https://youtu.be/BxFqv1QDI3Q

Channel 9 – how can that not be viewed as racist

Channel 9 was a parody of the foreign TV that people saw when abroad on holiday in Spain, Greece etc. By UK standards many of their television programmes were rubbish. Taking the mickey put of them was not being racist. Indeed, you may recall that the cheesy Channel 9 adverts for the orange pumping gadget (which had a different purpose each week), ended with a blonde woman in a bikini making a pop sound pulling a finger out of her mouth. It’s a shame you failed to realise that the Fast Show was parodying the sexism in those foreign cultures that was visible in their TV programmes.

As for sexist, well no not really either. One of the characters played by Arabella Weir was an smart woman who was routinely ignored by the (less intelligent) men around her. Her character would voice the solution to a problem which the men would pretend not to hear, until one of the men said the exact same thing and was then praised  by the other blokes for being so clever.

Unfortunately what I have written above is rather dull and not funny, which is what happens when you have to explain humour.

https://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/the-law-must-be-fixed-mustnt-it/

What are you riding currently? What do you like about it, and what don’t you like about it?

I think a lot of high end bike purchases are driven either by – as DTF says – an overwhelming desire for a particular bike, or dissatisfaction with one or more aspects of whatever people are currently riding, e.g. poor fit, too harsh a ride/not comfortable enough, not light enough, won’t take wide enough tyres etc. etc.

It does sound rather like you don’t actually want a particular bike, so much as feel that you should get a bike to mark your 50th. If you don’t really know what you want, then I would suggest you just keep riding and keep looking until you do have a very clear idea of what you want.

what are the wolfs like

I would not have bought them had they not been so heavily discounted in CTBM’s sale. I’ve barely started to use them, and my observations are:

–  much warmer than walking boots.

– they are a very ‘chunky’ boot, with a relatively high shaft. I would not use them to ride on a road bike, and I suspect they might not suit someone who was an aggressive, hard riding,  ‘out of the saddle’ rider. They are marketed as a ‘Winter Fatbiking Boot’ – I don’t have a fat bike, but I think they are probably the ultimate winter boot for pootling and bimbling. Even if you ride so slowly that you barely raise your heart rate, your feet will still stay warm (or at least not get anywhere near as cold as with most other boots).

– As with any boot, fit is the most important thing. I had to size up, but they’ve got a nice wide toe box, which allows me to wear very thick socks and be able to wiggle my toes inside the boot.

– If I lived somwhere like Sweden, they would be my choice for winter commuting (although I suspect either heated boot driers or access to a warm boot drying room would be needed to dry out sweat from the insulation lining the leather each day, or possibly even two pairs to allow the boots to be rotated).

Anyway, I’m going out now for a pootle. I may be some time.

Japanthers are not leather its rubberised material – presumably the dearer ones?

Yes, I was referring to the Wolvhammers and MX303s. Sorry, should have been clearer.

If I rode in snow and ice regularly, I would go flats and warm (walking) boots.

I think hunting boots would be a better choice than most walking boots, since they are available in insulated versions to allow hunters to stand around in the cold for long periods and still have warm feet despite not being very active. In my experience walking boot uppers don’t provide much insulation, and feet get much colder in them when riding a bike compared with actually walking.

Both the Lake and 45nrth boots have a thinnish layer of some kind of insulation bonded to the inside of their leather uppers, and the high shaft of the 45nrth boots (something it shares in common with hunting boots) probably also makes a significant difference to its warmth compared with low cut cycling boots (think of the blood vessels around the ankle which are close to the skin surface and not insulated by any fatty layers).

Disclaimer: I am not a plumber or a builder.

In general underground pipes in the UK are buried deep enough that they will stay above freezing temperatures, and any water in the vertical pipe above ground should drain into the underground pipe before it freezes.

I guess it’s possible if the ground temperatures are unusually low enough for a long enough period (or the pipes were not buried to a sufficient depth) that water could freeze in the underground pipe. I suspect it would be more likely that the cast iron pipe above ground is so cold, that water in contact with the inside face of the pipe is freezing, and building ice up in layers, progressively restricting the flow inside the pipe until it is completely blocked. If the latter, you are probably going to have to wait for outdoor temperatures to rise above freezing and for the ice in the pipe to thaw (unless you can apply heat to the pipe yourself, which is likely to be tricky and possibly risky: cast iron has a high thermal mass so will require a lot of energy for a given rise in temperature, and it does not like undergoing extremely rapid heating or cooling which can cause thermal shock and might crack it).

