Some of that opening footage – you realise how grim UK was in the 70’s…

If you have the driver’s details, please report it and see where you get with it.
I’m tired of hearing stories about people acting like bullies when they get behind the wheel, it’s cowardly…
This driver needs to learn to care about other people a little more and having his collar felt may help him understand he needs to grow up a little!

Surely dropping the price is your best strategy?

The bad news is the UK personal debt situation is about to get a whole lot worse, believe it or not.

I was talking to a friend last week who works in the Bank of England and asking him what the underlying driver of this forecast is and he simply said ‘increased access to credit’

Personally I’m wondering if we’ve all gone stark, raving mad 😯

There’s a reason why yoga is still practiced several thousand years since it was created (guessing at the years but you get the point!)
I def recommend getting classes so you get taught good habits. Easier to turn up to a class than try and discipline yourself by doing it on your own.
Great for core strength, which is great for climbing, power and strength. Great to undo all the damage you’re doing by tightening your hamstrings by being a regular rider.
Personally I highly recommend yoga to everyone for everything, but I do think it;s particularly useful for regular riders

I moved from a lifetime of SPDs to flats a few years ago. It does feel like more effort to climb or on the flat as you don’t quite sit and spin but overall I much prefer it. You actively ride the bike more as you think more about what you do with your feet. I love the wider platform which allows you to pump more and to put more weight on the outside foot in corners, which helps make you feel more in control. I’m also more relaxed as I know if I come off the bike I won’t stay attached to it – which so far seems to mean I fall off less in the first place! Five Tens and Shimano DX pedals FWIW

If you don’t like busy roads, stay off the A25 – it’s the main route through Surrey Hills, fast and twisty and not everyone who drives down it appears to be capable of remembering there’s lots of cyclists around and driving accordingly 😯

+1 for Ciclo Montana!

Get some sugar in you, eat a decent-sized tea early, get to bed early, decent breakfast and make sure you have plenty of stuff to graze on at work – banana, malt loaf, raisins, nuts etc. Be prepared to drink lots tomorrow too
I did a very muddly 19 miles on the MTB yesterday and 40 miles on the road bike today and the muddy ride was far harder… mud is hard work!

You’ll need to grow a beard to fit in 🙂

Another war would be a great boost to GDP from increased government spending, most of which would go to European firms…

Or am I getting rather cynical in middle-age?

Are Campagnolo working on a disc brake? I suspect those who prefer Campag over Shimano won’t go near discs until they’ve brought something to market, which is a fair chunk of riders

I ride with a South London club which isn’t short of people who like chi-chi kit or short of a few bob and no-one has a disc-braked road bike yet. I suspect the demand really isn’t there yet, so mass takeup will be a while off.

Also – my summer road bike has c12k+ miles on it over 5 years and I’m still on the original brake blocks – I basically don’t brake that much – most of the riding is riding along for miles and miles.

My commuter is a totally different kettle of fish – blocks need replacing every 3 months in winter – it’s wet and there’s loads of stopping at lights and junctions etc.

I don’t think discs are necessary on most road bikes – CX and commuters maybe…

Sounds rough OP.
However:
Most important thing to remember is this is mental illness in that there’s nothing actually wrong with you – it’s just your thoughts that are out of whack – and thoughts can be changed – CBT generally reckoned to be the best proven treatment that we know of… highly recommended IME.

A couple of very positive points in your favour:
1. You’ve recognised you have a problem and you’ve asked for, and received help – that’s a really important step. Over the years I’ve had quite a few close friends suffer from episodes of depression and those that have come through it accepted they had a problem and took responsibility for it – as you are.
2. Your other half is clearly understanding and supportive – another really important aspect of your situation
3. It’s much more socially accepted than it used to be – which means there’s more info available and more understanding.

