Don't threadlock your crankbolts in case you need to tighten them a bit later e.g. if the cranks move a bit down the taper as you ride them in. They won't loosen on their own.

Yes, the front wheel does most of the braking (assuming you know how to ride) so that gets the bigger rotor. If you can't get the 160 on the back, go for 180/180. Actually just do that anyway.

Someone will be along in a minute to say the opposite…

There's a watertank? That must mean I still haven't found all of the Shrine…

Will I find it all if I follow the spoons?

Out of curiosity, what exactly is wrong with my Mavic ceramic rims that have been refusing to wear through, not eating brake pads and stopping as well as discs(*) for the last 5 years?

* well, they have almost the power, but they don't actually have the feel of discs. But they are close.

OK, I'll have ago on here as well… probably a bit of a ramble…

About a year ago I built two PCs to nearly identical specifications. I've installed Windows 7 on both.

Trouble is, one of them has been intermittently unreliable. It is most unreliable from a cold start, often requiring several re-starts before it fully boots and logon is successful. Often it hangs during startup, sometimes it bluescreens. Generally once it is up and running, it remains stable.

The real problem is trying to get a clear diagnosis of what is wrong. This is especially frustrating as it will sometimes work for a few days so I always think whatever I have done has fixed it, only to find out that it hasn't.

Things I have tried:
Memtest86 overnight, no problems
Prime95'd the crap out of it, no problems
Some disk checking tool, no problems
Re-format and re-install Windows 7. Initially OK but problems returned
Swapping the hard drive for a known good hard drive. Initially OK but problems returned
Dual boot with Ubuntu. The Ubuntu installation was more reliable than Windows but I didn't use it enough to prove anything one way or another

I think the following are possible causes (most likely first)
1. Dodgy motherboard
2. Dodgy RAM
3. Dodgy power supply

I don't think it is software-related because the reformat and re-install didn't sort it. I also don't think there is any possibility of malware.

So, how can I clearly identify the failing components?

(Latest status: I must have tried a dozen re-boots last night, but couldn't get properly logged in. I did manage to get into Safe Mode. Today, it is working fine despite not having changed anything)

Ta!

Magic ratio. A half-link increases the chances of finding one. I use a ghost ring when I need a tensioner.

Reaching down to turn the bath taps on, I got nowhere near them.

I had to have a home visit as there was no way I was going anywhere. Unfortunately for me the Doctor arrived while my wife was out leaving me torn between the certain agony of getting to the door and the sheer panic that the Doctor would go away again before I could get there.

Also just back from a hire of a 5008.

Ours was an 'upgrade' from a Zafira, which maybe it is in terms of quality/price, but it is the same size-wise. So, it will take 5 people and lots of luggage, or 7 people with no luggage. But it won't take 6 people and 6 cases. With all 7 seats deployed there is no space left for more than a few carrier bags. No chance of getting any kind of dog in.

The 1.6 diesel is a cracker though: smooth, torquey, and doesn't punish you at the pumps either. Despite that it isn't remotely interesting to drive.

Ours was well equipped. I quite liked it, but I'm glad I don't need a car like that in normal life.

A Galaxy/Sharan is from a class above, space-wise. Though still struggles with 6 people and luggage.

if it's DDR3 shouldn't you have 3 modules ?

No, not for AMD processors.

Once upon a time there was a fairly unreliable mountain bike forum… which got hacked/owned with its own bombers

Are you still alive?

Putting it into flight mode will turn off all the radios so that it can't interfere with anything (and in flight there won't generally be anything for the radios to connect to anyway).

They ask you not to even use it like that during take off and landing so that if they have to say e.g. "IS THERE ANYONE ON BOARD WHO KNOWS HOW TO FLY A PLANE?" they don't have to look out for people who have plugged themselves into their noise-isolating phones…

That's my theory anyway.

Will

Washing up liquid with sugar added makes a decent swarfega substitute. I have since discovered that WD40 also gets your hands pretty clean to the point that you don't really need swarfega.

You could buy my Audi A6, currently on the classifieds. I need to know it is going by the end of the week and although it needs a service now, that could be sorted (for a bit more money).

RIGHT THAT'S ENOUGH. I AM GOING TO RIDE TOMORROW EVEN THOUGH IT IS STILL GOPPING!

(Caps lock intentional)

I use some short lock-on type ones. Unfortunately I have no idea where I got them from.

I was surprised that the SRAM ones were far too long

Me like. Shame it isn't available for normal bars though.

I bought mine second hand, but they came with some SRAM grips – which were too long. I'm now using a short lock-on grip.

Just to throw some confusion into the mix…

WDS will halve the speed of your wireless.

In security terms, WEP is completely broken. So too is WPA. WPA2 is still secure. My 834G v2 didn't support WPA2. So, if you care about the possibility of others freeloading off your wireless/intercepting everything on your network you can't use WDS (on an 834G at least).

You can buy boosted and/or directional aerials which will extend the range of your 834G.

However, a better bet would be to get a new wireless-N router because wireless-N will have better range even to existing devices that can't handle wireless-N themselves (and will likely support WPA2).

I have, over time, done the whole house (and I've just re-done the bathroom*; one more coat of varnish to go).

I would say don't be afraid to do it.
Preparation is key: remove all the old carpet tacks, and bash the floorboard nail heads below the surface. Make sure all the floorboards are actually solid especially where they may have been lifted in the past; if they move at all they'll simply move out of the way of the sanding belt and never come up clean.

Strip off any old paint, varnish or wax because it will clog up the sanding belt and then burn, and put burnt residue straight back on to your tiles.

