I won a tour of the McLaren Technology Centre back when they were a top team, the year after Hamilton won the championship. It was a great evening where we could look around all of the recent and historical cars, the race bays where they prepare the cars and open cabinets and draws to play with the tools, under strict supervision of course, change wheels on a car pitstop style, see the wind tunnel. Unfortunately none of the drivers or top people were there but it was one of the best evenings of my life as a big F1 and McLaren fan. Not won anything since.

I ordered something from them on Good Friday, took a few days to get dispatched, and then 6 days to arrive through the Royal Mail system, delays to be expected at the moment so apart from that it was ok. I haven’t had to send it back so I can’t comment on the returns.

And the sound made by a creaking CSU is pretty distinctive, more like a crack. Can be isolated by removing front wheel, flipping the bike over, standing on the bars and flex the forks….its a dead give away to the issue.

Thanks for this tip to check if it’s the forks, my bike has been making some awful creaking recently that keeps getting worse, and it’s got the Lyrik Ultimate’s on it. I’ve been going over the bike checking all the other bolts etc to make sure it’s not coming from somewhere else, but I think I have to accept it’s time to send the forks in for warranty. Now is probably the best time as I’m not using the bike nearly as much.

Hi Ben, I’ll send you a PM as it’s on a Bird.

I was squeezing it pretty hard, I don’t think I would squeeze it that hard on a trail.

The only after market pistons available are the 22mm ones for 2 pot calipers, I need an 18mm one and can’t find any Shimano ones, I’m not sure the SRAM ones will for properly.

Looking like my only option is to get a new caliper.

Thanks, I’ll give them a try

Subscribe to the newsletter and there’s a link showing the names on the fin. There’s no easy way, you just have to zoom right in and scan the thousands of names

Edit for the linky

https://www.bloodhoundlsr.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Bloodhound-LSR-Fin-Names.pdf

It’s a PDF so you can just search the text for your name, took me 10 seconds to find my name.

I’ve had some really good deals from them, especially through the winter months when there are fewer people bidding on items. All the items I have won have been brand new, some in boxes, some not.

During busy times I see lots of items I’m watching going for silly prices, more than you will normally find on ebay, and sometimes more than you can get direct from CRC or Wiggle, which come with a warranty.

Recommend getting a sniper like Goofbid, then just set your maximum price and it will be automatically for you,

I’ve had my Mk1.5 Aeris for over 3 years now and I absolutely love it, fantastic bike and I’ve had numerous times where I’ve thought “Oh dear, this is going to hurt” but somehow the bike has managed to save me.

Only drawback, now I want to trade my Bird in for a younger Bird, with bigger……wheels!

@iainc – are you using the same gloves that you were previously using with black grips? I’ve got some Ergon grips and they come up nice and clean with a quick wipe when cleaning the bike, had them for over 6 months with no discolouration.

I had my car ceramic coated when it was new by a professional detailer. It cost about £400 and he needed the car for a few days so that the coating could cure properly.

Well worth it in my opinion as the paint still looks in great condition after 2 years and makes cleaning it so much easier. Most of the time all it needs is a snow foam coating then blast with the pressure washer to get it looking good, wheels usually need a bit of extra attention with a cleaning mitt.

When I do give it a proper clean I use the 2 bucket method and use 2 wash mitts at the same time to half the cleaning time.

I pre-ordered some 12t jockey wheels for SRAM 11 speed, arrived home today to find they had been delivered yesterday.

They look great, well made, nice bearings that spin freely. I can’t wait to fit them on my bike later and try them out on a ride tomorrow.

We are after trail/enduro riding with a lift to the top or most of the way up the hills. To give you an idea we like the Blues and Reds at BPW and ride Surrey Hills mostly. We not into the big jumps/drops type of trail and prefer the flowy trails with a few features thrown in.

Thanks for the info guys, White Room does look like a good shout.

We are hoping to drive to the mountain biking location as Mrs O’C and I have the whole week off work so are going to go riding for half the week with some friends, and spend half the week with Mrs O’C’s family who have a house in NW France for the week.

A couple of the suggestions in Switzerland could also be good options as they are not much further than we were originally planning on driving.

My riding mate runs the Uk distributors for Nilan, the systems are amazing but the houses do need to be built properly for them to work properly so they get involved in the planning stage right the way through to completion. The energy consumption is very low and barely costs him anything to run his system.

https://www.nilan.dk/en-gb/frontpage/dealers/europe

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Give him a call and he will be able to talk you though it, and will most likely want to go for a ride when he comes to se you if you say you are into mtb.

