Any question answered...

£17 on a cable lol.

Cheap stainless and replace annually.

^ dont trust this guy, he uses Campag.

Where are the major manufacturers of bubble wrap based? Cursory internet research hasn't shown much and it's bugging me now.

I had steel ones on my old bike (all-weather commuting) that would regularly snap in the Shimano 105 brifter. Never anywhere else, always fray and snap in the shifter. Enraging.

regularly snap in the Shimano 105 brifter

I see two problems here - a. you're using Shimano and b. calling them brifters.

Please! I was making the distinction between them and ye olde downtube shifters or something. :)

there's one in birmingham

http://www.abcokovex.co.uk/bubble-wrap.html

Sound like a fault in the shifters.

Yes, we found that one. The main pondering was whether it gets made in bulk in China and shipped over or it's made locally as it's a bit bulky to ship.

Are you asking yourself where the air in the bubbles comes from?

That's how the conversation started.

Good question tbh. Now I'm intrigued too.

But then again I have a paper that's due this weekend, so I'm procrastinating anyway...

Deep. Please use the Reddit r/trees [1-10] scale to describe how high you were when you thought of this.

It's inflated in the UK.

What, the price of everything?!?!?!?!!

#satire!

My mate works for a fruit and veg importer and their biggest ticket item "by a million miles" is blueberries.

CSB.

Are the blueberries inflated in the UK or where they're grown?

I don't have enough space in my flat to store all our bikes, so at least one is going to have to go on the balcony. Any recommendations for how to stop it rusting and falling apart? Just a bike cover? Is there any way I can make it look nicer (happy to build something) in order to not piss off my block's resident's association?

God knows. They come from Chile. I don't know that they're inflated but apparently the margins on produce are "razor thin". I think they just get a lot of revenue off blueberries.

If you have banana on your cereal every day that's a quid a week. If you have blueberries on your cereal every day that's 5, 6 quid.

Is there any way I can make it look nicer (happy to build something) in order to not piss off my block's resident's association?

Split bamboo screening is cheap and easy to use: comes in a roll and you just need some zip ties to keep it in place.

If the bike will be used regularly, a cover will be fine.

Buy them frozen: much cheaper.

#protip

What's good for putting a shine on carbon?

This, the cover will actually help in preventing people from seeing a bicycle on your balcony.

Okay great, thanks! I'll get on it.

You can find the screening in QD, Wilko, B&Q etc.