Upgraded to a mesh when we moved house and added extra nodes buying via ebay. Its a bit one and works fine, coverage is great and speed is fine even in the far reaches of the house or garden – 160-200mb no problem.

+1 for the bt mesh system, we’ve been using it for about 5 months, strong signal all over the house and no issues with printers etc being on the “wrong” router or tvs losing WiFi signal.
It’s pretty easy to setup, and you can usually find a second hand set on ebay or gumtree etc for less than £100.

I’m guessing now that the store has gone there’s no collection option? I’m up in Sheffield pretty regularly with work?

“Bear in mind the old one was designed arround a 90-110mm stem, this ones probably intended for a 40mm? So you want about that added on the reach.”

Yeah, I was thinking of moving my 35mm stem off my stanton

Or will medium be more fun to mess about with as slightly smaller?

What’s the view on sizing for 5ft 10? Go with a large and shorter stem?

+1 for a sherpa  love mine, capable enough, nimble enough.

Anyone tried warsteiner? Mate from Marstons recommended it and I found it a pretty good compromise. Bit more flavour to it than bavaria, pretty drinkable.

I’m 5′ 10, demoed both the medium and large of the flare max because I was unsure on sizing. Large was much, much better for me. Descending on the med was fine but climbing felt really hard work and cramped. Switched to the large and suddenly much easier!

You can get hope cx wheels? I run them on my cotic escapade and they’re fairly bomb proof so far….

Hi  just to add my bit to the mix!! Had a demo day with cotic a few weeks ago up at Cannock chase. We booked the new flare max and the older rocketmax, both in 29er form, and in plus version of the rocketmax.

Currently ride a bronson, which I’ve loved  really changed my level of riding and confidence.

We sessioned upper and lower cliffs on the bikes in both med and large for the entire day which was ace, and made comparing the bikes reasonably easy.

To cut a long story short, I’m picking up my new flare max on Thursday.  Climbed very very well, both I and my mate (who I took as a second opinion in case I was biased towards wanting a new bike!) commented on how easily it pedalled up the switchbacks. OK, so it’s not the world’s worst climbs, but they’re enough to decide if a bike is going to be painful on climbs, and the flare max excelled.

On the descents it really came up trumps though. So so fast and confidence inspiring. Hit jumps harder than I ever have before and railed the corners far faster than on my bronson. Kept up with my mate on the second run which frankly never happens!

The bit that made my mind up though was just sheer fun – the bike constantly wanted to go faster, but felt eager and fun and poppy even at slower speeds. In comparison, the rocket (and indeed my mate’s hightower I test rode recently) both needed to be ridden at absolute warp speed to get anything out of them, which I’m just not capable of !

Cotic themselves have been great throughout, and the demo setup is a right winner – honestly don’t know why more places don’t do it!

I got the velocompact a couple of years ago when I switched cars and been really impressed with it. I can get 3 full suss bikes on, although it is a squeeze but no damage to either of the bikes. Also reasonably lightweight and easy to fit to the towbar on your own.  Folds up and the wheel support bits slide into the frame so it’ll fit in a saloon sized boot!

The clamps feel really solid and secure enough for the bikes too which is a bonus for peace of mind going up the motorway!

Oh and had a stanton 29er on there with 2.4 tyres on and it fit fine, no overhang etc.

Had a green stick dislocation of mine a couple of years back whilst playing rugby. Ref went spare, although it did look rather gross with some bone sticking out! Took quite a few goes to get it back in place, then had to stitch the hole back together. I was livid at the time they wouldn’t let me take any photos of the damage!

Just to give a differing opinion, I went with the simple Bose option – got one of their bluetooth speakers in the lounge, one in the bedroom. Perfect – really simple setup, but does exactly what i want. Just pair over bluetooth and then it’ll link when you turn it on. No need for any specific apps or settings, it just works.

I only use it for music over my phone, so no NAS drives etc though, although i guess it does stream when i’m using apple music.

cheers guys, ok some more info – i’m planning on taking my giant dropper post over to the new one too so it needs to be 30.9 compatible. I’d prefer a threaded BB as mates seem to be having issues with pressfit. Not too concerned over internal routing really.
It’s going to be used for local xc rides mainly, I’ve got a full suss i generally use for bigger mountain stuff or trail centres.
Geometry – i’m looking to stay towards the xcish end of the scale – nothing too slack, it definitely needs to climb well, not just descend.
On material, I’m fairly open – i’ll happily ride an alloy, steel or whatever frame to be honest!
As to price, obviously I don’t want to go nuts, I think the sherpa at £600 is probably as high as I’d really want to go.

