kaiser – Member

sometimes they are good ….sometimes not
why can’t the manufacturers make something that works and then stick to it?

….and insist that bike frame manufacturers correctly and accurately machine the caliper mountings.

….and that mechanics fit these brakes correctly.

…..and that users know how to look after them.

😆

I dunno! 😆
Measure your seat tube diameter and also check Shimano’s website. They have groupset compatibility charts on there somewhere.

I’ve been tinkering around with Hope brakes for 10 years now. I think I have cracked how to look after them and learned the “dos and donts” now (I hope).

Maybe you need a seal kit. These are available through chain reaction cycles.

Make sure the piston sleeves in the caliper are free of any pitting. This is caused by grit and mud – corrosion. If there is pitting you will get leaks and air getting in will cause the lever to go spongy. In this case, you will need a new caliper body.

A full service will at least enable you to give the whole set up a good clean and see what it’s condition is.

The seal kits used to do both caliper and lever. I’d do both if I were you.

The first one fits to a 28.6mm seat tube as well as the two larger diameters. It will be suppled with a couple of spacers.

The tube clamp appears to be situated above the mechanism in the first mech. and the second is more of a compact design.

Both work with top or bottom pull (the routing of the cable depends on your frame).

Check that you are running the right thickness of chain.

Front mechs are much of a muchness IMHO. They don’t get a great deal of use and front shifting has never been a slick affair.

BigButSlimmerBloke – Member

Government want to win votes in next election = everything’s fine
Shops – want you to spend money not keep it to yourself = everything’s fine and getting better
banks – would prefer nobody mention recesion as it was pretty much their fault = everything’s fine

So unemployment is rising, house prices are falling, most industries are struggling, but everything’s fine. See?

A perfect analysis!

May I add the line “If you still have your job/ solvent business = everything’s fine”

We haven’t seen the half of it yet!

Market research!

This is the bit a lot of smaller businesses overlook. I’m still learning after 6 years.

Always give your ideas due diligence and don’t rely on gut feeling alone. A business plan should be your starting point for any venture. You will soon discover the risks, an idea of the commercial potential and whether your idea is remotely viable. The process will raise questions that will force you to do your market research.

Business Link sometimes run start up courses.

Running your own business is no walk in the park. A stable regular income form a permanent job is a luxury, but you have to let someone else boss you around. If you can become independent and successful, it’s the way to go.

Well I did mainframe computer field engineering for 20 years. It gradually became a deskilled numpty role, but now the job has all but gone for the vast majority – technology got too cheap and reliable. Engineers were never given much respect and this was reflected in the poor rates of pay and bad treatment. Ok, so £50-60k isn’t a bad salary, but when you give up Christmas, Easter, Bank holidays, half your weekends (without knowing which ones, often only hours in advance), the salary looses it’s appeal.

I’m sure there are some great jobs is R&D, or in civil engineering.

Pick an industry that is not going to get devoured by the success of it’s own technology!

As the UK treats engineering as a bit of an oddball profession and because we’d sooner close a factory than preserve it’s huge collective skill base, don’t expect a stable future.

Avoid anything to do with support at ALL costs, unless you want to give over your whole life for peanuts.

Accountancy or Law are better professions. Stable respectable plod along jobs that command a reasonable income and which can lead to some high flying jobs.

Ah yes, I remember the joys of the annual appraisal.

It sometimes was ok, but all I really was interested in was what the pay deal was. The rest was mostly bullshit, far removed from my actual performance. Sometimes it was very negative, sometimes very positive, but rarely accurate. A farce!

Throughout the 90’s recession, the “tuppence hapeny” company I worked for gave us little or nothing in the way of pay increases. They made dubious claims that they were paying above market rates. In fact they were taking advantage of an average figure for my function, not the factoring in our specialist skills which were in the top quartile. They were arrogant enough to think we’d buy their bullshit, but then as it was a recession……

My annual appraisals have mostly been an opportunity for my boss to replay a list of all the things he perceived I had done wrong throughout the year, but had failed to mention to me until that stage. In the end, I lost it with him. If these issues were worth recording, surely they were worth dealing with at the time!? The stupid man had no management skill whatsoever and reckoned he could pull rank on me, just because he was my boss! I totally lost respect for the guy and it got to the point where we’d get into a row. In the end, they needed me more than I needed them. They were getting a superb deal out of me. It was a pleasure to leave there and poach three of their other disgruntled employees. The new company paid me £3k a pop – a nice little earner! Did I feel guilty? NO!

