Also note this Guardian travel article on the subject

British Airways

Bikes go free as part of your normal checked-in allowance. You don’t even have to inform the airline in advance.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2012/jul/31/airline-bike-friendly

The bike is the only hold bag. So not over normal allowance.

So surely no problem? You don’t even need to tell them in advance what it is. Perhaps they are getting confused with your question and stating only a limited number of additional bikes can be carried. If it was me and my group I’d just be turning up with our bikes and expecting to fly, if there is any hassle just point them towards their own baggage rules which provide no exceptions when travelling with bikes. From the BA website this clearly states that it is part of your allowance (they then list bikes below this as qualifying for this criteria)…..

Many types of sports equipment can be carried as part of your free checked baggage allowance or as part of an additional purchased allowance if required. We’ll even accept some types of equipment over our standard checked baggage size.

We will only accept sporting equipment if it is packed appropriately (to avoid damage) and meets the given size and weight restrictions. Items over 23kg may incur a heavy bag charge. See our advice on specific types of equipment below for details.

Some sporting equipment is restricted for safety and security reasons. If your equipment isn’t listed below please get in touch to check if it can be carried.”

Surely this depends on whether you are taking your bike in addition to your normal luggage allowance?

When I’ve flown with bikes on BA recently, the bikes have always been part of my standard 2 bags per person allowance with no requirement to declare them in advance nor any extra to pay for the privilege.

So if you turn up with a bag of clothes and a bike in a bag, it’s no different to someone turning up with 2 suitcases.

If however this is on top of your allocated baggage allowance, I’d expect there will be limited room for additional baggage over and above each passengers individual allocation.

Easyjet I assume are different as there is no “allocation” as such of space for each passenger, they keep charging people for whatever they want to take until the aircraft is full (or as it seems here, until it is past full, and still keep charging!).

Hey Robdob, just following up on your comment on Woodrup. Do you have any first hand experience? They look interesting and have a relatively short waiting list, but I can’t find anyone with recent experience of their frames.

Thanks Nerd, I’m not bothered about a racing featherweight but that does sound a bit chunky. As for the Super Acciaio, it looks like a lovely bike but I’m not after anything quite that racy.

Nothing wrong, want something fancier.

Done it plenty of times. Not particularly fast inflation but a step up from the track pump on the odd occasion I can’t get it up by hand. Saves a trip to the LBS too, which is 15 minutes away versus 2 for the local garage. Have never had to resort to anything other than track pump or local garage.

Any Bell Super users yet?

Owner but not yet user! Worn it round the house a bit to make sure it fits though. Generally comfy fit, my head only really seems to fit into Bells and I’ve used them for years, so if you are a previous Bell user, assume the fit as good.

One niggle with the fit is that the straps seem to come out from quite far outboard in the helmet shell so rather than strapping around the side of the head and under the chin, they angle in and pinch a little under the chin without really touching the side of the face at all. It’s a tad uncomfortable with the straps done up as tight as I’d normally have them.

Asthetically, it looks quite large on the head, from the front I’m not that keen on it.

Overall I like it and reckon I’ll keep it once my housebound tests have been done, but it isn’t quite as perfect for £100 as I had hoped. That said my head just didn’t feel comfy in any of the Giro, 661, Fox or Speccy options I tried so I don’t have much choice.

Last October. Treated as part of luggage allowance, so provided within your allocated luggage items and weight, no charge.

Cheap Decathlon one is getting noticeably deformed after 3 months use. No idea how long it will last compared to a pricey one though.

Wheelsmith Race 23, built up with spoke count and pattern to suit you. Got a pair myself, with a Royce hub upgrade which is over your budget, but the standard wheels are a great buy. £350 with standard spokes, £440 with bladed.
Wheelsmith

Review….
Review
And another

That’d be a bit difficult really, as its Scotland and we’ve ‘right to roam’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

I’m not entirely sure the point of the right to roam law is to allow people to gatecrash events they are not taking part in.

Did 3,4,5 today. All have the potential to be crackers though the weather and several hundred riders practicing over the coming week may not be kind to any of the freshly cut stuff, some of the were in pretty shady condition already.
Have to say I was not particularly enjoying the upper part of 4, best I could hope for was hang back and hope, or at points I ended up just resorting to sliding down on my arse. Others will no doubt love it but I preferred it from halfway down when you could get off the brakes. Loved 5, just hope the weather is kind to it this week!!

No, that’s the original spirit of enduro.

Really? I’ve ridden several Enduros under several different organisers over the last 5 years. All of them have allowed practice.

The model listing of these is such a pain in the arse though!
Bike 24 are now listing UST as Black Chilli, aswell as the Protection version. Though Continental themselves still say UST does not have Black Chilli.

Anyone ordered these recently and if so know if the UST version does have Black Chilli or not? Or do I still need the standard protection for UST compatibility and black chilli compound?

Thanks for the heads up on the Allemuir-Swanston DH Coastkid, rode it last night. Good addition to my Pentlands loops, and much more convenient for getting home than coming off the hills further West.

Well yeah, your first statement is obvious…..

Gravel road from Dreghorn is hellish, should have said the reason for asking about access at Hillend was to avoid that! The route to Boghall and then up Boghall Glen sounds like it could be a good up option. The OS maps show some descents coming off Caerketton straight down to the bypass, any good?

If you like the Giant, how about just stepping up to the Trance X 29er?

That Krups one did me 4 years before I got my new semi-pro setup. For French press there is little point in spending any more to be honest. If that’s on the steep side then I’d be inclined to agree with Warton, a blade would do an acceptable job for French press, though I’d never recommend it for anything else!

Yes, it does look very nice. Got a standard Equilibrium at the moment and love it, but the old 520 frame is a bit industrial so very much looking forward to this.

