Eat real food !

General XC, nothing technical, there is bugger all difference between my 130mm FS and a 25 year old rigid (XT spec kit).

Throw in bumps and stuff, then game over.

I demand a rebate, with my petrol….

It won’t happen. Co2 was the measure, not everything that came out the exhaust. We petrol drivers have lost out for years, despite us knowing diesel spewed out soot.

We had some mad shoot at our Primary. Ended up with cops on a small cul de sac stopping drivers – the guy that caused it was an unemployed layabout (being nice here) that lived less than 2 minutes walk away – he insisted on driving his kids in his beat up car to the school gate.

Most folk would park some distance away or walk. He thought it as some victory when the police had turned up early to stop folk driving down a small street.

Don’t under estimate the village idiot !

If driver’s don’t look, they still don’t see. I know to my cost, two years ago, daylight, two Hope 1’s on level2 and another light on ‘pulse’ (800 lumen) – driver turned right across me – badly broken spine, 6 1/2 weeks flat on back in hospital under some serious drugs, 4 months in a spinal brace.

Good rear lights, the Smart R2 is good, not too mad and a great output that is visible. The C&B Seen City Slickers are good, useful off road too on high output. The rear is very bright on max, but you usually run it lower.

You did good OP.

Many folk wouldn’t. By what you say, there wasn’t much anyone could have done.

Nissans have a lot of ‘secret’ fixes as do many cars. Ignition key/pedal presses to get and clear codes.

My Wife’s replacement to the Yaris, had supposedly had 4 services in the 23k miles it had done in the 3 year old car when we bought it, all main dealer. Local garage did the recent service, and changed the pollen filter – leaves and crap all over – not one of the other ‘services’ had changed it.

Prefer local independents.

We had a 1999 Yaris for 17 years until last year. In that time it needed very little – tyres, pads etc. Water pump bearings went during warranty, and the fuel pump went when we decided to sell at 17 years old – we had it fixed, and the new owner is very happy with it.

That’s a dodgy dealer and a half.

What are newer Jags like these days for reliability. Seriously thinking about a 2-3 year old XF Sportbrake – probably a 2.2 197 bhp R Sport.

I remember my old BLT lights with a piddly 5w halogen and a big water bottle battery.

Just been out on a quick 16 miler – tracks, farm lanes, old railway and back via the canal.

Always keep an eye out for stupid dog walkers in the middle of nowhere, a big dark coloured dog is hard to see.

Fairly busy with random pedestrians tonight and a group of 4 MTB’ers with equally powerful lights – I dipped mine and pulled over to let them pass on the tow path. Animals, 2 rats, a badger and a load of bats tonight – might have been explained by the abundance of insects in my light beams.

Just get out there, the darker the lanes/tracks the better.

New Mavic freehub needed to swap compatibility.

Opening a door, drivers or passengers is the responsibility of the driver, so totally his fault. Well proven in court.

Main issue is folk soon change their mind when they see the ‘price’ of bike parts – ‘bikes only cost £100’..

British Cycling Member for over 30 years and they have helped me out numerous times. They contract with Leigh Day solicitors, but you should be able to speak to their cycling team and they will represent you without BC membership.

They are currently representing me after a driver broke my spine two years ago – 6 1/2 weeks in hospital and 3-4 months in a spinal brace. It’s unfortunately left me with permanent pain and stiffness and it restricts my cycling. I’ve switched to MTB only now, or the turbo as I’ve been hit too many times, and this last one was close to being in a wheel chair – I’ve been very lucky according to every surgeon I’ve spoken too.

I have a couple of the solarstorm battery cases with which you put in your own sourced batteries (Xtar, panasonic etc). These work the best and can either be charged in the case or by a smart charger. I use the smart charger every so often to ensure the cells are ‘balanced’ – i.e. they have the same charge.

The brightest flood I have is a Solarstorm XT40, but it does burn through the batteries at full power. The standard Solarstorm 2x lights are fine, but my favourite is a Yinding 2xU2 – tiny lamp but outputs a really good spread of light with good distance. I’ve also got a C&B Seen City Slicker – uses self contained panasonic batteries. Despite them saying it’s not suitable for off road due to weight, they are fine as it uses a Hope clamp. A wrap of tape round the bars and the light doesn’t move, even on rough terrain. Run time is impressive on high.