My advice to anyone who feels routinely put down, is to find another job, but make it very clear why you left some months after settling into your new job.

Don’t leave it for the 7 years that i did and where you become bitter and twisted.

I have declined “exit” interviews a couple of times since then. I am so full of contempt for the “let’s find out what we could do better” meeting just before you exit the building! Like they didn’t already know!

If you can start up your own business and have enough contacts and customers, this is the only way to go. It’s a tough world, but better than being dangled by a thread, by a bully employer who uses the perpetually present veiled threat of dropkicking you out the door with only a moment’s notice.

I did uninstall AVG 8 fully. The whole charade is a mystery.

If only PC’s and their operating systems had proper error reporting like real computers!

Microsoft ought to provide a bootable disc with a full blown diagnosic package that can scan for errors, determine the cause(s) and allow you to fix them.

Where is the problem?

Erm, no cp. It’s a Windows Vista dual core laptop which is fully up to date on all it’s sw. Never given any trouble before and is 2 years old now.

Is Chivalry like the opposite of Chavalry? 😆

The c-fury looks like it will be a real winner if the price is right. Good luck!

There are some screwball people out there. Patience – zero, eager to unleash all their frustration on someone perceived to have wronged them for the slightest thing.

I used to live in a flat with a single driveway accessing the garages and parking spaces at the rear of the property. One afternoon, some numpty blocked it off. The stupid thing was that there was a space either side of the drive, two completely legal places to park!

After 2 hours I called our local constable and he suggested that we drive across the small lawn in front of the front fence in order to get in and out. This would have been quite difficult due to the high kerb and the fact that the grass was pretty waterlogged, not to mention the resulting damage to the lawn. The constable didn’t give numpty a ticket! So I concluded that it must be legal to obstruct a driveway!?

Stopping and obstructing a driveway whilst still in your vehicle is entirely acceptable behaviour. It’s a public highway and it’s not like you are preventing someone coming or going. The angry twxt should have kept is trap shut!

The problem is our streets are too crowded and councils have an active policy which discourages the provision of adequate parking. The thinking is that we should all give up our cars and go by public transport, or on foot. We had yellow lines put in here a while ago, most weren’t needed, but the displacement issues are very bad. I have offstreet parking, so am unaffected, but lots of other people now have a lot of hassle parking – stupid! The reality of modern life is that we don’t have time to take public transport and it is too expensive to boot. People get hacked off when they’re hemmed in and on top of one another, so tempers are likely to fray.

The solution is to move to a lower density area where people are less tense and aggressive. Yeah right! New Zealand?

IanMunro – Member

Unless i’ve missed something, i’m pretty certain the government doesn’t have a policy of funding Kosha light switches. 😆 😆

Exclellent!

This thread is a perfect example of how religion causes more bad than good.

It just divides people by righteousness and blind faith. Religion produces people frightened to think for themselves.

In our confused PC world, no sense can be made of a simple situation.

Look, the court should send the writ back and with a response along these lines; “your claim will not be heard becuase it is a total waste of the court’s time and public money. You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves and have no moral justification! We are sure that the Jewish people who endured real suffering and discrimination many years ago would be disgusted at your opportunistic swipe at a society, one which is the most tolerant in the world. You let down the entire Jewish faith. Get a life”

Look guys, there is no justification for taxing users for this project – period! It’s just nonsense! There are far more important issues that need addressing!

I bet the tax has come about because of the high number of affected people come from the same part of the country as most of the Labour cabinet do.

The money they will get is not small beer and I bet that only a fraction of it will actually go towards solving the problem. We’ll be paying this forever i’m sure.

Ofcom should be cajoling these companys into providing coverage for most homes. The government could make this happen without this arbitrary tax!

Just more bullsit Labour tax waste!

