As above, a Duffbag Monster bag is what you want. I have one for my FS 29er and it is brilliant.

I tried to buy one for my wife’s bike (FS 27.5) and all I could get was an ebay cheapie for about £20 which does just about fit her bike.

You can see them on ebay. Lots of pictures of a guy with the bag on his shoulder in front of a train, plane etc.

Miss the Monster bag! Can’t understand why some one else doesn’t make them. Maybe they will just get copied and made in China.

If you are up for other makes, I bought a 2 year old Focus ST petrol estate in November last year (71 plate, 18k miles) for £24K.

Brilliant car to drive and really practical. Last of the pre face lift models, so has all the extras included such as power tailgate, head up display, adaptive LED headlights etc. 280 bhp and currently averaging 30 mpg.

I am in Beijing at the moment and haven’t seen any ebikes like we have at home. Loads of small electric scooters with seats and quite a few of the tiny electric cars. No one seems to be in a hurry in either. Quite a few normal bikes but no ebikes as such.

As mentioned above, M&S insurance does not specify a lock, so any will do. They do require the bike to be locked to a fixed object. I gave up with Pedal Cover because they required a sold secure gold lock.

Putting it on my home insurance doesn’t cost any extra and covers bikes up to £5K without specifying them. Money I save over an expensive policy can go toward topping up any replacement costs.

I am lucky, I can park my bike inside at work. At home, I  can walk to the town centre. I wouldn’t risk it even with an expensive lock.

Sorry, I have narrow feet but recently I bought some Five Ten Kestrel lace ups with the cleat holes. They look really wide in comparison with my older Giro Privateer shoes but are very comfortable. My wife has quite wide feet and she likes her Five Tens. I got them for about £65 from sportshoes.com

I did this recently and it is was quite simple in the end

You have to look at the black washer and it has a groove on the outside edge. You have to stretch the wire spring over it so it sits on the edge. Assemble it back together and the circlip has enough space. Now you have to push the spring off the edge of the washer so it falls behind it and takes us the space and puts right preload on the bearing.

I used mine for commuting for 4 years. As above all good until the rear cracked at multiple spoke holes. Hope said well outside warranty.

Had wheels rebuilt using same Pro 4 hubs but used DT Swiss R470db rims which were half the price of 20fives!

Our Miele dishwasher broke on its first day. Miele said they would come out in 2 weeks to fix it. Got AO.com to swap it for a Bosch which was £150 cheaper has proved to be very good a year on now. Very impressed with AO.com

Mel Gibson was recently in a good fun Christmas film recently, “Fat Man”. Really enjoyed it, but not for kids!

I have a cheap driveway alarm which is just a battery powered PIR sensor that faces the doorway. We have the wireless receiver in our hallway. Just remember to turn it on when you are done with the shed for the night. It just chirps like a doorbell when someone opens our shed door. Cost about £15 about 10 years ago.

To show my age, I started racing before Hillingdon was even built! We used to race up and down the unopened Hayes Bypass. It was a long hot dog circuit, up one side and down the other. The council very nicely removed a section of the crash barrier at one end and the other had half a roundabout. Bradley Wiggins was riding the junior races at the same time!

Hillingdon came a few years later, with just a shipping container to get changed in at first, although even that might have been added.

Always nice when they handed out the envelopes after the race if you won something! I won my first race at the bypass and they used to write your points on a paper license.

I have to say Cottages.com very promptly refunded our holiday in November 2020 within 1 week after the government announced the second lockdown. It seems like most of the rental cottage industry did struggle with refunds at first, but most of them got their act together.

In fact, Skyes took longer than Hoseasons (owners of Cottages.com) to get their refund policy sorted out.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/07/sykes-cottages-reverses-coroanvirus-refund-policy-after-regulato/

We bought a Miele dishwasher from ao.com earlier this year. Door mechanism broke second time we opened it. Miele said they would send someone to fix it in 2 weeks time. We hadn’t even plumbed it in, just took it out of the box. Ao were great and took it away. Replaced it with a Bosch that was £100 cheaper but looked a lot better. Not going to bother with Miele again.

I got the tool from Joe at Weirdos on bikes. Sorted out my road shimano brakes a treat! Thanks!

Taken out M&S Insurance with Aviva and all you have to do is list the value of your most expensive bike and all the others are included. None of the very stringent lock requirements that Pedalcover have. £80 cheaper as well, plus £30 M&S voucher. Going to lose a bit of money with the partial refund from Pedalcover (and cancellation fee) but worth it for the peace of mind. If I stayed with Pedalcover I would have to buy a very expensive and heavy lock so save that cost.

