Anyway, minimum wage is minimum wage, i'd much prefer to be doing that than working in a shoe shop fitting shoes on peoples stinking feet all day, anyway i prefer Burger King, especially those ones with the onion rings and bacon in, they are delicious. I've really gone off Mc'Doanalds lately, they are disgusting in New Zealand, I don't believe that stuff about them all tasting the same everywhere in the world, for instance i had a big mac in Prague and it was delicious, i'm not even convince it tasted better as i was hung over and it was breakfast, it just tasted pretty damn good. :D

Anyone else noticed the geographical influence on burger taste? If he could get this sort of work back in Poland he could score himself a tastier lunch.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding, my god it was so terrible i tried blind myself with pop corn, possibly the worst film i have seen half of, don't know how it ended and don't care.

nonk – Member

some day we should have a thread for lbs owners/employees to rant about cuntsrumers because belive me folks its just the same the other way round.

:lol: Working in a shop used to make me wish that my hobby was….. oh say 'computers' and if i felt bored of an afternoon i would just turn up at overweight IT guys place of work, tell him i'd bought a 'computer' cheap on the web which had now decided that it wouldn't work the way it was intended, and how i now wished to warrentee it through him, then moan and bitch like a little girl that i wasn't being treated like the queen mum. Oh how i miss the bike trade. :roll:

Saying that i do miss the great customers we had, some were true gents and made working in a shop worthwhile. :cry:

does it matter where it is if it's online?

Perhaps when the op typed Where's a good online outdoors shop 'he meant could someone give me the url'. I don't think he meant geographical location.

Perhaps when i put a winky face on the end it meant i was being cheeky, do you think maybe?

does it matter where it is if it's online? :wink:

i've done 2000 miles on one on my turbo trainer and it still looks new, i'm not sure what that tells you thou, other than they might well be too hard a compound for grip on the road.

Newquay isn't the nicest place in the world, but you can't really say the southwest isn't much good for surf, just normally a lot, lot more unfriendly and crowded. Here's a surf spot 'in' Newquay, i'm pretty sure it doesn't get this big very often!

I bought a used C-class once, and had it converted, it was fine! I did about 60k in the car before selling it, all i did was change the tyres and the oil once or twice (oil doesn't need changing so much with LPG and neither dot the plugs) it had 130k on the clock when i sold it and was still going fine then.

I wouldn't touch one that had been done at home thou, i've heard of a few horror stories, but given the history of the one your after it sounds like a goer, especially if petrol go's up!

Mines a really quiet one, i can recomend it. If it does get a bit lairy and pipe up i just shut the waldrobe door and turn the TV up. job done.

I'd never profess to be a financial mastermind, far from it, i've made plenty of mistakes that have cost me a small fortune over the years, but i suppose from this at least i have learned from my mistakes a bit.

I'd say the good advice from above includes:

never get a loan on something that depreciates.

and

Pay off debts as fast as possible.

My wife is a bit fast and loose with the cash, so i payed off her cards for her (she even had an MS store card for crying out loud!).

I'd also say if your young, or got other debts then never ever ever buy a new car, my father in law sold finance on cars, he always told me it was easy to do, as people that went for it were not the brightest. We used to get some great cars from his garage for very little as they were trade ins.

I'm not convinced about property and being on a property ladder now-a-days thou. It just doesn't seem good value, and a value has to be finite, and when it is it can only go in one direction when you account for inflation. Long term renting served the French OK for many generations, maybe it's time for it in the UK. In New Zealand where i now live house prices are mad, we live in a 4 bedroom detached shed (yes it is basically a garden shed.) that would cost more than 200,000 pounds to buy in todays market and interest rates are going up all the time now, so renting would be a cheaper option for sure if compare it to the cost of a mortgage. The trouble is when people rent is that now-a-days they don't always save, which now seems to be a cultural thing.

I'm 35 now, and haven't had a mortgage for a few years, we've discussed moving to a bigger house, nicer area etc but weighed up the pro's and con's and figuered that the happyness that a bigger house might give you would be more than offset by the stress of debt – which kind of sums it up for me, debt often gives you stress, so try to have as little as possible, then the chances are you'll be happier, which is more important than having a stupid german car with some f*ck off big alloy wheels.

my 2 cents worth.

Oh and try not to aquire either a gambling or drug habbit. :-)

Just imagine a bike coming through your windscreen

Some years ago, maybe 15 i guess. I was going down to Devon on the M5, just past the turn off to Bridgewater when a heavily laden car in the middle lane dropped the bikes off the back of the car, rack and all. I was in my old mini, it was like star wars, you know the bit with the death star only it wasn't really much like when I used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-sixteen back home – more like aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhg.

one bounced to my left, i swerved a bit to the right and missed it, don't know were the other bike went, one bounced into the fast lane, then back into my lane, i just shut my eyes (I find this the best thing to do in such a situation, just pretend your somewhere else, like not in a rusty tin box travelling in heavy traffic at 80mph with cheap bikes flying at you. The keeping my eyes shut worked a treat, although to this day I don't know how, i'm guessing the bike bounced again and over the top of my car and into the path of the lorry that was behind me. I pulled over a bit shaken.

