I've got a 105 equipped, aluminium stayed Via Nirone from a couple of years back, and can't really fault it. The misses has a (low end) Campagnolo equipped version of the same, and it also can't really be faulted.
We both chose which groupset based mainly on the shape of the levers/hoods, and would do again, but the new Shimano ones have changed recently I'm sure. I'd rather have have Campagnolo myself, for no good reason, and if carbon stays are going to make a sportive bike a bit more comfortable, then that's what my preference would be, but it would probably come down to the levers again.

Mine are. But the U turn on my wifes recons is awful by comparison.

Maybe not that close to you, but Form Bespoke, in Leeds is where I went, and very happy I was with them too.
(She said yes, and then bought me a shiny new Scott)!

His and Hers,

Also got a '93 Fire Mountain in the shed waiting for me to have enough money to rebuild it (before deciding that it really isn't as good as I remember)!

Stag do in Holmfirth – make sure you get along to The Nook, just for the sticky floors and the staff comments along the lines of " It smells of vomit in here – Yes, that's because someone's been sick, and?" (Report from the Wife's hen do)
Riding wise, well you're only spitting distance from Cut Gate, and after all this sunshine it should be lovely.

Never even thought about contacting the insurance people. Just rang Airmiles/Lufthansa and they are giving me my money back. (Shame that DB don't want to do the same for my train tickets onwards from Frankfurt).

Don't think I can make it – setting off for an exhibition that day. Shame really as I have a bit of a score to settle from last year – got beaten by the wife!
Excellent event though, brilliant atmosphere and well run.

I reckon half my posts on this forum are of my dog!

I counted two helmets, but one of them was one of those old style bunch of bananas thingies, so I don't know if that counts!
Nice to see that post ride beers are nothing new.
Biiiiiig Rocks!

We used to use a Halfords hang on thingie on our Ka. Seemeed fine – not as solid as the Thule we use on the other car now, and needed an extra strap or two for motorway speed peace of mind. We did used to put the wheels in the back of the Ka as otherwise they obscured the rear lights, and the bikes were wider than the Ka. Biggest downside really is the fact that people point and laugh! Bit like those comments further up the page!
Ours is for sale if your interested?
Just noticed this started 7 months ago! I assume you're sorted by now!

I can second johnd's recommendation on the pub – if it's still there. (It was nearly 10 years since I was there mind). Very good beer, and had one of the best meals I had the whole time I was in the States, even if was only a Burger. Somewhere nearby is (was) a restaraunt called The Stinking Rose, I remember that as being pretty good too, if you like Garlic – everything has the stuff in it.

Maybe we were lucky with the weather, it still took an over an hour after we'd finished before my feet came back to life though!
Thanks to Keith for organising, Mr and Mrs Marsdenman for hospitality and soup, and Keith's mum for mince pies. 'twas an excellent ride.

Ben and Hazel. (Cotic and Genesis for those that remember bikes better than names).

Right then, me and Hazel will be there.

Had the slowest speed bump into the back of someone waiting at a roundabout when I thought he was going to go, so was braking for the white line rather than the back of a car 3m closer. Couldn't un clip so keeled over into the road and was rather suprised when the driver started to apologise to me! No damage fortunatley.
2nd one wasn't my fault, a women in an Astra estate pulled out of a side road and set off the same direction as me. Still not sure how this happened but I slamed into the side of the car, leaving a forearm sized dent. I suspect her two little kids learnt a naughty word or two that day – and not from me either! The noise when we hit was amazing, and once more the driver was amazingly apologetic.

Can't see of a reason why I shouldn't be able to come out and play. Hopefully it'll be myself and Hazel, but we'll see. I'd be interested in the route too…

I got hold of some 08 air U turn revs for my Soul build a few weeks ago, mainly because I wasn't sure what travel to go for. The bike handles lovely at each end of the travel range, if differently, but I seem to have settled on 110/115 ish for most of the time, just occasionally winding them out to 130. Frame is large, stem about 90mm, bars not massively wide, couple of spacers at the minute – it's only had 4 rides, so I'm still experimenting.

