Gran canaria has my strava uninterrupted climb record of about 5350 feet. Absolutely crazy climbing from about the 2nd mile out of maspalomas. I did a 68 mile route and the first 35 miles was basically constant climbing. I think averaged about 5mph up the climb. Even hitting about 45 to 50 mph on the way down I only averaged about 11mph for the entire cycle. Makes you realise how crazily fit the grand tour guys are.

I then decided to have a rest day cycle (instead of doing valley of the tears because I was like a burst balloon) and cycled down the coast and it was like a roller coaster too so i was still absolutely shattered.

It’s brutal climbing, seriously steep and constant but you feel amazing for doing it. I literally couldn’t do the same at home, there’s something about the weather and the surroundings that gives you that extra impetus to do it.

Run a cycle but put the dishwasher waste into a bucket instead of the drain, will require you monitoring said bucket for overflow.  If the dishwasher still stinks then it’s coming from the dishwasher somewhere as the dishwasher pipe wasnt connected to the drain to get smelly water from.

If however the dishwasher smells fine then it was coming from the plumbing. I’d do this before changing any pipework just to be sure.

Maybe find out what the excess is on the watch to be fixed under the applecare policy and then take out the policy, wait a month, and get it fixed.

As an example our daughter has an 11 inch ipad pro gen 3 and when the screen cracks they just replace* the entire thing for 40 quid under her applecare policy, can do that twice a year, applecare is 4 quid a month.

* seems like a shocking policy to me to make the screens so expensive to fix it’s better to just give you a new one. Not really the environmentally friendly electronics we are supposed to.be moving towards.

I found the initial price they quote is okay but then the dealers offer nothing even close to it. Motorway then accuse you of expecting too much for your car despite them being the ones that set the price you were hoping for.

Then the dealer that took mine tried it on by opening the bonnet with the engine running (on a plug in hybrid so it put it into servicing mode switching off the electric only option) and tried to say the hybrid system wasn’t working during the test drive, until I “reminded” him of the bonnet being opened.

I think they used to be better but like everything else have turned more to the dealers side than the customers side for more sales.

I happened to buy the Bryton one a couple of days ago.

Used it yesterday for the first time.

Yes, on busy roads the bleeping gets on your tits,  I’ll have to find a way to switch it off. But you do get an indication usually a few seconds before the car becomes audible. It also helps when the traffic the other way is busy and you can’t differentiate between them.

Goes mental if a boy racer is tanking towards you at light speed giving you a chance to write your will.

One thing though,  that I hope a firmware update can solve. If the car slows down behind you and matches your speed it vanishes from the screen, so you don’t know if its turned off behind you or is sitting tailing you, I assume this would be easy for the software to sort. It amazes you how silent a car can be when it’s dawdling along at 15mph behind you.

If I can stop the incessant bleeping then it’ll be a great purchase as I do have a tendency to sh*te my pants when I get passed by a car I haven’t noticed.

I had this a few years ago. Extension to the house. Gave the guy 2k upfront for materials. Had emails, texts, everything to prove it. I ended up having to sack him as he was never turning up, drunk, no messages saying why he hadnt turned up etc..last straw was a support beam going above the kitchen, new kitchen being fitted a few weeks later so wanted it done before that.  The beam wasn’t in place 2 days before (after multiple failed promises to do it) and he didn’t give a toss so I ended up having to get someone else in and sacking the original guy. I never saw the 2k, took him to small claims which happened to be during covid so they couldn’t be arsed and dismissed the case even though (I found out later) he had previous for this.

Either the workman pays or you pay the supplier direct and get it delivered to your house. At least if you have to sack him you have items you paid for.

Before anyone asks the guy was a nightmare and was constantly not turning up but we were well into the job and eventually I just had to say enough is enough. Beam went in the day before the kitchen and plastered the night before!!

I saw an article somewhere saying white vinegar (the kind you use for domestic cleaning etc..) can be used for cleaning disc rotors etc. I tried it this afternoon on some howling brakes to clean the disc and pads and right enough they are working great again. Smell like a chip shop though.

After having work done on our house recently I have come to loathe tradesmen.

