My dad gets his water from a spring (spring>settling tank>few miles of plastic pipe etc.) in the peat moor, and gets brown water after very heavy rain. It never settles out – every after weeks in bottles, but as noted above, tastes really nice.

He has to get the water tested every few years, but as he has a septic tank at the house I don't _think_ he pays anything. This is in southern Scotland.

Ah this old debate again :D

I have to say, despite being a SRAM fan boy since they were first released, I wouldn't touch the cheap stuff these days. I found the first X7's lasted for ages, but by the end I was eating about one a month – they just wore out. I bit the bullet, bought an X.0 and haven't had to touch it in 2 years, save an annual cable change.

I've not used Shimano Shadow, but the reviews would have to be very, VERY good for me to try them.

And when the Ironwood arrives this week, its X9/X7 will be getting swapped out for the old XO…

Probably the smallest list here compared the the resident petrol heads……

I'll see your 'small' list and raise you (or lower you?)…

1987 Citroen AX 14 TRS

:-)

I was always told that the spokes that are being pulled on, so trailing spokes on the drive, leading spokes on the disc, should be on the outside of the flange, so they get a little more support from the flange. I would say that you do want different on each side if you're running discs at least.

If you don't have discs, the front and the non-drive side are less important.

I've followed this pattern for years now and I've never had any broken spokes or loose spokes.

petrieboy – Yeah – it is just a rubber hose, but they took a few hacks at it to cut it, so the damaged section is too long to rejoin. Thanks for the link though.

Turns out it's just the overflow or vent or breather pipe so it's still drivable. Just smelly. And they would have got no petrol out of it…

juiced – I love my AX. It's 22 years old – and only 35000 on the clock, but with a 1.4 engine with it's lack of weight means it's a fun car.

It was my retro Citroen AX. 22 years of use means it's all a bit of a mess under there, so I can't see where to begin.

Plus it has 2 too many wheels for me to understand it enough to work on.

I suppose I could sleeve an extra length of pipe over the cut bit and jubilee that up snug, but it's due for it's MOT and service at the end of the month so may just get them to do it all and take the train…

One end yes, the other end is buried up behind the tank – looks like a tank out job to get to it :(

Thanks for the advice folks.

My road bike I suppose should be referred to as a racing bike (Specialized Tarmac)and not much clearance for much more than a 23

CX bike is obtained and racked up and ready to go – should be good fun if the weather holds (which doesn't look likely)

And yes, I'm off at 4 to start it first thing tomorrow. Like I said – massive planning fail!

I've just made a call and blagged a CX bike – bit on the small side but it might do.

I have ridden some pretty juicy singletrack on the Langster, fixed, on 23c slicks, but it was lethal on the rougher or wetter bits. (another planning fail) Would quite like to avoid that again!

If I had one, that would be perfect. But I don't :)

Basically, I was hoping the stuff I need to put gears back on the mtb would have arrived by now, but they haven't – so the choice is my road bike or the mtb on 32:16…

Yes – planning Fail.

http://www.cyclingfans.com/%5B/url%5D post a load of feeds for the big cycling races. You can often get a Eurosport visual feed – (although I’ve never bothered).
I listen to the audio feed of the telly coverage which Eurosport provide – you have to concentrate to follow the action though.

I’d recommend the Black for some ‘proper’ feeling mountain biking. Sure, it lacks the jumps of Spooky Wood, but the length of the downhills make up for it – for me. As people point out, it’s also much quieter, so you really can ride it all at your own speed. The climbs are also of a decent length to settle into and gain some proper height.

If it’s jumpy fun you’re after – it’s not the best. If it’s some, dare I say it, old-school trail centre riding you want, it’s a gem.

So that (?(r^2)).(2?R) where r is the radius of the tyre (11.5mm – see my first post), and R is the radius from centre of wheel to centre of tyre. All assuming the tyre is a circle cross section.

(3.141592654*(11.5^2))*(2*3.141592654*315)
(415.5)*(1979.2)
(822357)mm^3
(822cm^3/ml

8 bar*822ml=6.576l used = 82% used.

Yes. I’m bored. And it’s still empty :)

more than half. does you pump not leak the rest of the air out when you remove it from the valve?

Nope, Specialized Air Tool – has a push valve.

Thanks for the info all – sounds like a new cartridge is required.

simon – good maths – now all I need to work out the volume of a torus, with a odd shaped cross section!

Volume of torus = volume of cylinder = (cross-section area)(length)

Can’t be bothered to try working that out!

3, Cyclescheme pay shop for bike

should be ‘3, Cyclescheme pay shop for bike taking a 10% commission right out of shop’s margin’ :)

And somewhere in there should be ‘Cyclescheme sit on paperwork for weeks whilst employee has no bike’ I’d suggest shopping around for other providers of Bike to Work schemes (do a google for Bike to Work – several big shops offer it direct), you may find others run a lot better schemes than Cyclescheme.

I find the Ashima rotors bite better than Hope.

…I remember when you used to slag me off for dragging MY brakes!

About 37lbs built up like this, sadly now a pile of bits after the bearing pin seized in… :cry:

I caught some Endura ones in the throwout at SSUK and they fit perfectly, and I’m not blessed with chunky arms.

