I would echo the above reply. I’ve polished a lot of bike stuff for my retro bikes but a whole frame is an endeavour which can take you to the edge of your sanity.

If the frame can be stripped of its paint fairly easily then it’ll be easier but you need power tools to do it and a buffing wheel – maybe on a bench grinder.

Dont lacquer it. Even a professional lacquer only lasts for a couple of years until you get salt and water under the lacquer and it starts to get shabby. It’s surprisingly easy to keep the high gloss polish looking good with Autosol (I prefer Peek as a polish though).

If there’s no distortion to the top tube and the head tube is where it should be then I’d say it’s a dent rather than a front end impact. Either way it’s not good and I wouldn’t want to ride it. It’s hard to see it being anything but damage done by the owner rather than a manufacturing defect. I know PX are a bit dodgy when it comes to QC but that wouldn’t have left the factory like that.

As I said weeks ago, STW don’t care about the users. Suck all the revenue they can out of you lot paying for P until the forum turns into a ghost town and gets shut down.

If they did care either a) something would be done about all the issues already or b) someone would communicate about what is happening/what they are struggling with. Neither is happening.

It wasn’t really. Just the usual small group of self righteous guardians of the trail. In fact the same as now.

I remember riding in the Peak District in the late 80’s, early 90’s when there was a real concern about trail access as MTB’s were seen in the same way as crossers. I lost count of the amount of people who would shout at you for riding a perfectly legal bit of trail at even low speeds. You acted responsibly to ensure you didn’t ruin it for others. When you were away from the people you would go as fast as you could but leaving skid marks was a lasting (even if only for a few days) that MTB’s had been there.

Now there is a LOT more people on bikes in the countryside and a lot more people are more accepting. But there is still a lot of people who don’t want us there and upsetting them for no good reason is a sure fire way to turn the whole situation back 30 years and really put a big question over access for us all.

It is especially tricky now as we have purpose built trail centres. What is stopping powerful land owners and organisations arguing that we don’t need to use rights of way as we have our own playgrounds to use? Newer bikes are faster, newer riders are now skilful to such a degree that we often look like motocrossers – it doesn’t take many NT members or Peak Park rangers to agree in their meetings to “do something about it” for a chain reaction to take place which could be the beginning of the end.

There are people on this thread who just don’t seem to care. I feel sorry for you. You really need to grow up and see the bigger picture. If you’ve got your own bit of land which you can use which doesn’t have public access then go wild, that’s fine. Just please, I beg you, have some respect for the other users of the countryside, and your own sport, and keep it sensible on public rights of way or other bits of land.

There are a lot of people who have ridden MTB’s pretty much their entire life (like me) who really care about the sport and access not just now but for future generations. Even if I couldn’t ride I would hopefully be able to be a good advocate for off road riding. You might just be into riding off road for the fitness or having a laugh with mates or the challenge and if we lost access you’d just move onto another sport. But I can’t. MTB is pretty much all I know and to be honest I’ll do anything to be able to continue doing it, and enabling others to do it way into the future – if that includes slowing down and keeping the trails in the same state I found them I think it’s a small price to pay.

Learning to measure is probably the best tip!

I’m restoring an old house and have learnt all sorts of timber work tips as I was a novice to start with. I am finding as I go on I reach for the power tools less and less. If I’ve got a lot of timber to cut I’ll use the powered mitre saw but more often than not I reach for the hand saws as they do the job just as quick once you’ve taken setup of the electric saw into account and you get more control. Especially with the fiddly bits!

A portable work bench to clamp whatever you are cutting makes manual cutting very easy, but I often clamp bits of wood to other things if I can’t be bothered getting the workbench out.

I haven’t used the very much expensive jigsaw I have for months, they just never seem to do what I want very well.

A friend of mine, a long time diesel fan, sold his newish Passat diesel, bought a Peugeot 106 (or whatever the tiny one is) and a Subaru Legacy Spec B for when his family needed more luggage space. The little car gets used around town and short trips, the Spec B for anything else. The Peugeot MPG balances out the Subaru GPM figure. ;)

Techmoan (who did that video) is a brilliant YouTuber – so many reviews of obscure stuff!

Also it is not just when the car is upside down,  the allowed max extraction time has been increased for when the car is right side up.  That’s right – halo means they had to relax a previous safety limit.

 I didn’t know that – that is beyond crap. Problem with the Halo is that it will deflect large object but small (more likely) stuff will get through the same.

A small windscreen that would deflect stuff to the top of the helmet (where it would be most likely to be deflected again rather than piercing) would have been much better.

So the first post in this thread was 2 months ago. So its taken that long to mess with the fonts a bit, make it faster (occasionally) and errrr…. that’s it.

Will this forum be here as any more than a ghost forum by Christmas?

Audi is better looking than the Merc

That is like saying my diarrhoea is sweeter smelling than yours. Good looking? Errr, no.

All the sports need some sort of technique or skill to be the best at. However quite a lot also need amazing fitness.

Apart from curling, happy to be proved wrong but you don’t appear to need fitness so it’s just practice.

Reduce it to numbers…..

