Just been in similar situation. I’d say yes, go for it.

I understand about reducing operational expenses, but what they are actually doing is transferring the same tasks to private firms/contractors who the charge multiple times more than it would cost to manage internally. The actual “service” is still there, and now you are paying vastly more for it, but you can claim it is capex, so that is okay. Overall though the cost of the same “service” has now increased year on year, and you’ll have the expense of re tendering every 5 years.

Maybe my rudimentary understanding of accountancy is why I don’t get it….surely to save money you have to actually cut the service rather than transfer it to a private firm and pay more for it?

You’re right, it’s just out of one budget rather than another. Though I do seem to remember you can report on it differently so it ‘looks’ like you’re not spending as much.

But basically it significantly reduces your pension expenditure in the future becuase they ain’t your staff.

so who here has not had points/speed awareness course/done for speeding?

24yrs of driving and nothing for me. Mind you, I dont live in Derbyshire or North Wales, which having been through a couple of times appears to be entirely under the gaze of Gatsos.

Coo-ee. Waves from the back with 31 years of driving.

I have nothing to add to this thread apart from saying a bloke at work only drank Yorkshire Tea becuase he didn’t like any of the ‘foreign muck’.

All the runners I’ve ever come across appear to be thinking “he can move out of my way, I’m not stopping or deviating from this path”

My kids all have these, but I’ve not seen any Presta ones

What you need is a presta/schrader adaptor like this

“All tickety boo” is being used a lot at the moment. Normally with “no” at the front of it mind…

I did seem to feel the mtb cleat on my Shimano SPDs when using them on the road bike.

I wasn’t really wanting road shoes/pedals for practicality so I actually cured the problem by swapping to Time ATAC mtb pedals all round.

But for wide shoes, check out the Sidi Mega versions of their shoe range.

Mr P – someone on my commute has a similar gilet. Unfortunately he then sticks a massive black rusksack on the top, thus defeating its purpose entirely.

Genuinely feel like I’m turning into a proper grumpy old man – told one guy yesterday that lights only worked if you turned them on, another that having a light with a dirty great seatpost mounted mudguard turned jauntily upwards in front of it was pointless, and another on riding in a long black coat also defeated the purpose of turning on his light as said coat was covering it completely.

i’ve not figured out a way to fit reflectors to my SPD’s though.

Simplest way I’ve found it to just buy a set of these for £20.

Shimano T400 spd pedals

Ermmm! Yes they do.

Ermm, no they don’t – see above. Yours might. Nissans certainly don’t. And I suspect many others either.

ps. how actually thick are these people?

very. Drove down the A1/M1 yesterday in and out of thick and thin-ish fog all the way, the amount of folk in cars with no lights on, or doing 85 in the outside lane tailgating the car in front…

People don’t turn lights on and off these days, they just leave them in the ‘automatic’ setting all the time. The problem is that the sensors don’t seem to recognise fog.

IIRC there are two options on the Zoe now – buy the battery, or rent it.

That might explain the two price differences you are seeing – the more expensive might have battery ‘included’.

Slightly OT but I took out one of those £20 MOT ‘insurance’ policies with my old car – they basically say if you come back and do the MOT with us next yuear we’ll cover the costs of any MOT failure bits.

Suffice to say, next year the service rep smugly handed me over a mahoosive list of ‘failures’, some I still think were made up. Seatbelt fastening for £350 etc.

Look on her face when I told her about this insurance policy – she went from “making lots of money from this mug” to “I’ve got lots of paperwork and explaining to the boss and we’re out of pocket” was priceless…

Anyone remember TCR? I got buried down that route before I knew better in my youth.

Alternatively, on active service, the outlets and opportunities to get photos processed and printed would probably be quite limited. The similarity of format between these and the other personal photos might simply mean they were processed and printed in the same shop / lab rather than taken by the same person with the same camera.

Yeah, I suspect thats probably closest to the truth

Davenport’s clearly relate to the risks rather than to a lack of desire. I don’t think anyone’s asked the police chiefs whether they’d convert their current commuting miles to cycling in the long term, they’ve asked questions that basically amount to whether they’d be prepared to face the risks involved.

What a baby. I think its shocking that a senior policeman is that risk adverse. I hardly think cycling round London is that shockingly dangerous; 27 years cycling round town, and never had a scrape.

Probably shows why the police are so ludicrously risk adverse.

Next door neighbour has been a traffic cop for many years. After seeing many times that bigger cars give you a better chance of surviving crashes he is somewhat tied into getting large Volvos/BMWs for his family. Sure it happens with all professions – sure some of the paramedics on here will be risk averse to certain situations. My ex-fireman pal is paranoid about finding emergency exit routes in hotels when he stays away, for example. All the IT bods on here are probably paranoid about security breaches that nobody cares about (until obviously something happens to them…).

Your exposure to certain situations will inevitably infuence your decision making.

So if the grammer system allowed transfers at, dunno, maybe 13 and 16 for those who developed late would that be the answer to some of the sticking points?

A charity ride I was at started from a carpark with a low beam across the entrance…

That was an expensive day for quite a few people if I remember…

Don’t need the architect for that level of project.

Though, from experience, you want all the small bits pretty much nailed almost before the build starts – so plug locations, what type of sockets you want, radiator positions, what doors you want, style of skirting boards etc. etc. – if you want something out the ordinary and it needs ordering in then do it plenty of time – when the plumber is sitting waiting for rads that haven’t turned up it’ll slow things down a lot.

Always assume the builder has specced for the cheapest option, boggo standard sockets/rads/doors/white PVC etc.

Thinking of a patio in the future? Worth getting the groundworks done with the build even if builder isn’t doing the patio.

