Ah, thanks for the heads-up on the L1-e A categorisation – I hadn’t spotted that this category is classified as a moped in the UK.

I think that’s ruled it out for me. Back to the drawing board!

I’ll have a look at those dutch bikes. Maybe I should have a look at non-powered cargo bikes around the £1699 mark too.

An alternative I’m considering is picking up a Pashley Mailstar / Elephant bike. No electric assist but I could use it to get around while I save to get a Tern GSD / Yuba Spicy Curry.

They’re cheap enough that I wouldn’t mind just getting a couple of years use out of it (although I think they’d probably outlast me!).

Ah, my Cycleops Magnus has broken just as the weather has gone back to ‘normal’ for this time of year. Is doing a great job of keeping me fit and balancing family time as a new parent.

Debating ordering the Kickr Core as an upgrade and selling the Magnus once it’s back from repair… I’ll see what the prognosis is on Monday when the shop call me.

I hadn’t thought to compare capacity, just assumed it would be better value buying all together as a unit. Buying new from Amazon I get can 600Wh battery, a 3.5A charger and a 600W inverter for ~£150.

Hmmn… food for thought!

Ah, thank you – didn’t realise the process had changed! Many thanks to the two of you who have pointed this out.

Will have another go tomorrow.

Have ordered some of these in case I end up needing a liner:
https://www.evanscycles.com/nokon-teflon-liner-2m-x-1-3mm-EV190700

Cheers,
Tom

Had a great ride this afternoon, so thank you all for the advice.

Decided to stay well clear of Larkhill as I saw the flags up yesterday. Wasn’t really clear which sides of the RoW the flags were… well not to me. Perhaps next time.

In the end I went west towards Chitterne, then south to Grovely Woods.

Route if anyone is interested in future

https://www.strava.com/activities/1656993726

Great ride. I’d probably try and avoid the B390 as there are off road tracks which will avoid this.

All rideable on my Arkose, although the water / vehicle ruts needed a bit of care!

JIS screwdrivers, the now defunct Japanese Industrial Standard screw type, just different enough from phillips/pozidrive to make dismantling classic Japanese bikes a screw chewing nightmare.

I think the limit screws on Shimano derailleurs are JIS, not Phillips or Pozi. Or they were.

Although my bikes are in the garage, and it’s cold so I’m not going to check. Have a feeling they’ve started coming with a flat slot as well. Aren’t they an odd thread gauge as well?

Thanks Nick / Graham – that sounds workable. Must admit I hadn’t considered kitchen cabinets – they’re usually so deep, hadn’t occurred to me you can get half-depth / slimline ones.

You’re right, that is a big space for a meter cupboard. Includes a big gas meter which has been moved over as a result of a new feed coming into the property at some point. Is a right eye-sore!

Plenty of space at the bottom, a good 15-20cm, so asides from fitting around pipes / cables coming out of the floor it should be good.

Thanks both, this will save me hours of cutting, sanding and painting something custom.

They have a pretty broad range now, now surprised their Oxford / Carnaby Street stores are targeting a different audience.

I actually quite like some of their non-outdoor-person ranges, have one of their parkas for my commute. Super warm, waterproof and breathable but doesn’t leave me looking like a mid-life-crisis snowboarder with work trousers / shoes. :D

I love mine, it’s almost all I’ve ridden since I got it in the late summer.

As with others, it’s opened up the number of trails that are accessible from my front door. Reminds me of my first mountain bike in the late 90s and the big XC club rides I used to do (mix of road and bridleways).

I also like that I often go out with no specific route in mind, but piece one together as I’m going along. I’ve found a few new routes like that recently.

Totally understand that if you live somewhere with great mountain biking on your doorstep, or prefer riding trail centres it’s not likely to be your thing.

Oh, the XC51N looks like it will fit the bill, I’d not spotted it before. Had mostly been looking at the MW or ME model ranges.

I’m not sure it’s a good looking shoe, but I don’t think those Specialized ones are much better looking (nor my 5:10 Maltese). And at least they’re not white!

Sealskins are great, but I only like wearing them when I’m properly wintered up and going out in steady rain. A closed toe should keep most of the puddles out on a ride the day after rain.

Thanks all

Finally hit buy on the Arkose 4 last weekend as it was in a sale (10% off). Now marked as out of stock for every size except XL, but hopefully it’ll turn up at the shop soon.

Very excited! It’s to replace my five year old Madone as a more versatile bike. Sections of bridleway, tracks and towpaths linking up quieter roads. Very excited!

Anyone got any pictures of the black 4 in the flesh? Keep me entertained while I’m waiting!

