My best:

My worst:

Best: Actually, Thule roof racks and carriers. No more faff == More riding!

Worst: Avid brake lever. Not that it’s bad. I just resented being gouged £20.99 for a little piece of metal.

Best citroen c5 estate as a bike car and general move big stuff motor its ace.
Close 2nd one of those neoprene mud flaps on the forks how did i ride in the rain for all these years without one.
No real dud purchases not bought much.

Best: Managed to get a nearly new Ghost AMR+ Lector 7700 for just £1400!

Worst: After promising myself not to do it again, i bought yet another set of CB Candy pedals. 3 months in and the internals have disintegrated. Waiting for my Times to arrive…

Best: Road bike.
Worst, by miles: (admittedly, cheap)Skull candy earphones. Would have had better sound quality if I’d have whittled a finger down to the size of a headphone jack and stuck it in than using that crap….

Breathes.

skull candy = proof that marketing works 🙁

Best – Olympus TG1. Tough as old boots, stupidly easy to use, very clever set up overall and takes great pics!

Worst – a bottle of Jeremiah Weed piss. At least I think it was piss. It certainly wasn’t fit for human consumption, that’s for sure.

2.4 UST RQ’s finally a tyre which doesn’t crumble, long lasting & grips like the proverbial.

Hope M4’s & Shimano deore brakes & replacing everything sram with shimano.

Pipes & shit – can’t beat washing me bike from the hot water tap!

Worst – XTR cranks

Best? No question…

despite the fairly modest spec compared to a lot of stuff, its absolutely brilliant! no doubt due to the fab frame. I’ve not done too bad on the upgrade-itis front either. New wheels (to get rid of horrible shimano hubs!), bars, saddle. That’s it

Worst? Nothing springs to mind. Which is nice. Actually… wheels with horrible shimano hubs!

best…conti 4 seasons, worst…almond chocolate from Lidl.

Best was one of those UNIQLO down jackets – just there for when you need it.

Worst was a 30.9mm dropper post in the CRC sale when I needed a 31.6mm one – teach me to buy stuff when at work 👿

Best – Maxxis beavers; keeping me rolling through the wettest weather I can remember

Worst – Force vario dropper post. Lasted 3 rides before failing, scrapped and replaced by a gravity dropper. Buy cheap, buy twice in this case.

Best is my Cube Road bike

Worst is the hateful On One Smoothie moisture absorbing headset for the C456

What was the problem with the xtr cranks?

Best-My orbea rallon and all the upgrades that followed!

Worst-Knightlite lights that are just useless!

Thrusty, sell me the crown race if you still have it

Worst- A bottle of red from the local convenience shop. Once i’d finished retching i looked at the bottle again. Turns out it was an English red wine.

Best- Any other wine.

Best is easy:

Bought it off a chap in the classifieds and once I’d changed the ridiculous tyres on it it’s been a great bike. Many, many miles.

Worst: Nexus 7 probably. What a joke that experience was.

Best – Liteville 301 and a trip to the Alps 🙂

Liteville by boltonjon, on Flickr

Worst – going against my better judgement and letting old girlfriend back into life 🙁

Best: Kinesis FF29

DSC01133 by http://www.sussex-mtb.com, on Flickr

Worst: Hope brakes, now sold on…..

DSC00512 by http://www.sussex-mtb.com, on Flickr

I sold up ‘cos I am broke but have got going again..
Best buy: All of this:

100_0333 by Dancake2010, on Flickr

Commencal Combi Frame off Ebay for 26 quid
Reba Race forks with mahoosive stanchion scratch. . Was going to change the bushes but they are unmarked and the stanchion flattened out lovely even if it looks nasty (its right at the top anyway ) Cost me £50 plus some seals and oil
Dual Control shifters 25 quid new unused
Built up wheels with cheap spokes and mavic 119 rims @16/ pair
rest is parts bin stuff
Crank+bb one of those 25 quid HT2 jobs from CRC that didnt have a picture on their website

just got a nice XT RR rear mech off here for £12, and a new chain

Cheap build but it is tight and rides well…not that I have been out on it since the new mech!

best. cheap as chips 29r

worst.

icebreaker 200gsm merino top.
cold when damp, and pretty crap for the money.

