Fozzie

If at a good time of day, let it idle while the gloves go on (maybe 10-20 seconds) and ride away. If at a bad time of day (early morning), I start it up and I usually am pulling away just on the clutch after a few seconds as it's quieter. I generally keep the load low on the engine until the coolant temp levels off at the usual operating temperature, after which I will use the whole rev range.

I couldn’t refuse my childhood vaccines, and each other choice would have had bad consequences going against them, so you could say the choices have been rigged so one way is in my self interest. Having one more mandatory vaccine wouldn’t bring us any closer to being like China in my view. I’ll try and dig it out the article, but as the vaccines aren’t 100% effective, some projections show herd immunity would require in excess of 90% of the population to be vaccinated to meaningfully end the pandemic here in the uk. I think if it falls well below that, it needs to be incentivised or at least better encouraged. What I mean regarding the kill rate is SARS and MERS kills a much bigger percentage of those who catch it but it has poor transmissibility. Covid-19 has exceeded deaths of both in a year with a 1% kill rate as it is highly transmissible. That’s the key to its unfortunate success in enabling it to kill so many. I was under the impression the vaccine hadn’t been tested and approved for use for under 16s? And will be forthcoming. And hopefully at the borders, having a covid vaccine can be made a requirement as is the case with other vaccines to go to certain parts of the world as then it becomes like one of the choices I earlier listed. You can walk away. In an ideal world, I’d totally agree that we should be able to trust enough people to give consent and take the vaccine. And to be fair, mandatory vaccination wouldn’t be my first choice, but something I kept in my back pocket as a last resort. My views are skewed having seen there are people out there who will happily have the vaccine, but then make a video linking it to infertility purely for the ad revenue. Having had covid and later months of weird symptoms now called “long covid” and only being 30 is also playing a part.

@Tiggie Good afternoon folks. At what point is it reasonable to tell the cleaner to pack it in? My block of flats is only 3 floors, it takes 20-25 minutes to hoover the communal areas. So far, this new guy has been going for 90 minutes since I started keeping track, so he's probably pushing 2 hours. I'm on my lunch break, but working from home with a guy intent at hoovering anything bigger than a microbe right outside your front door is pretty distracting.

It's a 2016 bike with only 100 miles you've had from new? That's quite unusual in itself. When did you get it?

I considered that, but I opted to use regular plasterboard and then got a tanking kit. I applied 3 coats to be overkill, but it should be completely waterproof. Wickes had an offer on the 2.4m plasterboards, so had them for £4.50 a sheet at the time. Tiling went ok, but I've noticed if you look closely, it ever so slightly bows in the middle of the wall. I worked out where I've stuck the plasterboard onto the wall, I've pressed too hard in the middle and compressed it, then didn't compensate for it with the tile adhesive. My girlfriend says she can't see it unless she really looks hard, and from the right angle, but I know for next time

It took me a minute to spot! But I'm guessing once you've spotted it, you can't stop seeing it. Does it look ok with the door open? As that would honestly be my fix, just leave it open I had the same thought with acquiring more tools, but my flat is a 70s built structure and all the doors are non-standard sizes, which is sending the price shooting up, so I'm planning on being lazy and letting it be someone else's problem. I've got to replace all the radiators next, which I can do, but I find balancing them a dark art.

If you're fitting a new mixer for the bath/shower taps, the usual ones have something like 150mm (IIRC) between centres of the pipes. But if you are upgrading to a higher flow mixer like I did (8 litres a min to 12 litres), then watch the pipe fitting, as mine only had about 50mm between centres, and it had to be *absolutely* dead on. Loads of reports of leaking, and only being a mm or 2 out. I used two pieces of wood with holes drilled precisely to hold them exactly apart and straight while I secured the pipes. The more regular fittings, I'm told you can be out a bit and the thicker gaskets are more forgiving. Also, if you have to plaster board again (tiles might tear the old ones off), if onto a brick wall, the orange board glue says you only need to hold it for 5 minutes, but this wasn't even vaguely true. You let go, and 2 minutes later you saw it had dropped a few cm. Have supports ready to hold it in place if it's not on the floor directly for about 10-15 minutes.

Good afternoon! This lockdown stuff is getting tiring now. I'm trying to get a joiner in to install some internal doors, a front door, and a made to measure set of mirrored doors. But I'm having a hard time finding anyone, and I found a good reason today when one was honest and said "tbh, it's a couple of days work, and there's bigger jobs out there we can squeeze and charge more for to do those couple of days". Would do it myself but it needs some pretty serious trimming of doors and I don't have the right saws.

