Focus TDCI estate 2003 160K miles. Using as little fuel as possible is the only entertainment left in driving. Hard Michelin economy tyres, and I don’t bother about upsetting people. Smooth is the word.

I always get over 60. Long trips on motorways I can get 75..80. Two weeks ago I did 230 miles on 13 litres on an almost door to door motorway trip. (Lorries were involved :))

My wife drives the same car and won’t get more than 55. And last summer I did only 39 booting it at 80MPH to South of France with three bikes and roof luggage, – which proves it is still a normal car.

The Wrynose is fine, did it on the tandem this year with my 8Yo little girl. – We pedalled all the way up.

Didn’t do the Hardknott, but carried on down the Duddon valley and back via Coniston for what was effectively a “Grand Tour” of the Old Man.

If you can happily mix roof coverings and avoid slate there are are tiles which go down to 15 degrees or even 12.5 degrees. (eg Marley Malverns).

I recently replaced a crappy freezing cold flat felt 1970’s roof with a 15 degree pitch tile, and I also managed to significantly exceed building regs with the new insulation. – What a massive improvement.

Depends to some extent on the quality of the wall. If you are drylined onto thermalite or other soft block, it may be hard to take the load without some deep chemical anchors.
Or is it dry line office space on steel frame or wood?
Or is it solid brick + plaster = easier to do.

It’s not so much the width as the shape of the cross section which affects things. Check it. Many saddles are flatter and get me really hard on the sit bones. (= bum boils).
Gobi is more humped and spreads out the load more evenly. It’s all about maximizing contact area. . Suits me.

Flymo woodshark 2200. It’s made by Husqvarna anyway.

http://www.shop.flymo.co.uk/images/mediator/397/oipl2006_v030000002.pdf

Fantastic, keep it sharp. Hot knife butter etc. I’ve cut up 18″ logs at the limit of the bar. No probs. – Why use petrol?

It’s nice. Ideal for quiet walks, teashops and old houses if that’s your thing. I grew up there. Lots of sleepy places, and quaint sea-sidy towns, Aldeborough, Thorpenness, Southwold…
Got a dinghy? – take it to Woodbridge.
Stuck in a bit of a timewarp some of it, but all the better for it.

It’s a good deal at that price. I love mine. Why sell?

We have a little ancient TV somewhere but never watch it.
Occasionally use Iplayer maybe once a month. I’ve been considering dumping the license along with the scrap TV, but Mrs Mc thinks it’s worth it morally for Radio 4. Perhaps so.

Storage would be great.
When I first got mine we had a old-style meter which ran backwards. This meant the grid was our giant “storage battery” and we could re-use for free even in the middle of the night! Over the first 6 months winter..summer we generated more than we used. – That led to some chaos with the electricity company.

Nowadays I recon we can only roughly halve our electricity bills because we have a new fangled meter which works properly and sadly charges us when the sun’s not shining!

The panels are rated for that lifetime. The deal doesn’t change it’s just economics. If you like the deal now, then you can work out what it’s worth to you over the time. The panels will loose only a teeny bit of efficiency as they age.

Personally I wouldn’t want to rent out my roof. (I have panels). But some might.

Councils are at it though round our way. They rent out the roofs of their council houses and get income for 25 years from the installers, the tenants get lower bills, and the installers pick up the FIT.

PVA isn’t recommended by tilers. It goes into a greasy membrane and can come up (they say) if it gets wet. I’m not sure myself, – just some wisdom I picked up as I’ve been haunting tilers forums recently.

Isn’t acrylic primer the stuff?

Don’t bank on quick efficiency improvements. It’ll not change much in that timescale.

There are some massively more expensive and more efficient techniques for spacecraft panels, but in domestic most of the emphasis is on reducing cost not improving efficiency. Physics doesn’t change, and raw materials used in the fancy stuff are in are in very finite supply.

Also there will be improvements in plastic panels (currently quite poor) for use on products and not-flat things, they might start to get closer to the current stuff you’d put on your roof.

It’s more often the female variety of non-cyclist who assume we have absolutely no control and are liable to hit anything within ten feet.

According to this apparent discrepancy, I do tend to slow down more for women than men. Call me a Gentleman.

