Thanks Del, any suggestions for a better chain? I’ve always run PC1s and been happy with them.

Depends on the bike to a degree. I prefer flats on the big full sus. bike, occasionally clipless for XC. If you can sit down and spin, flats are fine on climbs. Standing up and cranking is much easier on clipless – the singlespeed – always clipless! I used to find my feet bounced off on the hardtail in rocky stuff, so I swapped to clipless there too.

If you’re worried about smacking a leg, you could get knee and shin pads. I’ve had a few moments with the pedal chewing up my calf, but nothing major, and to be honest, I tend to ride padless these days. Sticky soled shoes help in keeping your feet in place.

you do have a back-up of all your important stuff don’t you?

Or a Time Machine backup of the whole drive…?

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum-help/%5B/url%5D :-)

what are peoples perceptions of them as brands, quality of kit

Assos – road oriented, high end specialist kit aimed at skinny road riders. Endura, I think of them as 70:30 MTB, Road. Good quality and value.

how usefull there advertisements are?

Never seen an Assos advert. Only seen a few Endura adverts, mainly for MTB stuff. Don’t read any road magazines so the Equipe stuff hasn’t featured.

what sectors of the market you think they occupy?ie high cost and quality.

Assos – upper level. Endura – mid level.

Do people have brand loyalty?

Assos – I definitely do! It’s the only kit I’ve tried that fits my skinny bod. I don’t get anything else now :oops: Endura – I look to them for my rainwear, but not exclusively. (The Equipe stuff is good, but still not as well cut as Assos)

The adverts im comparing are the endura equipe range and the assos early winter clima range.

1) These questions would be best in a quantitive survey, not as a bunch of questions that can get random or incomplete answers. Get the numbers!
2) As mentioned above, show the adverts.

That’s good to know crazy-legs – thanks!

Nah – the chainring is offset. Thought about getting a Homebrewed Ti. ring upfront; they are inline, so would need a new BB, and I like the super narrow setup I have currently.

Yeah – WI ENO singlespeed. Oh, always thought they were Ti… :oops: Don’t know why I thought that…

Chain was last replaced with a PC1 Nickel in October, probably done about 1000-1200 dry miles on it since then, but now it’s pulling away from the ring a little bit again. I’ll get the chain checker on it when I’m next at the shop. I think it’s the 3rd chain that chainring has had, and probably the 4th the freewheel has had.

Thanks

Depending on usage, 18 months is pretty good. Do Shimano still use that wee plastic bit betwixt the axle and the bearing?

I was getting about 2 months out of the XT cups when said plastic would wear out. Swapped to a standard Hope, ran it for ~2 years and then sold it on for £30 when I broke that bike for parts.

What retro83 said, never seen it in texts, but you can blame Outlook for it in emails.

Perhaps people now associate it with a smiley, and hence put it in texts. ‘Language’ evolution in progress. Or a meme.

Simon & Garfunkel – Bleeker Street

Kraftwerk – Autobahn

I have a Seca 400. The beam pattern is superb, nice and clean with a good spread.

However, the mountings are awful. The rubber band is just not secure enough to hold it steady in bumpy terrain, especially on 25.4mm bars. The helmet mount is utter cack too, it ends up with the lamp stuck far too high up, and the ‘bar’ to wrap the rubber band around is too narrow diameter to get a firm mount. Add in any rain and it continually ends up slipping down. My old Solo had much better mounts, on the bars and on the helmet.

In my case it was underpowered – I used to ride with people with low-power lights so it was fine. Now I play with the big boys and it was getting drowned, so I bought something else.

Ah the Colella tandem, victim of many a broken relationship. IIRC it has been owned by Guy Kesteven, Jo Burt and possibly even Chipps?

I raced on the back of it in 2003 at a Simba event in Dalby, as a substitute stoker. Barrel of laughs!

It’s not an Acer is it?

T’wife has an Acer netbook and I can’t use it. The touch pad is beyond useless, tap to click on something and it fires the cursor back to the centre of the screen – aaaaaaarrgh! I tried fiddling with the settings, it helped a little, but it’s better (for its sake) that I just don’t use it.

