quote from earlier in the year, for 2m x 2m complete replacement of units, full tile etc.

Toilet, sink, shower cubicle, towel rail etc.

£4,000 labour

£7,250 for the parts, albeit nice ones.

North Yorkshire.

Easy enough to switch out, if the back plate and wiring are standard.

I did it last summer.

I swapped for a Hive system, which has been great so far.

(stealth ad – I’ve got 2 spare Hive systems for sale at the moment unused boxed)

RA – reasonable adjustment (I presume)

Apart from anything else – first step is to document and save everything.

Homeworks in Helmsley is going strong, for now.

These types of shops are fabulous for browsing. I always come out with a fair bit of stuff I didn’t know I needed.

Here you go.

Brompton etap CHPT3, lightweight Brompton (brompton-shop.com)

Brompton etap CHPT3

i’ve seen a Brompton 2 speed with eTap 11. They used a blipbox. It seemed to work OK.

I’ve considered it – I’m sure the MTB shifter would work well. Not sure if they are compatible.

I even started collecting old broken road shifters to adapt the shift innards, but ended up selling instead.

North Yorks. Not really close!

I have a spare Maxxraxx – where are you based?

It’s great, but doesn’t fit my current car

i bought a used Fenix 5 off eBay a year ago for £100.

Battery life and functions are great.

My previous Vivoactive3 battery ended up being terrible, and the Fenix has more functionality

I’ve converted most of my ancient 10 speed hyperglide freehubs to 11 by filing off the alloy lugs, using a hand file.

Pretty simple, as they are usually soft aluminium.

The only one that has me stumped is an old Zipp 900 disc wheel; I have an 11s Campag cassette (and freehub), which plays relatively nicely with eTap 11, but can’t be upgraded to 12s.

We normally go to be seen, not to see.

It’s not about enjoying the concert (NB NOT through a camera screen); rather it is so the offspring can see us there front and centre proudly supporting their efforts.

I’m in a similar situation.

Now 12 months into a significant wobble, and still not back to 100% (whatever that is).

Life – work, home, finances, exercise etc – just all became too much, and I keeled over.

I know well that feeling of trying to structure a GP conversation and just ending up blubbing.

I’ve been through the citalopram and now setraline to give me space and a bit of peace in my head. This will be ongoing for the foreseeable.

I’m still struggling with the behaviours that have been getting me into this kind of a pickle over the years – I’ve had wobbles a couple of times in the past, but not to this extent – it’s been more of a journey of self-awareness than coming up with any obvious answers at this point.

I’ve had great support from my firm, but am worrying that their patience might not be inexhaustable. Another thing to add to the worry list.

It does seem rather common, at least in my line of work and peers, judging by the number of people who have opened up to me recently. That’s a positive, at least.

We came off a 5 year 1.89% fix in November last year.

Due to a number of complicated factors, I held back from remortgaging until yesterday, and have seen my payments rise from £444 to £1252 / m.

2 year fix will bring that down by £365/m, but it’s still quite a jump from last year.

Coupled with huge expense unavoidable on 2 children from September, we’ll be looking at just under £5,000 per month on the children and mortgage.

My mortgage is mostly IO – a quirk of my marginal tax rate means I’ve been piling the max into pensions for the last decade and not paying off the mortgage. It will all come good when I can access my 25% PCLS (tax free lump sum) to take big bites out of the outstanding capital, up to the max overpayment allowed each year without penalty.

I’ve gone from 9.5% to 7.5% to 5.5% to 1.89% over the last 29 years, and I fully expect this current level of rates to remain stubbornly persistent at around the 5-6% level.

BEst spectator energy seems to be at Tower Bridge, on the Highway (spectate both ways) and on Birdcage Walk.
(I’ve never spectated, but run many times)

As a runner, you need picking up most on the Isle of Dogs, around the Mudchute point. QUiet, lonely and getting tired.
Also around mile 22/23 along embankment, when you are in your own little bubble of pain and concentration, and there aren’t many spectators.

Best tip as a runner is to get your name writ large on your vest, and run to the side of the road (where the spectators can see you) – you’ll get lots of personalised cheering.
Also – if you can – run toward the front of the pack where you can be easily spotted – the spectators will be fresh and there won’t be that many other runners for them to cheer on. (clearly this tactic requires the small detail of being fit enough to keep a good pace going).

My best run was when I set off in the front pen, 3 secs after the leaders, and kept a good sub-3 pace going. It felt like every spectator was cheering me on personally, as I had my name on the vest.
The only downside to this tactic is if you have friends who know you and are shouting for you – if there are already half a million people calling your name, then spotting the handful of people who actually know you is pretty hard!

