"Also the more it's been modified the better the economy has got"

Depending on the method of measuring, the consumption read-out on the dash may now be inaccurate. Increasing fuel pressure or pulse width may result in more fuel injected than the trip computer's algorithm will be calculating.

59.6hp losses?

I saw a PD130 kicking out 205bhp on the dyno at Awesome in Irlam.

The smoke generated was overwhelming.

I've a Mondeo TDCi and looking to change it fairly soon. Excellent car.

Where do I go from here?

I presume that "project – Member" is playing Devil's advocate here :P

How many people really prefer to do 'paperwork', tapping away on a keyboard whilst sat down all day in a room full of pc's and photocopiers rather than doing something more tangibly constructive?

I know I've realised that I prefer to be away from the office…

Drivers may not want to knock people off or cut them up, but many don't give any thought at all to the facts that waiting a few seconds before passing or giving some space rather than just forcing past might be a good idea.

That is the problem. Lack of thought and consideration for others whilst cocooned inside (often) a small car or white van.

books

I've ridden bikes on the road for about 20years. I've done less recently and when I do I find it very unpleasant due to the behaviour of drivers. The level of congestion is very high, which possibly adds to the problems.

I'm almost certain that Traffic Light jumping by drivers and cyclists is much more common than it was 10 years ago.

Without wishing to sound like an old git, I think that Philby is onto something there.

There is an attitude of "I'm alright, Jack" in the UK. We are certainly not the stiff upper lip, mustn't grumble stereotype of old -We probably never were and it's probably a fairly universal attitude.

Unfortunately, the big stick approach is a civilising one. In 2009, there is no fear of any repercussions as a result of poor, selfish behaviour and people just do what they like. Police beating people up, fitting people up and authority figures dishing out corporal punishment are obviously not desirable though.

Cars provide a very safe environment for the driver and seem to give people a sense of bravado. A large number of drivers -often young women who are much more confident(overly so?) than they were in the past- can be seen/heard mouthing off to other drivers/pedestrians/cyclists. Take away the car and most of those people wouldn't be anywhere near as aggressive….

I reckon I'd now like to live somewhere quieter than a big UK conurbation.

I read it last week and it was definitely a book that, once I'd started it, I had to finish as quickly as possible. It's not a long book, but says everything there is to say.

Superb book.

I liked the general under-statement, the concise style and the characters' behaviour seemed realistic in the circumstances. Initially I was expecting some explanation of the 'disaster', but soon realised that it was incidental to the human story and there probably wouldn't be any.

I also enjoyed reading 'No Country for Old Men' and 'The Border Trilogy' (the 3 cowboy ones mentioned previously).

We kid ourselves every year that the summer will be endlessly warm and sunny and in the NE Atlantic it just isn't. Autumn has often been dry enough in recent years to allow us to keep the faith though.

We have had a small number of nice days this year, but few without rain/cloud/humidity and we've only eaten outside about 5 times this year (jumpers and wood burners required after 8pm!). Of late, it has been very poor.

The other day my wife said "ah, but remember that 2006 was hot". Thinking about it, we realised that it actually was hot and dry -for about 2 weeks in July and then wet for the remainder…

2003 was probably the last summer with sustained decent weather and before that it was probably 1995!

You'll probably find that the internals are still fine, although general workshop tools will probably do for most tasks. I've always managed fine bike and moto forks.

I have a set of well-used 2002 Bomber Drop-offs like these:

They have never shown any deterioration in performance and damping is superb.

I serviced them once about 2 years ago and only replaced the oil as there was no visible internal wear. Even the oil was fairly clean with no obvious metallic sheen or 'milkiness'.

I've considered getting new forks, but they are so good I've not bothered.

They coped with some big compressions at Morzine, Les Gets & Les Houches the other week.

The Italians certainly knew how to make forks in the early '00s.

There are some interesting and conflicting views (as expected)

My experience of Canada is of visiting friends near Toronto (mostly very flat) and visiting Ottawa (very cold!).

