I loved mine when I lived down south where it’s pretty flat. Changed to gears just before moving to Sheffield, but always had a hankering for it. Still have a lovely set of Royce track wheels which I’ve failed to sell. Anyone else live in a hilly place and ride fixed? Not sure if it’s asking for knee trouble…

Interesting. Just checked and although my current cc has a £10k limit, it seems these 0% cards offer much less – just £1200. Maybe that can be negotiated up when you apply.

Your scheme sounds cunning but £200 on £15k doesn’t seem a great return. I guess it’s £200 for nothing really, but you could live dangerously and stick it in S&S ISA which might get 8+% ;-)

It’s possible Italian would work, but at the moment I’m leaning towards a threadless square taper BB (half the price of the hollowtech one) and put some retro cranks on.
Cheers,

The plan was to make it ridable and sell or donate it. I’m sure there’s someone out there who’d enjoy it!

Oh, and the number of chainrings are the least of it’s problems. Bad suspension, no dropper and enormous stem are more worrying!

Oh that’s cool, thanks. I’d only ever seen those for square taper BBs.

Arrived this morning! Good PSA, thanks. Should be set for the next couple of years now.

I just pulled this old Woden out of the local tip. Unfortunately it’s not in as good condition as it looks – the jaws are wonky, the bolts which hold them have stripped the holes in the casting, and the slide has a crack in it. It does still function for holding things tightly whilst you wallop them, but it’s definitely seen better days.

More pics

Not decided what to do with it yet. I have a couple of decent vices already, and not sure it’s worth my time rfixing this one up. If anyone in Sheffield it interested, let me know before I make plans for it!

Just came across this. Looks like a decent bargain for someone. No connection with the seller!

Bump?

I had an XT triple for a little while on my Vaya. The problem isn’t with the shifters, but getting the bottom bracket and crank axle lengths correct – I had to put a spacer on the axle to make it work. IME the front mech ratio is close enough/the same between mtb and road, unlike the back end. I used an XT front mech, which you should be able to pick up very cheap these days (I have a few knocking about if you need). A road front mech might not like the smaller rings.

Not so much made, but scrubbed all the rust and grime off and made a filthy mess on the polishing wheel:


It’s a BHI Lo-vo Lite machinists lamp. Apparently quite rare and sought-after by lamp enthusiasts, it turns out.

Should have said – the cable goes up the inside of the tube, so can’t pin/drill/rivet all the way through. I’d also like it to look nice if possible!

It goes both ways – making a slight effort to show you’re interested in the job is not too much to ask. If you want to make a point by turning up scruffy and relying on your exceptional skills to win the job, as an interviewer I’d be concerned about how that attitude might work in my team. Attitude is as important as technical skills in a lot of professions.

Works fine here. Overall revenue from sales is pretty much the same, as you save the paypal fees. I do miss having a steady trickle into the paypal account which allowed for buying stuff with pretend money – now everything appears on the bank statement.

For me, I’d wear a smart shirt, no tie, a haircut, good lighting and a tidy background. Spend enough time making sure the overall video you’re presenting looks professional and capable, and this goes way beyond what you’re wearing. If I were interviewing someone in a tie I’d probably just think they were trying to make a good impression. T-shirt would suggest not making any effort. I’d be fairly suspicious of anyone in a polo shirt.

No dogs here. The blackbirds and magpies had been snacking on our tadpoles though – I’ve installed some mesh protection for the little wrigglers.

Also have a fine selection of newts – I’m told the smaller ones are Palmate Newts and the big one is a Smooth Newt. No Great Crested yet.

Thanks all!

To answer a couple of the questions – the new joists are going to sit onto solid brick walls – inner skin of the external wall at one end, and an internal brick wall at the other. Span is 3.7m. The 2x6s I am planning to use are slightly undersized if it were a habitable space, but for storage it will be fine.

The purlins are nailed through the hip rafter. It’s a pretty poor connection tbh, but I can’t see how I could fix or improve it easily unfortunately. The purlins are propped at mid span, so they are supporting the rafters.

That’s my current thinking – but it was probably put in when the house was built in 1940, long before hangers were around, and it uses very substantial nails!

I’ve stuck some washers under the calipers which has sorted it for now. I think you might be right about the pads – these aren’t Sram originals, but some cheapo ones from one of the German sites which could be slightly out of spec. Can’t remember what brand. Will compare with some proper ones.
Cheers!