I used a Monzo card https://monzo.com/%5B/url%5D recently. It’s a prepaid £ card (although they’re rolling out current accounts soonish).

Currently they use the Mastercard base rate for withdrawals from cash machines, with no additional charges. I was getting pretty close to the exchange rate you get from Google.

Not an investor – no relation to Monzo. I’ve also used Weswap, but don’t like that I always end up with spare Euros on the card.

Agree with the other posters – it’s practise makes perfect with BBQing.

Me and the missus BBQ 3 or 4 times a week during the summer (sometimes more – twice a day at weekends). Gas during the week, then sometimes the smoker one day at the weekend. Do a lot of veggies on the BBQ too so it’s not just meat. We both come from families that BBQ regularly.

Smoked a pork shoulder today, took 9 hours. Am slicing it so I have sandwiches for the week. Yum!

I use a digital thermometer, always for smoking but sometimes for grilling too. Stuff I cook all the time I don’t need the thermometer. Steaks are a good example – sirloins from a supermarket I can judge myself, but if I get a really thick one (did a flat-iron last week) it’s harder to judge because I do them less frequently.

Thanks again everyone, some really good ideas here. Will keep my eyes peeled on the classified section!

Located in Bedfordshire, so the offers of a bike to sit on are a little far away. Thanks though! :)

Thanks all, some good ideas. Will keep my eyes peeled for a 26 inch XS Cotic Soul in the for sale section. Don’t have much hope of a second hand Rock Lobster and Merlin don’t seem to sell them anymore.

Cynamon-girl, if you found a 14inch Inbred too small, maybe that’s an option.

Screwfix have this:
http://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-gsb-18-2-li-plus-18v-4-0ah-li-ion-cordless-combi-drill/7434k

£99 for a Bosch Professional (Blue) with 4ah LI battery. I’ve got one, think it’s great. Although I got the package with 2x 2ah batteries, which is currently £119, but was £99 when I got it.

http://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-gsb-1800-18v-2-0ah-li-ion-cordless-combi-drill/7649h

Charge saddles of the last couple of years don’t seem to be as well constructed as they used to be. I had a similar thing, but near the nose. The one I bought in 2010 – 2011ish lastest really well.

I’m gnarmac-curious, but when I picked up a CDF in a shop, it felt heavier than my Cotic Soul (which has a dropper and forks). Maybe it was just that it was the base model with inordinately heavy wheels.

That makes sense. Had only ever seen the kind where the fence post has a v-shaped notch cut in it.

Would you screw or nail through the mortise and tenon, or does it hold together on its own?

Anyone been sent the GPS link? I had an email that said the link was invalid, but not one with the link.

Likely doing the 50k tomorrow. Mud tyres, for what it’s worth!

Woburn will be rideable, but splashy in places. Certainly won’t be unclogging your bike.

I’m GDMBR-curious too (hope I’ve gotten the acronym right!).

I do worry that I’d become an ‘idiot Brit tourist in bear attack’ statistic.

There are some (shorter) European off-road tours I’ve been thinking about anyway, so those might be a better first step.

I let the pressure out and retract, but usually because my reverb is leaking and I can’t find a box of the right size!

TFTuned normally return it in the right sized box, pressurised and extended (thanks!).

What’s the score with Royal Mail?

Second all the comments about good instructors. I was BSAC trained at University and started on the route to becoming an instructor. Recently my girlfriend qualified through PADI.

I guess I have the following advice:
[list]
[*]Avoid PADI dive centres attached to a hotel that don’t have a footprint outside of the hotel. The PADI 5* rating thing is pretty meaningless in my view. Look for a PADI centre that has a good instructor training programme and has their own (decent!) boats.[/*]
[*]PADI vs. BSAC thing doesn’t matter much, but be aware PADI need you to do more qualifications and specialisations before you learn rescue skills, nitrox and basic decompression diving. These are all good things to know, even if you don’t intend to use them.[/*]
[*]I think of diving training as being a little like doing a degree. Sure, you can revise for the exam only, but if you’re interested in starting a new hobby it doesn’t hurt to read around the subject, then you’ll know what to do if your buddy accidentally slips into decompression and panics![/*]
[/list]

On the risks side, most people have nailed it – likelihood is greater mountain biking, but more serious diving. You’re in an environment that’s not capable of supporting human life.

It’s one of the best things I’ve done. Every dive is like a magical, weightless, playground safari thing! So above all, enjoy it and don’t be a dick!

What’s the point of these seat masts? Why not just have the collar / clamp closer to the top tube / seat stay junction and save on a few grams of material?

