For example the flu vaccine is really multiple vaccines. Twice a year the scientists look at what strains are dominant in the winter of the northern/southern hemisphere and then prepare a vaccine covering what they think will be the top 5 or so strains for the other hemisphere. Hence why its efficiency varies wildly year to year depending on whether the predictions are right. Since if a different strain is dominant then the immune response may be far less effective.

Unfortunately covid 19 also falls into this type.

I read a couple of years ago that there were already a dozen or so actual corona viruses/strains included in the selection for the flu vaccine. And have been for years.

I can’t comment on the audi, but I’ve been running an E63 estate for 4 years and it’s not as expensive as people make out.

FWIW a guy i work with has been running a fairly heavily tuned E63 AMG (2017 i think) as a daily use summer car for about 6 years (Easter to October) last i spoke to him he’d had exactly nothing go wrong with it. Just servicing stuff and a couple of minor recalls. Doesn’t run it in the winter as snow and 800+ horses doesn’t go well.
He and his wife like it sufficiently that his wife drives a box stock C63 AMG.

I pootle around like a OAP in my Volvo hybrid these days and I’m not much into fast roads.

Is that the 350 BHP version or the 420? (Or even the 450BHP version?)

That’s an unkind, almost ad hominem, thing to write @mert

Not really.

Seems Geoff may be mistaken on all counts.

It smacks of an out of touch boomer who has a poor handle on reality and just trots out talking points that fit in with his world view, probably gathered from twitter, daily mail and the local equivalent of fox news.

said to me did sound incredible.

Barely/badly “researched” anecdata would be far closer to the truth.

Wheels are becoming increasingly difficult to find for rim braked, QR bikes.

Thankfully hubs, spokes and rims aren’t, yet.

I’m genuinely astonished that people have swallowed the kool-aid so badly to be giving away some of the rim brake road bikes and components I’m seeing right now

I’d be all over it if i had the space and money (not that i’d need much money!).
Unfortunately, most of the frames are in size massive or gargantuan.

I shouldn’t have moved to a land of giants.

I would literally rather go running than ride a road bike with rim brakes and 25mm tyres again. Just crap in every way.

You bought a crap bike? Fair enough.

I don’t sell bikes.
I keep them so long that they are worth nothing, so give them away or store them.
Keep them until they break.
Keep them to pass along to kids (who then break them).

I also can’t flipping stand the mouth breathing imbeciles who populate the used bike market.
“I’ll swap you a PS3 and a skateboard for it” is just the tip of the iceberg.
I’d rather have an attic full of slightly out of date parts and frames that i can donate/pass on/swap with mates.

Quite possibly. It’s fixed the (slight) damp issue in my basement.
More air circulation would usually be the first port of call though.

I’m not aware of any brand that uses thicker tubes or reinforcement or layup to do size specific load capacity and stiffness.

Several of the major brands do it. Some of them have been doing it long enough that it’s not even a thing anymore. It’s just one factor that goes into the design spec.

Why are you trying to run non-tubeless tyres tubeless? Asking for trouble.

Is it?
I’ve got half a dozen sets running with no issues at all.

A) Scrub the inside of the tyre so the sealant wets the surface and actually seals rather than beading up and running off, or through.
B) Make sure you’re using decent sealant and that it’s been properly shaken up.

Though, to be honest, at 70-80% used i’d just bin it, life is too short.

Works best if you start out with a cheap carbon steel wok from a Chinese supermarket.

Yes, I’ve got two cheap carbon steels, a 35 cm one that i bought when i lived in the UK, so ~20 years old and another i got when i bought the big burner, think it’s 50cm, you can see the hammer marks in that one from how it was manufactured. Probably cost me less than 40 quid for both, including the wok tossing tools (Spades? Shovels?).
I’ve also got an “expensive” one that i use indoors that cost me about 60 quid.

Still made of carbon steel though, it’s just a lot thicker. And the handle didn’t need reattaching after 2 weeks…

However… fried eggs!! What to do those in?

I’ve got the smallest/13cm ikea carbon steel pan for doing solitary eggs, gets one large egg cooked to perfection, no sticking once seasoned.
Get the 20 if you want to use it for anything else, or like to flip your eggs.
Use the 20cm one for omlettes too.

I gave up buying woks completely, whatever knack there is to keeping them in shape I don’t have it.

