Mark W

Indeedy. They admit in this video that they should have done it a lap later: Red Bull complaining about track limit enforcement after the fact too - Helmut Marko claiming they lost a win, pole and fastest lap because of track limits. They arguably did 'lose' those because of the track limits violations, but those came up because their driver violated track limits. It's not hard to work out. He overtook Hamilton while he technically wasn't on the track. He slid outside of track limits in qualifying. He drove outside of track limits on his go at fastest lap. I'm not in an F1 team, but even I knew that they were enforcing turn 14 (and 15) track limits at Portimao, and when Max was having his tilt at fastest lap I saw that he went beyond the red and white curb and called it immediately that he'd lose the time because of that. If I'm just a random dickhead and I know that, how can a person paid millions to drive an F1 car not be aware of that? I'd be pretty embarrassed about that and wouldn't really want to draw attention to it, rather than saying I was just totally oblivious to it and didn't know it was happening. I guess Red Bull culture is to never take responsibility for anything, so it does follow that pattern. I do hope Max gets a crack at the title as he is a great driver, but that attitude at Red Bull is preeeeetty toxic. A slight contrast to how Mercedes appear to be happy to hold their hands up and accept when they've got something wrong, e.g. that video up there.

Yep, +1 for doing some stretching. I found a really basic 5min morning stretch routine on YouTube that did wonders for me. It really doesn't take much to start get things moving in the right direction. Went climbing for the first time tonight and man alive, my flanks are achey today... skin held together which was a bonus, although I mulched my hand into the wall and have damaged something in my hand/wrist. Proprioception was turds the whole time yesterday, but fun nonetheless! Buying a house is also pretty sucky - we got past the possible issues flagged in the survey, but now we've found from our solicitor that their solicitor still hasn't replied to stuff that was asked way back at the start of the process. Still waiting for the Property Information Form which we should have had from the get-go. The fact they're really dragging out supplying it is a little concerning, and also fairly ironic considering they were giving us grief for "holding things up". Usual solicitors/estate agents email ping pong shit going on, but we're hopefully still going in the right direction.

Yeah, always a good call I've snapped a few chains in my time, and those crashes were definitely not worth saving £15 over

The 1370kg max load rating for the Z1eHX compared to the 1200kg max load rating for the Z610 HX should give you a bit more confidence too. It is a stronger chain overall. That said, all chains will eventually snap, so it's best to replace them periodically (depending on how much you ride).

It's the equivalent of a fat person in a circus hall of mirrors.

Does fit with Porsche's aesthetic for some of their cars from recent years to be fair.

You shouldn't have them - remove, regrease, re-tighten and they should go away. Worth noting the torque for the SRAM crank bolt is ridiculously high, so if you're a bit below that you may get some creaks from the crank. Either way, they should be quiet, creaking isn't a normal thing for that drivetrain.

As always, can't really stress enough how important it is to clean and grease your axle threads and axle bolt threads if you're experiencing wheel slipping issues. Your axle bolts should be taking most (if not all) the load, so if your wheel is shifting pay attention to them more than your cams. Serrated axle bolt washers are a good shout too (as is putting a bit of grease under the bolt heads to eliminate any binding between the bolt head and the washer). The threads on M6 axle bolts aren't huge, so if they're pretty dry you'll get that tight feeling way before you would do if they're greased. We looked into it ages ago and found the %age difference and it is hefty. EDIT: This is all based on either having notched snail cams already, or having notched some smooth cams...

Was impressed by this one:

No real idea about all of this, but from my limited understanding of it Bitcoin isn't going to be likely to be the coin that takes over ultimately so they probably wouldn't get too much out of that specifically? At the moment though, USD is the main currency used for global trade which gives the US a lot of power (as one example, they can create sanctions against Russian and Chinese individuals/companies by effectively blocking them from using USD). If they lose some of that due to some form of decentralised currency taking over, they lose that power. Similarly, if more people start using any form of decentralised currency, countries lose the ability to tax people as effectively. Taxation funds governments, so if they lose some of that, they again lose power. Cryptos are disruptive, and China and Russia are always looking for ways to destabilise the West in general. Targeting the economies of those countries gives a big upside for them, especially if all it really takes is nudging some cryptos in the right direction. China controls their own economy so tightly that any potential net negatives from more widespread crypto use won't affect them, and Russia are pretty much just trying to knock everyone else down regardless of what else happens. Found this interview really interesting. I'd recommend just skipping the intro and going straight to the interview itself at 13mins in. The bit about how NFTs/similar can be used to pay people in a more fair/equitable way was something I hadn't really considered before. The bit later in about cities creating coins/NFTs that you have to buy to live in certain places, universities doing similar that then allow them to take a share of your future earnings (in lieu of fees), etc. are interesting concepts too.