I’ve found that the lights that use a collimator lens rather than a standard reflector give the best light spread.

Nest destroyer spray. Spray it in the dark as wasps aren’t active. The spray covers the nest in foam, and the pesticides kill off the wasps. We’ve had a few over the years, and this is good for hard to get places.

My best man used to bugger off either on foot or on his bike for 3 or 4 months at a time after University. He then worked hard, managed to buy his modest house, but he wasn’t married, so sold everything, left a well paid job, and then rented his house out. He now travels the world on his Thorn tourer (26″ wheels and Marathon Tour Plus tyres) with Shimano XT and has lived off the rental income. He has been just about everywhere, and isn’t in a rush. He keeps bumping into other folk that are doing similar, but bumps into them months later in remote parts of the world.

The bike has been massively reliable, and hasn’t suffered the damage my commute bike did riding in bloody Manchester every day.

If he needs parts, he will stop over for a few days and order from Wiggle/CRC etc as shipping is fast. He was even ordering parts from the UK when he was staying local to Shimano factories.

Sounds amazing.

I have a few C&B lights, including the city slicker (self contained with batteries).

Your best bet is either Amazon or ebay for the Pannovo/Solarstorm battery boxes, then buy your own 18650 batteries from Torchy.

You can charge the batteries using a standard ‘magicshine’ type charger, and also worth occasionally taking them out and putting on a smart charger to ensure they are balanced. The good news is in the last 2 years, my batteries have always charged fully within just a few minutes of each other, so they aren’t going out of balance.

SJS Cycles do a range of carbon forks from about £60.

When my back was broken by a driver, all that happened to my bike was a small scratch on the side of the carbon forks. That must have been some force.

I think Mobike will be monitoring where the bikes go. If you leave the bike out of the way, you’ll get a big points ‘fine’ so you’ll very quickly not be able to hire one.

There are enough of them about. A colleague just tried it this morning from Oxford Road station out to Hulme – saved him quite alot of time, but he was pedalling too fast.

As for the second hand market – it’s still cheaper to get a junk bike.

I used to commute in 26 mile round trip, but some idiot broke my spine 18 months ago, so commuting is by car now.

Netgear powerline wifi extender in my garage – works fine, just plug and go. Best giving it a slightly different name, as it’s easier to check what you are connected to – i.e. I can sometimes go in the garage still connected to the house, so the signal isn’t as good, with a different name, you can just force the switch over – e.g. moving laptop into garage for Zwift, if the signal is strong enough the laptop wont switch over to the extenders signal.

So far so good. Signed up early at £29 deposit. Used it to get between two offices in 3 minutes, rather than 15 minutes. Good fun. Plenty of bikes about and the app lets you know where they are and you can ‘reserve’ one for 15 minutes before you collect it.

Scan the bar code, the bike unlocks, and off you go. Park up, flick the lock, and it ‘off hires’. 50p for 30 minutes.

The bikes are heavy – weigh about twice what my full suspension MTB does, but they are smooth enough. You spin out quite quickly, so the key is to plod along, otherwise you’ll be soaking wet in your civvies.

I can see myself using it to get into the city centre quickly.

Always double check as this is a sure fire way of ripping off your rear mech if it overshifts.

I was done nearly 5 years ago. Unfortunately I got PVPS – about 10% (1 in 10) men get it.

The right side went fine, but the left had no anaesthetic, and the doc cut through a blood vessel as well, requiring stitching. Ended up off work for a month as it was that bad, and I had a ruddy hole that wouldn’t heal up.

Pain kept persisting, so a year later had some repair work to lefty – an epididymectomy (they cut the epididymis off). Needless to say I was badly swollen.

Moved on another 6 months and I was feeling crap, could hardly pedal the bike. Full bloods done, and hey ho, low testosterone – looks like lefty was a bit mangled. Been on the Lance Armstrong juice for two years now, and I still get bad pains in the boys.

PVPS is quite common, so research it.