The upshot of this was that i had a pretty clear run all the way to my mums on a bank holiday weekend, as everything that was behind me ground to a hault whilst they picked up all the bits. I don't think i was passed by a car all the way to Exeter, it was eerie indeed.

The chips down here in Bristol are generally limp, soggy and often tepid and rather unpleasant

I'd have to agree there! the only decent chips i've had in Bristol was many years ago in a chip shop near the bottom of christmas steps.

I reckon it's the oil they use now, not greasy enough. I'd bet if you bought some good spuds and cooked them yourself at home in good old animal fat you'd start to love the chip again, you'd just get really really fat. Can't beat home made fish and chips, crispy batter, home made chips, decent ketchup mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. :D

Well statisically your at least twice as likely to be killed on the road (driving) as you are in the UK. (carnage this holiday weekend!) It's basically a combination of idiot kiwi's that can't drive and idiot kiwi's that can't drive while p1ssed. Please if you are cycle touring round NZ, stay clear of Auckland, seriously.

Stay clear of Auckland, the local redneck morons killed my doctor the other day in a hit and run, i can't suggest any safe roads through the Auckland area, I cringe ever time i see cycle touring types round this way, the only options north are SH1 and SH16, both of which scare the hell out of me. Stay south and watch out for logging trucks. I don't know what the drivings like in Tasmania, but here it's **** terrible, check the reports on nzherald.co.nz.

Hey rumblethumps i call SNAP! must have been something about the Falcon Pro that made you feel like you could jump off/over things/people. Maybe it was the 40lbs weight, or the blue mag wheels, who knows! I loved that bike!

I'd have to agree with the Turner Burner, I still miss mine. i've got a flux now (the old H/L type) i used it for the first time in 3 years the other day, i'd forgotten how good it was, and how good the Burner was also, fantastic bike. It still looks modern today, it has to be the most copied full suspension design around, so yes fits the bill of ahead of their time for sure.

old buner (not mine)

mine

EDIT: doh can't get photo's to work, you'll just have to believe me, it looks pretty much like the above Burner, but silver :lol:

New Zealander's get irony, but fall short in their comprehension of sarcasm, well in my experience any way. They do seem to get 'rude' thou; which, when challanged with sarcasm seems to give them a glazzy look on their stupid hobbit faces.

Chinzilla XT here, with upgrades. I've never seen another EVER!!!! :P

Probably a bit late now, but i've seen snapped seat stays on Cervelos repaired before head tubes on CF Treks, all to v.good effect, so i'm pretty sure that a good repair will make the frame serviceable again. Never seen a whole tube repaired thou, like on a steel bike, i wonder how far a decent CF repair company could take it.?

Wouldn't you have to be really too close for comfort thou, you know in a car?

How much did that go for cynical-al?

If your doing it right you won't be able to watch a DVD, you'll be in too much pain :lol:. It's a mindset thing, basically you have to be out of your mind to use one. I've managed an hour and a half once, but there was nuthin on telly. You need a structured programme, and goals to set yourself, otherwise it's very very dull. The only race i ever won was after a month of turbo'ing in the garage before we had SKY TV installed.

See if you can borrow one with a power meter, otherwise it's hard to judge if you've actually got fitter, plus it gives you objectives.

unfortunately in tropical regions the carbon released in dam flooding can be greater than that ever saved by the water

That must be a barmy Autumn your having in the UK if you think that this is a concern! I can't see why that would be relevant to the problem of the UK. Hydo provides a large portion of New Zealand's electricity and they are quite mindful of enviromental issues, or so they would have us believe.

That top one is very very nice.

Oh!

This thread reminds me of a question a supply teacher asked us when i was 10 (25 years ago). She asked what would you spend 1 thousand pounds on? I said a VW beatle, a new surf board and some cool alloy wheels, and a trip to Hawaii. Of course not knowing how much stuff cost in the real world, and forgetting that i couldn't drive as i was 10, and obviously insurance wasn't an issue to me either!!!!

I'd love to be able to find a consultant that'd diagnose my knee problems and then provide the surgery and after care all for 4.5K, more like 20K!!!

