-5 last week at 630ish, out in the sticks away from towns, that was chilly! This morning at 0 was positively tropical :lol:

I’d agree with Bigyinn, more than likely cables seizing or seized up due to sitting around a while. I’d hope that with some use over a week or so they would free up.

Hope they don’t need changing, they’ll be a few quid more to replace than you bike shifter cables!

Mudguards are a revelation! Once you’ve used a bike with them you won’t go back. Dry feet (well damn near almost) and a much cleaner bike as well as a much cleaner and drier you means they are just wonderful. Can be right fiddly things to fit, get right and look nice though… Trust me though once you’ve used them you won’t go back.

As for bag, I am a recent Carradice convert from years of rucksack and they are great, SQR mount is really very good for holding and mounting the bag. Get a slim and your laptop will fit and no need for pannier rack.

As for distance, I do about 12 mile each way (5 days a week) and regularly make it longer, once you’re moving and warm it is great and I actually feel guilty when I don’t cycle in (although that is rare nowadays)

Distance; 9079 miles
Time: 523hrs
Eleven gain:274888ft
Rides:426

I live in the flatlands of Suffolk and there’s a lot of commuting miles in there but not one single turbo trainer mile as I’d much rather be outside.

Also, all bar about 10m are on road.

Wondering if I can break 10k next year now…

I’m in. I think I remember signing up for it for the last couple of years but never managed to achieve anywhere near the amount of distance required.

Concerted effort this year to get it done, that and I’ve got a Mrs who doesn’t seem to mind me spending hours on my bike :-) she’s a keeper!

I work for a company which has almost 3000 employees, on one site and our parent company also own a mobile phone network provider. The finance director has to authorise any mobile telephones, our line rental is £4 per month! Probably costs more in his salary than an annual line rental cost…

I manage over 70 staff and have no operating expenditure authorisation, I can’t even buy my staff a pen!

Many people spend more time trying to get out of work than it takes to actually do the job in the first place.

I could easily go on but they pay me pretty well and I have a good pension…

My suggestion would be to go take your bearings out and take them to the nearest local bearing supply place and see what they can do.

I say take them out as they may need to measure with a vernier or similar to get the right bearing for you.

Eriks or Brammer are national companies and should have a branch reasonably close by. Might be worth speaking to some friends to see if you can ‘use’ their account to get discount too.

As an example I got freehub bearings (SKF for those that are wondering) for my fulcrum wheels recently for a just over £11, cheapest ‘specific’ fulcrum bearings I could find were £20.

As for brand of bearings, SKF or INA would be my choices.

I can’t see the photo due to our rubbish firewalls at work but a couple of things, camber is a wheel alignment issue as it is a measurement that is taken at the wheel, in degrees, with positive or negative outcome, so I can see their argument there.

However if all four wheels have worn the same then I would suggest that there is something incorrect (unless they tyre issue Milky1980 says above has happened, not something I have heard of although I’m a little out of touch with car tyres to be fair).

If you had kerbed or caused some damage in any way (not saying you have) then you would probably only see issues on one or two of the wheels.

My suggestion would be to have the wheel alignment checked and then see what the results of that are. Depending upon results you can argue the outcome, if all 4 wheels are out by the same amount then you have an argument. If everything is within tolerance then you have the tyre issue that Milky has mentioned.

I got mine off quite easily by using a hammer and drift, lay the crank spindle on some wood so you don’t damage the ‘teeth’ which join the two halves together and tap the bearing off the shaft, mine weren’t that tight, but had been fitted a lot less than 10 years!

For refitting the old ones, heat them up and just drop over the spindle and gently tap into place. To heat mine up I used a bearing heater (had one available at work) but I have used an oven in the past, you don’t want to take it much past about 110 degrees of heat though.

And make sure you remember to put all the seals on before fitting the bearings.

This may or may not sound possible depending upon your bike spannering skills?

Self servo action is what’s causing your problem, moving the car forwards ‘pulls’ the brakes on harder (why drum brake shoes are mounted in different places on the steel backing material) and why it will go backwards okay.

However, if it is properly locked/jammed on, your ‘rocking’ of the car to release this morning may have caused the friction material to come off the steel backing shoe and jammed it all up. This may mean strip down to remove the broken bits and replace…

Not wanting to sound like the bearer of bad news but if it was locked on this morning I’ll be a little surprised if it has magically freed off by this afternoon.

I know it as the ‘pipe’ key. Very useful when used with Ctrl in excel for showing formulas that get hidden…

I love my racing and apart from having a year off at the minute as I’m busy doing a house renovation I shall be back to it soon enough. Although I race on short ovals (1/4 mile) rather than long circuits.

I race a ‘thing’ called a spedeworth superstox which is an open wheel purpose built race car, I built mine completely myself and am currently 1 of 6 who still build their own car when there is about 70 registered drivers.