On fuel alone I’ve just calculated with 2000 miles on hols a year I would save £260 in fuel using the Auris. If I used the Volvo I’d also have to pay around £250 extra a year in insurance (currently on limited mileage classic insurance for £180 pa and regular insurance was £430) and with the Toyota I don’t pay for tyres/maintenance/breakdown/wear and tear.

Blimey.

Surely you’ll just use that hoofing great huge Volvo you’ve got when you need to haul some cargo?

If I going on a long distance holiday I’m not taking it as the price of fuel is equivalent in cost to hiring a private jet… ;-)

Also the Toyota hybrid CVT is rather nice once you get used to it

I’m glad to hear that, I am looking forward to getting an auto as I have to drive in a lot of stop-start traffic. What sort of MPG are you getting?

When we had Hitachi as a lease company I fitted a removable tow bar to my car and just didn’t tell them. When they collected it no one checked, they just take them straight to auction, a nice surprise for the next owner.

I doubt inchcape will be any more thorough but it depends how much risk you’re prepared to take. Chances are they’ll never see the car again, most are delivered straight to a 3rd party to be prepped for auction.

I have a feeling we word for the same government department….. ;-)

No chance of an auris touring sports instead?

Unfortunately not.

With my company car scheme we’re not allowed to put tow bars on the cars – might be worth checking.

Yes I think it’s the same for me. I ordered a towbar as an optional extra for my Focus but I didn’t have that option with the Auris – it is heavily restricted as to what extras we can get.

Pretty much any boot is going to seem small after a Focus Estate unfortunately

I know. :(

But I don’t have any choice and there’s only 2 of us, no kids or dogs to carry. We used to go on hols in a Nissan Micra so I’m sure we can cope!!

It is possible to get a bike carrier specific tow bar for the Auris.

I probably can’t modify the car though as it’s a work lease car – are you sure this is for the hybrid version though?

Simon – yes I understand the new Hybrid has the batteries under the rear seat rather than in the boot space as the previous version did. When I went to look at one in a dealers it didn’t seem shallow – but it did seem small compared to my current Focus estate. :(

Cougar

If only there were 37 threads already discussing the issue.

If only there was someone listening and doing something about it. Then the threads wouldn’t be there in the first place

Bye bye STW, was nice knowing you! ;)

The standard way of cleaning old skin walls is bob them in the washing machine. Worked well on some of the old MTB skin walls from the 80/90’s I’ve had.

Bear – they only do it to maximise profit. They know a nice 4 bedroom house might go for £250k in a certain area. They could build 10 great modern energy efficient, light, spacious houses with nice gardens on a plot for £200k and make £50k perhoise so £500k profit. Instead they build 15 houses cramped up together with no parking, crap gardens, poor quality construction with small windows and rooms (why make 4 big bedrooms when we can cram 5 pokey ones in and charge another £30k?) for £125k each and sell for the same amount (because people are suckered in to thinking new houses are better and worth more) making £125k each and make  £1.875m.

But you can build your own nice house as in the first example for £200k, saving you £50k and getting a better house for cheaper. Even if the land costs a bit more you should be able to build a nice house for the same price you’d pay for one of the crappy Barrett type crap holes.

What an absolute joke.

EDIT tried the forum search. Formatting all over the shop, really messy and the first result is from 7 years ago (I searched for “forum”). Well that’s really useful. 🙄

You think? The rather belligerent attitude of Mark and the mods is one of the reasons I’ll not be renewing.

Exactly.

Either one of two things has happened, the company is underfunded and badly run so the forum upgrade was underfunded and badly implemented and they are hiding under the duvet hoping it all goes away OR they’re off doing other things and they don’t give a crap about the forum anymore and won’t put any money into it’s as they are bored of it – if they shut it they’ll lose all the subs straugh away so they may as well let it fade away while they work on that other stuff so the money stays coming in for a while.

They don’t care about the Premier people or the free users, there’s no distinction. The whole site is getting more Facebooky all the time and I reckon they are going after the new generation with clickbait headlines to bring in cash from the social media generation.

Can I suggest not Sea Suckers as that just works on vacuums You are responsible for a safe load, so they won’t join you in court if it goes wrong.

Rookie marketing fail – never rubbish other people’s stuff it makes you sound like a complete prat. Let your product speak for itself. You’ve already put more people off than you’ve got interested.

Personally I’d only do Snowden in nice dry weather. It can be brutal up the top in any sort of inclement weather and would more likely be a misery at best to ride down, more probably very dangerous without being fun.

Theres loads to ride without doing Snowden, you won’t be far from the trail centres which is what I’d be inclined to do this time of year.

Bodgy – sorry that’s proper minging. 🤮

I like a bit of modern stuff. Living off the grid not for me.

You live in a weird world where you are considered off the grid if you don’t have a dishwasher.

Blimey. I wouldn’t touch that with a barge pole. Unless you can easily afford to pay his rent for a long time then I wouldn’t want to do it. Just say you can’t afford it.

