I have a 58cm and I am 6ft, with a 33″ leg, I could probably have gone for a 56cm but I was a bit paranoid about toe overlap so went for the bigger size.
The headtube isn’t too long, I have quite a few spacers in there.
Also really don’t understand why they designed it for a 140mm rotor, I noticed that the latest Pompetamine has 180mm rotors. I had to buy an XTR centrelock rotor at great expense, and it runs about 2mm from the chainstay, which means that when the rear wheel is removed the paint has chipped off.
A couple of little niggles but its a really nice frame to ride.

I am liking those Iittala mills, do they have adjustable coarseness?

I have a Bosch strimmer that has little plastic blades, it has just enough charge to do the edges of the grass on a couple of smallish lawns, it couldnt cop with anything thicker than grass, and it has Nicad batteries which don’t hold their charge.
It is pretty handy though.

Everything you ever needed to know about the Epicon

Carry as much of your tools/water/food on the bike rather than in a camelbak, as the extra weight on my body gave me a super sore back.
Also check your computer/satnav is working, as my £4 computer stopped working on the start line.

My 2010 Zonda wheels had a bit of play in the hub after only a couple hundred miles, there is a lock ring which has a small grub screw in the side, I loosened the grub screw and then turned the lockring clockwise until the play was removed, and then tightened the grubscrew.

I use Gator skins on my winter road bike, they last forever and I have had no punctures, I have read that they aren’t that grippy in the wet but I have had no problems.

I did the first 100km of Kielder last year in just under 6 hours, I was reasonably fit and had done a few 100 mile road rides as training.
The next 60km were hell.

I got stung recently by bendeason[/url], paid £30 for an IPOD dock but it never arrived, and he never replied to any of my emails, I paid Paypal as a Gift, wont be doing that again.

Was there last week on a hardtail and its the first time I have ever felt under biked, those braking bumps are brutal.
Also had my kids (5 and 7) up the chairlifts, and it was totally unsuitable for them.

Are you trying to use your credit card to pay yourself, so you can get cash? if so then you would have to pay the fees as you can’t send a Gift payment (fee free) from a Credit Card.
If you are just making a straight forward purchase with your credit card via Paypal then you will be fine.

You still have to pay the fees if the money isn’t coming out of your linked bank account.

Waiting until Friday night, heading out at 6.00pm, and hoping to stay out until Sunrise.
Heading out on Cross Bikes, and plan to do some routes around Edinburgh, then into the Pentlands, then the Cloich Hills, then the Moorfoots, then some routes around Midlothian, then head to the top of a hill to watch the sunrise.
If anyone wants to join in for the full/partial route then e-mail me.

Rode one route in the Moorfoots from the top of the Granites to Gladhouse reservoir, not a bad decent, but met the landowner out shooting and he wasn’t too pleased. He convinced me that the path I was on didn’t go anywhere (i.e. his house), so sent me across a boggy moor.
Also cycled from Gladhouse to Glentress via the windfarm, ended up totally lost, and got back to Glentress in the pitch black, the wife was a nit worried.

I have always used a BBG + N-Stop, I haven’t had a triple for almost 3 years and don’t miss it, currently in the process of converting my Cotic X to 1×9.

Costco have a 7.5cm thick thermarest style mat for £15, might buy to try out.

Can you move a spacer from the LHS BB cup to the RHS BB cup to move the RHS crank and ring away from the chainstay?
Thats assuming you have an external bottom bracket.

I have just booked a ferry from Newcastle to Holland, it cost £900 for two adults and 2 children, so much for a cheap camping holiday in France!

I have tried West Kip and failed, would love to see someone make it.

actionsports.de seem pretty cheap

Strangely enough my mate punctured in Strathtay on Saturday afternoon.
Was behind a nasty looking crash between two people just before Weem on Sunday, had to take evasive action into the verge.

The first DVDs we bought were strap on (ooer missus) jobs from Halfords, they had one DVD player and two screens, they worked fine, but they got ruined because the cables kept on getting pulled out, and the screens were a poor fit on the headrests.
I then bought some DVDs/Screens that are integrated into the headrests from Ebay, they are a lot neater as all the cable run inside the seats, so there is nothing that can be pulled out, there is also a DVD player in each headrest, so there are no arguements over what to watch. They came with game controllers and games, but they were pretty poor and some of the language in the games was interesting, so they were binned. They were just cheap unbranded units, but they are now 12 months old and still work great, the headrests are a universal fit, but I had to buy adapters to fit our seats, they do rattle slightly if there is no one sitting in the passenger seat.
If you do a search on Ebay there are loads available.

Yep rigid single speed Inbred (29er) for me, all I had to do was oil the chain and pump the tyres up last winter.

