We had a Mk2, as has been said they are vulnerable to rust so check the sills carefully.
Wheels can also look tatty, mechanics and trim are pretty strong.
When ours failed its MOT we were offered a part exchange on it by the specialist who did the test (Paul Roddison in Sheffield http://www.google.co.uk/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUK244&q=paul+roddison+mx5&aq=1v&aqi=g1g-v1&aql=&oq=Paul+Roddison) which got us into a Mk3 at a very reasonable price. If you’re thinking we got conned into spending money – no, Paul knows his stuff and I saw the holes in the sills, our timing was lucky in that he had a couple of cars I believe he was fairly keen to get out of his stock for us to chose from.
At your budget you are not far away from Mk3 territory, and for us (not everyone’s taste I know) it is a better car – a bit more power, better equipment, hood is even easier to throw up and down, just generally easier to live with day to day etc etc.

Feel free to email me if you want more info’, there is an owners club forum, plus MX5nutz forum and loads of specialists.

Good question, you could say we are talking here 10mm (5mm on the radius of a circle -> 10mm on the diameter).

Does it make a difference? I think so, it’s akin to seat height, I stopped my ride today for the sake of tweaking seatpost by 5mm or so – and it felt so much better.

So yes it’s significant to me, if someone else says bollox you’re kidding yourself – that’s fine.

FWIW I use 175mm geared, 180mm SS.
I like the extra little bit of leverage from the longer crank for SS.

As far as spinning circles goes, I can see the argument for a shorter crank, maybe more so for shorter legs.

Plenty of £1000 car ideas here…

Just had an engineers report done as part of an uninsured loss claim, report was commissioned by the law firm acting for me, the invoice value for the report was £115.00 or thereabouts including travel.

I looked at these a few months back when we were selling my wife's car.
Apparently they are the other half of Carcraft, they gave a low quote to buy the car which we never took up, but seems their trick is to get you to the store and then reduce the offer based on whatever stone chips etc they can find.
Avoid.

Assuming you are using a print type pdf converter (Bullzip or similar) then select all sheets (right click on the sheet tabs at the bottom and Select All) then print (you can see on a preview that this will let you print all the sheets as one document).
Be very careful when editing with all sheets selected (or to put it another way – seriously not recommended) as any edit you do in a cell in one sheet will be repeated on all sheets. Which can be useful, or seriously mess your workbook up…
Best suggestion is to revert to a single selected sheet once you've finished the print.

Bought my son one for his 18th, it is very very nice, would not splash that sort of money for myself and would question VFM but I don't think many people who have bought these have been disappointed.

Speak to Maxxrack, I think they do have options for hitches without the 2 bolts.

Bothered me for a while but thinking it through it's not a problem if you intend to pay up at the end.
People feeding kids while shopping? If the above applies then it's their kids, none of my business..

If the council knew about the problem ( ie already reported) then your claim is good, if not you will not collect..so don't run up any crazy bills – in any case you will only get your reasonable costs, ie if the tyres need replacing then you won't get fully reimbursed unless the original tyres were brand new and so on.

Cracking ad

Looks better but a proper set will have three taps/size (starting, second and plug).

Which you don't necessarily need for cleaning out a thread, especially in aluminium, but a poor quality tap may do more harm than good.

To be sure of getting the right quality you would have to go with a 'name', dormer or similar and you will pay much more for their quality.

TBH I would not make a £1000 frame a starting point to teach myself how to tap a thread, though most mistakes are recoverable at a price…

To get a proper tap set you need to spend more (a lot more).
The best these will do is clean out a damaged thread – which is sometimes all you need.
But even then you could do more harm than good.
Screwfix might be worth a look, the quality will be the same but at least you can see what you're buying (assuming you have a local branch).

Most bike threads are metric, but there are some odd ones like pedal thread, BB thread.
Mech hanger thread is also odd, I think M10 fine (most threads are Metric coarse).

Just replace the bulb….

Sounds amazing that they would make a de facto admission of repsonsibility like this but I'd say very good news…don't pay for anything in advance or as a minimum get your insurer's written agreement to reimburse you for whatever car you need.

If you're asking the question…get someone in

Good issue IMO

On the way down the M1 with a car full on the way to our hols, pulled out to lane 3 to get past someone going even slower than me (I guess I was doing about 70 indicated speed).
Merc coupe comes up behind ultra ultra close and stays there while we went past the slower traffic.
As I pulled in felt obliged to offer a finger in return for the nice road manners – and got the same back from the old dear in the passenger seat!

We fell about the car for the next 5 mins after that one.

You could try setting your cut off pressure a little lower to stop the motor having to work against the highest receiver pressure – normally the problems are from the high start current so fuses tend to trip on startup.

3hp is perhaps on the top end of what domestic wiring will cope with (though I think you have wired direct to your fuseboard?)

Is the reset on the compressor tripping or is the breaker at the fuseboard tripping?

Had them on my bike for a long time – no problems yet with this.
Probably easy to overtighten if any thing.

Well at least he's talking to you.

Quick look on ebay says around £300 for an engine, perhaps he has contacts for a cheaper deal.

Maybe there's also some sort of residual value in the old engine.

So the cost to him to replace the engine is not that great over and above the £200 he's already offered, I'd push for (at least) that with a written guarantee.

Otherwise he buys the car from you at the pre damage value?

ernie – I did not state the tautological opinion 'this tragic death of a young man as "no great loss".', I think someone else did.

If I am honest, to me personally he is no great loss but I am sure he is to those close to him.