It does seem that adapters from different brands are slightly different shapes. Some even come supplied with shims it seems. So much for ‘standards’! Suspect it’s a case of mis-matched calipers, adapters and rotors ending up with a bit of tolerance stack up.

It’s a flat-mount frame/fork and flat-mount calipers, and I’m using front and rear mounts already – not bolting the caliper direct to the frame/fork. It does look like a 5mm spacer would put the caliper at the right level though.

£3.5k?! For a bike with Apex?! Good grief. I’m going to start being a bit more careful with my Ti graveller if this is the going rate these days.

Agree the polished finish looks naff.

Also have two Rockdoors. They’re ok. I have to tighten up some of the screws/bolts on the handle and the metal trim occasionally. Really ought to put some loctite on next time as I’m sure that’d stop them coming loose.

Also got the Wera Bicycle Set 1 recently – it’s tiny, but perfect for bike fettling. Thinking of making a new case for it to make it a bit more portable – the supplied case is pretty bulky.

Any CNC shop (of which there are thousands) should be able to machine one for you, if you can provide a design to them. Probably costly though as it’d need 2 or 3 re-jigs even on a 5 axis. You could design it to use a Thomson faceplate so you’re only making the body. Know anyone good with CAD? Could use this CAD file and modify it to your requirements.

@BlobOnAStick thread here

Personally I’d just buy it stock and change the bits yourself. I had a bit of a nightmare trying to get PX to make changes to the standard spec. Their bikes are good, but customer service pretty poor unfortunately. I guess that’s why they’re cheap.

Enjoying mine too. Got some very light Ali Express wheels recently for tarmac over the summer. Also have a 700c dynamo set with slick gravel kings for touring, and a 27.5×2.1 mtb set for off road. Very versatile bike!

I’ve put Red cranks and a carbon post on to save a fair bit of weight. I won’t buy Rival again – the shifters, particularly the front, are very heavy action and quite hard to use with cold hands at the end of a long ride. It’s not bad enough to warrant an upgrade just yet, but I’ll get 105/GRX when the time comes.

Thanks – I have a sim-only contact for £6/mo which gives me far more minutes and data than I use. Not keen to get tied into a 2 or 3 year contract.

Quick bump – for a small-ish smart phone, is the 4a still the best to get? It’s £300 now, which is about £100 more than what I’d wanted to pay. There seems to be loads of good spec Chinese phones for around £200, but they’re all massive. The Samsung S10e looks good but is out of budget unfortunately.
Cheers!

I got an SROAD cassette off AliExpress recently – not XD, but those do exist. £70, and lighter weight than SRAM Red equivalent. All steel (although options some have alu cogs), and perfect shifting without needing any adjustment.

Might be worth looking if you can wait 2-3 weeks for delivery, and want to save a ton of cash and weight.

Thanks :-)

Shame Leatherman don’t make the Juice series any more. I often carry mine – it’s a bit heavier than most of the tools mentioned but is very capable.

@Momo, what’s that seat pack you’re using?

I had two removed from my face (with a scalpel). I got it on the NHS about 10 years ago. Main reason was that I kept catching them shaving, but wasn’t that keen on the appearance either. I think if it’s purely cosmetic you’d have to pay. Mine have come back a bit, probably because they didn’t want to cut too much out for fear of scarring.

Yep, same here.

‘just pay for a P’ in 3, 2, 1…

I had a cable snap inside a Tiagra one recently, which I think is similar construction. The snapped cable had mangled the white plastic cable guide which was then snagging the new cable. Replaced for £2 and it’s good as new now.

I have some old 25mm GP4000s on at the moment just to check them over, and some 25.5mm PX Jack Browns in the post, hopefully. I have a dynamo wheelset with 38mm slick gravelkings on for more gravelly type riding, so these ones are just for road. Planning a few long rides over the summer so wanted to shed as much weight as possible.

I asked them to not put stickers on in the first place. It’ll be a few weeks I think till I can ride them, as I’m waiting for rotors and one of these cassettes. Give me a reminder in a few weeks…

They’re Novatec hubs – the stickers look kinda similar, but they’re not attempting to be DTs.

Yeah camera is a bit shagged, but it’s doing ok for a 6 year old Chinese phone…

Last call – doing the batch shipping tomorrow morning.