I’ve had the little Stihl battery saw for over two years now, along with 4 batteries for it. It’s ideal for stuff up to about 3-4″, and squeezes into the back pack so isn’t noticeable when riding with it, however I only take it if I know I’ve got a fair bit to cut.

From all accounts the cheap ones are just as functional.

However, for something to carry just in case, a decent folding hand saw is far more practical. I mostly use the Stihl pruning saws (just checked, and PR16 is the model), as they’re not that expensive, and a decent known quality. The cheap ones can vary from rubbish, to pretty good, but having tried many, most fall into pretty rubbish. Either too course so they snag too much, too fine so they don’t cut that quickly, or just blunt really quickly.

For bigger stuff, Silky BigBoy 2000 will fit in most back packs, and make pretty light work of stuff up ~9″. I have done 12″+, but it’s pushing the limits. Bigger than that, and a Katanaboy will make light work of some surprisingly big stuff, but you’re not going to be carrying it stealthily.

Any water in the system is most likely to enter via the lever.

The external master cylinder seal only needs to seal between the reservoir and the environment, and it’ll mainly be designed to keep fluid in, not water out.

I can’t be bothered searching for Shimano lever exploded diagrams, but looking at a couple Hope’s, current levers are relying on what looks like a standard O-ring, whereas earlier levers were using a cone seal set to provide maximum fluid retention.

If that seal is surrounded by water, then chances are every time you operate the brake, there is a risk of water passing it. Combine that with heat expansion/contraction, and you also have the possibility of water being drawn in as well.

Once in, the water will settle to the bottom of the system. If enough of it was to gather in the caliper, there is theoretically the possibility that it could freeze, expand, and push the piston out.

However you also need to consider other issues like the seal materials. One reason DOT fluid is used, is it is compatible with natural rubber. Natural rubber retains it’s flexibility in sub-zero conditions, whereas other materials start to noticeably stiffen up.

So it could well be a combination of things causing the issue.

Probably been sat in a dealer that long waiting for warranty work 🙈

It’s probably worth mentioning that the previous two Movano’s were rebadged* Renault Masters. The last pure Vauxhall van was the Combo-B (one with the Corsa-C front end). Vivaro was a rebadged Trafic.

*I say rebadged. Officially they were a ‘joint’ collaboration between Renault/Nissan and GM, but they were pretty much pure Renault designs.

They’re all pretty much the same now, with just the badges differing.

Fiat Ducato body (I reckon the body will change with the next revision, as the Ducato body is an old design now due to Fiat not having the resources to do anything other than tweak the existing design), with I think a PSA engine (I did do some recalls on them, but can’t actually remember if it was the PSA or FPT engine!).

The handbrake on that car was odd, held on like a limpet when stationary, almost imperceptible effect if moving, yet legitimately passed the MOT each year.

Parking brake only needs to reach 16% efficiency (or lock below the 16%) to pass an MOT on a dual circuit system, which when combined with relatively little weight on the rear, means it’s really not going to stop you any time soon.

retired traffic cop told me that about half the cars he has been to that ended up off the road / in a field the driver said had experienced some sort of sudden mechanical failure.  In 20 yrs in traffic not one of them seemed to still have the fault after it was back on the road ;-).   Seems even less likely given it had been pretty well looked after previously!

Funnily enough, that’s my experience working in the motor trade for over 20 years.

Best was the lorry driver who rear ended a 4×4 and trailer, saying the brakes failed. He (un)surprisingly had found a new job by the time the lorry was repaired, and the 6 flat spotted tyres were noted on it’s inspection before it went back on the road.

I’ve only ever seen one vehicle with complete brake failure, and that was due to a seized master cylinder. However the driver had kept driving it knowing the brakes were overheating, until both circuits had failed due to calipers overheating to the point the seals failed.

There are very few things that would cause complete brake failure on a modern vehicle. However should one circuit develop a problem, the pedal sinking further combined with the reduced and unbalanced braking, will often give the impression of complete brake failure. When you expect the braking point to be near the top of the travel, and it’s now nearly on the floor, the sudden change will cause panic in most drivers.

My brother’s lab got half an aspirin a day on the advice of the neighbour who was a Dick Vet lecturer, but that was over 10 years ago. He said there were other options, but most at the time were ultimately just pain killers, and an aspirin would be just as effective and cost far less.

