Get your own site, then put a decent front page up with maybe two paragraphs about what the site tries to achieve etc. – try to get all the ‘buzzwords’ people might search on but don’t go crazy.

And keep the content fresh and unique. Google doesn’t like old content and it doesn’t like cut&paste content from other sites – you get ranked lower for that.

To be honest that’s why sites like Amazon, even CRC and Wiggle all love user feedback. It’s not for Joe Publics use, it means their content is unique.

Oh, and try and get links in from other sites. That helps too – if, say, Iveco (they won’t) puts a link into your site, Google thinks you are a respected pukka site and that gives you a boost.

Question – in general which type/genre of roadbike has more relaxed geometry? I’m guessing time trial has a steeper/rakish set of angles, same with serious roadcycle with audux/touring more relaxed?

You’ve got it – basically the ‘faster’ you’re (meant to) go on a genre of bike pretty much implies steeper angles.

It’s not a crazy difference – my ‘relaxed’ CX/winter bike doesn’t feel that much lazier than the more race style PX Carbon jobbie.

To summarise – all this is pretty much in a one hour radius of Newcastle! 😛

Welcome brother!!!

There must be an online realworld comparator for the three groupset levels? (i.e. where they REALLY sit against each other to enable us to check/compare/understand)

You could price the whole groupset and see what other ones match it – that’s about the best you could do. Ribble or Parkers should do them all.

Don’t compare just, say, the Brake levers/shifters. Shimano ones are madly expensive compared to Campag, but the rear mech etc. are opposite way around.

Manufaturers mix and match as well with an FSA chainset in the mix, or a dodgy set of no-brand brakes.

Think Apex/Rival, 105 and Centaur are about the same.

Only problem with Centaur is it’s 10 speed, if you ‘upgrade’ the better gruppos are 11 speed so you need to change a lot of things in one go. Sram/Shim at least are all 10 speed so you can just get the DuraAce/Red rear mech and it’ll drop straight in.

Without being negative, the “business is expanding and we need to current employees to work more hours” starts to sound like a firm I used to work for that ‘expected’ you not to use your full holiday entitlement each year. Soon you’ll be onto unpaid overtime too….

Maybe try the line of you are going to lose this entitlement but this year we’ll give you a week wages as a bonus to change contract?

To be fair if you plump for somewhere like Gosforth with is North West Newcastle if isn’t a bad place and if you squint you could maybe think it’s a “village like” atmoshere – it’s got a High Street! Then 2 mins onto the A1 for the airport, and pretty much on the start of the Cyclone route for the road riding!

Would possibly recommend one for a mortgage – we got a good one who showed us a few options and some good information on what to look for (exit fees etc. rahter than joining fees).

For ISAs and general savings a quick internet search will probably give you the best deals.

I’m not sure a FA would suggest, say, paying money into a current account to get their £5 month bonus then transferring somewhere else for example. They might actually be tied to certain firms too.

To be honest if I had to pay for their services I wouldn’t even consider them. I can live with them getting a ‘cut’ of the mortgage/pension etc. from the finnace company if it doesn’t cost me anything. Up front fees will kill them stone dead in my opinion.

I agree with Warton. I’ve climbed vertical walls with a 68t front ring and a 4t rear cog. MTFU fella!

Tshk, kids today don’t know they’re born 🙄

Oh, and yes, if you go for a Shimano compact chainset you should be able to slot in straight into the current bb. Unless crit racing/sprinting you’ll not miss the larger front ring.

Hora – Rival is fine. Planet X were doing a Sram Red full bike a while ago for something daft like £999 (my mate was tempted). On inspection if was just shifters and rear mech or something daft with low rent brakes etc.

Cycling Plus just did a review of Sram Apex (basically Rival with a long rear cage mech), Shim 105 and Campag Centaur and they came out in favour of Sram because you could stick a 32t rear cassette on it. 105 was 500g heavier but better quality they reckoned.

If you want cheaper with mudguard clearance Scott Speedster (S65 I think) looks canny. Alloy though.

Oh, and 14st 6’3″ of me doesn’t seem to find the PX carbon flexy….

I think I forgot to mention that I need a selection of pubs selling soft southern shandies

That rules Stocksfield out then – no pubs at all!!!

Bear in mind anything that requires you to drive past Team Valley/Metrocentre on the A1 will take you a long time (especially at Christmas when all the grannies go out in rush hour to buy presents).

Probably want to have a look up the Tyne Valley – Corbridge, Wylam, even Hexham. Keeps you on the right side of the town for access to the airport (A69 is decent road in for you) – that’s access to the wilds.

North of the city you’re looking at things like Stannington (nice little village) maybe, or up to Morpeth. Again, just off the main A1 so commutable with ease.