GrahamS – Member

Affordable 3.5G access?? Most ‘remote’ places don’t even get a normal GSM signal, but they will have land lines. 3.5g access costs £7 a month in addition to a standard Vodafone contract. That’s affordable in my book! It’s going to get cheaper too, i’m sure.

Remote places that already have a telephone can’t get a broadband connection at a sensible speed. The limitation is the distance the access point is from the local BT exchange. If you are too far away, you ain’t getting it. So you would need to build an exchange and lay fibre to this from the existing network. If houses were spread out, you would need to build extra exchanges. So are we saying one lone house would get it’s own exchange? That would be barmy (whoever pays)! Wireless infrastructure is the only practicable solution, even if it’s some sort of WIMAX relay arrangement.

Come on you TELCO boffins, tell exactly what the latest hardware is.

We have to be very careful agreeing to any new tax as once its in place it tempting for governments to abuse it.

Erm, did we get a vote on it?

I’m sure a lot of homes can’t get fast enough broadband because of the 1000’s of miles of rusty CW1308 (twisted pair multi-core cables which BT use). The existing infrastructure needs replacing in a lot of areas.

I don’t see why we have to pay for people who can’t get fast broadband! I don’t see internet access as a fundamental right. Next we will be paying additional tax to fund all the people who can’t afford broadband!! This is a nonsense.

The solution for small communities is wirless relay, microwave links. Lots of aerials is a smal price to pay and of there are so few population, it’s no big deal anyway. Digging up roads etc is way too costly.

If it isn’t viable to connect some areas, maybe the huge telcos should be forced to factor these handful of omissions into their overall infrastructure.

Dear old Maggie! Hope she gets better soon.

I’m sure some of these nutters would try and convice us that the world is flat if they thought they could get away with it.

porterclough – Member

Goods, facilities and services should be provided with regard to the religion or belief of people using them.

take out the words “using” and “them” and substitute ” who are not intelligent enough to realise their religion is a nonsense”

Yes, one of the funniest sketch shows ever. Jesse’s fashion tips us classic.

I do like Armstrong and Miller though. The two WW2 aviators talking “street” are one of my favoirites- “yeah blood, random and shit”

Or perhaps the “kkeeeeill them” sketches. 😆

We need more stuff like this!

Yes, happened to me. They do this on certain transactions over £50. It’s to protect them if something goes wrong, nobody else! I asked them why, with my unblemished record of 4 years with 100% feedback, they said it will improve my credibility as a seller!?! WTF! On the contrary, I delayed the transaction and risked negative feedback. I contacted my buyer and they had no idea because the money had gone from their account. My call cannot have inspired confidence. I asked for a bank transfer and offered a refund of the Paypal charges, but they didn’t want to trust me! A tad one sided me thinks!

Paypal still collect their fee immediately, even though you haven’t got your money!! eBay take their’s too. The total combined transaction percentage is around 7%. Easy guaranteed money for them!

They release the money when the buyer leaves positive feedback, or up to 45 days. There is a get out for the 45 day rule however, so you could wait months, or never get paid at all!

They don’t even release the postage fees because these are rolled in to the sum you are supposed to receive.

So you have to trust your buyer is genuine and send off your valuable item out of your own pocket with no guarantee you will ever get paid!

How many firms do you know who will send out items before they have recieved payment?

This policy is bang out of order IMHO.

E.G. The buyer could decide that they just made a mistake and bought the wrong item, or they just buy it for a one off use and then return it to you under some pretence that it’s defective etc. Perhaps they might put a fault on the item to justify their claim. Anything could happen! The risk is all yours! If they do dxck you about, as a seller you can’t even leave negative feedback now! What the hell is that all about?

eBay and Paypal are just finding ways to further relieve themselves of any duty of care to their customers, but they always make sure they get their money! Their customer service totally stinks and their stock responses are just lazy and shoe their contempt fo good users. If they were under the same rating system as the buyers and sellers, I reckon they’d struggle to get 30%. It’s time they got a special feature slot on BBC’s Watchdog!

I’m totally discouraged selling on eBay now and regard my seller account as good as closed through no falut of my own!

So as a seller you get screwed all ways, just because the “Fleabay” and “Gaypal” want a quiet and immensley profittable life!

