chakaping – that would be awesome, I'm out this weekend, but maybe soon after. :)

theflatboy – I seem to think you're vaguely in the Highbury/Finsbury Park area? Best bet of hopping on is just past Tottenham Hale area, I reckon.

This (not mine) puts you on it pretty cleanly.

The tow path is pretty obvious, takes a little finding from the London side.

I'll have to head up Broxbourne way some time and have a play, I've had a bit of a pootle around Epping, but not enough to really find all that much.

… resurrecting a thread from approximately a million years ago, either of you do much riding in this kinda area?

I just don't see the advantage over just having cable operated discs.

What problem is having the final stage hydraulic going to solve?

Yeah, I'd avoid rush hour at all costs.
It will just lead to huge amounts of annoyance for you and all others. I'd generally prefer to be at the airport 2 hours early than have to fight my way through commuters on the tube with a bike bag.

I've been unconvinced by using gels past their best for date.

They're probably fine, but it seems like they'd be the ideal breeding ground for all sorts of crap if they managed to get at all contaminated.

Take pictures of everything.

Estate agents will look at you funny, but when you're trying to remember details later on (and compare them with other places you've seen in the meantime), they'll be hugely useful.

Bring a laptop with you? Use it to switch the maps over when you change countries? :)

Yep, I rode into work this morning, will be riding home soon :)

Massive head wind this morning, seems to have died down now though :(

2 weeks is plenty for mail order.
Call and check if they've got it in stock first, if you're paranoid.

What's Big Brother?

it was a bit tongue in cheek for the number of hand signals you have to learn :)

club riding sounds like far too much hard work

I'd have a word with your mate, along the lines of "Look, I know it's an arse, but things are tight right now and we really can't afford the loss of earnings. I know it wasn't really your fault, and it'll affect your future insurance premiums, but would you mind if…?"

Bad plan unless you've got a SSD rather than a traditional harddrive. The vibration really won't be fab for them on a regular basis.

Seriously though there is a HUGE difference from commuting 10 miles at 20mph (which I'd say is impossible in city traffic and anythign even close would be a race)…

Depends if you're talking average speed for the journey, or average riding speed.

theflatboy's link earlier demonstrates him at an average of 17.8mph over 8.79 miles, and that'll be including waiting at lights and stuff. Probably pretty easily a riding speed of 20mph.

I jumped straight into a 17 mile (each way) commute.
5 days a week, no rest days. It's been fine.

theflatboy – your route in is insane!

Unicycles don't count. 2 of those.

Sounds like some people have more bikes than me – I'll have to get some more!

Seven. Although one is, at least vaguely, for sale.

Can't see why I'd want to cut down :)

Mount the shifter a bit further inbound? (so she pushes nearer the end – more leverage).

Of course,

If you’re looking to justify the purchase of a new bike with the reasoning that you’ll commute on it, then yes, yes you should buy a road bike.

For 4.5 miles, I wouldn’t really bother with a road bike.

Maybe get a set of slicks for the mountain bike?

hmm, just around the corner from where I work.
I’ll have to pop in and have a look.

I reckoned the Giro helmet sizing had changed in the past few years too.

But um, the other way around, used to be a large in them, now medium seems to fit me better.

I think I’d be more sympathetic to their cause if they didn’t have a strike every single year.

A quick search over the BBC news website, and a cursory glance makes it at least look like they’ve had one every year since at least 2000. *

It doesn’t actually inconvenience me anyway, bikes are great :)

* I’ve not checked this in great detail, but this is certainly the third strike in as many years, and there’s definitely been more before that.

Got mine today too, seems pretty decent :)

Not a solicitor, but it depends.

Some will be happy to accept the searches done for the HIP, if they are provided.

Buy the house cheap with this in mind, and then use your intelligence connections to schedule raids? :)

Why not just get them rebuilt onto the rims you want?

I’ve just bought a Montane Featherlite.

It’s not a softshell jacket, just a windproof – but it is tiny.

I’ve got a pretty similar distance commute to you, my thinking is kinda that I want to carry the minimum I can possibly get away with and that I’m going to be riding fast enough to not be needing to wear all that much. I might stash a more substanstial jacket at work though, in case the weather really turns during the course of the day.

You’ll need to configure the webserver/dns in order for it to work the way you want it to.

[Edit] Your webserver might be smart enough to direct to the correct directory if you’ve got a *.domain.com vhost set, but you’ll need to consult the docs/config to find out what the directory structure would be, in this case.

I’ve snapped a Stumpjumper, and then missed it enough to buy another – does that count?

Pedant mode

If the fork is shorter then it will steepen not slacken frame angles.

Pedant mode off

Whilst that’s true, if the shock is shorter (and that’s what the OP states), the angles should be slackened.

Older EC70 has 25mm, Thomson has about 16mm, Newer EC70 has 10mm, I believe.

Anyone else completely in favour of a “no caravans” policy? :)

http://www.trustedreviews.com/digital-cameras/review/2008/03/20/Canon-IXUS-90-IS/p3 seems to think it’ll be fine.

For the record, I’ve now gotten one.
It’s about the right size for the above – but you wouldn’t get much more in.

This one?

Can I play?

On about 3 weeks now (there’s been more, but patchily over the years, depending on where I’ve been living/working).

0 injuries.

2 times being shunted by idiots (once when I stopped at a roundabout to let a fire engine with siren going out. Impatient git).

And once being knocked off, by someone who clearly thought that turning across the road in front of me with no warning was a smart idea.