All of the above advice.
Plus, if you've not bought them already, try the duel sided/entry cleats. Just gives you a bit more confidence.

It took me a good few years to get around to trying clipless. Finally took the plunge some five years ago. A couple of butt-cheek clenching moments were inevitable. But took far less time to adjust than I thought.

Started off with mine loose & they kinda stayed(ish) that way. Even a mild pedal strike has my foot unclipped.

Chris

Needs a longer seatpost 🙂

Chris

Still using B&Q Chainsaw oil – proberbly out of habit by now. ( Not the biodegradable stuff which seemed to turn somehow "resinous" if left for a week before use) – kit lasts me just as long as the greenline wet lube & costs very little.

…Having said that, was just pondering on the lube front as I've just come in this minute from fitting a new drive set to my bike. ( crankset, BB,chain & cass).

What is the stuff the manufacturers apply to the chain before you buy it ? – Is it a bonafide lube in it's own right or just some kind of gunk to stop it rusting ?

Chris

Even when I was a kid, I always lusted after a Shelby Cobra.

….still do.

As for more modern day cars, I'd have to plump for an Aston Martin. ( would still prefer the Shelby)

Chris

Came accross a bloke playing some bagpipes at a reservoir near M62 J22.( Saddleworth)

Solo night ride over Ogden / Piethorne. Pitch black, funny noises, turned helmet light on to see 20 sheep in a perfect semi circle stock still – all with reflective eyes….staring at me – Bit spooky to say the least. ( rode on quite sharpish)

Chris

🙂

Chris

Spawn of the devil.
Vile stuff !

Chris

I like Llandegla.
Only been the once a couple of years back, but it's not often I visit a trail centre so it makes a pleasant change.
There's a lot of natural stuff right on my doorstep so I've no real need to venture further. But, it's nice to have some variety !

Chris

Also in.

Don't actually mind working bank hols as the roads to most places I want to get to are usually like car parks.

Chris

MD – Like yer new toy mate !
Indeed, Very Orange 🙂 – Will be able to spot you from the other side of a valley unlike your previous Black Knight look.

Pity about the tonsilitis – That'll soon go so no great problems. – Besides, it's hammering down here at the mo, so much nicer stopping in.

Bestist wishes…& watch them cods ! Hurts like hell when you get the old Cod & Toptube interface wrong 🙂

Chris

We've had a Model one on kitchen duties for years. Wonderful things !
Used every day.
As above, never regretted buying it.

Chris

There's usually a check-box on the wireless networks tab which says along the lines of "Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings"
Sometimes using this can throw a nag prompt from the third party wireless software, but the nag prompt should't stop the Windows wireless stuff from working.

Chris

Had something very similar with a neighbours new laptop a couple of weeks back – the same issues as you describe – With the caveat that the router in question was a domestic Netgear, not a Cisco etc enterprise type thing & also, I didn't have any potential Group Policy issue to contend with. ( although I suspect, it's not a Group policy issue – But, what you could try, is to connect into your LAN using a wired connection just in case there's something burried in a login script).

In the end, the way it fixed itself was a combination of the following:-

1. Re-confirm all the wireless settings in the router & apply
2. For the duration of connecting, I had to ensure the SSID was visible.
3. Rebooted router.

(Not sure at which point in the above list things cleared up).

P.S. It's not something daft like you've run out of DHCP adresses ?

Chris

Thanks for the input – will pass it on.

Chris

Jon – the friend in question is a cross country runner ( national championship level in his age group)
He's looking at cycling as a possible suplimental means of keeping fit. – Nothing serious. Suspect he'd use it poss twice a week, once at weekend & a pub run on a week night once the evenings get lighter.

Chris

Back them right off before you're first outing – it will help your confidence in knowing you can get out really fast.
Subsiquent rides, tighten them until it feels right.

As for cleats, I'd try the duel sided ones for the same reason.

I use the cheap n' chearful 520's….still ! – Another fit & forget item that works great.

Chris

Could it seep in through the cleat holes in the bottom I wonder ? ( mine's so jammed full of 'stuff' I doubt anything short of nuclear would clear the holes out)

But, the main body of the boot seems fine.

Chris

Curiosity got the better of me recently. Sat them in water to just below the start of the cuff & left for a while – No water got in.