Heat, scrubbing and oil. LOADS of heat. I use a massive gas burner (like you see in a restaurant kitchen) think it’s rated at 9-10kW, depending on the gas mix. Which is more than all 5 burners on my hob going flat out.
Nothing ever sticks. Cooks stuff in seconds if i need it to.

Only downside is i can only use it outside as the flames are also restaurant kitchen sized. My extractor isn’t rated for that. Neither are the walls, ceiling or kitchen units…

I had to check. I threw some away last year (well, stripped them for spare parts).

2 pairs of Sidi MTB shoes
2 pairs of Sidi road shoes
2 pairs of turbo shoes (probably too small-time to strip for spares and get rid) – Sidi again.
2 pairs of northwave winter boots road/MTB
1 pair of ancient Time road shoes that i use when riding my retro road bike. Just for the look of things.

So, errrr, 9.

One was a special hot air blower on a stand that you pointed up the chimney and switched on. After 5 minutes you pointed it at the kindling and it set it alight. It was good but had that 1950s bad health and safety vibe about it!

:D There’s a long black streak across the oak floor in my dads old place where one fell over and scorched the floor…

Is it because you have draws instead of drawers?

No, i have neither. It’s lådor, kalsonger or byxor that i get confused between over here. And then half a dozen other versions of both words.

I’ve got spare bite valves for one of the earlier versions of the podium bottle, god only knows where they are!

Car keys or anything regularly used and important. I have a place for my keys, I come in and they go there.

Car keys, i have a little storage draw, all the keys go in there, plus a couple of other “useful if i’m going out” things, penknife, earpods, stuff.
The ex keeps her keys in her pockets. She never remembers which pockets.
Came to a peak when *I* lost *both* car keys when cleaning it.
We spent ages looking for the keys, on the drive, under the car, in the vacuum cleaner and so on.

It was still my fault at this point.

Her key turned up a couple of days of searching in the pocket of *her* jacket. Her long, winter jacket, that she hadn’t worn for about 6 months. So the key had technically been lost for months. She’d just been using mine.
My key turned up some time the following week in the pocket of the jeans she’d been wearing when she’d gone to the car (that i was washing) grabbed the key got _something_ out of the boot and then locked the car, and then walked away.
She’d been wearing those jeans *while* searching for the goddamn keys.

I still got the blame for not looking after the keys.

Doing my best Gollum impersonation the next time she misplaced a key was (i thought) absolutely hilarious.

It’s not *actually* why she’s my ex. But i am glad i can always find my keys.

She actually lost the spare key to my place, i properly went off on her about it that time. She now has a little storage draw where all her keys go. And the house key is now looked after by one of my kids, with a lower chance of misplacement.

She has temporarily lost her new partners car keys, and house keys. More than once.

I suspect it’s because she didn’t have to lock up after herself until her early 20’s, her mum was SAH until she was 10 or 11 and then went to work at the school she was at and her dad retired when she was just into her teens, so there was *always* someone home.

https://ukoutdoorstore.co.uk/shop/camelbak-eddy-adult-bottle-replacement-bite-valve-single-item-eddy-only/
Lots more around from other sellers.

Looks like the current podium only comes as a complete cap. But it’s 5-6 quid. Which isn’t much more than i paid for the bite valves (about 3-4 quid each).

Which version of podium bottle?
And the Eddy+ bite valve and straw is available all over the place. I *think* i have a couple of spares here that i bought a couple of years ago.

(and yes, most of the bite valves are available as spares.)

MTB jackets (and reviewers) seem to have a weird obsession with pockets, just stop it,

And shorts, with pockets. Why? I pedal, legs go up and down and up and down and up and down. I don’t want keys, phone, wallet bouncing around on my thigh. I don’t want to fall on them either.

GF’s bike says 40mm, but calipers say there’s 57mm. No toe overlap.

My bike (Ribble CGR) says 45mm, calipers again say 57mm.

Have you checked width and height at both brake bridge, bottom bracket and fork crown?

Bit of overlap, but new shoes and I could move the cleats forward a little.

Don’t overthink it, a bit of toe overlap, in 99.99% of cases you’ll never ever notice.

Sometimes when we light the stove it never goes over 20, others it’s at 100-120 no matter what we do.

