Amazon are excellent (notwithstanding the tax issues).

1. New satnav broke a couple of days before a foreign holiday. Quick e-mail to Amazon (in the evening), and a new one on the way within an hour (via courier, since I had mentioned it was urgent).

2. Goods not received from an Amazon marketplace seller. Complaint to Amazon – instant refund.

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P5200138[/url] by paulcheshirecat[/url], on Flickr

Almost zero maintenance bike – Alfine hub and BB7 gears. Used on road this morning – has cross tyres for bridleways etc if I’m in the mood. Pretty heavy though.

I use a Pompetamine as a cross/winter bike and the BB7s it has are just excellent. No wear on the rims, and excellent all-weather stopping power. Way more than the contact patch of the tyre.

I run tubeless Maxxis Advantage in 2.1 width all year, and they seem to cope with dusty French trails in the summer, to snow and mud in the winter. I too cannot be bothered changing tyres.

Yep, same here.

Have one on my cross/winter bike and I just ride it and put it away. Occasionally I hose it down and lube the chain, but that’s it. There is some extra weight and drag, but it makes getting on the nice road bike more of a treat.

Just traded in my last car at 97k miles. Nothing much had gone wrong, and it should be good for another 100k. I would have kept it but for some very specific reasons.

I’m a specialist in fibre test and measurement. In reality I run seminars and webinars, and generally get paid to talk about some fairly interesting (to me) stuff.

MTB – if the mud is wet, bit of dilute Fenwicks or Muc-Off, brush to agitate, then hose off. Let dry then lube drive train (I use a wax chain lube, so not especially mucky). If really bad, take off chain (clean in neat Fenwicks) and cassette (clean in kitchen sink).

Internal geared Pompetamine with discs – wash once in a blue moon. Bought it as a low maintenance bike.

Edit: MTB takes about 10 mins.

I’ve got a Pompetamine Versa 8, and it is indeed a heavy thing, I suspect mostly because of the concentrated weight of the rear hub. If the weather is nice, I would of course much rather be riding my light road bike.

However, if the weather is crap (as indeed it mostly has been this summer), then it’s a zero maintenance bike (hose off and lube the chain). I use it as a summer “bridleway” bike, and a bad weather road bike. It’s pretty good fun on the twisty bits with the cross tyres it has fitted.

Great idea and pics. Good on her for having the nerve to let you do it.

Good luck to you both.

I have the roof mounted Thule ones (that everyone else seems to have). Seem very good, but there’s no way my wife can lift the bikes into place (and she’s from Yorkshire, so pretty tough). It’s a fairly tall car though.

Mate has the tow bar mounted one. Looks great, but I use the towbar for towing, so not an option.

I have the Leatherman Squirt. Lives in my rucsac, and the pliers are useful for changing brake pads – removing the split pin. I’ve had it for years, and the quality seems good.

The missus has a Hyundai i10. I wanted to hate it, but she made me test drive it on the motorway before she bought it, and it’s fine – even quite fun to drive. decent radio (with iPod connections), aircon etc.

£7500 brand new, seemed like a bargain.

And the car number plate replicated on the caravan of course.

I much prefer tubeless. After 2 years with no punctures, my rear tyre lost some pressure at the start of the CyB Enduro on Saturday. Sealed itself, I put a bit of air into it, and stayed up all the way around (and is still up). Wouldn’t go back.

I did do it the easy way, with tubeless rims (Mavic 819) and UST tyres (Maxxis Advantage).

I logged it as around 61km start to finish. The extra bit back to the car park made it around 63km. 1770m of climbing.

Was proper hard, and the riding past the car park with around 15km to go was evil.

Good day out though.

Don’t know either you or them, but please genuinely wish them all the best from me. Hopefully a happy ending.

Paul

I’ll be there.

Train to Kamakura to see the temples and bronze Buddha.

Wander around the Imperial Palace gardens. They were lending out bikes when I went, managed to get past the language barrier and had a spin a bike.

Thanks from me also.

Ade, any chance I can have a copy of the GPX.

Thanks, Paul

E-mail sent to you.

Paul

I have an old Olympus ultra zoom bridge camera and the picture quality is way better than all the compacts we have in the house (about 6 different versions of Lumix, Pentax, Olympus, Sony..)

I’m no great photographer, and don’t really use the manual features, but for point and shoot, the quality seems sooo much better.

My own experience – nothing more. I have a Hyundai Santa Fe 4×4, and it copes well with snow, mud etc. We need this big car for towing etc.

However, I have driven a VW Polo in very deep snow with winter tyres, and it was absolutely fantastic. I’ve also driven a big Saab in Sweden in snow/ice with spiked tyres, and that was even better (though illegal in this country).

Had it done a few years ago. Bit of shaving, anaesthetic cream beforehand (so no injections). All female team (very nice nurse), with whom I had a quick chat and then zoned out with my iPod for the duration. Worst bit was the smell of frying bacon as they sealed the ends.

