If I ride a trail centre it costs me money so I assume the trail building is paid for from that.
If I ride a bridleway (90% of my riding) I don’t want artificial crap on it anyway.

+1

If I found any “sweet booter” on a public right of way, then sorry guys, I’m gonna probably make sure it’s destroyed. We have to share them with all the other legitimate users and I don’t want to get a bad reputation just because you don’t have the skill to get air off natural obstacles. If you can’t cope with the trails being natural then keep to your trail centres.

I’ve been riding MTB for 25 years and never once built or maintained a trail. I just ride what’s there. Why on earth would you need to? It’s not BMX.

I can’t beleive they’ve added cheese to their PERFECT steak recipe. It’ll be full of hippies and trendy hipster types soon, wanting feta and rocket on too.

Don’t encourage them Binners. Stick with the true Greggs taste, you owe it to yourself.

I got an Evans bike once that was reduced – nice because I could order it to the store and they set it up ready to go (wasn’t perfect but saved a job). They do some decent deals on there.

Also got a Spesh from Edinburgh Bike Co once, great deal on a bike which wasn’t reduced often.

JE James sometimes has some deals too – I’ve had good service from them but some haven’t.

Thanks for all the help so far, I’ve learnt more on this thread than in the last 6 months banging my head against a brick wall….

Good news!

I’ve just checked Kirklees College website and a new Photoshop course is starting next week for £95 for 10 weeks. We kept missing it – hopefully enough people enrol so they actually run it……

Learn the software needed for the job. Before shelling out on a new mac /PC anyone close who can give you a bit of tuition?

I have looked into this. We don’t know anyone who has the time to tutor her – I know 2 people who are amazing with the software she needs to use but don’t have the time to tutor someone else.

So I looked into courses. There seems to be 2 different kinds – first ones are corporate ones which cost many hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds for a couple of days or maybe up to a week. The other sort are local Uni/Tech courses but there isn’t any round us, the closest IIRC was Bradford but that started in September I think and next one I assume will be Sept 2015. They looked quite useful and weren’t expensive too.

There are free courses if you are unemployed, which may be a good start, but she isn’t unemployed.

If anyone knows of any other ideas in the West Yorks area I will look into them!

And for a Mac capable of doing high end design work, with software, you’re looking at a minimum of 4k

Gulp. 🙁

If you can’t clear that amount of money you really need to get a new trade. It’s professional software and not aimed at home/casual users.

But if you can’t afford the kit then you can’t make the money in the first place to buy it……

It’s a lot of money to outlay when you don’t know if you’ll be able to make a go of the business and you work part-time in a shop.

Cheapest iMac with 27″ display is £1500…. 🙁

Email sent to binners/gofasterstripes – thanks.

It’s not an attitude that she won’t use the tech, it’s just learning how to is very difficult, especially when you are not computer savvy at all. I personally can’t get to grips with PS and I have been quite techy in my past.

The cost of the equipment and software is a huge stumbling block – buying a 27″ iMac and/or a MacBook Pro is simply not affordable for us – took me a while to save up for the tablet from my wages/selling bike stuff.

I was considering buying a new PC if it helps. As we are going towards having all Apple devices (and this would help my wife as they work together so well and I don’t have the crashes and problems with PC stuff I was thinking about getting a Mac Mini. One should go on her design desk unobtrusively with a wall mounted monitor and wireless keyboard but I am concerned they aren’t very powerful. Better than our 4yo laptop though….

The PS I have on the laptop was downloaded for free from Adobe, it was a link posted up on here a while back.

Just to put a spanner, somewhat, in the works, the other issue with CC is if you aren’t subscribed, you can no-longer open your own work!

YOWSERS – that’s not good is it?

We live in Huddersfield BTW.

Dobble – my wife is a total ninja at that, completely unbeatable. I sit and stare at my first card and she’s got rid of her whole pack. I have no idea how she does it. She’s the same with Mastermind – her record is 2 guesses to beat me!!

We got Labyrinth for Christmas and it’s ace – seems over simple until you start playing it. Fantastic.

Bananagrams – great game!

I really want to play Settlers of Catan but don’t have anyone to play with.

Quirkle – kinda like scrabble with shapes and colours. Great game.

Ones for people to try:
Hey that’s my fish! Seems a bit pricy for what you get but an ace simple game.
Hare and Tortoise – ask Peterpoddy how great this is! Can’t really explain it easily, fairly easy to pick up and it has the great advantage of laying people low who think they’ll be great at it and come unstuck near the end!!

My wife has no interest in doing the actual artwork on the computer, she would rather go and do another job than that – is there no use for painting/drawing stuff traditionally and then scanning/manipulating afterwards? That’s what I was hoping she could do.

When you have been away from a field for so long it seems impossible to find out anything about what you should be doing. It’s very disheartening.

It is also a problem that we can’t really afford to buy Photoshop and Illustrator either. I have an old copy of Photoshop that was downloaded for free from Adobe but my computer struggles to run it – old laptop.

I have looked at that CC thing (I have no idea about cloud stuff to be honest so don’t know if that is useful or helpful) and it’s still £47 a month to get both applications which we can’t really afford.

Thanks for the tips.

She has no knowledge of Illustrator and Photoshop. She was supposed to be taught them while at Uni (late 90’s) in her surface pattern degree but never was. She finds learning PC stuff incredibly difficult and struggles big time – even online tutorials she struggles with. She needs a classroom course but they are few and far between unfortunately.

The iPad is to show the work she has done but I thought if she could get to grips with a selection of apps on that then it might help to transfer to PC if she eventually uses one.

