That’s not Lego, its Duplo.

Shimano have been making 9T cassettes for years

9-26 Capreo, for dinky wheeled road bikes etc

These need a special freehub – I doubt the whole lot is as stiff as conventional.
http://sheldonbrown.com/capreo/index.html

the advantages of this system to me are twofold:

A) the whole assembly is lighter

B) the gain of a 9t cog. Previously you needed the metal of the freehub body to go round the bearing. You then needed the metal inside the sprocket to support the teeth. This limited the minimum diameter and therefore the number of teeth. With this the same bit of metal does both jobs so can be smaller diameter hence 9 teeth.

I hope the bottom cogs are titanium otherwise alloy ones will wear very quickly!

Surprised it took them so long to make this, although it will probs be very expensive and have a limited market so they will be rare. But hey, it got us talking about Hope products :)

ouch, failure rate of these air sprung posts reads like like the days of early air sprung suspension forks.

wooobob – yes as long as the new property passes the mortgage company’s survey and the LTV is OK.

And your current employment situation is acceptable to the lender at the time too!

I re-mortgaged with the Woolwich on a low fixed deal. Then I needed to move house so found a new house and a buyer for my house. My situation needed re-assessing according to their latest lending criteria. As I was on a 3yr contract not a perm contract they decided they wouldn’t lend to me anymore under new criteria – despite my history and always being on fixed term contracts. So I had to pay them £1500 in early repayment charges and went to another lender and got a marginally better interest rate (not enough to make up for the £1500 mind).

So no new bike for a while.

That dog’ll go up a treat – chuck it on the fire and it’ll go wooof.

Coat is on.

I think this deserves more attention than it got :)

Where do we buy this magical trade paint?

What kind of fork is that? The brake mounts are on the wrong side!

Looks like cynic-al has added his own disc mount to a road / cx fork. Added on the right to stop the disc forces pushing the wheel out of the dropout – see 3rd article done here: http://www.cotic.co.uk/geek/

You’ll be hard pressed to find any used car that’s not had paint or repair somewhere, even new cars get damaged in transport.

If you are spending £9k and don’t feel capable of of fully inspecting it yourself, get someone who is capable to check it out for you.

If car was registered after 2001 then you should have BS marked plates. You would be very unlucky to fail an MOT and even more unlucky to get pulled for Ian otherwise legal plate!

What sizes are people getting in these 29ers?

I have a silverline 1/2″ 12-point socket set with ratchet that’s pretty good quality for the price.

Remember if something is b*****d tight then don’t use the ratchet to undo it – use a breaker bar (I use a cheap one off ebay).

Likewise if its rusty and likely to round off, you are better using a 6 point socket – I have a set of Bergen 6 points.

I have a cheapo set of imperial size sockets that I use to hammer on when things have rounded off (usually find one thats just undersize for the bolt).

The right tool for the job and even budget tools will last a long time.

I also have a 1/4″ drive set by facom that I inherited from somewhere.

Not much to add, but I recently bought some plasterboard.

These guys were way cheaper than any DIY shed for insulation and plasterboard and way cheaper than anywhere else I could find to sell me a smallish quantity of plasterboard:

http://www.builditshop.co.uk/

Free delivery too.

bobgarrod is right, 7spd freehub is too narrow. If you could buy a longer freehub to fit your hub you would need to adjust the spacers and re-dish the wheel – may as well buy a new wheel.

And the ging, also from circa 1998….still get them for 12.99 on CRC

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/the-sad-demise-of-the-dcd

This bionicon looks better than both though….

You have a G35 but not 350z on that list. Could also get a 370Z for that.

You get get american 1.25″ hitches for them and stick a bike rack on that :)

creamegg -you got a picture of that? sounds great :)

interesting.

my prediction:

(if only for balance)

in 5 years time CFRP frames will still be more expensive than aluminium frames.

(perhaps more so)

The energy required to produce the fibres will be more expensive, the labour required in the hand-layup process will be more expensive, and the tricky-to-recycle nature of composite materials will mean you’ll have to pay for the end-of-life-costs*.

(*basically a landfill tax)

but you may well be right.

I know nothing about the energy cost of fibres vs hydroformed alloy tubes, but do also think we should be thinking about end of life costs.

An old alloy frame is maybe worth a few pence to weigh in and get recycled (at the moment) but a carbon frame is as you say landfill.

At the moment AFAIK there is no such accountability for bikes like there is with some other consumer products.

That is lovely – how much for the frame? Anyone have an ebay link to that specific frame? mbr thread says it is a FM056

Its an “open mold” frame so a few factories do them. Best to get on skype with them and ask for a price in the exact finish / paint you want. Remember to negotiate if you’ve seen it cheaper elsewhere :)

http://dengfubikes.com/product.asp?id=37&classid=23
http://www.e-hongfu-bikes.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=291

The built up one on the last page (page 85) looks ten times better than an On One Lurker or 456.

http://forums.mtbr.com/29er-bikes/chinese-carbon-29er-640919-85.html#post7191579

My prediction:

In 5 years time we won’t be buying fancy alloy frames any more because carbon frames will be so cheap in comparison we would be mad to.

Road frames are being knocked out by the factories for $250 shipped, Planet-X are even selling road frames for £199 delivered in their sale.

These places must still be making some profit. Carbon bike frames are about to come of age….

I’ve had a Saniflo Saniplus for 20 years. We use it as our main bathroom (shower bog basin) and it doesn’t have any of the issues everybody else seems to grumble about.

Get a good one, don’t try to save a few quid.

Is it not noisy? Does it not whiff? Mine was a saniflo sanislim in the room. I’ve seen them installed remotely (in a cellar or garage) which strikes me as a better idea.

was is that the original ad/web/page? If so the graphics etc that they used have really aged well haven’t they.