I’ve been running 203’s front and rear for 6-8 months. They are excellent; more bite than the Hope floating rotors on my other wheels, they clear really well and they look good.

Nice shots.

So are you the guy with the old Edinburgh Contour or Coast or something from 1984…?

Most UK-est bike?

Narrowest tyres? :wink:

Oldest component/bike?

Putting a stiffer stem on.

I rode mine to work yesterday as I’ve not ridden it in 6 months and am going to SSUK. ook.

Going to ride it in again tomorrow but couldn’t face the spin today :-/

Will the bike make you go faster or longer?-no

Despite trying to pre-defend this position, that’s not entirely true. A better bike will make you faster and reduce fatigue. What makes a better bike is perhaps the question…

Anyway, to add weight to those who are ‘either trying to sell you a bike or [have] listened to too much marketing bulls***’ a carbon frame does make a difference. I went from alu to carbon last year – it’s easy to ride it for 4+ hours whereas my wrists complained after about an hour on the alu. It’s easier to move around the road, and seems to skip over rough patches much better than the alu.

Specialized Toupe for me too. It did come as standard on my bike, but I doubt I’ll change it. Not even sure it’s the ‘correct’ width but it seems to work.

Munqe-chick – there are MSc courses in forensic linguistics at York now – there may even be some funding. I’d be curious to know what Clahsen was like as a lecturer – I’ve only encountered him in all his fury at conferences and as a visiting speaker. Were you taught by Claudia Felser?

cchris2lou – it would be worth finding other French families/groups to increase the amount of French your children hear/speak. http://www.mantralingua.com/ sell books and other resources in a range of languages, including French, which might be helpful.

I am militant_biker’s wife, not him. I’m a researcher in Edinburgh working on bilingualism. Bilingualism is pretty good for a child, as they develop theory of mind sooner, that is, the ability to understand that other people have different perspectives and knowledge to them. This is probably because bilingual children learn very early that not everybody speaks both of their languages, and they have to learn which language(s) to use with whom.

There are other cognitive advantages to bilingualism. Bilingual children and adults have been shown to be able to ignore irrelevant information better than monolinguals when performing tasks. This is a cognitive ability that seems to get worse with age – sadly after the age of 30 we start to get worse. The bilingual advantage lasts into old age, if you keep using both languages. It helps if you have learned a language later in life – your cognitive decline won’t be as bad (on this sort of thing, at least), but the earlier you started using two languages, the better.

Some people think that children get confused about which language they are using. They don’t – studies show that even very young children know which language they are speaking, as they vary which language they use appropriately. When they do seem to mix languages, they actually do it in a very systematic way, and often for effect, not because they are confused. The ability to play with language like this (and some other evidence) shows that bilingual children are very aware of language, and how language works. This is a good thing when they reach school; bilingual children are often good readers, even if they are acquiring languages with two different scripts.

The important thing for parents is to make sure your child hears enough of both languages, and gets plenty of opportunity to speak both languages, and realises that both languages are important and valued. Some children will go through a phase of only wanting to speak one language – usually the language of their peers. You just need to keep speaking in both languages, and they will keep both languages.

Munqe-chick – I’m guessing you were taught by Harald Clahsen? That must have been an experience ;-)

If you want any more info/advice on bringing up your child bilingually, take a look at Bilingualism Matters You can email us with questions too.

Dr (and Mrs) Militant_Biker

dave360 – You’re absolutely right, but the problem is that a lot of people believe it is detrimental to a child’s development to bring them up bilingual, due to them being a bit behind their age group in terms of language development.

Those University degree’d peoples can actually prove the opposite; Bilingual kids have advanced social cognition – are better able to understand that other people have a different perspective, and learn to read more easily. They are better able to ignore irrelevant information, and this benefit seems to last into old age.

My wife helps run a project at Edinburgh University on just this subject, and says pretty much exactly what Munqe-chick says.

http://bilingualism-matters.org.uk/%5B/url%5D

Munqe-chick – which uni were you at?

E.

Never saw a box, never saw any signs suggesting there was a box :-/ Would have been happy to pay if I’d known – Awesome Trail!

I switched to Orange from Pipex a few years ago. There’ve been 2 issues with connection since then, both times fixed extremely speedily by Customer Service on the phone from the East and with friendly follow-up calls to check all was well.

I’d recommend them!

Giant VT

Neither code matches anything on my favourite bearing supplier’s website :-/

It’s the slanty wall hip to slanty wall landing for me. That’s massive.

I know that spot well and that made my jaw drop. But the tree ride flip is just awesome.

Throw the head doctor in the bin where it belongs

2nd the disagree. Yes, I’ve had the bolt shear away under basically no load, it looked like cheese inside. But so what, it’s better than a SFN anyday and you can always fit a ‘normal’ bolt and top cap.

scraprider banned for banning out of order – poor captain_spaulding will be feeling left out now!

Have to say my experience with Orange broadband customer service has been excellent. Maybe mobile phone users are more loyal or less likely to make a fuss…

Seems to work fine with no bounce here, but that’s with 6.5″ travel, lots of sag (as normal), a coil shock and DH tyres :-)

I’d add that the surface on the GT black is a lot more brutal than other blacks I’ve ridden. It’s a lot rockier. Only a real issue if you ride rigid or have knacked forks perhaps.