She paints in acrylic, fine art stuff. She gets lots of “wows” everytime she shows her work to people (including design professionals) but is 15 years behind the industry as far as using the technology is concerned. She has already sold some work with the help of another freelancer but is finding it difficult to get started in the business.

I bought a HP wireless printer/scanner thingy, I just use non-branded cartridges (you get a warning when you use them but that’s it). It was only £70 but the photo printing has been remarkable on photo paper and it works brilliantly. No reason to spend more for most householders I reckon.

Let’s face it the men’s and ladies RWC aren’t of the same standard are they ?

They both won their respective World Cup. Same standard.

Would you say the disabled runners in the paralympics aren’t the same standard as the able bodied ones in the Olympics? I wouldn’t.

I would have thought it would be very very sensible to remove the presenters of TG as quickly as possible from the situation as they would be the recognisable targets of the attackers. I am sure that if the threat had been even greater when they had to make the decision who was to get on the plane (not in hindsight) then all the crew would have been flown out and kit left behind they couldn’t take on the flight. As it was the situation looked like it ended up getting worse than they expected (the dangerous blockade was near the border crossing they were heading for) but thankfully they managed to escape another way without serious injury.

How can you possibly say Lewis Hamilton has had an “inexplicably successful career”??? One of the most talented racing drivers to appear in recent years, feared by his rivals as his driving ability is so good? If the rest of a sport says someone is good (as his rivals do) then I don’t think there is any doubt as to why he’s famous….

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/reviews/road-bikes/genesis-%E2%80%A8-equilibrium-20-road-bike suggests 25c and guards

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12780959&p=18698503 comments suggest 32c with guards will be ok but tight.

Depends on the profile of the tyre sometimes, some are taller than others, some a touch wider/narrower in practice than the stated size. Sometimes the rim width can alter the shape of the tyre too.

@robdob,those Park Magnetic Bowls, fantastic,keep little parts from “disappearing”!

I’ve bought them for other people but not for myself. Hopefully it will be as useful as you say!

I would be concerned that the lower mileage one will have been used round town a lot having done so few miles. Won’t be good for a modern diesel engine. Also, have they had it serviced regularly? Some people ignore the time aspect when they see “every 10,000 miles or 12 months”.

48k isn’t many many miles over 2.5 years. If it’s in fab condition that’s the one I’d be favouring, unless the older model has a different engine or anything else major that might be better than the newer model.

Is it from a dealers?

Nice one.

If you buy something with paypal, as long as you communicate well, stay polite and reasonable, Paypal seem to be reasonable too.

Some of the strange seat post sizes used by Marin, Fat Chance, etc bitd?
All still available somewhere, might only have choice of one or two manufacturers but still around.

The BBB 400mm seatpost can be found in pretty much any size at less than £20, works brilliantly and can be made to look like a Syncros one very easily (which is what I did on my Rocky Mountain which was a 30.4mm size). Or you can use a USE seatpost with a shim.

No they don’t. Shimano has never made an ISIS crank.

Sorry I meant Octalink…… similar but less crap I suppose..

Here’s a question – can you link one to an iPad to edit videos on something like iMovie?

CRC sell ISIS Shimano cranks, a few lower end cranksets still have it. Many low/mid range bikes (<£1K) have ISIS cranks, including the 2015 bike I am planning on buying.

If grease guard was fitted as standard to all Shimano hubs then I don’t think sealed bearings would ever have caught on…….

As a regular on RetroBike, I can say that the only things which prove difficult to find parts for (not including weird stuff like Bullseye cranks and Pace RC100 parts which were never universal standards) are:

1″ MTB forks – especially suspension, stems are slightly easier to find second hand and headsets pretty easy to get.
straight pull spoke systems – like Pulstar – those hubs don’t sell for much as you can struggle to build them up with few spoke around available.
1.25″ headset stuff – which was before it’s time really.
Suntour Microdrive – again before it’s time and mainly because no other cassettes fit the hubs IIRC.
Elastomer forks – you can get the elastomers new still but theres only one place in the US you can order them online I think, PACE stuff is available in the UK but very limited – possibly not really a standard though.

The only thing out of the above which is really a problem is the 1″ forks, that really can hold back a sale if the frameset you are selling has it, as it can be a bit limiting.

Any Shimano drivetrain part is pretty easy to get hold of, seatposts no problem, bars no problem (although there are less decent 25.4 flat bars around nowadays), rims and tyres no issues, BB’s/hubs no problems most of the time unless you have something really weird.

AGU stuff IME has seemed to be very good quality but maybe a little behind the times as far as tech goes. Not necessarily a bad thing though.

If you are wanting to buy but don’t need the schools you need to find the sweet spots that are nice but aren’t in a decent school catchment. You can get some good bargains on houses that way.

Staying in a hotel in the area would be good. Start taking to people in the area, get a few opinions from a variety of folk.

Not all information is on the Internet!!

Ask on here. There’s bound to be someone who lives in the area who can give you some pointers.

It’s the only pub I go to in Hudds, couple of friends have played in there on music night.

I’ve asked for the IMEI number too. Politely. 😀

Loads of Park stuff I wanted, plus cool books and the Face to Face CD I wanted. Mrs Peterpoddy made a fab christmas meal after a walk round Surrey hills guided by Peterpoddy. BONZER!

Major mistake there. The “no buying presents” thing means anything but!!!

As a conclusion to all this, got here safe and sound. Barely any traffic compared to usual on M1 in Yorkshire, reduced down to very little/almost none closer I got to London. m25 barely any cars on it at 10pm, even less on the M3. Never had to reduce my speed from the posted limits!

And it was dry too, always makes it easier.