Just to throw my hat in the ring, had exactly this question myself a few weeks back. Researched sound bases vs sound bars as they seem to be well recommended. I couldn’t be bothered with a full 5.1 setup, we did have a Sony system and never used the thing so sold it a while back. In the end I was looking at either a Cambridge audio TV 2
http://m.richersounds.com/#!/product/CAMB-AUDI-TV2-V2-BLK
Or the canton dm55
http://m.richersounds.com/#!/product/CANT-DM55-BLK
Managed to get an offer on the canton so opted for that. Sound quality is very very good. I switched back and forth between the TV and sound base and you really could tell, loads more detail could be heard, even when big basey music was thumping or big explosions in a film.
Sure, it’s never going to be as good surround sound wise as a full system but who can be arsed with all the cables?!

i’ve been using these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B016KEO7M6/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

for a few months whilst out riding with no issues. Sound quality is ok, they haven’t ever had any issues with losing bluetooth, and are just about ok for phone calls. Bit fiddly as the buttons are very small when you have gloves on, but overall i’m pretty happy.

I did see a review of these recently:
https://kinivo.com/product/bth260-premium-bluetooth-sport-headphones/

which was very positive, and the specs look decent, but they look pretty bloody big and heavy, although over ear rather than in ear which might be better for biking?

Been using a garmin vivoactive HR for a few weeks now, pretty useful, although i only use a small amount of it’s capability. Use it for tracking bike rides, syncs with strava etc automatically once i’ve got wifi. Also use for tracking steps, flights of stairs etc throughout the day (out of interest more than anything as it’s not massively altering the amount of activity i do!). Bonus for me is that it syncs to personal and work phones and will show up texts, whatsapp messages and incoming calls – particularly useful if i’m out on the bike and need to know whether to ignore a call or pull over and take it! Also allows control of music on the phone if you’re using alongside headphones.
Probably a bit big on the wrist if anything, but looks ok.

I use lastpass on all my devices, really good app if you keep it up to date and save stuff religiously! It autofills on my laptop and android phone and i have to copy and paste on iphone for some reason, but really useful.

Recently got some new hopes, been really pleased, noticeably lighter than my old whfwls (which were admittedly fairly cheap ones)

i picked up one of those grand canyons second hand a few months back – really enjoying riding it for local stuff, feels light and quick off the mark, although i did recently succumb to new wheels!

both of those look nice, sadly the ti is way out of my range, but the alloy looks a possibility. I would guess it’ll be mech discs though as per the lower spec ti version?

Forgot to mention rack mounts would be a bonus in case we do coast to coast!

nespresso. Got one last year and still love it. You can get fake pods all over the place and they work fine, although i do like the nespresso ones and they recycle so packaging waste isn’t as bad.

just been looking at a slider chainguide, it says £20-49, has anyone worked out the magic formula to get one for £20? Every combination i try is £49?!?

Oh, and any thoughts? Are they any good? It’s a bit of a whim, probably wouldn’t buy at full price as i don’t drop my chain that often…

+1 for revant frames

Don’t think bt sport works though, I had a try and it didn’t work particularly well, although you can run it on your phone and screen mirror it, that’s what I do for virgin TV

I have a firestick, you can get bbc, itv and 4od from the app store

Another +1 for Stourbridge, lived here all my life on and off. Decent local riding in Clent and kinver, with wyre forest an option when it’s not a mud fest. Then you’ve got cannock in about 40 minutes, hop ton in an hour, ribbesford in half an hour, degla or coed y brenan in 2 and a half hours and so on!

As for the town, some nice areas, some less so, but generally a nice place to live, decent pubs and restaurants, decent shops, a couple of good lbs’s!

Oh and good rail link as mentioned earlier, I do a fair bit of work in London so catching a direct train is great, or can be on the m5 in about 20 mins if you prefer to drive.

Ummm, seems to work ok for me using Google photos app? There’s some settings in there about syncing across all photos to the web which then sync with my laptop?