Excellent.

I didn’t see the BBC TV adaptation, which is probably just as well, since I cannot imagine that it would have been a patch on Dibdin’s writing. It’s ironic that an Englishman was the author of the greatest italian detective fiction series. Beautiful writing with great plotting, some lovely sly dark humour, and a truly original hero/anti-hero detective.

I don’t think I have any legal basis for asking for more than half the value of the house, not given how we own it and that there wasn’t ever any formal process of registering the deposit as coming from me – mea culpa, but that was 20 years ago. So I’d kind of resigned myself to only getting half the value of the house anyway and TBH that wouldn’t be a terrible deal.

Part of the reason for my suggestion that you try to ‘recover’ the inheritance, is that – almost regardless of the actual amount of money involved – it could be galling if that money was effectively passed on to someone other than your own children, e.g. as a result of your partner marrying someone else or having other children, especially if you knew that your own parents had worked hard and made sacrifices to provide that inheritance, and expected that you would pass it on in turn to their grandchildren. In that sense it’s not about the money, but what the money represents.

In reality, if you have been the higher earner for most of your relationship, it’s probably the case that you are going to be better off financially anyway as a result of her having no claim on your pension (which she would have if you were married).

I hope that things get better for you all soon once you’ve got past the immediate pain of the separation.

As I said, consulting a solicitor now does not mean that you are inevitably embarking on an expensive and acrimonious split, and I genuinely think it actually could help to prevent that occurring now or later. For the same reason, in your shoes I would encourage my partner to similarly speak to a solicitor. If both of you have received independent expert advice on the options and various pros and cons, it may manage both your expectations and make the process of splitting much easier.

For example, one of the things I would expect a solicitor to raise would be the need for new wills for both of you and associated financial planning. If either of you die, you will probably both want your children to be your beneficiaries, but at the same time the surviving partner would be likely to find it much more difficult bringing up the children alone, whether due to loss of maintenance or having to give up/reduce/change employment to care for the children full time etc. So until the youngest is 18, you and your ex-partner might need joint life assurance (the type that pays on first death) to enable either of you to fund bringing up the children if the other dies, and wills which put their inheritance in trust (and identify suitable trustees) until they are 18 or 21 or whatever.

A good family law solicitor will routinely encounter these and other issues that they will make you aware of, and will be able to advise on your options. If you try to do this all by yourself, then the applicable phrase is ‘a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client’.

I guess getting something done formally may help keep the CSA off my back

I am almost certain that whatever agreement you both sign up to, it will not prevent the Resident Parent (or for that matter the Non-Resident Parent) having the legal right to use the CMS and request and enforce the minimum statutory child maintenance. Even where a couple are married and there is a court determined divorce settlement which includes child maintenance or a lump sum instead, after 12 months the Resident Parent can still apply to the CMS and that will supersede whatever was agreed in court about child maintenance. Given that that is the case for married couples, I cannot see unmarried couples who separate not being similarly able to use the CMS at any stage until the child is 18.

It’s been proposed that I get about half the value of the house despite having paid the deposit out of my inheritance and that I wouldn’t pay any regular maintenance – effectively I’m gifting the share of the house bought with the deposit in exchange for not paying maintenance.

If that suits (both of) you, then fine, but it would not sit entirely comfortably with me IF the inheritance had been especially large, i.e. a large percentage of the house value. In that event I would want that to be reflected in the split of assets, and I presume that it could be proven that you had used your inheritance to pay the deposit. If you were married, this would be academic because the house would be joint marital property. I do not know what the legal position is given that you are not married, i.e. whether your greater contribution would be recognised if it went to court or if you bought the house as jont tenants (as opposed to tenants in common) and consequently if that would mean you only have equal shares, regardless of monetary contribution.

If she had to give up working or go part time while your children were young, then it would be unfair to penalise any lesser monetary contribution on her part in that respect (and she may have lost out in career advancement/salary progression and pension entitlement too). Neverthless, if the inheritance were large, I would want to ‘get it back’ as it were in order to control it and ensure that it was passed on to my children, e.g. funding university or a house deposit etc. It’s not unknown for ex-spouses and ex-partners to marry someone else, who then is their sole inheritor when the ex-spouse/partner later dies, with the result that children are cut out of what would have been their inheritance. Future inheritance may be similarly complicated if the ex-spouse/partner goes on to have further children with someone else.

I don’t know if the trade off between the house and future maintenance would be legally recognised and enforceable, and I suspect it might not. Even if it were enforceable, it would probably be very difficult and expensive to go to court to get it recognised if she decided to make a CMS claim in, say, 5 years time.