A bike with a brand new chain would need a different level of tension to the same bike with a week old chain would need a different level of tension to the same bike with a year old chain - it's not possible to have an "Angle the tensioner to X°" thing because of that.

That specific aspect matters with those (and in some cases doesn't matter with them, and that's the point of the piece), but it doesn't with something like modern music, digital photography, digital art, videos, etc. I wouldn't say that age necessarily confers increased value - I'd imagine scarcity/rarity (which can be tied to age) and market opinion/demand will be more a driver of worth or value? Now that we're entering an age where products/media are being solely created in a digital space, age is probably going to become even less of a concern in some ways unless it has some kind of tie to the 'real' world.

Those NBA 'cards' are also shared elsewhere online as far as I'm aware. Twisting that fine art kind of analogy, a better way would be to look at them as equivalent to an Andy Warhol piece. He did a lot of works that were printed by silkscreen in limited numbers. There was no "original" as such as because it was just created using the silkscreen masks, so effectively all the screen prints are as original as each other. They still have high value though because they're an original work created by him, even if they aren't as 'unique' as the Mona Lisa is. That's also factored into the price though should you want to buy them. Again, you can also get postcards, posters, JPGs or any other form of copy/version of them, but you won't have one of those limited, numbered originals. From my (limited) understanding of it, you can kind of imagine the NFT as being an equivalent of one of those screenprints. The smartcontract part of it is what creates the value of it, if that makes sense - imagine it as being the "1/20" that an artist might write on the back of a print. The meme stuff is definitely just people f**king about and seeing what they can get away with, so I wouldn't really look at that as being what a typical use-case might be in future. I kind of view it in a similar way to 'Fountain' by Marcel Duschamp. That was just a mass-produced urinal that he had nothing to do with, save for selecting it and displaying it as an artwork (and also signing it with a fake name). That was done to push the boundaries of what 'art' could be, and although that doesn't make sense either, the concept/what it stands for is what creates the value of it.

Yeah, it certainly ticked the 'big time video' boxes. Didn't quite have that hook to it, but the riding/setups/filming/music was all good. It's interesting that even with that you can still miss the X-factor with it that makes it into an amazing video. Yeah, Danny not wanting to try stuff gives an idea of how bad it is! The roof drop was wild. Fair play for taking that slam, doing it again and slamming, then mulching your ribs again the day after too. No thanks...

It's basically the digital equivalent of wanting to buy the Mona Lisa. You could just buy a poster of it, print it yourself, etc., or you could choose to buy the real thing. I think a better way to look at all this stuff is the way the NBA is doing their 'Top Shot' collectibles. Basically, they're like the trading cards you can buy for different sports from a newsagents, but in this case they're digital so are typically highlights videos or specific artworks. As those cards are affiliate with the NBA there's a lot of rare/unusual content there, so you can get something that nobody else would ordinarily have, and also have 'the original' (by virtue of it being specified as the original when it's minted as an NFT). This might explain it a little better: "Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has compared Top Shot to the old-school model of trading cards, where consumers can have fun trading and collecting scarce items – only with no risk of damage or theft. “And the value is still set by the same laws of supply and demand,” he wrote in January. “Leave it to Mark Cuban to frame it in a good, sensible, easy-to-understand way,” said Richardson, also SVP of strategy at Mercury Intermedia. “So if enough people wanted that same Zion Williamson highlight, that NFT, and bidding on it they got up to $100,000, that’s supply and demand. Someone thought it was worth $100,000.” The bet for traders is that in 2051, a LeBron James NFT could be worth what a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card is worth today -- one of those rare cards recently sold for $5.2 million. And just imagine what a rare Michael Jordan rookie highlight NFT would sell for in 30 years." I don't think it's necessarily the best use-case, but it shows there is potential for 'something' in future. That's what I meant in that post before about it being a very immature thing as yet, but having huge scope for things further down the line.

Yep, as above, that's how I'd run my setup if I wasn't an Arcade fanboy

The NFT is the certificate Dave. The clock is ticking...

