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Good that other's are noticing the massive ponzi scheme that has become medium to big retail in the cycle industry. 2023 is pap for all retail, cycle industry no different, at least we have workshops and other things we can do.
Getting cycle shop labour onto zero vat would be a massive help, its one of the reasons it pays to be a smaller shop, one man band style and fly below the threshold, however with the way rent is in any decent place and the small margins available on most items, a one man band will be turning over the £85k that I think the limit is (?) whilst barely actually making anything for themselves. For stock, buying and selling on the UK VAT scheme and EORI scheme is fine for what it is, its the labour thats an absolute drain. Any labour you charge your customers is subject to VAT @ 20%, so a '£36' job (i.e. an hour or so) looses £6 to the VAT man, then there's the inevitable 20 mins of dropping off, picking up, phone calls, employers contributions to PAYE/pension/sick day fund/holiday fund'. Leaves you with not much more than £10/hour for your mechanics. Could just about push £15 if they are good at what they do, maybe ten years ago £15/hour was reasonable for the industry but this year not so much, in 2023 doesn't buy you much.
Car industry does it differently, the charge out rate is massive, Audi this year are £135-150/hour + VAT. So they only have to book 2 chargeable hours per 8 hour mechanic shift for oil changes and other routine work, that pays for all the fixed overheads and for that mechanic to be there for the rest of the day (6 more hours to burn!), so when they spot you need a cam belt, gearbox oil change, suspension component change, they are able to do it whilst the car is already in. Won't fly in the cycle industry, however those exact customers who honestly don't flinch at getting their 70k new audi SUV a basic oil change done, or other service items which are inherently easy to do whilst vehicle is less than 3 years old as literally designed to be so (yes there are nightmare jobs too) paying that sort of hourly rate; those exact customers WILL have a very prickly opinion on why a part seized BB, mangled brakes and PITA no name hub rebuild job will be £50 of labour please
Long rant, but maybe worth flagging up to ACT or whatever the relevant trade body is that a zero vat scheme could be useful, or some other longer term employee incentive scheme. No other private retail type business has as large an impact on public health as the cycle industry that I can think of? UK is loosing retailers, distributors, manufacturers (planet x I guess counts as that?), valuable knowledgeable staff and mechanics at a crazy rate
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Seen plenty of radwagons, apart from the size and weight (they are biggest of the long tails I've seen so far), for £2k or whatever they cost really they are pretty decent. the stock mechanical brakes aren't awesome, but less than £100 to put a set of tektro hydraulics on it. Not fancy but also not junk.
Be wary of a lot of 'new comers' to the market have glossy websites but the bikes are pretty pap.
Radwagon has a weird tyre size. Main reason tyres were failing was due to cheap rubber band type spoke hole protection/rim tape, that TBH more than half of all bikes use. At least they stumped up and made the effort to get new tyres made, shipped to customers and did something about the problem. Many of these newcomer start up's will just fold and leave the customers and dealers hanging.
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Smear grease on your rotors, will really fix this issue*
*Please note the sarcasm. You just get better at modulating the brakes. The Tektro cargo 2.3's don't look especially fancy but afters years of battling with failed shimano 2 and 4 pot pistons snapping, exploding or just leaking far too often, LVH moved to Tektro 2.3's with the metal pistons. Yeah less heat isolation but so far I think there are ZERO failures in 2 years of production that could be attributed to a warranty issue, which is the kind of numbers I like.
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Yup b screw been messed with = gears no worky very well.
From memory that is the right 9s slx. It'll be written on it exactly what it is
Pic of how the inner is clamped in the rear mech.
Check the cable means park it in 1st, click it down a few then pull outer cable from the frame stops and slide it ban and forth, make sure no kinks and it's very smooth with little friction. Then put it back in the frame stops.
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Sounds like you have a dynasys 10 speed SLX mech and a mega 9 deore rear mech, they won't work together. You can get a 9s SLX mech but they never made many of them, pretty rare. Any MTB 9s rear mech will work with that shifter (and others too).
If they are compatible then.... Check cables actually work, no kinks, no rust, no prolapsed outer or splits. Mech hanger alignment. Mech function, make sure someone has wound the b axle adjuster all the way in (folk love doing that, chain tensioner innit). Cable being held in right place in rear mech clamp, fairly common folk make up their own unique cable routing for this which causes some fun issues.
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Use band clamps/hose clamps on the waste to stop it from falling out and causing a big leak. Not sure if its a requirement but see it too often.
Read instructions on how to level it, often feet at teh front are by hand or with a spanner, but at the back is via a socket/wrench/allen key in a hole kind of a situation. Had some fitter break ours when they moved machine out of way for another purpose and just ripped the leg adjustment mechanism out of it.
