I reckon ankle bands are very effective but I've had trouble finding any that last (tend to tear or the velcro goes)- anyone got any recommendations.

I've got a Ground Effect gilet that's pretty good but it's too hot in summer. Buy tops and rucksucks in bright colours.

and in june the tfl hire bikes will be available! the centre will be bike crazy..

It might start to feel like Critical Mass every day. It'll be great. I'm not going through zone 1 at the moment but last summer there were virtual pelotons on some routes.

I love commuting in London most of the time – one of the things that keeps me here.

It's a bit mad at the moment though – the summer numpties have arrived and got their new 'bike to work' bikes out. Lots of people who haven't yet worked out the rules, what's safe, and that it's sensible to look behind you before pulling into a stream of traffic. I figure they calm down soon enough.

On another note, does anyone know what happens when you report something on
https://secure.met.police.uk/roadsafelondon/

So much great riding in the lakes – where do you start?
3 days in Keswick – Borrowdale bash, Whinlatter, Back of Skiddaw?
3 days in Ambleside – maybe Garburn Pass (with NanBield if you want a really big ride), Grizedale (climb using the North Face, descend on the bridleways – loads of good stuff between Grizedale and Lake Windermere), something around Grasmere?

Matt Whapshott and Will Sack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75W5P7tv7YY&feature=channel

All this privilege and still functionally illiterate

There's a lot of generalisation going on here. I've ridden in London daily for many years now and there are places where I undertake, places where I overtake – it depends on the road. Cycle lanes are marked on the inside, bus lanes are on the inside, the marked entry to most ASLs is on the inside.

The closest calls I've had recently have been from traffic coming in the opposite direction when I've been overtaking stationary traffic. I'm over the white line and the traffic is bumper to bumper so no way of getting back in. Vehicle coming the other way, with a wide lane and loads of space, drives straight at me at speed. I'm big enough to take care of myself but one incident like that would be enough to push most
cyclists back to the inside.

General rule – don't undertake at a junction. Don't go anywhere near skip lorries or scaffolding lorries (where the standard equipment appears to be 3 in the cab with the driver on his phone).

I've broken two floating discs. One when i lent my front wheel against the bumper of the car – drove forwards over it, then reversed over it again to see what I'd hit. The disc partially cut two spokes and the axle got pushed through a bit but the wheel, with a new disc, is still true and still in use.

The other was on road in London when someone cycled into my front wheel – slow speed, pretty much 90 degrees, neither of us came off (blind corner around a high wall). Again bent the spider. Aprobos of nothing really. Both times would probably have bent a standard rotors as well.

I was amused by someone at a demo day who told me that one reason never be ride a Rohloff because you can't fit floating rotors to them.

Have a Model 2 and a Songbook. Great sound and a good look but the FM on the Model 2 needs a decent aerial (too many pirates where we live and the dial is very crowded.)

There *is* a problem with QR's and disc brakes in that the failure mode, if they do come undone, is really nasty. With good QR's (shimano style, internal cam, steel face onto dropouts, steel skewer) this is very unlikely. With crap QR's I've had both a front and rear wheel come undone.

QR bolt through (15mm or maxle) is definitely the way to go now. Hope's wheel design is smart in allowing a very quick change to your wheels to use a different fork.

I'm 6' 5". Not much to add to Cy's comments above – market for big bikes is very small, not least because a lot of tall people seem happy to ride bikes that i'd consider way too small for them. No shop will ever run an XL demo frame (it wont get any use and will be difficult to sell) so you're only chance is to find a shop owner or rider (by posting on here) who has the bike you're looking for. Amos at Keswick mtb always has one of their stock brands in an XL for himself that goes out as a demo.

FYI Nicolai, of course at a cost, do full custom geometry on all of our frames and have made some properly big and unusual frames over the years – a jump bike for a 6' 7" rider and recently a Helius AC for a 6' 9" rider.

I've not advertised it yet but my XL Helius CC Rohloff in black/white/grey camo is currently for sale.

A lot of shops have a different policy on sale goods to new goods – not unusual.

