Look up the MTBR reviews, a few people detail the proper technique. I seem to remember it involves nipping one side up really tight against the locknut, and only adjusting the cones from one side.

I've found that when I've pulled a set of Marzocchis apart, you can get them back together pretty easily if you take the springs off, but it's the devil's own work if you leave the springs on. So I reckon they work.

Whether the land owner has any legal liability for what's built on his land is a little academic. The real issue is whether the landowner thinks he may have any liability, or if it's somehow otherwise deleterious to his interests. If he does, he's pretty likely to destroy the trail.

My experience is that businesses tend to be overcautious of the law so long as they're relatively ignorant of it. As soon as they have someone who can spell things out for them, they want to push things as far as possible to their advantage.

I am not a lawyer, for what it's worth. My experience comes from compliance consultancy, but I wouldn't be surprised if tax accountants and lawyers have similar experiences.

Presumably you will need to be a bit more adventurous in "other" activities then?

I was more thinking of not using it as a TV room, office etc. 😆

I believe Hora's the STW expert on what you're thinking of.

Alcohol reduces the quality of the sleep you get. I'd go for a big +1 on the excercise.

Another good trick is only using your bedroom for sleeping. That way you pretty much condition yourself to go to sleep when you go into the room.

I'm firmly of the get a bloke in view. The training and clothing isn't going to come cheap, and it's not something to learn by trial and error.

Somebody mentioned service costs – are diesels really more to service nowadays ?

There are normally more jobs on the service schedule for the diesel than the petrol. I'd be surprised if that didn't make it pricier, if done properly. But most services consist of an oil and filter change, some paper mats and a bit of grease on the door hinges 😆

Its the "reasonably foreseeable" bit that counts here – a basic premise of negliegence

I see it like this:

Landowner has no idea what's built on his land, and someone falls off a badly built bit of shore or whatever. He's probably fine – he didn't know it was there, so the only route that could be argued is that he should inspect his land regularly, which isn't really going to stick.

However, landowner comes across a bit of badly built shore, and he leaves it, then there's a possibility that someone could do him for negligence if they fall off. He knew it was there and didn't do anything about it.

At the end of the day, the threat of litigation is as much an issue as successful litigation. The prospect of all the hassle of a court case is enough to make most organisations act very cautiously.

Just don't buy a new -ish one,

I can second that. The post 02 Multiplexed cars are horrendous.

About right if it's a coil one, has ETA etc. Maybe a tenner less if it's just an air one.

Decathlon do plain roadie jerseys for about £7-8 a pop. They're spot on. You can easily afford a week's worth of fresh jerseys that way.

All with a much cleaner pair of exhausts thanks to a dpf.

You're talking rubbish. Even with a DPF, Diesels produce far more emissions that are bad for human health than petrol cars. There's generally less CO2, but more poisonous crap.

the fuss being made about it here and elsewhere is disproportionate.

Dazzle a driver and there's a small risk of there being a 1 car accident. Dazzle the pilots of an aeroplane, and there's a small risk of a massive fireball and a couple of hundred dead.

It's a fairly simple concept – risk VS severity of potential outcome.

If the roads where live are ropey, or there are big speed humps, you don't need a 4×4. You might want one, but a softly sprung car will do the job.

Due to the laws of physics, you choose between a very firmly sprung 4×4 with decent body control or a softly sprung 4×4 that wallows around. Or a 4×4 that doesn't really do off road properly.

Winter or snow tyres are the answer!

Everything is moderately heavy

That was pretty much what I was expecting. I built it to be as low maintenance as possible.

Nevegals feel positively lightweight at 580g a piece compared with steel bead Albert / RQ 😆

My missus buys red top cravendale then puts asdas own low fat spray cream in it with her cereal…..

I don't think I'd be able to contain myself if I witnessed that kind of horror in the AM.

The disc is free on the hub (where the studs fix), so I don't think i've got the wheel bearing variety, but time will tell.

It's not the kind with the wheel bearing built in then. When the wheel bearing is built in, the dust cap actually fits into the front of the disc, and the disc won't come off until you've pulled that and physically undone the castellated nut and bearing.

Brake calipers should normally be fixed on with an 8mm Allen fitting – easiest if you have allen drive sockets, easier to belt in and heave on. Shouldn't need any special tools. You may be thinking of the odd fixing sometimes used to hold calipers together?