It certainly got him up and moving in the mornings, until the final day where he just couldn’t get up :(

Bob the builder.LTDwho depostits a couple of grand a week in cash to his business account on a regular basis… not nessesarily super suspicious.

You’d be surprised at what triggers money laundering checks.

I know a business owner who deposited several thousand a week, but when he deposited IIRC about £8k after he sold a vehicle, it triggered money laundering questions. And that was a company with a 7 figure annual turnover, so it wasn’t as though it was significant amount of money for the company.

For a private customer, I’d imagine 50k would trigger lots of questions, with the funds not available until the bank was satisfied as to the source.

I heard the heli circling this afternoon, but AFAIK it never landed.

I did hear later who was there, and it didn’t sound good :(

Main benefit of Hydrogen, is you can create it whenever there is a surplus of electricity, refuelling is far quicker, and storage is far less limited than what you can currently do with excess electricity.

Even if somebody develops the ideal battery, the electricity grid is never going to be able to support fast recharging of more than a relatively few vehicles in each area.

The Garden Expert series of books by Dr DG Hessayon were the always recommended book series, and that was from two people who had Diplomas in Horticulture (My brother, and my other brother’s best mate), because they have enough essential information to grow things, and covered the common issues you’re likely to face, without going into details that you don’t really need to know.

Both those people, although they had to buy many books containing far more detailed information, said the Expert series covered everything you’d deal with on a day to day basis, and for normal gardening you’d never need to know the detailed information.

I’ve still got a few of the original versions, but the only one likely to be of use to you is The Garden DIY expert, as it has a few pages on containers/planters, but I think that was covered in the normal Garden Expert book. You’d be welcome to it for the cost of postage (And the others I’ve still got, but they’re unrelated to growing produce)

It depends on the material.

Sand, a few coats of filler primer, with more sanding, with a final coat of paint is probably going to give the best finish.

I do like the V3.

I would say it’s the best watch that Polar have produced, as it has improved on the V/V2. Slightly smaller, better screen, better heart rate tracking, better battery life, along with a few nice extra features.

My biggest complaint about it, is it doesn’t show your heartrate on the main screen like the original and V2 did. And you need to look at the app to see your lowest sleeping heart rate.

Just read the website, and I see you can configure home screen widgets, so you can have the heartrate on the default screen!

I’ve not really used the mapping on it, although when I have ridden with it, it has shown all the nearby established trails. Somewhat ironically, just before my V2 failed, I could have had some vouchers to get a few months Komoot free, but as I had no use for them, I never bothered taking any :/

Any business carrying out an automotive repair, should be doing it to the relevant British Standard, which means a combined plug and patch (often referred to as a mushroom, however not the kind listed above). And part of the repair is inspecting the tyre for any internal damage.

The anchovies (and the small mushrooms) are an approved fix in other countries, but not the UK.

The chances of one failing catastrophically are slim, but the biggest risk is any crash that could be attributed to a non-compliant repair could have your insurance asking questions.

From a UK legal point, they don’t meet the required British Standard for tyre repairs.

My original 4 year old Vantage is still going strong, albeit the battery doesn’t last as long as it used to, as I had to use it while waiting for them to do something about repairs/replacements.

The lack of new bike computer is what I think will ultimately push me towards changing to Garmin once my existing Polar kit dies. I do have the bar mount for the watches, but I don’t like using it.

I vaguely recall reading on STW that they’d closed the UK repair office.

That would be one of my threads after my few month old V2 failed due to water ingress, and my crash replacement M460 died after 9 months.

After the official support went silent, I took to Facebook and criticised them every time one of their ads appeared in my feed. Not long after that support sprung to life again and sent me vouchers to cover the cost of a new V3 and a new M460. That was about 6 months ago, so not sure what the current status is with UK repairs.

I’m also torn as I do prefer the Polar ecosystem, however the whole support experience means I don’t really trust them anymore, and I’m not sure I would buy anymore of their products.

on the Porsche there was originally just one headlight and so one set of monitoring. Now there are two headlights but still just the single wires returning the signal to the CANBus

I did think that after I posted, as I had been thinking that you were wanting to join both sides together.

I’d try wiring everything in temporarily without resistors, and see what warnings ping up.

My guess is indicators, and sides will most likely need resistors. Probably DLR as well, but with it being HID, the dips/mains might not detect an issue.

And given it’ll run on typical VAG modules, changing the coding is likely feasible, and will eliminate the need for mounting resistors (which itself comes with the issue of where to mount them so that they can dissipate 30+W of heat without melting anything).