It’s bad enough when they say “yeah, I’ll be round tomorrow to quote ” and then don’t turn up for weeks (ignoring WhatsApp messages with blue ticks to say they have been read). But then when you do get a quote with the “I’ll be here next week for 2 days to do the work” they never turn up either.

No phone call, text, email etc to explain the lack of turning up, just basic communication failures.

I also have a leaky roof, solar panels going on in a fortnight so need it fixed. Roofer was supposed to have fixed it 3 weeks ago (after weeks of trying to get him to turn up to look at it) knowing the panels are going on soon…..no sign of him. Really pees me off and quite frankly is just really rude and ignorant. Then they have the cheek to give quotes like the OP, aye, very good, part of that quote in my eyes involves you turning up when you say you will and at the very least phoning if you can’t (usually with some excrement excuse). Then when you don’t do that and I message you asking when you’ll be coming at least have the decency to reply, even if it’s to say you can’t be arsed now so at least I know where I stand.

Cowboys.

I find electricians and gas plumbers are the best (of a bad bunch) as they know if they balls something up they can burn a house down with their shoddy work or blow it up.

The solar fitter did say he gets his roofers to fix the roofs if they find faults so I’ll be talking nicely to them, lots of bacon rolls and tea.

I’ve been looking at this for a while and eventually ordered the silca kit with wax, top up wax lube etc. Just waiting on it coming from the Netherlands.

Regarding temperature I think the key (from various you tube vids) is to get it to 125 degrees for the initial waxing as this gets the wax hot enough to penetrative the entire chain, then drop it to 75 degrees with the chain still in it during the cooling process and then remove. This allows the wax to harden slightly and stop it all running off the chain when it’s really runny at 125 degrees.

Quite looking forward to it, clean drive train, easy to wash the chain with boiling water and then rewax etc…

We had our house rewired completely as to put in new wiring to the extension would have required rewiring elsewhere for it all to be up to code. So we ended up doing the whole house. Cost about 5.5k so yours sounds about right.

It looked an absolute nightmare trying to identify all the different strands of wiring spaghetti as he pulled them all through but I have HUGE sympathy for any future electricians having to rewire current standards as all the wires are fixed to joists etc so won’t be able to be pulled through so no idea how they will do it without knocking the house down.

Looking again at the photo does the drain for the shower tray go left to meet up with the sink etc, a leak in the drainage pipe could cause it and travel along the pipe due to it being sloped towards the drainage system.

Also check the screw in the middle of the drain as that’s is what reloads the drainage sump to the underside of the shower tray. If that’s loose it could allow water to leak out.

I chickened out of a solo night ride through the Pentlands through Bonaly many years ago . There had been rumoured sightings of a puma / big cat type thing on the road the other side of the Pentlands and I’d manged to convince myself it would be watching me the entire time so took the brightly lit route home.

It does sound like the wheel / tyre is too big for the fork. Like has been said above if the wheel is correctly installed in.the dropouts the only way it should go is away from the arch. If the slight flex caused when braking is causing the tyre to rub it must mean the tyre is almost touching the arch to begin with.

I’d understand if it was the crown being touched due to a too large wheel or tyre being installed.

Is there a photo of it all installed under no loading.

Yeah, our wet room upstairs basically had to be sealed with a membrane system right up the splash area of the walls aswell, then a waterproof adhesive and grout were used. Means if a tile cracks or grout develops a crack the membrane will stop it leaking through . Initial plumber was wanting to just use a waterproof kind of primer and then tile over that but talking to some other guys they said for the extra few hundred the membrane kit cost it’s worth it as it gives the water nowhere to go except the shower tray that the membrane is also laid into and sealed at the drain connection.

So, sorry,  I’d rip the tiles up and clean up the area (make sure it is the floor and not a pipe leaking first) and then fit a membrane and retile. It’s quite easy,  the membrane comes in a roll with adhesive backing and you get joining strips, internal and external corner strips etc depending on the layout.

Halifax let me list 3 bikes as special items with associated values.  No idea how easy it’ll be to claim those values if they ever get stolen though.

I was looking at car insurance for myself and when inputing the details had completely forgotten about a windscreen replacement I’d had. Quote kept on being rejected. I phoned the company and eventually discovered it was due to me not listing the windscreen claim. When they added it over the phone the insurance cost doubled so I said no thanks. Out of interest I went back to my online quote and this time added in the windscreen claim to the form, all details accepted and quote given with a 50p a month rise. The person on the phone was almost accusing me of fraud despite me saying sorry, I’d completely forgotten about the windscreen. I must have been given a “punishment” quote on the phone for daring to make a mistake.

