@esselgruntfuttock

I watched the wasps as a very small child and followed them (sort of depending on your view point) to Newcastle and through all the name changes and mishaps there.

Really miss watching live stuff in the UK.

Holding my breath slightly for an improvement on last season for the Avs. A win against the Wild tonight would erase some doubts, but not sure enough’s been done over the summer to get the D right to properly push for that playoff spot.

I’ve got a link uno. For the price its spot on really. Nothing fancy or flash, but pretty bombproof. Costs about £20/year on brake pads and a new chain to run.

The seatpost QR is a bit ropey now, but its had 18 months intensive use in all weathers, so not too disappointed.

Each hockey team has an enforcer who will fight, refs let them punch themselves out unless they fall on the floor then they will step in

Out and out “enforcers” are a dying breed (fortunately) opinion piece linko[/url]. Indeed fighting is way down from the turn of the century (source[/url]); 0.56 fights per game in 2000-1 compared to 0.32 in 2014-15. There’s simply not enough room against the cap (or contract spaces) to waste a roster spot on someone who can’t contribute at both ends of the ice.

Subban seems like a top bloke mind. There always seems to be lots of hospital visits and plenty of community outreach from teams across the NHL.

Garmin connect does it: linko[/url]

Just got back from a week in Dubrovnik & Split. Couldn’t recommend it highly enough. Loads to see and do, plenty of good food (a nice big ice cream is £1 or less!!), transport dead easy too.

Actually scratch that. I think that if I want to (eventually) run a cassette expander the short cage on the zee mech isn’t ideal. I shall keep my £1.50 thank you kindly.

Superstar are also doing 25% off during September. Code is BTS25FB

Super timing, my rear mech has just died horribly. Perfect excuse for upgrade-o-clock!

Not to hijack the thread too much…

Any thoughts whether its worth spending the extra £1.50 to get the zee (wide range) rear mech?

The Grand Tour one looks ace!

I’ve just spent the last 30 mins going through some of her GCN videos. I particularly liked this one for the innovative use of a GoPro.

One of these or these look fun for commuting.

Kestrel flew across my path today, just a few metres in front of me. Was great to see!

Oh yeah, I don’t use the coaster brake at all. Its super good fun with clipless pedals too…

Front v brake is plenty powerful enough for flat riding on its own though.

I’ve got a Tern Link Uno for my short flat commute. I’ve never heavily loaded it (me at 65kg aside) but its done the job and makes getting the train a lot less stressful than with the MTB. 20″ wheels are ace, totally bomb proof and its been very maintenance free. 1 set of brake pads and new chain is all I’ve ever done to it in 15 months.

Its fine for the most part, especially with a paper map as backup. You literally get a line to follow and no indication of surrounding features whatsoever. Use your common sense and all will be well.

I’ve never really lost signal tbh, and the refresh rate isn’t a problem because its a line on a screen. If you go off course a thinner line following your trajectory appears so you can get a sense of what direction you need to head to rejoin the route.

Off there in Sept (Dubrovnik & Split), intrigued about possibility of combining pootling about and wine…

*shameless plug*

I’m selling my DLSR as I don’t have the time to use it anymore. Its a bit beyond your budget, but might be worth a look? Linko

SB

@pictonroad Aces, mine’s a small frame so happy to save £5 on my next inevitable AlpKit order. :)

Sweet! What size fuel pod is that? Quite fancy one but was trying to decide between small and medium.

We don’t have a lot of gravel my way, no probs with flinty loose trails or my generally lax attitude to paint on my bikes though. It’ll chip if it’s hit but I’d say the paint quality in the factory is good – hard to quantify but ‘fwiw’. They assemble other brands there that Evans sell and via Evans sales and shop staff I’m not aware of any perception of poor paint on anything they produce.

Ta James, that’s good to know. It’s a super value bit of kit, I’m thrilled with it. :D

Bin bags.

@jameso Good to know!

How well has the finish stood up to gravel being flicked up and potentially chipping the downtube? Its a lovely colour and I don’t want it to get scratched during gnarmac/enduroad/’whatever we’re calling this week’ adventures. :P

I was thinking of getting one of the invisframe road bike kits, but they are a bit pricey for a £750 bike (Arkose 2). Plus I’m sure I’d cock up putting it on! Anyone tried it or something similar?

I’ve got the same setup franki and it’s always been a bit different between the Garmin and Strava for both distance and altitude. I’d take Strava as the “gold standard”, as the whole point of it is to compare yourself against others (and yourself). I’m sure I read somewhere that Garmin acknowledge altitude is a bit flaky and I suspect its recalculated by most services you’d upload to anyway (Strava, MapMyRide, etc).

Took a test ride on an arkose 2 yesterday and really enjoyed it. Despite only being allowed on roads I did manage some proper cyclocross carrying when I got lost in the university grounds…

Was surprised how not weird the bar end shifter was and love the colour :P

Hoping to get an order in before the trade in runs out!