Back to work next day, running a week later, on bike within two weeks – was careful with tight undies, cool pack. I’m old enough not to be embarrassed by handing in a pot of semen to anyone though. As someone said, paddling without wellies is great (wife not great with any types of pill/medicine etc.).

Honestly wish I’d had it done a few years earlier.

Within group of friends we’ve had infections, failed operations, etc., so complications can arise.

Tip from me is to buy the combined ticket for the Palatine Hill/Forum/Coliseum from the Palatine Hill entrance. Saves the queues at the Coliseum.

As above, St Peter’s, including the dome is well worth it – I really liked seeing the engineering behind the facades. Pantheon was one of my favourite sites as well.

Drinking fountains are everywhere – just take an empty bottle.

Just back from there. There’s some nice trails around Lac du Jaunay – not sure about the rest of the Vendee. I took a road bike as well, and mostly used that. Cross bike would be just about perfect, there seems to be a fair amount of gravel tracks to use as well.

My boy stepped into a puddle along the west side of that path a couple of years ago, and sank up to his waist. This is the path (left of picture) on the west side.

[/url] IMGP2817[/url] by paulcheshirecat[/url], on Flickr[/img]

2 hour road ride before breakfast, was lovely.

Been to Japan a few times, and have climbed Mt Fuji.

Travel from Narita into town is pretty easy, just use the orange bus (cheap and goes to lots of hotels), or the Narita Express – see Orange Bus

Get someone local to book the bus from Tokyo (Shinjuku in my case) to the start of the walk – there are several start points. Make sure to go back to correct start point (someone I know went to the wrong one, it’s a big mountain). The up and down routes are different paths (if that makes sense).

I took a morning bus, climbed to the top during the day, back down 1500m or so, stayed in a hut, got up at 3am to walk back up to see the sunrise. Unforgettable experience, and not an especially tough walk. Take gloves (sharp rocks), walking pole(s) and sunblock. I ended up stupidly sunburnt. In July it was 30 degrees at the base, and 0 degrees at the top.

Couple of photos to show the atmosphere.

[/url] IMGP0815[/url] by paulcheshirecat[/url], on Flickr[/img]
[/url] IMGP0763[/url] by paulcheshirecat[/url], on Flickr[/img]

Good luck. No nerves here, just felt that everyone was rooting for us. Memorised the vows, so we both did that with no prompting. Speech was easy – thank the bridesmaids, say my wife looks gorgeous (as she did (and still does)) etc., etc. Easy audience.

Only had a single pint all day/evening – just went by too fast.

I was just thinking about this yesterday as I did my annual check and top-up of the Stan’s latex inside my tubeless tyres.

I would never go back, but I deliberately went for a faff-free system, probably sacrificing some weight. Have UST rims (Mavic 819 on Hope Pro2) and UST tyres which stay on all year (Maxxis Advantage). They go up with a track pump, and don’t need any kind of rim tape. Just another step towards a low maintenance bike.

Lower pressures, no snakebite punctures, and indeed no punctures at all for the two years I’ve been using them. Others’ experience may be different of course.

Zinn here as well. Use it a lot.

Paul

A black bear, honest. It was in Canada though, about 15kms from downtown Ottawa. I figured I was faster than my mate, and that was all that counted.

Hmmm….

When I had mine done, I was given a local anaesthetic cream to use, plus a plaster to put over it to keep the cream on. No injections, and worked a treat. I followed the instructions, which is somewhat unusual for me.

I took an iPod to filter out the banter.

40 ish with 2 kids then aged around 9 and 10. Settled family life (fingers crossed) and no thoughts of any more kids.

No ill effects at all. Slight embarrassment at the female doctor having a good feel for the pipes (or so she said) at the consultation, and the all-female team at the op itself. And the smell of cooking flesh as they seal up the ends. Nice to go swimming without a wetsuit etc.

Should have done it a couple of years before.

I run UST rims and tyres with the goo. No hassle, just check and top up twice a year (unseat one of the beads and check inside). No punctures for two years (which of course means I’ll get one this weekend).

Like the wheelie bin, Duchess of York and bi-weekly suggestions. HIGNFY was good this week I thought. Cor blimey trousers a bit Dick van Dyke, and he was a chimney sweep.

You’d still need a car as a normal day-to-day vehicle anyway – my grandparents made this mistake when they bought a motorhome. They’d always had caravans, then one day my grandfather decided that a motorhome would make a nice change so sold both the car and caravan for a small-ish motorhome. Cue him banging it off every bollard, wall and parked car whenever he drove to the supermarket or to church and complaining that there was no space to carry anything

My wife’s parents did exactly this.

I don’t feel embarrassed at all. That might be because I don’t watch Top Gear

My comment was slightly tongue in cheek. I find it fairly stress free driving with it. All you can do is 60mph, so set the cruise control, sit back and relax.