Sorry if you’ve tried this already!

Because it’s phenomenally dull?

I’m pretty sure that the hyundai ix35 is essentially a rebranded tucson. Which is also a rebranded Kia sportage with different body.

I had an ix35 for 3 years as a company car. I really liked it, decent mpg, decent ride, plenty of space both in seating terms and in the boot. I had 5 adults and all their holiday luggage in several times.

Quality is reasonable for the price, leather was nice, everything worked, although some plasticy bits. Moved company so switched away but i’d have definitely considered another otherwise.

Oh and watching Pulp Fiction now for about the tenth time. Still great.

Ok, my couple…

definitely got to have AI, good god it was awful. I literally can’t watch more than 2 minutes of mamma mia without walking out. Kingdom of the crystal skull was truly terrible milking of a great brand. Lost in translation honestly made me lose the will to live.

However the prize has to go to phantom menace. Ruined ruined ruined. I could cheerfully have throttled Lucas after that.

Oh and you can’t possibly have dog soldiers! Umm, it was a horror comedy? It’s meant to be funny! Oh and open water freaked me out. It’s utterly my worst fear to be fair, but I had tingling in my legs throughout the film.

Had an ikea kitchen fitted about 5 months ago. Pretty happy with the quality, and we had a good fitter – couldn’t have been more helpful.

The only pain we had was with the order – for no reason i could fathom, a load of the bits just didn’t turn up, and the splashbacks were delivered about 1/3 of the height we ordered. Everything was sorted in about 2 days, and didn’t affect handing kitchen back to us, other than the splashbacks which took aaaaaaaaages to come as they had to be reordered from Germany.

+1 on the dishwasher – we had to replace ours with an ikea one as it wouldn’t have opened properly. We did have a problem with the anti flood mechanism kicking in – Ikea took 3 days to get out to us, but fixed it within an hour or so of actually getting here.

Having watched a macan scream away from the traffic lights in front of me recently, i’m going to say go with the porsche….

i’ve been looking for a while and these guys seem to do a really good spec for good prices, reviews look good too – there has to be a catch!!

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/lafiteII/

just to balance though – I have had some absolutely terrible android phones – old work gave me a horrible, horrible bottom of the range thing that just about managed phone, text and email.

I guess at least with iphone you know that it will all work. Top end android phones work better for me though, although i am pretty heavily invested in google setup – gmail, google calendar, google contacts, lastpass.

I have an S6 now and its superb. Only downside is battery life, usually at 20% or so by early evening. Quick charge helps though – topped back up in about 25 minutes.

Another one in the android personal, iphone work camp. I thought i’d really like the iphone, as i’ve been really impressed with my wife’s ipad. I don’t dislike it, in fact for some apps its very good – there’s a pdf editing app which is great for work and i think the strava app and calendar app are better on iphone than android.

The thing is, its all spoilt by the restrictiveness of the system. On android i can fiddle with so much more stuff and customise it to how i want it to work. Oh, and iphone keyboard is terrible. Android with swiftkey is sooooo much better. And before someone jumps in, i have swiftkey for iphone and it’s better, but is nowhere near as good as android.

Oh and you can setup so that android will update a new phone to be the same as your old phone – apps, settings etc.

I posted up a few similar requests this time last year when i got my towball. I ended up with a Thule velo compact, the 3 bike option. It was more than i wanted to spend really, but i’m really pleased with it after a year or so of use.

I’ve had 3 full suss bikes on it with a little bit of fiddling with seat heights, and its utterly rock solid on the boot. The bikes are secure, don’t move about at all, and it will cope with 26-29 wheels, even on really slack bikes with long wheelbases. Plus, it folds up fairly small, and is relatively easy to hide away when not in use. It is quite heavy, but fine to put on/take off on your own.

They do a 2 bike option too, but it didn’t seem worth it for the saving. Oh, the rack locks onto the towball and the bike clamps all lock too – i think it’s pretty standard on everything these days but worth a mention.

I’d go 5 series or an a6. Test drove both and either are great. U do 35k + a year and got the a6 in the end. It’s slightly more a month than the a4 but basically seems to include all the good a4 optional extras like sat nav, iPhone connection, Cruise control, leather as standard.