The bearings are pretty big in a Rohloff – I'd be surprised if being built in a 29er wheel made any difference (the difference in size to a 26" wheel really isn't very large). What sort of mileage does it do and in what sort of conditions?

I know SFB gave up on Rohloff after finding it didn't work on his submarine but I've been running them for about 5 years now without ever having to have a set of bearings replaced.

http://www.thatcable.com/ are meant to have good build quality and start less than £5 for 1m. All their cables look good value but I'd still go cheaper for speaker cable – mine came on a 100m roll from TLC electrical at about 50p a metre.

That is bizarre marketing –
"Whether you need to safely transport your bike to and from your local bike shop or annual charity ride"
Doesn't exactly inspire confidence but i've never seen a strap on rack that looked safe.

Any other suggestions for a ride from there? Is there anything that stands up well under this sort of weather?

I think we'll ride the Gap on the way up and maybe spend a day at Afan but would prefer to do something local.

Suspect you've got a pressurised system. Air out, pressure drops, boiler refuses to fire.

You should have a dial somewhere on or near the boiler that shows the pressure – it should usually read between 1 and 1.5 – and a tap/valve to top the water pressure up on the pipes around it.

Can you ask them if you can pay the collect cost?

Otherwise check ParcelFusion or one of the other brokers – make a big difference for non-UK shipments

Strangely enough that's one of the few descents where i've ever had trouble with my Hopes when they needed bleeding. Not sure what you can do – it's super steep road but you need to keep your speed down. I wasn't dragging them either – brake and release – but still enough to cook them.

The guys at Skyline reckon it's a great rear tyre for there/trail centres in general. Makes sense – mostly hard ground, very little gloopy mud.

or the Rohloff guide at 76g.
http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/product-Rohloff-Rohloff-Chain-Guide-CC-8290-11874.htm

or the weight weenie adapted Rohloff guide shown here
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=168717

I don't know but it's bloody annoying. I've bled older hopes in a campsite before now but the use of a tiny torx bolt that doesn't appear on my multi tool means i wont be doing that in future.

I don't get this Torx thing. In theory you can get more torque through it and have less chance of rounding off the bolt. However, all the torx tools i've had are crap and the 'point's of the star bend or wear off so you still end up rounding off the bolts.

9 months or so here and no, the novelty hasn't worn off. It's not the best telephone ever (i'd still go for my old Nokia 6310i) but it completely changes the way you use the internet on the move. It's a great mp3 player and PDA as well (and I've had a proper try out with Android phones and the Palm Pre – the iPhone still beats them all for the all round package).

Battery life is poor – charge each night and if you're a heavy user probably need to top up during the day – but this is true of all smart phones. The main problem is that you use them more – if all i do with my iPhone is make calls i don't get any battery life issues.

USB spec is 500ma but the iPhone charger supplies 1amp. However, the ports on the computer should be regulated to only deliver 500ma – a device shouldn't be 'allowed' to draw more than that. I think this is a laptop problem – you could see what Toshiba say. Otherwise you'll have to rely on an external powered USB hub.

Can't be – last time I heard they still taught people to spell at school.

The 104 is probably enough – ie fine around town, equal economy and will still cruise happily at motorway speeds. The 140 is nice to have (and what we've got).

No problems with ours after the first 15k miles or so. Suspension is a bit agricultural over speed bumps but it's fine to drive and a lot more managable than a T5.

I'm really surprised people still buy into the 'you can't lose buying property' line.

Interesting piece from the Economist suggesting UK property is still way overpriced

There are always a lot of people interested in talking up property prices and there are a lot of different metrics people use to justify their beliefs (first time buyers, prices to rents, average price as a multiple of average incomes etc) and by many of them prices still look high.

It's pretty evident that house prices are driven purely by supply, demand and sentiment – there's little link to any underlying asset – hence the rises of the last year while very little property was for sale.

When interest rates rise, and rise they will at some point, theres a whole great deal of buy-to-let fall out still to come. I've also read an interesting view regarding our aging population that says that as the baby boomers downsize and die off you'll get a big glut of property being sold and not enough buyers which will drive prices down.

Should be File/add to library. Never had that problem myself – is it possible the metadata is screwy? Ie it is being added without a artist name or trackname so you're having trouble finding it? Look at the very end of the list to find the nameless stuff.