Yes butcher, exactly that. I was in between 2 massive climbs so was close to being out of options and begging someone for water. I should have known when I stopped being annoyed at the sweat running into my eyes stinging them that something was wrong..

Even in February it was 25 to 27 degrees. July & August can hit mid to high 30s and it would actually be dangerous doing some of those climbs if you aren’t used to it.

Came back a few weeks ago from a few days cycling in gran canaria. Absolutely beautiful cycling, amazing views, weather and the locals in cars don’t want to kill you like here. Beware though, bring plenty of water on your rides.  I did the route up to Pico de Las Nieves which sits at about 6500 feet or so and I got really dehydrated. Cramped a mile from the top and only kept going (on foot) because a) it was the halfway point and I knew there was a 15 mile downhill and b) there is a van selling water, juice etc at the top (I was VERY glad they didn’t decide to take that day off or i would have been in trouble).

Strava will bring up loads of routes,  the heat map shows all the commonly used ones. Like was said before, the second you start going inland expect 20 mile uphill at about 5% average,  brutal, but you feel amazing for doing it.

I used freemotion,  cannondale synapse,  105 di2, discs, cost £100 for 3 days with insurance (that doesn’t include theft, only accidents).

So, guys just left.  More than I expected but then I didn’t have a clue when I started.

13 windows, half are casement ones and half are tilt and turn (they cost more) for egress and ventilation in summer.

70mm deep composite front door with quite a large glass area for lighting up the hallway during the day.

All finishings done,hardwood internal ledge things, 10 year guarantee etc..

£14,500. Initially seemed steep but then I thought to myself it is 13 windows and a door. The door was also a bit more expensive as we have a larger than normal front door (handy for when I start eating more and cycling less as I get older).

Looking at the front doors that’s the bit I’m most excited about (what has happened to me) because the one we have is horrible.

tomhoward, yes, I’ll try and do everything the complete opposite of a grand designs episode.

pothead, yeah, i think my laughing at a quote like that should get the point across

Countzero and everyone else, thanks for the recent prices.

Its 13 windows in total (well, the bay window I’m counting as 3 individual windows). The wood was knackered when we bought the place 4 years ago so we put our effort into extending into the loft space and a small extension. I can see where you are coming from TJ but these will look much better as the current windows are scabby flaking wood with a horrible sort of thick blu tack style black sealant which makes me think they are much older than i think. A couple of the panes are blown and there is a massive crack in the living room window after a childs friend launched a stone by accident when kicking a football, he was only wee, couldnt be too annoyed at him.

There are 6 widows measuring 820 by 1420, 2 measuring 650 by 1420 and then the bay window and 2 smaller ones . That website for costing windows shows sash as about 6k in total for widows alone, if you go for flat tilt and turn its anything between 2k and 4k for the windows. So add on their cut, labour, finishing materials etc and I can see it being similar to CountZero’s price.

I could get a nice Ti bike for that.

Previous owner was a very old pensioner and had done very little to the house so its been rewired, kitchen done etc and this was the last big job unless we have money left for solar panels (south facing roof with zero obstructions)

Company coming tonight has 5 out of 5 from 905 reviews on trustpilot which is something I suppose. No they ripped me off reviews and left my house like a construction site comments

Markspark, thanks for that, Ive just mesured all the windows and will get a few options listed with prices.

TJ, I can get the sash windows as UPVC and there is no way I could afford 1-2k a window, i’d cry and never be able to buy another bike, priorities!!

Thanks for all the replies folks. The house is very old and luckily isnt listed or in a conservation area. I’d just be going UPVC for ease of maintenance, lower (yeah right) cost.

Just so turns out the brother in law has said the same company did their windows last year , 3 large windows (think living room size) and a front door was 6k which to me seems steep.

Company is a “family run” business based in Fife, with only the one locatiuon so not your everest type company who I was going to avoid like the plague anyway.

Edit, I’ve just had a call, they can come tonight as they have a guy in the area with a cancelled apointment.