Again, you have a choice – east of city is seaside so not much riding, south is Gateshead/Sunderland but again urban and a bad way to be coming into Newcastle (though if you’re used to London traffic it probably seems like an open carfree road).

Had a big molar out last year, similar story to you.

Thankfully it came out ‘reasonably’ cleanly, though it was worrying when dentist at dental hospital said “if you drink liquids and it starts coming out of your nose then pop back in…..”

Sure, you can copy the tunes across to whatever backup device you want. It’s not a royal pain to drop them back onto the computer and reindex.

That’s ripped CDs mind, never purchased off iTunes – always prefer to buy the CD and rip it myself, same price really, and I get a CD and better quality if I want than downloads.

Go for it. A little dock into the home music system is useful too.

Real advantage of Apple stuff is that everyone makes a wide range of docks etc.

HDD problems? Well, there is a risk all those expensive tunes you’ve downloaded from iTunes would be lost, though I’m not sure if you can actually redownload them again.

if you’re just after ripping all your old CDs onto iPod via the PC then you’ll still have the originals so less of an issue.

Any downsides to using iTunes / Ipods?? (Can you tell I really am new to this?)

Yes, you suddenly realise you did buy that Roxette CD all those years ago when you go through the album collection ripping them to computer.

Assuming square taper bb, then should be obvious even with rough tape measuring that it’s either a 68 or 73mm bb shell. As to what axle length you’ll need for your cranks, that’s a different matter, though 113mm is standard for a mtb triple I think…

Suppose crossbar is lower down to shoulder the bike, but on the positive side it might be a better height for carrying if you are shorter, lift the wheels etc. up higher.

Probably only one way to find out really – buy it and test it out.

In fairness to Wiggle some articles turned up 3 days before even I thought about ordering them through their site. And that was just standard delivery, not eddie-in-the-space-time-continuum delivery. 😀

Something like this?

Protectors

Vaguely remember reading somewhere that a 10 speed rear mech is required, though I suspect that might have been Shimano/SRAM marketing speak.

Can’t believe 10 speed chainrings wouldn’t fit on your current chainset. Though looking at the price of chainrings buying a new chainset might be just as cheap….

But I’d go for the 22/36 suggestion and keep the current setup. In fact that probably just means a 36t chainring…

Spec always had ‘previous’ on specs. I once, out of boredom worked out it’d be cheaper to buy an S-Works frame and buy the bits myself as Joe Public than what they were charging with their (presumably) good discount on stuff.

Shimano stuff has just gone mental in price, £150+ for XT chainsets?!

I wouldn’t be suprised if there’s been a little bit of loss leading in previous years and maybe the Alvio stuff is a reflection of real price of components.

Though I suspect it’s either a marketing thing – if you’re spending £1500 on a bike you’re serious so maybe ‘another’ £200 to get the next model up with SLX is something you might consider.

Or maybe MTBs aren’t a niche market now so punters will pay the money to get the ‘name’ despite the shoddy kit hanging off it.

Nothing to do with helmets, it’s all about not carrying anything these days.

My best mates a postie. He says the clever management have just realised you can’t actually push the trollies about in the snow (unsurprisingly!). Or in flats. Or on houses with steps up to the path. Etc.

And the vans don’t work too well either in the snow but they’ve committed to buying something like 4000 Corsa vans (and thousands of PDAs too for the signing of recorded deliveries) they now don’t really want.

Don’t expect to get any mail during winter from now on….

I’m quite happy that my licence fee goes towards creating a politically unbiased news site so

Yeah right

If it can cut a ripe tomato easily it’s as sharp as you’ll need.

CTRL and F5 normally sorts things out. Might be differing versions of Chrome so you can never really be 100% sure if someone else says it’s working on their version.

If you want an identical ratio to your current 22 front, 32 rear then a quick reckoning is that you’ll need a 46 rear cog to run with the 32t front…. 😯

24/36 would give you about the same ratio. To be honest, I’d just leave as it with the double on the front.

You could leave the 32t ring on as a ‘bashguard’ and try one of those chainkeepers (“Jump stop” I think) that is just a plate attached to the seattube. Suddenly it isn’t as ‘simple’ anymore and it’s almost worth leaving the front mech on and a shifter…..

Equally, the nursery could burn down.

But I suspect childminders calling in sick and going on holiday probably happens a little more often 😛

Maybe something to ask the childminder – what type of backup plans there are, do they know some other childminders that could handle extra kid for a few days.

Of course, trying to get your little one to stay with strange new women in a different environment whilst you are desperately late for work as you’ve driven 30 mins trying to find their house might be fun….