I have to say that of the countries I've visited, Canada is the one in which I felt most 'at home'(-much more so than the places I've visited in the USA) and the people easy to get along with with a sense of humour similar to the UK. There were a fair few off licences and pubs/bars in Ontario and people seemed to use them, although less of a 'British drink culture' certainly wouldn't be a problem to me. Strip joints appeared very popular too!

Certainly in that area, every other person seemed to have Scottish, English or Welsh grand-parents.

Plumber, is it really surprising that there are racist & homophobic views in the construction industry? I've never noticed the UK to be particularly progressive in that area either…

Canada is a massive place and probably can't be summarised in a few paragraphs.

Cheers for the quick replies. I was concerned that I'd missed a new section.

The new Red bit was good. It was probably a bit faster than the black variant. I don't remember the old black bit being That hard though.

– what was the position of the UK populace when the NHS was first floated here I wonder….

…Post-war national chaos. The NHS was an amazingly successful venture made possible by the infrastructures created during WW2.

The range of services and expectations were much different then though.

I certainly regret not making a career out something that I was actually that interested in.

I suppose that I had a reluctance to make a hobby/interest my work, but
in hindsight -the fact that one spends 40 hours every week for 40+years at work,it might have been better…

Go for it!

My cousin is an RNLI Hovercraft Commander. As flying/driving is such an intensive process, the Commander, although a qualified flyer, stands up the back like a tank commander as they travel at high speed along anything they want to.

Apparently it does cause a stir in the population when they 'fly' (nb. not float/sail) up to a beach.

I've sat in the craft in its garage and it's a great thing -like a big kit car/boat/helicopter with bits of instrumentation from all 3.

The episode with Anna Friel was much, much more than her in suspenders.

The Street is superb TV and it is far superior to that Red Riding style-over-substance rubbish that was on a few months ago.

For 'de-mystification' and a good, basic understanding of how the spoken language works use
French with Michel Thomas

Don't bother with the other courses about written French and the finer points of grammar to begin with.

The way to improve is to go to France/speak to French people. Listening to French radio on the www could be helpful too.

I'm certainly not fluent, but even without having done a GCSE, and limited vocab, I can get by quite well as a visitor having gone through Michel Thomas' course 2 or 3 times (and visited France a few times over the years) as it gives you the confidence to try. Eventually people will reply in French.

Try a career in Engineering and you'll do 8 to 6 + overtime!

Too late! and I didn't thank that 8:15-5:45 had the same ring to it….

Retire.

Then go work in a bike shop for peanuts.

That would be great. Could somebody provide me with a decent pension please?

In case those who helped hadn't seen it… :mrgreen:

Yes, unless you are stopped by the gendarmes you probably won't have anybody follow it up.

I narrowly avoided allegedly speeding past a semi-concealed gendarme with a speed gun on the Calais road, but the chap in front was stopped at the next péage. I also managed to drive most of the way down France at a 'reasonable' speed, allegedly, (following a lot of Belgians) before I knew what the 'radar controle' signs meant and didn't receive anything in the post on my return.

As an mtbing motor-biker I'd love one, but lack of time/responsible locations/riding buddies mean that it's not practical. If I lived in mainland Europe/North America/Australia I'd have one.

Yes, 2 strokes need re-builds, but they're mechanically very simple.

I'd never seen it until I was sat down and forced to watch it by my wife recently.

-I think you had to be there when it was released onto the cinema. It's guff!

Were these the chaps?

Brakes…Aggghhhh!

Assuming that everything is aligned and lubed correctly,

I reckon you should give the pads a good rub-down with emery cloth to remove glaze and then spray the disc with brake cleaner and clean thoroughly.

It could also be worth spraying and burning the brake cleaner off the pads to help shift any grease/oil that's on there, if you're careful.
This worked for a set of mine that got contaminated when the brake hose started leaking all over my caliper.

Copper grease on the back of the pads allegedly helps to reduce noise.

