I’ve had one for the last 6 years and aside from a respray its coped well with everything thrown at it; bought as a frame and forks from Dolan on Ebay.

Its got a 1 inch steerer (struggled to find a carbon fork to match) but aside from that it seems very similar to the current frame.

As eat_more_cheese says it is heavy, set up for road use with guards and not ridiculously heavy kit mine (58cm) comes in at just shy of 23 1/2 pounds.

Ride wise I find it very stiff and the carbon fork has certainly made it a more comfortable ride but coming of S-Works Tarmac it does feel like an oil tanker.

For a do it all bike its good value, as a cross bike there are probably lighter, fast accelerating bikes out there for not much more.

Ease up on the **** and you’ll be fine.

You said it, everyone else was thinking it

Sounds like you’re overstretched; I’m 6′ 2″ and was riding a large Specialized Tarmac (583mm top tube) with a 120mm stem, I got measured and fitted at BikeScene in Barnsley (ask for Freddie) and they had me down for a 565mm top tube with a 110mm stem, effectively shortened my setup by 28mm.

The best money I’ve ever spent when it comes to road bikes.

Has anyone mentioned the legend that is Marshall Jefferson yet?

Pre dates my club days but this is where it began for me

My forte

In a sound clash I wouldn’t have seen have coming, good choice…. in boxing that tune would be a standing count

Oh the Quad! we used to drive over from York to Munroes in Great Harden then head to the Quad afterwards, scary place for a York country boy

gutted, normally means a lie in, but my son is getting up at 5am every day, which will become 4am tomorrow

I’m with you brother :(

Below the 40th latitude there is no law, below the 50th there is no God.

Very brave men and women when they hit the Southern Oceans.

Raleigh Budgie
Raleigh Striker
Piranha BMX
Raleigh Rampar BMX (1982 US import, 531 tubing, Suntour throughout- it was the dogs)
Raleigh Criterium
RockHopper Comp 1989
Bromwich Cyclone 2
Graeme Weigh steel road bike
Kona Kilieua
GT Lobo
Principia RS6 pro
Dolan Cross bike
Specialized S Works Tarmac
Kona Unit 2-9

The Principia and Bromwich are my favourites

You lot are mental. Dog threads are always pretty aggressive but for goodness sake!

Couldn’t agree more.

OP, were you given the reason why the handsome, 18 month old Mack was at the rescue centre? previous issues?

My dad got a border collie from a rescue centre which turned out to be aggressive around children, asked the centre a few questions and turned out this was why he’d been given up.

Someone’s already compared dogs and humans, I will not as I see them as trainable meat and wouldn’t be too fussed about having one put down if there was a good reason, but generally there will be a trigger to this sort of behaviour (has he been around small dogs previously?) so my suggestion would be muzzle and observe

I had a Santa Cruz Natas Kaupas, its in my Dads garage somewhere

Cheers Sancho, Rodley or Otley Road?

Its literally fitting new male/female connectors to the cables; I’d feel a bit rude asking Troutie given its folk like me buying £40 lamps from Hong Kong that make it difficult for homegrown talent like his to prosper.

Dunc, I’ll see if anyone more local replys but might drop you a line if thats alright.

Hora, I don’t think anyone is mourning Gadaffi, the concerns that are being raised relate to how a debt free creditor nation with some of the best infrastructure, education, healthcare and womens rights in Africa(unesco words not mine), is now being offered ‘loans’ by the IMF for rebuilding.

As has already been mentioned, some of the first actions of the new government has been to implement aspects of Sharia law, the corner stone of any free ‘Western’ style democracy.

Time will tell but the separatist behaviour of the Misrata Brigade and the fact that most of the rebellion soldiers previously served Gadaffi, were trained in his torturous ways and have already killed leaders within their own ranks doesn’t bode well in terms of getting the result the west hoped for.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26686

This makes interesting reading

GQ mag had their annual watch special recently, let me know if you want my copy.