I can recommend this book as being a good starting point as well as CBT:

Feeling Good

I can also recommend staying clear of alchohol and junk food – eat really healthily, get lots of sleep and get out on your bike as much as you can – endorphins and dopamine are ace 🙂

First road ride of the year in 3/4s and windproof instead of winter top. I’m calling Spring here in London Village.
Although the forecast for next weekend is rain and 20mph winds 🙂

Ask someone who guides natural trails rather than STW ie a professional – try one of the guiding companies in the Lakes, North Wales or Scotland.
I suspect they’ll steer you towards learning how to read a map and compass. Judging weather and wind and being able to match map with terrain are other essential skills.
Worth also asking mountain rescue what they recommend – they’ll have plenty of experience carrying people off the hill and I’m sure they’ll have a view on reliance on GPS…
Re Brecon in particular – ask yourself why the British Army and Special Forces use it for training if it’s a benign environment

I gather a lot of cars are bought on credit with monthly payments, whilst at the same time personal debt is increasing and hardly anyone’s paying enough into their pension – flash car now, starvation and penury at 65 – yay 😯

Buy second hand for cash if you can, something which is as reliable and comfortable as you need – buying a depreciating asset on debt as about as stupid a financial decision as you can make.

A 3 year old second-hand Ford Focus is as fast as a willy-waving status-mobile in a traffic jam, after all!

So, she jumped a red light, didn’t look before pulling away and is now backsliding away from taking responsibility and trying to blame you.
How many signs do you need that you’re dealing with someone who can’t be trusted?

Not having a go at you OP but she’s already proven herself to be willing to break the law and try and walk away from it, and you’ve suffered damage as a result. Not a lot of justice for you or the next person she knocks off if you go down the informal route (assuming the backsliding she’s already doing is her last, which I doubt it will be)…

It really is about time people realised how serious the consequences of bad driving are and this ‘lady’ will be far less likely to misunderstand this if she’s taken through the full formal legal process…

Slightly OT but Bob Hare’s book on psychopathy (reckoned to be the leading authority on psychopaths) says 1:100 people have traits of a psychopath – that means most of us will know a few…
I can think of 3 people I’ve worked with who were deeply manipulative and lacking in empathy to a degree which was really quite shocking when you watched them carefully. Some of the lies were so blatant you wanted to laugh and they all had long histories of falling out with people . But there’s plenty of people who thought these people were actually quite nice – basically they knew what to say to who to keep their image as a ‘good’ person.
I think a lot of people would prefer the world to be a nice place so they almost deliberately refuse to see the signs of evil – and this is exactly what the most manipulative people will prey on… paedophiles I suspect are much the same as psychopaths in that respect…

The quintessential London commuter IMO is any of the Condor singlespeeds – Pista being the real classic or a Tempo if you’re middle-aged (it takes guards and a rack). It helps that they’re lovely bikes to ride.

A mate of mine who I’ve known since our early 20’s (early 40’s now) set up and runs his own design agency about 10 years ago. He told me he was totally left of centre till he took the risk and put all his own effort into setting up this agency and saw how much of his hard work disappeared in taxes and moved sharply rightwards! I have a lot of sympathy for this – it’s all been off his own back, no government help but still sees a chunk of his self-created income disappear. I don’t think he has a problem with taxes per se, just the %.

As for myself I’ve always believed that the Tories were the party most trustworthy in running the economy but looking at the games and lies being bandied around by the current lot: pensioner bonds, subsidising an already over-valued housing market, claiming our wages are rising and today’s command to business to pay higher wages – as opposed to honestly admitting that the economy is still incredibly weak and setting out evidence-based plans for generating future growth – I really don’t want to give them my vote – more for the dishonesty than for the failure to produce any real growth. No idea who to vote for this time – no way Miliband and Balls are any more competent on proper, technocratic plans for keeping us afloat

It’s not good. People getting highly emotional, combined with extreme dogma and limited empathy, a clash of values and a sense of grievance. Tends to end in fisticuffs…
We need our very best diplomats all over this stuff… it’s all getting a bit ideological

Daffs on their way through, blue skies, blossom beginning to show and taking layers off on the club ride in the Southern South.
I love Spring 🙂

Are they actually knackered?