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Not a building, but more self driving cars (are they self aware as well?) hitting pedestrians.
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/23514431.teen-critical-condition-hit-car-glasgow/Glasgow has reasonably high number of drivers striking pedestrians and other road users with their vehicles, but the last 3 months has been much much higher. Everyone (cyclist and commuters) has all been saying since 2021 the amount of agro on the roads is far worse, but seen a noticable increase in pedestrians being hit (and reported on) in local papers, worst was two pedestrians (one fatal at scene IIRC) in seperate incidents a few hours apart on same street or at least within sight. Anyone else seeing an increase in this in their areas?
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Go back and read what folk have said over the years, still current into there's nothing new with wood tops.
I would sand down to 400 or 800 grit then wipe up dust and get to it with some wire wool 00, then 000. Your trying to get it as smooth as poss, helps keep water out. This will take ages, use a random orbit or by hand with a large block. Grain should be gone, your looking for almost a glass finish.
Clean up then oil with whatever you choose. Avoid cheap stuff like rustins danish mix etc.
Osmo polyx clear satin over about 2 years worth of some danish mix a high end wood shop gave me half a pint of, and lately some tong oil (darker but a nightmare to work with, gives almost no protection but the colour is nice).Is all about prep, time and then more time. Osmo do various polyx with tints in it to simulate whatever effect you want. It's more pricey than some, but compared to how much you have paid for wood plus fitting is a drop (lol) in thr ocean.
I've rescued various mates wood tops that they say they have sanded abd wire wooled to perfection, only to spend another whole hour to get anywhere close to what id call done. None of the tops I've done (30+) have stains aside complete abuse like a wet rusty steel can left for days, or very strong chemicals like oven cleaner foam penetrating the finish. The osmo you'll habe to top up once a month for first 6,then 3 then just once a year is prob fine, no idea when I last did mine.
Don't varnish. Hard to repair.
Attached is pics from just now. Worktop usable area is very small, 600mm, fitted in 2017, you can see its used but nothing major. Sink rh side is basically mint, lh corner next to little sink has some rounding from washing up, pan handles etc. Colour is really nice in person, deep dark warmish colour but not yellow (danish mixs tend to be yellow er, tong tends to be more brown grey). Surface is almost shiny and beads water most of the time.
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Go back and read what folk have said over the years, still current into there's nothing new with wood tops.
I would sand down to 400 or 800 grit then wipe up dust and get to it with some wire wool 00, then 000. Your trying to get it as smooth as poss, helps keep water out. This will take ages, use a random orbit or by hand with a large block. Grain should be gone, your looking for almost a glass finish.
Clean up then oil with whatever you choose. Avoid cheap stuff like rustins danish mix etc.
Osmo polyx clear satin over about 2 years worth of some danish mix a high end wood shop gave me half a pint of, and lately some tong oil (darker but a nightmare to work with, gives almost no protection but the colour is nice).Is all about prep, time and then more time. Osmo do various polyx with tints in it to simulate whatever effect you want. It's more pricey than some, but compared to how much you have paid for wood plus fitting is a drop (lol) in thr ocean.
I've rescued various mates wood tops that they say they have sanded abd wire wooled to perfection, only to spend another whole hour to get anywhere close to what id call done. None of the tops I've done (30+) have stains aside complete abuse like a wet rusty steel can left for days, or very strong chemicals like oven cleaner foam penetrating the finish. The osmo you'll habe to top up once a month for first 6,then 3 then just once a year is prob fine, no idea when I last did mine.
Don't varnish.
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You've gone over and above to remedy a situation entirely of their own making.
Many single homes just should never have been converted for this reason, they aren't build the same way a flat out tenement would be.
Laminate flooring is a plague, shouldn't be fitted in thr majority of situations. Full thickness hard wood or even engineered floors are immensely better at absorbing the slap of an inconsiderate neighbours feet, but decent sub floor, then foam rubber then carpet is the best without doubt.
Go the council route, unfortunately you should have in the first place as they will require a decent period, few months maybe, worth of instances where the noise was an issue.
And or just move. No house/flat/view is worth mega issues and fights over, sell up, move on, and absolutely stuff their letter box, car wheel arch liners and anywhere else appropriate with frozen sausages.One of my upstairs neighbors decided 5.30am was the ideal time to drop their entire shoe collection on the floor from a height, then literally throw thrm across room into a pile.
A knock on the door and a stare that could cut through concrete solved it. I'm pretty sure I couldn't actually say anything as it would have just become a sweary rant.
Came home after work to find a sorry note and some wine. -
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As @snottyotter says
Vice, clamp hell out of, heat moderately, apply good penetrating oil (Kroil is my best friend in a workshop), tap with deadblow hammer or punch back of threads. Repeat, over a week if necessary.