Sorry to hear about your experience. I checked out my Pedalcover policy (I know I should have done it earlier) and it is as bad as you say. I need to carry a sold secure gold lock around with me to comply.

I emailed Pedalcover and they said well you agreed to it.

Certainly not going to renew with them next year. I might even cancel it early.

Quick look at M&S insurance and they just say locked to a secure object, as did Pedalcover before they changed in 2021

Donated and air ambulance is a good cause as they went to help my mate who had an off on the cliffs near Cuckmere Haven last year. Keep up the great work!

Well done! My wife does local litter picks a lot and her weapon of choice is a Ranger Max.

A sponsored litter pick is way more useful than a pointless sponsored bike ride, walk etc.

To the OP, name a charity I can donate online to, and I’ll give them a tenner.

Focus ST 5th year service + MOT for £197 at Ford Dealer with 12 months breakdown included.

Booked online and they really grumbled as webiste has been underquoting the price. They wanted to charge me £354.

My Swift had it’s 10th Birthday just before Christmas! Great bike, still gets ridden regularly. At least once a week during the winter. Has always been a singlespeed. Don’t think I will ever sell it!
Got a nice, scruffy patina on it.

They have actually increased the prices. They were £2450 last week for a NEURON WMN 7.0 which I was waiting to buy for my wife. She has a 2017 which has been very good. For 2022 they have increased the fork travel to 140mm which I don’t think she needs for general riding around. Really looking for a 120mm travel FS. She might be bothered more about the change in colour to be honest!

Just had the email from Canyon saying it is stock to buy after registering my interest a couple of months ago. Oh and by the way, it is £200 more, red rather than some pinky colour and bigger fork travel…

In your last drawing you had just the +ve output connected to your LED and the -ve output not connected. I didn’t realise you had changed the device on the right to a mosfet. I managed to get the link to the ARCELI 12V-40V 10A PWM but it doesn’t say much about the signals. As you know, you really need just a single ended output to go 12V or 0V with the ratio set by the PWM. I thought that your output +ve could do this.

Your PWM unit is probably an H bridge. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-bridge

PWM = ON means your OP+ is 12V and OP- is 0V (this turns the LED ON)
PWM = OFF means your OP+ is 0V and OP- is 12V (this turns the LED OFF)

As you say this works well with just the LED across the outputs but your LED in your bike is connected to 0V (which will be connected to 12V when PWM = OFF).

The solution (as you have it above in your last diagram) is to just use the OP+ to drive the LED and don’t use the OP-. Now you have an output that drives current into your LED or not. LED current has a return through its 0V connection.

Changed my wife’s Canyon Neuron bearings last month. Bearings so rusty they fell apart so couldn’t use a puller.

All the best jobs rolled into one big one!

Clean bike first (properly clean for a change)
Remove mudhugger.
Change bearings.
Change rear gear cable (why wouldn’t you?)
Refit mudhugger.

I had this with my Shimano road calipers with the bolt with the useless slot rather than the hex. The slot just broke off. I did drill it out and it doesn’t look pretty, but has been working with a split pin for about 3 years without a problem. Got a new Canyon bike with the same slot bolts and just put a MTB hex one in place as the hex heads are way better.

Sorry, can’t remember how I actually drilled it out but remember it was a bit tricky. I am a bit ham fisted but I did it in the end.

Back in the day (90s) I used to ride both the Catford (Yorks hill) and the Bec (White Hill/Titsey) Hill Climbs. My mate rode his geared road bike for both and I rode fixed wheel. He always beat me in the Catford, as it has a gentler start then gets really steep at the end. I always beat him at the Bec as it is more consistently steep from the bottom.

I used to ride a Gazelle 531C track bike with the fork drilled for a front brake. I think my time for the Bec HC still holds up well today. Nice light fixed wheel bike is great on the right hill.

I got some ones from ebay called Far Near I think. Got ceramic ones because they were good value and have been impressed. Still very smooth. Uberbike ones were not so good.

Back home now after a great week with fantastic weather!

We were staying just past Aberllefenni near Corris in a cottage.

Ended up ticking off Mach 1 Loop. Missed the sign near the bridge at Forge and carried on for a couple of miles. Came back and did the Mach 1 route, but it was a really hot day and my wife was struggling in the heat. Good descent along the river near the end. Rode from the cottage using Route 8 over the cycling bridge at Machynlleth. But why so many bloody gates?