I wouldn’t say I’m one of the top guys but have had a few wins in the 6yrs I’ve been racing them and absolutely love it. It is ‘contact’ racing so we have bumpers front and rear and just shove or fence people when they’re in the way :D

The car runs a 2 litre pinto but is quite restricted on what we’re allowed to do internally which means it runs about 160 horses, however the car only weighs 650kg so still goes fairly well except it’s only designed to turn left! Racing on ovals means I only turn one way :-)

Spend bloody ages setting the thing up on scales to get inside and cross weights correct for each track.

Race mainly in the south east but do normally head up to Scotland once or twice a year.

Made it into the top ten of the national league/points chart in 2014 which was awesome!

Did race motox too but to be honest my balls weren’t big enough over the jumps! Was okay on the flatter tracks but rubbish on the more modern stuff!

Have also spannered for a couple of national level junior kart drivers but that was more than a few years ago.

My father is completely the reason I got into it and he was pretty sharp and won a world title in Belgium back in the 80s.

As mentioned above, I’d be checking your plies (the structural construction and therfore strength of the tyre). See what is came fitted with and make sure you replace with the same. Lower plies will mean lower load capacity.

4727 miles
117165 ft
273 rides
281 hrs

100% road this year and a load of that has been commuting around the ridiculously flat Suffolk. The LEJOG trip (and training for it)I did in August has obviosuly significantly helped on the miles and climbing stats. All in all a pretty good year on the bike for me. Going to try and break the 5000 by the end of the year and then set myself some targets for next year.

Another thing, take the coolant cap off (when the engine is cold!!!) and smell it, you may notice a smell of petrol (hydrocarbons) which could point to another head gasket failure… One of the only ways hydrocarbons can get into the cooling system.

The coolant that was lost must have had to go somewhere, it should be sealed system and use very little coolant, providing there is no issues and your daughter is not doing millions of miles a week…

Renault Twingo would say to me a fairly small engine and therefore probably a reasonably small cooling system and if she has added 2 litres that is probably around 1/3 to 1/2 of the cooling system capacity. When the AA refilled did they fully bleed the system as if not this may explain the reason your daughter has needed to add some more coolant as there may have been an airlock which has made its way to the expansion tank, however an airlock would probably have meant reduced or poor heater quality, usually the first thing a woman notices.

If the garage has checked and said the cooling system is fine then I see no reason to disbelieve them at the moment. Keep an eye for any puddles on the floor or excess steam from the exhaust. You can tell if its steam as it will dissipate in the air quickly whereas smoke will hang around for longer.

I would suggest that the faulty coil has nothing to do with the head gasket, they’re not connected in any real way (apart from the mechanic would have probably needed to remove to do the head gasket) and the ignition system and coolant systems are about as separate as you can get.

To summarise, keep an eye on the coolant level, engine oil level (this might go up if the coolant is making its way to the sump) and see if you’re getting constant steam from the exhaust (you will get some as the ambient temp drops and the engine warms up).

HTH

Anyone who works with UNF or UNC thread sizes could use them.

I’d suggest potentially someone who works with Caterpillar earth moving equipment might find them pretty useful. Or me, I use a lot of UNF threads on the spherical bearings on my race car as the thread means greater levels of adjustment. And I usually secure with cap screws.

Another use could be the truck market, some older truck or trailer axles still use UNF or UNC threads.

My suggestion would be that half shaft/axle shaft/drive shaft snapped on corner entry which then caused the roll over and subsequent damage :cry: I know I would be crying if it was mine!

I’ve got a fair bit of experience with those ‘English’ front loading axles and the half shafts on them have been known to break… The thing that surprises me a little is it looks like they are standard size, there is a few people that make much stronger ones (yes they cost a few quid) but if you can afford to race an LC on the circuits I would have though you might put some decent half shafts in it, I bet there is a slipper diff between the shafts…

Bearing in mind I head off the USA tomorrow which will involve probably too much food and too much beer the chances of me still hanging in there by the end of March are quite slim, especially with the way that Ernie is catching me up.

I seem to have found that I can lose weight if I stick to it though just will have to create those good habits again when I come back.

Sunday

And the weight continues to steadily drop off, it has seemed to slow down a bit though, probably a combination of drinking a bit too much and not enough exercise to keep the calrie consumption up…

Still got a couple of weeks before I go on holiday to the states though so hopefully a bit more to lose before piling a load back on so the title of STW slimmer is not mine yet!

I’m waiting for a Crisp Titanium road frame after someone on here made me lust after one last year, not due until August though :cry:

I’m still in a bit of a quandry about which wheels to get, although I’m also trying to buy another house at the minute which could mean two mortgages therefore the posh wheels may have to wait a bit…

Well I normally spend between £100 and £200 per pair, I found many years ago that if I spend money on glasses I seem to look after them better.

However, this has turned into a bit a ‘habit’ and seem to ‘have’ to purchase new glasses whenever I go anywhere on holiday. I now have 14 pairs of sunglasses with the oldest Oakley E wires being well over 10 years old and still perfect, if a little dated now.

If it was me and they were just holding oil and the dimensions were the same (thickness of the rubber is the important one, 3mm is very different to 1/8″ in the world of an O ring) I’d be trying it.

