Don’t know about best but CRC have SLX’s for £14 and XT’s for £16 atm Tony.

Private pensions look a bit better now that you can take money out at 55 – though only 25% tax free IIRC.

Plus any threshold tax allowance you have left yearly after that via income drawdown.

@Zerocool or anyone else. Fire me an email and I’ll send you a link to the off piste map I have for Les Arcs/La Plagne. I don’t want to post the link openly due to the map it’s based on being copyrighted.

Tracks are graded based on how much riders of a certain standard should enjoy them overall rather than how hard the hardest part of the trail is.

Cheese in beans then pour over toast!

Fake team kit for fake team members. Makes sense to me!

10.00am to 5.00pm from 1st May – 30th September – Please do not cycle to or from the summit of Snowdon during this period.
From October to the end of April – Full access.

From the Snowdon National Park gov.uk site.

No cycling rather than no bicycles.

There is no credible alternative theory.

As I said the kidnap and murder was designed by the Palestinians Israeli’s to create a military conflict. The Isreali’s have the more powerful military so the consequences are predictable.

FTFY. Much more credible this way.

When are they going to remove ALL of the illegal settlements, stop bulldozing homes and denying people water? Might be a start for achieving peace.

Israeli operation to as an excuse to ‘overreact’ and start an orchestrated chain of events leading to the occupation and eventual full Jewish settlement of both Gaza and the West Bank. There would then be no more houses to bulldoze or land to grab. I have no doubt Hamas would also create their own ‘martyrs’ if it was advantageous to their cause.

How are they brilliant if they keep hanging on to £400 of your cash?

Because they pay 3% interest on credit balances. Lovely christmas/holiday fund!

200*57mm in XC with offset bushes at both ends. Angles end up the same as a normal shock in the FR setting once you allow for the extra sag and add in 150/160mm forks to match the rear travel. I ran mine with 160mm Zocchies and a DHX Air/5th coil depending on whether there was an uplift or not and it was an Alps/Enduro beast!

Just managed to sort an unexpected 10 days in Les Arcs in August. DIY but know my way round.

Le Versoyen, Bourg St Maurice? Quite a ride to the Deux Alpes lift station each morning. 8O

One ring with an SS mech. I’ve previously run short cage, 12-28 with a compact 50/34 up front so a GS (med cage) mech should be fine. Plus you won’t want to be running big to big or small to small.

My short cage Ultegra copes with a 34 even though it Shimano say 27t max. Wouldnt take a 36 as the b screw is fully in.

EDIT : Buy a cassette that you’ll need either way and try it out. Just remember the extra few links in the chain.

Running 1×9 (39/11-34) with a short cage 10 speed Ultegra 6600 mech and a bar end shifter for simplicity. Runs well enough, it’s the other way round to what you want to do but shows how interchangeable the 9 and 10sp Shimano road stuff is. You only need a 9sp rear mech if it’s an MTB mech as Shimano 9 and 10 speed road mechs have the same cable pull ratio.

Those cranks will accept standard or compact chainrings but not both at the same time as the inner ring will interfere with the inside of the chainring bolts used on the outer ring plus maybe the bolts used to hold the inner ring may stop the outer ring sitting flush to the crank.

That’s one of our days up there in May sorted. Cheers.

Camping Des Belaines on Ile De Re if that’s far enough south. It’s right at the far end of the island so a bit quieter than those closer to La Rochelle to which there are a number of buses each day. Plenty of flat surfaced cycle routes, great sandy beaches for the kids plus the lighthouse next door. A little dear high season but we went when we could use the ACSI card.

Pricey compared to a single day guide fee :roll:

Might change the Memory Map track based pdf I have of Les Arcs to a similar format.

Flag it as spam. Problem solved one way or another.

He did it on purpose IMO but I just can’t see how they can prove it beyond reasonable doubt especially given how the first officer on scene has since been found guilty of being as bent as a nine bob note. Should go to prison just for shooting blindly at an unidentified target. Whole different ballgame if it was a manslaughter charge.

On the flip side after 6 years of gaining experience I’m now a geo for a Gold exploration company on $120k

And that’s why I have no problems with the current student loans system. Your gain from going to Uni far outweighs the cost to you.

There was absolutely no point you going to uni then, was there?

Quite the opposite in fact. I use the Engineering/Physics I learnt just in a more day to day manner. Uni teaches people how to think and learn for themselves. Your view of going to uni may have been to gain a career in a certain field, I went because I wanted to know how machines, structures and the world in general actually worked.

I do all my own mechanics and most building mainly from knowledge gained in higher education. I do my own financial management. I learnt my property is not a cash machine (great term binners) and largely as a result of this and living in a cheaper area I am going part time in the next couple of months at 40 which will give me 26 weeks off a year plus holidays. I’m not saying this is a better use of a University education, just a different one.

Enjoying learning? Testing yourself? Opening up new possibilities, even if you choose not to embrace them?

Much more to the point.

but I’m surprised njee could get a £240k mortgage last year without being in the 2nd highest bracket.

Principality would offer 2 people on my wage a £200k mortgage over 30 years so £240k is not unreasonable.

OK, ‘bite the bullet’ was a little harsh. My point remains that it is a choice.

