Thanks Ross. Is it boost or not please (my wheel is the old style Through axle)? I’ll drop you a message.

Funnily enough, my X Fusion forks dumped a load of oil out and I had the same message from TF Tuned this morning. So I rang Upgrade, they told me to fill their form in…..which is only available if you have a Google account! I refuse to have one so asked for the plain form – which they claim they don’t have. This is feeling like a farce.

Can anyone recommend some not too expensive 29” forks that can be repaired?!

The shouty man now on every cooking programme

Good to know it’s not just me and my pc, DezB. Makes me feel a lot better (in a nice way!)

Ah brilliant – I never knew. That’s a really useful thing.

Thanks molgrips! Learn something everyday

System restore points……Ummmmm……no……I am a novice at all this

Thanks MSP and the rest of you.

Situation resolved itself unexpectedly, I’d left it on in the other room and it slipped in the update itself while I was in here. When I saw it busy updating, there was Olympic swearing at it for ten minutes, considered hurling it at the wall to finally kill it but thankfully didn’t, then off to look for a replacement laptop on the ipad while wondering how to dispose of it. When it booted up I gave it a despondent prod and to my astonishment keyboard – and mouse – still work. Can’t believe it but very happy. I’d been holding that update off for weeks and weeks as well. Either Microsoft have got better at writing updates (unlikely) or the Toshiba driver update I found actually does work with Windows 10 (possible).

But thanks for the suggestions, I’m still tempted to kill further updates as above and take the risk as I’m so deeply wary of it happening again.

Hols2 – I wasn’t exactly given a choice, and didn’t check the age of all the drivers in the shop……It was all Toshiba had. I suspect (bit don’t know) a lot of the popular brands run on ancient drivers and stuff. Not much we can do about it, really.

Looks like it’ll be a dead pc tonight then, maybe time for a new one, only had this one 5 years I think. I’m really sick of forcing a Windows reload on it every few months. Any recommendations for something that A) Doesn’t start a catfight with Windows, and B) Lasts well and doesn’t cost a fortune? Or is that moon on a stick?

Was he wearing any clothes in the video? If no, then yes that’s certainly creepy!

Sorry chaps was on the phone – it’s a Toshiba Satellite. Nice pc, just doesn’t like Windows.

I did find while trying to fix it when it went before that the keyboard and mouse drivers dated back to 2002 (I think); I’ve since found something buried on Toshiba’s website that apparently brings these and other drivers up to date for Windows 10, which I’ve now installed. No idea if that’ll make any difference, I’m not holding my breath.

Lightman – I like that! Worth trying to juggle space that way. It does annoy me how you’re forced to accept their  updates.

PC is now insisting on shutting down to update unless I click “later” which I have been doing, but feel that (unless I fill it up!) it’s probably inevitable.

I think that’s what Microsoft did when they took it over each time, but it just keeps coming back.

No idea what the second point means, sorry,

No, it’s the built in keyboard (sorry should have said it’s a laptop). Plug in keyboards and mice also don’t work when it’s dead

I may have to accept it’s dead, a shame as part of trying to fix it first time round I put a really nice fast solid state hard drive in.

On Chunky’s approach, mine would be Peter Moore. I sound like an accountant!

cynic-al – yes, heart rate and power output monitored

There is definitely a lot more power from using the upstroke with clips. I used to do a lot of spinning where the bikes were linked up to power readings (and in fact the class was about competing to generate the most energy overall). Going several times a week and using the same bike to eliminate errors meant I could repeat my average power inputs pretty closely especially with the same tutor. Learning to then pull up effectively made a very significant difference.

Congrats! I’m old enough to remember you doing the injury!

Your ATCO looks like a Suffolk Punch, I suspect that the two companies merged at one point and used that design. Lovely job.

Cheers all

I live just down the road from Chesham and regularly make the reverse trip to north of the border through Carlisle. For me, it would be A66, A1 down to St Neots then A421 to join the M1 near Milton Keynes (jct 13).

Minimising time spent on the M1 is always good!

Not enough badgers!

Great – thanks. Really good to know.

I was very sceptical of the whole 29 thing but a few years back my curiosity got the better of me and I “accidentally” ended up owning an ex-hire Solaris (after a call to 18 Bikes about a hub tool!). I was riding a 26″ Soul at the time which I loved.

After several thousand miles exclusively on the Solaris, it’s the bike I always ride as I like it so much. I’m not a confident rider and it helps very much on that. It’s great when there are ruts and hidden horrible holes. As I also lack any measurable fitness, I tend to ride using as much momentum as I can (I used to ride singlespeed) and the Solaris suits that approach as it just rolls on and blatters through things. I’ve not noticed poor climbing ability, I’d say it’s better, but again that’s probably my riding style.

Hope you find what you need, that’s just my views. 6’2″, by the way.

Thanks Jim. Really good, not heard of that before. Will try to get along.

Thanks angeldust.

Just back from Dees – all sorted! Good to use a LBS, I’m really shocked how many have closed this last year.

The Amersham one, Slacks. Would easily ride up to Berkhamstead but tyre is kyboshed.

Setting off for Dees now, let’s see how it goes.

Thanks both – MountainMania a bit out of the way but will bear them in mind if Dees can’t help.

Compressor – any recommendations…..? Gadgets…..!!

Timid – They were closed for a while I think but I just checked their site and they do seem to be open again. I think it was a refurbishment. Thanks for the tip, I’ll give them a call.