I’ve got a Boardman CXR9.8 frameset, built up with eTap 11 (not AXS) and TRP Hylex hydr brakes.
It’s nice – a great winter bike (good mudguard mounting points).

I do prefer my OPEN UPPER for riding – (built up with the same kit). That’s probably partly bike / badge snobbery on my part.

I also have a Boardman TTE – TT bike built up with eTap 11. It’s a fab fast ride (albeit the limiting factor is the fitness of the pilot). Bike fit last Autumn confirmed that it is a great fit for me. I don’t think I’d be any faster on any other frameset. A neighbour has identical one, and he’s “debadged” to get rid of the large Boardman branding, as he’s conscious that it’s not a premium brand in amongst the elite tri / du competitions we do together. We’re both Age Group GB and some of the competition are on spectacular machines.

All said, I’ve been happy with the top end of the Boardman frames for many years, even sat against boutique stuff in the rest of my fleet (top end OPEN, Cervelo, Look, Ridley etc etc). My only niggle is their sizing – I’m absolutely standard 5’10 and medium in every bike I’ve ever had, but in Boardman I am definitely a Small.

The Mason looks lovely – it was certainly on my short-list when I ended up with the OPEN UPPER.

65.93ppl +V through our local cooperative last week, in N Yorks

It’s perfectly fine on a gravel bike, but make sure you take the toughest tyres you can.
The flint is brutal on sidewalls.
I had an awful time with punctures and slashed tyres a few years back.
It’s also quite lumpy.

Hmm.

Ideal – prob 4 or 5

– Brompton

– pub/station roadie

– Racy gravel bike which is also a fast endurance machine

– TT

But in reality, as with others, I have lots more in the garage, most of which I could lose. But they have memories, history and act as useful backup for visitors, mechanical issues, and cannibalising for spares.

I could happily live with just the one – my OPEN UPPER, with a couple of wheelsets.

But I have quite a few in addition, including tandem (never ridden nowadays), Brompton (occasional commute to clients), TT, winter road (CX) bike, winter singlespeed, summer singlespeed, old canti CX, vintage carbon roadie, aero super road bike, another old canti CX, and probably more I’ve forgotten.

I certainly don’t need any more. Nor want. I’ll probably still get the annual C2W voucher to stealth upgrade the current fleet, with wheels, groupsets etc.

I@ve also got a heap of film stuff to get rid of.

All Nikon – F3, F90, tons of winders, prisms, lenses etc. I Just haven’t got round to listing it all on eBay.

I’m still narked, 30 years on, that my OM1n and OM4ti got burgled.

Shimano cable cutters. 30 years old. Still work perferctly and crimp too

I paid around £4,500 for a big oil boiler about 5 years ago.
Not cheap.

Start / finish in Gilling – use the Fairfax pub.
It’s pretty dry here – I live in Gilling and run in the woods daily.
Loads of choices for riding. Everything from gentle offroad to full on FS silliness.

For those discussing the ethics of spending a couple of thousand on a bike and that it is a middle class luxury. Take a look at BEVs and benefits in kind (or lack of).
We ought to sort out the tax-free BEVs costing £40,000 upwards before we start tackling the injustice of £2000 on a bike.

The fairer approach would be to make all cycling purchases VAT free. THis would take away the C2W scheme margin, the residual value charge (kick in the teeth), the differential tax approach, and include non working / low earning people and children equally.

We’ve just got our latest oil cooperative price agreed at 73ppl earlier this week.
We get through about 3,100 litres a year overall, which includes old Aga, good sized 4 bed detached house on the edge of NY Moors. That works out at about 8.5 litres per day overall.

Great spot – particularly the one with the trolley!
These PSAs are costing me a fortune too.

Indeed @Duggan!
I helped out on the Saturday, (as I did last year), and raced on the Sunday. The organisers are fab.
I’m planning on doing it again next year.
I’m also thinking of Cholmondeley – it’s fairly near family.
I’m also looking to race Age Group (V50) duathlon. Some of the events have not yet been announced, so I’m not sure which one(s) I’ll do.

Ooh @Duggan I did the same Castle Howard race last summer.
I overcooked things (literally) – not enough liquids on a very warm day – the second 10k run was brutal.

The legs do indeed feel really strange after T2 when running again. Try it in training, so you’ll get used to the feeling.

I did buy the original RC200 when it came out – I only sold it last year, to a collector.

