Thursday, December 8
Out Door 2011
by
Billy Goat
on Thu 08 Dec 2011 17:23 GMT
I already should have sold a bunch of stuff this year but I am super lame with such tasks normally, preferring to indulge in other more exciting projects and hobbies and just 'talking the talk' when it comes to ACTUALLY photographing bike parts and selling them  This guy was a REAL super lazy deal. I had stripped my little M1000 Cannondale maybe a year ago and sold off the Manitou III's and probably a few other bits too and Mr Frame was just hanging up in the Man Cave alongside a bunch of other frames that I keep telling myself I will build and ride one day when out of the blue I got an email via the Goatsurfer website asking about the M1000 and would I consider selling. He was a new member of RetroBike from Germany.
I said "yeah maybe, but I have to remove the stuck M900 brake bushes first" and dithered around for a few weeks before taking some pix and sending them him, along with serial numbers and frame measurements. Time passed and negotiations were about complete then I had to leave the country for a while but guess what, I pulled my finger out my ass and shipped the frame this week and today he landed in Germany...his new home, so look out for a project build on RetroBike sometime in the new year.Now to get rid of some more crap.....
Tuesday, November 15
DeathStar - Part Two
by
Billy Goat
on Tue 15 Nov 2011 10:59 GMT
Thursday, November 10
DeathStar - Part One
by
Billy Goat
on Thu 10 Nov 2011 11:33 GMT
I started digitising my life over a decade ago as I could see the way things were going, it started with converting all my music to high quality MP3, drifted into digitising TV recordings, DVD's, movies etc. etc. I like the idea of having everything in one place, at my fingertips so to speak (via a Remote Control) and also the ability to copy stuff to my car, my phone or my MP3 player as I wished.
As a result of this it was only a matter of time before I reached Critical Mass and I ran out of places to store stuff, that time is NOW...My Media Centre had 4TB of storage (1TB for films, 1TB for TV episodes, 1TB for music/photos and 1TB for recording TV) but the problem was I was running out of space AND it was getting too big to backup......enter Project DeathStar or in plain English - Network Attached StorageI've had to wait a while to do this, mainly because I needed technology to catch up with my wishes, and that was for HUGE hard drives to be invented because what I wanted was something L-A-R-G-E. It needed to automatically backup and synchronise my Media Centre, my PC, my Netbook and two Android phones and still have some space for 'future growth' so I splashed for a Synology Diskstation DS411. This thing will do all of the above plus loads of other neat stuff like CCTV, Mail Server, FTP etc.You buy this thing 'empty' so you can stuff whatever hard disks you fancy inside it. In my world there is only one hard disk vendor and that is Hitachi Global Storage, they are always at the forefront of product design and their stuff never goes wrong (unlike Western Digital or other crap). I can speak with authority on this because I have personally built several hundred PC's for corporate use that get spanked 8 hours a day and they are all still working years later.Anyway, I won't bore you with the techno babble, if you want to find out more about Synology go to their site, they make loads of different NAS solutions to suit every budget. Here's some pictures of Part One of my NAS build (Part Two to follow):    Nasty flash shot but I wanted to show you inside Bags of storage :-)  Disk Trays Full of disks The front panel lights
Friday, September 30
1 RIFLES Wristband Appeal
by
Billy Goat
on Fri 30 Sep 2011 10:38 BST
I'm not normally one for politics or war but I've been following these guys for several months now and have become sympathetic to their cause after learning a whole bunch about what they are doing out in Afghan both inside the wire and outside the wire by way of official MoD sources and officially sanctioned blogs. If you want to read something eye opening, emotional and about as real as it gets please read all the deployment posts by RAF Sgt Alex Ford (who thankfully got back alive this week after completing his tour). Lots of soldiers stay inside the wire out there but Alex spent lots of time outside the wire on patrol with the Military Stabilisation Support Team working with the Task Force Helmand Battle Group and his blog posts are heart felt and real.RAF Airmans Blog1 RIFLES are currently deployed in Afghanistan on a seven month tour of duty. Casualties are sadly part of the job (the 3 RIFLES Battlegroup lost 30 soldiers and many more seriously injured). Please take a few minutes to read the following pages and support in any way you can.1 Rifles SupportIn memory of the Fallen
Tuesday, August 9
GoatCam Live
by
Billy Goat
on Tue 09 Aug 2011 13:25 BST
Lame excuse to update this Blog but here's some hot live goat action:GoatCam Live Live until 4th September
Tuesday, February 8
eBay Stock Dumping...contd
by
Billy Goat
on Tue 08 Feb 2011 13:37 GMT
Clearing more 'stock' on eBay...this lot flew off the shelves and into new homes around the planet last week... Answer Manitou 2's, XT Thumbies and some very rare Pace RC36 Evo Pro Class Limited....gone!!!
Monday, November 15
The Goats Are Trying To Kill Me...
by
Billy Goat
on Mon 15 Nov 2010 09:06 GMT
Tuesday, November 2
Local Rideout - Rowney Warren
by
Billy Goat
on Tue 02 Nov 2010 13:38 GMT
Local RetroBike mini-meet @ Rowney Warren (Chicksands)Kudos to the Overbury's Pioneer with Rollercams...
Monday, August 9
EWR Project - Phase Thirteen
by
Billy Goat
on Mon 09 Aug 2010 13:43 BST
After several months 'off' building bikes I finally completed one of the last tasks on this project, switching the 'test' stem for the proper Syncros CattleHead and cutting the steerer down on the new AccuTrax forks. In reality it didn't take too long, most time was spent employing the '2p trick' to separate the Syncros stem from the Race Face Air Alloy bars that had been sitting on my CD shelf at home for the last six months  .Measured twice just to make sure, knocked the old Star Nut through and out the bottom then got the Saw Guide out and sliced off just over an inch from the steerer, quick rub down with emery paper and on with the spacers and stem....dialled in perfectly at my magic 590mm dropout to bottom of bars measurement I have on all my bikes  . A few more minutes faffing with preload and here we are....a nice pair of Period Correct Answer Alumilite DH bars from 1994 fitted to the NOS Syncros CattleHead stem.