Late last year I was approached by an old friend I lived with in London with her now husband She said her and her husband had fallen on hard times, and needed a short loan for a week of £500. Was happy to help, but in short, I smelt a rat pretty quickly. It quickly became clear her husband didn't know she lent the money and she was desperate for him not to find out, so I started digging into why, and got in touch with an ex girlfriend who claims since moving to Scotland she's had intermittent drug issues. The best I can work out, she got pregnant, and is getting out of "that life" and people she's owed money have come knocking. And her husband doesn't know as he wanted to leave that lifestyle behind in their 20s. It took 4 months, but she's paid me back minus £50 which I've said she can have to help towards the new little one, as well as giving a bit of a lecture that if she's in trouble, she needs to come out about it, but she insists there's no trouble. But I'm a bit unsure what to do. Her husband is a good friend of mine, and I feel I should say something. But I've frozen as it was pointed out that if she is getting out of it all, and takes having a kid seriously, telling him might be a bad idea as she has been desperate for it to be kept secret. While she's created this mess, do I want to be the one who potentially causes a breakup when there's now a kid on the way? So yeah, nob of the day goes to her. And probably me either way this goes. Not lending money to friends anymore.

You may have to cock your head sideways, but this was the before and after. Originally the bath was along the right hand side wall (as you walk in). I broke down a closet that used to house the boiler, and flipped the layout so the bath was built across the back wall under the window. The hardest bit was taking the old tiling off the old wall as at points I thought the wall between the living room/spare room was going to come down. Plastering and tiling was hard, and being honest I spent a long time fixing errors in that area, and it's still not perfect, but it's not noticeable. End result is with the door closed, there's more floor space and it looks a much neater layout. The old one, the bath didn't fit, on both sides the wall had been cut out to allow it to fit.

I've got some home projects out of the way to break the monotony of working from home and watching Netflix. I demolished my bathroom, all the way back to brick and built it back up again. I'm now converting my garage into a workshop, and got the new bench built yesterday. Hoping to get either a second bike or a project in there in the next month or two. TV wise I'm going through the old classics, Long way round/down/up, as well as all the stuff Charley Boorman did away from Ewan, which is on Prime I think.

If you wouldn't mind, I'm busy with her mums Hive

This pandemic has found a way to kill the older generation, or at least their financial reserves it seems. I've just had a new Boiler installed, a British gas install as my company owns them, and I'm a top floor flat so scaffold was needed for installing the flue. Still cost a pretty penny but was a bit cheaper than everyone else. A rare thing to say in the context of British Gas. But my girlfriends Nest packed in while she was away, but I used a £7 mechanical thermostat while the warranty claim got sorted. Google are a pain in the arse to deal with, after everything they tried to dodge paying as it wasn't installed by an electrician. They dropped it and covered the costs pretty quickly, but it was a fight at every stage.

Milwaukee M12 Fuel electric ratchet wrench, which has 75nm of torque. Fell in love with one after one got put in my hands when I was helping out on a project and my dad took note when I was going on about it. Got myself a Milwaukee impact gun, 340nm of torque, 3/8 one. They will be the tools I use most, so next birthday/christmas I'm hoping for the 18v grinder so I can venture into the 18v stuff and have two collections. My garage doesn't have mains power but I've got a plan that will stop me having to trek out to Wales to borrow my dads workshop so much, it just might take until next Christmas to get finished.

Good morning Anyone by chance ever had a BMW R1100S? There’s one going cheap near me as a project, 48k miles. Owner says it was always serviced but one day wouldn’t start. Issue is thought to be kill switch, or ECU related. If they’re known for electrical gremlins, I may pass. If it’s a good bike that just happens to have them, may take it on.

