Not very spendy, but completely un-necessary yet vitally important – bottle cage bolts in black / polished Ti because the (un-used) bosses are on corresponding black / polished parts of the frame… and pretty much the rest of that bike while we’re at it.

Modern art isn’t the same as it used to be, take this beauty for example:

The very mention of this magnificent piece or anything by Rothko can induce a pretty hilarious 20+ minute screaming fit of rage in one of my colleagues, it’s brilliant – that’s just a bit “meh…”

On another note – Brian Eno claims to have actually pissed in the original “fountain” urinal via a cleverly concealed Withnail-esque hose/bottle setup :lol:

:lol: should have seen that coming, having seen it built up now I could probably have gone either way, hard to tell for sure before it’s in front of you – stem & post are easy enough to change I suppose, might keep an eye out on t’ebay for silver bits if curiosity gets the better of me.

Finally got this bugger finished at the weekend – went with the black post/stem as per consensus which I think was the right choice, just enough silver on it with the groupset & bars… not had a chance to get out yet, had literally just finished a rough indexing of the gears & the heavens opened for 2 hours straight :x (excuse the terrible phone pics…)

I’ve got a medium in the original rain jacket, 5’7″ & wear a 38 suit jacket and it’s pretty much spot on – they’ve a sample sale on just now if you haven’t already seen – their server seems to be struggling though, as it always does when they have an online sale, i’ve given up… again, just like last time :lol:

Mate of mine had a large driveway with a double garage on it but used to leave his van on the otherwise pretty empty main road blocking one lane to stop the local “wee dicks” driving down the road at 70mph racing each other (2 lanes each way, pretty wide road) – problem was he stayed just round a slight bend & awoke one morning at 4am to find one of said bawbags being cut from the wreckage of some lurid coloured, plastic embellished shitheap which had taken the corner on two wheels & gone straight through the back doors of his van becoming a permanent feature… :lol:

I stay in a fairly small village on the high street, close to the chippy/Indian/farmers market shop – sometimes at weekends I have to park a good 10m from the front door because it’s so busy :wink:

If you’re cutting down a bike box to fit exactly round them you should be fine – the max size stated (245cm) is the longest side + the circumference, eg. (70 + 20) x2 + 70 = 214cm, bit of cardboard origami & you should be fine!

Until it’s sorted properly – get a massive tarpaulin to make your garage water tight & secure it through the neighbours’ roof with some cheap self tappers that will rust away to bugger all within 5 minutes leaving his new roof with sieve like properties.

Last few near misses i’ve had (since the schools went back) were all women drivers, mainly in people carriers, but the BMW 1 series features quite highly too, the culprit of the closest shave was also wearing a headscarf just to throw another stereotype into the mix :wink: #banthebalaclava

Bit of a grey area – I know a few folk who say the literal interpretation of the texts says not to come to worship drunk and are quite happy to go & get blazing on occasion, others won’t even touch a glass with alcohol in it. Quite a few Indian / Pakistani / Bangladeshi restaurants don’t have licences & won’t charge corkage if you bring your own as they don’t want to profit from the selling of it…

happy to clear that up :lol:

I’ve used Myhermes a few times recently to send wheels too – got away with sending 700c in a 26″ box via the judicial use of gaffer tape, flaps on box wouldn’t close completely but it was close enough – just added more bubble wrap round the top of the wheels & a load more tape to seal it up, came in just under the 225cm width + circumference limit.

On their T&C it now states:

“We may charge you an administration fee of £25 if you breach any of our terms and conditions, this will be in addition to any other rights that we may have.”

So it might be wise to try & get it as close as possible to the limit via some wheel-box origami.

Edit – i’ve used parcelforce 48 before & it’s varies with the weight between £12-£16 iirc…

I’m thinking of switching too – from 1×9 to the new SLX M7000 1×11, was also wondering about the freehub compatibility – couldn’t remember if it was just the road 11 speed stuff that wasn’t compatible with some older 10 speed freehubs…

Waiting to see real-world pricing on the new SLX, with 1×11 XT (with brakes) coming in around 400 bangers it could be a lovely bargain…

alpin

No one is stuffing half a kilo of grass up their arse

Hmmm… I wonder… :idea:

Only kidding, sounds like a shite idea – I used to partake most evenings (no, not jamming it up my arse) & only stopped when my other half moved in and started eyeing me disapprovingly, was a bit of a bummer at first as I did enjoy it, but then it gradually ended up a weekend only thing, then gradually a once-in-a-blue-moon thing, then I stopped pretty much altogether – just got out of the habit I suppose.