Well… that’s why I’ve asked the question. The LBS in question is a ‘premium’ one which has pitched itself very firmly (and very successfully to be fair) at the born-again yuppie MAMILs of South East London so they may (or may not) have got into the habit of claiming things need replacing to people with fat wallets but without the history of riding and experience of kit to know when they’re being told nonsense…

The mechanic didn’t seem to like it when I resisted him putting a whole new headset and asked him to just put in new bearings instead.

I also asked him if he could replace my gear cable inners as they’re getting a bit less slippy and he told me that on top of the BB and headset that would effectively be a full service as it would mean adjusting the indexing too. Having done this myself many times (I was just feeling lazy), I know that replacing inners is not a difficult job at all, so I told him I’d do it myself. Not sure he was too happy with that either.

Will probably go to Brixton Cycles or Condor next time tbh…

Well the middle class are on their way out – the future is the uber rich and the poor with nothing in the middle…

Guards or no guards?

Full SKS Chromoplastics.

Just checked the Condor site and their headsets are only £35 so probably not the world’s best and the Centaur BB is under £20 on Wiggle – I tend to have Chris King and Hope on my MTBs so I’m used to stuff lasting – but a £35 headset is never going to compare with that kind of quality…

It’s not pricey to replace this stuff every couple of years…

The existing road network is perfectly fine IMO. It’s the motor vehicles, and in particular the way in which some of them are driven which create the danger and inconvenience…
I’d rather the time and money was spent on sorting out the construction lorries which continue to be over-represented in the dead-cyclist data and on proper enforcement of existing driving laws…
The point of cycling in London is it’s quick and convenient – having to go down into the tunnel and take a pre-defined route provides no kind of solution to the actual problem

I’m sure consultancy has a need but some of the stuff I see coming from consultants smells badly of snake oil. Either it’s so wrapped up in jargon that it’s effectively meaningless (although George Orwell argues in Politics and The English Language that this is deliberate confusion to disorientate you), or it just looks like commonsense and the obvious wrapped up to look like some great insight. If you like working with normal people in meaningful work you may or may not enjoy this kind of stuff…

I’m working with some people at the moment with a consultancy background and frankly I struggle to get any significant meaning from some of the slides they produce. The client loves it of course – but she has to, she’s paying a fortune for it! Personally it makes me feel really insecure – it’s hard to know quite what to say sometimes when there’s no real intellectual substance to stuff that everyone around you is declaring to be ‘great work’…

Find out from their website names of senior people, especially in the area you’re interviewing for and then google those people and see if there’s anything they’ve said in the press about their role and objectives
look at their linked in accounts – look at their experience and look at how they describe their roles.
Find out if you know someone who works there already -maybe through an existing contact, and see if they’re happy to have an off the record chat.
Find out the name(s) of your interviewer(s) and look them up on linked in – find out what you have in common in your careers so you know where you can find common ground…

One of my best mates divorced his first wife after he realised what the rest of us knew – that she was halfway to being a psychopath. She’s in HR.
I remember the look of horror on his face when he told me the story of how she went to an employee’s house who was on long-term sickness absence – to interview him to check he was genuinely ill (which I believe is normal procedure and fair enough IMO.)
Anyway – the sick employee pissed himself in his chair as he was too intimidated by this woman to say he needed to go to the toilet… Knowing her very well I can well imagine this happening.

She’s now very senior in HR – last thing I heard she was providing executive coaching to senior members of a FTSE 100… go figure how someone with so little empathy is now influencing senior people how to behave at work 😯

I suspect the two weeks off my GP gave me in 2006 after I had a near-breakdown at work was deliberately enough time to let me get me a sense of perspective on the situation and to help me think more rationally.

I resigned shortly afterwards to go freelancing and things got a lot better after that.

One thing I learnt OP was that the stress was more about my own response to an unpleasant situation than the situation itself – and that my response was 100% under my control.