Well, that makes my case for keeping some financial separation a bit stronger It never ends well for Lars. Either he convinced them to run off and he will do the same to her. Or she played you as the evil party she needed to be saved from and he will find out at some point. But this kind of structures my view. Everyone knows or has been through a horror story. So it seems too common for me to ever give up certain liberties. Some see this as a way of keeping the exit door clear, trust issues etc. But to me, it accommodates the unexpected which can occur due to an abuse of trust. So there’s no harm in it

I've been using my dads workshop as its powered and big... But it's also in Wales. So this weekend I'm starting the process that will see my garage developed to have a work bench, complete with power tools, and a 2.2kw quiet running generator I love projects like this

My parents do things jointly, they've been together 35+ years. And I imagine it was the same with both sets of their parents. And I see why most people opt to join up finances in someway, but I now prefer to keep things largely separate. Never had financial issues in all the house shares/living with friends/relationships I've had apart from once, but it lead to some permanent changes. Due to a wage gap I was paying 70% of the rent/bills, which carried over when we bought a house. She then asked for a joint account but wanted to extend the 70/30 split into her personal spending so I refused as I saw a joint account as something to streamline 2 people, not subsidise 1, especially as she was full time employed. When I dug into it, I found out she essentially thought I was hiding income to charge her more, and had even gone to my parents secretly about it, though I didn't find out for a while as they did the maths and found no issue. I never found out what caused her suspicions. When I later tried to end things, she refused to agree to sell the house, and it took 2 years to resolve as I couldn't afford to leave. I found out if we had a joint account there'd likely have been more trouble. To the astonishment of all she involved, she said I was the one obsessed with money. My girlfriend has been with me approaching 2 years, and we've agreed that if she moves in, she will pay half the mortgage and bills and keep finances separate. I'm not opposed to joint savings, and if we ever have kids I'm open to changing it to a joint account. But not a second before then I'm afraid.

Morning folks, popping in to say hello. Seeing from the last couple of pages it's all been booting off a bit. Guess it's inevitable as with the Covid situation, and time of year when people are at their most down anyway. If you've ever seen someone fall into depression, things like their sense of humour are a give away when it goes from light hearted to outright insulting and they don't feel it's any different. Hopefully when the living situation improves, we will see some flouncers re-join the fray.

Seen a lot of this in the FB groups, and agree it falls under "toxic" behaviour. Some guy was giving a girl grief for paying a garage to fit her new exhaust. And then put up pictures of his new exhaust, and I ignored it until he used the phrase "proper biker". So I posted a pic where I cut/welded different manufacturers exhaust parts to make a system for my last project, and another where someone literally made the downpipes. And pointed out I could tell him I was proper, and he wasn't, as could the guy who made his own pipes say that to me. If you ride a bike you're a biker, if you don't want to learn or do it yourself that's fine. It keeps someone in gainful employment and the bike shops open doesn't it? Not a bad thing in these current times.

It's quite a big debate in safety engineering. You don't want it too hard, as the deceleration will turn your organs into mush (Grosjean hit 53G peak forces). You can bet next year that section will have been redesigned, as a lot of the protection built into tracks is based on risk. I was watching live and thought I was seeing a Niki Lauda style situation. When he hopped out you could see him shaking his hands as he's obviously burnt a lot of skin. Amazed he got off so light!

No spark? Hows your connection between the coil and spark plug? Bit of a wild card guess, but make sure the drop didn't damage any wiring, and that the connections to the ECU are good.

Good afternoon, building a new bathroom these past 2 weeks, helping me get through this lockdown part 2. Being in Manchester is tricky, our numbers never went down, but I guess the upshot is we will have lower rates over winter as more have had it and got the virus out of the way... Hopefully...

Find this thread funny as I recently got into a scuff with someone over it. I ignored her various rants over the days until I spotted one where I saw she was a first time dog owner, and called someone who politely tried to placate/reason with her a c-word. So I decided to dose her with her own poison. Told her she sounded like someone who had moved in next to a pub, and now wanted the pub to close because of the noise, but previously never had a problem going to pubs next to houses before, so maybe back off the name calling and try and talk it out with people Cue piles of drivel, name calling, I didn't even reply, she was replying to what she thought I might reply. So I just back out, but the next day or two she switches to going on about how kids these days are nasty little vandals, and where do they pick it up, so I posted a screenshot of the c-word incident mentioned above, and said "Because the apple doesn't fall far from the tree sometimes". I got a message from the admin, turns out she's friends with his wife and was going off the rails about me, so he said to get her off his back and not cause problems with his wifes friends, he was banning me for 2 days Hell hath no fury eh...

Is the bikes rear wheel just spinning slightly during idle on centre stand? Or is it spinning like it's in 1st/2nd gear? The first of those is normal, it's just a bit of clutch drag but can be disconcerting to a new rider to see it happen when their bike is in neutral. If you put your foot against the tyre to stop it with no noticeable change in revs it is anyway. What happens when you put the bike in gear with the clutch pulled and you sat on it?