If they are in with antifreeze and other things like high pressure and high temp etc. then it makes a difference.

If I can manage to avoid the beer this weekend we shall be back on track after putting on last week :cry:

I, like Ernie above have found that already down a hole on the belt and getting close to the next one, with this and MFP things are looking promising.

On the commute home last night I had to take a lead acid battery in my bag and was amazed at the difference it made to how my legs felt, and just to think I’ve been carrying around all that lard on me!

Many thanks to IHN for sorting this all out.

Sunday

Well my so far stellar performance :wink: has just gone out the window, 2 nights of far too heavy drinking and generally eating poorly over the weekend has meant my monday morning weigh in saw an increase :cry:

Back on the wagon again and I had forgotten how rubbish a proper hangover is!

Well I’ll keep sticking with it and see what happens, as you say it should keep going for a bit longer.

I reckon this week could be a bit of a downfall for me, got a works leaving do on Fri (all the girls from HR will be there :wink: ) and a good friends 40th on Sat will scupper any chances I had this week!

Back on the wagon next week though, it’s quite pleasant waking up with no hangover every week!

Wooo and a Hooo!! Total loss winner :D Go me :lol:

MFP and getting my lazy (slightly slimmer) ar$e back on a bike rather a lot have been the two things that seem to have made the difference for me. I have no idea on how long I’ll be able to keep this up though? Got to start seeing it plateau at some point in the very near future I would think.

2nd place, that’ll do me! :-)

My fitness pal has been great for me, that and I’ve more or less cut out beer since the saturday after chrimbo. Starting to notice a difference in the waistline too, I’ll be moving a hole on the belt soon. I have hit the exercise again too with running, cycling and a few bodyweight exercises to help myself along. Hopefully get a decent ride in over the weekend to shift a bit more.

That and the fact I’m a single fella means I can do pretty much as I please.

Thankfully no pi$$ ups planned until the end of the month either! I struggle to turn down the opportunity of a few lagers with mates!

One thing that MFP has been able to show me is that although I didn’t think I was that bad my sugar intake is higher than I expected!

Publicy known as a forum fattie, I knew I’d find my real vocation in life one day :lol:

You simply can’t beat STW sometimes.

I’m in too, this should be interesting as I’m a right lardy b’stard at the moment!

nullAs Spooky has said above, Anderson sockets are pretty damn good, have over 300 machines with them fitted on at work, all are external and not one has a cover on it and never once have we had a short or problem with them. And we have some 350 amp (capacity) units for some of our bigger stuff…

If you really want to avoid the possible moisture problem and still have a sizeable plug you could go down the NATO plug route as per link below:

http://marcusglenn.com/inter-vehicle-jump-start-socket-nato

Sunday

Stock car racing, both watching and driving, spedeworth superstox if you’re interested or fancy a google.
Slotstox racing (scaletrix version of the stock car) Sad but keeps me from being a complete pisshead on a friday night.
Boxing
Fixing and maintaining the stock car seems to take a lot of time up.
Drinking

And in case you were wondering, single life does allow you to do lots of hobbies which take lots of time :D

Easton Farm Park for the kids is great.

Sutton Hoo, Orford and Framlingham (better) castles are all in pretty close proximity, Walberswick for great crabbing, they hold *I think* the world champs there, very tongue in cheek though.

I’d be suprised if there isn’t something on at Glenham Hall during some point of you stay too.

If it’s summer I’m sure there’s a maze they cut into a corn field somewhere too.

Somerleyton Hall for stately homes which isn’t far from Aldeburgh, Southwold area.

That’s just a few things off the top of my head. Will have a think and see if I can come up with some others.

Bloody Martello, I blame him!

I’ve just gone and ordered a Crisp!! I actually justified it by the massive lead time allowing me to save some more cash!

Better get some legs to justify it now 8O

I’d be looking at starter motor too. If cranking speed changes after starting and then restarting a couple of seconds later then its the only thing that’ll have an effect. I suspect the brushes in the end of the starter will be worn which will limit the amount of current it can pass hence the slow motor speed, once it has turned they’ll reseat to the commutator and allow more current. Think like your scaletrix as a kid, once the brushes got worn your car would be rubbish. They are a serviceable item.

HTH

Sunday

Abnd these two just because its me, a few yrs old now and have a new car (built completely from scratch) which for some reason wont let me post photos and I guess I really should put it on the ‘things you’ve made’ thread

Sunday

Yes the drivers are still all in all 5 of those cars!

Excuse the ignorance here but what’s wrong with PF30 bottom bracket? And after looking at some of the really boutique frames could I (a brand whore) bring myself to buy an XACD??

I’m looking at getting a bike that’s going to last me a very long time therefore I’m not keen on the Chinese copies although its the kind of thing I have to do at work all day long!

Why oh did I find that litespeed on sale at Evans, it’s been in my basket I don’t know how many times today!

At that price I could even put some very fancy wheels on it too!!

Another thing about the litespeed is that the stack and reach measurments are extremely close to my requirements, like 6mm!

It would also allow me to have some cash for chris king bits!!