Tony Harrison

Being that I live in a city centre a car isn't essential, but would be helpful for getting to other places to ride, etc. I've been given a 1.1 litre Fiesta, but to make it worthwhile I've decided the insurance premium (TPFT) must be £600 of less. As I'm 23 and have been driving for 4 years with no previous claims (but no 'no claims' either - never had my own insurance policy before) I don't think this is too unrealistic. My best quote is £390 for my parents address, but at my address it is £690 (that's with Tesco) because it is a 'higher risk area'. Can't really get away with lying and saying I keep the car at my parents, so I will inevitably have to pay the higher price. So... Any ideas where else I could get a quote? I've tried CIS, AA and Norwich Union (they didn't quote me happy). Thanks.

Check out the brain on Fatmike!!

I thank you both, and have applied for a job as a Christmas tree decorator. Didn't realise the Koxx rim would need spokes that much shorter - I suppose it's due to having the holes offset from the centre line? Anyway, thanks for the help. You're too kind.

Thanks, but I don't know the dimensions. (Y)

I hereby apologise for my laziness in not working this out for myself. I am pathetic, dirty, low-down and no-good. I am worth less than a pig. But if anyone would be charitable enough to answer my questions then I would be eternally grateful. Please could somebody tell me the spoke lengths for the following combinations of hub and rims... 1) Chris King (non disk), 32H, 3 cross on a Koxx rim and 2) the same hub with an X-lite Phatso/BMF/DX32 If it helps, the hub is black... Thanks ever so much.

Don't be silly, it's personal preference. Half the people that vote won't have ridden either of them anyway. You decide, it's you that has to ride it.

Still, some bees have learnt to counter the threat by killing the 'scout' hornet you saw at the beginning. A group of bees jumps on the scout and concoons it, making it so hot that it dies. By preventing it from marking the colony they prevent an attack.

£100 for each pass??? And who's financing that? Bloody hell, no excuse for not passing them all. Would have been worth a grand to me, which was about as much as my part time job at the time would have earned in a year... Maths and English are essential for most jobs - they demonstrate basic numeracy and literacy skills, and unless you have a disability such as dislexia or discalcula I can't see any reason why you can't get at least a D in these. I've found that application forms for high-end post-grad jobs GCSE's do matter. They like to filter out 'consistently high-achieving individuals' and unless you've got something else on your CV that says 'I'm good' (no, not 'captain of school hockey team'), without As/Bs/Cs you get binned. But my brother hasn't got GCSE English (I don't think), left school at 16 and last week took home £400 cash. And that isn't some kind of two week summer job effort, that's every week if he wants. All depends what you want to do, but decisions now CAN affect the rest of your life. I messed about at university and had rubbish marks for the first two years and then realised that potential employers like to know these marks. Not difficult to come unstuck...

Boy's got to earn a living. Try later, or PM him. He'll get back to you eventually.

Why bother? MSN works fine.

I do love the way people dish out others' personal info for everyone to see. How about PMing next time?

Sounds like a right barrel of laughs. When are you moving to Liverpool Spunk?

Why are you guessing it's ball burnished? He said it's chrome, so chrome it is.

Ask Adam anyway. Or you could try the fat Toxsin grips, they're nice.

If you buy Renthals from a motorbike stockist, one will have a larger internal for the twistgrip won't it??? Adam Lefeuvreuvreurevefrenchuevrevre used to get them from somewhere - ask him.

Go to somewhere that does chrome plating and they can remove it for you.

Needed to get 5 miles across London to Victoria Stn, and one of us had a totalled back wheel. We took the wheel out, and used the longer skewer to clamp the rear drop-outs onto the front wheel of the other bike, effectively creating a tandem with three wheels and two headtubes. Rear rider had to pedal and both steer! Was an absolute biatch to ride but we did it...

I'm a firm believer that you can learn virtually anything on any frame. I get fed-up with hearing people saying things like 'he can only do that because he has a short bike/steep head-angle/long bike' - it's people excusing their lack of ability by suggesting their frame is limiting them. Too many times I've heard people say 'you can't bunnyhop long bikes', etc, only to see people on videos do it. Remember, there isn't some critical length around 1070 that suddenly stops you bunnyhopping and lets you tap shoulder-height. It's as much about component choice. Just by changing the Azonic 2.5" bars on my old Justice to Koxx bars and the standard forks to Toxsin ones I could no longer ride the bike. It felt totally different. I bought a new frame that is 32mm longer and it bunnyhops better than the old one. For the record, my choicest geometry would be around 1060mm 380mm 72 deg +20mm For anyone who thinks they 'need' a long bike to get anywhere, look at what Tibo/Caisso (to name 2) achieved on 1035(ish) bikes. EDIT: Yeah, my most important consideration with geometry is.... 'Will the bike be fun to ride?'. Because it it isn't, I might as well force myself to do knitting instead...

Nine times out of ten when your Hope hub starts skipping it's dropped a spring. The defective spring means that the pawl only half engages, and under pressure can't hold and the hub slips. Bear in mind that if one pawl is only half engaged, the freehub won't be resting on the other two (think about triangles), so the dodgy one takes all the weight until it slips. Stretching the springs is a waste of time - they don't like it and they won't last as long. Don't run the hub dry either, put grease in the springs and on the pawls. Don't fill the hub, but dry is silly.

Bumming? No, Wayne just has friends that's all. Besides, I can't think of any rider I'd like to see unleashed right now more than Akrigg.

No, bulb freehubs are too big. It won't fit.

Publicity is publicity. Who care about results and 'highest taps', it's all about the promotion. If a company sponsors a girl then they're doing something a bit different. If girls are a minority in the sport then they'll get attention, which is ideal for promoting a product. As Simon says (ha ha!) why should it affect you? I went out and rode my bike, and I don't think I'd have achieved any more if a girl (theoretical or otherwise) had not been sponsored.

Onza don't make Vario's either do they?

Check the song lyrics Joe...

Some good riding, but Lighthouse family, pubes and boys in the shower? Not into that...