Best: My bike
Worst: A skipping rope when I thought I was Rocky.

Best – a 2012 Anthem x1.

Worst – a shed alarm that cost £20 and died within a month.

Best- I reckon it’s my Ragley Ti. Paid a little over the odds, possibly, but it’s the first hardtail I’ve had since my Soul that I wasn’t immediately finding fault with. Ace.

Also grown fond of my slightly sheddy Mondeo, wasn’t really the most sensible of choices but it’s worked out really well.

Worst- my Camber Pro. Just didn’t like it, seemed to combine all the worst points of both xc and mid-travel bikes, for no actual benefit. But even that won’t work out too bad once i get the last bits sold.

First Best = a pair of Lidl 3/4 length shorts. They’ve been doing sterling work during the mild/wet latter half of 2012 under a pair of waterproof shorts. The material is not too thick so you don’t end up overheating on those long, arduous hill climbs but being 3/4 length keeps most of the muck off your flesh and your knees cosy. 😀

Second Best = Zoomable Cree torch

nice, adjustable, even spread of light and brilliant mounted on my helmet 😯

Worst = two chainrings I bought off ebay. Brand new middle one has worn down quicker than one fashioned from a rich tea biscuit and the second hand inner one was almost as worn as the one I was replacing 😕

Best

Worst

A cheese knife that looks fantastic but just doesn’t cut cheese.

Planet-x A57 wheelset

Best: engagement ring
Worst: black and decker dust buster handheld cleaner, load of shit.

My best and worst were the same thing!

Marin Attack Trail frame

Had so much hassle with it and had to spend a fortune getting it working again.
Now it is, it’s amazing.

Best..

Worst…

A case of this, even too bad to cook with.

Best – bike wise
Joint first goes to Crossmaxx ST front wheel (CRC bargain) and the 20mm maxle Rev’s that were a bargain via classifieds on here. Transformed bike handling for the better.

Best non bike was a Lastolite HiLite background – so easy to use on headshots / school shoots. Paid for itself many times over.

Honestly struggling to think of anything naff – tight budgets tend to keep frivolity in sharp focus 🙂

Best. This frame and bits built for my 11 year old daughter.

Jessie’s Turner something. by Alex Leigh, on Flickr

oh and have to include this just for the smile it brings to my face every time I remember surprising my long suffering wife with a rather cool anniversary present

Hair down by Alex Leigh, on Flickr

Worst
MM entry. NEVER AGAIN

MM2012 – The precursor of horror! by Alex Leigh, on Flickr

Can’t think of the worst but the best is easily my Garmin 800 for the amount of new routes it has helped me ride and explore.

Best: Quebrantahuesos, first big road sportive and it was excellent, great atmosphere, spectacular scenery (Pyrenees), and reasonably priced.

Worst: Soplao, mtb sportive, 8.5 hours of heavy rain, cold, then they stopped it so didn’t even manage to finish. Although TBH I was so pissed off with the whole thing by then I didn’t care too much.

Second worst: the rechargeable rear light I got from Decathlon, one rainy day and it stopped working.

Edit: and Mackem, given the price of that wine what were you expecting???

I expected it to be drinkable, even if it meant adding gaseosa.

Best purchase of 2012 was my new wood stove.

Worst purchase? Perhaps failure to purchase would be more apt. I failed to buy some winter gloves in Washington, having decided not to pack them, then refusing to buy another pair knowing that I had a perfectly good pair at home. How Scottish is that? I got frostbite two days later.

Best – Les Arcs summertime lift pass
Worst – a one-cup cafetiere instead of an aeropress – how foolish of me!

A worryingly large number of road bikes there!

Best: Kinesis Crosslight Pro6. Brilliant on road and off road and has really made road riding a lot more fun as you can just pop into the woods…

Worst: My new cat from the RSPCA. She is insane, broke the cat flap with her head and won’t let us anywhere near her.

GB

Best:-

Worst:-
2 pairs of jeans from Burtons. They fell to pieces within a week of wearing each pair. Almost like the cotton was rotten. First the buttons just fell apart, then they just developed random massive holes everywhere.

Brilliant on road and off road and has really made road riding a lot more fun as you can just pop into the woods…

l prefer to make riding more fun by avoiding the road altogether and just going for a ride in the woods