Northwind has it, more trail for a given angle and it’s the stability created by the trail that you feel.
On an only partially related note, It always surprises me that people reckon a 1 degree or even 0.5 degree steeper head angle makes a bike feel scary twitchy, I don’t know if I’m doing it right or wrong but I’d have to pay close attention to feel 1 degree difference and it certainly wouldn’t make me perceive the bike as difficult to ride.

Move the shifter further away from the grip. There’s a solid 2″ between the inner edge of my grips and the brake lever clamp. The shifter clamp sits outboard of (nearer the grip) but right up against the brake lever clamp, a good 1.25″ away from the grips. The shifter should be set so you have to stick our thumb out to use it, not a stretch but definitely out of the way of the grips. With my elbows up and a little out, if I stretch my pointer finger out (it’s pointing in towards the wheel a good bit because of the angle of my hands) it just catches the end of the brake lever.

Well that’s the biggest load of crap I’ve heard in a while. How do you even measure that for a start?

You either hop and land with all your weight on your feet, or pump your weight straight down into the pedals to compress both ends (hopefully by the same amount if your suspension set-up is right) and have a friend watch the bike rebound. It should come back up level, or slightly faster at the front. You can tell what it’s doing yourself to some degree but an external observer, or a chance to see your reflection in a big window is a big help.

Araldite or JB Weld would be my choice, but as mentioned, something is up there. What headset is it? Is there any chance of splitting the race and letting the tapered seat into the bearing pinch the race closed? Obviously that’ll only work with a cartridge bearing headset, and only some of those.

One of these will fix it:
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/hope-universal-handlebar-mount/rp-prod23533

Never mind how straight can you saw, if you are any good with the file to tidy up it won’t matter what you cut it with!

No real point in switching to the hardtail to practise. Practise on the bike you’ll be pushing harder on, the technique and line choices are going to be different on the different bikes.

I know the bit you mean and I think molgrips has it above, if you didn’t know you were in trouble, at least for a split second, you are riding too fast or not paying enough attention.
If when you say that you just need to commit, your interpretation of commit is go for it past the point where you are fully in control, you are doing it wrong and asking for crashes. What it should mean is knowing exactly what you are going to try and do and how and then seeing it in your head and knowing you can do it. The commit part is then simply putting the fear of crashing aside because you know you can do it, and coming in nice and loose and relaxed and doing what you planned. If, for you, it means simply go faster and it feels faster than feels comfortable, you are over-doing it.
It shouldn’t feel sketchy, or fast, even when it is, it should feel neat and in control and like there is plenty of time.
My rule is that if I look at something and I can’t picture myself doing it, I don’t. Particularly when I’m out on my own. Likewise, never take more than one practise run-up for something, if you haven’t done it by then you will be too tense and you’ll crash. Both of these work for me, I know I could be a lot quicker but I do o.k (you’ll find me on Strava for a lot of the local stuff including Kirkhill if you are curious) and much as I hesitate to ask for trouble by typing it, I hardly ever crash hard.
Much as you seem to like riding alone, hooking up with some other riders sometimes, particularly if they are quicker than you might help, you have someone to pick you up if it goes pear shaped and more importantly you have a model to watch of how, or how quick to hit things which can be a big help as sometimes the fastest way through a section is not as fast as you may think…

Definitely call Avalanche and speak to Craig, or at the least, e-mail them, you’ll get a reply from him that way too and he’s very helpful.

The BMX tube will still inflate to fill the tyre, or at least it will compress the outer tube until they are at roughly the same pressure. The membrane separating the two chambers will need to be non-stretch, similar to a tyre, in order to have different pressures right next to each other.

Float X and have Avalanche revalve it?
http://www.avalanchedownhillracing.com/Fox%20DHX/Fox%20Float%20X%20Highlow%20Adjuster%20Kit.htm
Does start to get expensive but it’ll be unbelievably good

Voltage wise, 8 or 9 but you need 300-500 Amps to start a car, which your AAs couldn’t produce. A quick google suggests 2.5A max out of a Durcell AA, so you’d need 200 in parallel for 500A x say 9 to get the voltage, so 1800 or so in 9 series banks of 200 in parallel

MDK & Crack cleaner??? Am I missing some quality riding on my own doorstep?

Some decent quality riding, yes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv81RbtqBto

If your car originally had them, you’ll need the replacements to be XL. If it didn’t, you can use them or not, depending on availability.
If you are replacing runflats then no harm in it, but better to find out if the car model was available with non runflats and simply match the load rating of those.
I wouldn’t bet on an old Passat being heavier than a new 3 series (unless you specifically know the weights), but it’s not just a big car thing.
The important thing is to get tyres with at least as high a load rating as the old ones.

nickewen – Member
Thanks for the info everyone. Whats this XL rating all about then? For heavier cars or something?

Stronger sidewalls
Weirdly it’s not that simple. There isn’t necessarily any actual difference in the tyre construction, it’s simply that XL tyres are tested and rated up to higher loads and the correspondingly required higher pressures.
The XL tyres won’t necessarily have stiffer sidewalls. They might, but it’s not a given.

