Have a look for a book by Werner Eichhorn – “Bike Guide: Turkishe Riviera” (ISBN 9 783763 350179) – text is in German, but the routes are quite well explained.

Which reminds me Ambrose – must pack the heavy duty Motrax security chain for the Alps . . .

“If you look closely at the shed, the boards are level at the bottom with a 30mm error at the top. Each board has shrunk by about 2mm over it’s width.
Once I’ve moved all that stuff piled up against it, I’ll slide the side boards down to match the front ones, they are only tacked on at the moment.”
Don’t forget that the timber will swell back as summer turns to autumn and we get some decent rain – have seen far too many dry timber boards nailed down tight in the summer which have then decided to make a break for it in the winter once they’ve sucked in some moisture and expanded.

Exposure Flash with the rechargeable battery option is pretty small but very bright as a front light.

Past experience says its worth checking their web site as a “new” customer each time you come to renew – a couple of years ago their renewal quote was about £100 more than they quoted as a new customer – using exactly the same customer details, cover conditions etc.

I’ve had two XM819 rims fail – both in the same way – the internal weld that runs around the “bed” of the rim (where a rim tape would normally go) cracked.

First sign of the problem in both cases was a gradual loss of pressure; close inspection then revealed a fine jagged crack starting from either side of the valve hole. In the first case this happened at a rather awkward time (I was cycling around Tajikistan – about as far away as you can possibly get from a bike repair shop); I fitted a tube and rim tape and managed to “nurse” the wheel for the remainder of the trip (about another 500km) – by the end of the trip the crack went almost the whole way around the rim.

Suggestion from Mavic was that I’d fitted too wide a tyre and/or inflated the tyre to too high a pressure – neither of which had happened. They also suggested a poorly built wheel – not the case – it had been professionally built onto Chris King hubs. I thought it might therefore have been a one-off, but exactly the same problem happened again a couple of weeks ago. I’ve now ditched tubeless rims and gone back to Mavic EN521.

Got some Schwalbe tyres from Bike24 a couple of years ago – had no problems with the ordering process that I can recall.

I might be wrong, but I think the LED ones are a bit more energy efficient . . . . my LED computer monitor certainly uses about 50% less power than the LCD one it replaced (and it has a slightly larger screen size too).

Ambrose, have you thought about perhaps trying Norway instead of Iceland – just for a change ?

Might be worth trying a proper “dismantling lubricant” like PlusGas – works much better than stuff like WD40.

One thing to watch out for – easyCar (the car rental bit of easyJet) ran a big fleet of early model A140 – so these might be worth looking out for (and avoiding).

Assumption of high Mercedes running costs and parts costs can be misplaced – example: VW Golf Diesel will need a new timing belt every 40k; A170 uses a chain that’s good for over 100k, so even if it eventually costs twice as much to do I’ll still be in pocket. Many other common parts (brake pads, discs, exhaust, suspension components) can be had for pretty much the same as equivalents from any other manufacturer.

As with all cars there are good ones and bad ones – I’ve run a manual A170 diesel from new for the last ten years – now has just over 85k on the clock, and apart from the usual consumables (brake pads, tyres, battery) and an annual service (now done by a local “independent” Mercedes specialist) I’ve only had one minor thing go wrong (the central locking played up – easily and cheaply fixed). Quickly turns into a small “van” if needed (all of the passenger seats can be lifted out to leave a completely flat load space) and regularly returns 60 mpg.

The PC said that one of the more common reasons now is being subscribed to MTB mags which is worrying but that isn’t the case for me anyway..

Could also be a casual employee of the Post Office . . . easy enough for someone to keep a note of which addresses get deliveries of bike mags, parcels from CRC, Wiggle, Evans etc and then sell the list on to a lowlife . . .

Maplins are doing 250Gb Seagate GoFlex drives for £35 at the moment.

Also, from Conquerer’s earlier post – Amazon’s “1 to 2 months” delivery – ordered a new monitor earlier this week which was advertised with a similar delivery schedule – it was dispatched this morning. That’s not to say that it’ll always be quicker than they say, but it might be worth a punt.

Stoner suggested making the mix very wet so that it’ll flow and find its own level. Nice idea, but too much water will make any concrete mix lose much of its hardened strength and you’ll also find it tricky to get a good and impermeable (durable) top surface on the slab because all of the excess water will segregate to the surface. Much better to use a proper plasticising admixture if you can get hold of it – something like this would do the trick nicely. You don’t need much – 1% by weight of cement in the mix is typical.