Cadair Idris. Nice to ride up a mountain on a mountain bike. Followed the route on flattyres mtb website https://flattyres-mtb.co.uk/route-guides/north-wales-mtb-routes/cadair-idris/ from Abergynolwyn. Helped a couple of ebikers with their route as they had no map or anything it seemed. Lots of pushing at the top after the steps but well worth it to get there. Left our bikes just below the summit and walked the rest. Coming down was a bit sketchy and my wife didn’t want to ride most of it so we took a cheeky path on the grass below the rocks. Back at the steps and all good after that. Great day but only 15 miles!
Very nice cafe at the steam train station at Abergynolwyn.

We both enjoyed the Climachx trail as it was easy to ride there via Corris. Wife didn’t really enjoy Tony the Tiger! Most of the other sections are quite easy but narrow. Tony the Tiger is good fun but I wasn’t expecting the rocky flat/uphill section in the middle.

Next day, we had rode to the Centre for Alternative Technology and had the guided tour which was excellent. Very good cheap cafe there which anyone can use, but you have to ride up to it!

On the way home, I did the Climachx on my own and got through Tony with no trouble (just not that fast). I took the road to Corris home but turned right up the fire road (with the gate) just after Corris Caravan Park. Tough climb, went on and on, straight up. I was intending to do the bridleway down to the Dyfi forest car park in Aberllefenni but missed the turning and went all the way to the top before dropping back down some sketchy tracks to the bridleway. Looking back on Strava, I was only about 100m from the start of Tony the Tiger again!

Couldn’t fit any more MTB in the week. We spent a day visting my mother in law in a care home in South Wales and had a train trip along the coast to Barmouth.

Every where was so quiet. South Wales was busy but Machynlleth was very quiet.

Cheers for the tips. Have to keep the rest for next time.

Tell them it’s a bridleway and you’re just doing a recon of a route and you’ll have 500 riders coming through next Saturday.

I have a 2017 petrol Focus ST estate and we put our bikes in the back. I have a Focus reversible car mat that folds out with rubber on one side and carpet on the other side.

I also have a Duffbag Monster Bag that takes a dirty bike and is very easy to fit in the back. I was looking for another one but they don’t make them anymore. Can’t see why not?

Looking forward to our holiday in Wales next week, and enjoying the car on lovely roads.

Thanks for some great ideas above. Looks like we are definitely going to Cadair Idris!
Nant Yr Arian will probably get a visit as we have done CyB before.
Slaters Arms in the Pub in Corris is only a couple of miles from where we are staying so we can ride back afterwards.

Weather looks good for next week as well. Cheers!

“Class Action Park”. Watch it! Incredible

Watched it last night. Utterly Bonkers! On tomorrow again (Friday 23:00)

To @stumpy01

@servo – I was looking at the diesel version of these as an alternative to to Leon I ended up with.
It proved too hard to find one relatively local to look at – they are pretty rare in diesel & estate body.

I love the looks & the interior, but like I say it was very hard to find an estate to look at (managed to have a poke about in a hatchback at my local dealer).

ST Estates are fairly rare but I do see some around. My mate bought a new Tangerine Scream one after seeing mine. Used prices are holding up well 🙂

We always bought our sheds from the local supplier. Partly because they were good sheds but mostly because they had a big sign saying “FREE ERECTION”.

My Focus ST3 petrol estate. Just had it’s 4th birthday last week. 22k miles as I ride to work 3 days a week but enjoy it when I can.

Well done to the OP for clearing it. About a mile from my house. Hopefully, Police involvement will scare them off.

I got a nice blue Orient Kamasu in September last year from TUS watches. UK company with fast delivery. I can recommend them. I got the rubber strap version but upgraded the strap to a blue waffle strap (I think its called) and very pleased. Gains about 4 seconds a day on average which I think is quite good.

We had an 2009 Octavia estate and the wheel arches intrude a lot so it is difficult to get a bike in without taking a wheel off. Changed to a Focus Estate which is down on volume but wider with no wheel intrusion and a flat load bay so you can just lay a 29er in without taking any wheels off.

As above, it’s probably the pipe expanding slightly when hot water goes through it. Our bathroom is above the kitchen and when the bath is emptied, there is a ticking from the edge of ceiling where the pipe goes out to the outside. We have been living here for 17 years and I’m used it now!