Fantastic thread. Some truly brilliant photos.

I saw La Cabina years ago. Folk (rightly) thought me odd when I tried to describe it years later…
I knew it wasn’t a figment of my imagination.

I watched The Fence, it actually captured the late 70’s / early 80’s perfectly.

Open wheely bin lid, throw aforementioned abomination in, slam lid.

I was fortunate to be at Uni when I needed some help, after a relationship break up. The Uni had a councillor, but TBH, as someone said further up, anyone willing to listen would have helped…
Admitting I needed help was tough but a game changer though.
The NHS appointment eventually came through, months later. Had I waited that long I honestly doubt I would have needed it anyway…
There was a forum that helped too.(No, not this one..). I think it was NetDoctor or something. Knowing there were others feeling the same helped.
I still get the occasional bout of feeling low. This time of year doesn’t help. Fresh air & a bit of exercise helps. Having a dog again keeps me ticking along.

I wish I had a mate like you back when I needed help. Hope he is doing ok.

I bought a cheap USB endoscope camera & taped it to a cheap set of electricians pull wires. Viewed it on a laptop but I’m sure they do one that plugs into an iPad or tablet etc. Worked well enough.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20M-Flexible-USB-Endoscope-Inspection-Video-Android-5-5mm-720P-Waterproof-Camera/192734409538?epid=16024898780&hash=item2cdfddb342:g:p-kAAOSwwtdb97pK

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LARGE-FULL-CABLE-ACCESS-KIT-Tie-Draw-Pull-Push-10-Screw-In-Rods-Tool-Set-Wire/322152394317?hash=item4b01c76e4d:g:hZ4AAOSw-4BXYX6T

It was, at least until a French KAM decided the customer absolutely must have a fully detailed coating this side of Xmas. They’ve probably already broken up alert.

When a blowout rolled & wrote off my car some years ago it was stored in the open, most of the windows had gone so everything inside was soaked. The place wasn’t exactly secure either.

Well, if we are telling ghost stories…
Now I’m an Engineer, possibly the worlds most cynical, boring, dull bloke ever, you get the drift. To me, things are right/wrong, black/white etc. Ghosts….pah.

Our first touring caravan was quite an old one. Never felt strange, always slept soundly in it etc. We were away once, near Sherwood Forest. Totally dark where we were camped.
Lying there one night, our youngest was about 18 months old. He had woken up & was a bit grumbly, & not himself. He settled off to sleep eventually. Before we fell asleep, just lying there talking, the Wife & I watched what can only be described as an orb of light, move slowly from the foot of our bed, down the caravan towards the end where the little one was. No sudden cold, spooky feeling at all. Just then the lad starts to wake again & we distinctly heard someone go “Sssshhh”, & he settled straight off to sleep. Lights on, checked the caravan, nothing amiss so we went off to sleep. Fast forward a few months, the caravan was on our drive. I had to pop in late one night to get something. As I turned to leave I glimpsed something. Nothing tangible, just something, a shape is the best I can describe it. But it was more what I felt. Every sense I had told me that sitting there was an old lady. Again, nothing threatening or sinister, felt totally normal.
I didn’t tell the Wife until we had sold the caravan a few years later.

Don’t do it.
No, no, do it.
No, don’t.
No, yes do it.

Sorted.

The perfect retort:-
“When your boyfriend is our age he too will have many leather bound books, & an apartment that smells of Mahogany wood”.

I use Race Face Rage, (I think they are called). More like knee & arm warmers really, but for a ageing gnar merchant, who’s wheels rarely leave the ground these days, they have proven themselves on the odd occasion I’ve gone down; usually like a bison in a cloud of dust & guttural groaning/mooing.

We’ve done it with my Beaver Scouts Colony.

Ok, the drinks were Robinson’s & the axes were foam.

Good lad. :-)

I tried to find one in Scotland last summer, for my lads 11th Birthday, but they all seemed to be 12 minimum. Not sure if it’s an insurance thing. Some of the activities on offer up there looked amazing.

Ghetto it. ;-)

Motorola ones here. Work brilliantly. Had cheap(er) ones, but these work really well. Perfect for camping.
Until that is, your at a crowded bar with aforementioned walkie talkie clipped to belt, & sniggering children make loud fart sound.

My lad made the same request a couple of yrs ago. He was about that age & was in to Minecraft.
In the end we bought him a billy basic laptop with an i3 chip & 8gb of ram, & an Xbox One S for his room.
It’s perfect for school stuff & it played Minecraft perfectly well, but he still hogs my old Xbox360 in the East Wing for Minecraft.
Of late he’s in to some Airport Sim, now it’s a Theme Park designer, where he gets to ride the coasters he designs.
The gaming laptops I looked at were overkill for his needs. Even desktop gaming machines are a money pit, kit is out of date by the time the next magazine comes out.

As above.
Some of the best 3D CAD tutorials I’ve seen have been online.

Once again I am displaying a low resolution photo on my desktop.

Spray plumbers pipe freezing spray into the seat post while heating the frame with a heat gun.

I sold my Five because I preferred my Fatty & 29er HT. On the three occasions I’ve been back to Bike Park Wales since I’ve hired one. Thrash it all day & hand it back. No meticulous washing or servicing to keep a FS healthy. Haven’t missed having a FS at all.

Couple of Lemon Curd sarnies so far, Salmon En Croutd with Sweet Potato fries for tea. Might, might, have s small Baileys later.

27.5+ x 2.8 Trailblazer on a Dually fits ok in a Reba..

