Any question answered...

er.....could you pm me his address.

Done, compromising pictures included.

is it even worth trying to make a V2 gangsta fit? that's about 30cm of seatpost we're talking.

Ask him to hold it till tomorrow then you can have a fiddle with mine tonight (oo er) to see how it looks/feels with that much seat post?

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?

Where can I get the absolute cheapest Garmin 800, 705, 510 or 500 (without going on fleabay)?

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 former, both for occupants and impactees

Where can I get the absolute cheapest Garmin 800 or 510 (without going on fleabay)?

A lateral answer, but suitable if you're even remotely tech savy:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/bryton-rider-50-gps-cycle-computer/

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 former, both for occupants and impactees

This.

Then again I still firmly believe that this is probably the safest road car available today:

Where can I get the absolute cheapest Garmin 800, 705, 510 or 500 (without going on fleabay)?
I have a 705 that I am probably going to get rid of.

^^ Out of interest, why?

I am a dedicated follower of fashion, so I bought a Thomson steerer shim to use with my Thomson X2 stem.

The trouble is, the shim itself is slightly taller than the stem, which means there is a small gap between the stem and spacers both above and below. Is it safe to trim down the shim a little bit, or is it too large for a reason?

^^ It's a spaceframe car - one big roll cage with some body panels on top. It'll take an epic impact before your head will be near the floor if you do roll. So long as the seatbelts are done up properly the worst you'll get is whiplash.

^^ Out of interest, why?

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...)

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svzmp56YPY0"]Caterham
crash at Castle Combe - YouTube[/ame]

^^ It's a spaceframe car - one big roll cage with some body panels on top. It'll take an epic impact before your head will be near the floor if you do roll. So long as the seatbelts are done up properly the worst you'll get is whiplash.

If drivers are so militant about cyclists wearing helmets, i'm sure we can get them to use HANS devices to stop that!

/wanders back off to the car thread.

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).

See John Adams' work on risk compensation passim.

Seeing as RTCs have consistently declined over the last forty years and there are so many other factors in this, it is hard to pin down statistically.

Have you watched the moose/elk test videos Mick? The SUVs have a tendency to fail or blow a load of tyres in trying

Haven't seen the tests, though in reality SUVs tend to be at quite a high risk of the moose/elk coming through the windscreen!

Wait, they tried to deliver it to you, then posted a card through your door saying "lol! we came round and you weren't in so we're keeping this now. bet you can't guess where"?

I am a dedicated follower of fashion, so I bought a Thomson steerer shim to use with my Thomson X2 stem.

The trouble is, the shim itself is slightly taller than the stem, which means there is a small gap between the stem and spacers both above and below. Is it safe to trim down the shim a little bit, or is it too large for a reason?

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.

Also I'm getting the steerer cut as well and dropping the stem 10mm

Odd that it doesn't match their own stems. I'm using one with a 3T ARX and it's a perfect match for height. If you have the equipment to cut it down accurately and without distorting the shim I'd say it's ok to do that, but it would probably be preferable to find a shim the right height.

A lateral answer, but suitable if you're even remotely tech savy:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/bryton-rider-50-gps-cycle-computer/

I have the model down from that one. Really nice.

Odd that it doesn't match their own stems. I'm using one with a 3T ARX and it's a perfect match for height. If you have the equipment to cut it down accurately and without distorting the shim I'd say it's ok to do that, but it would probably be preferable to find a shim the right height.

I reckon our workshop manager will be able to do it using some kind of saw and a 1" steerer tube or something similar to keep its shape.

As you say though, it is odd that it doesn't fit the stems it's apparently designed to work with.

I - quite effectively - cut down a steerer shim using a hacksaw.

I can't see why it would be a problem, although I was using an alloy steerer. Yours is carbon, right? Using an old/ offcut steerer tube while cutting sounds sensible. Probably best to file off rough edges/ swarf from the cutting too.