BTW have you considered buying a Durametric diag tool?

Midges.

Joining the sides together isn’t likely to be a good idea, as each bulb will very likely be monitored individually, so joining them is likely to cause issues with the monitoring.

Also measuring the resistance of bulbs won’t give an accurate figure, as the filament resistance increases with heat.

And jamesoz has the correct formula. R = V²/P

What do we think of bearing mounts?

That’s not a bearing as such, it’s a spherical bush/rose joint. DT Swiss also use them, and they work pretty well, but can be a bit problematic to change. CaneCreek have also used them in the past.

Their main benefit is they remove side loading from the shock, but that doesn’t always suit the bike suspension.

That video is a bit misleading though, as those tests can be manipulated by part selection. Most bushings are tight when initially installed, but quickly loosen up once a little bit of material transfer happens.

I am not sure its that simple.  there are two drives for breathing low O2 and high CO2.  would this not trigger the low O2 drive and thus give rise to panting attempts to breathe?

It’s certainly not my area of expertise, but my understanding is that’s the build up of CO2 that causes you to breath harder, not a lack of O2. However I’m sure somebody will clarify.

I’ve got a lathe programmed to produce all those different versions, but I’ve just been too indecisive over sealing and spacers to actually produce any for sale yet.

BETD (aka Mountainbike components) have been selling there’s since before TFTuned even started doing their own shock mount kits.

Although just to comment on @Northwind ‘s post about the old style two part alu top hat mounts, if your shock is mounted such that the bushing isn’t moving in the shock eyelet (aka the bolt/pin runs in bearings, like quite a few modern suspension designs do), then they’ll work fine as wear shouldn’t be an issue.

(Plus in Northwind’s case, any play is likely to be something more major, like pivot bolts missing that he’s somehow failed to notice 🤣 )

I did wonder why they didn’t just put a bunch of smouldering disposable BBQs in the room – or is CO too painless ?

My understanding is CO would be quite a slow death.

CO2 triggers your body to breath more, and would result in you continually gasping for air as CO2 builds up in your body.

Nitrogen on the other hand displaces the oxygen, and essentially fools your body into thinking everything is OK, until such a point it runs out of oxygen and gives up.

I’ve still got a collection of special edition pounds notes from the 90s.

One tip to make fitting far easier, is don’t use the maximum size insert for any given tyre. I once tried to fit a slightly smaller Schwalbe tyre using the Vitoria insert I have, which on paper should have fitted, as my preferred Michelin was out of stock.

After much blood, sweat and tears, the insert ended up launched in the back of the van until I managed to get a more suitably sized tyre!

Probably all to do with weight limits (and the fact most people will actually struggle to lift a full fat eeb onto a roof!)

I know when I used a roof rack, putting the big (FR/DH not E!) bike on the rack was actually beyond the official limit of the carrier. (I used to also put an additional strap across). You’ll probably have to do some digging around the likes of Thule and Mont Blanc to find out what limits they set for their various carriers, and what the weight limit is for your car.

Even an Evoque may not have that big a roof load capacity.

They can all be a PITA to fit. CushCore butt plug lever does make a big difference though.

I’ve used Vitoria and CushCore, but only in the rear, as that’s the tyre/wheel that you’re most likely to damage.

One sales rep keeps telling me I should try one in the front, but given the sweat (and often tears!) involved in fitting them, I keep telling them I’ll only buy one for the front if they fit it. They go quiet after that suggestion 😂

As for riding with a flat tyre. I’ve ripped the sidewall out a tyre with the CushCore mid-trail, and in a straight line on a pretty rocky trail, there wasn’t really any noticeable difference. It still rolled surprisingly well and braking was fine, but it did very noticeably squirm on corners and off-camber. The 4km of tarmac path back to the car park was also a bit of a drag, but still rideable. I was expecting the insert to be pretty knackered after that, but it was still immaculate.

But that was an improvement from the previous time when I burst the rear tyre bead without any insert, and couldn’t get the valve out the rim to fit a tube, so had to walk the same 4km back in the rain.

I’ll admit, Santa Cruz as a brand has never appealed to me, but I do admire how their marketing has given them some kind of exclusive desirability.

Personally if I wanted a main stream brand, I’d rather have a Trek or Specialized.