Thinking about it… it’s probably more the both computers using it at once reason (or some weird file locking thing) than the different paths, as you’d have the same problem with a USB drive.

:)

I think it’s a shame that Adobe’s cloud offering doesn’t do more of this for you (or that they provide integration with Google Drive or S3).

It’s a bit vague, but I think the advice against storing the catalog on the network is to avoid problems if both computers open it at once. I think another issue would be the different paths the source photos may appear under each machine (which is why they encourage you to keep catalog and photos together on the same external drive). For example, you may have your NAS mapped to N:\ on one machine (Windows) and /Volumes/nas on the other (Mac).

Here’s what I do, which may or may not help you:

* choose one computer as the master, in my case it’s my desktop
* if I’m on holiday with my laptop and want to start tweaking photos I create a new catalog on the laptop
* when I get home, I merge the catalog from the laptop into the catalog on the desktop – Lightroom is pretty good at merging catalogs and makes it easy to bulk change paths of the source photos.
* I just use the NAS for backing up the desktop (and laptop).

That works for me, because generally I don’t need or want old photos on my laptop.

I’ve used two, three… four big eyelet screws into the wooden frame and put a hole through the side of the garage door. Big padlock through both.

Just stops them folding part of the door back (if you do it in the corners). That said, it’s never been tested in anger!

I’m with eta.co.uk[/url].

Have claimed once, no issues. Be sure to look at the small print of whatever policy you get. Eta would only pay out once I’d proven that the bikes couldn’t be seen from the street through a window.

Yeah, I’m inverted. Can’t really work out why I invert y and not x, doesn’t seem logical.

Weird thing is, if I sit there and think about which direction to push the stick in order to look up and left, it takes a while to get it straight in my brain, but in-game I do it without thinking. Very odd!

Generally think GTA is a great game, the sandbox allows for all kinds of mayhem. As messed up as GTA5’s story is, I don’t think you find yourself empathising with any of the characters (except Trevor, poor guy, so misunderstood).

The satire is ok and on occasion brilliant, but I think they shoot for South Park levels and often miss.

That torture scene was just weird though, I found it pretty uncomfortable (far more so than CoD’s “No Russian” airport scene).

Agree on the murdering prostitutes thing. You can run over old people, set fire to police officers, RPG a church and drink drive and crash a car into a fast food truck. Just because you can do them, doesn’t make them a particularly fun part of the game, in fact they’re not game-ified at all – there’s generally no incentive to do them.

If you’re wearing a full-face, on the side of the helmet (following the eyeline) is a nice compromise between on your chest (looks fast, but can be shaky) and on the top of the helmet (looks slow, but your neck / head absorbs a lot of vibration).

I suggest, buy the bigger bike – it’ll be Very Different to your hardtail. If you get the shorter-travel one, there’s more of an overlap there and a compromise when you take your bike to the Alps.

Another happy customer.

Does still leave the BB shell exposed, not an issue on an alu frame, but have seen some nasty whacks that I’d be upset about if it was a carbon frame.

Looks like who you bought them off has only ever used the forum for sales. Not taking a pop at you (honest!), but personally, I consider that a warning sign and steer clear.

I swing both ways and ride both flats and SPDs off-road. Not inherently more comfortable in either, but to echo Junkyard’s thoughts really;

* I find I have increased control on slippery-steep climbs with SPDs, being able to pull-up easily (it’s a different action to the scooping action on flats) makes the power to the back wheel smoother.

* For me flats come into their own when I’ve had to dab and want to carry on riding. Almost the only reason I crash and can blame the SPDs, it’s because I’m not clipped in properly and trying to ride a steep techy bit.

* I prefer the smaller pedal size of SPDs. Less to hook up.

* I don’t have any of teh Rad skillz whether I’m on flats or SPDs. Sad times. :(

Keep giving SPDs a go. It’s nice to try something different. Fat bike, singlespeed, SPDs, flats.. it’s all good as long as it’s a bit of a challenge and you’re having fun.

Looks great. Where was it filmed?

I don’t really have a good feel for how polluting carbon fibre is. Kind of understand (roughly) the process and the energy involved in mining iron ore, making steel and producing a frame. Also understand how it can be recycled.

But have no idea for carbon.

Another recommendation for The Tiny Takeaway here.

http://www.thetinytakeaway.com/%5B/url%5D

Saves having big jars of open spices in the cupboard that always lose their flavour (just order 5 or 10 at a time). Ingredients are basically the same as when I make from scratch.

Also, not chicken but this is lovely, healthy and super quick:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chana-masala-spinach
(it’s better on day two, so save some!)