Brilliant, thanks OP. That’s cheered me up on my morning coffee break. :-)

To be fair, some better road markings might be useful there, but still, that is a worrying level of inattentiveness.

Don’t waste your money. A replacement back is less than a tenner and takes roughly 2 minutes to fit, 1:30 of which is looking for your screwdriver.
Undo screws, slide off back, slide new back on, tighten screws. Done.

Intersting, thanks. Might have a look at that later…

helios i understand your disappointment, maybe try someone like this though for a reasonably priced repair.

http://iphone-surgery.co.uk/collections/iphone-4s-repairs

Frankers, have you used them? I smashed the back glass on my 4S about 6 months ago and I might be tempted to finally replace it for the bargain price of £25!

When i bought it on 2 year contract, I paid something like £150ish – so not that far off the £140 they’re asking for…

Yes, but you’re actually paying for it through your monthly charges no doubt.

HOW MUCH? THAT@S LIKE ASKING ME TO BUY THE **** IPHONE AGAIN. ****!¬!

Nope, list price for a 4S seems to be £449 at the moment, so it’s a lot cheaper than a replacement. You could also try a friendly local iPhone repair shop who will no doubt do it for less. Maybe calm down and resume breathing before you call them though.

I run 1×10 with 41t x 11-32 for my CX bike which is used for commuting and also muddy Scottish races.

Gearing works well for me, although if anything, I’ll probably go to 40t when I need a new chainring. 42t would be fine for most courses, even some of the muddy climbs we have in local CX races.

Do you need a 50t too? Unless you are riding in a chaingang and have road slicks on, I think you would find a 42×11 sufficient for winter road riding.

There is a rider in the Scottish CX series who is consistently top 10 (normally top 5) on a Genesis Day One.

I have been at many muddy races where I have wished I had a SS CX bike. For muddy courses you will want a low gear though, as I find it is better to spin in a low gear than mash through mud in a high gear.

I’ve previously raced SS CX on 26er Inbred and wasn’t massively slower than I am now on a proper cross bike – just a few places back. I guess it depends on what your local CX courses are like though.

Overall I reckon you might be a place or two down in each race, but far more likely to actually finish a race without issues.

Kinesis? XC3, XC130 or something like that?

You could buy frame only and build up to your spec with bits off here.

Who are the three bicycle manufacturers left in the UK?

Would brands like Shand not have something to say about that? I’m sure there are lots of other small manufacturers too.

All fair points. Some of the correspondence I’ve had from 2pure when returning my pedals to me in the past has been a bit snippy, hence my reluctance if there is an easy home “maintenance” fix. Presumably not then.

Time point noted, but I do like my Crank Bros when they work, and to be fair, I do put a fair few miles on my pedals.

PS- what kind of tracks? Possible DRM issues?

Tried syncing over USB? I put a new album onto iTunes and synced the phone recently. Tracks were there but greyed out and couldn’t be played. Original sync mustn’t have finished or something. Not sure of fix but worked after syncing over USB.

Kinesis CSix2 or Ibis Hakkalugi?

Edited: I had originally suggested the Kinesis Evo5, which is mostly alu with carbon seatstays only.

Cracking fit

Is cracking what you want in a helmet? :?

Yup, bin it and get an HTII setup.

I had play in my GXP crank arms after a while on my CX bike, and the bolt was silly tight. I fancied slightly shorter cranks anyway so used the opportunity to move to a new shimano setup which in my experience works just fine. I tend to get far longer out of my HTII BBs than I got out of that GXP one.

Edit:- it might seem like a pricier option, but no reason to go to your LBS with HTII I reckon. Just change the BB (or bearings) when it eventually wears out – easily done yourself with the right tool.

I’ve been impressed with the Yorkshire Building Society in a professional and personal capacity in the last year.

What are Currie/Balerno like?

Both very pleasant in the right streets, and you can should be able to get 2 bed cottages for your budget just outside both. We looked at a 3 bed cottage last year for your budget although decided not to go for it, as it had other issues. Bus service from there is excellent and a good distance for cycle commuting too.

Currie / Balerno / Juniper Green / Colinton / Bonaly all worth a look for “village feel” (all used to be separate villages before being swept up by the expanding city), although the majority of houses in those would not be described as “in the country”.

Are you logged in as that user or an admin? Check the folder permissions – perhaps you have read but not write permissions for that user folder?

Brewdog bar at Kelvingrove? Good beers and also had good tunes when I was last there.