Thanks for that. It's ended up costing a few quid, but I've got my music back.

My dog wanders round in circles looking for hers!

In my experience, if someone sues you, your insurance company will try and pass the buck. This just heads to the manufacturer, well, their insurers anyway. (Assuming you do insure yourself – public liabillity I think).
An example that we got involved in – Bloke crawls under running machine, puts hand inside to clear blockage, loses finger tip, claims (no win no fee). His employers claim from us (importer and distributor of the machine) and our insurer claims from the manufacturer. End result – 2 legal teams based in Belfast, one based in London but travelling to Belfast for court and one based in Germany with office in London travelling to Belfast. Our customer had 3 members of staff at court, we had 2, and the german manufacturer also had 2. The insurers eventually did a deal to avoid court because we could only give a 99% gaurantee that the Bloke was telling Porkie Pies.

Just imagine the cost of all this.

(I think he got a payout in the region of £5000)

Had we not been insured, the cost of fighting this would have hurt us, so I geuss the moral of the story is cover yer arse!

Good luck!

I'm not trying to put you off – Honest!

Tinribz – I thought I'd try the bargain build up recently with my Cotic, ended up costing me a fortune! So, for the mo, I'll stick to looking for a complete bike for him. Tempting though the on one route is….

Vdubber – I think that'd be too big, he's about 5'10", but thanks anyway.

Thanks folks, a couple more to think about. Hadn't given much thought to re-sale value, but I'm assuming, based on how much crashing he did at the weekend, that it'll be completly trashed pretty quickly!

Ah, Mongoose, never thought of them. Are they any good?

"Back in the day" I'm sure there were more front/rear specific tyres available (Smoke/Dart etc), but others were often marked as to which way to mount them depending on whether they were going at the front or back, basically you can find some sort of arrow in the tread pattern itself which you would point backwards at the rear, and forwards at the front. I 'spose the thinking was for traction at the back and steering/braking at the front. I still set all my tyres up like this. At the minute I've a Kenda Nevegal on the back, which technically is the wrong way round, and a few of the folk I ride with use these tyres, all the "correct" way round. Maybe I'm just wrong, but I'm sure there is more traction to be had like this, but I might try doing it properly, just in case I'm being an idiot!

It's not has it been bled to death – that's all animals, it's has it been stunned or not? Usually Halal and Kosher is not stunned, therefore aware of what is going on, however, this appears to be open to some interpretation. One of the bigger Halal chicken plants (certainley used to) lightly stun the birds – the idea is that if it can make an absolutely full recovery from the electrocution and live a happy life thereafter with no side effects then it counts as Halal. Having not read the relevant sections of the Big Book of Rules, I couldn't comment on the that. But in practice it meant that watching the birds coming down the line, only about 1 in 10 weren't stunned.
My slightly sick sense of humor meant I found it almost amusing that there was 2 blokes stood there dispatching the birds at an impressive rate, only pausing to wash their visors, whilst some bloke stood next to them praying! That was his job, stand on the kill line for 6 hours a day praying for the souls of the chickens as they shot by at 6 a minute.
(This factory supplied most, if not all the supermarkets at the time).

Sorry Dave, won't be there this week, doing the Holme Valley thingie. Me and Hazel are looking forward to getting out with you sometime soon though.

Marsdenman – Just to add to the peer pressure (assuming this ride is with Dave), I can't go, so you chuffing well should!

Holme valley challenge on (hopefully) my new bike!

Sitting here thinking Damn – no lights and Damn – will still be at work.
Maybe next time.

