Any question answered...

I have also (before I could be bothered to cut down my steerer shim) used inch-and-eighth spacers to conceal the end of an over-long shim. Looked better than your current setup, although still not quite 'right'.

Is there's a pizza delivery girl?

Yes. At least one works at my local domino's. She stalled a moped outside my place last time I had a party...

/csb

Automotive question;

What is safer?

A modern car with a really high NCAP rating

or

An old banger like a mk1 ford escort, but with a roll cage and 4 point seatbelts?

The modern.
The Escort may have a roll cage and seat belts, but its also got cart springs, thin, tall tyres, a poorly located live axle, shitty headlights, worm and roller steering, drum brakes, and chronic oversteer. You are far more likely to crash it in the first place. It's primary safety is terrible.

Peugeot 205 with a roll cage on the other hand...

Is it going to be nice (dry, warm-ish) tomorrow? As in Thursday. Thinking of riding up the river to Hertford but won't bother if it's gonna rain.

check the weather forecasts, but it looks like it will rain in the morning and the evening

bbc.co.uk/weather

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk

etc etc

google is your friend

What's would a typical weight of an compact geometry light 853 frame be? 1600g?

Maybe a bit more than that (1700-1800) for a normal sized frame, but there are so many tube choices in 853 that anywhere between 1250g and 2000g can be done, and either could be the right choice for a particular rider and purpose.

Too many cars these days are focused on protecting people in the event of a crash, leading to the weight increasing. Today's "superminis" are 1.5-2 times heavier than their counterparts from 20 years ago largely for this reason. Extra weight means less maneuverability and much longer braking distances.

By trying to protect people in the event of a crash, they're making crashes more likely to happen. This is without taking into consideration the fact that people will be less worried about the outcome of a crash if they feel like they'll be safe in the event one occurs (SUV drivers, i'm looking at you).

Surely the solution is a car that's lightweight (the car above is in the region of 500-600kg, between half and a third of the weight of a modern Ford Fiesta), much stronger than they look (huge racing background so quite a lot of R&D gone into crash protection) and also require a lot less power than a car of equivilant performance, to please the green folk.

I'd much rather have a car that's extremely well equipped to avoid accidents than a 2-3 ton Range Rover with a ridiculously high CoG when it comes to not getting involved in accidents.

All imo of course.

Found quite a nice video showing the strength, the guy had a sprained wrist (because he let his arms flail around when barrelling through the air, hard to blame him though...)

Caterham crash at Castle Combe - YouTube

I share this type of thinking and therefore thought that maybe a boy racer spec classic car might be on a par with a modern car. I remember hearing that an old Sierra weighs half what a modern mini does (or something like that!)

I am probably going to finally get my driving license and first car soon. I despise being in cars and find the costs involved obscene. Will be the biggest expense I have ever had for the most soul-destroying item.

I wanted to add some joy to my step into motoring, by getting something older and cooler than the monotonous obese vehicles of today. Maybe with the simplicity of the components I can learn how to tinker with cars too, unlike a modern one.

The only thing holding me back is concerns about safety, not so much for myself but for other people - including my parents whom i will have to drive around.

I need to start packing my bikes up. What is a cheap way of protecting f&f or full bikes? Is there a diy solution to protecting bikes? If I have 2 large bike bags, what can I do to to protect 2 f&fs from each other if I can get them in there together?

Dropout spacers, pipe lagging and gaffa tape.

It looks like this:

Soon it won't, because I'm getting well rid of those silver spacers, but I'd like to get rid of the gaps too.

Just use one slim 1 1/8 spacers on the top or bottom?

I need to start packing my bikes up. What is a cheap way of protecting f&f or full bikes? Is there a diy solution to protecting bikes? If I have 2 large bike bags, what can I do to to protect 2 f&fs from each other if I can get them in there together?

where are you going?

Maybe a bit more than that (1700-1800) for a normal sized frame, but there are so many tube choices in 853 that anywhere between 1250g and 2000g can be done, and either could be the right choice for a particular rider and purpose.

Hence having it made in a very compact geometry (53-t-t seattube for a inseam of 86) which a decent headtube length (140mm slammed) and a tiny top tube (53cm), I reckon with those figure it shouldn't be more than 1700g.

(with 73 degrees ST and HT).

My Feather is 56.5 ST / 55.5 TT, trad geometry, oversize 853 Pro Team, and with forks and headset it's about bang on 2.5kg, so about 2.4kg F&F. The forks are 631, i.e. not super light, so I reckon the frame alone would be about 1.85kg or less. And it's built very solidly. I think you could easily make a compact frame in your size to about 1.7kg.

Dropout spacers, pipe lagging and gaffa tape.

where are you going?
We have to move soonish so i am preempting the pain and starting it now.

My Feather is 56.5 ST / 55.5 TT, trad geometry, oversize 853 Pro Team, and with forks and headset it's about bang on 2.5kg, so about 2.4kg F&F. The forks are 631, i.e. not super light, so I reckon the frame alone would be about 1.85kg or less. And it's built very solidly. I think you could easily make a compact frame in your size to about 1.7kg.

Great, very helpful, the approx weight should be 1.8kg with S&S coupling and a 550g road fork (Kinesis DC-07) with clearance for 32c, so 2.35kg.

That'll give me something to start with.

Can anyone explain Google Play to me? I have it and have successfully used it but when not connected to the web I can only listen to 10-15 songs. Why has it only put those songs on the phone and not the 700 I spent hours uploading to the library.

Do they expect me to be connected to the web whenever I use the app?

Wouldn't put it past them...

*Don't know :-(

^^ Yes. That is the idea of cloud storage. You can copy the originals onto your phone, and I would guess there would be an option for downloading them as well, if you were out and about, but the basic concept is that everything is streamed.

(and I assume you mean G Music, not Play)

where are all the XX1 group sets??

^^ Ah, ok. I have no data allowance as it's a work phone and they choose what I get. The people sat in the offices with computers in front of them get data allowance so they can look at the emails on their phones and on their computers simultaneously. The people who need the data allowance as they go out and about get nothing so have to make sure they print off every bit of communication just in case something goes averse to plan.

tl:dr - Back to finding a music player for the phone. I currently have Apollo, it crashes and closes after a few seconds.

Any idea what sort of wild animal would chew a 6cm diameter hole in 4mm thick plastic to get at a wormery and assoicated rotted/rotting food?

It seems overly large for a mouse and I doubt a rat would bother as there is no meat or dairy. Bear in mind also that there is a big compost heap with vegetable peelings etc on it only 2m away.

Any ideas?

You sure the worms haven't done it and escaped?