'People' feel invulnerable in cars -nowadays even small ones

How dare a person on a bike decide to use the same road as somebody driving to work?! Why should they have to slow a bit to allow the bike to pass the parked cars? Why shouldn't they just squeeze past? "Because they're worth it!"

-take away the car and the drivers who have wronged(!) me are probably not the type who would be aggressive to my face.

Modern cars also allow 'People' to drive very badly and erratically and get away with it.

For some reason, a lot of 'people' take offence at the smallest slight/delay whilst they're driving a car and react badly. It's probably worse in busy areas with a lot of traffic lights.

Red light jumping and ignoring by both bikes and cars seems to have been becoming more and more common in the past 5 or so years and I'm not the only one to have noticed it.

What has made the UK stand out from some other countries is the level of 'consideration for others' (think of our attitude to queueing), although I suspect that this has changed slightly in recent years. I would say that British people are becoming very selfish types and we are, of course, considered ignorant thugs by many of our European neighbours!

Unfortunately and foolishly, in the heat of survival, I didn't get the bus details.

I normally have my phone in the pouch on the strap of my courier bag, but didn't have the courier bag with me.

In future I will get details.

I'm considering fitting blades to my axles and wing-mirrors with centre-punches.

A .50 calibre gun and a flame-thrower on the rack might be taking things too far, but I reckon I'd be given more room.

I’ll have my mobile to hand in future and take photos.

Useful info, but if you read what I’d written I DO DO THAT!

The bus could have used the right-hand land and drove across me

I was well away from the kerb and the car this morning squeezed between me and a car on the other side of the road.

I don’t need to go by bus. I have a bicycle, a car and a motorbike. Why shouldn’t I go by bike?

Thanks for the info, folks

solamanda wrote:
but most don’t realise the importance of weighting the inside handlebar grip.
Loading both grips in an even fashion can actually reduce your grip, the outside bar grip loading will make the front slide off the side tread.

I’m not sure I quite agree with the explanation. When you ‘weight’ the inside grip I’m not sure if that would have the effect you suggest. If by ‘weighting’ you mean push forward a little on the grip which results in counter-steering then I agree to a point.

On a motorbike counter-steering is important when getting a bike to turn due to the much greater mass of the system compared to the rider and gyroscopic effects and getting ‘on-the-gas’ stands the bike back up.

MTBs are light enough to man-handle around easily and the speeds are low. On an mtb which turns much more easily, the initial counter-steer effort is slight otherwise you can ‘tip-it-in’ too far/sharply and you can’t ‘gas it’ to make it stand back up.

Contrary to common advise I think keeping ‘loose’ on the bike is bad in a hard corner situation.

I’d argue that keeping ‘loose’ is a good thing in almost all cases. Once turned in with some effort, the bike can do its thing without having an 80Kg mass fixed rigidly above it when negotiating bumps.

Most people fall off from front wheel slides because they don’t hold the steering angle and let the bars twist around.

Do they? I’d be more inclined to think it was due to insufficient weight over the front wheel for the turn speed/terrain or innapropriate braking.

On fast grippy corners where the bike will naturally lean over hard, you can keep the bike more inline with the rider angle.

Do you mean that on faster corners the rider has to lean in further which will be closer to the angle of the bike?

My tips:

Be smooth on brakes and steering, but turn quickly

Look well ahead and not at the front tyre

Stay relaxed in the legs and arms. Just grip the bars hard enough to keep hold.

Slow down before the turn and, if necessary, use brakes very carefully in the turn to slow or adjust weight.

Weight the front end, especially on a hard tail.

Look at where you want to go, not an obstacle.

Don’t bottle it!

At Rivington last week I was seen to shake my head and heard to utter,
“I blame American Pie…”
when a convoy of stretched Lincoln town Cars went by on the way to the Barn. It’s fairly harmless, but certainly extremely OTT as you shouldn’t need to spend a lot to have a laugh with your mates at 16/18.