Go riding out on the trails when it's lagging down & water gets in the top.
Still top boots though.

Chris

big_scot_nanny

Thanks for the link. – Gone & ordered one 🙂 – He had three for sale so not jumping in & spoiling anyone else's chances of getting one.

Lent mine out some time ago – can't remember to who. – At that price, it looks fine to me & saves me a trip out to get bits.

Chris

Ok, think it may work now ( I hope)

Chris

Peacefull – try again !

That didn't work ! – need to research how to post photo 🙁
Chris

Peaceful…

Chris

Currently have roof mounted & four bikes seem perfectly happy on top of car.
But, If I was starting again, I'd proberbly have a serious look into tow bar options.

Chris

Worcester Bosch here as well.

Our old Potterton died acouple of years ago…after 20 odd years faultless service.

Plumber said much as mentioned above, the Worcester Bosch unit's on the whole seemed to be more reliable & with beter backup.
He said (along the lines of), all Worcester Bosch were pretty good, but with most other makes you had to cherry pick through the models.

Chris

Would agree with the 'steel & simple' route.
Bit of oil on the blades every so often & all's well.

Prefer the cordless types which have the option to just plug into mains when the battery goes…saves looking like a modern art reject 🙂

Chris

Hey ! – Well done there MD 🙂

….Still think it's a bit early for Shiraz 😉

Good news bud !
Chris

On Saturday, Ogden & Piethorne reservoirs were fine – Odd snowey & icy patches, but nothing to get excited about.

Above Ogden / Piethorne – leading up to the mast at windy hill ( M62 J 22) – now, that's a different story. All was pretty much rideable until the signpost ( left for Windy Hill – 1 & 3/4 miles, Right points Pennine Bridleway – Piethorne 3/4 mile)

Barring a couple of hundred metres, I ended up pushing through snow all the way to the mast – Decided against going over to blackstonedge in favour of a bit of tarmac to the Ramms Head & down back to Ogden & Piethorne.

HTH
Chris

Can't give a catagoric answer – but if there's a "Christopher Hogwood" version, it may be worth tracking down ?

Chris

Bullet – Just took a punt on your recommendation – Gone for "Dark Times"
(I like occasional musical meanderings into unknowns)

Couldn't get the 'buy now' button to work in Firefox – Had to use IE …Oh…the shame 😉

Thanks
Chris

More artists to throw in the hat…

Michael Hedges
Pierre Bensusan
Isaac Guillory

Chris

If finances allow, having both a Hard-tail & a Full-suss is a good thing. But, Don't sell the Rockhopper to finance your Full-suss purchase.

I was in a similar position having a Rockhopper ( bought it around the 2005 mark when they went to hydroformed tubes). Annoying little voice in the back of my head kept whispering " need FS….Need FS"
Bought a 2007 Stumpy, but kept the Rockhopper.

I use both equally & wouldn't like to be without either.

Chris

My personal favourite's "Really"

Chris

For the last 16+ years, I've lived at the top of a steep hill.

I've had 5 rear wheel drive cars & during snowy conditions I found ( through trial & error), that placing heavy loads directly over the drive wheels ( and I do mean directly sat over the drive wheels), seem to help greatly with traction. Things like 4 or 5 bags of sand.

Admittedly dosen't really help with steering,or coming down hills but at least you can get usually get up them.

You still have to be 'sensitive' with the clutch, throttle, brake & steering, but it helped.

Chris

Don't know about the Mk2's – I hope they're better made than the MK1's !

Had the MK1 for a couple of years & tbh, I might have whinged repeatedly about bits always needing to be replaced,(…which they invariably seemed to with annoying regularity)& body panels never quite lining up( quite disgraceful, really),Lack of any real bootspace, but, in hindsight there was a lot to commend about it.

On road – It was a good vehicle to go touring round Europe in…albeit a bit noisy & the fact that I always found the seats too shallow, front to back ( & the lack of boot space)

Off road – Whilst it may not have have full Disco / Series credentials, it was remarkably capable when used off-road. The hampering bit being the 7 inch (?) ground clearance. But, without fail it always managed to get through 'stuff' – Needed a bit of careful planning sometimes, but, a lifelong Disco/Series owning inlaw became quite respectful of it's abilities. ( you could only get these types of vehicles to his house)

But, yes, I did enjoy my time with it.