Edit, edit, I asked the BIL who was the cheapest, he says the ones coming tonight, the others were all 8 to 10k….I’m gonna have to marvel at the size of their windows next time I’m round.

The “old” style rx4 had different piston and pad sizes depending on whether it was the shimano or sram version. The rx4+ uses the same size pads for both versions (which is the same size pad as the old rx4 shimano ones). It’s why you see the rx4 pads for old shimano version being labelled rx4 shimano / rx4+ and a different pad for rx4 sram version.

Angles might be different too, not sure about that, I had to phone hope to ask when I got confused by the pad identifiers on various sites as I didn’t realise the old ones were different sizes.

Is it clamped properly at the rear derailleur . Sometimes putting the cable one side instead of the other at the clamping point can make a huge difference to cable pull as the forces increase.

Yeah, that’s the power meter, if its like my rival crank then it’s a one sided power meter and unscrews from the non drive side to access the battery.

Brian2, i was at that Gateshead GNR concert. My mum and dad drove me and a pal there after telling the school we wouldn’t be in (along with half the school it seemed when we got there).
Whilst waiting, they were late on stage as usual, my mum was wandering around the stadium when a car pulled up, Axl got out, and she was none the wiser. She only realised when she saw him on the screen during the concert (they were sat on a hill behind the stadium waiting on us).
Great concert though, Soundgarden were also a support group if I remember right.
GNR (in their prime), faith no more and Soundgarden, what a line up!

Edit, was also at the prodigy SECC concert and no one knew who the support act were, how amazed were we when the Foo Fighters walked on…..I actually thought I was at the wrong concert, foo fighters and the prodigy didn’t really go together, another amazing concert though

We have the grand C4 Picasso, a 2014 one.
Pros.
It’s absolutely massive, I’ve moved fridge freezers around in it no problem. Bikes fit easily with front wheel out.

Self parking feature is great for tight spaces

Fairly economical (1.6 D managed about 55mpg up to Aviemore and back, about 350 miles in all)

Cons. The auto gearbox in ours is awful, it’s the semi auto one but takes an age to decide what it’s doing and every so often you’ll roll up to a junction, floor it to make a gap and it just decides to have a fit with the gears as you’re sat in the middle of the lane. It does have a manual feature though you can choose.

Electrics are rubbish, we have the blotchy screen problem which when they were within warranty they were replacing apparently but ours was out of warranty so they don’t care. Really should be a recall as it can affect the Speedo reading if the blotch develops over that.

The “infotainment” screen is slow and unresponsive, you find yourself prodding the screen repeatedly to get it to do anything.

Luckily ours in now paid off so I don’t quite care as much about how mince it is.

I just got a set of hope wheels with the pro 5 hub for the gravel bike from them last week. Took about a week to come but they did have to be built by hope as they were custom ones.
Just a note, I thought the hope wheels would come with the centrelock locking ring but they didn’t and my current wheels hubs have externally threaded hubs whereas the hopes have internally threaded ones like a cassette locking so I’ve had to order some. No Biggie but I would have thought they would be included as they are hub specific.
The shop itself I had no problems with.

The roads up here in Fife are so bad if I didn’t have a small sun pointing at the road I’d be over the bars in about 30s, appalling state, need the power just to pick out a less potholed route 🤣

I’m back to looking at the Detour after my Towild DL1800 decided yesterday to just stop charging, responding to the remote or button presses. Barely had it 6 months.
It’s a real shame they don’t have a UK distributor because the taxes almost double the price of the light to the UK. That’s what’s putting me off at the moment but the problem is there really isn’t any comparable alternative available. The exposure ones aren’t really shaped beams as they can be used upside down so are symmetrical, the Lupine ones are about the price of a house and a lot of the others can’t be mounted under computer mounts where my lights sit. So right now it’s looking like I’ll have to go the detour route and swallow the cost.

As an aside the reason I “need” a light at this price is my commute is it pitch black country roads where being able to put all the power onto the road is really useful.

The wife demanded we use F&B for a white wall in our bedroom, I decided there was no way I was spending that much on paint for 2 coats so I used the bog standard Johnson’s Matt white paint in the huge tub. When I went to put the F&B top coat on I couldn’t tell the difference at all, so much so I’m not even sure if some bits were painted. So in short, expensive paint was no difference to the massive tubs of cheap paint.

