@blokeuptheroad @stretch switched our paint cans to blue and yellow.
Not out to start another conflict.

Cheers. If anyone (everyone) knows how to put the image on the forum here i’d be grateful. Busy painting card to make poppies for some protest wreaths for war memorials. Starting with UKRAINE and **** PUTIN in foot tall letters.

My photoshop skills are a bit analogue
Putin positive test

I recently bought some favourite old cross tyres from US Ebay. I was a bit reluctant to start with as there was hefty postage and a forced import charge at check out. But… on balance it wasn’t horrific, the shipping was really quick and i got an update at every stage – and i didn’t have to waste an hour going down the depot to pay the import charge. I was impressed.

I ride on my cross bike and fully rigid 29er. If your rigid bike was geared i’d say go for that. One thing to look at is your tyres – make sure there’s a decent amount of tread on them. I’ve destroyed four tyres this year on the flinty middle section of the SDW.

The rings were orientated correctly. I know the theory that the gear ought to be at its tallest on the downstroke, just wasn’t feeling like that. The rotor was particularly bad for me – maybe because it is more ovalised.
Like yak said a round ring just feels more even – obviously i suppose – with the result that my pedalling is smoother and my knees are better.

In fairness to the OP CRC can be pretty infuriating. I got lied to and palmed off on a warranty issue for a few months. It was only when i looked up the wiggle directors and asked one of CRC’s customer advisors which director had responsibility for marketing, as i wanted to copy them in on my letter to the Advertising Standards Authority, that i got an instant refund and an apology.

OP I think you need to calm down a bit on this one. Give them a call. One thing i did learn from my experience is that the majority of replies to such a post on STW are not very helpful – but within the replies i received there were a couple who offered advice that resolved my problem with CRC.

Bike Stand
I’ve had one of these for the last ten years. Been very good. Not so solid as the park but much more adjustable and easy to stow.

I wouldn’t buy one again. Clunky and hard to store. There are many more user friendly and easy to store options.

Magic. Thank you. Knew there’d be a clever thing out there somewhere – and the answer is pretty much what i expected.

That calculator is useful, thanks. It shows me that reducing the head angle by 2 degrees is in itself going to have very little effect on bar height – even though i’ll be dropping the front end by reducing HA, obviously the stem will be clamping to a steerer that is also at the new relaxed angle so it will have the effect of adding a couple of degrees of rise.

What i was really trying to work out in all of this is whether fitting a works components 49mm external bottom headset cup which has a stack of 14mm from a hope internal cup (so about 10mm difference in stack) is going to raise my front end or whether the 2 degree slackening of the HA would cancel this out. Probably a better question to ask is if i’d even bloody notice anyway… thank you for indulging me.

I’ve never even heard of radians, but thank you. I think i’m grasping that the answer is essentially bugger all.

Running a 500mm 3t one to replace my 120mm travel magura 29er fork which was 530mm long unsagged. I was torn between these and the 470mm version but the bike feels good even on techy steep climbs.

Mine from Merlin was non-boost.

Try emailing Upgrade. I eventually got some new pad adjusters from them even though the first guy i spoke to at Upgrade told me that these couldn’t be replaced – until i pointed him to the service video on TRP’s own you tube tube channel. Once i got past him they were helpful.

Bought quite a bit from them over the past 3-4 years. All good, including excellent processing of a warranty on a fork.

Cromolyolly that’s basically what i’m getting at. Companies with poor customer service get away with it because people walk away, fail to complain or just find that when they try they have no luck/chance because big companies weasle out.

I haven’t got the specific marketing details that my wheels were sold with but i do know for a fact they were sold to me with a 2 year NQA warranty. It wasn’t a lifetime warranty but i did return them with 2 years.

It’s not a whinge, just trying to gauge if there is any collective will stand up to something unreasonable. I wouldn’t expect ‘help’ for every small dispute and i guess everyone seeking collective help would have to make their case. Could even be interesting.

My issue:
Bought haven wheels from crc sold with ‘no questions asked warranty’ in 2016. Cracked front rim. Returned to crc for warranty – refused. Told by crc that Easton stopped offering NQA warranty in 2014. Ask why crc are still selling the same wheel today with the same advertised NQA warranty. No reply. They’re behaving in a way that is incompetent, unethical and possibly fraudulent. Sure people will say suck it up, vote with your wallet etc. I agree and i’m not losing sleep over this… just wondered whether it was inevitable that i simply suck up their lousy marketing spuff.

Can’t wait til drones are in charge of everything.

No. They have been ridden hard in some very rocky places and occasionally dinged, but not jumped or crashed. These ‘virtually indestructible’ all mountain race wheels have had a fairly easy life under me.

I haven’t actually put it like that to the retailer. I imagine a manufacturer would inform a retailer, probably via the distributor, of such a change in terms especially on such a bold promise.

I’m going to be a bit coy as i’m still trying to sort it with the retailer.
I am still puzzled. Irrespective of small print is not just a downright lie for a retailer to persist with a promise that even the manufacturer has withdrawn?

Also – and this is annnoying – what if the manufacturer had ceased to offer this warranty (unknown to me when i purchased) but the retailer continues to advertise the product with a very prominent promise of a ‘no questions asked’ warranty? Isn’t that some kind of mis-selling?