Moreover, personally I would not be comfortable with the idea of exchanging capital assets in return for not contributing to the continuing costs of bringing up my own children. It smacks of buying your way out of your financial reponsibility for and commitment to your children (I don’t mean to offend or upset you by phrasing it like that, but I think you can see what I mean). Your ex-partner might make some bad or simply unlucky decisions about her finances, or lose her job etc., and the extra money you are proposing that she takes away from the relationship might then be exhausted. Would you then tell her, and more importantly your children at a time of great need, that you had already paid your contribution and it was no longer your problem?

You say you want to avoid involving lawyers, but I suspect what you mean is you want to avoid a split which turns into a bitter protracted dispute which has to be settled in court and consequent expensive legal costs. I would look at it slightly differently: good family law solicitors will have huge experience of people in similar situations to yours, and should be able to give you good advice on how to achieve the amicable split you want. I think money spent now on a family law solicitor, explaining your situation and seeking their advice as to your options (and using them as a – admittedly expensive but good quality – sounding board) would be money well spent. In your shoes I would book an hour or so with such a solicitor on my own, to discuss and explore the situation and options and potential future ramifications.

Custom modified Brompton from Kinetics. The discs allow Big Apple tyres to be fitted, and it has a Rohloff with matching Son dynamo hub.

As the saying goes, if you have to ask how much it costs…

Personally I would like the (off the shelf) very similarly specified Birdy Rohloff, which is also available from Kinetics.

Rack can go as can juggle logistics on bus/car days so won’t be carrying anything other than me.

If you will able to choose to use a car or bus on days when the weather is bad in the morning, or you are not feeling up to the ride, then that makes a huge difference, and my main advice is just to make do largely with what you’ve got. If this is your first winter of commuting like this, then it’s going to be better to wait and experience the ride for while (in good and bad conditions) before deciding what needs spending money on.

A few further random comments:

– It does NOT just go without saying that your absolute overriding priority above everything else is safety. A light fast bike purpose suited to the ride is a ‘nice to have’, but I would regard anything safety related (providing it’s effective) as essential, regardless of cost.

– Therefore even if you are not riding in the dark, I would want rear lights (plural) in particular, especially for visibility in the rain to cars behind. My choice for one of those rear lights would be the pulsing type (as opposed to flashing), e.g. Exposure Blaze.

– Hi-viz and reflective clothing (hi-viz or the most hideous lurid pro-team top for day, reflective for dark). Presumably even if you can use the car or bus if it’s raining in the morning, on some days you will get caught in the rain on the ride home. So you also want rain wear that is hi-viz/reflective, as well as being as good as it gets for ventilation/breathability given the climb. You need good kit: being uncomfortable, cold and wet is itself dangerous: you want to be fully alert and concentrating all your attention on the road and traffic around around you. Showers Pass make some good foul weather kit, e.g. their neon green Refuge Jacket and some other jackets with reflectives.

– I’ve a pair of Vittoria Voyager Hyper 32s on one of my bikes, and they are very nice fast rolling tyres. However, I’ve have seen some suggestions on the thread about those tyres on the CyclingUK forum that their wet weather grip is not the greatest. I would have a look at the Schwalbe range (not the heavy dead feeling Marathon Plus, but one still with some puncture protection, fast rolling and with excellent wet weather grip).

– I am sceptical of the value of the Exalith rims. On this CyclingUK forum thread it is suggested that the rims need to be kept clean of grit etc., require special brake blokes (do you have the cantilever braked version of the Casseroll? if so the special brake blocks might not even be an option for you) and may quickly wear off. I would instead focus on getting your current brakes as well set up as possible, e.g. if cantilever low straddle cable for maximim mechanical advantage, best brake pads available (Salmon or Swiss Stop).

– I would fit the Busch and Mueller Star mirror (comes in 60mm [part no. 901/2] and 80mm [part no. 903/2] diameter versions – I like the 60mm) to any drop barred bike I was using for commuting.

It sounds like you want/need a bike in the fast audax mould, which would sit midway between your TCR and the Salsa, e.g. something like the Spa Elan from Spa Cycles with a titanium frame to shrug off winter’s knocks and any road salt, mudguards, discs and a triple for those days when you are run down and finding that climb harder than usual, or the equivalent from the likes of Van Nicholas if that’s easier to buy in Australia.