Looking back, I don’t think it was a terrible thing to have been doing – i’d still have been sitting watching footy / Family Guy marathons etc. of an evening, so I wasn’t having a sneaky banger instead of doing anything else – just having a really good sleep afterwards. Don’t really miss it now – just more associate it as an old habit associated with my carefree bachelor days, although I do sometimes have a shot of a vapourizer when i’m so inclined, although that’s not often – burnt popcorn anyone?

Hope the other charge works out!
J

While everyone’s on the subject of resurrecting old forks, my 2007 Pikes are due for fresh seals & a service – while i’m at it I was going to change the seals on the moco unit to try & fix the oil drip that occurs when they’re stored upside down, anyone done this? Had a search & Mojo used to supply a kit for it, but don’t any more…
cheers!
J

Biggie Smalls

Glasgow to Bristol & back – driving, soul crushing :x

I’ve recently come to the admission that i’m not that great at mountain biking & shall henceforth be concentrating on easier trails at a quicker pace on a hardtail, rather than donning the pads & ploughing 5″ of travel through steep rocky descents with gritted teeth and white knuckles, all the time praying I don’t fall off & snap my barse…

The realization came earlier on in the year, me & the missus went to Italy & spent a few days in Finale Ligure – I did one uplift day on a 140mm hire bike & had several decidedly hairy moments resulting in serious relief when I made minced it through the day without injuring myself – a classic case of mistaking ambition for ability – couple of days later I hired a carbon hardtail 29er & stuck 30-odd miles on it on the xc trails in the area & had a blast. Not totally convinced on the 29″ wheels but it was fun all the same & I felt more at ease on that type of terrain than the enduro gnar.

Stick with what feels fun, I think loads of people (myself included) get fixated with trail grades & feel compelled to go try progressively more technical stuff just to prove they can, whereas tearing round the blue routes or the local forest trails at top speed can actually be more enjoyable.

Obviously some people are more skilled & can tear up pretty much anything they come across at top speed without fearing for their lives, but i’ve made peace with the fact that’s just not me. I’m shit, and proud 8)

Jimjam
The bike is now a custom build/extensively upgraded one off and is now worth £1300 £1500 second hand. Hope this helps.

Fixed that for you :wink:

2unfit2ride
Oh & LOL at the RUF 959 being a future classic, try & find one for less than 6 figures.

Really sorry – I respectfully retract my last post as you’ve obviously deemed it too expensive to be a future classic :lol:

Wasn’t most of Ferrari’s 1960’s range quite expensive when they first appeared? Not quite as expensive as they are now admittedly, but I thought most of those held classic status regardless of how few folk could actually afford them at the time?

Sorry – I take back that last comment, anything except this thing that looks like a VW toureg pumped kermit the frog :|

I seen a Clio V6 last week – first time i’d seen one in at least 5 years!

Not “current” but still fairly recent – in fact, anything Porsche shaped that say RUF on it

I had a Hope one for a while on the rear of one bike & went back to XT – after slightly overtightening the Hope one then having to prize it open it with cold wet fingers to fix a puncture… the XT lever shape is nicer to use (to me anyway) and the internal cam skewers just feel smoother in operation I reckon… the Hope one always felt a bit creaky and I think the Hope lever (on mine anyway) had a longer throw & would sit further inboard when fully closed. Only upside is the colour choice with the Hope as far as I can see, the industrial milled look is slightly polarizing.

Well spotted – I hadn’t yet gotten round to ordering any as i’m waiting for a few other bits for the bike anyway, might just go for those! (the £5 off is fro orders over £30)

Cheers!
J

For most people it’s more an affliction than a lifestyle choice tbh

:lol:

Change name and number plates? You know the police will just update their records.

Eventually.

