Track ends and a Surly tugnut here and never have any problems with slippage…the tugnut is also a bottle opener so what more could you want :D

I do use hex skewers for extra security, but not sure I need them tbh.

Plenty of folk here complain about the faff of getting the wheel out using horizontal dropouts and discs but IME it takes about 10 seconds to release a bolt on the caliper.. I’ve never found it that much of an issue.

Sprocket Jockey is that Abereidy?

Well spotted!

Just tried to search for the Jamie Oliver one but can’t find it. Worth borrowing the book if you can – this is a variation which looks pretty good though:

http://afternoondlite.com/2011/04/19/cowboy-chilli/

There’s a really good Jamie Oliver Cowboy Chilli in his USA book – made with brisket and muscovado sugar, paprika and coffee. Campfire optional. Takes a while to cook mind…

Female sea eagle, taken from a boat off Skye last week

The Fall at Bangor Uni, circa 1990 (Extricate had just come out).

Mark E on fine form preaching from the pulpit. Seen them several times since and they were just as good. Don’t listen to them much on record though.

Bump

I don’t mind it personally. Bit around the harbour is quite quaint but it is admittedly a bit scruffy in places. Writing off the whole of North Devon on the basis of a visit to Ilfracome is a bit like thinking Yorkshire is rubbish because you once visited Hull though (no offence to Hull).

You’ve got loads of lovely places nearby though – take a drive up to Exmoor or head down the coast a bit further to Croyde / Saunton / Putsborough etc. Some fantastic beaches / walks etc if you make the effort.

Does this mean that when I singlespeeded my twenty odd year old Emmelle with the biopace chainset a few years ago, I was actually at the bleeding edge of nichedom?

for people with very little money, how is easton to live in?

we think we’ve found a house we can afford there.

Really depends on where in Easton. I lived off the southern bit of Stapleton Rd, just across the motorway from St Pauls for a bit. Handy for getting into town and it was reasonably friendly but definitely a touch on the rough side – it may well have improved. Housing stock very shabby at the time but that was a good while ago. Not sure if it’s still the case but the bit of Easton north of Easton Way around the Sugar Loaf pub and St Marks Rd was always the favoured bit with a good community feel, although a bit hippy dippy. Some great ethnic food places around that area. Good access to the Bristol /Bath cycleway from there too.
Easton as a whole is one of the most economically deprived areas of the SW though so also covers a few really dodgy areas.

I started out on a rigid bike in the 90s and was a pretty late convert to front suspension. Now ride a rigid 29er exclusively. I live on Dartmoor so that includes a fair bit of rock and techie stuff.

With the right technique and within reason, you can ride most most stuff rigid that you would on a hardtail or even FS.

Basically you need to be out of the saddle on descents and and be prepared to move your body around a bit to unweight the front end over the rough stuff. Good idea to get comfortable with doing manuals.

You also need to keep it fairly loose – if you’re holding the bars in a vulcan death grip, it’s going to really hurt after a while and your wrists will get a hammering.

Your arms and legs are going to take the place of the suspension you don’t have so you need to flex them accordingly.

As mentioned above, keep your weight well back on descents.

With a bit of practice and enough speed you can effectively unweigh the bike completely and “float” over stuff like small roots and ruts in a zen / ninja stylee.

Enjoy – getting a rigid bike through stuff that everyone else is riding FS will put a huge smile on your face for the rest of the day :-)

Here you go…

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/mobile-phone/3279666/how-to-tether-an-iphone-for-free/

We took ours at about 9 months, but he was born in the summer so that was realistically the earliest date it was practical.

I’ve seen really tiny babies in campsites before now in good weather. As long as they’ve got plenty of warm clothes and bedding I can’t see the problem.

There’s a lot of snobbery about South Bristol. Make your own judgement.

Sure it has it’s dodgy areas like anywhere but there are some good spots too. Southville is fine and has easy access to the centre, harbourside and Ashton Court, Totterdown is a bit quirky / alternative but has a really good community feel and is genuinely one of the friendliest city neighbourhoods I’ve ever lived (steep hills mind!). Windmill Hill is also worth a look. Even Bedminster itself is on the up these days – cracking Indian restaurant on Bedminster Parade.

I’d prefer to live in any of those places than the suburbs.

Lived there for about 7 years and still visit friends there fairly regularly. I always lived pretty central (Southville, Totterdown, Cotham, Montpelier) so could pretty much bike or walk everywhere which was fantastic. Like others have said, great nighlife, good music scene and some fab bars and restaurants. Loads going on in the summer particularly.