But for someone to step out in front of a fast moving bike and deliberately expose themselves to danger indicates they don’t think the cyclist is a danger to them per se, they just don’t want anyone to be cycling along perfectly normally actually trying to get somewhere.

I’ve used it mostly to buy insurance – some worthwhile discounts if you care to take the time fiddling about. I have used it for a few small things from some online shops. The money eventually arrives but it can take months.

Stuff going back, dunno. Probably gets messy.

“i grew up in fleet. definitely somebody after your bottom” 😆

That’s scary actually, I’ve had that walking alone in Italy. Didn’t know till then that I was cruising though the “red light bushes” near Como.

Not an Army bod. They are quite different.

– I always say hello and slow down for those guys. It gets quite rythmic sometimes when there is a string of them either side hello..hello.. hello. – Quite fun weaving through!

Sadly not so far away. More Fleet side.

I’ve seen the notices on the trees and I aplaud them, the attiutude is right and the way they are written is sensitive. This guy was taking the piss though

40MPG “Epileptic fit”? He didn’t sound very epileptic but I’m no expert. Do epileptics do this? (sidle about to remain directly in front of a rider while waving their arms and shouting)

OK, if he does it again I’ll stop. I’m sure he just hates cyclists but that’ll prove it.

Hmm, what to do if I did. He was quite threatening, I’m not sure I’d want to stop.

Oh and I slow down for soldiers too. They are normally very civil and friendly – unlike this one.

I can’t do it either. I’d like to be able to but I have a fixed high seat and SPD’s. Can’t be bothered to lower the former just to make a fool of myself, so probably not much chance of getting it then.

It is my understanding that the front comes up fast, so the mass of the bike as a whole (on average) comes up about half that speed (mass of bike assumed to be in the middle) with the rear wheel on the ground. So while the bike is unweighted, pushing the front back down must (so says Isaac Newton) rotate the bike back level and in doing so will have to also lift the back off the ground..

But I still can’t do it.

Will any of these chip/flash updates provide ONLY economy improvement for people who say they don’t want or need all that power anyway? They all sell themselves on “more power” as if that’s what everyone wants. I don’t want it, my tdci Ford has plenty to get me prosecuted, – I’d be happy with 30-50% power reduction if I could get better MPG.

Hi bent_udder.

I read that article (all of it!) from Michael Lewis. Very entertaining/enlightening. I’ll look out for some more of his stuff in future.

I can now safely say that 99.9% of what I know about Greece I have just learnt. – And it’s all rather shocking.

You’ll find Shimano have helpfully pre-set the spring tension just right for a beginner 😈

OK, three good sounding suggerstions there, I’ll look’em up tonight.
Ta

Thanks nic. Does there on-line chat/help actually answer queries fast? And have you found any really irritating editor bugs, or does it all work fine?

Walk from Freshwater over Tenysson Down. Do the National Trust Old Battery at the Needles. Take Tea. Share the binoculars. Walk back.

Perfect for a group and ideal distance.

Hi clubber.
No. The bottom-end providers don’t (in my experience) seem to allow one to use raw HTML, but they seem to provide their own WYSIWYG on-line editor tools. Certainly this is what Mr Site dos. To use your own tools would cost more. It’s the quality of that on-line editor which is rubbish in the case I describe.

I’d be happy to use a proper off-line tool, but if so would want to find reasonably priced host who would accept HTML.

Your seemingly useless mate who calls himself a plumber might have fitted the head of the thermostatic valve in the wrong orientation.

The showerers with independent temperature valve (not sequential sort: ie only one knob for everything), have a stop (often a button) to push to raise the temperature above the standard safety set-point (conventionally about 38C or something like this).
After removing the valve tap top, this top bit can be rotated on splines and if it’s replaced in the wrong place there will be no temperature control left, potentially only hot or only cold.

Another good reason never to employ a plumber, oh bring it on..

http://www.westwind.ch/?link=ukmb,http://www2.wetter3.de/Fax/,.gif,bracknell+00,bracknell+24,bracknell+36,bracknell+48,bracknell+60,bracknell+72,bracknell+84,bracknell+96,bracknell+120

I used them for a couple of seasons. 2/3 of thorns probably worked OK, but when they didn’t they really didn’t, and the extruding slime and mess made it harder to put a proper patch on.

Nowadays I’d sooner carry the additional weight as better quality tyres, so avoiding many of the punctures in the first place.