Cheers mustard and paulosoxo! In the past I have tried freezing a couple of 1L Icecream cartons full of water and putting them in a standard coolobox, but they thaw out within 48 hours. Maybe if i do this with a Waeco, i’ll have a working solution.

Is yours like this one?

Looks pretty neat and only £40. I see they do a £15 battery monitor that shuts off the power when the battery gets low.

Are you an ex-Royal or something DezB?

Er, no – I just like to feel the breeze on my thighs.

Ooooh Debz, you always have to tease us! 😯

Yes mt, “big” is important to them, matches their inflated egos!

I wanted to be an architect, but didn’t think i’d survive the 6-7 years of studying.

(I have no idea why it takes this long, should be this duration to become a doctor, not a person who designs extensions!)

I opted for art and graphic design instead.

Cheadle Hulme. Lovely place! Train station takes you into Picadilly.

Large developers are the culprits, not the architects! Buying up land and witholding it. Building just enough houses to keep the prices sky high. Damn them! 👿

I like both old and modern architecture. The problem is the juxtaposition of the two. Prince Charles makes some valid criticisms of Modern architects.

The design elite may wish to break new ground and innovate. I personally embrace this quest, but I also think the impact af any design on a locality should be very carefully considered. Modern designs very often don’t stand the test of time and end up in decline before being demolished. The best designs are timeless, almost self-sustaining.

We should not be looking at a building’s lifespan in terms of tens of years, but much more. We should build to the highest standards and produce something that is practical to maintain, that won’t become a white elephant. We currently have a thirst for contemporary achitecture, but we should be very mindful that this will change.

According to independant surveys, most people prefer architecture that leans towards the past, designs that they are familiar with. Developers research this subject and give people what they want (look at the style of most new homes). Designs that push the boundaries often help reinforce this backward looking desire. I think it’s a shame that new houses are so homogenised however. The truth is that houses like these are cheap to produce. They are “toshed out” and packed in without sufficient archtectural detail to make them true to what they are supposed to be replicating – that would be too costly. I don’t think people really get it, otherwise they wouldn’t buy them would they?

The reality is that everone has to look at these new buildings for decades to come, whether they are high octane ground breaking steel and metal structures, or acre upon acre of bland stock designed Barratt homes.

We made a lot of planning mistakes in the past, look at the failure of high rise homes. The utopian dream of a few elite architects turned into a huge social mistake (Rudeboy will confirm this 😆 ) Look at the new towns. A huge planning blunder that requires disproportionately high and frequent investment to stop these places falling into terminal decline!

I think Charles has a lot of support even if people are questioning his right to influence matters.

No architect chooses to create a pastiche of the past as these structures don’t break any new ground and don’t present any new challenges. These old ornate designs are also completely uneconomic.

I wish Price Charles would rock up and protest at the acres of boxes that a handful of large developers get away with wrecking our countryside with! It’s happening across the length and breadth of the country! You know, 3500 greenfield boxes built on the edge of a town, but that only has one road in and out. Total vandalism of the very essence of our landscape. That’s much more of an issue IMHO.

I’m for a percentage increase in all villages, towns and cities, like the way they would have evolved before all the planning laws came into force. Planning laws that only big developers can pay their way to circumvent! I’d advocate limiting the size of developments, say 200 houses. Appartment blocks in high density areas is another matter.

Not a chance with the arcane planning process in this country!

An Ugg boot fetish?? WTF!

Apart from giving no support to your feet, they are only marginally more sexy looking than those little zip up fleece lined boots that little old ladies buy. Aparently genuine ones are like, £100!!!???

Then you have those “Converse’s” pumps/plimsols, another very basic rubbish item of footware. Cheap canvass shoes modelled on footware of 50 odd years ago, but cost £40!? How can old tatt like that become a fashion item?

Why do women pay so much money for the lowest quality goods?

Fashion vicims eh! 😆

It rained last night at our barbeque. That was Margaret Thatcher’s fault too!

There will be no winner of this argument and Rudeboy’s cheap and nasty icecream (the stuff of old – which he looks back on so positively) will have melted and made a right mess everywhere. The sort of icecream that was the best available in the old days when we had a labour government and everything was perfect (according to Rudeboy). Oh sorry, we still have a Labour government don’t we? I blame Margaret Thatcher!