Amazing work Al. Wonderfully filmed and an inspiring story. :)

Ta for the info chaps. Now hurry up May and have my current C2W elapse! :D

@benp1

I’ve got my eyes on the 2 when my current C2W expires. How’s the old style shifter? I need to get one into local Evan’s store to have a proper look, but some real world feedback would be ace.

SB :)

Fitocracy[/url] is pretty good for tracking.

Think its got some basic routines and its easy to make your own online or on Android/iOS device.

Sb

Wife’s team came 2nd in small agility. Properly proud of them all. :)

There’s plenty wrong with many of the breed’s. Small gene pools and consanguineous matings are inherently flawed from a biological perspective. However, there are responsible breeders out there who won’t charge stupid amounts of money and who do the best health testing available. It’s difficult for the KC to control every single one of the breeders and judges (some of whom have more influence than the KC itself).

I found it interesting the amount of genetics coverage on the More4/Channel4 coverage. There are plenty of new developments and an awful lot of potential for identifying many of these traits. As I said previously, once progress has been made its down to breeders, and owners choosing a breeder, to help set a standard and improve the genetic health of their dogs.

Hurray slightly springier forks! Thanks for the help. :-)

Thanks Larkim, helpful advice much appreciated!

STOP!!!!!!!!!

Put the headset press down.

Have a look at some more guides, the headset press is for fitting the headset not putting the fork back in.

Firstly to do a service you will need
The right tools
Space
Cleaning stuff
Fork Oil

You may also need seals

If there is a problem with the damper you might be able to fix it but might need o-rings etc.

Just saying….

Whats the fork and maybe someone will have some first hand experience to say if it’s a 30 min job or pointless.

Good news! I do not own a headset press ([noob]that may be obvious from the poor understanding of what a headset press does[/noob]). Thanks for the pointers, I shall go and have a Google. :)

Are they suntours perchance?

They are indeed; XCRs.

If they are suntours, spend 30 minutes doing what I did last weekend (on Suntour XCM-LO on my Decathlon Big RR 5.3).

Turn bike upside down – watch accumulated water flow out….
Remove wheel
Remove brake caliper
Loosely undo allen bolts at the foot of the lowers.
Tap gently to budge things inside
With one foot on the bars (it is still upside down!), pull off the lowers, taking care not to bend them.
Clean vigourously inside the lowers
Polish up the stancions, dry them off, grease up liberally (I just used bog standard TF2 red as that’s all I had around)
Grease the insides of the seals on the lowers liberally.
Reassemble.
Discover that your forks once again have some movement. But they are still crap.
Google more expensive forks.
Drool a little.
Realise SWMBO won’t let you spend money.
Tidy stuff away.

(i.e. no need to remove forks from the frame or worry about losing bearings from the headset, or reassembling. Just cleaning and lubing the lowers works fine)

Thanks Larkin, that sounds like exactly what I wanted to do, just to know if they should be on or off the bike. Wife’s away this weekend so looks like I can do it indoors on the sly. :P

Pssht new forks. Definitely an excuse for a new bike…

I’d recommend bikeroutetoaster[/url]. You can differentiate between waypoints (normal markers) and coursepoints (direction instructions). It also works well for paths from open source maps.

I’ve also used the good ship Pimoroni and have nothing but praise for them. Backed the Floatilla project too which is quite exciting!

Still at the ‘not quite sure of the purpose of this’ stage, but hoping to develop something useful/interesting with it. Probably VPN and webcam to watch the dog at home whilst I’m at work. That’ll definitely increase my productivity…

Sounds like ton’s route is the anti clockwise version of the Evans ride it event from March 2014 (linko). I’ve done it a couple of times and the riverside section is a slog if its been wet. Bridge was still out last summer, but haven’t been down that way recently to check. Nice route either way.

The VP book is great, still working my way through them all!

If you have lightroom then the free version of lrtimelapse is pretty good. linko[/url]

I think you can only do 500 frames, but you always stitch several sets of the videos together to make something longer.

SB

Mine arrived yesterday. Looks a pretty good bit of kit. Shall be testing it by trying not to blind joggers on the canal tomorrow evening. :)

If you go to the park behind the train station in Durham you get good views of the Cathedral. Depends how long your lens is.

There’s also the lip of the hill just below the station. Again you’d need a short lens (35mm perhaps?) to get rid of the clutter, but could look good.

IMO the best view is when you come in via train from the South over the viaduct. Useless for taking proper photos but its one of my favourite views.

Can get £5 cashback through quidco too.

I’ve got a FitBit One and rate it highly. Does steps, floors, sleep etc. Syncs with latest Android and iOS devices without wifi too.

Highest day was 29k steps after stomping round the Louvre in Paris!