If you have the option of a car or public transport on those days when the weather is bad or you are not really feeling quite up to riding, then it’s easier to make do with whatever you have. However, if you are committed to doing the ride every day, then you want a bike that will not only be pleasurable to ride, but will also make it easier for you (relatively light, low enough gears, and an emphasis on comfort rather than stiffness). You might even decide that something more touring oriented, like  Spa’s titanium tourer, would be even better.

It’s difficult to tell based just on a single still photograph which only shows your legs in one position, which might be misleading. Neverthless…

It looks to me as if your saddle might still be too far forward and too high as well. One rough rule of thumb for saddle height is fully extending/locking the leg and still having the heel on the pedal (see page 5 of that link I posted). Looking at your photo, I doubt that your heel (in cycling shoes or low trainers as opposed to shoes with a high heel) would reach the pedal. I also suspect that it feels like you are going to fall forward if you take your hands off the bars.

As jameso said, you need to get the saddle position right before worrying about the bars. The link I posted points out how when you get the saddle position correct (or thereabouts – it’s not about millimetre perfection) your upper body will be comfortably balanced (and not feel like you are on the verge of tipping forward). Bernard Hinault said that his position on the bike was such that he could have played the piano if it had been placed where his bars were (which is simply saying the same thing). Incidentally, I doubt you can ride no handed with your saddle in that position, because your body looks so poorly balanced.

The AWOL has a longer effective top tube than the other Specialized touring models (Diverge and Sequoia), which have shorter effective top tubes combined with longer stems. The AWOL seems to be similar to the Salsa Vaya and Genesis Vagabond style of bike, which are intended for relatively high handlebars.

It looks to me like many of those bikes will offer a more comfortable position riding in the drops than on the hoods, and that looks to be the case with the OP’s bike given the seemingly shorter reach to the compact drops compared with the hoods. Many of those bikes also use odd shaped bars, e.g. Woodchippers, which seem to be intended for more riding in the drops, and the bar end shifters fitted to the Vagabond will similarly be easier and quicker to use from the drops. So maybe the AWOL was not designed with the intention of being set up for riding in a classic position with much lower bars and  hands on the hoods (despite being fitted with STIs which would normally be mostly used for riding on the hoods).

Given the long top tube, the AWOL probably would work very well with flat bars (or a Jones bar), and depending on the type of use (e.g. commuting, light off road etc.) flat bars might be a better choice, especially in combination with the flat pedals.

…bike that I use in the winter…H Plus Son TB14 – look nice

I think the TB14s  are polished, with no anodising. I suspect they would soon not look so nice after exposure to wet salty roads.

I would see what SJS Cycles and Spa have to offer that would suit your requirements (the Wolber Module 58 was fairly inexpensive reliable touring rim, so presumably you want something similar).

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/rims-700c-29er-622/?colour=silver

https://www.spacycles.co.uk/m2b0s116p0/Parts-and-Accessories/Components-Wheels-Rims

A few things occur to me, although they may not apply to you or be the reason for your fit problems:

– The bars are well above the saddle height. Although it’s not an absolute rule, I would generally not expect the bars for most riders to be above saddle height even for a leisurely touring rider. Are you particularly inflexible or do you have a large gut? If so, you might find that addressing these issues (pilates or other exercises, or losing weight) will improve the bike fit/comfort.

– Flat pedals with STIs is not a common combination. Are you riding with the balls of your feet roughly over the pedal spindle? If your feet are positioned much further forwards on the pedals, I suspect that may be a factor in your problems.

– 55cm does seem long for the top tube, although according to the Specialized website the bike is specified with a relatively short 5cm stem (presumably the long top tube was chosen to increase the front centre measurement and minimise/avoid toe overlap, especially if mudguards are fitted with wide tyres).

– I am sceptical of the shop’s bike fitter’s assessment. I suggest you have a look at the advice on bike fit in the link below, which was written by two people at Spa Cycles (one of the authors posts on the CyclingUK forum as 531Colin, and the link is in his signature), which might give you some ideas about whether and how to adjust your current position.

http://wheel-easy.org.uk/uploads/documents/Bike%20Set%20Up%202017a.pdf

all I’m agreeing with the NRA guy about is that (once we are past the fact that people in the US have access to guns way beyond appropriate / need), i can’t (sci-fi aside) see a way to stop a bad guy with a gun other than by a good guy with a gun.

In doing so, you are falling into a trap. The NRA wants the debate to be framed in the context that there will always be bad guys with guns, and moreover that there will be some bad guys with guns who will commit atrocities like this, and that because the possibility of that cannot be completely eliminated with so many guns already in circulation, the only solutions to be discussed are those which do not involve any form of gun control. It’s childish logic, and a council of despair for the parents of children in US schools.