THanks for the replies. If you specifically say “no questions asked” can that be caveated?

Thank you.

Oh yes, we speak on the phone pretty much every day.

I really like your frame. Taking orders yet?

As to the tyres I think most of the drag was in my head – that and the 200ml of tubeless sealant I put in each tyre because I was so determined to avoid punctures.

Those seat stays are very elegant. Did you manipulate them yourself?

I’ve been thinking for a while that the trend for making things stiffer ie hefty carbon forks and oversize bars is actually making things harder to control. I don’t know if it’s just my imagination.

Here is a link to my blog outlining the whole dirty business bog horror 2017[/url]

Some bits of ground look firm and aren’t, other bits look soggy but are firm – it’s peat luck.

Ha. I had a couple of over the bar moments – fortunately with very soft landings. The brake levers were so full of peat that the brakes were jammed on for about 15 minutes afterwards.

Ground conditions did make it hard going this year.

Chor Bizaare on Albemarle St was always my favourite for a splash up Indian.

Drummond Street also very good.

If you know how to work the system there must be so many opportunities to save money legally in all aspects of life. Time to start the STW great money saving thread.

For a modest £5 fee I am happy to offer my dad’s details to all interested parties. He’s particularly keen to be named on any vintage maseratis. Though he’s just gone up on the shed roof in the dark to mend some felt so he may not be around for long.

Just so used to money heading out with insurance. Think I will be keeping my dad on for future renewals.

It’s Hastings Direct. I’ve always found them very good to deal with.

It’s just my middle name – given to me in remembrance of my great uncle Wynne, a man from a tiny Welsh hamlet who became a Mosquito navigator and was killed in ww2.

Ah, I love a good old vacuum thread.

I was out shopping for a small vacuum to leave in one of our holiday cottages the other day. In Currys on one side of me were an array of Dysons looking like rejects from the Blake’s 7 prop department – and then I turned slightly and a little pink lady with a lovely smile caught my eye. Hetty from Chard. Anyways I scooped her up and she’s now living fritzel style under our stairs.
Wouldn’t give house room to the offspring of creepy brexit clagnut Dyson.

Hmmm, day volunteering at a food bank?

It’s a fair point, but I was told unequivocally, that as a good will gesture to make up for a very poor service, my phone would be fixed for free. No caveats, no clauses etc were offered with this.

There is also a broader point that several of Virgin’s people accused me of lying, and then backtracked after listening to recordings. I honestly couldn’t have been more open about the cause of the damage or what their staff had said to me.

Thanks all for the replies. I have in writing requested a DSAR. They say it could take up to 60 days for me to get the transcripts.

The issue, in a nutshell:
1 I fall in river with waterproof Sony phone in a zipped coat pocket. Camera on phone stops working.
2 Phone Virgin to see what my options are in terms of fixing/replacing phone. Told my only option was to pay off my remaining six months on my contract and then start a new one.
3 Contact STW forum for advice – told there is a common problem of these phones not being waterproof and that mine should still be under warranty.
4 Phone Virgin back, explain that I am very unhappy with the information given first time I called. After a while nice lady tells me that because service was so bad first time round then they will fix my phone for free. Phone booked in for repair.
5 I send phone off, get a call a few days later saying phone case is damaged and that this is not covered under warranty. Apparently there is a hairline crack front to back on the side of the phone. I had never noticed it as the phone had always been in a rubber protector. I am told I have two choices – pay £66 to have it repaired or have it sent back to me unrepaired. I say that I am unhappy with this choice and that I had been promised verbally that my phone would fixed free of charge to make up for my poor experience on my first call. Bloke says I can’t have been offered this as it isn’t something that they offer.
6 Later the same day I get a call from Virgin Repair bloke’s manager saying that he’s listened back to my calls and I was indeed promised a free repair. He starts hedging around it with all sorts of caveats that allow him to weasel out of the promise. He tells me that if the experts open up the phone and find that it is going to be too expensive to repair (beyond economic repair ie beyond 80% of the cost of the phone) then my phone will be sent back to me unrepaired.
7 Surprise surprise this morning I receive a message to say that my phone is beyond economic repair, and that he has honoured the promise of a free repair by taking me through the assessment process only for my phone to ultimately fail to meet the criteria for repair…

And so here I am. Beyond the fact that I can’t understand how this git can say that he honoured the promise of a free repair, what baffles me is that two days ago it was going to cost £66 to repair my £200 phone and today it is deemed beyond economic repair.

I don’t even like phones, or computers for that matter.

Not going to help you at all, but when I used to work in the communications dept of a certain royal institution the elderly editor of one of our in-house magazines asked me for a quiet word one day. She’d heard that we going to be employing paedophiles. It took a few seconds for the penny to drop, and all was smoothed out. Within a few weeks she was creating her own paedophiles on her new Mac.

Thanks very much for the information. Person I spoke to yesterday claimed to have listened back to my call so they can’t (reasonably) claim to have lost the recording, unless he was lying as well – which I am coming to realise is standard procedure for Virgin mobile.

Going back to it after a nine year hiatus. Planning to run Vittoria tnt xl pro tubeless. Testing in rocky n Wales has been good so farb- feel a bit heavy but seem tough and no burping.

As ever, beginning to wonder if me entering the 3 peaks is really a good idea…