FunkyDunc – I couldn’t get my Ebay battery like yours to work properly, the light turns off after about 1 minutes use, there is nothing wrong with the battery as its fine on a 4x XPG set up, but I think that it just can’t supply the current that the XMLs require.
I currently use 4x 18650 batteries with no problems.

Check there are no sharp edges round the hole in the rim, I had this problem on a road bike, and a quick sand with some wet and dry sorted it out.

Mobiles.co.uk were fine for me, also got £50 cashback through Quidco

I have seen a few “family cycling routes” freebies in the Sunday papers, and some of the pictures of bikes being ridden have the V-brakes disconnected, there also appears to be a lot of left hand drivetrain bikes, now that is proper niche!

It was a Planet X Uncle John that had the MTB hydraulic discs with a cable running from the STI to a stop on the handlebars, and then the inner cable attached to the MTB brake lever.
There is a photo of them here, but can’t find the description on the PX web site http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/readers-rides/your-ride/q/845101529_ps-ferguson_aunt-sally

I used a 0% Tesco credit card to buy my PX Pro Carbon SRAM Red at the end of last year, I aim to pay the balance next month, worked for me but the temptation is now to buy something else as I have still got 6 months 0% left.

1 Ti
2 Carbon
4 Steel
2 Aluminium
1 Al/Carbon

I would second the bus tour, even though I am from Edinburgh I went on a bus tour for the first time last year with the family and had a really good day out, you can buy a pass which allows you to jump on/off any of the tour companies buses.

Our AEG Fridge Freezer is 6 years old and is falling to bits, there is nothing wrong with its cooling ability, its just the build quality of the inside is poor e.g. broken shelfs, broken freezer doors. I did replace one of the shelfs @ £50, to replace all the broken bits on the inside was going to cost more than a new fridge freezer.

Yes, as I have just built a Twin XML light, will still get to use it for a few months as I tend to stay out late.

I have a PX Pro Carbon (new paint style) that I use as a winter bike, its been flawless so far, I did look at the Ribble and the Boardman, but the PX was the bast value for money.

Lowered the cutoff voltage to 9V and ran the light until it cut out, again got just under 90 minutes on Full Power,.
I guess its no surprise but those cheap 12V CCTV Batteries are not as good as they say on the tin. But at £15 a pop they are still good value for money.
Not looking forward to the clocks changing next week, as it will be less time to use my lovely new light.

I ran a soak test last night on the light, I set the Voltage Cutoff to 10V and the Thermal cutout to 60 degrees C, I was using a 12V 4800mAh battery.
The ambient temperature was 3 degrees C, but after 10 minutes the Thermal Cutout kicked in, I had an old computer fan which I rigged up and there were no further Thermal Cutouts.
The light ran for just under 90 minutes on high (3A) power, where the Voltage Cutout switched the light off, I checked the battery with the multimeter and it was 10.3V.
So the light performed perfectly, the only thing I need to tweak is the Voltage Cutoff, I was thinking of setting it to 9V (75%), any thoughts if this would damage the battery?

There is also a 6800mAh version which is 85x62x20mm, this would extend the battery life of two XMLs on full to just over 3 hours, there is also a tiny 1800mAh version which would be handy to keep in the back pocket as a backup.

FunkyDunc – Yes thats the battery, I have been using it with 4x XPGs with no problems, they seem to have got cheaper as well, think I will buy another.
The only downside to the battery is the shape, as it doesn’t lend itself to fitting on a frame, I had been mounting mine to the headtube with a big Velcro strap. I did start to take it apart to see if it could be rebuilt in a different shape, but gave up and put it back together.
There is another CCTV battery that is twice the size, which I might fit into a water bottle for the bigger rides.

I am hoping all my problems will be sorted now.

First ride last night, and the light was amazing (for 10 minutes), it was totally swamping the 4x XPGs that I was using on my bars, the Laura Optics give a nice wide beam without the sharp cutoff at the edges that the Reginas give.
Unfortuneately after 10 minutes the light would only turn on for 60 seconds before flashing 8/9 times and turning off. Once home I got out the manual to find that the default Voltage Cut-off was set at 12V and I was using a 12V battery, I tweaked it down to 11V and it seemed to be OK until the Thermal Cut-out kicked in, when the light dimmed, this was indoors with no airflow and the casing got quite hot to the touch, once cooled full power was again available.
I have charged the battery (12V Lion CCTV battery from Ebay) and will try a full run tonight.

NetDonkey – I have my configured in Duo Mode with L5 at 3000mA, once you have your head around how to configure the driver, its really easy to change the setup.

Not sure how you determine what your intermediate power levels are, you configure the driver to give the Max current L5 and the other levels are scaled from this, there is a table for the H6Flex (I am assuming you are using the LFlex) which gives current output for each power level, but this is for the older driver which doesn’t support 3000mA.