When we put down fancy tiles in our bathroom upstairs my job was to lay 18mm marine ply over the existing floor and then put 50mm screws at 100mm intervals over its entire area. Was about 2000 screws in total but the floor had zero movement. Could be the 18mm ply was put down but not secured enough and it’s eventually come loose. The 100mm centred screws was apparently essential for preventing tiles cracking etc..
Took me all day and I burnt out my drill.

TJ, I think it’s probably more the fact that they are being charged with ropey devices bought on eBay, Amazon etc… FDNY however can flood a scene with resources, they have a massive amount of firefighters and equipment available at any one time. This country thanks to successive governments not so much. We also don’t have the same domestic model they have with large blocks of apartments, well, we kind of do but not to the same scale. Just look at Grenfell, just happened to be a fridge that time.

Ebike fires are a huge problem for the FDNY. The huge surge in popularity and people storing them in their apartments , charging them etc has caused a massive spike in fires related to them, many of them fatal. If you follow the FDNY fire wire app (as saddo fireys like me do) you’ll see these fires constantly, resulting in massive resources required because they can spread so quick.

Another nail in the coffin for consumers. Despite the slagging they sometimes got they produced decent bikes with sometimes very good finishing kit for half the price others were, maybe the reason they are in this situation.
Just means the rest of the companies can continue ripping us off for bike parts and charging obscene prices compared to elsewhere in the world.
Gutted for them, hopefully something can be done.

Tomhoward, yeah, that’s the way I’m looking at going. Annoying having to source a new freehub body aswell for the 12sp cassette. Any suggestions on sites that have these offer more often that others? Also wondering if it’s worth going for the XPLR flavour in 1x or just go 2x for an easier and hopefully cheaper range of rear cassettes.

Edit, although would a Shimano 12sp HG cassette on my 11sp freehub body work with SRAM or are they spaced just differently enough to cause problems.

https://bike.shimano.com/en-EU/product/component/ultegra-r8050-di2/SM-EWC2.html

You can get these to hide the cables in and protect them but it’ll never look as neat as an internally routes system.

As an aside, I wanted to upgrade my SRAM rival gravel bike to a 12 speed etap system (frame isn’t suited to Shimano di2 or I would go GRX) but the prices of a bottom of the range Rival electronic system are mental, 1200 quid.
Prices of bike parts are crazy right now.

The amount of litter around is absolutely disgusting. You brought it with you filled up with food, drink, vaping fluid etc….why are you too bone idle to take it back with you or find a bin. Chucking stuff out of cars, why, there is about 20 square feet of seating around you to put it on you lazy sods.
In fact, it’s not even lazy, takes no more effort, these people are just ignorant disgusting vermin. Cigarette butts don’t even seem to be classed as litter by smokers, just lob them wherever you fancy.

I was on a plane a couple of years ago where a family of utter 🛎️➡️s basically made their seats an absolute midden of wrappers, food, cans, paper etc.. the air hostess asked them to tidy up the area and hand her the litter on their pass up the cabin with the bin bags and the family refused telling her that was her job, why should they etc…. rightly so she told them her job wasn’t to clean up their mess after them (it was disgusting, smashed up crisps all over the floor, food everywhere, them mouthing off at everyone on the plane who backed the hostess up). I’d have happily seen them banned from flying for life, actually have some punishment for once, how often do we see shocking behaviour just allowed to happen with no consequences. Pilot even came out in this case and they didn’t give a monkeys about what he said either.

It’s people like that ruining it for the rest of us and the problem is these people usually make the most noise, cause the most trouble and think the world owes them a living so have a much larger negative effect on us than the normal people keeping their head down.

I just set up these exact tyres on my gravel bike. Had a problem with the rear losing pressure but riding it seems to have sorted that, probably forcing the sealant into every weak point in the system.
What annoyed me most though was spending all the dosh on rim tape, valves, sealant etc….starting to like the fact wee punctures are just shrugged off..
..only for a **** spoke to snap so now I have to remove the tyre,clean out the sealant,remove all the rim tape,replace the spoke and buy all the gubbins (minus the valves) again, typical !!

Edit, spoke snapped inside the nipple so spoke needs removed also.