Wednesday, July 7
Salcey Forest Sunday Mini-Meet (July)
by
Billy Goat
on Wed 07 Jul 2010 10:50 BST
Apologies for the lack of bike content here recently, been concentrating on 'other hobbies' that are very much Off Topic for this Blog. Bike builds have all but stalled but am getting out and about now and again on some rides and need to do more riding !!Last Sunday was a little jaunt over at Salcey Forest where we have a couple of non-technical, scenic loops we do on a Sunday morning sometimes. On the ride was my EWR, a Klein and a Park Pre.
Loop One - Ride detailsLoop Two - Ride details
Tuesday, June 22
Grave of the Sundew
by
Billy Goat
on Tue 22 Jun 2010 17:46 BST
I visited East Carlton Park a few days ago as we had to entertain a young family member for a few hours. As well as being the location for East Carlton Hall it also houses a Heritage Center for the Corby Steelworks.Some history (Copyright Wikipedia) on both the Steelworks and the famous Sundew Dragline:Stewarts & Lloyds Ltd moved to Corby, Northamptonshire in November 1932, enabling them to make use of the local iron ore to feed their blast furnaces and Bessemer steel converters. The new construction was carried out to a very tight timetable, from the clearing of the site in 1933 the first of the Corby blast furnaces was lit in May the following year. This was followed by coke from the new coke ovens the following month and the ore preparation and sinter plants in September. No.2 blast furnace was lit in November and the first steel came from the Bessemer converters on 27 December. The last of the originally planned blast furnaces (No.3) was lit in October 1935. Following a rebuild to increase capacity of No.2 furnace Corby works became the third cheapest pig iron producing plant in the world. The end of Stewarts & Lloyds ownership ceased in 1967 when the steel industry was nationalised for the second time, and they became part of the British Steel Corporation. Due to the high cost and low quality of local iron ore, steel production at Corby was set to close in November 1979. This was delayed until 21 May 1980, due to a national steel strike, when the last coil came off the mill. In nearly 40 year of steel production they had produced almost 2.5 million tons of steel. Tubemaking continues to this day, initially based on steel supplied from Teesside, and today Corus Tubes is the largest customer of steel from South Wales.Sundew DraglineBuilt by Ransomes & Rapier and named after the winning horse of the 1957 Grand National (Sundew), it began work in a Rutland iron ore quarry belonging to Stewarts & Lloyds that year. At the time of its construction Sundew was the largest walking dragline in the world, weighing 1675 tons. With a reach of 86 metres and a bucket capacity of 27 tons the machine was able to move a substantial amount of material in a relatively short period.Propulsion was via two large moveable feet which could be used to "walk" the dragline forwards and backwards, while directional control was provided by a large circular turntable under the body of the machine.Sundew remained until operations at the quarry ceased in 1974 and plans were then devised to relocate the machine to a recently opened British Steel quarry near Corby. At a cost of £250,000 and taking two years to complete it was decided that dismantling, moving and reconstructing the machine was not a viable option, and so over a nine week period in 1974 Sundew was walked thirteen miles from its home near the village of Exton in Rutland to a site north of Corby. During the walk the dragline crossed three water mains, ten roads, a railway line, two gas mains and a river, before finally reaching its new home.As part of a major restructuring of British Steel in the late 1970s the Corby site was closed down and there was no longer any need for a large dragline to assist in the recovery of iron ore. On 4 July 1980 Sundew walked to its final resting place and the huge boom was lowered onto a purpose built earth mound. There it remained for seven years until being scrapped over a six month period from January to June 1987. East Carlton House  Mould for a 7 ton ingot The finished 7 ton ingot Old bucket from a Ransomes & Rapier W1400 More Bucket Even more bucket A Ransomes & Rapier W1400 Dragline (similar to Sundew)  Shunting engine used in the Steelworks
Tuesday, June 15
A Black Box
by
Billy Goat
on Tue 15 Jun 2010 15:32 BST
Thursday, June 3
More Power...!!
by
Billy Goat
on Thu 03 Jun 2010 13:14 BST
Wednesday, June 2
Vintage Pins...
by
Billy Goat
on Wed 02 Jun 2010 09:56 BST
As well as hoarding vintage Mountain Bikes I also hoard Mountain Bike memorabilia/collectibles so I was quick to pounce on these neat Rocky Mountain pins featuring the original 'Whistler' logo from back in the day. I scored these from a fellow RetroBiker in Canada, neat huh?  
Tuesday, May 25
Sunday Ride @ Salcey Forest
by
Billy Goat
on Tue 25 May 2010 10:43 BST
Due to previously reported 'issues' bike riding hasn't featured on my agenda for some time but now things have changed I intend to get out and 'do a bit' again. I figured the best way for this was to start gentle so I hooked up with fellow RetroBiker GT-Steve for a few laps of Salcey Forest ) which was probably the last time I rode a bike back at the start of March). It was the start of a VERY hot day for the UK so we started the ride at 10am and did 17.674 miles of hot dusty trails. GT-Steve tore a valve off his front tube about 5 minutes out but after he switched tubes we had no more 'mechanicals'  I did a lap of the woods on his Alpinestars Cro-Mega and I must say it rides brilliantly, much better than what I was riding on this day... 
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