Just because it is impossible to prevent every potential bad guy getting hold of a gun, that does not mean that gun controls would not inexorably – over time – reduce the number and frequency of such massacres.

If people were faced with a clear realistic choice between the status quo (or the reality of the sheer impracticality of the solutions involving arming teachers, more guards etc.) vs. a level of gun controls which reduced the deaths to, say, the equivalent of one Sandy Hook every ten or fifteen years, they might very well support such controls. The NRA will do everything it can to avoid discussing the potential numbers of lives that would be saved by gun controls, and to prevent that being debated by american society and politicians.

Put crudely, if gun controls were likely to save the lives of, say, a hundred children over the next ten years, the NRA’s view is that it is better to sacrifice the children.

That the response of so many supposedly rational people is to ‘arm the teachers’, shows just how far american politics and large swathes of its society have an Alice in Wonderland inability to face reality.

As I understand it many of these shootings involve miltary spec semi-automatic assault rifles, so presumably the teachers would need to be armed with similar weapons rather than ‘just’ a handgun. Logically, if you are going to arm teachers, it would also make as much – or even more sense – to equip them with body armour as well, and they would also need some training in the sort of close quarter battle fire fighting where they would be expected to defend their pupils.

And what happens when the first such armed teacher goes postal and kills their class because of their own personal problems or because of frustration with some pupils’ bad behaviour? Presumably the response of those currently suggesting that teachers be armed, would then be to suggest that the pupils should be armed so that they could defend themselves against a rampaging teacher.

These threads and discussions are pointless (I realise the irony of posting myself). Too many in America and too many of its politicians have jumped down a rabbit hole of insanity. There is no point wasting any more time in frustration and disappointment at their collective insanity and pig headed refusal to face reality.

Jesus wept indeed for the madness that infects them but even more so for the appalling loss of young innocent lives and wrecked families.

I should have added that another option would be a bottom bracket with cups and lockrings which allow fine tuning of the chainline, e.g. Phil Wood and Royce. That is a more expensive (but arguably nicer) solution. You would still need to establish which of their BBs would be the right size, given that the range of movement they offer is limited. In the hopefully unlikely event that a UN55 is not available in a close enough size, Phil Wood or Royce might be your fall back options (note that they require specific tools to fit, and their use of lockrings would likely necessitate the BB shell being faced).

You might also want to post a thread on the LFGSS or CyclingUK forums, since posters on those forums are far more likely to be able to better advise you on getting the chainline right for a fixed drivetrain with 1/8″ chain, chainring and sprockets.

I was not suggesting that you do not use a UN55 (it would be my first choice), merely noting that a 118mm UN55 might not give you exactly 47.5mm chainline, and warning that plastic cups (found I think on the cheaper UN26 and some Stronglight BBs) might give problems, as might very loose metal cups found occasionally on some UN55s according to the the CyclingUK forum thread.

If you were using a 3/32″ chain (which is what I use on my fixed with an old Shimano road chainset), then getting the chainline spot on is less critical. If you plan to use a much less flexible 1/8″ fully bushed chain, then I expect you will need to get very close to your 47.5mm, so you might need to consider using a spacer to fine tune the chainset’s chainline with your chosen BB.

I would be inclined to install everything using your 116mm BB, and then measure the actual chainline of the sprocket in situ (i.e. check that it is 47.5mm with your chosen hub) and likewise measure the actual chainline of the chainset, to see how far short of 47.5mm it is, and use that measurement to confirm if a 118mm UN55 is the best choice.

With regard specifically to the UN55, the axles are not all symmetrical. There have been a number of threads about this on the CyclingUK/CTC forum. According to the thread below, assuming the 107mm BB is likewise a UN55, the 118mm UN55 might give a chainline just under 1mm short of your required 47.5mm, but there is some scope to use a spacer to fine tune.

https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?t=105385

Note also the comments about some rather loose left hand cups, and I have also seen comments elsewhere suggesting that the plastic cups used on the cheaper square taper BBs from the likes of Shimano and Stronglight are just not up to the stresses of fixed gear use (I don’t know whether that would also apply to any extent to singlespeed use).

Possibly close to being cheaper to buy mtb mech and shifters instead! Especially if current stuff worn.

If it’s a disk frame, then something like Deore hydraulic brakes would he a no brainer for me if I was doing it.