Like Sniff says. Childminder calls in sick or decides when she wants to go on holiday then you’re left holding the proverbial baby.

Never regretted our nursery. Little gets to interact with lots of different adults and children.

And as a bonus the nursery staff are always keen to get a few extra pounds doing babysitting duties if you haven’t got anybody else to do it, which saves having strangers turn up at your door and trying to explain that to the kids. Obviously that depends if you think they are okay or not in the first place.

Apparently that is the ‘justification’ – “I would never have downloaded it if it cost, but I did and therefore I went out and bought their entire back catalogue. Blah blah blah”

I did read something somewhere (can’t remember where) that despite people saying that, not many people actually do.

Go to Amazon, play the 20 second clips from the album. If you like it buy it.

Always a good market on eBay for Islabikes so you’ll get back a decent wedge whence you come to sell, if that sweetens the pill a little?

Oh, and that cheque also has a specimen of your signature too!

Apparently this will have great benefits and longer lives.

Ultimately if we ban or price all “nasty” things out of existance we’ll end up with a country full of 1000 years bores heads all expecting to be looked after.

Maybe we should consider dropping the price so there are plenty of care home spaces available, and I can retire earlier….

There is a form the doc will probably get you to fill in. About 10 questions IIRC all kinda “rating from 1 to 10, 10 being the worst…..”, things like bad sleep, suicidal thoughts etc.

It all works on a rating system, and something you can repeat at a later date to see if things are improving.

Just say you are suffering, pretty much what your first paragraph says.

Long walks are good. So are long bikes rides. Sometimes it’s just reminding yourself there are things to be happy about that is all the kickstart you need, sometimes you need a little help.

Good luck fella, there are plenty of people on here ready to listen to rants if that’s all you feel like getting off your chest.

Do LA for a day or two 9even just to tick the box saying you’ve been), stay at Beverley Hills or something. Do Rodeo Drive to keep missus happy.

Then fly up to Vegas (internal flights are cheap). Spend a few days there.

Hire a car from there and cruise down to Grand Canyon (maybe in your Mustang) for a couple of ‘romantic’ days watching the sunset (top tip – if you do that take a torch as it’s dark quickly and they don’t have many lights!).

Then cruise back, hop on a shuttle to SF (or drive up).

Insert a few other recommendations in the schedule as appropriate.

Like Graeme Obree? Their treatment of him blows their argument out of the water.

Not sure if this is the same thing. I don’t know the Obree story too well, but wasn’t it that they decided his position/bike setup was inappropriate rather than any technological advances?

I can’t understand how more breakaway, non-UCI races/events aren’t happening.

One breakaway race and you’ll never get invited to the TdF – the only bike race the big sponsors wreally want to get into for it’s (albeit slightly mlimited) exposure to their audience.

Ask them to add on a bit extra if they are not paying as a gift to cover your paypal fees.

To be honest I don’t think there’s much of a leg to stand on if you don’t send and it’s outside of eBay regardless of gift or not.

So what if a bike doesn’t have double triangle shape, or the “tube” profile is not 3:1 or less. Let Trek, ‘Dale, Giant etc. and Pro/Amatuer riders determine what makes the most efficient way of transferring human energy into the required motion.

UCIs argument is you end up with an elite band of makers who can afford the best technology to make their bikes the best and most efficient, then only all the rich riders (or countries) can afford to buy them, thus giving other riders/nations an instant disadvantage.

Bit like saying the USA athlete only has to run 90m, and the Tongan needs to do the full 100m.

Though of course I am painfully aware the big companies (Trek, Giant and Specialized) already rule the roost and US/European riders are at the forefront of the sport anyway….

Slam a set of Schwalbe XRs on the steed (or some kinda ‘urban’ inverted grip tyres.

Everything else will be fine. There are a lot of onroad sections like fatmax says, depending on grouse season or whatever you might not even be allowed up Rookhope. Pretty much cinderpath for the last section around Consett.

I’ve done it a few times in both two days and three days. Three days will cover anyone who’s ever ridden a bike.

Hopefully gonna go for a one-dayer this year…

Funny how people would refuse to pay the extra couple of pennies on frame price, but are completely happy that Trek et al give their very expensive bikes away to pro teams with the obvious cost being absorbed by the normal punters anyway.

Still, seems a crazy idea when you first see it, but then I’m not sure how much these bike companies or trade teams pay into the UCI already. Turning up at an event then having to stand in a long line whilst someone with a clipboard gets his ruler out is probably annoying and expensive for all concerned.

It’s the likes of, say, Cotic who sponsor a cyclocross rider who are gonna drop out as it might be overtly expensive, though looks like more ‘traditional’ bikes get through cheap.