The industry I work for makes it very tough to find an alternative around me without moving back into the commuting into London nightmare, or moving house to another part of the country which is off the cards due to Mrs MOC.
I don’t have kids yet, but they are planned to be on the way next year, so it will become a problem for kids holidays in a few years time.
We have a new MD who started a few weeks ago with the intention of taking some of the strain off the company owner, I’m hoping he can bring some corrections to the way the company is run as he comes with experience of the way other companies are run.

It was imposed at the beginning of the year when nobody had booked any holiday. The company is overstaffed during the winter and understaffed during the summer.
The most annoying part of it all is my boss takes a total of over a months holiday throughout the summer, his 5 ski trips during the winter, 2 weeks over Christmas, plus his numerous other shooting days and other excursions throughout the year, totalled 12 weeks last year, but it’s his company he can do what he wants.
Generally it’s a good place to work with good people, it’s just the work/home life balance that is pretty rubbish.

It’s not in the contract, the company owner just decided to have this as a rule this year. There are a few people that have school aged kids and there isn’t much they can do about it. It has been a bit of a revolving door recently.
Holidays are down to management discretion but I wanted to know if they are legally allowed to block off 5 months where nobody can take a holiday, especially through the summer period when most people want to take holidays.

I’ve got a Pixel 3 XL and really like it, the camera is amazing, very quick phone, Android with no tinkering by phone companies is really nice. It’s not superfast down Strava segments which is annoying but I think that might be another personal issue.
I had an issue with the USB port coming loose, contacted Google and they sent me a replacement under warranty no questions asked and I had to post it off and I got it back within a week and couriers paid for by Google both ways. Although a week with a 6 year old rubbish phone that I borrowed from a friend showed me just how much difference a modern phone makes.
The videos of the new Huawei P30 look good, very good night time camera. My wife loves her P20 although Huawei phones don’t like Strava much.

+ 1 for Rhino boot liner and seat covers.

It fits perfectly and has kept a water reservoir that leaked it’s entire contents from spilling over the car.

I used to take it out and fold it up after every use, but as I so rarely have anyone sat in the back seats it stays in most of the time now.

I get a couple of tickets on the monthly and used to play the weekly, but the newer limited ticket ones are better as you know the odds of winning. The MSRT transit and 6k bike one is good but expensive.

I’ve had my suspension serviced by Foxy and dropped it off there in person as work nearby, he’s a genuine really nice guy and just came up with the idea to promote his servicing business, but it just grew from there into this big competition. Really active group on FB as well.

We went in Novembber and loved it.

KSC was one of the highlights of our trip, so much to see there, easily a whole day’s worth, do the bus tour to go to the Saturn building and see the launch pads, amazing how big the Saturn rockets were. We also made another trip across to see a SpaceX launch standing from the Max Brewer Memorial bridge and got a really good view, but take binoculars.

Another highlight was going to Daytona speedway and doing passenger rides in a NASCAR, 180mph going round those banked turns was incredible.

Gatorland was brilliant as well, we timed it perfectly as it was feeding time and they were giving them 15lb turkeys for Thanksgiving. I really didn’t expect much from Gatorland and walked away having had a fantastic day.

The best rollercoasters were definitely at Busch Gardens in Tampa.

Best shopping is at the Premium Outlet Malls, $30 for a pair of Levis!!!

Second Orlando Gun Club

It’s fairly goo fun, worth stopping by if you live in the area, but I wouldn’t travel too far for a special trip to visit.

Mrs OC has a P20 pro and had this problem to start with, only way we managed to fix it was to put the strava widget on one of the home screens, has been running fine ever since.

Some of the new Osprey range still have the solid back, I bought a replacement a month ago and it has a solid back. I think it’s 2 and 3 have solid backs, and 1.5 and 2.5 have soft backs.

Redlands Parking on Google Maps, or Coldharbour.

After asking a similar question last month I was recommended Knox and got the Action shirt:

https://www.planet-knox.com/product/knox-armoured-shirt-men/

I tried the 661 top but found the back protection to be too short on the back. The Knox wear fits well, and has a long back protector that covers most of my spine, but it still works well with a backpack.