I would check carefully that MTB front and rear derailleurs would be compatible with whatever chainset/chainrings and cassette are being used. It won’t be cheaper if they require a new MTB chainset and possibly cassette as well.

Bike Discount.de is likely to be one of the cheapest places for the RS700 shifters:

https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/shimano-2×11-speed-flat-bar-shifter-sl-rs700-set-220725

(They also sell an I Spec II version)

For brake levers, BL R780:

https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/shimano-levers-set-bl-r780-flatbar-black-30917

or in all silver

https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/shimano-levers-set-bl-r780-flatbar-silver-49929

“Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.”

Not relevant. Oxfam was their employer, not a prosecuting authority. For Oxfam this was a matter involving possible/likely employee gross misconduct, reports of the possible commission of acts which might have been criminal offences under Haitian law and UK law (child sexual abuse ‘tourism’), and the consequent potential for such allegations (whether proven true or not) to damage the organisation and severely undermine its ability to do the good work that it undoubtedly does.

Charitable organisations like Oxfam often occupy a difficult position in many undeveloped countries, and they need to be seen and believed to operate with absolute integrity to maintain the good will amongst the leaders and people of the host country that is essential to them. For individuals working for Oxfam to exploit their position and relative wealth to take advantage of impoverished people in the midst of a humantarian crisis, gives an excuse to all dictators and corrupt third world governments to throw such organisations out of their country, when it may be only the charities’ presence and observation of what is happening on the ground in the country that inhibits some of the worst abuses by dictators.

Major misbehaviour by charity workers also puts their colleagues at risk around the world where they are working in countries where some would similarly like to get rid of them, e.g. the murder by the pakistani Taliban of aid workers providing polio vaccinations.

I suspect the global community of aid workers, who are not sitting at home on a sofa but are working in difficult, unpleasant and often dangerous circumstances, are if anything even more critical of what happened and Oxfam’s actions at the time.

I visited the factory a couple of years ago and was very impressed with the workmanship in both steel and carbon, there is a lot of experience and knowledge there

http://casati-online.businesscatalyst.com/about.html

100% Field cycles

http://fieldcycles.com/about

the issue I have with a lot of ‘new’ builders charging £2-3k for a frame. Very fancy paint jobs but with very little rider input or a long history of building bikes for racers

Quite.

Zippykona, what you describe sounds very unusual to me.

In the context of occupational health, sensitisers are either skin sensitisers (e.g. potential to cause dermatitis) or respiratory sensitisers (e.g. potential to cause asthma). As you are doubtless aware, the two pack iso-cyanate paints used in car paint spraying are a respiratory sensitiser and a major cause of occupational asthma.

One of the biggest problems with these substances is the sheer unpredictability of what level will cause a person to become sensitised. Some people may become immediately sensitised as a result of a very short term exposure – lasting only minutes – to a relatively high concentration. Conversely people may become sensitised with little or no warning after exposure to relatively low concentrations over a period of many years.

The main issue with them is that once the body has become sensitised, that is very likely to be permanent. Thereafter even exposure to very small concentrations of the sensitiser may trigger an attack, e.g. of asthma. Consequently, someone who has become sensitised is often no longer able to work in that environment/type of workplace ever again, not even with full personal protective equipment.

Zippykona, what you describe is unusual, in that the substance(s) in question are triggering an effect on your central nervous system. There are lots of substances which can affect the central nervous system, but I have never heard of one acting as a sensitiser, with the result that symptoms are then experienced at extremely low concentrations, such as the levels presumably in those candles.

If I were you, I would want to get a proper medical diagnosis to understand the condition better, and know what the possible implications of the condition might be. However, I suspect that you would need to identify a specialist in the field for that, and I’m not sure the average hard pressed GP will do that for you.

OP, this article  on frame stiffness by Jan Heine of Compass Bicycles might interest you (edit – I think this is what jameso is referring to).

I don’t know if it’s relevant in your particular case, but I do suspect that (for road frames especially) aluminium, titanium and carbon have supplanted steel as the mainstream before all the advantages and disadvantages of steel’s properties were fully understood and recognised (and I’m not sure that they are even now).

In other words, although it’s possible to change the performance characteristics of carbon frames by changing the lay up etc., which should result in bikes that perform as well or better than steel and be much lighter/stronger as well, you need to know precisely what those performance characteristics are that you want your carbon frame to possess.