Without web forums, we’d all be down the pub arguing whilst under the influence – much more fun!

Wow, that has to be my longest post ever! (must keep off this site!)

I’d say life is vastly better in so many ways! Sure there are negatives, but I’d sooner have been born in the last 20 years.

I remember my school days where abusive teachers ridiculed the slow to learn students, pastoral care – “nil points”! It is way better now, less bullying and pupils get treated more like adults when they are behaving themselves. The end result is that they produce more rounded balanced adults. The opportunity is there for all that choose to take it!

People are more tolerant and vastly better informed due to TV, the internet etc etc.

We also enjoy a hugely better standard of living!! You can buy a car that doesn’t rust right through in 3 years from new and you won’t break your neck if you get in a shunt. Car safety is far far better. Consumers are treated much better than in the old days.

Many illnesses you would have died from, or that are severely debilitating are now treatable etc.

We are better informed about diet and healthy foods are more readily available across the board.

Communication across the globe is cheap and almost instant. You can buy a mobile phone for as little as £15 with a £5 call voucher and have this on you at all times. 20 years ago you could only get car phones and these cost £1100 plus £20 a month before you even made a call.

Foreign travel is accessible to most people now. Flights can be bought for a few pounds. We ordinary people have never had it easier to travel abroad.

We have far greater choice in almost everything. Too much choice can cause headaches, but would you really want to limit your options?

So Project and rudeboy, looking back on the old days through highly selective rose tinted spectacles is a mistake. You need to look forward!

Journalists hype every topic they lay their hands on so we get a jaundiced view of the world. I don’t believe there is a breakdown in the family. Most families stick together just as they have always done. Where we have gone seriously wrong over the past 40 years is in molly coddling people! We believe the claptrap that is printed in papers and overeact sometimes!

We allow people to claim generous benefits when the kindest thing would be to propel the able bodied back into a job ASAP.

We virtually encourage single parenthood. It’s now much more acceptable to get “knocked up” in your teens and then demand a place to live, plus all the associated costs etc.

Living on benefits has become a lifestyle choice. That is just wrong!

Many people don’t need their entitlements. I stood behind a young girl in the post office last week. She could not have been older than 20 and was collecting two weekly dole cheques to the tune of £513. She was in the queue chatting on her mobile phone telling whoever she was talking to that she was going to buy a plasma TV with the proceeds! Fancy rocking up at a post office where they are just giving away free cash! We pay for this nonsense!

Soft liberal thinking allows those who are not genuinely needs to screw money out of the public purse. People with no moral fibre! Why have they no moaral fibre? Because they need firmer guidance on what is right and wrong.

Soft liberal thinking creates injustice, anger and resentment. It divides people.

All these daft politically correct socialist ideals have led to the soft society we have today. The violence on the streets is about the lack of respect for this soft society. The perpetrators of violence have no respect for what they see as a limp wristed authority. They laugh in the face of it! A firm hand is what will work for these few, but again, most people aren’t on the ponce, aren’t violent. If we were to apply the right approach to those who blatantly ignore the rules, it would be a much better, fairer society in the long run. A no nonsense authority was one of the better aspects of our bygone society.

How can you blame Margaret Thatcher for all the woes of today? Margaret Thatcher left office almost exactly 18 years ago! You simply cannot blame one person for everything that has gone wrong!

I have to remind you that we have had a Labour administration for the past 12 years. If they had delivered their promises, we would be close to the utopia that leftwingers such as project and rudeboy so dearly crave.

The truth is that Labour have been no less conservative than Margaret Thatcher was! They have been worse in fact. E.G. at least the man in the street got a look in when public services were sold off. A fair cop given that we had paid for these. Nowadays the Labour administration use the money they get from selling our assets off on the cheap to pay the burgeoning public debt. BNF is one recent case in point.