As for the stereotypes, I did bump into somebody I knew who’d recently bought a SC. I jokingly asked them when they were getting the T6 to go with it, and they said they’d just bought a new Audi instead 🤣

Looks like a corporate restructure / belt tightening as they’ve probably got a cashflow issue at the mo. Owners PON possibly using that as an excuse to get more hands-on?

Apparently PON do have issues, but given their funding/structure, nobody really knows the full details or how bad they actually are.

However given the state of the industry, that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

SC do a good job of maintaining desirability in the UK with limited stock availability

That limited they were 40% off most places to clear stock towards the end of last year?

I’m also aware of one shop that was even offering deals on the new models just to get sales.

Many of my colleagues were atrocious, complete oxygen theives, Worse than a man down, you know the drill. Their work ethic was crap, standard of work even worse, always looking for every opportunity to shortcut the job to get away early, why did they remain on the job.

This does appear to be becoming far more common, along with people managers who can’t manage.

My previous employer had a couple ‘technicians’, who’s standard of work was abysmal, cut as many corners as they could, and that’s if they turned up. Combine that with a pair of foremen who were glued to their seats in the office, and who’s idea of a QC was finding a job card, then ticking the boxes to say the QC had been passed (we did laugh the day one of the tech’s passed a QC, then had the vehicle quite spectacularly fail an mot), along with a manager who’s spine would struggle against a wet paper bag, leads to destruction of staff moral of those who actually work.

I’ve always been of the attitude, that if you’re being paid to do a job, you do it. If you don’t want to do it, then don’t expect to be paid for not doing it.

Better funding models for long-term usage are required, plenty of funding grants have been given for the build of new stuff, but very little seems to be considered for the on-going maintenance and long-term usage of the projects.

Most grants are awarded on the basis of creating something sustainable, however very few mountain bike venues/projects have ever attained that.

Take something like the latest white elephant MTB Innovation Hub in Innerleithen, there is no way that would ever be commercially viable, yet figures get manipulated to make it appear as though it will.

Go for a swim.

Probably the same reason the heater matrix, isn’t called a radiator. It provides a distinct naming difference between components.

There are specialists who’ll make AC pipes, but it’ll cost you (Bee Cool is the one that I’m aware off)

The end fittings are fairly standard sizes, but are AC specific.

You’re cheaper option is likely trying to find a decent local independent Automotive AC guy, as the good ones will have the correct hose, and suitable fittings. We used to use a local guy who carried hose, along with various fittings for aftermarket systems, and as he was a one man band, he didn’t worry too much about making changes that more official companies would avoid, as long as he would still get a functioning system that didn’t leak.

(My previous employer used him to modify a batch of vehicles that the OE AC system regularly blocked and failed on due to the condenser location, and he didn’t worry about extending the hoses and fitting a different condenser in a different location to improve reliability, when other companies refused to modify the system)

I had a set of the original Brown Fox TALAS 36s. They may even still be in the shed somewhere, along with a pair of Manitou Minutes with their remote travel adjust lever.

I eventually figured out 130mm was the sweet spot for hardtail fork travel, so the forks never got adjusted, and I eventually swapped the TALAS for a set of Vanilla 36s with a spacer added to limit the travel to 130mm. I still maintain Van 36s were pretty much the perfect fork, as I’ve never had a set of forks since that feel as supple and just handled everything you threw at them :/

As to what happened to travel adjust, I think most people realised there really wasn’t much benefit to it. Those I know who had it, the novelty generally wore off, and travel would be set then never touched again, bit like most suspension lockouts.

Plus I don’t think modern geometry benefits as much from it, and there is the whole weight weenie thing. Travel adjust adds weight, and we all know how much unnecessary weight affects sales, and is why coil forks died a death 🙄

If a bolt has already sheared the head off, then molegrips/double nuts/<any other of cold method> is very unlikely to work.

And seeing a photo, heat might work, but you’ll struggle to get enough heat into a casting like that. Heat cycling the remains of the bolt, might help loosen it, but I’ve had/seen varied success. However I’ve also seen heating bolts like that, harden them to the point nothing will drill them, and requiring the entire casting to be replaced.

Personally, I’d take the brake disc off as it’s likely to be drilled al the way through, and drill it from the other side with a good quality drill bit (you’ll need a 5mm drill for a M6 bolt) without even attempting to heat it, and re-tap the thread.

Thol how would you feel if your employer had a microphone that recorded your every word while at work, and didn’t have any kind of failsafe way to ensure it was deleted at regular intervals?