Nope, au/aw always sound like the noise people make immediately before saying “how cute!” when cooing over babies and kittens. No r sound at all. And it’s obviously mirrr-or :wink:
I reckon it’s a dialect/accent variation thing.

Another one for the baffled that anyone would pronounce any of these words with an r that isn’t written down. I’ve never heard anyone do that either. However, I am Scottish, which I suspect makes all the difference. Those of you insisting on Smorg, how do you pronounce Mirror? With a rolled r in the middle or more like meerr?

There’s usually a little groove that the cable should sit in under the head of the clamp bolt. If you don’t have the cable in this, or on the other side of the clamp bolt, the distance between the attachment point of the cable and the pivot of the mech is wrong, which changes the amount that the mech moves per click by the same proportion, throwing off your shifting.

and find out whether they’ve had any trouble with the turbo.

No turbo, is a 318i, not a 318d. Possibly why the price looks cheap to you.
To the OP, it should be a nice car, but as mentioned, it’s not a big car, think similar to, but slightly smaller than a Focus inside. Also as mentioned, the bigger engined BMs make better use of the lovely handling, but there is obviously a cost trade-off and that will still be a very nice car to drive. If you are happy with the size of it and the performance / economy balance, I’d say go for it.
Buy BMs on history and condition, it should look and drive absolutely spot-on, otherwise walk away.

My Ultragrip 8s have been fantastic from the start – and its been mostly 7-10 degrees. Its only recently been <7 degrees.

I’ve just fitted a set of those to my car and they have definitely improved over the first few hundred miles. They weren’t bad, but they have got better.

I think it does depend on your summer tyres how they feel by comparison. On my previous car, the summers were Conti Sport Contacts and the winters were Nokians WR-G3s. In the winter the Nokians were as good, and obviously much better in snow, slush and ice. Once it warmed up there was no comparison, you could feel the tread flexing on the Nokians. Biggish, torquey RWD car though (530D)

Yup, worth noting that the cheapo winters that a lot of folk go for are just rubbish. We ended up with Nankangs on my wife’s car one year as we left it too late to get decent ones and they were ok in the dry or proper soaking wet and good in the snow but horrid on damp roads, they just felt greasy and nasty.
I’ve had good results with Nokians, Michelins and Goodyears though.

As above 300 miles should do it. I had a set of Nokian Winters on my last car and at this time of year they felt every bit as good as the summer treaded Contis, you could hustle it quite hard and it was fine. They’ll be greasy with release agent to get them out of the mould at the factory.

What’s the horse equivalent of OTB?

Not the fastest but boy it was a character/fun over its limit. **** the interior space. Its a compromise but boy its so much fun

All Subarus are like that, as far as I can tell. Differing characters between the models, but always fun and always recognisably Subaru in overall feel. Tremendous balance and stability with just enough adjustability to the handling to be fun. Great cars to hustle along back roads and they always feel up for it, which is pretty much why I am back in one.
However, if it is the best handling car you’ve driven, you need a shot in an older BMW with a decent sized engine (330i, 530i sport from pre ’04) It’d totally recalibrate your understanding of ride / handling balance and the big 5s in particular are astonishing in their ability to feel refined and wafty then absolutely demolish a twisty back road. How they make those things so solid feeling at a cruise but so agile is amazing.

I’ve just got an ’06 Outback 3.0Rn. It’s a great car, comfy, well equipped, big boot as well as all the traditional Subaru virtues. It’s also, in traditional quick Subaru style, ridiculously quick for the type of car and makes a great, if very smooth and refined flat 6 noise.
However, if fuel consumption is important to you, you’ll want to add up all of the ownership costs. I’d be amazed if you can actually average 30mpg over a whole tank unless that tank is spent entirely on a gentle cruising journey. I got 28.8 driving from Edinburgh to Aberdeen late at night with cruise set at an indicated 77mph, so probably really doing 70-72. That’s the best I’ve seen so far. Just around town it might scrape 20mpg, depending on your definition of town driving. If you live out of town and don’t have traffic to contend with and are mostly doing longish journeys, you’ll probably get 25mpg. I’m expecting 22mpg for my mix of town and longer trips and so far it’s giving about that. My old Turbo Imprezas were the same, and Turbo Foresters similar.
However, it’s worth pointing out that I carefully added up the whole ownership costs (including servicing, depreciation, risk of a sudden big bill etc) as compared to the other options for me (BMW 530d and 535d of a similar age) and over the couple of years I expect to have it, there’s not much in it, the Subaru will use £900 – £1000 more fuel per year, but the maintenance and initial purchase price balances it out, plus the Subaru reliability is a big sell, my previous car was a 530d and I loved it but it cost a lot of money service and fix.
On Foresters, they also good cars, but as others have said, not huge. My wife had an early one at the same time as I had my classic shape Impreza Wagons, and although you would swear that it couldn’t possibly be true, it was within an inch of the same length, bumper to bumper, and width across the mirrors. The Forester was much squarer, so it seemed bigger inside and would take a bike with the wheels off upright across the boot, but it’s not actually a very big car, Think Focus estate sized. The Foresters are a bit more deliberately farmer-ish in target market and interior trim compared to the Legacy / Outback, which is quite posh for a Subaru.