I guess politically speaking, we will never agree, but I truly hoped Blair would put right some of the injustices brought in by the outgoing Conservative administration (no I didn’t say they were perfect did i?). Labour simply did more of the same however. They started office with a fantastic set of circumstances, foundations laid by the conservative administration. I am convinced this is why they lasted so long and the economy was strong up until 2000. After 2000 the weak regulation of banks on a global scale cause the boom years to overrun. Excessive growth in the public sector also created a false sense of economic stability – labour doing what they do best – spending public money like there’s no tomorrow!

Poles suggest that Labour has no chance of retaining control at next year’s election, so I think a general election should happen now. If this did happen, we could begin to get the country’s finances back on track. It’s going to be a long painful process and who ever is in power will not be popular! The new controlling party will inherit the dire financial legacy of the worst Labour administration in living memory. That’s what Labour governments do, run up monumental debt!

Flaperon – Member

Although since you’re not changing any wiring, they’ll never know.

I agree, but make sure you remove any date markings on the device. Those loss adjusters would be delighted to find an “out”, no matter how irrelevant the issue is.

Zero G were always very good to us, but in the last couple of trips we found that they overhiked their rental prices. I always take a bike out there, but my mates were baulking at the fees and vowed to get a bag and take their chances with the baggage handler numpties.

If you do take a bike in a proper bike bag, make sure the bike is bubblewrapped and pipelagged. Gaffer tape the lagging on too. Make sure that you have done absolutely everything to avert any risk of damage!

All the bike shops out there charge a lot for parts. Everything was overpriced compared to here.

We had some cheap £200-£250 XC bike one year (not from Zero-G – they’d run out). The shop charged £100 for four days rental, but I had to fix the brakes and set up the gears to stop the chain derailing and jumping gears. It took a few goes to get it working just right – well i’m not used to setting up bikes properly in the middle of a ride and without a workstand etc. Then a spoke broke and they charged 30 feekin Euros to put that right. The cheek of it! It was a ski shop in Les Houches if I recall. Surly bxxtards too!

In my 30 years experience visiting France, the people there generally don’t do customer service!(massive understatement). Such a shame, given all the positives of the country.

Yes, expect plenty of “silly steep” sections in Chamonix.

We have done the bit over the back of Les Houches loads of times. There are a number of routes which take you all the way down to St Gervais, then down to the station to run back up to Les Houches to do it all again.

It’s feasible to get over to Megeve this way too. Sorry, need to get the French OS style maps out to give you the names of lifts and peaks to head for etc.

Will definitely do the Brevent to Servoz next time as well as the Flegere-Vallorcine. We were hoping to do Flegere-Valorcine on the day the clouds blew in and visibility dropped to a few metres. It got very wet and all enthusiasm waned!

We once took an old lift and a old mining train up to Lac Emosson from Vallocine. That was interesting, especially riding along the damn wall which is hundreds of feet tall. The ride down to the valley floor was good fun. The lift was expensive, but you can actually drive a car up there.

If you want a tough mostly road hill climbing day (around 5000-5500ft), take the train to Montroc. Ride up to the lift station at Le Tour and get an uplift to Col De Balme, then go off the back down into Vallorcine. Join the road and then take the road up to Finhaut. There’s a switchback trail that takes you over into Switzerland and way way down on the road to Martigny. You have lunch then ride all the way back up. It took us 2.5hrs to Finhaut, then another hour back into Chamonix. You can chop off the last bit of road at the summit between the two valleys by going through the railway tunnel (it’s wide enough for pedestrians and trains, but you need a light). I would not recommend it because the views are great up there and the road off the top is full of nice bends (cars can’t keep up with you on these). The last half hour is a blast back down to Chamonix Sud, part road, part throught the parks, forest, by the river.

There’s a good few routes off the Argentiere lift too.

Ah Chamonix, so varied and so few other mountain bikers. I love it!

As it’s a wired unit in a bathroom, be sure to get the newly installed fan inspected by a certified inspector.

The door is where a lot of sound escapes. Double airtight seals round the edges will help.

For the door, something heavy and dense that doesn’t resonate too much.

In a deep door frame, perhaps you could hang two doors with a void inbetween. The handles would need to be low profile and offset however.

Acoustic plasterboad is available for walls. There’s acoustic decoupling systems for studwork too.

Best to ask a sound engineer really.