I also live in the forset (well right on the edge) and often ride on cheeky trails to and from work in summer and never had anything but friendly hellos from those I have met. There does seem to be s et who only want it for them selves though if you see the local papers. A bit like the lymington ferry debacle.

He always was and always will be my favourite rally driver. he was always special to watch and seemed to put so much thought and effort in to what he did. I also remember watch the rally GB when he got his title and how happy he was afterwards.

barn – Member
Adventure AT3.
About £150 rrp. Bought 2nd hand off here and dragged it round Brecons last week with 3 and 1 year old.
Totally brilliant bit of kit.
Kids loved it – warm and dry.
Works brilliantly, highly recommended.

Mail me if you want some pics or more info.

I also have one of these and you can get a proper waterproof cover for it (its just like a buggy one) and ours has done 1000’s of miles but its now starting to show this so i will be replacing it soon with the single seat version.

@Owen have you got a boardman if so is it the older style design or the new fangled one?

No i have a GT idrive5 which i fitted the Monarch 4.2.
It does sound odd as on mine th erebound has a very noticable effect and with no air i can push the shock all the way through its travel. I do run mine at a high pressure though.
Which model of shock is it?

There is no scoring/marks on my Monarch but it is an older one. also i only get full travel occasional but normal get 90% odd. is yours one with adjustable Gate?

5lab – Member

Insurance companies will generally be happy to let you drop one speed rating when using winter tyres, because manufacturers’ guidance usually says it’s fine, though of course you should probably check with them first. Not part of the MOT as I understand. If they’re the same price just get the same as what’s already on.

according to which manufacturer is it fine (tyre? car?)? have you got any links to back that up?

the rating for my xc90 is one lower for winter tyres but i would have to scan the handbook to show you.

I have been using some 2bliss the captian tyres for a few years now on UST wheels with no problems. I use them all year round and find them a good all round tyre. No they are not the fastest or the gripest but work well in all conditons. So far i have tryed them here on hte southdowns, in south wales, in the peaks, in scotland and in the south of france.

Women and men compete both together (ie mixed crews) and against each other in Ocean yacht racing.

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston for his extrodanry feat.

IanMunro – Member

my 205 gti wouldn’t have had any engine braking due to my foot being on the clutch liek the teach in the driver test.

!?

As part of the emergency stop you have to press the clutch in and not stall the car by just jumping on the brakes as it shows a lack of control or sum such thing and doing this in the 205 which had a tick over of 850 rpm and the fuel would only cut in at 1000rpm it had the habit of stalling its self.

I thought the same thing when I first heard it. I wrote the editor of the GM Diesel page and this is what he wrote back:

A gas engine has more engine braking than a comparable displacement diesel because at low throttle levels a gas engine is working against a closed throttle plate. A diesel has a wide open intake manifold without a throttle plate.

Think of a diesel piston and cylinder like an air cylinder. If you press the piston up to near TDC with the valves closed, it takes a lot of pressure, right? But guess what, after rotating beyond TDC all that compressed air now pushes down on the piston to accelerate it to BDC.

A gas engine will generate about 25″ of vacuum with the throttle closed, so when the piston comes up to TDC, very little pressure is there to push the piston on the down stroke. Then, when it wants to pull in a fresh charge, the engine has to pull against the vacuum. All this consumes energy and creates what is termed “compression braking”.

Of course, a diesel does produce some compression braking due to mechanical losses and heat generation, but a similar displacement gas engine will always generate more “compression” braking.

taken from here

You really don’t get how a compressor works do you? have you ever seen one when it is off load? they turn really easily. An engine when open to the atmosphire and driven from the crank shaft squezzes the air which is then free to return to the volume it was before before its pussed out into the atmosphere. On a car you have friction and an amount of restriction from an exhust but this is the same regradless of fuel source. A compressor sucks air and the compresses this into either a system or reciver just like pumping air into a tyre. the air has no where to go and this makes it hard the higher the pressure.
my 205 gti wouldn’t have had any engine braking due to my foot being on the clutch liek the teach in the driver test.
Also how come its fine for you to compare landys with different egines but not for any one else?

What’s your focus got to do with it? Comparing like for like, 2.5 diesel (turbo or otherwise, doesn’t seem to matter) vs 2.5 petrol in a vehicle of the same weight, with the same gear ratio with the same flippin engine block, the diesel has WAY more engine braking. Real life bud, sorry.

Ok how about a 1.9 diesel manual and a 2.0 petrol manual. I know which on produces engine braking also all morden cars controlled by the ecu cut fuel on a closed throttle above a set rev level. He’ll my 1986 205 gti used to do this and if you did an emergency stop the engine cut out.

molgrips – Member
I think Ford are the worst. The different manufacturers use different regeneration strategies. I think it’s Ford where you have to refill the additive to keep it working, and apparently plenty of people don’t even know this and ignore it. VAG and I think PSA don’t use an additive.

supertacky – Member
Yeah your right Molgrips Renault, Ford, Volvo, Mazda all have DPF additive tanks which inject a catalyst into the diesel tank each time you fill up. Good for about 250 shots IIRC. Once empty the DPF in the exhaust struggles because its not close enough to the engine to heat up quickly.

