Car track days are dull too many rules on overtaking. Motorbike track days are fun I’ve done over 400 and 10 years of racing. But having got properly into my mtb riding 3-4 years ago I do one or two a year now, with an average Trackday costing £3-£400 for the day, tyres and running costs with a fast bike it is expensive. By comparison mtb is peanuts, a day in the peaks costs £10 in fuel to get there and food in a cafe, even a day at a trail park is only £50 all in. Spares are cheap and tyres are throw away. The adrenalin is the same, but with mtb the freedom to ride how when and where I want is priceless. Follow a few simple rules and no one bothers you anywhere. I worked out a while back that the adrenalin buzz of being on 2 wheels was what I enjoy and it doesn’t have to be a motorbike.

Enjoyed the film but the end was bollox. James Bond 007 is the character from a 1960’s book simple as that, it seemed to me the actor got bigger than the character and the studio bought into his importance, when he said he didn’t want to do any more bond movies they should have let him go. If the next one isn’t James Bond 007 I won’t bother but I assume it will be with some sort of reboot, or the explosions didn’t kill him but did jolt him enough to kill the nanobots 🤣

And I want a land cruiser, tbh if getting somewhere was a priority it would be a better choice than a new LR 👍

Thanks for the reply, yeah I saw your thread and a couple of others on FB so thought I’d check. Sorry to hear about yours.

If you buy an ebike and ride as slow as a normal bike you won’t get much of a workout, you should give it 100% same as on a normal bike and the reward is more speed.
As for the half fat ebikes I had an ezesty and tbh don’t see the point compared to my bosch powered one. Either have a full fat ebike or a normal bike. On my local red route which has nothing hard on a normal bike I’m 48 minutes, half fat ebike 44 minutes and full fat ebike 34 minutes, giving 100% on each. My normal bike time is on a par with friends who only ride normal bikes very regularly, I mention this as I only started back on mtb 3 years ago and all my fitness has been built up on an ebike including a chunk of weight loss 👍

I just paid an electrician £800 for 2 days work, and a plumber £470 for 3 holes and some pipe, not quite the heady heights of joiner level at 2.5k a week but if it were about the money I’d consider a trade.

Was that £800 labour plus materials and/or VAT ?

Yes had this recently. There has been a couple of cases where the insurance companies have won. Basically you have a liability to ensure they aren’t being ripped off when you take a hire car they will be liable for. If you take a fiesta at £800 a week when someone like enterprise does them for £150 a week their argument is your decision has cost them money, a court found in favour of the insurance company.
Having found all this out after I’d taken and returned a car 6 weeks later I explained to them I didn’t know how much the market rate was for the car I was given, it was given late at night and I didn’t have any other option. Luckily as it was late at night the hire company didn’t do the paperwork so I didn’t see the cost. This saved me from being liable, I can see both sides tbh but it is a scam from the management company. I’ll never take a car again during an insurance claim in future.
I’d go with you didn’t know the charge if you can and hope

I’ve got a whyte FS ebike but have just bought a specialized turbo Levo HT for the commute. The forks are garbage so have been swapped for some 130mm rockshox. With that done it’s a good bike. Problem is on rougher terrain an ebike rides heavier than a normal bike so it’s a hard ride, they’re also going faster in a lot of places so FS is nicer, On the plus side it is lighter and on more normal terrain is faster than the FS whyte. It has a much smaller battery and less power than the bosch in the whyte but range is the same and without the suspension and fatter tyres sapping power it’s a similar speed.
If terrain isn’t too technical I’d say get a HT but if it isn’t FS is better with the extra weight and speed in places an ebike gives

On my 3rd bosch ebike with no issues, used all year in all conditions. I never wash mine with a hose or jet wash it’s always a wipe clean, always remove covers and on earlier gen ones put waterproof grease around seals. Water or washing is mainly what kills them.
I did have one specialized last year and it did 2 motors in 2 months so I went back to bosch.
But yeah some do appear to have issues but it’s not as bad as it seems

Just go and clear it, if you get any problem with the landowner or his staff give a false name or just walk/ride off. I doubt the police will come just for someone clearing a path so no one will ever know your name to prosecute if that is a worry

Doing the figures for an EV of my own. It seems they make twice the CO2 pollution to manufacture than a normal car and that takes quite a few years to claw back.
It seems to make a lot of sense to keep the car going that I have and only replace it when it is worn out completely ? To help save the environment wouldn’t that make a lot of sense ? It seems that the only reason for electric cars is to keep car sales and the economy going nothing else hmmm

I bought an ebike 3 years ago to get me back cycling, I’m now on my 3rd and do a few thousand miles a year. When I started my fitness wasn’t great and I’ve got arthritis in one knee quite bad. Took a year but as the muscles built up round the knee the pain is nowhere near as bad as it was, I lost a bit of weight but wasn’t overweight and my fitness 3 years later is pretty good, better than a lot of normal cyclists and it’s all through riding an ebike. Average HR on a hard ride is 150 peaking at 180 so they do make you work if you want them too. I always like the bosch motor bikes and there’s plenty of choice with that motor.