I’m deliberately not going to start arguing points here, but I agree totally with the “cut the demand” point. Don’t see it happening though, too many vested interests sadly.

But one question: Is electric vehicle technology changing in the direction of reducing charging times? Could we see it greatly reduced in the near future (sorry, that’s two)? Never mind the what I should be doing, that is the big issue for us, all we really use the car for is (9hr+) trips to Scotland which are done in one shot. And any avoidance of motorway service stations is a necessity for sanity…..

Not much crime in Lerwick??! It’s the UK’s murder centre, I’ve seen Shetland!!

Swap with you…..unemployed for nearly a year now and it’s not good.

Apologies to have gone quiet; I’ve been somewhat busy trying to sort the pc and also doing job interviews. Being asked this morning for a revised cv (helpful comments made to be fair) by first thing Monday fried my own personal hard drive in my head!

Right. All thanks to Cougar, I know you all know already but he’s a superstar. SSD ordered (I now know what one is!), deep breath taken and back off and installed……and nothing. Wouldn’t boot as “no driver”. Frantic scramble to John Lewis tech support – “leave it with us, but it’s probably toast”. Another random repair place said the same – and laughed that I’d even tried. Came home, basil fawlty style mad panic, then back off again (thanks Cougar) and I could see that I hadn’t got it on the contacts properly. I’d been trying not to handle the drive so had wrapped it in tissue paper and couldn’t see properly. Turned it on again and……voom! Loaded up windows 10 and Office and it’s away, so fast now, on in seconds rather than the previous 10-15 minutes. A hugely improved and repaired pc for £250.

So thanks for all your help and a huge thanks to Cougar for patience with an IT idiot. I’ve just got to get my head round the cloud now…….!

Yes it does open them but they don’t seem to work very well, ie functionality etc.

Thanks fisha, very thoughtful. I do try not to send files etc for that reason. Wasn’t aware the cloud was encrypted, I just assume it is safer not to use at all – one less potential hole. And now I know what OneDrive is that used to keep popping up annoyingly!

To try to answer: Nothing “dodgy” of course but tax and money info, and general domestic stuff – all documents. I am just very private.

Yes, Word and Excel are wiped off.

Cougar – that’s very kind indeed, thank you. I’ll send you a private message. He put something on it called Open Office which is very clunky.

Thanks Cougar/Molgrips. Chilterns.

Yeah, he was straight off the net, never tried him before. These things are absolutely trial and error if you don’t know anyone. I will not use the big ones like pc world as I don’t trust them not to take all our personal stuff off.

I asked him if we could reinstall Office from the backup and he said no, we’d need the Office licence stuff (which we can’t find, we’ll have thrown it all out), is that not true then? More confused than ever now, I’ve no idea who to turn to for help with this……I need to lie down!

PC is sort-of functioning now, it has regular mad moments but the main immediate issue is the lack of Office. And that I don’t trust it now.

Cougar – I have always backed up our documents and pictures etc regularly on a remote drive (when I can remember how!), and you’re right, I think I meant the Office function when I said Microsoft, but I don’t think Office itself is backed up on the remote drive? (I am now totally out of my depth). That means that in effect we now can’t access them as we can’t get them to open. I will take a look at the Jellybean thing shortly but suspect I will be lost in the opening moments, as I said at the start I have no understanding of this stuff, it’s a closed book to me. It means that I can only take what some one (ie the repairman in this case) tells me as I have no means of critically challenging statements.

Thanks again everyone. To answer questions:

Hard drive on current pc is about half full, so not a capacity issue; the failure mode was that it completely froze and would not do anything at all. Rebooting resulted in the same issue. It had had several instances in the previous week or so of freezing at login and taking (literally) a couple of hours to slowly log in incredibly slowly. I assumed it was some sort of update endlessly going on. Air vents are clean, I do check them occasionally, and use it on a hard surface.

On the Microsoft licence, we can’t find any records of when we bought this licence, so fully admit it’s our error in not keeping paperwork, hence thinking we’ll have to buy another. Laptop is a Toshiba which came from John Lewis. I’m not wanting to try anything with warranty as we’ll have to surrender it and then we wouldn’t know who was trying to get our info off the hard drive (same reason as I’m uncomfortable with what little I know about the cloud) – we’re very sensitive to privacy.

Really appreciate the help, especially on the compatibility point. Thanks again.

OK thanks – interesting. No, in answer to your drop questions, never dropped any of the they live in the front room on a table or on the kitchen table, we’re both careful. No idea why we kill so many drives. Repairman said possibility was that we are moving them before they’ve finished shutting down – now careful not to do that.

I hadn’t realised that the drive was the same in a mac. mmannerr, how do we investigate the power source point? We do go through a heck of a lot of supposedly long-life bulbs in this house.

All I can say is to get a second opinion from the best you can – echoing alibong (above). Read research papers as CG says and see who is really doing the thinking in this area. I had some (utterly unrelated) medical issues a couple of years back, my specialist told me not to worry essentially, so I did some reading and sought a second opinion from a top consultant who operated on me in weeks. If I hadn’t done so I wouldn’t be here now. I’m not saying that’s the case with you, but rather that medical views do differ, it sounds a little like your current consultant may not be tuned in to patients doing lots of exercise.

Very best wishes. You have so much on your plate right now – you have everyone’s support on here.

Another messy sod here, in fact I crave untidiness and detest symmetry. On the numbers thing, I have to set the microwave to run an odd number of seconds or minutes, 7s and 3s are great (especially if different) but 13 is right out. seats etc Much better out of line. Nice!