Every forecast i've seen for the last couple of years has been wrong (and they were coming from 'city' people who claimed to have a real idea) so I'd be careful of taking too much advice from people on here.

Moving all your assets to another currency right now must be a gutting experience so i don't envy you. Hedging by moving it over a period of time would limit your risk.

We're pretty much in the toilet right now so it might be worth waiting until after the election to do anything – markets dislike uncertainty so whatever the result it should have some effect.

For Mac deals worth looking at dixons airport shops – vat free pricing even if you're only travellingbwitgin Europe.

I'd second Edric. My old Silca pisses all over my Joe Blow and cost less to buy.

Nexus > Droid (have played with/handled both). Legend looks lovely but a not available yet. The Droid feels larger than it actually is and the keyboard is too flat to be useful (you can't feel the keys).

6'5"
on XL Nicolai Helius CC/Helius AC/Argon FR.

Remember we can do full custom on any of our frames – we've done full sus bikes to properly fit people up to 6'9".

The belts aren't really under a huge amount of tension. When working on some of those Trek city bikes with belts I tried to derail and refit the belt, just for laughs. It was as easy as on a 'normal' singlespeed/IGH bike.

In that case it sounds as if these bikes were not set up properly. The belt should be under a *lot* of tension – enough that there have been problems with the rear triangles of bikes distorting (not something that has affected Nicolai :-) )

I've not checked lately but i though Microsoft had woken up and now offered 'home user' deals on Office which were about the student price anyway. (you can usually order student software from DAbs and others as well – there used to be absolutely no checks done).

I'd not bother with the 'full' version – word/excel/powerpoint is all most people need. There are better, simpler, email clients than Outlook – Thunderbird amongst others.

Did your bike really take 10 month Ambrose? That sounds very unlikely – the longest delivery times I can ever remember for a production frame was 16 weeks. In recent years we've been 6-8 most of the time. At the moment we're about 12 but it's coming down again.

Oh, and compare the MJ Acoustics to the BK subs. They're built by BK the with the same drivers. The MJ versions have more 'features' but the equivalent BK has more power (and costs about 50% of the price).

MJ Reference 200 = 200w at £729 vs BK XLS 200 = 275w starting at £302

Yes, if you've got, or are getting in the next few years, an HD tv. Lovefilm rent BluRay for the same price as DVD and the cost of BluRays to buy is coming down quickly – lots now available sub-£10.

Very pleased with my BK XLS200. Can't fault the build quality and the sound is a big step forward from a (more expensive) Monitor Audio sub that I was using before (failed and wasn't economic to repair).

I did a fair bit of research into building my own sub on the basis that they're very simple beasts – a good speaker, a good (simple) amp and a well made box is about it. Looking at the cost of the parts there was negigible saving against what BK charge. The same speaker unit appears (rebranded) in subs costing twice the price.

The only drawback is that they lack an auto-on/off circuit. The one on my MA sub wasn't great (it still ate a fair bit of power when supposedly switched off) anyway and i now run the BK off a 'standby saver' type thing on my TV.

29ers always attract a custom upcharge but we expect to sell more Helius AC 29ers than Nonius in future. 29er hardtails also an option.

We've still got some stock to clear at the moment so more bargains to be had – the last few Helius FRs, an Argon FR Rohlof, XS Nonius and a number of Helius CC's with current geometry but top tube cable routing rather than bolt on guides. The CC is a perfect UK bike and more than capable of Alpine riding as well – up to 140mm fork, 129mm rear travel.

Over £500 discount on some of these frames – see http://www.nicolai-uk.com for details

I go for comfort over looks any day but like to use easily removeable guards to cut down on the weight etc when it's really dry. Current preferences are for –

Topeak Defender M1 on the front. Most of the time just use the back half of it, if it's actually raining use the front and the rear. Much more effective than a Crud Catcher as it turns with the wheel.

On the back I'm currently using a CycraGuard – QR fitting that's tough enough not to break/turn. Topeak Defender rears are good but can be a bit fragile. A Crud Catcher is probably the most indestructible option but they're not long enough and difficult to take on and off.