Vans are 25% at least overpriced at the moment, if it doesn’t have to be a van you could get a tourneo connect and remove the rear seats. Bonus being it’s already lined and normally a nicer spec too

Levo will need the 3 year warranty ;)

I’m on my 3rd Bosch motor bike with no issues, I had a new Levo and it had 2 motors in 6 weeks. Warranty was great as was aftersales service, being stuck and walking home 3 miles wasn’t but luckily I was only 3 miles from the van

Get two, I’ve got a whyte e150 with 170mm forks and setup for…mountain biking. Using it to commute is pointless as it wears the tyres quick and the components aren’t cheap. So I thought about a hybrid or town bike etc but I like the mtb riding position and feel. I bought a turbo Levo HT. 2/3 the power of the whyte and battery the same. I threw away the standard forks and put in some much better rockshox and fitted a basic suspension post. With fast rolling tyres at a higher pressure it has a longer range than the whyte despite the smaller battery, it also rolls forever. I’ve got mudguards ready for winter and may consider a rack at some point. The HT is £2500 new from specialized so not the most expensive ebike. Well worth a look 👍

Had the tsi dsg in an Octavia. Hateful engine, no low down pull and with the poor chassis of the Octavia loads of wheel spin and torque steer when the turbo spools up. I imagine in a got hatch with a manual box it would be a fun engine but outside of this it’s poor. Mpg 25-35. Sold it after 5 months.

Audio is a.c. Alternating Current, so the electrons flow equally in both directions. Hence anything mentioning directivity is just complete and utter BS. For half of each cycle the current flows in one direction down each cable and then for the other half of thc cycle it flows in the other direction. The current is changing direction continually at up to 20,000 a second (assuming you’re young and can still hear 20 kHz).

I’m curious, if the current spends half its time going one way then half going the other way how does it get to where it’s going.

Had £10k in for 5 years and nothing, same £10k in a SIPP with Vanguard is now worth £19k. Admittedly I can’t get to that for a few more years

It’s interesting and sad reading seeing how many are struggling. I guess if you work for a mega corp you can get some sort of pay if you are signed off with stress or burn out, its not so easy if you are self employed running your own business trying to keep it going during the pandemic, time off means an end to the business and all that entails meaning it would just add to the troubles as you would be left with no income and debt in some cases. Tbh I feel for everyone who struggles, more riding out in nature is the best thing I find but it isn’t the complete answer

So let me get this right,

We’re not allowed to be on these trails so keep it quiet or we’ll get banned from these trails ? If we’re not allowed on them now what difference does it make it we get banned from them ? Do we get more banned than just banned ?

I’m also curious how these bans are enforced, I used to legally ride loads of the peaks on my quiet legal green lane bike and those lanes got closed. Had to listen to that as my bike was at risk of being confiscated as it had a registration plate and they could find me. So how does it work with a mtb and trails being closed ?

I’ve had a few bikes (180), for that use I’d get another cb500x. Great fun bike that ticks all those boxes. If you want a bit more go I now have a tenere 700 that does the same. But I’d prefer a Honda for the miles you’ll do.

6 years ago I bought a 2003 Nissan Elgrand when my new T5 went in for a 6th warranty claim !. The elgrand cost me £5k and had done 70k miles. I still have it and it’s just clocked 120k miles with nothing more than routine servicing. It’s carried motorbikes and is used for family outings and mtb days out these days. It’s till worth around £5k too. It’s had 2 sets if discs and pads and 2 lots of front suspension bushes, nothing expensive though. The downside is an average of 23mpg but offset that against no depreciation it’s been cheaper to run than a new supermini. It’s slightly smaller than the T5 it replaced but is faster, comfier and quieter to be in. Since I bought it others have realised and you’ll need the same £5k I spent as a starting point. Issues, they need rear cats removing which is a £100 job but most will be done, also rear air con can go but again it’s only another £100 fix.

I’ve been looking to replace but there’s nothing on the market that has swivel seats in the middle row and the third row is removable or van be lifted to the sides out the way….that’s nothing this side of a £30k vehicle.