Take the time off, think through how you can change your own response/improve the situation and see how it goes. Mindfulness, yoga and the obvious riding of your bike likely to help too. Personally over the last couple of years I’ve found riding into work through the short, dark days of winter has really helped boost my response to work pressures at this time of year…

Good luck…

If that bbc story has correctly reported the findings of the study then how come professional athletes aren’t dying in their hundreds, and club runners? I suspect there’s some misreporting/misinterpretation going on in there somewhere…

Can’t think of anything to say that I think will be helpful except best wishes at what is clearly a difficult time…

Expect the standard to be crap – much lower than you’d get in a place you own.

Don’t make the mistake I did and google the agent/landlord after you’ve signed the lease and find they have a reputation for witholding deposits on departure based on false claims… do this before!

Do use one of the secure deposit schemes – if they refuse to then they’re crooks – no-one genuine would be unhappy with you wanting to do this – walk away.

Do make your own inventory and photos (of absolutely everything) the day you move in (time-stamped) and again when you move out so you have your own evidence of the condition of the place…

Worth employing professional cleaners when you move out – many do ‘end of rental’ cleans. Not cheap but if you choose one with consistently good online reviews and you have a receipt and photos of a pristine flat then it’s harder for any agent or landlord to suggest you didn’t leave the place in good nick

+1 re avoiding agents if at all possible. I’ve never met one who wasn’t a cynical, stupid liar…

If you’ve never done a winter Munro before, then for God’s sake, get yourself a day’s winter hillwalking training – use of crampons and axe, when not to use them, winter nav etc etc before even thinking about going out…
Have you any idea what a Scottish whiteout is like?
I mate of mine who’s a winter ML likes to point out that the vast majority of falls in winter in the UK are people falling over their own feet in crampons…Scottish winter walking is a whole world away from regular walks in the Peaks. All kinds of risks and judgement that you’ve never had to deal with before…

Take a look at Condor. Their own brand deep drops are really nice

Try it and see for yourself.
Worth thinking about how many road pros use MTB shoes and pedals?

I had a broken collarbone in 2007 which took 18 months to fix and def found it hard to keep my mood up.
My physio could see this and she gave me a load of core strength exercises (an hour’s worth a day) to keep me feeling strong and occupied.
I bought a home trainer and used to ride that when I wanted to ride – either a gentle spin in front of the TV or an interval session.
Also, just going for walk does wonders for your mood, especially if you can get out into the woods or fields.
Moodscope is a very good tool for keeping an eye on your mood too.
It won’t be as bad as you fear, I suspect

Not my experience. The problem is the ones who don’t have a ton of car at their disposal.
Also see NearMissProject – http://rachelaldred.org/research/feeling-the-pinch/
“For the cyclist, it is a no-win situation. Some explicitly referred to what they perceived as a choice between a high risk of an unsafe pass, if near the kerb, and a lower risk of (even more frightening) deliberate aggression, if in primary position.”

I 100% agree with your fundamental point Simon – I missed out presumed liability in my list! But as a measure amongst many I think a lot of cyclists – especially the less experienced ones would be more confident and more assertive in the face of aggression if they knew their rights and they knew how to manage traffic. This over time would help make it clear to the more bullying type of driver, or the simply ignorant, that cyclists have as much right of way, and as much power as they do…

I also struggle with the ‘damned if I do, damned if I don’t’ aspect of primary – not least the amount of grief I get from my club secretary for doing it!

I’ve experimented with different techniques and over time I’ve found a good solid look over my shoulder (or several) as I approach the narrowing which requires primary, an assertive signal to show I’m pulling out, then pulling back in when appropriate and a wave to say thank you when there’s space for the car to pass, tends to lead to drivers holding back.

Doesn’t work all the time I grant you, but being more assertive and deliberate does help remind drivers that you have as much authority as they do…

John Franklin has some interesting points to make in a chapter called ‘sharing the roads’ e.g. “curiously the biggest mistake made by many cyclists is that they are too submissive when sharing the roads, somehow feeling that they must always allow priority to motor vehicles. It is precisely this attitude that causes many of their difficulties in traffic”

Training obviously can go a very long way in educating cyclists away from this attitude