I think a lot of the desirable properties of steel frames were/are inherent to the material, the smaller diameter tubesets historically used for steel, and some of the construction limitations (e.g. lugged and brazed with horizontal top tubes). Because there was no alternative to those steel frames and design/construction methods, there was never any incentive for those properties to be thoroughly researched and understood. When aluminium and carbon came along, their obvious advantage of lighter weight was so compelling and they were so quickly successful in replacing steel (especially in road racing), that there was no commercial incentive for the industry to seek to replicate some of the less obvious/less well understood desirable properties of steel in its aluminium or carbon frames.

I would be interested to know how the malware and porn redirects fit into the ASDA cake analogy. I suppose you could think of it like having two ranges of cakes, a Premier range and a Value range. The Value range is like the Premier range, but made in a dirty factory without the basic hygiene controls. Every so often you find that your Value cake contained the remains of a dead mouse and you’ve just taken a bite of something which may put you in hospital.

As for the distinction between Premier and non-Premier users, both generate content which is what attracts other users and is the lifeblood of the forum. It’s only my own vague impression, but it seems to me that the most interesting, humorous and/or engaging posts are on balance more likely to come from non-Premier users (maybe that’s just my own bias, and I certainly don’t include myself in that group, but if someone is paying for the privilege of being a Premier member, maybe that affects their perception of their own posts and of their value and how they post).

Incidentally, I’ve seen it said often that STW threads frequently appear quite highly on Google search results (and for a very diverse range of subjects). I presume therefore that some significant ad revenue is generated by visits from non-forum members as a result of those high search result rankings. A few days ago I tried to use Google (i.e. site:singletrackworld.com + search terms) to find an old thread, but without success, even though I am able to find the thread by trawling through my own posts on STW and then using the # link to get to the thread . I suspect that the update of the forum has resulted in some (many? most?) threads no longer being picked up in Google searches. If so that might have significant implications for ad revenue.

I think the problem with some of the chemical unblocking products marketed at domestic users, is that they are a very dilute version. Partly this may be for safety concerns, but I think it’s often more to cut costs, e.g. products sold in Poundland type stores as ‘caustic soda’ or similar, which actually contain only 10% caustic soda. Those products are very bad value for money compared with the proper full strength product available in Boots etc., and because they are relatively ineffective, you are literally throwing your money down the drain.

I think the most effective chemical cleaner is concentrated sulphuric acid, like One Shot .

I would only use it as a last resort. It’s effective, but nasty stuff and will damage any metal it comes into contact with, so

– Protective equipment (gloves, glasses/goggles, long sleeves) should be worn when using it.

– If pouring it down a sink or similar, I would use a plastic funnel inserted through the holes of the metal drain in the sink, to prevent the acid coming into to contact with it. If the drain is blocked and you pour too much in and too quickly, you risk the acid level rising back up the drain and again coming into contact with the metal drain.

Get a contract, especially if your boss is crap as it will mean you have something to fall back on when he doesn’t pay you or claims you have less holiday than you do now.

IANAL, but I think the situation is something like this:

1. You do have a contract. If it’s not a written document, then I think your employer is committing an offence (which might get them fined). The terms of your unwritten contract would probably have to be inferred from custom and practise in your workplace, from any emails (e.g. detailing holiday entitlement etc.) and other evidence/sources.

2. I don’t think it’s essential that you have signed the contract. If you were issued with a document that set out the terms and conditions of your employment when you joined, but you did not actually sign it, then I think that it would be considered that after a reasonable period you had implicitly accepted the terms and conditions by continuing to work for the employer.

3. I guess your big concern now is that your employer does not seek to impose a lengthy notice period. If they give you a new contract with a 3 month notice period, then providing they have followed any legal requirements for consultation etc., I doubt there’s much you can do other than accept it or leave. It might be different if the employer seeks to impose a notice period that is exceptionally long (relative to your industry and your position/role/salary), in which case it might not be enforceable (unless you are offered something to make it worth your while in return for accepting it, i.e. golden handcuffs).

I understand ACAS are a good source of advice for this sort of situation.

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That’s kinda nice though, in this day and age. Knowing your fellow Masons have got your back. It’s something that’s sadly lacking in society on the whole; no one looks out for each other any more.

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So obvious. So so obvious.

Less is more young David.

I did not think davidtaylforth was trolling, i.e. posting a statement about a subject to which he is indifferent, purely to provoke responses. I think it’s rather an eloquent piece of biting satire, and IMO it’s the best post on the thread. In two sentences he gets to the heart of the issue.

I read it several times, enjoying it more and more each time. The tone and voice and the crafting of the phrases are spot on. Chapeau DTF.