Highly recommended

I own an inspection and testing company and a good EICR is worth the cost, problem is finding an electrician that can do a good one. We see plenty of them that say new CU required, no reason why and no regulation number referred too. That’s because there is no reg for it. Lots of other recommendations like this. We struggle to get staff that can do a proper report and I see reports done by others. Try and get a word of mouth recommendation. One of the professional bodies out there states it should take a day, half a day for an average 3 bed house is doable. Any quicker and I’d doubt how good the report was. I’d also like to see explanations to recommendations rather than x needs replacing etc.

I did both rides with weeksy on my whyte E150S. We can get a 5 hour ride out with a 625wh battery fairly easily. To get more means riding as slow as a manual bike and not hitting the steep climbs that aren’t really possible on a normal bike. For me that’s the point of an ebike to go places I can’t on a normal bike, and go for longer doing them. I did try weeksy’s wifes ebike and compared to my whyte it’s a bit of a barge with a really heavy front end. Not at all playful and welded to the ground :) My whyte by comparison is in a different league. Rather controversially I do run mine derestricted at times on quiet trails when I’m alone. It turns what would otherwise be flat and boring 15mph runs into 25mph runs and makes them much more exciting. TBH it’s then a similar speed to the very quickest normal bike riders. But for longer rides in the peaks etc 15mph is more than enough. As with any bike you have to pick your ebike carefully and preferably demo first.
As for fitness and how hard you work that’s all down to how hard you try same as any other bike. On the peaks ride 5 of us were ebikers and weeksy was the normal rider. There was no fitness difference between any of us which I think was an eye opener for weeksy :)

MX forks require an oil change every 20-25 hours to keep them working at optimum. Whilst I agree about the mtb forks and do my own there’s no point comparing them to motorbike forks used on the road. If we’re gonna do that then why don’t my mtb tyres last 20k miles like my car ones ?

Tbh they do tame trails but that just means you search out harder trails. I was on my Bosch with a 625wh battery but I also have a light ebike with a 250w battery, an ezesty. It’s a halfway bike between the two and wouldn’t have made yesterday’s ride at the pace we went. It would though have been quicker than a normal bike. We answered weeksys question of whether they give a work out and that’s a yes, but you need to ride further or faster to achieve that.
It was very interesting seeing someone who is fit and loves his normal bike having fun and trying on an ebike. It did prove an ebike doesn’t do it for you, certainly if riding with other ebikes.

Tuboflard that would be great some time, like the stuff by oxstones and down to devils elbow and then the rockier slow bits across curbar edge etc. But tbh anything that takes me up there I’m happy with as I love the place

I arranged yesterday’s ride for weeksy to join us, I’ve noted the comment about oxstones and will amend the route from now on. I’m local but more used to green lanes so planning routes from strava segments which isn’t always ideal. There was a bit of lost around longshaw which will get amended as well.
But the ebikes, it is possible to eek the miles out if we went as slow as a normal bike in places, the mud certainly sapped battery and the only normal bikes we saw on climbs were walking. I can only imagine on some climbs ther3s a very small percentage of normal riders able to make them. The same on the slow techy uphill rock bits a normal bike would have to carry in places.
But this isn’t what bike is best as they are both different, all the riders of the ebikes are fairly fit but none would want to do the same ride on their normal bikes it’s just not as much fun for us. That’s as simple as it gets. It was good to let weeksy see that an ebike in the right conditions can give a proper workout but you need to find those conditions if a workout is your reason to ride.

Most require you to sign in and most charge more if you don’t have a monthly subscription. Some are taking contactless with no sign up now too. Watch the charges as the majority will cost you more per mile in electric than it would in diesel. Try to charge at home on a normal or cheap rate and only use motorway ones as a last resort or just out enough in to get you home.

I found an installer by googling. These folks weren’t quite local with me being in manchester but did a great job https://mcnallyev.uk/book-home-charger/

You might want to check your mains supply rating. Ours was a feeble 60A. Not so good when you’re trying to pull 32A for car charging and run all the other demands of a modern family. NWE upgraded it to 100A after we blew it one night.

The installer wasn’t that great as they shouldn’t have installed it with a 60A cutout in place and should have had it upgraded first.

Don’t fit people ride ebikes too ?

I don’t get the team building at all I go to work to get paid, I don’t want thanks etc I just want the money for doing a great job. I guess that’s why I own my own business and have always worked for a price. We’re all different though but reading they’re overworked and stressed isn’t going to be solved with team building.

Had the previous 1.4tsi in an Octavia with manual box, hateful engine tbh. Nothing low down then as it boosts up lack of traction in first two gears. Might have been good in a small hot hatch but not suited to the car or trying to make progress. Mind you the rest of the car was as bad too, it was cheap for a 2017 car but never again.