For whats its worth I lke Omegas but can’t afford one so settled for this

just a thought OP, given the above, do you think that airing drawn work on a public forum that you don’t have copyright for is very clever??

You may have a point but I’ve made the effort not to identify the ‘artist’ and other than saying I don’t like it haven’t slandered them anywhere so not too worried about legal action.

Superdale, thanks for the ideas, see a prospective builder tomorrow so will ask for his thoughts

Huddersfield was good last week and not a hipster insight

I’ve got a friend (Scottish raised Muslim) who is a professor at the University of Oman, and I asked him for his take on Libya after Gadaffi was killed and this is what he said

My take on the Libya sitauation has been against NATO intervention and thats because there was an alternative solution.One which was given little or no attention. It was a solution that entailed giving more time to ascertain whether the “imminent” massacre that was being portrayed in the corporate media was, in fact, a true representation of facts on the ground.

There was, at the time of the passing of the security council resolution, very little evidence to support the idea. Also given the nature of the evidence that had been presented to justify a war on Iraq, any evidence presented should have been given the scrutiny that it obviously didnt get. The resulting resolution which was explicitly passed to “protect civillians” in the context of “humanitarian intervention”, quickly became the “imperialist intervention” that it was designed to be, protecting the financial interests of western powers, and ensuring them a slice of the financial cake once Ghaddafi was eliminated from the equation.

What was interesting was that a few nations including India and China did abstain from the SC resoltion on those grounds (very little media space was given to the reasons why). They argued that there was very little evidence to support the claims being made and that, even if there was, there were alternatives to full scale military aggression.

One simple alternative being simple diplomacy and an attempt at a peaceful resolution to the internall problems of Libya. Of course there is the question of the hypocrisy. Bahrain being a prime example, and operation cast lead in Gaza being another. Both examples did not warrant any resoltution from the SC. Both were seen as “diplomatic” problems to be resolved by the “powerful elites” that were creating the problems. The other solution was support for the rebel elements from outside Libya entailing countries like Egypt and Tunisia taking a role in logistically and millitarily supporting the rebels.

Of course all of this assumes that the rebels and the TRNC are not just another bunch of western corporatist hell bent on streamlining the Libyan economy for a full on capitalist and neo-liberal assault.

As to the question of oppressive regimes. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Pakistan should be next on the list then??????

I dont think there is any real question of support for democracy here. Its a question of resources and capital. The facts simply dont support that idea that the western powers and their stooges in the middle east could really cope with true democracy in the Middle East.The democratic election of HAMAS in the West Bank and the role that America and Israel played in trying to undermine and ultimately capitualte HAMAS testifies to the fact. Democracy in the middle east is really equated with “stability” and for all intents and purposes that means compliancy to the American corporate agenda for the region. A ring of compliant states that protect American and western oil interests.

I can send you links to any of the above if you want any further info

“I am keen on spending time on the internet and am a ‘big hitter’ on STW “

That made me laugh out loud

If it won’t have a direct effect on the application why would you do it?

I did GCSEs 22 years ago, I guess if I say I got an A not a B in Maths it wouldn’t get checked out, if you say you’ve done a Masters but you’ve only done a BTEC that might trip you up

in the real world..

But its not the real world, its Singletrack world, where getting flamed is your baptism.

When I lived in Chelmsford many moons ago, we’d wait opposite the bus station every Friday night to watch the locals fight and vomit kebabs, same guys week in, week out; Elfin and TJ are those guys, entertaining to us and only harming themselves

If just been to the Social/Politics forum on PinkBike and it appears they don’t have mods, I’ve had to censor this quote from a thread on the Lockerbie bomber

why is non justice silly ..why is some r**head killing 270 innocent people silly .. the scottish t**t that released him on compassionate grounds now has to answer every case that falls into that criteria . if some peedo or rapist attakd yer maw and got life then because he has ball cancer gets released would you be happy with that decision ??? i think not .certain crimes should mean life in jail and if you get life it should mean that . again the uk is showing it is a nanny state , it is too soft and genrally has no back bone .