I worked as a Guard for a while on the trains, and the reactions from train crew who'd been involved in a fatality was amazing in it's variation.
Sat in the mess room at leeds one day, with about 60 others when a driver walks in and announces to everyone "Yes! £600 and a fortnight off, see you lot later!" – His train had just killed someone, and the payment and time off was just what you got as a minimum – kind of compensation for having to go through it. He duly returned after his holiday and could honestly say it didn't bother him, if someone wants to jump, well he can't do anything about it can he.
The other end of the scale involved a little lad, 3 or 4 years old I think, who, whilst Dad slept off the lunchtime drink, used his Dad's shortcut to the pub – through the broken (by Dad) fence at the bottom of the garden, and up the railway embankment. Now if you imagine the height of the little kid, and the bits of a train below platform height, not the nice smooth sides above that, you can get some kind of idea what the guard of the train found after they had hit him (Driver is responsible for in front of train, guard is responsible for train and whatever is behind it, therefore anyone who has been hit). The driver was off work for some weeks I beleive, the guard was off for months and when he returned found that he could no longer work on the trains, just found it too painful. By all accounts he was never quite the same, just never got over it.
From personal experience whilst working a train from manchester one day, travelling about 70 mph, and grubbing about on the floor looking for my lighter or something, i felt the emergency brake go on, and knew that it had to be applied by the driver as we weren't near anything on the lineside that would have triggered it, followed a few seconds later by a sickening thump sound on the side of the train. Having fallen in a heap, by the time I got up we'd rounded a corner from where i'd heard the noise and the driver was franticaly ringing the intercom wanting to know if we'd hit the people he'd seen walking along the track. Long story short and all that, the police found a bloke later in hospital with broken limbs, ribs and a punctured lung who admitted to having been on the line. That 2 or 3 hours before we found out he was alright felt like a lifetime, both me and the driver were convinced we'd killed someone. I am so glad that I didn't find the remains of someone spread over 200m or so of track. (even if he was a plonker for being there, or got what he wanted).

You could try A.W.Smith Sundries in Birmingham, or possibly Scobie and Junor, both are butchers sundries suppliers, no idea on price mind.

Really really wish I could make it. Unlikely though.
Actually, how long do you think you'll be out?

I've got the Thule one (actually bought it from the people you've linked to, very nice folk they seemed as well) and so far it's everything i was hoping for. Strong, easy to use and feels very secure. The fact that it doesn't slide away from the car hasn't presented any problems yet (Seat Altea XL (straight back) if that makes any difference). We havn't used the 4th bike adaptor as yet so can't really comment on that. The only downside so far is that it is all to easy to put it down on the rather delicate lights and plastic surround, sooner or later I'm going to break something, and I'm sure replacements won't be cheap!

Same as Scuttler, I'm in Holmfirth and don't want to see a Tesco built. I think that a lot of the local small shops stay in business because at the minute people can park in the town centre and there is one of most kind of shops within an easy walk. I suspect that a lot of people do "top up" shopping when going to the bank or hairdressers, but also as the carpark is at an existing (not very big and poorly stocked) coop, you can do whatever shopping you want in there and then pop to the greengrocers for your better priced and higher quality veggies. (Or the butchers, hardware shop etc).
Some of the small shops also supply the local eateries (meaning that they have a comparatively high turn over of stock, and the more random herbs or whatever that they may otherwise not stock) and this is where I think a Tesco is a bad thing.
As people start to use the Tesco rather than the Morrisons or Sainsburys some miles away, the top up shopping in the town will dwindle as people cannot just walk from there car, they now have to add a another leg to the trip – not much, but enough to put folk off. The little shops see trade dropping and it might be enough to force a couple into shutting up (I haven't seen their books, so this is speculation). I would assume that the coop couldn't survive and will close, leaving a large abandoned site in the middle of the town, which already has an oversupply of retail units. So a few less shops, an empty site in the middle of the town and suddenly Holmfirth is a much less nice place to be, not just for us residents, but crucially to all the visitors we get (Last of the summer wine and all). These visitors must pump a large amount of money into the local economy, making many of the pubs,restaurants, bakers and sandwich shops viable. Without this money some of them are bound to close, leaving more empty shops and pretty soon I'll be living in a ghost town and nobody wants to spend their saturday visiting one of them do they?. At the minute I have a choice of places to go on a saturday night to eat and drink, but I just can't see that this will continue to be the case.
I live where I do because my local town is still a small market town with a buzz and some life to it, a Tesco's (or any other supermarket built on the same site) will inevitably drain that out of the town and whoops, where did our community go?
No thanks.

