There is a bit of difference between public and private sector finance, so choosing a route will depend on the sector you’d ultimately like to work in. Although if you’ve been working with public sector and would want to work with schools then it sounds like you’d want to go down the public sector route.

AAT is a good basic course to do. You may be able to miss some of the units depending on previous qualifications and experience. From there then maybe CIPFA? I guess it would depend on whether your interest would lie in Management or Financial accounts.

Lots of qualifications can be studied at distance or day release. Think I’d recommend the AAT as a starting point.

Rob, are you using it with the hrm and cadence by any chance? Quite like the look of these myself.

That does look impressive. Some amazing scenery.

There’s some good loops are Dent, which is only a couple of miles from Whitehaven. Good if you’re after some more natural mountain biking.

I was out on the road bike a few weeks ago at just after 7 in the morning. It’s usually really quiet, but I could see a few people while going through a housing estate near my house. One was slumped next to a wall and looked barely conscious and was surrounded by a few others. Then another was dancing by the side of the road. Soon as I went passed the dancing one jumped out on to the road to scare me. Gave me a bit of a shock! Pretty sure were on something. Got the adrenaline going if nothing else.

I’m no expert, but sounds like you need to put a few miles in before the ‘go’ to get warmed up. This would make your first lap what the second was performance wise. Were you taking on any fuel before/during the race? I wonder if you hadn’t, but should have to prevent the third lap drop in performance. How long were the laps? What training had you done for the race?

Even if the seller states that they’ve just been serviced, it’s definitely worth considering servicing them when you get them. Then you can check if it has just been done and make sure everything was put back where it should be. Puts my mind to rest anyway. I’ve had a few forks with really filthy foam rings that may have caused problems (stanchion wear) if left.

If in doubt, poke it with a stick!

Brilliant.

I’ve got a pair on a 2010 Norco Shore. Mine are coil, but think they also come in an air version. Not pulled mine apart yet, but will be doing so in the next couple of days. From what I’ve read they’re not open bath and instead have a sealed nitrogen cartridge. Servicing everything but this cartridge should be fine and only requires grease. The TST cartridges appear to be the weak point of other 55 models. When looking in to servicing, Loco and TF Tuning seem to avoid 55’s so Windwave may be the only option (although cost is only circa £60).

Perfect timing!

Thanks for that, I need to replace them on my shock and was going to go to LBS. Will but the tool in the link above, looks more accurate than a hammer and socket!

I had a 2009 Specialized Epic and it was perfect for me. Rear suspension kicked in when needed. Bike climbed and was great descending too. Was a great bike. Stupidly sold it and still regret it a couple of years later. I do search for them on ebay every now and again to see if I could get another, but they do seem to hold their money.

We’re on a pretty quiet street at the moment, it’s great.

The house the wife and I first rented was a bit more ‘colourful’. Drug dealer down the street used to park clapped out van right outside our house. Someone once parked behind it and woke up to find their car pushed back across the courtyard by the van when it was ‘stolen’. Our next door neighbours once had words with drug dealer about his van and woke up to find car trashed and tyres slashed on numerous occasions. Felt a bit sorry for neighbours and they got themselves a new car only to have a bin van knock a 6ft wall over on-top of their car. Neighbours were pleasant enough. Not sure what marital aids they had, but they used to interfere with out tv when they were brought out.

32Kg is quite a bit. My bike bag with some tool, my shoes, lots of additional packaging was only 21kg. It was a xc hardtail, but 32kg should be plenty for most.

There has been a lot of chatter on twitter over the last few days over ‘GAS6’. I don’t entirely understand what it is/does but think its to do with genes.

Would be great to believe this years TDF was clean. It’s interesting to note Andy Schlek’s and Cadel Evans performance this year compared with a few years ago. Contador too.

Excellent that. Both enjoying themselves, what more can you ask for.

Yup, both the same tool. CRC were selling the bb’s quite cheap last time I was looking, circa £15.

I seem to be buying bikes that I had ‘back in the day’. Finished building up a 1997 Cindercone a couple of months ago. Then picked up a 2002 Stumpy last week. Riding the Cindercone around the Lakes has been good fun, although wrists might disagree. Haha.

More of a road/xc mtb trip for me in the middle of July. Riding Alpe D’Huez a couple of days after the tour has passed through and doing a little bit of off-roading. Bike of choice…

Some semi-slick tyres for the road and then the Panaracers for off-road.

Probably not for my personal benefit but for the wedding going on just along the river.

Wedding!

Could you rig a blacksmith anvil to the underside of the canopy will-e-coyote style?

Could be developing in to a ‘Home Alone’ style set-up here. Excellent! “Keviiiiiin”.

18th-21st I’ll be around Alpe D’Huez. Taking the bikes and will be doing a mix of mtb’ing and road’ing. Quite looking forward to riding up D’Huez.

If say brakes too! They must have targets to sell x number a week.

I’d have thought everything would swap over fine. Think you can even use Tora parts (although stand to be corrected).

I’d say 10% ish, depending on the car. I recently got £500 off a £4.4k Vectra from a dealer. Not sure if taking on a finance agreement strengthens your bargaining power (as sales person may get commission for selling credit). Mine was a outright buy though, no finance. Used a CC and balanced transferred at 0%.

My ’97 Cindercone:

Hats off to anyone who took part! I’ve only read reports etc but it sounded pretty grim. Heroic effort! One or two of the passes are enough for me, never mind six one after another.

I’ve found the Zinn book good, however YouTube guides are great. Watching service guides for forks and being able to pause and rewind is brilliant

I use a Garmin Forerunner 410 for both cycling and running. RRP was something silly like £350 with the hr monitor, but there were plenty of places selling them for around £130. It’s been a brilliant piece of kit. I upload the data to Garmin’s site and Endomondo. Tend to mount the watch to the bars on the bike using a bit of pipe insulation to pad it out a bit. Great bit of kit.

Did your physio say what was wrong with your knee? If its your ITB then I came back from that quite quickly after using a foam roller.

Item number 190829038509.

Pretty sure I paid not much more than that for 60 delivered on eBay a few weeks ago.

Separating the lowers from a set of Fox forks. Instructions said use a rubber mallet, surely nothing wrong with using a normal hammer… Knackered threads on damper rod. D’oh! Luckily managed to sort it, but it was a lesson learnt. 99p rubber mallet was purchased!

Good plan, will give that a go.

Which model are you after and what size? My local shop has a couple, but it depends what you’re after.

I’ve got the 410, sure I got it for £125 off Amazon with the HRM. Really good piece of kit, worth every penny. I like how you can customise what displayed on the front screen. I use it on the bike too with it strapped round some pipe insulation on the bars.

I’m sure I’d hae clipped some of those lamp posts!

Egg Beaters were pretty much the same. I went through a few sets quite quickly and then went back to Shimano pedals. Shame as the Egg Beaters were pretty light, went through bearings fairly often though.

Have you had them down the vets to be sorted? That calmed my two rabbits down.

When you call Stif Cycles up, what do they answer the phone with? “Hello, Stif”? Teehee.