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/video-kriss-kyle-brings-his-bmx-wizardry-to-a-custom-mtb-course.html Worth a watch!

No worries I just found with an MT5 recently that it wasn't quite feeling right and it ended up being that. That said, doing the whole individual piston centralising chore seems to have a huge effect on these brakes too. I thought I had a leak or needed a bleed on the hotchpotch MTsomething on my Arcade, but it was literally just one of the pistons hanging out a little further than it needed to. They're definitely the fussiest brakes I've had for that... One thing to note on replacing the BAT with a bolt is that you do lose the dislocate function of the lever. I don't think I've ever really used that myself on the Magura brakes, but if it's something you feel you might want, it may be worth bearing in mind.

Happy to mint an NFT of this: First person's money to hit my PayPal gets it: paypal.me/markwestlake143/100gbp It's a lot less than most other NFTs and it's the first from this artist so guaranteed riches beyond your wildest dreams await.

I didn't really 'get' NFTs before but spent quite a bit of time over the past week listening to a load of different podcasts interviewing people for, against and otherwise about them. The thing that stood out from those is that even the people involved in a deep way with them don't really 'get' them either. That's either through there being flaws in their ideas/plans that they seem to want to gloss over by just saying "Just you wait" - they all have different, competing ideas about how it could/should work, and be pulling in different directions. Pretty much the same way that there's so many different coins out now that operate in different ways. Bitcoin seems to be the one that everyone's following, but it doesn't seem to be as versatile or nimble as other coins so I can't really see how it becomes much more than just some speculative trading thing. In principle it seems like there's plenty of scope for what can be done with the smart contracts that underpin them, but much like with cryptocurrencies, at the moment it just seems bubbly because there's plenty of people trying to throw money at it in the hope that they choose the right iteration early. At least with something like Bitcoin there's the potential for a much wider range of market conditions to cause the value to go up, whereas for an NFT, depending on the market it's in, there's less of a chance to bump the price up from where they are currently. For example, I don't really get how the NFT/column in this article is going to increase in value. It sounds like the people doing it were mainly doing it to show support for the concept, but that just sounds like putting more air in the bubble rather than reinforcing it (to torture the metaphor). Either way, crypto/NFTs/smart contracts are definitely the future. There's so much potential in them. Just seems we've got to let all the 'personalities', snake oil salesmen and hype die down and for the actual work of making them more widely viable to take place. Some of the interviews I listened to are with people more involved with that side and it does sound like there's progress being made, but I don't think lashing a shitload of cash at gifs is really going to be the defining moment of this...

You can sometimes get it to sort it's life out by clicking it back into place, then winding off some of the BAT adjuster. If that doesn't work, take the BAT adjuster out and replace it with a countersunk bolt (think they're M5 from memory, but if you just fire any bolt into the hole you'll work it out). The BAT adjuster does next to nothing anyway and they wear out over time, so that should solve it. It did for me at least before I wound up going for an MT5. The MT5 levers have been way more consistent for me. The internals are all basically the same, so it should be possible to get the MT5 to feel as good as the MT7. Magura gave the inside of the reservoir cavity a needlessly complex shape so there's loads of places for little air bubbles to attach to or get trapped behind, so often factory bleeds will suck and actually getting a solid bleed yourself can be tricky. I generally find giving it a 'top up' style bleed (just using a syringe with fluid in the lever port, then pumping the lever) works well - you can get around the cavity issues by just angling your bike/lever around and tapping the lever body itself to free up any trapped air.

My i9 had some relatively thick grease in it to begin with - if you still have that grease in yours it may not be helping with some of those smaller skips. I've never noticed mine skipping, and I don't think any of the Inspired team riders using them have reported anything about that either.

Yep, they'll be fine. I've used that chain tool on my own Z1eHX chain and it's been fine. Regarding the pinch bolt, the link that Ben posted earlier on is for the manual for the tensioner. There are photos detailing the process here.

Most chain tools should be up to it, but I've generally had success with the IceToolz and Cyclo ones. I've got a BBB Nautilus at the moment which has handled everything, would put a recommendation in for that one as well. It's got the adjustable boss/stopper/whateverit'scalled that the chain butts up against, so it covers most chains from skinnier MTB chains up to 1/8" ones. Means that the 3/32" chain you've got on there will be no problem: