Tandem hire, or a tandem-cycling weekend break?

If you want to stick with FSA, an Orbit ITA is what you would need. Good quality sealed bearings.

No – you accrue holiday while off sick. See https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave.

The relevant bit is:

“Statutory holiday entitlement is built up (accrued) while an employee is off work sick (no matter how long they’re off).

Any statutory holiday entitlement that isn’t used because of illness can be carried over into the next leave year. If an employee is ill just before or during their holiday, they can take it as sick leave instead.”

Only thing to be aware is have you been paid for the holiday you would have taken (instead of being paid sick pay, which might have been less)? If so, you’ve used the holiday. But this would usually be something you’d discuss and agree with your employer.

EDIT – sorry to hear about the accident, hope you’ve made a full recovery!

Yeah I don’t think you’ll find a large Scout or Patrol left this year. 2016 bikes coming in Sept/Oct. If it’s anything like this year, I’d pre-order one if you want one.

We have a very lightly-ridden ex-demo Pyga OneTen which will be going up for sale shortly.

Wot he said. Except the Smuggler is quickest. Fact.

I don’t doubt it. Just building one up now and very much looking forward to testing it.

Yep it’s all about the Scout around here! The Patrol is undoubtedly an even more capable bike and – as others have said – is ideal if you want to be as quick as possible on the descents and/or if most of your riding is on the steepest, gnarliest stuff around. The Scout (or Smuggler if you’re that way inclined) is the all-rounder and more fun – but possibly not quite as quick – on most real-world terrain.

All three are great bikes!

Yes, if it’s Pro2Evo for sure. Just swap the end caps.

^^ yep just get that map and you’re good to go – loads to explore.

5,6,7,8-speed all the same width, 9-speed is narrower so the link won’t work (properly, possibly at all).

You’ll need an 8-speed link, or to rejoin the chain by pushing a pin back through, as above.

We have a very nice Neil Pryde Alize/Nazare in Large, which for that money could come with some nice Zipps, Shimano or Mavic wheels.

Banshee Prime? Obviously much more expensive than your first two unless you can find one second-hand.

I’m not sure if it’s quite long-travel enough for your requirements, but if you wanted to consider Pyga we have for sale an ex-display/demo OneTen 29er which can be sold either frame only/rolling chasis or complete. 110mm rear travel as the name suggests but suits 130mm fork.

as i believe it helps the small businesses over there to pay cash

Good on you for wanting to support small local businesses, first of all. However, the fact that the Greek government only gets a fraction of the tax they should due to all of the evasion going on, is a big part of why they’re in the mess they’re now in, I believe. Another angle to consider maybe…

Back to your question, yes, that’s how I understand it, and 3 weeks’ interest at 20% APR is going to be very approximately 1% so £1 on that £100 you hypothetically withdraw.

Genesis Latitude?

The 20 is a quality, well balanced spec, but you could also have a very nice custom build for your budget. Wanting a complete bike doesn’t mean you can’t pick the parts…

It depends on the type of riding – of course – but judging by what tyres you’ve mentioned, I’d consider something like:

Ardent/Ardent or Ardent Race/Ardent in the summer
Ardent/High Roller II in the autumn
Beaver/Shorty in the winter gloop

In each case rear/front.

The only problem with the Shorty – which appears to be an excellent tyre when you can get hold of them – is that the bigger knobbles than the Beaver don’t clear mud quite as well so while it’s very grippy (and rolls pretty well too) it does have a tendency to clog up which is one of the best things about the Beaver in the mud.

Transition Scout
Pyga OneTwenty
Saracen Kili Flyer
Mondraker Foxy

So many good bikes out there.

The weird thing is that there absolutely are standards, not least an obligation to make sure that what you’re selling is safe, and assembled correctly. If a bike shop sold bikes in this state they would – quite rightly – be lambasted.

Sadly it probably takes an accident happening for anything to be done about it.

What shocks me most is how un-trained the staff must be, if something so glaringly obvious is wrong. What else is not done correctly? In my experience most inexpensive (proper) bikes need a few bits and pieces doing to make them suitable for sale – surely these BSOs need more work than the average £300 bike (wheels truing, brakes setting up correctly, gears indexing) – if the forks are on back to front, it surely goes without saying that none of that has been done.

Yep, was going to suggest Minion DHF too – Magic Mary is a good choice also.

Just an observation, but most of the “I work in a bike shop” types here seem to have little problem finding time to elighten us with their mutterings’n’musings, guess their shops aren’t that busy……….

Whereas all the people who don’t work in bike shops are far too busy to post on the forum. Oh, hang on a sec…

With a thread titled “Do bike shops want repeat business?” I don’t think it’s surprising that shop owners, and people who work in shops, might chip in with an opinion.

(To answer the OP’s question – and I think I speak for most shops in this – yes, we do very much value repeat business).

Do you pay your staff for all the time they work over what’s in their contract, or do you freeload off the extra ten minutes in the morning, ten minutes in the evening (80 hours, or over 2 working weeks a year) at a great benefit to your business?

No – we treat them like adults, and expect them to behave like adults to, as in

What, like nobody ever spent 10 minutes at work on a personal phone call, checking FB on their phone, taking a very large magazine to the toilet with them for hours ? Give and take people!

If a member of staff needs to leave early or come in late, or has a doctor’s appointment they need to go to during the working day – that’s absolutely fine. Should I deduct ten minutes’ pay each time? If they want to borrow a bike to go for a ride – that’s fine too. It’s not in their contract, but I don’t consider them to be “freeloading off” me. If a non-mechanical member of staff needs a hand fixing their bike, I won’t charge them for it. Again, neither party considers it to be freeloading.

If the ‘phone rings at half eight, and someone’s there to answer it, they’ll do it. If it’s busy and someone has to put their lunch to one side and help out, they’ll do it. I hope they don’t feel exploited. If they didn’t feel happy doing that, would it still be OK for them to make personal calls on our time/dime, borrow bikes for free, leave early or come in late when they needed to, etc?

Back to the OP, if a customer was outside wanting serving before we officially opened, I’d hope we could serve them. But there are lots of good reasons why it’s not always possible and I think it’s a bit harsh to judge the shop/staff for not being open before they say they are.

I get into work early most days but if the phone rings I ignore it until I get paid, likewise if it rings whilst I’m on lunch. I’m not getting paid so I don’t work, the call could turn into a nightmare and I’d have to give up more time than just a minute to answer the phone.

As an employer, this sort of attitude would drive me up the wall. I don’t see how it’s any different to the scenario in the OP, and if that happened in our shop I would be horrified. We’d always deal with a customer who arrived before we were officially open, and regularly do deal with customer after we’ve officially closed. That said, I’d hope that those customers don’t take it for granted, and would understand if for some reason we weren’t able to accommodate them out of hours.

We have a small selection of wheels customers can demo, up to around the £800 level, plus Powertap wheels.

As above, it costs a lot of money and there’s a limit to what we can afford to offer.

OP – what are you thinking of trying?

I was just going to say Transam… There is one on the wall here which would be perfect, depending on your size of course!

… and of course you’ve got every right to return something bought online if it doesn’t fit – or for any other reason for that matter.

Yep, definitely not discontinued. We have large available next week if that’s any good for you.

Surely a Mavic Ksyrium SLR or R-Sys SLR should be an option?

EDIT already been done I see. But still would be my recommendation.

Or – if you’re not set on Stans – consider Ryde rims. The Trace XC is lighter and wider than the Crest EX; the Trace Trail is wider and the same weight as the Arch EX. Both have a weight limit of 100kg.

I assume you mean the bit by Knighton.

Yep, that’s what I meant. To be honest it’d be less of a drag riding down into Knighton rather than vice versa. That ascent out of Mach would be tough though!

The route is really quite good. The first half of the first day (if doing it in three days) less so, so don’t let the start put you off. Some great riding after that, all the way to the finish. Inevitably some road sections, but it feels like an off-road ride from start to finish.

Navigation is a bit tricky, as above, in a couple of places, but nothing particularly problematic.

Doing it in a day is a serious achievement!

I am actually lost for words…

We stock a Mavic touring-specific shoe, the snappily-named Cyclotour or Cyclotour sport. They look good – although I’ve not used them for touring (we used an older Shimano model on previous, long, expedition tours, and have used road SPD-SL shoes more recently). Like you, I’ve found the Shimano ones don’t have enough of a recess to completely separate cleat from ground.

The Mavic ones look like they ought to – happy to test it out for you if you’re interested. Details are here – difference is that the Sport has a buckle, rather than just velcro:
http://www.mavic.co.uk/footwear-road-cyclo-tour-sport-shoe

Mavic spares availability is absolutely fine if you go to a Mavic dealer. Part of the sign-up every year is a spoke kit so you have spares for the odd breakage; complete spoke sets for rebuilds are readily available from Mavic – and always seem to be in stock. They take 2-3 days to arrive from France is all.

If you’d prefer to go the custom build route and want carbon, but don’t want to order rims from Light Bicycle or whoever, we’re just about to import a batch of carbon rims to do wheel builds. DT or Hope hubs with 32 double-butted spokes and a strong, wide carbon rim, would be well within your budget.

Yep – helmet and chin guard separately is an option – will cost slightly more than the 2R and only in limited colours. Expected price is about £65 and ETA is August.

If it’s any good, we have a Super 2R in large in matt black, due to arrive with us in about two weeks’ time.

are other SRAM products the same or just RS?

For now it applies to RS forks and Reverbs, and Zipp wheels.

^ what he said, or lower cup B from the pick’n’mix will also work and result in a marginally lower front end if that’s what you prefer.

your local LBS can price products at what ever they want. nothing has changed. its up to them what sell the items for.

True (usually) but in order to make a profit they have to sell for more than they buy for. UK trade prices on RS have until recently been higher than some of the EU sites are selling for. There has been a recent change – which only the trade would know about – to allow LBS’s to price match online suppliers.

I was in Freedom Bikes in Brighton a couple of weeks ago and they said that they can now match anyone’s prices on Rockshox, even the cheapest German prices

Yep, LBS’s (if they are RS stockists) now have a chance to match online prices from anywhere in the EU so please consider giving your local shop a shout. They won’t be able to advertise prices competitive with the Germans but if you have a specific quote, they should be able to help (and still make a small margin for themselves). Will be interesting to see how it works out.

Rapide RL24 or RL26 are £399 new so if there are any out there second-hand (it’s quite a new brand) they might come close. They’re excellent little bikes.

Loads of dead tubes here – let me know how many and what you want (whole tube, just the valve…) and we’ll stick some in the post. Email in profile.

Cheers Darren, not sure how I missed that!