 30% discount code to work on the new Freerider Pro’s Primeblue

Can’t wait for this, it’s going to be spectacular. Elon said it’s only about a 30% chance of landing safely. The window opens at 12pm tomorrow, but it will probably launch quite a bit later in the day judging by other test launches.

Everyday astronaut and Labpadre are good YouTube channels to watch as they will be monitoring for stages leading up to the launch.

I had this happen when I squeezed the lever quite hard whilst bleeding the brakes. Got the whole brake replaced under warranty, it happens a lot more than it should apparently

I want to get an oval chainring for my 12sp Shimano xt, but I’m struggling to find any that are Shimano direct mount, apart from the £60 AB ones. Any other ones out there at the moment that are closer to the £30-40 range?

Thanks

My wife snores quite a lot, and after struggling with different ear plugs for some time I found a local company that make custom ear plugs so gave them a try.

https://mercurycustomplugs.com/

They are amazing and have helped me get good night’s sleep for about 18 months so far. They don’t completely block out all noise as the some travels through the body but no sound comes down the ear canal.

The company makes ear plugs for lots of different circumstances like shooting, DJ’s, motorsport etc but he said their biggest demand is for sleeping ones. The company travels around to different trade shows so worth keeping an eye out on where they are going to be, once the trade shows stay up again, as they take ear mouldings at the shows and then post the finished plugs to customers.

Apologies for the thread hijack but didn’t want to start another sabotage thread.

Since the lockdown there has been an increase in riding in my local woods, St Leonard’s Forest near Horsham, along with quite a few new trails being built by the kids off school. Unfortunately this has also come with some increase in trail sabotage, some on the new trails but also on the trails that have been there for many years.

The first I came across were just some sticks across an old trail:

Then a couple of days later it progresses to someone using a saw to cut down a healthy young tree and place across an older trail:

And yesterday my friend came across this on a more recent trail:

Apparently fairly easy to spot but would cause some serious injury if someone wasn’t paying attention.