What’s good for you depends entirely upon how much you are willing to interpret from basic charts.

If you take your forecast from those silly little single symbol thing (sun/rain etc) then be prepared to be disappointed because it’s impossible to summarize things that way and I’m sure meteorological offices are exasperated having to continually dumb things down to the lowest common denominator.

Personally I am amazed just how brilliantly accurate synoptic chart predictions can be, sometimes up to a week in advance. The improvement over the last 20 years has been massive.

Jonba, I’d like that answer. The US article linked by allmountainventure implied a lot. What likelyhood of infection though is anyone’s guess – or is it?

Are you more prone to infected cuts than anyone else? Your body has a very thorough response to bacterial infection or you’d have been dead from birth. – It just doesn’t always quite win.

I’d say it’s not just “badly-trained” physical cravings though. Many overweight people are ironically also malnourished.
Eating low quality refined carbs leads not only to excess calories, but can create gross under-intake of many micro nutrients (minerals, vitamins, essential fats.. the list goes on).

The body may not crave only calories but also nutrition. Hence a fat and malnourished individual will continue to crave food and the underlying tendency for those individuals is to be attracted continually to the malnourishing refined carbohydrates which got them into that mess in the first place.

Not wanting to squash your idea, but the sceptic in me asks to ensure you are not getting carried away by a fad – What’s the actual point of these rooms?

– Lots more water on surfaces, it all has to dry off, and if you have hard water watch out for all the limescale.
– Lots more domestic energy needed to dry off the excess water and remove even more humid air. What’s wrong with squeegeeing down a shower?
– Tanking out makes plumbing maintenance under the floor much more difficult.
– Wet floor means more treadig dirt about the house.
– Wet socks.
– Didn’t people invent houses to stay DRY?

I failed with a tick hook last time, despite care and using my close-up spectacles, mouth just wouldn’t let go and ended up stuck in there.

This Lyme desease then. It’s a bacteria right? The body deals adequately with most invasive bacteria most of the time. So is there any particular sort of person who would be more susceptible?

Hi Hels.

“be a good girl and you can have a biscuit”.

Couldn’t agree more on that one. IMO that sort of stuff actually amounts to child abuse.

Not that I visit supermarkets much, but doing so in some places is a sad experience, observing small children who really just don’t understand this stuff being fed and rewarded on crap, frequently already suffering the effects and being set up for a lifetime.

I’m with Solo. I’d say it’s almost impossible to become obese eating a unrefined diet. If you believe you fit the latter already, and still put some weight on, then go the whole way and eat 100% raw.

It’s not my thing personally (I have dabbled and it’s a fine idea), but plenty swear by it. Given every single other animal (and us) has evolved for millions of years doing just that, then there’s your answer. Show me a fat (and wild fed) wild animal.

The food/reward response is partly inate, but is also partly learned. Once you know and feel deeply that eating bad food screws you up, then even (say) a small sugary biscuit makes one feel physically unwell.
I have watched this closely while “educating” the palatte of my little girl (now 8). She wouldn’t over eat on crap nowadays, even given an open cake shop. But aged 3, she would have done, and that would have set her on a path for life.

A year ago I won a Trek T900 secondhand on Ebay. (Sorry if I outbid anyone here). Bargain, as new for £275. It’s brilliant, shame Trek stopped making that frame. The rear seat suited my litttle girl from age 7 but will fit Mrs Mc(average height, and even I can ride the rear without too much problem.

I fitted MTB chainset and cassette because the gearing was a bit roadie. We have used it loads, it’s our school taxi and has been on every holiday. Goes across the back of the car with the wheels off. Took it over the Wrynose Pass just last weekend with my little girl (now 8 ) and we pedalled all the way. Rock solid on the Lakeland descents. I can’t fault it.

Yep close up ther’s no “thunder sound”, just one almighty crack. I’ve twice had lightening hit down within a few tens of metres, and it really is one hell of a bang.
So that’s might be also true there Fisha. More air = more bang.

I was free flyiNg (hang gliding) in Italy under a CB some years ago (foolhardy perhaps). Up at about 7000 feet when lightening started coming out of the bottom, we all got out of there pretty quickly, but interestingly this was also silent even though we were at high altitude alongside it, probably just 1 OR 2km away. Possibly aforementioned refraction again.