Boom:

On a side note – having flicked through most of this thread with mild dismay at certain backwards, anti-commonsense views – are people actually that worried about potential driving impairment from having a sneaky banger a full day before driving a car, which by all accounts seems to be negligible at the actual “dosage” specified by the OP? Especially when it seems that someone (outside Scotland :wink: ) can be RAF* & have enough residual alcohol in their system from the previous evening’s pimms fuelled rampage to be quantifiably impaired whilst still being technically under the permissable legal alcohol limit to drive… I know who i’d rather share the roads with.

*rough as f…

What’s happening……have we stopped for a well deserved fag break ?

Something like that 8)

Is “LAW” too complicated for you to get your drug-addled brain around? There’s no grey area when it comes to law: you either broke the law or you didn’t.

this is exactly why I chose paedophilia rather than doing 35-in-a-30-zone in my original comparison. Both paedophilia and drug possession are clear cut criminal offences, under criminal law, and attract criminal convictions and criminal records.

Firstly, I’ve not been caught committing a traffic offence, and I’m not in the habit of deliberately committing the.

So, to summarize; casual drug users are peados & traffic laws don’t count as long as you didn’t mean it and/or don’t do it often?

Alpin, I seriously hope everything works out – shitty set of circumstances & one I hope the authorities see sense on (no weakly, not the firing squad).

i’ll just leave this here…

That’s a good tip about putting a spare bit of inner in – someone had told me that before & had forgotten until you mentioned it :idea:

Previously i’ve totally mangled a set of these in about 10 minutes cutting a few outers & some braided disc brake hose – they developed so much play the jaws sprang apart & the outer cable got wedged inbetween them, sideways… no way to tighten them up either as the bolt is smoothed off on both sides, cheap, but utterly useless

I’ve a few Park tools but they tend to be things I use more frequently – I have a couple of things i’ve used for cable outers before, a small cheapo bolt cutter thing but that tends to flatten them a bit – same with the side-cutters from the big random tool box, saying that they’re fine once you re-shape them & open out the liners with a pen or suchlike, just thinking if there’s a decent cheap set that gives a nice smooth finish it would be worth it, they won’t get used very often – probably only on outers.

Sounds good to me – there seems to be 2 main shapes, the ones above and these

The first ones look a bit better finished to me & very similar to a few £20+ efforts i’ve spotted, will give ’em a bash

Cheers,
j

That’s a pretty good rule – I’m getting quite into this race now, If they can have a 5 lap sit down i probably could go & make some toast and not miss too much – maybe time it between the sprints

Dunno – he looked round seconds before moving down, must have seen the guy?

Looks like you’ve been chosen the Bowman frame, in black, with mechanical Dura Ace :wink:

Personally I’d be tempted to look for folk selling off new DA bits on t’ebay & go with an Ultegra cassette – probably bring the cost down somewhere between mech & Di2 Ultegra… might be worth thinking about

Going back to the original question (instead of posting random photos of handsome, yet unrelated bikes as I usually do) it depends whether you want to justify £500 for electric gears – one guy I know with Di2 loves it & would never go back to mechanical (on his best bike anyway) and another – who has several fantastic road bikes – is apparently not too keen on the light feel of the shift buttons & prefers something more tactile, ie. mechanical.

Having looked at both the frames you’re thinking of, I reckon both would look great with either Ultegra di2/mech or DA to be honest – it’d be easier if one was completely different looking in fact, ie. Ultegra v Force… what wheels are you going for out of interest?

I’m in the middle of building a Moda 931 frame (looks like that Bowman frame in black actually) with silver Campag Athena (fancied giving it a bit of a retro look) and black Zondas, hopefully it looks the way i’m expecting when it’s done or i’ll be back on this thread to see what you ended up with for inspiration :lol:

Ok, it’s got Campag – but sweet jesus isn’t it pretty 8O

Happy to help.

Someone in an MX5 caused me to be late for work last week, not because they were driving “maturely” though – it was upside down blocking the motorway on-ramp after being apparently sent round the adjacent roundabout backwards before hitting a pole & doing a backflip. Probably best to stay away from that one if it comes up for sale…

I’m sure it was Monday, and it was raining – imagine being cut out of your knackered upside down mx5 on a Monday morning in the rain… once my detour induced rage settled I actually felt sorry for them.

why thank you – my earlier suggestion of setting them all on fire was a little inflammatory :wink:

Spray water into each of them lightly every night using a plant sprayer thing – they won’t be wet but they’ll never dry out & it won’t take long until they look like this…

ASBO