no tool that i’ve seen! just put it on with new chain, if it skips it’s fecked.

Mine did – the two top ones will, bottom one might need a squeeze. i don’t think you’ll have any problems.

Wonderstuff – some venue in Exeter the name of which escapes me. 1989

that’d of been at the Lemon Grove at the university – i’d like to day i was there too, but i honestly can’t remember, you see i was too young to drive, but not too young ‘looking’ to get served the 60p a pint beer – i think i saw them, but i also saw ‘ride’ ‘birdland’ and the pixies a bit later(they were in the main hall i think) – happy days!! i’m not sure thou but i might of seen sham69 before this at the cooperage in Plymouth – god you guy’s have good memories!

don’t know why the pic’s not coming up – it’s protection by massive attack – there you got three ablums that cover most eventualities.

job done; for me!

God wish that were true – boutique frame margins are any where from 15% for some odd ball two bit importer frames to about 33% – if you get a good ‘stockist’ deal. on which you pay carriage and vat – plus you’ll be expected to build it up free normally (you have to pay for staff for this) plus tool wear and tear, facing tools etc. On the whole a ’boutique’ frame i.e something american made and well known will be about 28% margin. Oh and also you loose money when a new model comes out and your left with old stock you have to discount! stop being tight!

I thought it’d be different out of Auckland – but just as bad in Wellington! I was turning right (arm out at 90 degrees) just about to swing right (only doing about 15km) when i car hoons up from behind at about 120 km in an 80, i thought he was going to go to my left – but no the d1ck overtakes on my right, i just caught a glimps out my eye as i looked over my shoulder, one second more, or if i hadn’t of just seen him and swerved back and i’d of been at right angles to a car doing 120 km! i was so shaken up that i had to stand at the side of the road for a while and compose myself. i’d like to say it was the first time – now the wife wants me to give up road riding. Then again i wouldn’t ride down the A37 either!

That is one thing i miss i suppose – people from the UK are, although not generally as friendly are however more curtious, especially on the road – for a place with has a reputation for an easy going layed back sort of a place, put them behind the wheel of a car and they are **** idiots.

Good Thread. I moved to NZ with my wife and 2 kids 18 months ago, i stay at home and look after them which brings it’s own issues as i’m used to being in work and providing for my family rather than taking the eldest to kindi or changing napies.

we talk of going back to the UK (not that we would for quite a long time) or trying out another country like Austrailia, Canada, US etc. I feel sometimes that i miss the UK, the countryside (specifically cornwall: wales just looks like parts of NZ)the trails in UK, and sometimes family. The family issue is more important to the wife as she is closer to hers, but i do feel quite uneasy when mine are not well, and would prefer to be closer sometimes. Also i have nieces than i’d like my kids to meet someday.

What prevents us returning is what we have here and what we could never have in the UK is:
1) a 4 bedroom detached house in a ‘good’ part of Auckland 2km from a nice white sand beach.
2) walking distance to very good schools and kindi’s and parks without heroin needle on the slides (yes we had them in Somerset).
3) only one of us having to work to afford a resonable life style. So therefore the kids knowing both their parents (as the wife teaches and so basically doesn’t do a full days work, but don’t dare tell her that!)Also you can spend more time together as a family here.
4) lack of people, even in Auckland it’s easy to get away from people for a walk, ride or surf in relative peace and quiet.
5) being able to see the stars.
6) oh and about 400 UK a years for council tax – where they actually do stuff too!

Things i don’t much care about in NZ and make me want to leave!

1) being away from family and freinds from UK
2) Idiots – not so much chavs as just morons that hoon round in jap cars throwing beer bottles out the window – i think it’s an NZ and Oz thing – hard to go for a road ride without shreadding a tyre.
3) Apaling driving! i’ve driven all over europe (including Portugal) and i feel a lot safer there! (i was very nearly killed 2 days ago on a road ride – very scary)
4) Not the weather – it’s way better here!

It’s a tough decision to make, moving back – we just wouldn’t do it as the reasons we left still exist; having to work your ass off just to live, poor schooling (before you lot start – the schools here (at least where we are) are a lot better, my wife’s has taught in a lot of UK schools and two here so she keeps me up to date oh and cramped expensive housing that we’d be paying off for the rest of our lives. the constant feeling of being shafted by taxes just for being middle income – there is no stamp duty here, tax on most things is less.

Yes there is a lot to love about the UK, it certainly isn’t all bad by any means, except Luton, that really does stink – but we left so we could be a family – it just means that we can’t be physically near the rest of em.

Or……………. buy a cheap wetsuit from the free adds – probably about a tenna, it’ll have to be about 1.5-2mm thickness (kiddies cheap ones would work best i’d of thought) and make a few and sell em here for fiver each, you can use a glue like evo stick instead of stitching, or for a pro look find someone with a blind stitcher, although it’s have to be glued first, or get it overlocked by one of those little women in the dry cleaners that do clothing alterations and turn it inside out. If you can get some single lined stuff (rubber one side, nylon the other) it’ll keep more dirt out, especially with a zip tie top and bottom.

God i must be bored.

I saw a guy burning a old shell suit on an old pallet out the back of his house in afan once – that sight pretty much sums up Wales for me.

That’s what a lot of people in the UK had in 1997. Then they decided to illegally invade an oil rich country just because their best friend in America happened to have a score to settle, despite the biggest ever public protests against it.

well i don’t think we are going to be doing any of that – do you! mind you we could always invade fiji and pinch their ice creams.

It’s odd here in New Zealand we have a new PM John Key, who is universally liked, well pretty much compared to Helen Clark (Labour) – there was quite a lot of optimism once he was elected, which i must say is a refreshing change to the cloud of pesimism that always seems to hang over UK politics, trouble is in the UK thou, who you gunna vote for, the only one i ever liked was William Hauge oh and Paddy Pantsdown cos he could swim up a torpedo pipe of a submarine and had an eye for the ladies.

i think that “record” if you can call someone riding a bike around an obscure part of the British lanscape is held by Mike Cotty if my memory serves – he’s dead fast on a road bike too. I don’t think Norris Mcwerta will be sweating too much with all this record breaking.

thanks bloody thing keeps crashing now! grrrrrrr

Thanks much help!

Arcades in the Gothic quarter are great, good little bars too – spent my honeymoon there – fantastic city.

@ chopperT hey i’m on the north shore – if your up for a ride sometime let me know! woodhills pretty dull, but the coffee’s good!

I’m in the same boat as you Chopper – Where abouts in NZ are you?