Just watched someone on a BA have an interesting take on their cabin bag policy – one mahoosive wheelie bag, one pretty big laptop bag, a rucksack and a big bag of duty free!

Suffice to say the gate dragon wasn’t impressed…

Just ask all those Ferrari/Lamborghini/Porsche drivers why they’ve bought a car that’ll do 200mph when 0.0001% will ever get that close to it.

Basic willy waving innit.

Not sure on the Bitex hubs – sure its been mentioned somewhere they are RAF12 and RAR12 (front and rear Bitex models). Spares might be an issue.

JRA a custom wheel builder function, spec it up with some other hubs and check out the prices.

Never had a problem with JustRidingAlong and they’ve doen a few wheels for me.

Their ‘own brand’ Jawbone wheels use SL25 rims on Bitex (I think) hubs for less than £400 IIRC, or I’d be tempted with DT 350 hubs.

Err, its called growing old. Pick anything from your generation and you’d likely get the same reaction from kids.

Show your kids 8 out of 10mCats Does Countdown. The Greg Davies impression of him is brilliant. In a later episode they stitch Davies up by having Eubank walk out.

First day out of hospital after an op and I watched that episode. Had to turn if off, was in danger of splitting scars with laughing too much.

Doesn’t seem that principled if he’s going behind the current managers back.

Wouldn’t be surprised if a deal has been done, though surely at least you sack the incumbent first?

I will be storing some sentimental stuff at a friends, photos and the like

Isn’t there a little bit of irony in requiring friends to be the corporate slaves and own the house that you’re keeping your stuff in whilst you do you own stuff?

The wealthiest people I know took a gamble, failed several times but eventually did well.

Equally, there will be plenty of very poor people who took a gamble, failed and never did well. Don’t equate gambiling with doing well, it requires a certain point of view/idea/ethic.

I’m with tthew on that one!

I don’t see the point in this.

The lawsuit can’t bring him back.

The family must surely we very well off and not in desperate need for cash.

The crash was ultimately caused by the driver losing control and I think it is safe to say PW wasnt there against his will nor protesting at the speed.

I’m sure the official line will be they are bringing the action so no others have to run the risk of the pre-tensioner…

oh the irony, everyone on here riding round on chinese manufactured bikes bought online (typically) and then there is an expectation that everyone else sticks to buying british, even though its not british owned.

This.

When you say custom bike, do you mean the frame was custom built for you, or just you’ve picked the components you wanted to fit to a stock frame?

The real answer is to split and stick everything on eBay with a 99p starting price and no reserve!

My feeling is once you start getting above a certain price point people aren’t looking for a complete bike. Not sure I would drop anything over £1k on a secondhand bike (though ironically I might if I’d bought all the bits seperately, go figure…).

People are either upgrading from, say XT to XTR, or a frame to retrofit all their current nice kit. Custom specs on eBay always seem to be the ones asking top dollar.

Can you not see why this particular cafe might, to some, seem like an emblem* of the crass, middle-class consumerism which they see as damaging their community?

Go and trash that bike shop selling those £3000 bikes then, eh?

Even if delivery was attempted would you sign for a registered letter that was addressed to someone you didn’t know at your address?

I bet loads of people just sign for something the postie thrusts at them without looking.

How much

Pah, you’ve obvious never heard of Astell & Kern and their three grand portable player, though in fairness it does come with free delivery!

I thought the water board had all responsibility for pipes these days even on someones property?

I’d guess you’re almost certainly going to have to divert the pipes and have suitable manholes/rodding points outside of your new extension.

The water board will no doubt have to send a camera down once you’ve done the work to check it out, charging you a pretty penny too if it’s anything like our work. The builder said they don’t have actual plans of the pipes in private ground so bascially the charge is allow them to graciously map the pipe network for themselves.

‘Tis very scary being in a crowd like that. I went to a concert many moons ago which was all standing. Obviously everyone was crowding to the front. They told everyone to move back, alas for some mad reason halfway back was a barrier we were in front of, that was pretty hairy feeling a relatively small number (hundreds) of people pressing us up against it.

Phh, well yeah, it might do that. But they still won’t be equal.
THE WHOLE POINT of a wider rear end is stiffness and strength. Wider braced spokes do that, that’s simple logic, as they create a wider based triangle if you like.

Don’t forget you’ve got a dirty great cassette on one side of the hub so you can make a ‘nice’ wide triangle with the same angles both sides. Stick the non drive side out too far and then you’d have to have less tension in the spokes on that side otherwise it’d pull the rim across to balance out the tensions. Loose tension on one side is not your friend on a wheel build.

I’d always err on the side of caution in terms of bike damage, and I’d imagine any bike shop would too. I got banged a few years ago and had the front wheel pringled but never really checked anything else out on the bike (tricky to do when you’ve only got one wheel). Guy was okay about it and stumped up the cash for a wheel rebuild but my forks were never the same again afterwards.

Once you start asking (legitimately) for £300 forks, £150 wheel, £100 helmet etc. drivers enthusiasm often wilts away…

Never – Ashcroft isn’t the only political donor with interesting tax arrangements.

But the only one who’s tried to rattle the PMs cage….

Did PCP a while ago (so things may have changed) but the part-ex value of the car I had was pretty much exactly what I ‘owed’ at the end of the period, so I didn’t have any of this mythical equity to put towards the next car.

Got bitten slightly as well as my new car didn’t turn up exactly on tuime, and they wanted the old one back exactly at the end of the period so was car-less for a bit.

If you’re going to ‘overpay’ to lower the final payment cost then I’m not sure I’d consider it – I’d have to do the maths on that.