My monitors (2x) get higher (much higher) when i open the back door in pollen season… Most of the time between 15-35 with the fire running, sometimes 100+ with the back door open!! (And the fire not running)

Speaking to folks, they said about sometimes the air pressure outside is greater than the air pressure inside the house, and the reverse flow happens. Where normally inside house pressure is greater than outside, then the smoke rises.

How well sealed is your place!

Facilities put a lock box over the controls in the end.

Worked in an upstairs office once that had a single skinned corrugated steel roof, close enough overhead that you could touch it. In the summer it was roasting, winter it was freezing, raining it was like sitting inside a drum at a heavy metal concert.

BUT, to save money they’d only fitted a single AC unit, in the middle of this 30m long and 5m wide office space.
So, for us poor buggers sat at the ends of the office, we got *zero* effect from it at all. Unless we did a sneak settings adjust if we got in early, or found a quiet 3 minutes at lunch.
An hour later those sat near the unit would realise they were getting small icicles forming on their ears and nose and move it back. So we’d get about 20-30 minutes of blessed relief from the 30+ degrees we had in the office.
The fire escape door was right behind me, but if i opened it, the alarm went off and fire safety turned up.

fatter tyres on the road bike losing some of the absolute speed and responsiveness.

Larger decent/excellent tyres, run tubelessly will “allow” extra comfort, better puncture resistance with a negligible reduction in speed or responsiveness. (Or you can get smaller tyres on the gravel bike.)

I’m running 32s on my new road bike and it’s negligible between that and the 23mm tubs or 25mm cotton clinchers/latex tubes i’m running on my other bike.

Also, if its a new stove, depending on the chimney construction, it might be damp as well. That really doesn’t help!
When mine was installed it had a new clay liner that was dried enough to use, but still contained moisture. Needed a couple of runs to get the last dampness out of the clay.

Does lighting a couple of bits of newspaper to warm the flue and change the draw direction actually work?

Depends how cold the chimney/house is. If it’s just “not warm” and still ok outside (well above zero) it’ll work fine. If it’s -10, maybe not. I sometimes pop a couple of 8 hour candles in the fire before i go to work. They pretty much only generate heat and light, no risk of smoke going anywhere, gets the chimneys nice and warm.

Also, the clean glass front if the stove was no longer see through and covered in sooty deposits, is this normal?

Nope, it’s burning badly, needs to get hotter and draw a shed load more air through. You might also need to give it a scrub to help, damp newspaper works well.

So, I’m going to see if STW hivemind can come up with something given my bike cleanliness (or lack of) routine. No putoline or anything crazy like that, though.

If you have no routine, wax/putoline is probably least bad.

But this:-

Mid-week night ride cleanup involves a wash with a worx type battery washer. A wipe of the stanchions. Chain wiped. GT85 on the chain, cycled a bit, wiped, lube applied. Weekends similar but with some bikewash brushed on and some de-greaser on the chain and wiped etc.

Says you have a routine. Just not very good at cleaning chains!
If you want to stick with oil based lubing, get a better chain cleaner (Park Cyclone is the benchmark.) do that immediately after you’ve knocked the mud off the bike, then leave the rinsing and final cleaning of the gears and chain until the very end. So it gets a chance to penetrate and loosen the oil and muck up a bit.
“Drying” the chain with GT85 is just adding extra, unplanned for, elements to your actual lubricant. So you’ve probably got a mix of old oil, GT85, GT85 carrier/solvent and water inside the links of your chain… Before you add the actual lube. A proper clean and rinse will at least remove most of the dirt, getting the water out is either a matter of shaking and/or waiting (depending on where the bike goes, inside to dry or outside to, well, not dry…).

Then add lube.

Is this possible?

Unlikely, an ex tried to do it.
She eventually took the ceiling down and did it properly.
Which (unfortunately) involved a lot of dust (old house) and scraping a load of expanding foam out from the void. (What her dad had suggested.)

No idea what the eventual outcome was.
Would it be easier to insulate the garage?

I’m now considering a Volvo XC40/EX40, because it can tow enough and I think it’s the only EV currently available with self levelling suspension.. @mert do you know?

Dunno if anyone else has it on a car that size/class, but yes, it’s available on that platform, no, i couldn’t tell you which markets/models/spec levels.