If you don’t have kids I’d try to be as close in to the centre as possible – some pleasant spots in South Bristol with good access to harbourside and Ashton Court etc. A lot of the outlying suburbs are “generic” to say the least and if you’re too far out you probably won’t get so much benefit from being there, getting into town can be a pain on public transport. Generally, traffic as other people have mentioned is a pain still, but weirdly you’ve probably got better car-free access to trails living in the centre than you have if you live out in some of the ‘burbs (Yate excepted of course :-) )

I’m puzzled as to why anyone would drive from Central Bristol to Ashton Court given you can ride it in less time.

One thing to bear in mind is that Bristol can sometimes seem like a big village – I personally like that aspect of it, but some folk find it a bit too much!

Saris Bones are really good. Pretty universal fit, and easy to put on and off. They’re made of recycled plastic so don’t mark the car either.

http://www.saris.com/en/bike-racks/vehicle-racks/trunk-racks.html?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=20&category_id=7

Not really in the spirit of STW and I’m probably going to get flamed something rotten but but what about keeping the Mud X on?

With a bit more pressure they’re not that draggy and they’re reasonably light in the tubeless variety.

I ran the TLS version pretty much all year round on my 26″ 1×1 when I lived in Kent and have now got the 29″ Team version on my Karate Monkey.

I had Bonty 29-3s on there before that. Also good tyres, especially for a rigid build, but the rear tyre was rubbish in the wet and and can honestly say that switching to the Mud Xs has not led to any drop off in performance.

Loads of stuff left over from upgrades / failed projects but all of it mismatching so I can’t build anything useful out of it:

Old and battered Gary Fisher 26er HT frame
Two viable front 26″ wheels and one 29er
Two non viable rear 26″ wheels and one 29″, all requiring rebuilds / new freehubs
Two pairs of forks which won’t fit any of my bikes
A load of bits intended to convert my drop bar RoadRat to gears and discs (bar end shifters, dia compe V levers etc)…all no longer required as I sold the ‘Rat
A massive pile of tyres
3 boxes full of other gubbins – bars, stems, brakes, saddles, chainrings, singlespeed stuff etc.

I really need to get shot of most of above but hang on to it with the vague idea of finding the missing bits to build something usable, although given the above parts I can only imagine I’d end up with some sort of mutant frankenbike 69er drop-barred tandem extracycle…

+1 for square taper BB.

You don’t need a front device when using a sprung tensioner provided your chainline is spot on. If you’re getting a cassette spacer kit, make sure it includes a variety of different widths of spacer so you can fine tune the chainline.

42:20 sounds a tad low for road use unless it’s really hilly where you live. You’ll find yourself spinning out a lot. I’d be tempted to go for an 18 or even 16 on the back. Don’t spend a lot on the cogs until you’re comfortable with the ratio and then shell out for something decent like a Surly

Is it the ultimate go anywhere combination?

This vid would suggest so…. I think one of these guys is Roman Dial?

Looks like an awesome trip!

To rule out a software problem you could try rolling it back to a restore point prior to you having problems (windows updates should create them automatically) If that clears it then I’d be looking at the windows updates. If it doesn’t then I’d agree the HD may be on it’s way out. You could try running a defrag and chkdisk.

Doh… ask1974 beat me to it!

The fact that your other kit is working OK suggests an IP address issue on your laptop.

Check the properties for the wireless network connection. It may be that the IP settings in it were specific to your old router / ISP. Right click on the internet protocol / IP V4 as appropriate and check that it’s assigning you an IP address dynamically rather than using a fixed one (check that the DNS settings are also set to automatic while you’re at it).

If after changing it, it doesn’t work straight away, open a command prompt and type:

ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

… to get a new IP assigned.r

+1 for checking in task manager for whatever’s hogging resource and also for looking at spyware. Malwarebytes and the like often pick up stuff which your normal AV misses.

Have a look at the size of your paging file also

Not tried them but these are organic cotton, not bad price and some fun designs:

http://www.huskyorganic.co.uk/organic-cotton/t-shirts/mens/

Finisterre do stuff of a similar quality to Howies but don’t have a great selection of T-shirts at the moment. Or what about Rapanui?

As I said, Sig Manager works at the outlook client level and doesn’t need exchange so that would be no problem provided you’re using Outlook 2003 or later – worth giving the free trial a go

Pretty sure you could still use Signature Manager as it’s deployed at Outlook client level. Mail utilities is for Exchange though.

I messed around GPs and MSIs and found it all quite a faff to be honest. Take a look at Exclaimer- works really well and is infinitely configurable – not expensive either (depending on number of users).

