So plenty of tyre ideas, but what bike?

Strewth, I’ve paid less for tyres on the ZX6-R

It’ll be on Cyclescheme, so need new and max £1k rrp.

I need to pick one up on the way home tonight, so only options are what’s in stock at my local Halfrauds.

How is the Thule Xpress Pro 970 Bike Carrier? They have it for £51.29.

It’s only to take the two kids bikes, and carried on a volvo, so weight is unlikely to be an issue.

Bedroom, furthest side from the radiator.

did a 27 hour shift on-call. Usual NWR no alcohol rule.

Thought no to that, got pissed and set phone to voicemail. No messages = winner!

10 in our team, or we can team up with another team of 12.

I’ve got a 1975 Macallan in the drinks cabinet. My father bought it for me in 2004 just befor I deployed to Iraq and we agreed to open it together when I got back. When I did, I was in no mood to drink it. I’ve never had a good reason to open it since, so will probably give it to my son in a decade or two.

I just fixed the wife’s iphone 3GS screen after she smashed it. Digitiser (screen) kit from ebay, £5.40 incl. postage, 20 minutes of my time and done.

Employ the feckers on an all-changes lump-sum, then tell them exactly what you want them to do.

Ha!

Will – still valid from Op TELIC 4.

Bikes – Giant Trance X2, Giant Defy 2, XTR inbred, mint ’99 Lavadome with P2 fork, homebrew tandem. Take your pick.

Loved ones already know.

T0ssers – after my email tirade on Friday, they alreeady know 😉

That’s more like it CFH!

Hmmmm, 4 posts in response and not a single MTFU.

I’m doing it, even if it will kill me. I just want to know if it will. If certain, I don’t have to try to hard getting the minimum sponsorship. 😀

I also need space for a decent first aid kit (essential last year) and tubes (got through 5 last time).

Not sure of the route – sorted by one of the other riders, but it’s def going to be taking in plenty of lakes and reservoirs.

Any recommendations for road helmets?

It’s from LlanfairPG to Cardiff, v.rural route, so cash/cards take second place to food and water. Also need space for tools/tubes/co2.

Diving bottle works well. I’ve got a 209 bar 3ltr bottle off a mate who bought about 4000 at auction (ex-Falklands escape breathing apparatus for the troops who were transported by ship).

209 bar is about 3030 psi, so it will inflate anything from bike tyres to a paddling pool in about 3 seconds.

A couple of years ago we saw two large Somali gangs having a fight. Three got stabbed, one in the head and two cars were trashed. Police response – one on a bicyle.

They are all going to be hand made suits. Anyone who’s had a suit made in Singapore will tell you about the quality. We were properly measured up here for them.

I’m going to a wedding with 3 of my colleagues in the summer, so we’ve decided to splash out and get new suits tailored especially for the occasion. They’re being done in Singapore for under £50 each (one of the lad’s mum lives out there).

I’m having my one in Burberry material, one mate in tartan, one lime green and one in purple paisley. We should get loads of use out of them in the future 😉

55.7 mpg average for a 9hr drive from Cardiff to North Wales and back in my Volvo V50 2.0D on Wednesday. I wasn’t hanging about and temp was down between -2 and -5 for the whole journey, so everything electrical was on.

Averages about 44mpg round town and have got over 60mpg on a motorway run. Not bad for a log burner with 70k miles on the clock.

Costa cruise for us – less than half price at the moment! 😀

175mph on my ZX6-R G1, autobahn between Frankfurt and Munich.

Hmmm, so my lessons learnt:-

* Invest in helmet cam.

* Prepare pre-planned post accident insults.

yossarian, funny you’ve said that because as I got to work and logged on, I had an email from the National Lottery asking me to check my ticket (I do it online). It only turned out that I’d a winning ticket on the Euromillions. A whacking great £3.20.

honourablegeorge
Sadly not, I would have loved to do just that but was shaking too much and quite shocked.

What would you guys have said with the benefit of sitting calmly in front of your computers?

His daughter was mid-30s, fat, f’ugly and has a long walk back to Lancs from Cardiff (judging by the details that the policeman asked us to exchange).

His (new) Lexus was left with a smashed front bumper, smashed headlight, dented bonnet, cracked windscreen and dented roof. Policeman reckons the roof will write it off.

I’ve one seriously bruised leg (took the full force of his bumper) a few other bruises and grazes to knees, hips, shoulders and I reckon my helmet saved my head.

My work laptop and packed lunch/clothes saved my back, but the yoghurt exploded in the bag!!!

Funny bits – I didn’t unclip, so the bike went over the top too – probably the bike that caused a lot of the roof damage and scratches.

My workmates asked if I landed on the wheels behind the car. Sadly not, because I’d have been asking for a copy of the supermarket cctv if I had.

I have just returned from working on a school building site in the Kapiri district of Uganda. At breaktimes and lunchtimes, the headteacher would send kids over to help on the site. Cutting bricks with machettes, digging foundations with sharp hoes, shifting large granite hardcore pieces and lugging around old skool 50kg cement bags. The school is a primary school and most kids are between 6 and 10 yrs old!

I’m just building an 11’x8′ shed using recycled materials. All structural timbers are 4″x2″ or 5″x2″ and it’s having a slate roof with full guttering and double glazed windows. Will cost far less than £250 and will be far more durable than a cheap bought one.

The puppy has been to the vet and has had a course of paste (can’t recall the name of paste, the box is at home). The vet was not concerned as the pup is fine, just still passing the dead worms. He’s certainly slimmed down from the bloated look he had to start with. Vet thinks he will take a few days to pass them all, as he probably had loads of them.

Branding will be happening, likewise colours.

I’ve gone for the Hexus II. Bargain at £13.95.

Park Tool I-Beam 3 is now only £21.99 on CRC.

Hmmm, will prob refurb the lot then. Easy and quick to do.

PhilChap, was that including refurbing the lever?

TJ, dunno, but the mini is fairly mediocre in terms of braking – barely better than a v-brake. I was wondering whether a modern cheap brake would be as good as a 7+yr old mini.

I’ve done both before when I bought them second hand about 7yrs ago. Both were easy and I rather enjoyed tinkering with them. I’m confident that doing a full refurb will work well, but am just questioning the economics of it. Is the money better spent on a new cheap front brake, or a secondhand less new but better brake, or are minis not that bad after all?

It was £37 for both rebuild kits (lever and calliper), the two new pistons and a set of pads. If hope are £48 for calliper alone, I’m better off doing it myself. I just want to know if it’s worth it for an old, mediocre disc brake. What is worth getting for that sort of cash?

So deffo cheaper to do both the calliper and lever myself then.

What about new? What is worth getting around the £50 mark?

What does a service cost?

To get the tyres off the rims when I get a (frequent) puncture.