Just weighed my Inbred with a highly accurate set of Aldi fishing scales. Approx 30-31 lbs. Which surprised me to be honest. None of the bits have really been selected for lightness, but there's no heavy cheap tat on it either. And I'm running a double.

Front and rear are very different. Fronts have been discs for years, so the hub carriers etc. are all designed for disc brakes.

Plenty of cars still come with drums on the back, so they make discs that fit up the same way as drums. I suppose it's part evolutionary throwback (ie, it works, so why change it), and part commonality of bits between the VW range. It wouldn't surprise me if an A4 has the same rear stub axle as a Polo.

If you've bought the disks, it's really easy to tell if the wheelbearings fit in them, they'll look like this:

Oh, and if you're lucky, the wheel bearing's pressed into the rear discs, a la drum brakes. In which case, you need new wheel bearings, and something to drift them in with.

I can't remember if they're handed or not. It's pretty obvious if you're going the right way or not.

VW/Audi calipers normally take a tool that has two prongs to turn the caliper back. I'd be amazed if a pair of needle nosed pliers won't do the trick. You can get the kind of threaded tool with a false pad back to help wind them in, but it's usually not needed and just causes more hassle (the thread on the tool rarely matches the thread in the caliper).

I seem to recall there is some element of black art to making the calipers reset correctly so that the handbrake works as it should – the caliper includes an automatic cable adjustment mechanism. It's covered in the Haynes I believe.

I'm assuming here that you're working on rear brakes. Fronts just shove back in, and you can do it by hand or with any lever you like – just use an old pad or bit of wood if you're worried about the piston face / rubbers.

i am struggling to see how this can bring a plane down!

Have a look at this

http://www.pangolin.com/faa/laser-aircraft-animation-and-explanation.htm

It certainly endangers life.

Blatant Perv. Do you have / can you borrow a dog, and get it to stay still long enough that you can photograph it? 😆

Why do A2s hold their money soooo well?

I'd guess Badge and MPG. They seem to attract people who can barely drive though!

I'd be very surprised if terrorism legislation isn't thrown at anyone shining a laser pen at a plane. It seems to be applied to umpteen rather less threatening situations, so I can't see why it wouldn't be used for this.

True. It's also not based on an old Vauxhall, which is always good 😆

SAABs are cheap for what they are, lots of space, good seats and pretty decent pace in a Turbo, but they're hardly cutting edge. The Focus has had money spent on its ride and handling and it shows. I've always felt like the seats are too high in them though, which spoils things a bit.

Equally, the MK4 Golf has suspension which isn't hugely dissimilar to what you'd find on a MK1 or MK2, but it has a nicely finished interior and is pretty refined.

The Focus is probably the best car available at 2k. On the other hand, 2k will get you a leggy MK4 Golf, which has a better looking interior. Depends how strong your aversion to Fords is.

Polos at that price are generally the facelifted MK3, and often 1.4 engined. Not amazing. But they do tend to have less miles than the equivalent price Golf.

As for those that question carbon fibres strength, better not get on any aircraft

And again, not on a maintenance and inspection schedule anything like that of a bicycle. Any impact on any part of the aeroplane and they'll be giving it a serious inspection, and possibly replacing it.

I agree, and as for F1 cars and supercars being made of the stuff and getting thrashed at 200+mph, why would they do that!!

Because F1 has a practically bottomless pit of cash, so it doesn't matter if a wishbone is binned after every race?

As for supercars, the carbon is mostly used in places where it shouldn't get a battering, and again, the maintenance schedule is way beyond what a bike will get.

get one with a little tubo inside the big turbo

Really? That'd be a miracle of engineering 😆

There are plenty of variable geometry turbos, sequential & twin turbos, but one inside another?

Normally you can find some kind of competency framework on the website / job description, or take hints based on the role – sales will be strong on networking and persuasion skills, for example. Questions usually take the format of "Can you tell me about a time when XYZ". Usual things will be "dealt with conflict" "innovated" "worked in a team" "persuaded others". Wikijob is aimed at grads but is useful for this sort of thing. So is prospects.

All the books say to structure answers as STAR or some variant of – google it and it'll tell you all about it. Personally I find that difficult to bear in mind when I'm thinking, so I just blather on.

Sometimes you'll get a situational question, which is "What would you do in X situation", which you can't really prepare for, but are often guessable given the type of business you're going for – ie, skiving underling, angry customer etc.

If it's an organisation with less than 1000 employees, you can expect anything in the interview process. Completely off the wall questions, questions you would think are unrelated to the job, aptitude tests with no warning etc. Not trying to scare you, but I've seen it all 😆

If the interviewer is speaking more than you are, just do your best, look keen, lean forward etc.

