Pick up the phone and kindly describe the situation.

Phone? Wiggle?

The only way I got to talk to someone at Wiggle was to print out the weeks worth of backwards and forwards, default responses emails, put them in a envelope with a letter and sent recorded delivery to the registered office. Then I got a call back and it was sorted out easily. This was 6 years ago mind, so they might be a little better now :roll:

Only ever used;

http://www.parktool.com/product/mini-chain-brute-chain-tool-ct-5

And never wanted for anything more.

I used to hang my bib shorts over the hand dryer that was in the one cubicle where it was reachable from the throne (each cubicle was a self contained unit). A few cycles of the dryer warmed the shorts up nicely, so although they were still wet, at least they were warm and wet.

There were so many people riding in all weathers, that even after converting one toilet to a drying room, with a big extractor fan and heaters, on a wet day, kit still didn’t dry.

A dry set of waterproof socks for the way home helps too!

A flip side of this, a few years ago, in a Wetherspoons or similar, in Darlington, or similar. Malt of the Month, 18yo something or other.
Me: “3 of those please barman.”
Him: “£3.30.”
Me: “No, I’m paying for all 3.”
Him: “Yes, £1.10 each.”
Me: “Triple them”

I miss the desolate NE. :(

Well…

My HDD died on my MacBook Pro. Tried to clone the dying drive straight to the new one. Failed.

Tried to restore from the networked Time Machine backups. No system backups on there. Failed

Did a fresh install of Mountain Lion from a pen drive, then tried restore from Time Machine. No applications. Failed.

Tried a restore from the dying drive. Applications restored. But not registered. Failed.

Reinstall all the purchased, non App Store software. Success.

Lesson; make sure the Time Machine backs up system and applications. Good luck :-)

Another one from GoFar days – not sure exactly when… Not that I post much

I was missing out on this stuff for years. Bought a spray can after using it at a friend’s house when needing to bleed some brakes. I’ve found it great for getting disc brake calipers freed up.

Last night I played leapfrog with another commuter, him passing me when I spun out, then me dragging back up to him. I hate drafting someone that I don’t know, so I went through each time, then slowed up to let him back on my wheel. Turns out after about 5 miles home, that he lives on the same street.

It would have been better to do all this NOT after 2 beers and a belly of BBQ…

I saw someone riding a unicycle, whilst holding a hockey stick, on my commute home. Seemed a bit niche.

I’d be up for this – like many, date dependant.

Edit. I’m just north of Cambridge

I’ve used TF-tuned 3 times, 1st time was great, 3rd time their customer service was so good I forgot about the 2nd time, so overall, I’ve been very happy too. :D

When I used to answer phones in a bike shop, we had a customer call up to complain that the bike he bought ~14 months previously (so a different model year…) was now reduced in the sale, and how much were we going to offer him? 8O

Had to fly Delta a few times when we lived in the USA. Every single time, something went wrong; cancelled planes, huge delays, diversions around the Eastern USA. We had to have a couple of emergency overnighters in hotels (which only by arguing, we got them to pay for).
Had the option of flying with two bikes on a BA flight, or one bike on a BA flight and one on a Delta on the next trip. I opted for breaking my back carrying two rather than trust Delta with one of them.
Would not choose to fly with them again, unless I absolutely had to.

We watched it on a biking weekend with mates. We knew it would be terrible, so just went with it. It was quite amusing though.

… my car has a tape deck…

I use an original iPhone as an iPod for the car. Yes, it complains it has no SIM, but only once per use, and it gets wifi from the the house to sync if it needs to. Works fine, have jailbroken it to run Spotify on the old iOS.

Was cheaper than replacing my iPod nano when it died.

I’ve got a front hub from a 1994 Hope mechanical disc brake on my main mtb. It’s got a 2009 ish Mono Mini Pro on it though.

A friend of mine races them, does 24hr events in them. They look great from afar, but get close and you can see all of them are bodged together with odds and sods.
Oh, and they don’t go very fast. The minis run rings around them, and then go bang. The 2CVs go for a lot longer before going bang.

I had to put my DH bike on the back seat of a hire Micra a few years ago. It was a base spec model and the back seats didn’t fold down. That wasn’t fun; I was stood outside the hire place, having ridden across town to collect said car.

Cyclemeter will post map and updates to Facebook as you go, (if you let it…)

So, how does it taste, Alex?

Not today but;

It has been raining pretty much all night and don’t look like letting up anytime soon! Trails will have got pretty wet since yesterday.
Updated by moe 1 day ago.

http://www.timbermtb.org/website/home

But MB do not drop in there

I have a Bristol contact who does the dirty work for me (thanks IA!)

if the wife ever finds out how much I spent she will go epileptic

Let’s hope she doesn’t read STW! :lol:

Had some tasty stuff from Brian Wogan in Bristol. I’ve only had beans from the shop, but they do mail order ground coffee for ~£11 per kg, plus p+p

http://www.wogancoffee.co.uk/product/espresso

I’ve been told spark plugs lobbed at bus shelters reduce them to pieces easily. No idea why. I didn’t ask.