Ford engines were developed with PSA who developed the system for pasanger car use in the first place so yes they do use the addative. Renault dont use addative but they do inject extra fuel. The only volvo engine that use the addative are the ones they got from ford the D5 and its new derivatives do not.
The addative coats the particules and cause them to have a burn at a lower tempurature. The car needs to be run at motorway (engine) type speeds for around 20 mins for the DPF to burn off the soot. There were a lot of cars that were (and proberly still being) miss sold to people as the sales men didn’t understand the requirments of the dpf and the fact that they will not work and quickly clog if the car does a lot of short/startstop journeys.

You have to brake in my car but then its an auto plus its also a diesel and they have next to no engine braking when lifting off as they don’t generate a vaccum on the intake like a petrol engine. This is why you will catch up with a petrol car who has lifted off even though your are not pressing a pedal.
Smooth is the key and that includes braking and its not like pads don’t last a long time in cars.

Most people have a problem with HID lights blinding them but its only the projector style ones that have the cut off that they complain about there are ones out there that use a normal style of reflector (modified for the light source) and these don’t tend to blind as much.
There does seem to be a lot of cars with very poorly adjusted lights around these days.

I have no problem with filtering. I do it on my road bike and i know the bikers here at work do it but they do it at a not much faster than the traffics going speed and like me look out for cars that might just change lane. The problem is with this.

The biker could well have been filtering too fast

and they do suddenly come out of no where. I have been sitting in traffic looking in my mirrors and only saw the biker as he cut accross from lane 3 to 1. If in this instance i had been waiting to move then how long would you wait with nothing in your mirrors before moving. Bikers have to take reponsability for there lives as well as just bleating on about it being legal.

I some times use the lifts at work but then only towards the end of the day and depends on how many times i have been up the 6 or 7 storeies. You do see plenty of people get in them to go up one floor often waiting for long periods to get in. Ok it is a hospital but its the staff i will let visitors and patients off.
What really gets me is West Quay shopping centre where the lifts are full of people and block you from taking the buggy in whilst the escilator right next to the lift is empty and you get told off for taking the buggy on the eslcilator (mind you i also got frowned at for bumping it down the stairs my duaghter found it very funny).

TandemJeremy – Member
Owenfackrell – so no cars break that speed limit – only bikes? I watch the cars I see as I ride around the city and its a very small minority of car drivers that obey traffic law

The vast majority of cars stick to the 40mph speed limit i have yet to see a bike do so. This road is not in the city it is a bypass around a few villages except due to this new limit put in place to protect the bikers its not any quicker than going through them.

oh and i will pull over for bikers if a, iv have seen them and b, there is room for me to do so. Its just a shame that only 1 in 4 will thank you for doing so.
i also dislike it when they buzz me on my bike they don’t need to get that close to me.

TandemJeremy – Member
Bigyinn – Same reason as car drivers fail to obey traffic law?

Ok then TJ answer me this. there is a by pass by us where motorbikers have been killed by cars pulling out infornt of them after not seeing them. The families of said bikers campained and won to get the limit lowered to 40 and all the laybys removed. The only people who go faster the 40 down this road are the bikers and not bu just a little bit. They are still going to get killed by cars pulling out as they wont expect them to be doing 70-80 plus down there (i know some bikers who openly admit to these sort of speeds).

I use a little bit of silicon grease on mine both inside and out and it stops them steaming up and helps the water to bead off.

I have recently swapped to these and found them to be good in both the dry and wet and provide plenty of power from the hoods. They are much better than what was on there and i only have tektro dual pivots.

I have one of smudges lights but have put tape accross the top part of the lense. This stops any light spill from the top of th elight but leaves the spot in place. You can see the cut off line up against walls etc and its also noticable when riding under trees etc. I certainly get seen with it and its more than bright enough to see pot holes and metal drain covers when riding.

I wear lycra and in winter i put baggies over th etop mind you they aren’t really baggy and more like tight cargo trousers. They keep the worst of the mud of my tights and also keep the wind off to hlp with warmth. In summer i only wear lycra shorts as i find them more comfortable and there is less to catch. As for the argument that the lycra will rip whan you crash and allow you to be damaged the one time i wore baggy shorts and crash they just slide up allowing my legs to get really cut up.
I wear only lycra on my road comuute.

Looked in to one of these in the past and only the front end is the same as the truckasthe pathfinder has independent rear sus rather the the live axel and leaf springs of the truck.

aracer – Member

little miss tts was 6 two weeks ago she took a box of sweeties for her class mates to share.. the teacher would not accept them as the school has a clear policy on food consumed on premises ( no sweets soft drinks crisps)

Well what did you expect exactly?