Have found the usual, heat, kroil, whack and repeat over a long period of time but without going crazy on the force yields best results.WD40 etc is a waste of space, almost a useless product IMO.
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It's usually the other way around, when chain is on the 10t or 11t cog, the freehub has an advantage over the chain /chainset and rides on slapping the chain stay or causing chain to get thrown ofd.
Well sealed hubs (hope, i9, ck) naturally have more friction to over come. You can get proper freehub seal grease (even thinner than pawl grease), would very much use that and not a solvent like wd40 (which will work for today but make problem worse tomorrow) if your having freehub stiction issues. -
Hope rx4 I've seen lots of folk go to those and within a year or two, either seized pistons, or they are so utterly fed up of the noise (pad dependant). They also don't retract very well, so unless you have had frame forks professionally faced, and a better than new true ness of your rotor, they will rub constantly
Sram flatnounts I've had less issue with, but there are less of them in circulation
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All of those white ceramic piston mtb and early flat mount road calipers are susceptible to piston failure. Usually tbh caused by folk putting wheel in and the rotor going behind pads and taking chips out of the ceramic material (or causes a stress fracture point), or pushing pistons back and getting them anything but perfectly straight in with a plastic tool = chips internally. Or very old heat cycled fluid causing piston to just disintegrate internally, either into powder (that travels to lever and kills it) or the piston separates into an inner and outer piece and you can't push it back.
Seen it literally hundreds of times. Just get a newer generation caliper, latest deore is fine, not had any issues with 2019> release date calipers other than usual screwdriver rammed in thr caliper damage.
Tell tale is despite a perfectly clean caliper, after some actual braking effort pada have a circle of fluid on back of them. Or you've got a damp crack between the caliper half's
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Yeah seen the "we'll part ex your homd guaranteed" kind of a deal going on for a while, but actually hearing folk going though with it. A pure win win for developers.
There are so many factors to it, all can be amended with time if folk are keen to make it better. Shortage of trades, shortage of materials (less just now), estate and letting agents making up stories about how many people have already expressed interest in the last 30 seconds *, mortgage and interest rate issues, the way lenders catogerize new vs older homes, the govs way of calculating gdp/national growth is adversely affected by new homes completed, people being people and want everything brand new just for them etc.For me biggest issue is the fact we are still allowing private developers (who make more than the obvious numbers suggest due to the way they operate) to build on vast swaths of green field sites, developing them in the cheapest possible way for the most personal gain, and with the most detrimental environmental and social impact.
So many folk I've known my whole life have moved off to a new build in a horse field and then within a year lost contact with them as they just stop ever really leaving their 3 bed barret home, or can't easily leave as no trains, buses, cycling is essentially too dangerous (right out into a 60mph a road) and driving is busy as a small 500 count village now has over 10k and no infrastructure change have been made.Cities arw always going to get bigger, but after 70 years post war of building these sprawling estates, why do we as a people allow it.
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It's worse than that. Many online shops get into a frame mftr to get some full bikes made, which allows them access to shimano /sram full oe pricing (container load of tourney plastic fantastic please every month for 2 years) but it also gets them into the mftr, who will be making frames and sometimes assembling them for many other "brands", some of those brands will be on the sour side of a shipping container of tourney every month for 2 years, and they need out of some or all of it. Sometimes are above their price, sometimes below, sometimes way way below depending on how soon various tax/duties /storage fees are due. Thats where a lot of the way cheap priced stuff comes from. Hence why is in misc plastic bags from larger containers.
Uk retail physical shops are often getting shimano blue box retail and can sometimes with distributor deal help, get the price down inc full uk vat to almost competitive with the guys doing the above.
Been happening for decades, it's an issue and not an issue.
We have also sinxe the dawn of time been buying deal prices from online retailers and then retailing ourselves as occasionally the price inc vat is lower than uk trade price by enough to be worthwhile -
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Sorry to hear this. Most cargo bikes don't really get as much attention as regular bikes and ebike. But the thief's have realised market for gsd is strong.
Have heard of a few been sold locally (uk), but most go overseas quite quickly along with higher end road and mtb.
In Denmark, Netherlands and Germany a shocking amount of stolen cargo end up in Romania and Bulgaria, usually within 2 - 6 weeks of theft.
Taking a battery off usually helps reduce risk but it is a problem that's hot much much worse in Uk since c19
Would excersize caution putting a front wheel motor on a fork of that construction type. Send an email to Pashley and ask if its OK, as a mechanic I would say no, unless somehow the crown/lug engages a long way into the fork leg. Its not as bad as old BSA suicide forks of the 50-80's, but I would ask the question to them.