Minosharp (watersharp) here too. Had for 8 years now, perfect results. It was the only piece of homeware I took with us when we moved to the USA. Would rather have a cheap knife and this sharpener than an expensive knife and a crappy sharpener…

I got these from poshcuffs.co.uk last year for my birthday.

I sometimes ride a 200mm travel bike. At Thetford :oops: It’s either that or it sits unused in the garage whilst I go out on the road bike.

Although I did ride it in the Lakes last weekend.

I’m hoping the non chilli 2.4 Rubber Queens aren’t that poo, twas all I could get my hands on in the LBSs here, other than a bunch of 1.8 or 2.2 summer treads. Just discovered my sidewalls on the old treads were showing threads and I’m off to the Lakes later today.

They were only £17 though, so won’t be too upset if they suck.

Hmmm, not sure if this starts with a ‘proper’ bike, but it was all my parents could afford – bless ’em

1993 Townsend Warlord (it had elevated chainstays :-) )
1997 Trek 6000, later completely upgraded, ended up with Bomber Z4s, Hope Mono Minis, bargain bin XT/XTR bits, proper wheels etc.
2001 Viper frame with many nice bits from above.
2003 2nd Hand (1998) Sintesi Bazooka frame with evolution of nice bits, Viper becomes a SS
2004 Giant AC with further evolution of nice bits – stolen 1 month after building
2004 Giant AC, Viper becomes commuter
2006 Specialized Langster, Viper becomes ‘pimp’ SS
2008 Specialized Tarmac
2009 Bionicon Ironwood
2010 Genesis iO frame for the SS.
(then I left the bike trade…)

Still own the last 4, and they actually get about the same number of outings.

Best bike? The bike I spent the most on and loved the most through it’s life, probably the 2004 Giant AC, it ended up with Boxxer U-Turns, full X.0, Hope M4s, spangly wheels and finishing kit. It died when a bearing wore out after 5 years, and was completely seized into the frame. It took months to get fixed and sold, in which time I bought the Ironwood.
The Genesis iO is probably the one I’d keep if I had to choose but one. I’ve had so much fun with this one, rode actually thousands of miles in the USA on this when I wasn’t working.
Most expensive – Bionicon Ironwood. I have a love-hate relationship with this bike. When it works, and in the right place, it’s brilliant. But it needs constant fettling and I live in the flatlands :-(.

I just bought a Lumix GF2 (3rd hand, but still only 2 years old)

I’ve got it set to RAW + JPEG. Some pictures I take are just ‘snaps’ and it’s not worth it to me to edit these from RAW, but lots of the pictures, I like to tweak. This way, I have a speedy option and a detailed option. And as mentioned above, memory cards are cheap enough. I still get ~700 RAW + JPEG shots on the card.

I think the GF1 has RAW + JPEG – it might be a good halfway house.

When I used to build bikes in bulk, there was a spate of Cannondale road bikes (perhaps an R500) that about 1/3 would blow a tyre upon inflation – normally about 90 psi. There was a good russian roulette vibe going on when we had to build one of them, knowing there was a good chance of one going… :lol:

It’s been years since I lived in Ayrshire (although it was pretty much Lanarkshire). I never found much to ride, and once I got a car, I was off like a shot to Glentress and Mabie. Drumlanrig didn’t exist in the same way back then. I’d head there.

There might be something in this thread from a few months ago.

Got a joint 123 and a 123 Credit card. Seems to work out. Numbers are in our favour.

They’ve not made a total **** up with any administration yet, which is why I’ve left a couple of banks in the past.

I did my humeral lateral epicondyle (outside lump of upper arm, at the elbow) nearly 10 years ago. Was in cast for 4 weeks but couldn’t straighten it for about 2 months after that. No physio despite asking several times.

I used to be able to bend both elbows ‘beyond’ straight – I can still do this on the good arm, but the broken one stops at 180, which is fine.

For about a year I could feel a bit of bone floating around, and it would lock up in the straight position, solution I found was to squeeze forearm bones a bit whilst bending it. Still get a bit of pain from it on an infrequent basis, especially if I am lifting or pulling things at an angle.

Still – without taking a dremmel to that ring – how’d it get like that?

Chainless DH on very rocky ground, left foot forward…?

I was going to post something about learning to pedal more smoothly, but looking again I’m not sure how you’ve managed to wear that chainring out like that! The teeth just where the chain meets the ring look fine…?

I replaced my Uno ring with a Homebrewed Components ring. If you can afford to wait the lead time, they’re very nice.

Well, I’ve made moves to sell the Ironwood, and replace it with a Bionicon Reed 140. :-)

Cheers_drive – I’m in Waterbeach. Car sharing & away days sound good, though opportunities tend to be few and far between at present! What sort of riding do you do? The people I tend to ride at Thetford/Brandon with are proper racers and leave me for dead!

vinnyeh – slight difference between buying a new set of wheels etc and a whole new bike…! Annoyingly, I have the cash to buy a new bike, but can’t justify it without selling the big bike.

Move back to Edinburgh.

Wish I could!

Well – thanks all! Seems pretty consistent advice…

…any ideas how best to sell such a niche bike?