Yeah from ’97 / ’98. Orange are good at marketing and making things look good :)

Orange’s first FS bike was steel – the X1. And it was “fully floating”!?

5 years ago I built an ensuite (WC, shower & sink) onto our master bedroom.

I fitted a sanislim macerator to pump the waste out.

These basically vent into the room they are in and do smell despite the claims of charcoal filters. Its like having an open sewer in your bedroom.

It was a Bad idea. The smell isn’t pleasant and the noise is unpleasant in a bedroom at 3am when you go for a pee.

The first sanislim lasted a few years and then wouldn’t stop pumping after the waste was gone and needed a kick to stop it. I didn’t fancy fannying around so bought another to swap immediately.

Horrible job catching all the waste in the pipe before it spilled into the room. Turns out the level float in the first was gunked up with poo so it was still serviceable.

In the end we just used that loo for peeing in to stop the pong. I wouldn’t ever install one again unless its for an occasional shower or washing machine.

Sold the house and bought another house – the new house has another macerator!!! Argh,. This time understairs downstairs loo for the old lady that owned the house – this one will be ripped out.

This one also pongs as there’s no ventilation fan etc in the understairs.

I bought a carbon road frame direct from flyxii, quality seems good although I’ve not built it.

Quite a few on MTBR have bought direct from hongfu and dengfu.

I’d buy direct rather go through ebay as A) you don’t know who is selling on ebay and B) they are 10% cheaper direct (no ebay fees!).

Budget for Import duty 5.7% and then vat 20% on top of the shipped price + £15 handling fee. Some people get lucky and customs doesn’t pull their parcel.

In your situation I would talk directly to your landlord. Letting agents sometimes are generous with the truth / don’t know the full story. It sounds like your LL is a reasonable person so just talk directly with them. I doubt they wil mess you around with the deposit as you say they are going to refurb the property and they’ve had 9 years of rent out of you.

I think with your tenancy agreement in place for 6 months (unless it clearly says it has this exit clause) then it stands so technically you don’t have to go. However nobody likes being unwanted so start looking for a new place now.

Reference I would try and get directly from LL too, or tell any new place you previously owned/ lived with parents / lodged etc.

Something doesn’t sound right, however, I think your landlord is MENTAL for letting you go, good tenants who settle and stay longterm are like gold dust. If I were them I’d being doing it up a little for you to keep you!

Possibly the LL just wants to stop paying a cut to the Letting agent…. so will remarket without them? As I say speak direct to the LL and see if you can work something out.

I’d come :)

Ebay chinese carbon 29er or direct from hongu, dengfu, flyxii etc etc.

Budget for import duty etc.

Lots of people on MTBR with these. Worst case it should come in under £300.

was – do you replace the exhaust and tyres every year?!

No… I suppose rear tyres might last 2 years doing 6k but exhaust should last 50k miles or so.

Depreciation – nil ….. I could easily sell the car tomorrow for £1k more than it has cost me so far.

So it has actually cost you money really.

Say you do well and buy a car for £1500 that you’ve seen elsewhere go for £2500.

It has effectively cost £2500 as you could have sold it on immediately for £2500.

I do this all this time and justify it to other people like you have… man logic!

350z:

£450 insurance
£240 tax
£50 service (done myself)
£28 MOT local honda garage offer
£400 tyres
£300 exhaust
£500 depreciation
£? petrol @ 26mpg 6000 miles

lalala I’m not playing this game. Actually compared to some above its not too bad over a year.

hmmm he was “given” a large plot of land likely to get planning permission.

Must have done a helluva lot of caretaking.

LOL

In this day and age it seems the best way to get good customer service is post your views on social media!

If anyone googles the company name then loads of negative forum posts are not good for business…..

I like the look of this:

http://www.xacd.com.cn/product.asp?rootcl=1&cls=21

neat.

Seriously I’ve heard of a few people having frames from xacd with good success. Although I suspect most had never ridden a ti frame to compare them to.

Orange ST-4

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fs-orange-st-4-frame-size-large

Or tag-team a couple of chains to prolong the life of the remaining bits of the drivetrain.
Start with two chains; swap after a few weeks; hang ’em side by side and fit whichever is shortest; repeat.
Eventualy you’ll have the same worn out mess but it will take twice as long to get there and cost you one cassette and chainring for every two (or three if you like) chains…and you won’t need a chain checker.

This, but consider replacing both chains when they reach 1/16″ beyond 12″ over 12 links, they should reach that point together. No device needed except a steel tape measure.

When you remove a chain put it in a jar of paraffin or degreaser, then when it comes out it will be clean!

Buy steel chainrings.

Then again, cheap shimano cassettes aren’t that expensive so if you don’t like all this faff continue as you are…..

toons
Have a look at these

http://www.best-grip.com/eng/default.asp

The lovers of the Mountain Bike, that are forced to not stir for the bad conditions of the paths in the brushwood, made clammy by the conditions of the weather report during the winter, and whereas the snow and the ice are like it master for the whole winter, applying these small and innovative products on the tyres of their bicycles they succeed in never stopping their training and to have a good time . Even if in way some timid, is begun to organize competitions, whereas the conditions of the weather report allow it, also on the snow. Bestgrip has also planned for them small nails to insert in their thin plugged coverages. The biker can compete without incurring in dangerous and ruinous falls.

Bear in mind you may or may not need to change the cassette, chain and cables, and true the wheels up on that.

I ride oop north, but thinking about it, there’s not that many really big (like Snowdon) descents.

If they pump up (they do very occasionally) I can back them off a little with the adjuster. As I run big discs for C2s (185 was a DH rotor back when I got these, most were on 155!) I’ve think thats helped avoided heat issues.

Thanks guys, looks like I’m not missing anything so I will stick with em.