A lot of people out there don't think anything much about spending 4.5k on a bike, it's pretty common actually. The difference between those that think it's more than they'd ever be able to spend on a bike is that the folk spending that much on a bike are out working, so spending less time either at home on the internet, or at work not getting promoted as they are spending time on the internet. :lol:

As much as I admire and respect Obree i'm afraid he would stand very little chance of putting in a realistic bid for the record (god i hope he doesn't read STW and get all down again). Isn't current record held by Ond?ej Sosenka? I don't know if anyones beat it yet, but when he did this it was estimated that his average power output for the hour was about 430 watts (I'm pretty sure this was chemically 'enhanced' too, judging by his latest antics with crystal meth of all things). Now this is hour record is the 'athletes' record so you have to use a pretty standard bike with standard bars and position.

When Obree got the hour record he did it using his crazy fangled bars and position superman then the 'mantis' position), which isn't allowed for the 'athletes' hour. And because of the position/bike he used only needed to generate 400 watts. This of course is still a huge output, but was 15 years ago and he was motivated by competition with that guy that knocks up those bikes for Halfords.

It is unlikely that Graeme could improve his power output sufficiently to seriously challenge Sosenka's record. I'd love to see him give it a go thou. Just keep him away from the roap and oxy acetalene bottles.

I haven't used Ebay for a few years as i've moved to New Zealand where they have 'trademe' I used to use it a lot to get rid of my old bike stuff.

What are the charges now? Has it gone up loads in the last few years?

Hope are good like that, you don't really get much discount no matter how many brakes etc you order from them (as a shop) so it makes it easier for shops to compete on price with the CRC's, CK stuff is a different matter. With Shimano most shops would be able to compete on price if they bought 20 of cranks/hubs/mechs etc at a time (which a lot of shops will if it's SLX level) the problem is that it's not a level playing field, they arn't buying up grey imports from 'over suppled' OEM bike manufacturers abroard etc.

Buy from the shops local shops if you like the shop and they look after you, and if you like having a local bike shop. I'm sure they arn't trying to rip anyone off, it's not really in their interests in the long run. They might not be aware of how much these things cost from CRC, they probably find the website a bit depressing, and the guy that opens the box from the supplier just reads the price list and stamps it on the box, there's no conspiricy.

The identical twin had emigrated to NZ and did all sorts of energetic outdoor stuff, didn't smoke and watched his diet. After his brother's attack he went for a check and it turned out he was heading for the same problem they got him into the theatre just in time.

The NZ twins condtion was most probably bought about by stress due to having to contend with New Zealand drivers, it almost gives me a heart attack just thinking about ventruting out in the car. 8O

I drove from Carlisle to Bristol once in under 4 hours. :D

You can fly straight there from Oz now i think Langy! Or at least there are plans to i've heard.

Having been in the cycle trade myself a for a few years (got out a few years ago to spend more time with family, Oh the joy :|)I can tell you that yes you will need a physical premisis to get accounts with most suppliers, as they like their products to be well represented and customer support given. Also lots of bits and bobs like Shimano and rockshox (some OEM models) can be sold br CRC etc for what you pay for them trade – as these big companies have economy of sale and aquire them from sources other than the official UK importers.

If i were to get invloved in the cycle trade again it would maybe the 'production' of niche product, due to the weakness in your UK pound even export market is an attractive idea. Maybe try doing something like the 'super star' thing – but with better products, and less intrusive condemnation of customers/potential cusotmers. Then all that is needed is capital and marketing, if you pick your products right you will have less competition. There are some very well made korean components that don't have a footing in the UK market, you could have a look into that!

Good luck.

Go Go Gadget thread revival! check out my chinzilla XT, Awesome!

Campag does seem to last longer, especially chains and cassettes, saying that i've done over 10 thousand miles on a dura-ace cassette and only changed the chain once, recently. Front chainrings……. never got close to wearing them out.

Yay, New Zealand! Rotorua has some very nice trails. Smells of egg thou.

New XM317s are different to the older X317s(which have been re-badged as XC717, so you may effectively already have them.

The only real difference is the XC717 was supposed to be less prone to cracking around the eyelets due to some new funky process.

Is enigma anything to do with 'omega' is it the same guys? if so, beware. look at the hideous mess they made of my Litespeed Tellico, these frames used to retail for 2.5k, i'd be luck to get 100 quid for it now, I really regret having it done :( What ever you do ASK (read: demand) to see photo's of the work they have done, if they can't provide any WALK AWAY! or if you really don't care about what it looks like, or even if it's put on straight then get it done.

Cheers guy's – just out of interest, how long did it take once you had agreed the design spec, to receive the finished item? (ss92 and alex)

I think it was a good few months, maybe about 5 i think, and there was only 6 in the que then if i remember rightly. I know i had to use my flux for the SSUK07 racey thing thou. It was worth the wait thou. :D

If your a hairy roadie were do you stop shaving, you'll look like you have a pair of hairy legless chaps on! Any hairy roadie pictures, i'm intriged. :?