I love my Macbook… :-)

I’m an Middleburn RS8 square taper man myself – I don’t weigh much :-)

White Industries cranks look good in a plain and basic style.

Yeah, modern components look like they are trying to be as bulky looking as possible, all squarish edges. Old stuff used to be sleek and smooth.

At least Hope brakes are still great… ;-)

I bought an new-old-stock XTR front mech in about 1998, I think it was about 1996 vintage. Lovely piece of kit, looked awesome and was crisp as ice – worked flawlessly until I swapped bikes in 2003. I then sold it on in 2006 for as much as I paid for it. 8)

STX RC I’d have been well jealous of you!

I only really consider the train these days if I can get a 1st class ticket for not much more money than Standard.

Driving there is a great option, especially if you are self-catering. Plus, you can drive across to Morgins and Chatel to ride, rather than riding there and back.

From your options, I’d probably go with the train. I like being able to wander around on trains, and see the countryside whizz pass. Plus it’s the age of the train.

Ah good – it’s not just me then :-)

UN** bottom brackets – can’t comment on them – never worn one out! But if it’s HT2, Shimano XT, those lasted me about 3 months. But they have always done that to me so they don’t count.

It makes me glad I have some old bits squirrelled away for future ‘projects’ Hope SS screw on hub c.1996, Hope Mono Ti front hub c.1994. Pace RC30’s and RC31’s. In fact, the front hub on my SS these days is a Hope for their first mechanical disc brake. And it’s outlasting the White Industries on the back so far.

I got a credit card when I opened bank account with new, better bank. Activated it, never used it. (not that I’ve ever had problems, I just didn’t use it)

Letter after a few months dated, say, 1st July. ‘Your credit card has not been used and as a responsible lender, we will close your account on the 20th July. However, your card will not work between now and then’

Yeah – thanks for the warning! (I guess it was in the reams of T&Cs)

EDIT: MB – you look at all those DAILY?

Yep – fraid so. Probably takes about 10-20 minutes depending on how much new stuff is up. Several of those will only post an article every few days, or every month or so, – often it’s a case of just looking and instantly closing the tab. I only in depth read a few articles that catch my eye, same with the news. I gather most of my news in headline form.

Once I’m through that, I’m in more of a frame of mind to get to work!

Blimey – I look at;

Singletrack
BikeRadar
Cycling News
Dirt.Mpora
Facebook
Guardian
Geeky Gadgets
Smashing Magazine
Noupe
Graphic Exchange
Abduzeedo
September Industry
I love Typography
The Ministry of Type
Logo Design Love
The art of Hand Lettering
Letterology
Andreas Manessinger’s photoblog
Ads of the World
The Dieline
Design Milk
Better Living through Design

I liked the ‘goating out’ too :-)

For example there are two outcomes with a lottery ticket, it will either win the jackpot or it won’t, but the odds aren’t 50:50

Ah! I get this!

sas – your explanation works for me too

Thanks!

You both know one of the remaining two doors contains a goat, by opening a door (with his insider knowledge) the host simply confirms something you knew anyway. Changing your mind nets you both doors, the opening of one of them is a bit of very effective misdirection.

Ah ha… this begins to make a little more sense.

My problem is not in accepting the 2 in 3, which can be proven, it is in disproving the 1 in 2 theory. It obviously cannot be both.

The only way I can tell myself it’s not 1 in 2, is the fact that it’s 2 in 3 – ARGH!

gonefishin – Why? What new information do you have about the door that you chose?

I have no new information about the door I chose, but I now know that the door that was opened is a goat (and can be discarded?)

My logic means I flush the cache on what I used to know. I can see 2 doors closed, one of them I know holds a goat, one of them I know holds a car.

funkynick Do you contest that at this point, without any other choise being offered, they you have a 50:50 chance of winning the car?
I would say that, intuitively, it’s a 50:50 chance, because there are only 2 doors left. I fail to see how the other 98 doors (or 1 door) can have any bearing on the choice. I see it as having ANOTHER choice based on the 2 doors, which points to 50:50.

drac. I don’t accept that you still have that 33% chance. Thats my problem!