This feels like likely bullshit.

The entire post is horseshit.

No one is buying hydrogen vehicles, there’s no such thing as a 230mpg petrol engine in an actual car (production or otherwise, and the rest…

IRL he was a very pleasant and genuine sounding chap

Sounds like an unhinged lunatic to me.

I think everyone is finally coming to the conclusion that they don’t do 500 miles in one hit any more and the charging infrastructure is catching up so when you stop for a comfort break at the services you also top the car up at the same time. The mild change of routine 1% of the time is worth it for a cheaper, lighter, more efficient vehicle the other 99% of the time.

A very quick google states that the average car journey in the UK is 8.4 miles, a 10% reduction in your 250+mile range for non-heat pump vehicles still means that most people can go about their business and not even notice it.

I’ve probably said it before (several times, just on this thread), but the vast majority (95% or more) of car users *wildly* overestimate their usage, both actual and needed.
And that average journey is fairly consistent across the globe. Most people don’t go far.
TBH, a 100km range would cover probably 85% of global users daily needs, easily, 200km and you’d be looking at well over 90%. (FWIW with my 150km a day commute I’m in the top 0,5% of our monitored cars.)

Unless it’s oil combi, in which case you’ll be looking at £5k-£6k.

LOL, mine in the current house was about £12k including installation. 20+ years ago. Going to be nearer 20 to replace if/when it fails (GSHP). Thankfully the really expensive bit can be reused (the in ground stuff cost about 25-30k to be drilled where i am and about the same again for the actual hardware/installation.)

Check the taps, pipes for clonking/water hammer, see if you can hear the heating cycling on and off (cleanly) while you’re there. Have a look under the sinks for corrosion or leaks.
Have a drive by before 7:30/after 5:30 see how the neighbourhood looks when everyone is around, had a drug rehab place opposite my first house that i found out about 3 or 4 days after i moved in. And a massive parking issue (thankfully mine was one of the few with a drive).
See if windows all work. Front window at my place fell out the first time i tried to use it. The long nails and filler i used as a temporary bodge appear to still be in use (the same window is still installed).

Could it be as it’s to the US?
I know we have to pay a premium for expeditions in the US compared to europe (the company pays obviously) but it’s an extra couple of hundred quid a week just for the trip/travel insurance, plus the car insurance.

And it varies massively.

Has anyone with an EV ever said “Do you know what I’d like? Less range” ?

Errrrrr, it’s (slowly) becoming a thing in some parts of the industry now.
Shorter range, lighter cars, more efficient vehicles.

But you need to have faster charging.
Will have to see how far the shift goes, the tech is there, just not the infrastructure (yet).

So either something is weird in the column itself, or the tracking is already way out.
Or the rack is offcentre/wrong spec, or someones been bouncing it off kerbs…

What benefits do you find they have over the more modern alternatives?

or is it a “we’re in too deep to change our processes now” kind of arrangement?

They use them in many factories as well. They’re robust, simple and small, it buzzes, you read a short text message on screen, you put them away. Minimal distraction in a noisy/dangerous environment.

It will be after it’s been laser aligned.

Only in a straight line, your steering (Ackermann geo) will be out with unequal length track rods.

A Volvo, the ex and i did Kiel to Perpignan in a day in a V70 (1600 km), then down to Mallorca for a fortnight of training, then on the way back we did Barcelona to Malmo in one session (2000+ km) with a couple of longer stops and co driver sleeping in the car. Then the last 350 km home before 11 am the day after. Still fresh enough to get shopping, do the laundry, unpack the car (burn the shoes i’d been wearing for 2 days straight).

2.4D 163bhp. About 1200km/tank at euro M-way speeds (130kph).

You can get 4 medium ish sized road bikes in the boot or two decent sized (not LLS) FS bikes in there too.

Currently have a V60 SPA1 (my second) and have done 800km in a day on my own with no issues. (And 600+ towing a caravan). Only ones i’ve had in the last 15 years that i wouldn’t want to drive really long distances in were the C30 and the V40.

The rest are all comfy and easy to drive long distances in.

Tracking is spot on

It won’t be after you correct for 30 degree of steering wheel misalignment.

If DT Swiss don’t want to play, get some decent bearings instead.
SKF or NTN both make very good bearings, in far more suitable materials than ceramic.