Chris

Wine bottle stopper…..how useless is that !

Bottle gets opened, drunk & binned….no stopper involved.

Chris

(Assuming you've also tried running an uptodate anti-virus scan in safe mode)

Sometimes the more persistant virus infestations need to be removed by use of a boot disk which runs some anti virus software upon startup.

Have a trawl round the big anti virus sites & see if they have one.
I'va also come accross a virus some time back that seemed to somehow 'know' about the software the big mainsstream venndors use & had to use one not normally on the radar – Clamwin

On that particular occasion it was a happy ending.

Good luck !
Chris

44 – another IT bod

Unfortunatley, I've not got a 'pod to hand ( Zen & Sansa) & I've NO chance of getting my hands on either of my kids pod's to play with.

As far as I remember, the squeezbox, using the squeezebox server software, is happy enough playing most music formats & none of the aforementioned ones will confuse it. So that's not the problem.

Problem is choosing a suitable lossless format ( codec & File/Folder format) to get all your cd's onto your hard drive that you will then be able to transfer to your iphone/pod with as little messing about as possible.

It's kinda looking like you'll be using Itunes as a one stop shop – Which isn't as bad as all that (… except for the dammed annoying proprietary file/folder format Apple insist on using).

Whichever method you settle on. Depending on the amound of cd's & the frequency you change content on your 'pod/phone is the potential space issue. Even using the Apple lossless ( ALAC) – which I believe all 'pods will play, it still produces files 'around' half the size of the cd tracks so you're 'pod will start to fill up quite quickly. If this was the case, you'd then have to import into Itunes using a lossy codec ( & 'cos I'm a fussy bugger over all things audio, I'd recommend AAC min 256vbr with Itunes as opposed to even Lame'd MP3) & that would lead to lots & lots of duplication 🙁

It could all start getting frustrating & messy !

Other options would be to look at what things like Foobar2000 can offer, as once setup, it's a pretty good ( albeit not flash looking), piece of software. & use this in conjunction with something like Yamipod ( …I 'think' this works with most 'pod's except the Itouch – But you'de need to check this out)

Easiest way would be to use Itunes – Unless you like & have the time to play.

Chris

The software IS good – Been using it for years. It comes with a bunch of good standard built in codecs you can use but also allows you to use other downloaded codecs to rip with ( Gives you the option of using a newer version of LAME for your MP3's for example as opposed to the fraunhofer MP3 codec & other types of codecs such as Ogg Vorbis etc)

I can understand why you just want to rip lossless tracks in a conventional way, (using FLAC to same some space) & then use Itunes just as a media manager, but it's getting a suitable lossless format that works with both Itunes other than the Apple Lossless codec ( ALAC) or WAV that may be a problem.

You could always try ripping a test track into Flac & try importing into Itunes to see what happens. – I've never tried it myself.
If it starts to get messy & you have to start faffing around editing metadata (Metadata's a bit like ID3 tags which gives you the info on your player's display such as title, artist and so on). I think I'd proberbly take the easy option & just use Itunes as mentioned above.

If you look at other products you are far less limited & other options open up – Just depends how much playing around you want to do.

As for the codecs Apple use as standard ( AAC), It's actually a very good sounding lossy codec & similar to Ogg Vorbis & another called Musepack – trouble is that the lesser known ones have more limited hardware support.

MP3, although being inferior sounding to the likes of AAC / Vorbis / Musepack ( allowing for compression rate differences). Is the choice for compatibility as just about everything can play MP3's.

As for bitrates, I find AAC using 256 VBR ( Variable bit rate), to be pretty similar sounding in quality to MP3's using a far higher bitrate of 320 ( which is as far as MP3 goes).

You need to experiment to see what bit rates your own ears tell you – I would suggest starting around the 256 VBR & work from there

Proberbly clouded your thoughts even more with the above rather long-winded explanation – Sorry !

Chris

Not sure how much ( if any), Flac support is available within Itunes.

If you're planning on using Itunes anyway, why not use the Apple Lossless encoder already built into Itunes ?
( Edit, Preferences, General tab, import settings, import using, drop down box for Apple Lossless Encoder)

Chris