In all of this, I know empirically that I’m wrong, I’d just love to be able to convince myself of the right answer!

funkynick – I’m with you up until

At this point, before offering you a choice, would you agree that the odds that you picked the right door are still 1 in 3?

No, once the door has been opened, the odds are no longer 1 in 3. The odds WERE 1 in 3, but once the door is opened the odds of the door STILL being correct are now 1 in 2.

At this point you are asked if you want to change. Can you explain to me why the odds would then change to 1 in 2 at this point?

When asked if you want to change, I view it like this. The opened (or third) door is irrelevant. You have 2 doors in front of you. One contains a goat, or contains a car. You again choose at random (which is 1 in 2). Now half of the time you would choose that same door (which is sticking) and half the time you would choose the other door (which is switching). That’s my logic behind the odds changing to 1 in 2.

Empirically – the solution is correct, switching is successful in 2 in 3 cases. And I’m almost happy with that, but I’d love to know why!

Now my brain’s hurting.

Raises eyebrow at Northwind… Do you mean the accepted answer or the ‘answer’ I quoted?

r0bh’s explanation is excellent; it answers why it is 2 in 3, and I can follow that through and accept that, but it doesn’t disprove the 1 in 2 idea in my mind (which obviously can’t be ALSO correct if I accept the 2 in 3) Edit – ok maybe it doesn’t…

For years I’ve had to accept I don’t understand it, and that to accept the 2 in 3 fully I’d have to effectively put faith in the ‘experts’ without being able to prove it to myself – and I can’t do that :evil:

I’m biased, as I use to work there, but I really liked Edinburgh Bicycle Coop’s Revolution Stow series. Made by Vaude with the arched back system throughout. I had the biggest one for years as my daily commute bag and weekends away bag and all rides bag, but I downsized to the waterproof Trail model when it was released. It’s big enough to carry my 15″ MacBookPro and a change of clothes (not shoes) lunch and bits and bobs for the bike.

The waterproofness of it was the main reason I got it. The other models have a orange or yellow waterproof cover included.

http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/ebwPNLqrymode.a4p?f_ProductID=10976

With regards the OP, surely Venison IS free range? I mean, it’s got the whole bloody hill to roam around on, how much more free can you get?

Used to enjoy taking my leftover Easter rabbit curry into the work kitchen the next day…

seosamh77

This is a star fangled nut in a steerer tube. It’s the bit that allows the top bolt to pre-load the headset bearings

(Edit – I saw your question before you hit the edit button ;-))

From having this exact problem, I tried the following. You could try it, at your own risk…

Put a stem on the steerer, one that wraps around as much of the steerer as possible, and covers the area of the steerer with the SFN.
Get a strong bolt and a decent, strong top cap.
Put top cap on with bolt threaded into SFN
Tighten up the bolt until it’s tight
Keep cranking the bolt up until the SFN gives up and breaks into pieces.

(But guess which step I didn’t do…)
.
.
.
Yes, I didn’t put a stem around the steerer and ended up splitting said steerer vertically. Oops. :roll:

modded RS4? sounds ace – details?

IIRC he’s got an older RS4 twin turbo 3.6(?) V6 at about 480bhp. A bit lower than standard, and a load of work done to the anti-roll bars. Something like gearbox stabilising linkages in there as well. It’s scary, scary fast, and has a crazy amount of grip.

Adrian Flux[/url]

These people insure my Dad’s 6×6, and I’m pretty sure a friend has his modded RS4 with them.

(edited for broken link)

I find my normal gloves work once I’ve got a sweat on. Otherwise, I’ve got quite good at using my nose too.

For a big tasting whisky I like Edradour or Glenfarclas 105. Edradour I liken to having a big bite of a rich, dark fruit cake, and the Glenfarclas reminds me of custard; love both of them in the winter.
For a lighter, more summery one, I might go for a Benrinnes.