I am sure you guys will come up with loads of other figures to argue against this but the point of what I’m about to say is that “don’t believe what you read”. I know this might sound a bit Jivehunny but let’s look at those figures which suggests dishwashers use less water shall we? Hopefully it might sound a bit more Dave Gorman than conspiracy theory…..
Web page sponsored by Finish dishwasher tablets:
“Lab studies* found that washing up a full dishwasher-load by hand (12 place settings) took on average 60 minutes and 49 litres of heated water. An average dishwasher uses as little as 12 litres to do the same job, taking only 9 minutes to load and unload.”
*The “Lab Studies” is a report called “Manual dishwashing habits: an empirical analysis of
UK consumers”

The washing up they used in the study was “12 standard place settings of tableware, each composed of a dinner plate, a soup bowl, a bread and butter plate, a saucer, a cup, a glass, a fork, a knife, a soup spoon, a dessert spoon, a tea spoon and additional serving pieces.” So these are all the items which a dishwasher is good at cleaning. No frying pans/cooking dishes/baking trays etc. They could easily put those items in the most eco wash and they’d come out clean. Who uses 12 place settings with bread plates and saucers but nothing to cook the food in? And who takes 60 minutes to wash a load of dishes? Those dishes they have used in the test could all be washed in one bowl of hot water which is nowhere near 49 litres. An Addis butler bowl (bigger than a normal sink washing up bowl) holds 23 litres to the brim.

At the end of the report it says “The authors would like to thank Reckitt Benckiser Ltd and BSH Home Appliances Ltd for supporting this research.”. Oh really?? Reckitt Bensicker Ltd are a consumer goods company, the only product they sell which might be used in the washing dishes process is Finish. So they reference a report they paid for which then suggests using machines which need their products are better? What a coincidence…
Who are BSH Home appliances Ltd? It’s the “is the largest manufacturer of home appliances in Europe “ with brands such as Bosch, Siemens, Gaggenau and Neff. Well I never…
Interestingly on the same page there is a “savings calculator”. Even if you put the lowest numbers in (1 person cooking 1 meal a week which needs washing up) there is still savings to be made (3.7 hours, 156 litres and 1.73 kwH of electricity apparently!). So there is no way handwashing could save anything according to them. Wow!

Files NRD in with TJ and all the others who need to educate everyone that their way is indeed the best way…

I originally asked why people use them as in my experience they are no better, and in a couple of ways worse than hand washing. I’d like to educate some people on the value of reading things though. ;)

Have you got one of those fridge things op or do you still use the cold shelf in the pantry?

Have you got the ability to read what I’ve posted?

I put folk who can’t load a dishwasher in a way that avoids all the hassle in the same category as those who find Presta valves too fragile, can’t fit a tyre and lack the coordination to operate a front mech…..

Well I’m none of those, I’ve built and restored loads of bikes, restored the house I live in myself including fitting the kitchen and bathroom amongst hundreds of other things. I have internet controlled lighting and heating etc etc.

Im sorry but I’ve used 3 or 4 different dishwashers now and they are all the same – Bosch ones at work, other quality brands elsewhere. None of them got rid of baked on stuff or porridge bits, they ruin glasses and are generally crap even when they are loaded lightly. Lightly used plates and mugs are fine.

Ive also used commercial dishwashers a fair bit and that introduces another question – how come they only take 60 seconds to clean stuff and the home ones take 1-2 hours minimum?

Lidl Ultra tablets voted top by Which FWIW.

I thjnk they were the ones we were using.

Grandad? Is that you?

Yes it is – can you pop out and get me some Werthers? :D

I know how to use one, I know how to stack one. Maybe if they did use as much water as hand washing they might do as good a job.

There are so many cooking items which need physical action against the surface to clean them which a DW just can’t do.

If the speakers you have are distorting (rather than just rattling in their enclosures) it’ll be the head unit that’s at fault. A lot of cheaper branded head units are woefully powerful.

In my Volvo I changed all the original speakers for Pioneer ones of the same size. Didn’t make any difference until I changed the head unit for a powerful Pioneer one, was like night and day. Some of the older Alpine head units are still well sought after as they were amazing quality and very powerful.

A set of 6×9 component speakers will blow your eardrums with a decent head unit, always worth thinking about a sub too to improve the sound, even if you can only fit a small one in it’ll make a big difference.

Ive got a pair of Phoenix Gold amplifiers I really must do something with one day…

I used a oscillating multi tool to take off the bottom 20mm of my existing skirting – the skirting and walls were 110 years old and I didn’t think either would survive intact if I tried to take them off. It took a while (very high quality thick wood to cut through) and needed 3 blades to do the 3m square room but looked ace when finished. I’ll be doing the same in my hallway. Those tools are very good for door frame too.

A man completely dedicated and obsessed with making people happy. He will be truly missed as one of the best ever entertainers the world has ever seen.

“My job,” he once told the Daily Telegraph, ” isn’t to educate people or even do politics, I’ve got to make people feel good, I want to make them happy.”

Was it true it was ok to bring sandwiches and a flask of tea to his performances? He meticulously recorded all of his gags and the reaction they got so he could get better. Tim Vine interviewed him for Chain Reaction which I listened to recently and despite Sir Ken being nearly 90 he ran rings around Tim, but I don’t think he would have minded at all.