This looks like a place for some of our big hitters

You mean there are other places to argue with strangers?

I work in sleep medicine and generally we recommend a bedroom temperature of 18 degrees celcius. During REM sleep you lose muscle tone and temperatures too high or too low will cause arousals leading to a disturbed night.

do you really think that this forum if the best place to redesign it give the forum’s track record of uninformed opinion, failure to listen and amateur advice?

Probably not but worth a punt, sometimes we surprise ourselves on here.

I’m more suprised that we got half way down the the second page people started insulting each other

Cheers MrBen, he has this qualification, BSc Architectural Technology, and though I’m not aware of any professional memberships he comes recommended by several people and has a long history working for a LARGE Northern practice.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said

may have taken into account the OP’s budget and merely provided the most cost effective solution. More than likely was signed off by an Architect before leaving the office.

My main beef, apart from it being ugly, is that given his self acknowledgement that the design might upset the planners and if you have doubts about your own work should you be giving it to clients.

So we’re all agreed it’s a crap design then, and given the budget a flat roof and more windows is the way forward?

Floor plans above.

The extension will sit where we currently have a conseratory (3×3) and will be approx 4×4.

The adjoining neighbours conservatory has privacy glass on the boundary side and the sun travels east to west over the house, the site of the extension losing sunlight at around 3 pm; there would be no shadowing caused by the build but like everyone says the current design F*****G awful.

I spoke to the project manager this morning and it turns out the architect is actually an architectural technologist ????? from the preacticem, hence the lack of imagination.

We’ve paid no money or sign no contracts yet so not overly concerned at this point.

Aside from the neighbours upper bedroom window and the other neighbours shared drive it will not be overlooked by anyone.

Budget is an issue and as there will be internal remodelling going on that is limiting the spend on the roof design.

It is a semi and while we get on with the neighbours I can see issues with a 10 foot wall overshadowing their conservatory.

The reason we cannot go full width is the angle of the drive next to the house, the extension is to house a kitchen so wider with less depth (while not doable anyway) wouldn’t give us the layout we want.

Budget is ideally £30K but that includes the kitchen and also an chimney breast and internal wall knocking out.

IMO it is aesthetically unsatisfactory.

Exactly

These are the architects comments on flat roofs

“In terms of life cycle costs a pitched roof should certainly work out cheaper in the long run, but initial outlay would probably be cheaper for the flat roof. So no, I don’t think there would be a ‘significant’ cost saving. A pitched roof is more likely to get planning, and another issue with flat is your building insurance (sometimes push up premiums), despite technology being a lot better than the old felt roofs. Also house appreciation is likely to be greater with a traditional pitched roof.”

Why would a a pitched roof be more likely to get planning in a back garden?

the roof lights are mainly because the extension will reduce natural light in the current room at the rear so we want to minimise this.

Keep the comments coming as their all valuable

We’d planned for tiles which apparently (our price point) need a 15 degree slope

why not just slope away from the house?

If we slope towards the house (at 15 degrees) the roof would stop 25cm above the window sill, make sense?

Oink, what company did your roof?

Obviously

she was a little girl during the Blitz, and loud bangs bring back traumatic memories.

Back when I was a nurse I did a bank shift in an old people home on Bonfire night, I went round the bedrooms at 2am and half the folk were missing….. turned out there was a old dear who grown up in Whitby resident there and the sound of the rockets made here think a ship had run aground and she’d led an expedition into the gardens to scavenge the wreck

Aye, but equally they don’t listen

I agree with Elfin, given how we’re repeatedly told of the terrorist threat I’ve never quite understood how selling unstable explosives in shops is a good thing

Yeah, but then you enjoy the luxury of not living in a country where the actions/orders of such aforementioned tyrants have a detrimental affect on your way of life.

Other than screwing my pension, getting my country in debt that my kids will still be paying off, destroying the NHS and free University education etc etc etc.

It all depends on the culture you’re used to, no they’ve not attached electodes to my balls, have they had a detrimental effect on MY life? yes