Wider tyres & double wrap the bars with tape on the tops & drop.

We have family property up in the mountains in Kyrenia, North Cyprus is an amazing place. A bit qwerky but I love it there. In early September it’ll still be 30 deg plus weather wise, so it’ll be really hot still. I’ve not done much riding there to be honest, but the military areas are pretty well defined.

Have a look at these guys, http://www.cyprusactive.com/about_us.html they might be able to help with bike hire, routes & riding. They are friends of friends of the in laws. They are Brits and have been running it for a while so might have some good info for you & be able to help with bike hire. You could ride in the mountains for weeks though & never see anyone else!!

Kyrenia is a good place & the harbour is really nice, there’s turtle beach, bellapais abbey, St Hilarion castle & depending when you’re there, the blue house, but you need your passports & to go onto military property for that but all are great places to see & go. There are great restaurants all over & the food is really amazing. Just watch out for the crazy local drivers!!!

Might have a run down to the BMF show tomorrow morning, if not maybe a road ride tomorrow early doors, then off to a Chatsworth for the eventing on Sunday with the Mrs & dogs

Cash isn’t really king anymore when it comes to buying a car, they all want to sell on finance. If your part exing, they might give you a bit more for your car than book price but my recent experience they hardly give anything away discount wise. This was a main dealer though.

It all depends how much you want the car & if your prepared to walk away but I’d doubt you’ll get anywhere near 50-25% off the price

Shoei for me, they fit me really well. I had an AGV GP Tech (dog ate it!!) & an Arai RX7 prior to the Shoei & neither were as comfortable or fitted as well. The shoei is really well made too. I think they do a version with a drop down black visor in it too now, maybe the Quest?

Likewise in my vaypors, I’m usually a size 10 uk / eu 44 but I needed a 46 in the vaypors, they seem to come up small

I;ve got an Enigma Etape Ti & a Columbus Spirit Burls, they are both excellent quality & finish. If i had to choose one of them, i’d have a rally hard job, the enigma is really the winter bike and the Burls for sunny days but they are both excellent and i’d have no problem dealing again with either of them.

The CD player. We’d only just got one at home &
Had borrowed a few music cd ‘s from the library to try it out,, tomorrows world were giving away cd’s, I phoned for 3 days but didn’t get one

Henry Hoover for us. It’s great

We have a black lab & a long haired Siberian forest cat so the Hoover gets plenty of abuse. We killed a Dyson, Electrolux pet & Miele pet before we got Henry. We’ve had it 3 years with no issue

Columbus spirit road bike here and I echo the above. Great ride & Justin is a pleasure to deal with.

I’ve got a couple of zepplin airs. Once worked perfectly, the other needed a firmware update until it flashed up yellow then purple flashing. It was a while ago but I had the b&w app downloaded & plugged it into my laptop I think to do it

Petplan ultimate with condition for life for us.

Our rescue dog had both his front elbows operated on last spring, it turned out £2k per leg vets fees, they dealt directly with the vets, settled the bill no issue & paid for all his medicine. If he’s needed to stay of the medicine for life, they’d have paid for that too. Our cat is insured by them too.

There are a few people we know who have gone for cheaper cover and the dogs are seriously ill or need big operations where they have had to find the rest themselves and if its vets bills they rack up quickly.

Most vets seem to prefer petplan because they pay out for the majority of claims where others don’t. I have no affiliation to them, but in my experience of having to use them they have been great.

We got married in march, church wedding, 80 people for the day, additional 50 for the night, excluding honeymoon, it cost us just over £15k. We could have cut cost out of it, but at that price our photographer was a close friend we had really good rate with, the flowers were done at trade by the maid of honour, so there was potential for it to be more.

Keep an eye on costs, it’s easy for it to snowball. Guideline prices i’d say based on my experience, The church is about £600, dress + adjustments & extras £1.5k, venue & food £6k, flowers £500, photographer £1k, that’s £9k before you include cars, suits, bridge maid dresses, shoes, hair, make up, DJ, cake etc etc etc.

There’s a small jewellers at the bottom of Hale high street who loves haggling and will give you a few options for your budget I’m sure if he’s still there. I moved away and back to Nottingham 4 years ago, but last time i passed it still looked like he was doing ok!

I’d stay away from high street stores, find an independent and haggle haggle haggle.

Just remember, with the band, whatever you chose, 9ct, 18ct, platinum etc, the wedding band is supposed to match so the bands are the same hardness / softness.

I chose my other halfs, but I knew what she wanted. The stone is the important part, with an independent, you’ll chose the stone & they’ll put it whatever band you chose dependant on budget. Plus they’ll polish / clean it & look after it generally too. Just make sure the stone is certified.

All I’d say is, she’s going to show the ring off to everyone when you get engaged and she will keep it forever, so it’s worth spending on & it’s got to be right. Forget the one month / two month wage thing, stick to your budget, shop around and buy the best you can for what you have to spend.

Sounds more fuel related to me, you wouldn’t restart it if the battery was flat. Might sound daft but have you checked the spark plugs & leads? I used to have an astra that used to be a bit on & off like that, after changing the plugs & leads, it seemed to fix it

Bob Heath visor spray. Worked wonders on my Oakleys

I have an 18″ 26er, it’s running a 100mm stem and its a good size. I’m 5’11 with 29″ legs, usually i prefer bigger frames. I’ve got a lot of seatpost showing and If I was much taller I’d want the 19.5. I’d say I was on the limit of the 18″

Evans price match winstanleys. Have you looked at halfords online? Sometimes they come up cheaper too

Maybe infinity too thinking about it.