Most ready mix concrete suppliers would include a plasticiser like this in their mix recipe if you told them that you were using the concrete to pour a slab.

Was in France a couple of weeks ago and bought 2 @ 1 kg bags of beans from one of the supermarket chains for just about 9 euros the pair (so about £8 all in); works out at about half the price of the cheapest beans from a UK supermarket and the resulting coffee is very drinkable indeed.

I’ve had one of these for a couple of years now – very robust, keeps excellent time and will never need a new battery (so it should stay waterproof – important as it goes scuba diving with me on a regular basis). Have found it plenty bright enough to read at night – hands and numbers very luminous. Probably didn’t get it from the company shown in the link, but I’m sure you can google for a good deal.

Wonder how the driver of the excavator-on-chimney gets to and from the cab at the start and end of the working day . . . . ?

Can’t help but think that Fred Dibnah’s way of demolishing a chimney was much more fun 😀

You can’t take a picture unless you’re carrying the camera with you – so I’ve taken far more pictures with my Canon G12 than with my DSLR kit simply because the Canon is with me for more of the time – and is so much easier to use in situations where waving around £1000+ of DSLR would make you vulnerable to unwanted attention. G12 gets consistently excellent reviews – see here G12 review and here another G12 review[/url]

If its paint over any sort of glazed or surface-coated bricks then be careful that you don’t take that layer off too – if you do then you risk the bricks loosing any waterproofness that they might have had, and your house will soak up water like a sponge when it next rains. Was the paint there to look nice, or keep the water out ?.

Second the warning about asbestos if its got corrugated sheets for the roof/walls. If it has then keep everything damp to help keep the dust levels down, and leave the sheets in as big a bits as you can handle.

Had one on Friday – freshly cooked bacon butties went down really well after a SCUBA diving training session in a local flooded quarry.

Outer building shell is usually designed to “fail” before the really important containment stuff inside is put at risk of damage – the big outside building is primarily there to keep the weather away from the electrical/mechanical stuff inside of the building. Blast looked to be gas-driven – a high velocity flash of burning gas (hydrogen ?), then lots of dust and debris as the building shell disintegrates, but then no flame or smoke (so little or no fire).

Definitely worth a look: Redspokes – a small company, but the four tours I’ve done with Dermot and his team (Tajikistan, Vietnam, Laos and Peru/Bolivia) have all been absolutely fantastic.

Have a look here for some amazingly huge panorama pictures; will be taking a Gigapan to the Alps this summer so hope to capture some BIG views around Morzine.

Try here for something suitable – you can either buy a kit to cover a range of bearing internal diameters, or just a single extractor.

Another fan here of reflectives – one of these[/url] was one of my best buys ever for the daily commute.

These work well – you can get them in a couple of sizes from most “outdoor” stores (Blacks or similar).

Heading across the channel next weekend – going to see if I can find a bottle from these folks – reports from tastings sound promising.

Just love that kettle cable . . . . which gets plugged into a £2 MK wall socket . . . wired to a consumer unit with 50p/m twin+earth . . . wired to . . . just how far back up electricity supply do some fanatics go ?

One of these[/url] might be worth a look.

Rubber floor tiles work really well in a kitchen – I went for a nice bold “Pacific Blue” and am well pleased with the result (easy to clean, really hard wearing, warm underfoot). Not easy to fit though – I would advise against DIY as the waterproof epoxy adhesive used to stick them down means you only get one chance to get it right, and mistakes will be expensive (and very difficult to put right).

Another vote here for Canon G12.

Is this what you’re after ?

If you go the SDS route then note that many are just 2 function (drill, hammer drill); it’s worth spending a little extra to get a 3 function (drill, hammer drill, hammer only) one – so you can use it with chisel bits.

Michelin do “Mercedes” versions of a number of their tyres – these use the same rubber compound as the normal version but with a slightly different tread pattern. Example: their 195/50 R15 “Energy” tyres are available in an “MO” Mercedes version specific to the A Class.

Bracket can be easily modified to take a hex socket bolt with a standard camera tripod thread (which I think is 1/4″ BSW).

Could always buy in the UK – Woodlands[/url]

Extremities Velo Gloves are worth a try.