For the record, I shop at sainsburys 7 miles away and when I get the chance (my working and their openening hours dependent) use greengrocers, bakers and butchers either near home or where i work.

Wish I could remember the details, but the Eye did a special on his case a while ago (maybe around the time of his first appeal?) and after reading it I did wonder how on earth he'd been found guilty.
Ransos – presumably that is not a quote from Paul Foot. If it is, my memory is much worse than i thought as i thought he wrote the Eye's report?

Edit – Coming out of Dunce mode – "The flight from justice" was the private eye report. Sheesh.

I've had for a couple of months now a Thule Euroclassic G5 909 with an adaptor for a fourth bike (as yet unused).
http://www.roofbox.co.uk/scripts/rbvehsel4.php?query=TU909&vptype=&emulate=accgen&qty=1
I bought it as having had a little halfords hanging off the back thingie, I wanted something that I trusted to stay put. (Spent more time looking in my mirrors worrying about the bikes than looking where I was going)!
The Thule is very solid, it weighs about 20Kg, which does make it a bit of a lump to carry in and out of the shed, and to get on and off the car, but feels very secure indeed and doesn't move about at all, even when driving a little enthusiastically. It's nice that it locks to the towbar, and the same key locks the outermost bike to the rack. I know that the locks aren't brilliant, but it's hopefully a little extra deterrant.
The only downsides (apart from price) are that it's all too easy to put the thing down on those very fragile looking lights (havn't broken one yet – fingers crossed) and i have broken a plastic moulding in the clamp mechanism – it still works, but I 'spose it gives me a chance to find out what Thule's customer service is like.
When I bought it I tried to get it from my Lbs, but stock wasn't due for months, so I got it from the website above, at about £100 cheaper than the bike shop was looking for, and would recommend them as nice people to give your money to.
One other thing – I really like the wheel support style of rack, it just seems so quick and easy to load compared to the hang on varietys that I've come across.

Hope the guy is ok.

Last summer on a club ride we had to stretcher a lad out. He took a very low speed tumble, and landed with his chest on the end of his bars (not even moving fast enough to over the bars)! Once the paramedics turned up, very speedily, considering the directions we had to give, they decieded that the air ambulance was needed but as we were in the woods we'd have to carry him out – about a mile, as to wait for mountain rescue would take too long. Mr paramaedic asked for volunteers, and i foolishly said yes and made some comment about having carried stretchers before on courses for mountain rescue teams, so he kindly informed me that I was to go in the middle, opposite him, as we would walk either side of the singletrack in the heather and he wanted an experienced(!)strecher bearer there. As he was also carying oxygen etc that our buddy was hooked up to, we weren't allowed to swap sides like the others could. Until you have tried it, you simply can't beleive how heavy a 15 stone man gets! It took us an hour to covern that mile.
We then had to sit and wait for a further 30 mins watching the air ambulance fly around over the wrong valley!

hp has put a link further up the page :-)

I managed a respectable 2:46

, but TSA, I thought you only went down hills. Nice one.

Fastest time is just insane, I managed 2:37 and was really pleased with that

Well done Keith.

Forgot that this was on, so had already arranged to go out to play on the Darkside. I will, however be doing the Holme Valley thingie, I was awfull last year, so need to improve.

The Dot grew up!

Same toy….

She does have a hell of a voice mind – she hasn’t yet realised that the neighbours do not value her opinion.