Nice thing is that you can change the signature details based on the user details in AD so just have to set up a single template.

http://www.exclaimer.com/products/signature-manager/default.aspx
http://www.exclaimer.com/products/mail-utilities/default.aspx

Worth a chat with them to see which one best fits their requirements – support is really good and they offer free trials of both products.

My hardtail has been in bits in the garage for about 8 months now. Just ride my Karate Monkey offroad these days – it gets properly hammered as well.

I’m old enough to have started riding offroad on a fully rigid 700C bike though so it’s full circle!

Definitely. Got them in both front and rear on mine. FWIW part inflating them makes them easier to fit.

Mine too….they don’t make it easy. I think you can take one piece of hand luggage free of charge but have to pay for the hold luggage. Hold luggage is 20kg per person who pays for a bag with no single bag more than 32kg.

As far as I know it’s not illegal unless there are local bylaws which explicitly prohibit it…. problem is in most cases they do and most public car parks have signs up saying that overnight sleeping is prohibited.

There are options to get away with it in more remote areas (here on Dartmoor for example), but it sounds like the size of your vehicles may make those spots inaccessible!

The other thing to bear in mind is that if you’re parked up on a public road, you’re still technically in charge of the vehicle so drink driving rules apply!

For the sake of paying for three nights in a campsite, I’d be inclined not to bother trying to wild camp. Plenty of nice campsites down this way which are right on the beach…

I was tempted by the Superstars but was also put off a bit by some of the poor reports of build quality. People who’ve got a decent set do seem to really rate them though.

Found a great deal on the Fulcrums from a company in Germany, so ended up going for them.

Early days but really pleased with them so far – not featherweight but not porkers either. Have been hammered over Dartmoor granite a few times now and are still running straight and smooth. Build seems really good. Graphics are a bit “in your face” but I quite like the way they look on my de-decalled KM.

This is the company I bought off – arrived within a couple of days so can’t fault the service either. They’re showing as out of stock but a couple of other companies in the UK are now doing them at a similar price – Rutland Cycling included.

http://www.bike-discount.de/shop/a63921/red-power-sl-disc-6-bolt.html?lg=en

Used to be my patch until last year. As above, Mereworth has some fun bits (tight, noodly singletrack) but you really need to go with someone who knows their way around.

Some fun bridleways, including a couple of (relatively) rocky / rooty descents around just off the A25 as you head towards Sevenoaks – if you look at an OS map around Ivy Hatch / Oldbury Hill / Raspits Hill / Ightham Mote it’s all pretty clear and easy enough to string a loop together. Long downhill from Wilmot Hill to Mote Farm is a good laugh, particularly the first bit.

North Downs / Pilgrims Way is rideable for quite a distance West of Maidstone – not particularly challenging but quite fast riding in the dry. Again you can string together some decent loops – look at the area around Holly Hill, N of Birling.

Some surprisingly decent riding, really, and relatively little known compared to the more westerly bit of the North Downs – you’ll probably not see a soul!

If you’ve got the legs for it, you can out together a full day’s ride taking in most of the above with some planning ;-)

Bought a second hand KM off here about 6 months back. It’s great to ride, very versatile and really capable. I did a longish loop here on Dartmoor yesterday on it and it coped with everything from linking road sections, grassy climbs and some really rocky and rooty descents without any problems. I beat a guy on an FS down one of them :-)

I don’t personally find getting the rear wheel out that much of a faff, but I’ve been riding a Surly 1×1 (and a Cotic roadrat) for a while as well so I guess I’ve got used to track ends and discs.

My frame is one of the older ones which doesn’t have rack mounts, but it does have lugs at the bottom of the seatstay – my 1×1 is the same and I’ve managed to fit rack, guards and discs to that using some spacers on the bottom lugs and a Salsa rack lock – linky below:

http://activesport.co.uk/shop/article_865-SCSARL2S/Salsa-Rack-Lock,-CNC-Alloy-Clamp-with-Integrated-Rack-mounts-_-S_Steel-bolt.html?pse=coa

Spot on. Thanks

My Surly Karate Monkey. Does most things really well and despite any skill on my part seems to regularly handle stuff which some folk tell me I “need” full suspension for.

I didn’t – that was part of the problem. Have only just started commuting again and was barely making walking pace up some of the hills… “it” could easily catch me up.

Absolutely – it was really hard to work out where I was. There’s about 3 houses on the whole route so no ambient light whatsovever.

There’s one particularly steep hill on the way back…. it’s a b***er at the best of times but it seemed to go on forever and had no reference points to work out how far I had to go. Felt like my heart was going to exit via my mouth by the time I got to the top.

Oh and a sheep ran out in front of me at one point… one of them Jacob jobbies with the mad horns.