The same as they do at most schools. Which is to hand them out as the kids leave for the day and that way they are eating them off school grounds.

thisisnotaspoon – Member
would wait until you can trust him to do what you say when you say it.
My parents seemed to think the oposite, when I started telling them they were doing it all wrong they got me my own boat :p

And that’s when I will be kick my kids off of mine. :-)

Smart trousers, light blue cotton shirt (and polo neck ones for the summer) with our company logo on the breast pocket.

Many clients (including those been around the longest) said it was a substantial improvement, and made the company appear much bigger (read: successful) than it was….

I would echo this. A smart apperance and company name on the tops gives a good impression but don’t think you need a company logo on the side of the van espcially if you mainly get jobs through word of mouth.

supersessions9-2 – Member
Having been brought up sailing (for fun, and a small amount of racing) I want to get my little lad into it. He’s currently only 18mths old so a bit early yet but thinking of getting a national 12 or similar and joining a club for some club racing with him as crew and then helm as/if he enjoys it.

I was thinking about starting when he’s around 4 years old? (iirc I was sailing singlehanded at around 6 or 7, crewing at 4.)

Think that’s still a bit young?

There’s loads of other stuff we want to introduce him to – climbing, horse riding, mtn biking, wilderness canoe trips, etc But I think sailing is great as you do it together and sort of at the same level (resists urge to put “in the same boat”). When we go climbing, he’ll be doing all the climbing and i’ll be doing all the belaying…. which is fine of course, but it’s good to participate together.

I have taken both of my girls out with me on the dart (4 and 8) at the same time as its easy to keep flat and is nice and stable for them to move around on plus you can sail it on your own if you want to.
Unless you are going on a yacht or the like i would wait until you can trust him to do what you say when you say it.

You need to find out if he wants to sail or race or is he only going down te raceroute as that what’ve thinks is expected of him?
As some one who has sailed from a young age I can say i was never interested in racing as I like to sill where I want and if I’m having fun on a particular point of sail then that’s where I want to stay. I was a member of the local sea scouts who had various different boats to go out and play in and you could race against your mates if you wanted to with out having to do the whole rigmarole of proper racing. I still don’t see the appeal of it I have fun sailing my dart including going exploring on her plus it means I’m not so worryed about having the latest bit of kit.

This would bring us clsoer to the rest of europe. I think we would be better off with varable limits (stricktly enforced as it seems people can’t do that for them selves) upto 80mph and this would vary depending on the road conditions (traffic, rain, ice etc)
On short journeys it doesn’t make a lot of difference but if you are doing more like 600 miles plus then it can make a difference to be allowed to go a bit faster. The lorries in france, germany etc are restricted to the same speed 80kph/56mph and there arn’t any more accidents becuase the cars can do 130kph/80(ish)mph. We need better lane disapline over hear and to get away from the slow lane is for lorries mentality. Its called the nearside or inside lane and is ment for everyone. they currently use signs to remind people to pull in and its about time they started to prosicute them for it as it is a driving offense.

oh and fi the fap filters are why the paris dakar trucks no longer smoke when they are racing.

The modern ones shouldn’t do it if they have a fap (or particulate filter) as this is ment to trap the particules but its basically unburnt fuel. I can just about get my auto diesel to do it by giving it a real boot full but its only mild compared to others. Most manual diesel will do it noticable when floored or as above if they have ablocked air filter or spilt turbo pipe and the air/fuel mixture is rich.

Not in the car but i have almost hit a couple on my bike when riding in the dark and they haven’t had lights on or any kind of reflectors. The worst had to be a runner who just ran out of the hedge in front of me whilst listening to his MP3, this was also in the dark.
I have had a few close ones with cars of which a couple have been my fault but an appology seems to work every time including when given to me by a lorry driver.

Calling them names doesn’t tell them they’ve done wrong, you could just shout “you cut me up, that’s terrible driving”, but I’ll bet people don’t

Mine thend to be more sarcastic than that, such as: “don’t mind me i will magically get out of your way” or i just shake my head. I try not to let any incident wind me up and it only happens in the mile or so arounfd work rather than anywhere in the other 14.

I chose to as i want to and like doing it so my car just sits on the drive at home though there are days that i listen to the wind and chose the car.

any suggestions for the New Forest area for scrap metal also what is the best thing to do with a enmalled bath?

stumpy01 – Member
How about a light from smudge, who frequents this site & does batteries, lights etc….?

http://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk/4.html

I have just got one of these and it is very well made and bright and smudges service couldn’t be better.

We have one of these[/url] and it is very good. We live in hampshire with hard water and both my wife and daughter have eczema and find that soft water helps as you use less soap in every thing and its knder to the skin. the blocks last a good while though i couldn’t give a week period. they aren’t that expesive to buy as you can buy in bulk and store them easily enough. The softner is not cheap to get in the first place but it doesn’t use electricity. As i said we got it for the eczema problem but it has other benifits like no scum on the tea. and i have not had to descale anything since we got it and it actually helps remove scale build up.
We also use water sofning plant here at the hospital so that we don’t have scale build up which backs up the claims of it being cheaper in the salt than the costs of scale build up.