Advice to a newcomer on what bike to buy

[El Fusilado]

Hi, I am a newcomer to E-Bikes and I am looking for a bike that can handle the cycle tracks on Wimbledon Common (they are gebnerally not too bad but there is some gravel and one or two bumps). I will be mainly using it for leisure cycling plus maybe heading to the local shops. I was initially thinking a hybrid with tyres with good grips, but now also considering a mountain bike and then adding on things like panniers, lights etc. Original budget was around £1,500 but might be willing to pay a bit more for a good deal. Current shortlist is as follows (prices are based on decathlon and Evans current listings):
Any thoughts gratefully recived

ROCKRIDER 27.5" Electric Mountain Bike E-ST 500 - Black	£1,399​
CANNONDALE Tesoro Neo X 2 Electric Hybrid Bike	£2,149​
ROCKRIDER 29" Hardtail Electric Mountain Bike E-EXPL 520	£1,899​
Raleigh Motus Evans Exclusive Low Step 2021 Electric Hybrid Bike	£949​

 

[saneagle]

My neighbour makes the most amazing fruit wines, quite honestly I can't understand how he holds down a job. Always sloshed on his own supply every time I see him, and always after the apples on my trees. I'd also be continuously drunk if I brewed my own, which is why I have avoided it thus far. A friend makes his own wine using supermarket fruit juice - he doesn't even remove the fruit juice from cartons, just adds magic dust and bungs in the fermentation airlocks, says they're exactly the right size for the plastic spouts. Another mate distills home vinified wine using pelter plates, but refuses to give me details... trade secert of some sort, he's trying to talk breweries to use his mysterious method. Peltier plates use rather a lot of current, I can't see the advantage over normal heating elements, but he says they're more energy efficient.

The argument is the same as whether it's more efficient to heat your house with a heat pump or heater. The theory says that a heat pump will win, and it does if certain conditions are met, but most people find that the heater wins in practice.

In theory, you can get more than 100% efficiency with a peltier device because it steals heat from the cold side and gives it to the hot side, but you can only steal so much heat from the cold side until the temperature difference is about 25 degrees where the peltier efficiency drops off, then you can't steel any more until you add heat to the cold side by external means, which would be great if it were in a waste heat exhaust from a machine or something or on a sunny day with a solar radiator added, but in that case you could use that added heat to supplement or replace the heater option to get more than 100% heating efficiency also.

In other words, there is a slight short-term gain while the peltier heats up, but the cost difference and complicated peltier arrangement would probably make the heater the logical choice. That's going to be the reason why we do our cooking and electric blankets with simple heaters.

Tell your mate to forget his peltier beer project and get a job selling heat-pump house heating if he's good at selling people stuff they don't need.

 

[Ghost1951]

- as long as you dont brew with excessive late and post boil hops a live beers shelf life is near damn infinite, so there is never any urgency in clearing stocks.. late hop heavy brews however can 'skunk', tho so they could do with a quick sup.

If you look back to the origins of IPA (India Pale Ale) it was brewed in England and exported to the Raj in India. It was made strong, and sometimes watered down at the other end. It had to keep to travel all the way by ship to India and then make its way to the drinking establishments over there.

A couple of years ago, I was going through all the crates of flip top bottles that I have and moved one and found a full crate at the bottom that was three years old. I wouldn't say it was perfect - it wasn't. It was an English Pale Ale, brewed with goldings hops - about 7% abv. It wasn't as good as it would have been when it was four weeks old, but it was certainly drinkable, and I did drink it. It had no late hops - 40 gms of Goldings fifty minutes into the boil and another 40 grams ten minutes later at the end.