My regret was not buying the Lotus 110 road bike or the Zipp 2000 beam TT bike. I couldn’t quite justify it at the time.

I fitted a Hive controller and TRVs.
In the end, the Hive CH controller was pretty much a straight swap using the existing backplate.
It took me a while to get the right controller (they have single channel and dual channel, with different wiring), but once I’d got the right controller it was only a 5 minute job to swap over.

I had existing manual TRVs and the Hive ones just screw on to the existing TRV base.
I haven’t yet installed TRVs onto the remaining radiators that have dumb flow valves – I’ll need to isolate ./ drain down to do that. Not a difficult job, but I’ll do it in the spring when I’ve got more time.

i bought through Amazon a few weeks back

£15 – came in a registered post envelope, with a URL to download the software, and a key.
Works fine so far.

78.7p for us this week, through the local cooperative in the village.
I’m installing Hive with clever TRVs soon in an attempt to make the CH more efficient, particularly whilst most of the children are away during term time.
The very old Aga provides a core heat to the house throughout the day, but it’s still getting quite nippy.

As with the above posteers, I have used string, ziptie and a shoelace (in extremis) to undo a quicklink.

We bought a new Discovery 3 in 2005, and ran it for about 225,000 miles until it died.
It was a great family car, but very expensive to run.
We replaced it with a nearly new Dsicovery Sport (65 plate), which was much nicer to drive, and had plenty of room inside. However the rearmost seats were not terribly comfortable for the children.
The DS got much better consumption (45 vs 30 mpg approx).
The DS had a huge amount go wrong with it, and we got rid about 18 months ago (approx 120,000 miles).
We’d have kept it until it died, except that it kept going wrong.
The EGR went, then the DPF.
The steering column collapsed (£3k) and it took a year to get LR to warranty it.

I still miss my LR90 though. If they weren’t so unbelievably overpriced I’d have one as a resto 2nd car.

Mech Eng – B>Eng, M.Eng Phd.
Then finance in the early 90s, who recognised the value of the engineering training and mindset.
Most of my peers no longer go anywhere near anything technical.
I’ve drifted around the FS market and earning big bucks in consultancy for a long while now.
It was teh right degree for me to do 35 years ago. I wouldnt get too hung up about which flavour of Eng is the more relevant / lucrative.

I’m in a similar position.
Early / mid 50s.
I’m waiting for formal assessment of autism and ADHD.
I’m fairly certain that I am somewhere in it.
My son has a formal diagnosis and it has been helpful through his education.
I’m not entirely sure of the value of a diagnosis for me – I had a conversation about 12 years ago with my gp and never progressed it formally.

I do want to better understand myself though. I’m going through a really tricky patch at the moment, which I think is exacerbated by the ASD tendencies I have.

plenty of places to park, albeit you will be conspicuous if you leave your car overnight.
THere’s good riding all around the woods, and you can easily link up with track to Coxwold and over to Kilburn / White Horse bank (trail centre).
There are lots of dog walkers out early though, so if wild camping you’d have to be prepared for an early strike/ pack up.
I’d suggest parking at Park House barns or Gilling. No barriers.
There are barriers at Windygates (Yearsley end of the woods), but they have only ever been shut in the early stages of Covid lockdown. Not apart from then in the 20 odd years I’ve lived here.

Planet X bibs and 3/4 shorts have been faultless for me.
I’ve got several pairs of each, and none have worn out.
Comfortable, even on long tough days in the saddle.
Eg no probs whatsoever on recent Fred Whitton, on a unpadded carbon saddle.

My old 7 speed road bike was 130 OLND and any Hyperglide 7/8/9/10 speed wheel seemed to work OK. (NB there are some oddities, eg 9 speed wheels I think).

444 miles, on a 24hr TT. Probably about 450 by the time I’d got back to HQ.
That was a very long time ago.
About 100 miles on mtb

I got round in 8h 30 elapsed / 8h ride time.
Excellent weather (albeit the headwind felt quite strong for a lot of the latter sections).
My tan is coming along nicely.
I had one “dab” about 25m from summit of Hardknott (not the steep section, ironically) when I was boxed in.
The hardest bits were the descents off Hardknott and Wrynose. My WW rotors overheated.
It would have been much easier if I’d found a decent group, but I set off too late to find some at my level.
I didn’t really enjoy the section after Whinlatter to the main feed station – headwind, lumpy, lonely, slow, tired.
There were a couple of accidents: someone flat out on a stretcher at the nasty bridge on Honister, and someone who hit a bus part way down off Whinlatter. Both looked pretty serious. Hope they are OK.