J&S maybe too. Their websites were really poor last time I looked though.

Generally, I tend to but my kit from dealers with a decent selection. Depends what your looking for really. Although, I’ve bought stuff online from onyerbike, riders, etc. most seem to out clearance stuff on eBay though. I’m based in Nottingham so I usually go to CMC’s in chesterfield or Pidcock’s that have a decent section and its a ride out too.

How do the frames come up size wise? I have 56cm & 57 cm usually in a road bike, but would I need a 54cm or 57cm in one of these?

Mulberry all the way. If your going to have a man bag, have a nice one

Typically my local in Nottingham is £3 fit a pint of London Pride. £3.50-£4 for a peroni. More local beer is around £2.50-£3 a pint for castle rock or other local beers.

South wise, I was out in Brighton where my sister lives no long ago and it came to £10 for a London pride & a glass if wine & about £10 for a pint of moretti & a London pride.

I remember when I lived in reading 10 years ago and j was ashtonished it cost me £3.50 for a pint of Stella at the Swan at Pangbourne. I’m only 32 and also remember going out for a Saturday night with £30, coming home plastered and also having change in my pocket!!

It’s my choice to drink, I enjoy drinking with friends, family & the wife, so I’m not particularly fussed if it costs me £3 or £10 a pint. The only correlation it might have is if I drank 3 pints or 10 pints!

It isn’t really for sale as such but I’ve been to see a new bike today that I’m likely to buy, so I have a kawasaki z1000 03 with about 12,000 miles on it sat doing not a lot that your welcome to have for £3k. It’s a great bike, I bought it for commuting on sunny days but hardly use it, so I’d prefer for it to go to a good home rather than trade in

I own a Panigale R & a 1098s track bike too that I use instead on proper sunny day ride outs & track, but I really want an older 1098s Streetfighter.

If your asking people to carry it too, you need to consider manual handling regs maybe? It used to be around 25kg per person

Bike scene have a load of specialized frames on discount at the moment.

Have you been going for the bitex hubs?

What are they like and are spares ok?

Its a bad picture, but this is my enigma etape, purple chris king (just awaiting the BB to match) ultegra drivetrain, thomson, etc

I have a litespeed too, but i love the enigma, thinking of buying another at some point soon.

I have a tiny bit on a credit card, but I could pay it off tomorrow if I wanted to. I have a mortgage too.

Think it’s been said before but credit cards are a very good way of using money if your disciplined and pay it off, keeping your cash invested until you need to pay the bill.

The other half has a 1.4 petrol sxi and loves it. Bit underpowered but she’s only using it to go to work & back so doesn’t need much else. Boot space is good and seems plenty of room in it. Had no mechanical problems so far and seems pretty bombproof.

Very nice. If the ultegra Chainset is a compact I’d be interested in it for my enigma etape? (Email in profile)

Just been talking to Jim at Enigma about another bike, maybe an Elite but just weighing up the options

We live in Mapperley, been here a few years and prior to that Woodborough & Woodthorpe. It’s really handy for good pubs & local amenities. It’s a bitch to get over the city to the m42 after 7:30am though. I do it most days and go early to miss the traffic.

West bridgeford is nice enough. Few good pubs & restaurants. At least to get out to the motorway it’s easy, but they are just redoing the A453 and its 40mph with average speed cameras on it for the moment.

The park is nice too if you want central town. Wollaton is overrated in my humble opinion.

We’ve just about settled on selling again & moving out towards Epperstone / Hoveringham way in the near future, there are lots of nice villages around between Newark & Nottingham with good transport links if your not fussed about living in the city.

Thanks guys,

I did look at the Mercian, they are pretty local to me too. So custom fitting would be easy. That Planet X is good value but not really for me to be honest.

I’m not racing at the moment, just general riding & club runs, so it needs to be a little bit durable too but it’s not the be all for me. Anyone got any experience of the BBright bottom brackets on the cervelo too?

Brakes wise, it’ll be a sunny day bike so I’d say discs wouldn’t be essential just trying to future proof a bit

As above, get a longer lever and make sure your turning the pedal the right way.

If not, plus gas is the way to go

I have kings on all my bikes, have done for years, the only special tools I’ve ever needed are a pair of Allen keys to get into them and relube them. They are all still good as new, covered a lot of miles and needed very little adjustment except for the little cone adjuster thing on the side which turns by hand. I’ve never had any call to replace the bearing in them and the bearings have always been superb.

That said, I’m not sure they are the be all and end all, i just prefer them. Phil woods are really good and I’d have no problem with Dt’s either. Royce look amazing too, i’d love to try some but I’m just not convinced about them. As far as functionality goes, something like an XT or Ultegra are great for the price

more then likely eviljoe!!

Their screen was the same for me on the iphone, but all fine on my laptop.

willard, try again, ive just ordered a couple of pairs of shorts in XL

Just in the interest of balance, we got married in march this year, totally relaxed day and had a proper sit down meal. It’s your wedding day, and we wanted something special, not something informal you can knock together on a sunny afternoon with your mates. The place we had our reception for was double starred and we had about 80 for the day, so the food was excellent, but even if it wasn’t starred, we would still have opted for the sit down meal.

There’s plenty of time to mingle with your guests during the day, it’s nice to sit down with your new mrs and family and enjoy nice food after the wedding.

I really want one of these…..I have no idea why but I love them! How tall are you and what size do you ride?

I’ve got a pair of r45’s waiting to be built up, I got them months ago from aspire velotech and at that point the importers didn’t have any r45 or iso hubs left, so you might be struggling to get any.

I’m after a road bb so was looking at aspire velotech again the other night but there are only a few bits left now