The big sanding machines are ace, but for small rooms/areas are a pain as you'll be forever turning it around. Be especially careful when you lower it into contact with the floor (and lift it off again) or you'll groove the floor.

The big edgers are less impressive, and it is quite easy to leave circular marks near the edges. It might be worth using a small belt sander instead/as well. No sander will get all the way into corners so you'll have to improvise/do them by hand.

A couple of days is OK for what you have in mind. Dust will get everywhere; wear a face mask and block up as many of the gaps around doors as you can. In fact my best tip of all would be to sand the floors before you move in…

HSS do sale or return on belts. Get lots because a few will explode.

Don't sand through radiator pipes… And don't paint yourself into a corner (I did! And then nearly did it again on the second coat).

UrbanHiker: are you sure it is paint? If it is dark it could be wax. Either way, you need to get it off first. For wax, scrub it off with white spirit and wire wool. For paint, use a heat gun, or nitromors, and you won't be exposing yourself to any lead. And you don't want to just sand it off anyway because you'll just trash the sanding belts. Once you have removed it and sanded the floors you may find that the floor is lighter where the paint/varnish/wax was.

* I don't recommend sanding and varnishing bathroom floors because the water damages them.

We have similar-sounding boiler issues i.e. hardly any hot water.

Britsh Gas-run a mile! I'm not going to say any more or I'll start swearing uncontrollably in front of the children again.

We have had a new heat exchanger, which by my reckoning should have taken away all the scale, and that hasn't solved the problem. Next up, we are getting a new gas valve.

So it could be expensive, yes.

*stays out of the cold shower, slightly whiffy*

Mine won't. It will charge 10-12 cells so 12V – 14.4V but certainly not 7.2V.

I like that pretty much everything works even with noscript.

Last time I was doing anything with the web mailto links were considered unwise unless you want to drown in spam, but that may be different now.

Eggbeaters need another rebuild.

Headset now very notchy – and when that goes, that's the end of the bike (1.25" quill so almost unobtainable now).

On the plus side, no brake wear at all (V-brakes)!

Many thanks to CG for organising this one, and to Pete the plumber and the other intermediate guides.

I'll have to get a full day pass for the next one!

Ian (ancient Fusion)

Can I put myself down for whatever group turns out to be the wheels firmly on the ground group?

Can guide or sweep as well – I know Swinley pretty well.

You can get a red filter for a fenix. In turbo-flashing mode it is probably bright enough to be seen from space…

These look tasty and you can drive over them…

Spiders are creatures of habit, so it will happen again.

Luckily they are afraid of conkers so simply stuff a conker up your nose and all your nasoarachnid problems will be solved.

If interested in the Python programming language it is probably better to look on python.org rather than python.com

Bike-related: the legendary Black Gold grease was made by Ebony Lubricants. A google for black gold ebony lubricants won't find it…

It has been a while, but when I went on safari I had a 210mm max, with a roughly 1.5x video teleadapter screwed on the end. So I had a max of ~300mm. Which was generally fine. That was with film. Your 200mm is roughly the same onto an APS-C sensor. For anything further away you can always crop afterwards.

Over a few days you'll see most stuff up close so there isn't a need for a massive telephoto. Plus you'll not get a chance to use a tripod anyway. What you can try instead is a cushion which you can just whack on the roof and sit the camera on top of to steady a bit.

The only time I could really have done with more zoom was with a leopard at night but the real problem with that was getting any light from the flash to reach.

Oh and what are obviously some lights plugged in somewhere to charge that everyone else thinks are part of a bomb factory

for me, what littlegirlbunny said

plus, a pile of filthy riding gear next to the wash basket (too filthy to wash, and too filthy to go in the wash basket). Another pile in the bedroom. Another one in the garage and random filthy items hanging up to dry out in the garage as well.

Probably just me!

And the garden is a foot higher than the neighbours from all the mud

Once again, I'm staggered by the riding, but even more by the scale and ambition of what you've built.

And the pics aren't bad either!

Rigid SS = Swinley perfection

…however, no photos of mine exist on-line

An industry insider has revealed that the Fusion range of blades, which cost 5p ($0.08) each to manufacture, sell with a mark-up of more than 4,750 per cent.

If Gillette are paying 5p for each blade they are getting ripped off.

Who said anything about not spending any money? I WANT to buy a pair of pedals OR shoes but I don't want to buy both.

…and I don't have a pair of trainers.

Typical STW! A string of posts arguing the merits of going back to cheap SPDs, and one recommending Times. Both of which would mean either a new pair of shoes or some genius way of removing well-used egg beater cleats from my one remaining pair of shoes.

Epic STW fail!

Ah cool. CJs is one of my favourite trails. But I know it as ‘5 days in hospital’!

According to the guy looking after the ‘set’ they’ve finished filming. And it was Harry Potter.

It looks like it’ll take them a few days to clear everything out, but I can’t see any reason why any of the trails shouldn’t be back in normal use.

Crisis over!

The last few weekends there has been no filming and everything I wanted to ride has been open/unfenced. Is it worse now?

The wall is not as bad as when it used to have huge water ruts/erosion on it. But it needs the right weather – too dry or too wet and it is difficult – dryish spells in early spring, or late autumn work best.

I haven’t a clue which trails are CJs or the thin blue line… can you give me some hints?

The kids have just given me homemade cards that are laugh out loud good. It couldn’t get any better really!

I have a Crank Brothers one (CB17). The chain tool on it is better than my ‘workshop’ one.