Superflow on Leith Hill is one of my favourite trails in the Surrey Hills, very fast and flowy, but the start can be difficult to find if you don’t know where to look.

I got a new 2nd hand bike for MrsOC on Monday, the tyres were pretty old and needed replacing which I knew from the start, and the bike had never been setup tubeless.

Ordered some tyres from CRC, along with valves, delivered to my work yesterday. Got home, and within an hour I had taped both rims, inserted the valves, and got them both holding pressure, admittedly I used my mates Airshot type thing. Hans Dampf on the front went up first time with some lovely pings, no water or anything, HR2 on the back took a couple of goes and a sprinkle of water, but went up.

Came down this morning and checked them and both held pressure over night. Will be properly testing them tomorrow.

There’s plenty of ideas if you just type “Bait bike thief” into youtube of how you can get some revenge on him.

As Felix Dennis said “If it flies, floats or fornicates, rent it – It’s cheaper in the long run.”

Thanks for the assistance TINAS, that’s good to hear that it doesn’t come up too small on you, they are less than £90 on CRC at the moment so I’ve ordered one, if it doesn’t fit I can always send back.

I’m fully aware that it won’t stop all injuries, but hoping it will stop some if I have a crash.

But he’s not a larger gent, ha ha

Whilst threading my way through some large bushes along a quiet trail on Holmbury Hill, came across a group of Orcs complete with large plastic swords waiting to ambush (presumably) some elves/dwarves/whatever… I was jokingly challenged then allowed to continue.

We came back to the car park and found them all getting ready, loads of them, wizards, elves, trolls, fairies, hobbits. They were practicing their battle moves, putting prosthetics on, it was so funny, made our day.

After smashing my face up on a meaningless corner I got the 3r, use the chin guard on almost every trail, then take it off and hang on the handle bars when I’m peddling up hill. I got used to putting on the chin guard without taking the helmet off, and can do it in seconds now, I usually take it off without stopping peddling.

We were tempted to go there for a few days on our honeymoon as we were going to Mauritius. It looks absolutely stunning.Some of the wildlife tours we looked into made it look like Jurassic Park, amazing.<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”> It’s not as developed for tourists as Mauritius but is developing.  The waters are seriously shark infested though so swimming and surfing are banned by the government after so many fatal shark attacks, diving might be different.</span>

I’ve not tried them personally, but Shimano have released some new Deore 4-pot brakes under the radar, BR-MT520. Bird did a short round up on them before testing them fully and said that they can’t see any reason to spend more on the XT’s.

Can be had for under £150 for the pair.

I really feel your pain.

I hit a pothole 7 weeks ago today, it was between those annoying yellow lines across the road to make you slow down (I was only doing 40 in a 60 zone before anyone says “well why didn’t you slow down” ;-) ) Blew out my tyre instantly, and then found out that it had bent the wheel beyond repair when I took it to get a new tyre. Cost me over £1,100 for the new wheel and tyre.

Still waiting to hear if my claim has gone through. Glad I have dash cam footage of the incident as hopefully that will back it up enough. Only had the car a few months at the time and 4,000 miles on the clock.

The roads are shocking at the moment.

I was working in London and went for a lunchtime pint with some of my colleagues. Nick Frost and his misses walked in for lunch, after they had finished eating I went to the shop next door and bought him a cornetto. This was just after Shaun of the Dead had come out.

He was really friendly and we ended up getting quite smashed with him. One of my colleagues had broken his leg the previous week and he asked Nick if he could sign his cast, Nick went all out and wrote an essay down his entire cast. Cracking guy.

I also saw Simon Pegg in Crouch End, but he was with his wife and kid, so I just smiled and waved at him, and he waved back.

How well does the surface drain? Is it ok to ride in winter?

I grew up in Southwater, about half way down the Downs Link, generally the surface is hardpacked so drains pretty well, however there are sections where it runs through gullies that get pretty water logged, and it goes across fields at points so gets very boggy, but there are usually routes around these patches. Generally if there hasn’t been a downpour for a few days it’s reasonable in winter.
Lots of nice pubs if you know where to look. Bax Castle is great for an afternoon pint, and does good food, but the opening hours aren’t the best (closes at 6pm on a Sunday, all year) Quite a few more just a short ride from the DL.
Keep an eye out for the double bridge just outside of Rudgwick which is very interesting from an engineering perspective so good point to get off the trail and have a look.