I’d distinguish between passive marketing – matching the product to the market, which does influence me, and active marketing – trying to make me buy something (advertising, spam, etc), which really annoys me and and makes me less likely to buy.

What you refer to as active marketing sounds more like just bad marketing, i.e. indiscriminate and poorly targeted and failing to communicate or engage with a particular type or sub-set of potential customers in the right way (the right way being one that works and which those potential customers are willing – or even keen – to listen to). It’s not enough to match a product to the market. You need to figure out how best to communicate to that market (or more likely to a market, since their will likely be different potential types of market/customer with different priorities, requirements and preferences) that your product exists and what it is about that product that would be likely to make them want to buy it.

So glossy adverts and puff pieces in magazines/on websites might not persuade you that the new XYZ mountainbike is what you want, but you might be the sort of person who would happily travel to try a bike out, and for whom – providing the bike is good – a test ride would be enough to make you decide to buy. So for the company selling XYZ mountainbikes, you form part of the potential customer base that would be best served by arranging and publicising demo days (which seems a pretty active form of marketing to me).

If the stays were beefy enough there would be absolutely 0 horizontal play if directly affixed to the fork/frame

Agreed, but to what extent would that be due to the elimination of the movement introduced by the Secuclip/ASR joint, rather than thicker stay material? More importantly, do you want to fit stays directly to the fork without an emergency release device, especially on a bike that is ridden off road and is therefore more likely to pick up dirt, mud, twigs etc. on the front tyre that could jam in the mudguard and lock the front wheel?

Buy the Exposure Quick Release Bracket with QR Clip (the link is to the standard version, there’s another one for 35mm diameter handlebars).

I tried to hold the qr in place and it didn’t seem to make too much difference.

Hmm. I’ve just unbolted a Secuclip from one of my bikes and compared the amount of movement/play with the Bluemels ASR joint. I would estimate that both have sufficient play to move through an angle of around 10 degrees, but the ASR joint feels much looser/the Secuclip has a bit more friction resistance to movement, although that might be neither here nor there for your purposes if the force of a jump or rough section puts significant sideways force on the mudguards.

I am doubtful that beefier stays (as opposed to fastenings) are the answer to your problem: the problem exists mainly because the wider the distance the between the stays where they fasten to the mudguard, the inherently less rigid the structure. With narrow tyres and correspondingly narrow mudguards, the stays will be more akin to two sides of a triangle (i.e. a very rigid shape). The wider the mudguards, the more the stays will be like two sides of a parallelogram (=not a rigid shape). I suspect it’s less likely to be bending along the length of  the stays themselves that’s the problem than movement at the fastening points of the stays (i.e. the corners of the parallelogram/trapezoid).

The Planet Bike Cascadia mudguards do seem to be the preferred mudguard for wide tyre bikes like the Surly Ogre, as per Surly’s own website instruction on fitting mudguards to the Ogre here, so it might be worth googling for reviews to see if people report better experience with them compared with Bluemels.

To clarify/emphasise my comments above about the two types of SKS/Bluemels quick release, I have a set of new Bluemels mudguards for a planned new build. I’ve just had a look at them and I can feel quite a bit of side to side or angular play in the movement of the eye of the QR component. It may not be so apparent when the mudguards are fitted, but if you undo the bolt securing the mudguard to the fork dropout, you will then be able to waggle the eye and see how much movement there is for yourself. I’m pretty sure there is not so much play/movement of a stay in a Secuclip fastening.

It may just be that the Bluemels profile and thickness of plastic is simply not sufficiently rigid to meet your usage requirements, but before you ditch them, I would make the following suggestions/observations:

1. SKS supply two different types of quick release systems for the stays of their front mudguards. You have the version that is supplied as standard with the Bluemels range. I think that the version supplied with the SKS chromoplastic range (Secuclip) is potentially more rigid and resistant to side to side swaying. You can even increase the tightness of the fit of the stay in the Secuclip by bending the stays apart a bit.

2. It might help improve the rigidity a bit if you increase the distance separating the stays by fitting extra spacers on both sides of the fixing at the fork dropout (not just enough to clear the disc brake on one side). In other words, widen the base of the effective triangle/trapezoid of which the stays form the sides. I doubt this will have a great effect, but if you have to replace the stays in order to fit Secuclips anyway, it won’t hurt to do this.

3. Two stays either side are likely to be more rigid than a single stay design, all other things being equal.

Failing that, Planet Bike Cascadia Fenders seem to be well regarded and are available in a metal version, but are not cheap and you will have to pay import duties.