It’s not a fixed number. Imagine that if you tip the ski up on a flat surface, the centre of the sidecut would be raised off the surface. Your weight will flex the middle of the ski outward so that the edge all touches. The more you lean them the further the centre will flex and the smaller the turn radius.
If you wanted a number for comparison, I guess you could simply figure out the radius of the sidecut itself from the three widths and the length and find the circle that passes through the three points you know.

You hook the J over the end of a steel rule and measure to the end of the spoke. Anyone suggesting that used spokes will be a substantially different length to new ones doesn’t understand either wheel building or basic metallurgy.

The flatter and closer to the tyre you run the straddle wire, the more power you’ll get, at the expense of a softer lever and less clearance between blocks and rim when the brakes are off. This makes a pretty big difference, especially if you get them right down near the tyre.

Rubber o-ring under the valve nut if it’s tubeless.

I find the secret with a moka pot is that you need to be on the ball and turn the heat completely off as soon as it makes any hint of gurgling / spitting noise, otherwise you boil the coffee. Other than that I get on fine starting with hot water out the kettle and putting the heat up full. Nice and quick too that way.

Everyone else has already covered why the range indicator has no connection to the type of fuel in the tank but it’s also worth mentioning that you will only get increased range if your car is pretty modern and has very sophisticated engine management. As someone mentioned, there is no more energy in high octane fuels (there is actually fractionally less), the only reason they can possibly make a difference is because the greater knock resistance allows the car to run fractionally leaner (less fuel for any given amount of air taken in), and more importantly, it allows the timing to be advanced further without causing premature detonation, or “knock”. More advanced timing will produce a little more power with a little less fuel, so assuming you drive the same way as usual and therefore use the same amount of power, you use a little less fuel to do it. Very few cars are sophisticated enough to do this and no cars sample the fuel in the tank to know what fuel is in them.
There are also some detergents in V-power which help clear out injectors and such like but if your car is fairly new that probably won’t be making much odds.
On the how do you know it’s not the same petrol in both pumps thing, I’ve run tuned Imprezas in the past which were mapped for Super unleaded only and if you were forced to put in normal fuel the warning lights for excessive knock would be lit up like a Christmas tree if you tried to use any level of performance, so it’s definitely different stuff.

32 will get you pretty close to the same ratios if you are using the same range of cassette.

Similarly to Yetiman, I’m running a General Lee with a 42t big sprocket (same as XX1) and I’m running a 32t front on my 26″ bike. It’s just enough at the low end. Coming from 2×10 I did have a few instances of repeatedly checking for a lower gear on some of the real long grinding climbs for a couple of rides but I’ve always managed to get up everything I previously could, it just makes me try a bit harder.

The quote I read recently from a scientist (I don’t remember the exact source I’m afraid) was that at best, they did no harm.

If you are already on 1×10, ditch the chain device and bash ring and run a narrow/wide ring. If you are really nervous about retention an E-13 XCX weighs 60g.
For interest to those suggesting 1000g by going 1x, I saved a bit over 500g off my bike by going from 2×10 with an E12 DRS and bash to a N/W ring and an XCX. The removal of the bash ring and mech / shifter etc was the big thing.

Totally dependent on how fit you are, where you ride and your bike set-up / wheel size.
I’d want a 32t on a 26″ wheeled bike and a 30t on a 29er for my fitness and riding, but that’s my opinion.
The best bet is to figure out what ratios you currently have and see what range you’d be getting with the XX1. I have a spreadsheet that makes it a bit easier that I can easily e-mail you if you like.

Without changing the frame, it’s only ever forks, wheels, tyres and the cassette where you can make any truly significant difference unless you have truly shockingly heavy parts on the rest of the bike. There’s just not all that much difference in weight between comparatively heavy gears and brakes and light ones. The only other significant savings are removing things entirely.
Look at the (real) weights of what you have and what you could get and calculate the saving per £. If it doesn’t save you more than 1g per £ it’s really not worth worrying about if you aren’t a total weight weeny. SLX to XT cranks is a total fail on this front, particularly if you aren’t running all three of the stock rings.

So far, my wife has been, if anything a little sweeter and easier going than usual. More tired and much more hungry but not mental at all. Two months to go yet though.

Probably but I don’t know for sure. I’ve had an X9 apart and I can’t see why they’d have made the X0 different, it’d just cost more to make the different parts. It’s not going to be too hard to try though if you have the parts already.

never, as the cost of staffing will vastly outweigh the purchases made at 4am, in a pet shop, or an estate agents.

This. The supermarkets only do it as they have staff in overnight anyway stocking up, so a couple more who can work the tills isn’t a problem.