I don't expect to change your opinions and unless you justify your arguements rather than indulging in selective and inaccurate quotation and forum grandstanding you won't be changing mine so…

Buenas noches – that is all.

Ernie – with (some) respect how old are you?
Offhand about 12.
Having a law will not protect a child from the fact in this case the young Gary was failed by his parents/carers.
Perhaps he could also have been better served by the authorities but do you expect the authorities/state to be responsible for everything?
Maybe you're right and there should be a law against dangerous sports…for our own protection.
You stated earlier that you had seen lives destroyed by alchohol, given your views why didn't you call the police – or better still extend some help of your own. If you did perhaps you will have seen that not everyone can be helped.

society as a whole – cannot afford to cure every person of every ailment.

LOL – if it is just a question of money, of course we can !

In this case we are not just talking money but resources, in this case the availability or otherwise of a liver – but either way there is not a bottomless pit of resources either in money or spare organs, sometimes a decision has to be made take from Peter to save Paul.

So in short sorry but GrowTFU!

And if you're moved to reply – kindly keep the gratuitous insults to yourself.

Spec has moved on a little since these pics but this is my go to bike – love it

edit piccy links never work for me…
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rickaking/UlleyFlood#5081556188285132386

Ridden with one of these
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h__1_10?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=sony+pocket+radio&sprefix=sony+pocke&sprefix=sony+pocke

for years, great battery life and holds a signal pretty well – but medium wave not long wave so you won’t get test match special – have to settle for radio 5…

Thanks podge – intriguing.
I ride an XL Santa Cruz Superlight, 20″ hardtail and got on well with my brother’s 20″ Inbred and 456.
I also liked his 29er Scandal – not sure of the size so maybe simplest just to check that.

Ta
Rick

So thepodge….at 6’2″ x 34″ IL would I be best with a 21″ 29 er frame?
I’m happy to wait for the right frame.

And is there a clue in your profile to the ID of the new onone designer?

Cheers
Rick

Low mass at the tyre rim = lower energy required to get the wheels spun up to speed hence you get a secondary advantage above and beyond the initial weight saving.

Semi pro?
If you were wondering about the difference see this link[/url]
Apologies for the re post, but well worth a look if you haven’t seen it – stick with it to the end.

Second Cat C as a starter.
I got dragged into doing Cat C for the first time a few years back when my neighbour’s partner had to drop out.
I am reasonably fit but I cannot run far at the best of times (and I’d smashed my knee pretty badly that year) but found it OK to get through a Cat C provided you are accurate or at least conservative with map reading and keep moving at a fast walk throughout.
Riders
– Remember you are carrying all your overnight gear which will slow you down, ideally should be lightweight gear of the best quality you can reasonably afford
– If your partner is experienced you run the risk of being seeded with a later start time, but the overnight cut off time for disqualification is the same no matter how early or late you start.

Summary – from what you say you will be fine – give it a go.

mtbmatt – congratulations on the win and engagement from a fellow soloist.
26 laps is mind boggling – on my results so far I will need 3 events before I catch up with your lap count from this year – or looked at another way add my laps from this year to my brother’s (also soloing) and you’re still ahead.

And to rub it in you never used the granny ring??

My hat is off to you.

Still thinking about the course:

Plus side
New layout with new start position, nice to have this refreshed, plus I love a downhill finish which the old position didn’t allow. Better still would be to centralise it to avoid isolating the furthest campers??

Neutral
Steep mud slide downhill, I took an endo’ on my second lap and put it down to incompetence, minced it for the rest of the w/e, but apparently there were a lot more offs and a broken ankle hence the reroute

Easy vs hard downhill, I did the hard a couple of times just slowly down gripping the brakes and being honest close to the edge of my comfort zone – but not too bad provided I could go at my own pace. Happy to take the mincers route for my other laps though.

Negatives
Climb/woods section in the first leg seems to be getting a little repetitive – but a few alternative route choices helped.
With rain the woods riding in the second half would have been an absolute pain, off camber bits especially – nothing new there but I had heard this might be addressed this year and I thought the off camber section was going to ditched

Anyway on balance another good one, my solo mojo is about gone but would maybe go back for some team events.

Well done Pat and the team

Steps into the unknown…my home made disc mount….

or link here http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rickaking/MTBSingleSpeed#5159418383570319634 if the piccy doesn’t show.

V impressed with my Samsung NC10, thrown in the rucksack and biked to work every day.
Performance fine for the cash, plenty of storage, brilliant battery life, built in camera – but I think it’s now out of production so might have to search for one.

A great weekend, could not fault any of it.
Course was techically harder than I expected, can anyone tell me how does it compare with previous ones?
Not complaining BTW, I enjoyed the laps, just interested whether that is the normal level.

Anyway well done to everyone, most specially well done to the organisers an absolutely brilliant job.

Used some Sainsbury’s upholstery cleaner yesterday on some very black stains on my boot carpet – cam up well so maybe worth a go.

Drove around in a 2.0 litre phase 1 now and again.
Echo dull drive, poor consumption.
And not a lot of space.
But well screwed together – would consider if you found a really good one with good history at a nice price.

We have a slate floor laid on to concrete – yes it is cold underfoot (but not ridiculously), it is very practical for the kitchen and we are very pleased with how it looks, so for us the pros outweigh the cons.

A628 Woodhead was fine this afternoon but it is snowing in Sheffield at the moment so no guarantees, safest option probably just to take the M1/M62 all the way across.