Maybe I’m out of touch, though, as I don’t require a Bentley convertible, Glock and a case of Cristal to be happy.

Maybe I’m also bitter as we didn’t have a 5th from party and, due to general apathy, our official 6th form party was poorly attended and generally a bit rubbish.

On the subject of dinner suits, I went to a ‘posh‘ university where there were numerous opportunities to wear a bow-tie (yes, even outside of lectures)and bought a single-breasted dinner suit from Burton as it wouldn’t date and work out cheaper than hiring.

13 years later it still fits (although I’ve been through a few red wine destroyed shirts)and probably gets an outing every 1-2 years.

The non-Europe SUV version (EcoSport) that appears to share a few parts, but looks like a small Freelander/very small Ford Expedition, seemed ok for tootling along the ‘high street’

the suspension was rolly on the road, but excellent at absorbing bumps off-road. Horses for courses

-although the TDCi may be better, as the petrol engine got a bit wheezy above 3000m.

“Although based on the Fusion, sharing its engine, transmission and suspension, the EcoSport’s taller ride height gives it a more rugged look. The styling is based on that of the American Ford Escape, and features wider, rounder front lights and a spare wheel on the tailgate. Chunky plastic cladding protects the doors and wheelarches.

Inside, the cabin is nearly identical to that of the Fusion, with well placed controls and an excellent driving position. But right-hand-drive cars would probably have the same problem as both the Fusion and Fiesta – there’s nowhere to rest your clutch foot”

I think that most people with normal driving experiences would concede that it is pretty quick for what it is.

Yes, anybody who’s not driven a car with ~130 torquey horses under the bonnet may think that it is quick. Anybody who has won’t.

Anyway, this is getting off-topic!

I own a 130tdci estate, and drive a T5 as my “company” car. I said it’s comparable – not the same

Unless you’ve got a particularly fast 130, I suggest that you get the T5 looked at! People often make wild performance claims about TD cars because of the low-rpm torque fooling the seat-of-the-pants-dyno, but a grunty 2.5 turbo petrol with an additional 100PS is going to have a significant performance advantage over a 2.0 TD.

it will blow a D5 into the weeds.

Strangely, from experience, mine won’t blow a D5 into the weeds in a straight line. The D5 is faster.

Anyway, having gone from a much quicker 5 dr family car beforehand, the Mondeo is adequately quick and a good car to own.

Fast as buggery

Er… compared with what?

I have a 53 plate zetec, with climate, heated screen, cruise control etc. It is bloody quick, and comparable to a Volvo v70 T5 up to about 70(ish…)

I find that very hard to believe. It is comparable with a D5

As others have said, they are good cars:
Great handling, comfortable, reasonably economical, a fairly linear (rather than laggy and peaky) engine.

They are not, however, fast.

Off the mark, similar to a 1.8/2.0 non-turbo petrol. Torque may be limited in 1st & 2nd. gears. On the move at higher speeds they’re possibly quicker than a similar displacement non-turbo petrol, 80-100mph is where it seems to be relatively strong.

As an mtber, with training I’m reasonable uphill, but without training not great. Downhill, I’m better than the average joe and like to dice with the front-runners. I specialise in the keeping-the-wheels-mostly-on-the-ground-on-a-social-ride-with-other-30-somethings style though.

I was County captain at rugby Union as a schoolboy, but gave it up at uni.

I’m probably at the-front-of-the-middle-of-the-pack for most of the many things I’ve tried, but I’ll give most things a good go and try hard (“God loves a trier”, as I’ve been told many times….)

I’ve a good record at Stag do karting and would like to have tried motorsport. Then again, isn’t everyone an above average driver?

I am a fairly high standard fettler!

If we have to spend 40 hours a week (or thereabouts) following a culturally recent path of ‘career’ work, how many of us find it rather unfulfilling?

I am also one of those people.

Unfortunately it is just 40 hours per week that allow me to pay for the things I like doing. Nothing more.