Seems the Hiver is a new model which is why I can’t find any info anywhere, my other option is to get the +5mm crown race that Chris King do which should raise the front end enough to use a more standard fork length of 367mm and bring it closer to the 375mm I need. Has anyone tried that with any success?

Thanks but no thanks for the offer. I’ve got an Equilibrium 853 on order which comes with steel fork but I’m set on carbon, hence needing to buy seperate.

I do, but it’s not itchy enough to outweigh the less than outstanding feedback on them!

Thanks all for the input. To be clear, this is very much a King lust thing, I’ve owned and loved DT hubs in the past but I want King and not DT hubs on this build! And I am not interested in factory wheelsets like Mavics, regardless of what I could get for the same price.
What I’m hearing is that perhaps the experience many have had is that the performance isn’t quite up to the price, I could live with them being great if a little pricey, but hearing simply good and pricey. May just save myself £400 and go with something much more functional.

Is stovetopping the singlespeeding of coffetrackworld?
Yes.

As for the coffee being bitter – you probably had too much heat. Coffee is burned and made bitter by boiling water – it needs temps just under boiling, 95 degrees I think.

This is why I suggest low heat with these things. You want the water to stay below boiling and the steam given off to gently push the hot water through the thing. If it starts to gush out then it’s boiling, and the coffee will be more bitter.

Taylors is ok but imo Starbucks from the supermarket is better. Ideally, you want as dark/strong coffee as you can get imo.

Over heating is possibly causing issues though is one of only a number of factors that might be affecting the bitterness, the other 2 common ones are bean quality and over extraction.

No pre-ground coffee is going to get you any more than ok results, you can do what you want with technique but if your coffee was ground weeks (months?) ago then it will have lost much of it’s aroma and flavour, regardless of the brand of coffee. While a home espresso machine really needs a good amount spent on a burr grinder, a stovetop results will probably still be improved by a basic blade grinder for £20, or if you want even better results and don’t mind a bit of elbow grease I would highly recommend a hand grinder.

Over extraction is the second, many people (including me in the past!) just assume the more water goes through the stronger it will be, but as the coffee grinds get over used they get bitter. So a little less water in the stove top might help too.

I’m not that bothered about a fair trade sticker, as long as it tastes good and comes from a source that I trust. Mostly here

Alpine Bikes at Glentress

Prices pretty much identical anywhere. Duty free is the only place you’ll save anything.

I’ve found the Hasbean method to be the best and also quickest Aeropress method out there. Desk to coffee area to desk in less than 2 minutes with a great cup! I up the coffee quantity to 20-24g depending on the blend though. Grind is about halfway between espresso and filter (handily my Bartza grinder marks this on for you!)
http://youtu.be/iFQsmaopufg

Another for Aeropress

Liking the Cinelli Cork, a bit more cush than the Fizik. Fitted it for the first time, much easier than I thought and more or less right first time, perhaps not as neat as a pro job but functionally all good. I used the Park Tools vid to help me.

It’s because the elevation is not calculated via the map, it’s from the atmospheric pressure so it can give big fluctations. There is a significant difference in the elevation of my house depending on the weather that particular day, it’s often below sea level! Only way to get a really accurate read is once uploaded to the computer and having it corrected.
More info here

My Mountain Kings sealed up fine but I had similar issues when I fitted my X-Kings recently, like the others it took a couple of rides to seal up properly. On my first ride with them I had to re-inflate halfway round. They are fine now though, holding air v well.

East Stand is much much better than the West. East has a running track between it and the pitch, it’s also a bigger stand and is very slightly v’d towards the middle, basically halfway line seats in West are a long way from the pitch. It’s also the stand where all the posh folk buy their seats so the atmosphere can be a little reserved (even more so than Murrayfield tends to be!). East Stand is smaller, and tight up to the touchline, towards the front of the top tier in East is my favourite spot, but normally I just save my money for a night out afterwards and take a cheap seat in the corner!

yawn…….

Is yours a pre-2006 MINI? (think the ‘official’ term is an R53). We used to have a 2005 model and were told the BMW rack involved roof drilling

Yup, was on 04 so R53 model.

Used a Thule Roofrack from mine, ran for 2 years faultless and you don’t have to drill into the roof like you do with the official BMW one.

I mount mine same as Matthew, only issue I have had was time when I had a longer steerer with the spacers on top of the (50mm) stem and it got in the way. You can get away with probably 1x 2.5mm spacer on top of the stem, anything else will get in the way.

As with others love Hasbean, I have a subscription with them that gets you a different coffee every month.
Also big fan of Square Mile Roast[/url], they tend to be a little more expensive online, if you can find a local coffee shop that stocks them their beans are much cheaper.

Generally I use Hasbean for filter/Aeropress and Square Mile’s Red Brick espresso in our machine.

Both way better than anything you will get from supermarket or a high street coffee shop.

Ask for tea! In fact I’ve started asking for tea in most places unless I know for a fact they have a decent machine that they know how to use- that includes Starbucks and Costa (though Costa is slight better) these days as it’s pretty poor when you compare it to the good stuff. I also no longer use the Costa franchise we have at work and bought an Aeropress for office use with fresh beans ground every morning.

I’m turning into such a fussy (or snobby depending how you look at it) coffee drinker!

For that budget I’d be tempted to stick with an Aeropress and a good quality hand grinder, and some great beans from somewhere like Hasbean or Squaremile Roast.

Gaggia classic , a burrr grinder and fresh roasted coffee from happy donkey or others , welcome to the mad house

I wouldn’t touch Happy Donkey with a bargepole. I purchased a (faulty) grinder for my dad’s Christmas from them, 5 months later he is still stuck with a dodgy grinder, lots of arsey emails from them and no option but small claims court to sort them out!