Northern_Monkey

@Cuprajake - That is ingenious!

@Dalerst - Seen a few of those “glowing plums” type rear lights swinging round in London, strangely seem to be more popular with women riding fixies for some reason? 🤔

@Wisey - Ah, think you can’t actually use them with the Sage if it is a soft switch and not a latching one. If you had the machine on running with power and warming up, but then switched it off and back on at the wall socket would it power on automatically as soon as the socket switch was set to on? Most prosumer or older machines you can do that on, which is a shame as you can use the phone app with it so not tied in. I have only had older style machines with mechanical switches.

Also buy a smart plug so it will be ready to go when you want with no waiting round. Really nice that you can set it to warm up remotely on your way back home as well!

Well I must be projecting somewhat! 😂

I said to Jo the other day, ”I’m a bit worried about looking like a proper hipster, bicycles, craft beer, fancy coffee, woodworking, beards and now trying shaving with a proper razor. I’m definitely on trend with the kids!”. Her reply was, “Mark, I don’t even think they are actually called hipsters anymore...” Which made me giggle and feel old at the same time. 😢

@Wisey - The pot has an inner lid and an outer one as well. You should be able to use the outer lid no problem and just wipe it off after.

Bits came in the post, cheap synthetic brush, sensitive cream (smells nice and my other half agrees) and one of the £24 34cs off of eBay. Pack of Feathers as well to try. On holiday so would be the perfect time to try it out, but I’m trad climbing in the Wye valley on Tues and off to Portland sport climbing on the sea cliffs this Thurs. No way do I want to combine shaving irritation with major sun or wind burn! 😂 So likely the weekend for a test run when it is cooler. Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

@mcwill - In the same boat! 😂 Getting a similar tap to this fitted with an under sink filter unit with a special three way tap. Not cheap but I traded any spare counter space allocation for the EK43S I bought a couple of months back. That might be an easier sell space wise unless you have a fancy sink or separate taps? If you have mains pressure hot and cold you can get much cheaper ones as well.

@mcwill - Top tip would be to sort your water as a priority, descaling machines on a regular basis is not recommended or really feasible with expensive machines i.e. dual boiler complications on the Elizabeth or even thinking of using non-boiler safe water on a 3k Decent... Personally I think getting a better grinder like the Niche, sorting your water Out (under sink BWT filter or Osmio) and a simple on demand grinder like a Mignon would let you play around with different coffees and give your wife a simpler workflow for her decaf. Then as stage two look at getting a fancier machine like the Elizabeth. See how much faff she is happy to put up with really, my wife was fine with my classic but I became coffee maker in chief after upgrading since she didn’t find it enjoyable to use the new Mara HX machine or Pav.

Ah you might be right, there is definitely one for the element, hot water tap/sensor. Can’t tell if 9700040 is a drain plug or something else.

@Jason11 - I don’t think it has a service valve or tap on the boiler it’s a vertical one with the element underneath. There should be an access panel underneath it to access the element etc. Parts diagrams on the 1st-line website, it’s behind a captcha wall or I would have linked it directly.

@Burnzy - For the pump pressure it’s only a small drop, could be just less resistance from the puck as the soluble bits dissolve? I can get similar but larger drops (almost 1-2 bar) sometimes from my old Mara with my EK43, grind is very uniform so I think it just means the resistance drops considerably when it all dissolves . For a true flat profile at say 8bar I need to ramp it up slightly during the pull. If the coffee is tasty then I wouldn’t worry about a small drop like that to be honest. If I had to guess the check on the leak would be to open up the case and see where it is coming from, i.e. a leaking vacuum breaker or pipe fitting. Sure Dave will offer some pointers 🤞

My vote goes for a pair of titanium cupping spoons, pricy but much higher life expectancy than the lowly stainless standard ones! 😂

Good call on the bike festival. Quite like the look of the Cube (has headtube mounting points for a postie style rack/basket) or Kona Dew. https://winstanleysbikes.co.uk/kona-dew-e-2019-electric-bike?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIw66B6cqM6wIV2-7tCh1y9QMbEAQYBSABEgK7YPD_BwE#kona-dew-e-2019-electric-bike-59cm https://www.tredz.co.uk/.Cube-Compact-Hybrid-20-2021-Electric-Hybrid-Bike_218582.htm