I live close to peaks and pines, peaks is a rock fest but it goes with the territory tbh.
It’s possible at pines to cover 20-30 miles and 2000’ of climbing if you stay off the marked trails and go off piste. The marked red is rubbish tbh but blue is ok if you have speed or an ebike. The real fun is linking the best of both routes with off piste for some up and down and corners. It’ll always be a trail centre but fun is there if you know where to look

I’ve got 2 full sus ebikes one with fazua and one with Bosch. I’ve had HT ebikes and for me they don’t work with the weight and extra speed. If there’s any riding with a normal ebike the fazua will struggle to keep up if both riders are the same fitness. I’m growing to like my fazua as it feels more like a normal bike and you have to put more effort in for the same speed. Put the same effort into the Bosch and it is quicker.

Really ? I own a company that installs EV charge points, commercial only and we do around 1000 a year.

The home charge market is saturated and pays peanuts, with each install there are around 40 pages of forms and certs to fill out to claim the grant back. A couple of errors and you get limited chances before the grant is declined and the contractor loses out. You have to factor this form filling and admin in to each install. An average install has a charge point which if you are claiming a grant has to be a communicating unit so starting at £300, add in if needed an open neutral device £149, add in mains tails and Henley blocks and a cable run of no more than 15m then a basic install is £550 plus labour. At 2 installs a day the labour and travel to a company as is around £225. So that’s £775 with no profit. We did 100 of these installs to trial it in January and made no profit at all. We now stick to commercial installs.

We sat down and analysed the whole month and had it gone perfect with every person being in when they said and every install being simple we would have made £26 per install. But one failed grant claim or non standard install and it makes no sense. There is no company making a killing installing home charge points.

I’m seeing this from a different angle, my daughter is 8 and loves riding her mtb. Happy riding 10-15 miles with me at a steady pace. But she is the only girl amongst her friends that rides lots and wants to go for a ride. So when I organise a kids ride with parents it’s pretty much only boys from her class that turn up. She’s also small for her age and has no chance of keeping up with the boys who are bigger. So much so she’s losing interest in riding with them. I’m hoping she’ll continue to ride but when all her girl friends have little interest she’s very much on her own and it seems at 8 years old there’s very much them and us with girls and boys. As to why none of the other girls want to ride who knows the answer as several of them have parents that encourage them as I’ve done

Don’t get a charger installed. Get your electrician to install a 32amp outside socket (often called a Caravan plug, the round white n’blue 3 pin plugs you see at camping and caravaning grounds).

That means you can then just buy a cheap charger, and simply plug that in.

For example, openEVSE chargers are as little as £200 if you build the charger yourself (not hard)

This also means you can simply use a caravan plug to 3 prong 13amp socket adpator to charge multiple EVs off your 32A socket if you need to (obviously at a rate not exceeding 32a in total)

How does that comply with the regs for sockets used to charge electric vehicles especially in relation to open neutral protection and simultaneous contact issues ? What sort of RCD are you installing to cope with the DC leakage requirements in the regs ?

Wow so people installing their own DIY charge points and dismissing the lost neutral as something that may never happen.
The loss of neutral is not a house fault but a network fault and it is not a simultaneous loss of earth and neutral as they are one and the same thing until they enter the property. The fault is a loss of neutral on the network side. The return path is then through any metal object connected to the earth terminal on a PME system, basically 90% of UK supplies.
The metalwork in a house will be bonded which is a form of protection, the metal car stood on rubber tyres is an unbonded potential and much more of a risk however small that risk is. To dismiss all this and install your own DIY non protected charge point is crazy.
Lost neutral in a PME or TNCS system is a reality and that is why car charge points have needed either an earth rod or a device to isolate the supply and earth in case of fault. There is also the requirement to have the correct RCD as the majority of RCD units in domestic premises can be blinded by the electronics and DC leakage in an electric car. This is why a car charge point can’t be connected through a normal RCD protected DB in a domestic property.

However I do agree that a lost neutral will have many other aspects and faults that should show up. I wouldn’t however be installing a charge point without allowing for it. I assume those that install a socket DIY still inform the DNO that they have done so which is another requirement of BS7671, also having any cables running across a path isn’t allowed as per the amendment to BS7671 within the EV risk assessment.

The problem is cyclists mainly ride for fitness and enjoy the hard climbs, they struggle to understand ebikes as it takes away the bit they enjoy the most. I ride my ebike a lot and use it because for the same effort as a normal bike I get speed and lots of it, I ride a mtb for the adrenalin of that and not for fitness which is a secondary benefit and ebikes give enough speed meaning a 50 yr old can match or exceed the times of the quickest normal riders especially on XC courses and this extra speed gives the extra excitement 👍

We’ve installed plenty roadside it’s not an issue, the install costs would probably fuel a diesel car for 10 years what with it being streetworks and groundworks 🤣 You may also struggle to get permission for it and you’ll also need some sort of liability insurance for it.