Thanks for the PSA. CD for £3 instead of £8, and then new bar plugs for free (I have two paypal accounts) :-)

I need to get one that simply says “Stretch, dammit”. The number of times I’ve got half way round a race and my back is sore because I forgot to do a 2 second stretch before setting off…

Great, thanks for that

DIY?

Thanks for those replies. Is that because the clamp stays on the seat post permanently, and the guard attaches to the clamp, or is the clamp itself hinged?

Sorry for the inane questions – it isn’t clear from photos and my last crud could only be fitted by removing the post.

Any options for the Zefal Swan / Crud Guard type but with a clamp which means it can be fitted without removing the seatpost?

I’m considering a rear guard too for occasional duties, but will want it off regularly for racing etc. I’ll soon tire of continually altering the seatpost height I reckon.

Chris – what you want is a Cross bike. Perfect for that commute!

+1

Cross bike is great for those railway paths etc. The vast majority of my riding has been done on the CX bike since getting it last year. Great for giving you off road options for mixing up the commute without making the road bits too much of a chore.

PS – I don’t know what way you went today, but the reverse of my Strava route from last night should give you a nice hint from canal onwards.

80% offroad so tyres will seem like less of a chore.

Weather looks fine for tomorrow.

Canal to Newbridge then off road old railway path from M9/A8 roundabout to Kirkliston, or alternatively a nice route through the Dalmeny estate to Dalmeny village.

I don’t think Lothian Buses do a service that far west.

There are rumours that it will sync between devices so you can look up directions on the PC and then they will be available on your iPhone when you actually need them – pretty cool stuff!

Should be easy to do, as you can already do that with the google maps website (i.e. you can save places which then appear on any device when you are logged in to your google account).

What I’d really like to see now is Microsoft step up to the mark and start offering Bing Maps on iOS, ideally with StreetSide (their version of Street View). That would give Google some pause for thought.

A tweet I stumbled across this morning suggest that a Bing app (possibly including OS map data since they own Streetmap now) might be in the offing).

If Maps is as cack as everyone says, I might hold off on the iOS6 upgrade until google maps app is available as an option. The rest of the iOS6 features don’t excite me too much.

Sounds like you are ahead of the game.

to be followed by some air.

It already has some air, presumably, and you just intend to top it up tomorrow?

Flip it over a few times with disco moves in between so that both sidewalls seal up. Once you’ve done that a few times it should be fine, although leaving it flat on top of a bucket overnight won’t hurt. A spin round the block should help seal up any bits which aren’t sealed by lying flat.

Wrong cable pull ratio = lack of power. That’s the difference between the BB7 road and MTB versions anyway.

+1 for the Inbred unless you want to race (it’s not light). Seemed a bit comfier than the Scandal I also used to ride and they are cheap as chips second hand.

The BFe doesn’t have a post mount rear brake so you will need to use a mount whatever rotor you use.

As above, use what suits your riding style. I’m a skinny XC mincer so I’m using a 160mm rotor as it also means my wheels are interchangeable with other bikes.

Sounds cheap to me. When you take out the VAT and various outlays, you aren’t paying a huge amount for someone’s professional time for what is presumably a fairly important transaction (compared to other things you will be doing with your money this year).

Thanks. That is a small. I’m 5ft7 and used to a XC bike with high seatpost for climbing, hence the lengthy seatpost in that photo. I’m running with a 70mm stem. It feels about right based on the first couple of rides.

Sticky cables? Clean out the cables and shifter with some GT85 or similar

Happy to oblige.

Yeah, just found the iron cross, look very nice, but I’m not too clued in on the whole tubeless thing.
As they’re arent many (any?) tubeless specific cross tyres with the special hooky bead thing, do tubeless rims offer much that non-tubeless rims offer? (apart from not needing the rim strip to seal the spoke holes)

A set of mavic rims + the rim strip still works out quite a bit cheaper than a set of tubeless rims, and I dont know what extra they offer?

I’m running Crest 29ers on my CX bike. Sealed up pretty easily with normal clinchers and a track pump. Probably not ideal for road tyres though as the Crest is maybe a bit wide if you are using skinny race tyres. Looking at the specs, the IronCross doesn’t seem that much narrower than the Crest, so if you want proper skinny road tyres, I’d be tempted to look elsewhere.

If you did just want to run a tubeless clincher setup, I’d happily recommend the Stans rims.

Pixelmix i have bought this frame for the reason u did as i liked the price & with your pic it has give me i can see what mine will look like.But i have blcak talas forks so hopefully still look nice.

Should look good with black forks I reckon. I only went for the white Fox as I found a decent deal on them. Enjoy it when you get it.