 

[soundwave]

there are 2 new builds at the top of my road and no one wants to buy them or even rent them because and they have a bosch 14kw heat pump on each and empty for over a year now.

every electrician i have had at my house, had 4 today lol said heap pumps are shite and cost a fortune to run and in winter there worse than useless.

my new shower fitted yesterday uses 8kw so thats 2 quid a hour! as the hole floor had to be ripped up i asked the council for a mixer shower that gets the hot from the combi boiler to save me money and said no electric only!

i even asked the boss from the contractor doing it and even he said they would rather fit mixer showers but are not allowed even if i paid for it because they want it all electric for some reason

well i still have a sink

 

[guerney]

The argument is the same as whether it's more efficient to heat your house with a heat pump or heater. The theory says that a heat pump will win, and it does if certain conditions are met, but most people find that the heater wins in practice.

In theory, you can get more than 100% efficiency with a peltier device because it steals heat from the cold side and gives it to the hot side, but you can only steal so much heat from the cold side until the temperature difference is about 25 degrees where the peltier efficiency drops off, then you can't steel any more until you add heat to the cold side by external means, which would be great if it were in a waste heat exhaust from a machine or something or on a sunny day with a solar radiator added, but in that case you could use that added heat to supplement or replace the heater option to get more than 100% heating efficiency also.

In other words, there is a slight short-term gain while the peltier heats up, but the cost difference and complicated peltier arrangement would probably make the heater the logical choice. That's going to be the reason why we do our cooking and electric blankets with simple heaters.

Tell your mate to forget his peltier beer project and get a job selling heat-pump house heating if he's good at selling people stuff they don't need.

What method there is to his madness I don't know, but he's no thicko, has a biochemistry MSc. I think utilising passive heating from some other system is part of it, mentioned something about that, but then diverted off on one of his usual loooong political rants which bored the hell out of me. Beerboarding may be necessary to reveal all...

 

[thelarkbox]

Employing a fluid film evaporated at a specific temperature (76-77c?) over a Peltier plate could???? perhaps???? create a vapour to collect and condense on any cooler surface in its path?? however i suspect the surface tension of the liquid film would increase with the concentration of non evaporated product as the process advanced resulting in a premature stall?? Perhaps your pal has a secret salt to add to contaminate and aid the reduction in surface tension and reduce the energy required to change state.

 

[SkyMonkey]

You're in luck! @saneagle has a gold Ibanez and a bunch of others to sell.

Already got an Ibby, and anyway, the missus would kill me.
All my flash cash went on fixing up the Kona Sutra.

 

[guerney]

The dark secret is simple hygiene 3 x rinsing of cleaner and use of a mild antibac no rinse sanitier like starsan or an idofor

Very interesting, which of those has the safety issue? I'm interested because I ferment Japanese Natto.

I also recently acquired brewing gear...

 

[thelarkbox]

There is a utube of the 5-star ceo necking a glass of starsan, and the idofors are used neat to paint skin around open surgery and to paint open wounds in some triage situations afaik.. (not a doctor..)
Both are sanitisers NOT sterilisers, most (all?) bacteria are killed by starsan but yeast can survive the acid wash.. (can not will)

idofors have a 10-20 min 'shelf life' once diluted. the red/brown tint will dissipate to indicate..


Never buy chempro cleaner etc.. total rip off, and buy sodium met in powder form and use a drug dealers scales.. campden tabs are convenient but a huge mark up..

a modded 5l garden pressure sprayer can be used to pump solutions in/out of kegs etc, and a hand pump sprayer is great to mist the no rinse sanitiser solution over everything prior to use..

Clean without soap, laundry oxi (unscented) is an excellent cleaner that afaik degrades into harmless things like water 02 etc..

5% thin bleach solution is a great cheap Steriliser but you will want to rinse thoroughly at least 3x..

and prior to use a dose of no rinse sanitiser sprayed in the fv and on equipment is a final just in case measure.

DO NOT READ "Yeast" by Chris White.. the risk of being inspired to set up a kitchen yeast lab is high. Actually do its a cheap way to have some lab esq fun if of any interest and you only need buy any yeast strain once .