.

My SIR.9 is set up like this.

100mm Reba / Rigid Niner Steel forks, identical length steerers, with same crown race.

29″ normal wheels, 27.5″+ / 29+ wheels.

TBH, since I bought the Puffin, its not been out at all…

Adapters left on each fork so caliper swaps easy.

Easier with post mount brakes, as you can loosen-brake-tighten & its all lined up again.

Meaning to try a wide 29″ rim (30mm) & a 2.6″ tyre, that is probably best of both worlds. My mate runs that on his Trek Stash & rates it.

This was my solution.

Having them on the floor wasnt an issue, space under them was not needed anyway, but it was more around the kids being able to rack & un-rack their bikes. Plus an O.O Fatty would probably pull the wall down. :-)

Brackets are the result of a forage through a builders merchants. They were fashioned up mainly for the fatty’s wheels, as normal hooks just wont fit. I think theres 8 bikes, in about 2.5 metres.

IMG_5564 by pten2106[/url], on Flickr

IMG_5536 by pten2106[/url], on Flickr

IMG_5560 by pten2106[/url], on Flickr

Sadly posting photos from an iPhone is beyond me (on this forum anyway), I’ll try on the PC in the morning, but I have 8 bikes in a 2.7m run. They sit on their back wheels with fronts  looked hooked into brackets I fashioned from steel guttering brackets. Three of the bikes are Fat Bikes, so off the shelf hooks to fit are thin on the ground. The front wheels are turned 30 deg, so the bars all clear. They sit on their back wheels so that the kids can wheel them in & out, not easy with a 38lb Fatty. It all works remarkably well. I’ll see if I can magic a photo up in the morning.

I bought a cheapo, 2 x 18650 cell headtorch, with a thick magnifying lens; for about £16 from EBay. The beam pattern is fantastic. Perfect light spread. Look for one with Zoom Headtorch, & a single light.

If it looked unsafe I’d be removing it… ; -)

Imagine how you’d feel if a baby Robin were to meet its demise…

Don’t get down there often enough but I love riding there. I don’t ride the man made trails much, I prefer bimbling around the quieter bits on the Fatty. FoD is our family re-set break. The kids have asked if we can spend a week of our summer hols there next year !!!

4 bed new build, dropped to 18c & stayed there all day,.just took 1 hour to reach 22c.

Re: insulation…assuming windows & attic are as insulated as they can be, go for external wall insulation, seriously. We moved from an ex Council 3 bed semi, constructed from shuttered concrete (Wimpey “No-Fines”). Thermally rubbish, very strong but that’s about it. Bad condensation caused by cool wall temp vs warm interior.  Having EWI was the best thing we ever did to that place. It made a massive difference, so much so that it actually stayed warmer than this 6 months old new build we are now in. Condensation dried up overnight. Check locally, there may be someone offering it. Assuming windows are modern & actually doing their job…(check for drafts, especially opening windows where the foam seals get squashed over time). Replacement seals are cheap enough on line. The heating in the old house was on 24/7, but it was a Heatmiser timed stat. Over 10 years I found the most efficient was only letting it drop by 2 degrees, as it wasn’t working like mad for hours to get it back up to temp..

I’m listening to The War on Drugs.

Now, I’ve clearly been living in a cave because I’ve genuinely heard of them, but SoundHound’ed a track (“Pain”) that was playing in M&S the other night. Their videos have millions of views, so confirms my cave residency.

That looks like poorly mixed emulsion & water…normally dries flat though.

2004 Specialized SWorks Enduro with the brain shock. Sold for £270 on EBay. As soon as I got back from the Post Office I regretted it.

Used a 24″ on my 29+, no way a 20″ was going on there easily.

20″ on 27.5″ no problems, that’s whats in the pic^.

I went for Schrader so I can pop more Stans in without breaking the bead.

The last one I took off came off like a tyre, tube bonded to tyre bead!!!

We ended up buying a Tiguan in the summer but it was interesting looking at leasing, which was not something I’d considered before.

I didn’t want to put much down, but a couple of brokers come back with 3 months down & £260-280 a month for 3 years for a mid spec model.

I wanted the Skoda Kodiak but they were +£50 a month over the VW.

Couldn’t find anything decent on Lings website at the time.

Split tube method every time, especially with your baggy tyres.

A cup of Stans in before the last bit of tyre goes on.

Inflate with the valve at 12 o clock, & while your inflating press down on the top of the tyre, it helps create a temp seal. Once there is air in it, it soon takes shape.

IMG_4237 by pten2106[/url], on Flickr

IMG_4236 by pten2106[/url], on Flickr

They do look a laugh if your in the mood, & I’d probably have one if I could afford one, but I cant see one replacing my regular bike. It’s just a different type of bike. Amazed at the depth of feelings on here though, its all biking after all.

I cant help but think that there are as yet unknown powers at work pushing this towards another referendum.

I picked up some old Pace RC31’s that I’d planned to chop down by lopping off the legs & re-bonding on the dropouts.

He went to 24″ before I got around to it.

Not sure about the losing pressure but I’d not want to carry it around in a pressurised condition.

I just screw it on a couple of turns & it sits inside the severed thumb of a latex glove.

33×18 on mine but the 33 is a Goldtech oval ring, which is oddly easier…

I cant get up the first switch back climb on the Monkey at Cannock, but that’s just me being fat & useless.

I could never get on with 32×16 on 26″ wheels, was ok with 32×17.

29″ was always 32×18 until I put the wobbly ring on.