It’s also rather telling that a junior doctor in the South is paid little more than a Bus driver up North.

Agree that junior NHS staff pay is appalling considering the hours however they could earn the same up here and enjoy a much lower cost of living ;)

As for Google putting me out of a job, it’s starting to happen with home shopping decimating the passengers on rural routes but that’s another topic entirely.

That assumes there are suitable vacancies somewhere cheaper.

There are always vacancies available, it’s the choice of the individual as to whether they are suitable. Hence doing ‘other work’ that may be far from your ideal work in other areas that is available rather than ‘similar work’ in the SE. I studied Engineering, I drive buses now. Whilst paying less house prices can be proportionally much cheaper. You can get a starter house for under £100k here and a decent sized family house for well under £150k. Available unskilled factory/driving jobs will get you £20k plus OT with new grads getting ~5k more but if you insist on a ‘suitable’ job in the SE because it’s the field you want to work in or long term it will be financially more profitable then bite the bullet. Again, grads don’t have to live in the SE, they choose to live there.

SE is where the work is

You’re choice to do ‘the work’ rather than some ‘other work’ somewhere cheaper.

Forgot about the 12v cooler for post ride refreshment.

Stop over in ours all the time and now use it for our normal camping sleeping accomodation. Every time I do I put the money I’ve saved over Hostels/B&B’s towards something to make it a little comfier.

Wind deflectors so you can open the front windows a little without worrying about the rain to deal with the moisture.

Caravan Bed and cut down an old memory foam mattress. Cut the bed legs down to a height that gets you below the windows but still allows for storage under the bed. Our MPV has a 4ft loadspace so we have 2 side by side for when we both go away. Great for overnight drives on the continent as we take it in turns to get a good sleep. Leave the UK late evening and be ready to ride in the Alps or south of France by mid morning.

Corrugated plastic sheets in black cut with tabs to fit behind trim and a few mm larger than your windows so that they stay in place by friction around the edges to block out the light. One side benefit is that they just look like tinted windows unless you really look close but keep your bike and kit hidden when your in the pub/nip to the shops. Same as the cardboard trick above but more durable and way less obvious from the outside.

We’ve also added leisure battery, split charge, 240v hookup and charge. Cheap electric heater until we can afford an eberspacher. Dome tent awning for living space on multi night stays, plus the usual camping stoves and gear etc Eventula aim is to do a self build camper but this keeps getting delayed as we are more than happy with what we have atm.

£240 a year tax on our ‘car’ but then it saves us thousands a year on hotels and B&B’s. Loon club over here, mind the sheep!

I can’t see wages increasing, so the disconnect between the level of debt and ability requirement to pay it off will increase even further.

FTFY

People are wailing about never paying it all back. Why is this a problem? Surely it’s a good thing?

Especially as interest rates only grow the debt inline with inflation so it never gets any bigger in real terms.

are you seriously suggesting that a graduate finishing this summer, could now even contemplate buying a property in the South East of England, with no help from the bank of mum and dad?

Surely the problem here is the cost of living in the SE rather than student loans. You don’t have to live/work there. They could afford to buy in one of the many other areas of the UK.

Not got a problem with them myself.

Not paid a penny back on my 3 mortgage loans from the early 90’s and have never considered them a debt just an extra tax threshold. I’m going part time in the next couple of months and they expire in 2019 so chances are that I never will pay them back.

Good to know SRAM road shifters play ball with SRAM mtb rear mechs and shimano front mtb mechs. Scrub the Shimano running gear on the next batch of Pickenflicks and go for a mid cage type 2 rear mech please.

Triple road mech would have enough throw for an mtb triple. (Sorry for the edit)

35mm knobblies, compact crankset or mtb double with a bcd that has 46/48 rings available, shimano gears (so I can put a 9sp deore mech on it and run an mtb cassette on my offroad wheels)

Allows people to retire earlier and budget their monthly income to stay the same once state pension kicks in so could free up a few more jobs. Brother in law has put in his notice for his full time minimum wage job today at 55 as a result of yesterdays budget. Only last week he was saying he couldnt afford to go until 60 due to the GAD limits on drawdown for a pension he built up in a previous better paid job but then he’d be much better off than he is now once he hit state pension age. He’s now able to even it out by using more of it now.

CRC, Superstar etc.

Check the bearing to see if it’s 36/45 degree angles or 45/45 and order the correct size.

Give yourself enough time and gearing to spin up everything. If you have SRAM gears consider swapping in a 10 speed mtb mech and cassette if you have them handy. If your on Shimano then a 30t cassette with the b screw fully tensioned.

Start from Bedoin early enough to have breakfast whilst watching the sun rise at the top knowing the steepest climb is done, drop to Malaucene for a decent break and refuel and then back up the slightly easier climb to the observatory. Drop for an extended late afternoon break in Sault knowing you’ve only got 6km of real 7%+ climbing left to do from Chalet Reynard back to the top. Drop back to Bedoin in time for a beer at sunset. Hard work and painful especially at the top of that last climb but assuming youve been out on at least a few epic all day mtb rides this year and know how to keep yourself refuelled then it should be do-able.

Pray the weather stays kind and that theres no snow on the top.

Nice.

Road or mtn calipers?