Ultimately, when you ask them questions, you need to give them reasons to accept you, and avoid giving them reasons not to. If you want to find out about micromanagement, ask something like "What's the management style here" or "How often would I expect to meet with my manager" rather than ask a very direct question, which will probably give you away.

I certainly wouldn't ask your question about decision in the absence of managers – some people would take that as you being doubtful of your own judgement. Maybe ask what the procedure is if your manager is away, but not "What if I **** up?"…

I explained again that he needed a crank arm, not a pedal, and guessed that he would have to buy a complete chainset which would be around £25.

Plenty of places will sell individual crank arms. Had exactly the same issue with a mate's bike – "Me pedal's come off". Got there with a set of spare pedals and the crank arm was done for. Drove up to Paul's cycles, £7 later and we were sorted.

£25 is probably a very large fraction of what the guy spent on the bike in the first place!

are you in the trade?

Nope, but I've bled a few car brakes in my time. The pushbike ones are much the same, just smaller and more nicely made 😆

I'll definitely bow to Pinches' experience though – sounds like I had problems with the hydraulic and friction side of things. It's been a while since I had a car with brakes that bad.

I've only ever managed to get car brakes to fade, not bike ones. I've found that when the pads are merrily smoking away, the pedal is soft. That's not to say that you can't have both types of fade at the same time!

With Shimano brakes, you have mineral oil as the fluid. It won't mix with water, and water in the caliper should sit in the bottom of caliper. Once the fluid in the caliper reaches somewhere > 100°C, you can get boiling water, which means steam, which is effectively the same as having air in the caliper. Once everything's cool, it condenses again and everything feels fine.

My advice would be that if the bleed nipple is at the top of the brake (normally are to make removing air simple), then bleed the brakes once with the nipple at the bottom to remove water, then again to make sure there's no air in there.

However, I've no idea how water would get into a Shimano brake, which makes that theory rather shaky. The car brake fluid used by most other brakes actively attracts and absorbs water. Mineral oil doesn't, which is why people don't have to bleed them every 15 minutes.

Diesels will always have a drag compared to petrol due the combustion process…

It's more the fact that the pistons, crank and flywheel all need to be a lot stronger than in a petrol engine, so they're heavier. So they take longer to spin up. The rotating weight stuff really applies here as we're talking in thousands of RPMs.

A petrol engine squeezes the charge just like a diesel does, just not to the same extent (11:1 would be a high compression petrol engine, easily double that for a diesel). Combustion before the piston reaches top dead centre is not good in any engine!

Brakes fade by two mechanisms:

1) Pad temperature. Above a certain temperature, the friction coefficient of the pad falls.

2) Boiling fluid, which creates gas in the system which is compressible, and therefore stops your power getting to the pads.

I suspect that you're experiencing number 1, and that your front brake could be dragging a little (or you're dragging your brakes), meaning it's already warm when you go to use it.

On long descents, it's better to brake in bursts then roll back up to speed, or to switch between front and rear brake if you're dragging them. Or to just buy big rotors / high temp pads so it's no longer a problem.

BTDT with chipping diesels. There's a lot of difference to be made at the top end, but I can't help but feel there's a reliability compromise.

My BMW 320d drives just like a petrol engine (except with more torque) up to its maximum revs which from memory are about 4000 rpm.

Keep telling yourself that. If you back to back drove a 320d and 3 with a petrol engine with the same power output, you'd notice considerable differences.

If you actually want to be able to get about in floods, your choice of vehicle is going to be dictated by the height of the air intake. You'll need a full snorkel setup for that kind of depth of water. And you'll get dirty water inside the car.

So on that grounds, you need a Land Rover Defender, with everything vinyl so you can wash it out.

For the other 364 days of the year, it would be the worst car in the world.

I doubt any of the "soft roaders" are rated by the manufacturer for any depth of water, so you're talking your own chances.

Personally, the best cars I've had for comfy rides on crappy roads are Citroens – softly sprung but still reasonably nice to drive. And that's the route I'd go down – a car that can handle poor roads, and is nice for the majority of the year. I'd either get shares in an old Landy with all the snorkelling gear with my neighbours, or a John Deere, or just do what lots of country folk do and have a full size freezer full of food. If there's a medical emergency, someone will get you out, and no boss is going to begrudge you for not coming in if you've had to fit a keel to your sofa.