will be needing the tyres for commuting and road rides, so normal roads with speed humps, pot holes etc in all weathers.

Conti 4 seasons (28mm) for great combination of light weight, grip and puncture proofing. I’m sure a bit of a search will generally support these as a good option. I’ve ridden occasional rough track, canal, easy bridleway and they haven’t punctured on these (and only ever suffered once in a few thousand miles). Look around as often good deals can be found , especially on the german web sites.

http://www.bike-discount.de

or

http://www.bike24.com/%5B/url%5D

I have a voucher for Evans

sorry just caught that…still I’d buy conti 4 seasons even if from Evans

We have had our Ideal combi for 2 years without a hitch. Minor quibbles: Ours has a neon digital display which is quite bright and never goes out (unless I’m missing a setting) and this bugs me more than it should. When running it’s louder than I expected (a low ‘roar’) but that may be particular to our install. I wish I’d gone for the most powerful model as we have a large bath and the water it not quite hot enough if we open the hot tap full blast (it’s still fairly rapid though).

No but I always carry a Park self-adhesive patch kit with me in case I get more than 1 puncture. If I’m going far from home I’ll carry a 2nd tube.

It sounds like the guy who posted the photo but didn’t have any faith in the police has changed his tune a bit:

“I was so impressed with the police and the way they handled it all and I am glad he has been put behind bars.

prolific bike thief jailed

I think you’ve done well if it was decent food. So many places serve ‘average’ food and charge way more.

I’m joined a road club last year and it has led to a number of new experiences. It gets me to places and on routes I wouldn’t take myself. They have arranged a few sessions at the velodrome including a club track championship which was fun. ‘Coached’ turbo sessions in the winter. I teamed up with someone in the club to do a 25 mile ‘2-up’ time trial for the first time. I had a few familiar faces to ride with on a 200km audax ride…and then when it went wrong and I hit the deck they looked after me, called the ambulance and got my bike and car home for me. A large number of members are just setting off for a club holiday to the Pyrenees and a smaller number of us are off to Mallorca at the end of September.

If you have plenty of cycling mates then I guess you could sort this out yourself.

The bad…rides tend to be on the ‘social’ side and with quite a large group there can be a bit of waiting around and faffing. The weekly club meeting is not my thing..having to pay a couple of quid (covers cost of meeting room) to sit around doing small talk and drinking vending machine coffee.

, their own brand ready meals are dire, but are still not cheap.

I agree. The worst ready meal curry out there. I do wonder who (and if) they got to taste test this stuff and in which decade they last did (70’s or 80’s ?). They do sell some decent stuff though and do not (over) charge as much as Sainsburys Local.

We have seen some improvements with the co-op though, some of the staff now actually talk and not all of them throw your food down the checkout.

yep, first time for me. The plan is to avoid the hassle of coaches to get back to Manchester by cycling Blackpool to Manchester also.

It’s no good online but only just found out that CTC members get 10% off in store. I’ve missed plenty of opportunities to use that as I wasn’t aware it was available.

Eurosport will still never show anything on schedule though

..and then only show the 2nd half of anything cycling related

The first time mine felt a bit tight so I worked the bolts in on their own and then slotted carrier in once the bolts were in. Next time they slid in quite easily whilst attached to carrier. Would a smear of vaseline or grease help ?
(no cutting here)

paperclips

I was looking at this and they say

Do not have any active devices such as bike computers or digital displays that can distract you whilst riding. As a computer is a “projection” it is
not allowed.

So perhaps you could stick a GPStracker in your pocket.
I also found mention of transponders to hire which sounds interesting (anyone here tried it ?) :-

Mylaps transponders are available for hire, and can be hired on a daily basis from reception. Results appear on line in real time at http://www.manchestermylaps.com. The system gives accurate 50m, 150m 200 times, and lap time from the start/finish line per lap. This allows sprinters to record their 50, 150 & 200m splits in training without finding someone to hold a stopwatch! It also counts every lap and highlights best lap time, so also useful for scheduled warm ups.

here

And anyway what difference does what they paid for it make?

+1

I think I got a good bargain when I bought mine (desperate seller) but don’t expect me to pass on my good fortune to the next buyer.

…it’s just me and Al at Torm…that’s quite small !

I like the look of the jerseys, especially the rear pockets. I need to go back and work out the difference between the 6 different short sleeve options!

I think braking is one of the recognised techniques for slowing down

So it is, silly me! There’s silly old me thinking that observation and easing off the accelerator before I plough into the back of someone who is only doing 10mph slower than me is preferable if I don’t want to overtake.

I had to wonder about the speed / ability of all those poor people who were ‘forced’ to brake because he was doing only 60mph.

Wife had something similar done about 6 months ago. She had been bothered for years and eventually asked the GP who requested an appointment at the local NHS hospital. We expected the hospital appointment was going to be a battle to convince them that they were medically necessary to remove, and then to be put on a long waiting list. She was most surprised to arrive at a mobile unit in a car park and find a friendly consultant ready to flex his blades on whatever she wanted ! It appeared to be one of those things they were targeting here at the time.

note: re that link to Telegraph and sad death of Jamie Heaton wasn’t a result of a bad DIY job…

He cut two gas pipes in his house because his girlfriend had left him and taken their children, the court heard.

£5.99 sounds cheap to me. I think I paid lots more than that for Manchester Great Cycles ones (probably a bundle) a couple of years ago.

My favourites include:
100 years of solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
World According to Garp – John Irving

Should be a good finish to today’s stage.

Perhaps I’ll find out if Eurosport start showing it before the race is over

Come on Eurosport, missing cycling for tennis yet again !

Rumour has it Bertie went home last night

Grrr, I fell for it. I presume he may have slept in his own bed as his house was nearby.

What are the pitfalls for the diy klutz?

I couldn’t get the drill through my wall. After several attempts and a new drill bit that the DIY shop said would sort the problem I gave in…..luckily I had a picture big enough to hide my failed attempts. So my advice is to have a picture ready to hang and hide the failure (or buy a SDS drill)

Another possibility – I had creaking wheels and the LBS recognised the issue. Dribbled oil around the holes where the spokes attached to the hub and that creaking was gone.

my vote(s)
1) Star wars (enclosed cabinet) – it was ‘ACE’ !
2) Scramble – the table top / sit down version they had in the pub
3) Gorf (think this was the 1st game I heard with speech !)
4) Tron – just for looking cool (not sure the game was that good?)

2nd attempt a much more reasonable 2hr 30min. I left it charging for a couple of hours after the charging lamp turned green, also turned the gps off since I was indoors. I’ll give it another long charge and try it outdoors again. I’ll probably be buying a 2nd battery or external power pack (guess problem there is water would get to the usb connectors). Great, over 2 hours is fine (under wasn’t).

It’s a shame they didn’t show the first half the race yesterday but the coverage they did was good.

So forum Specsavers, Good/Bad?

yes (sometimes) / yes (sometimes)

my wife used to work for a couple so I’ve gathered a few opinions…

Quality of store / staff can vary massively. Stores are franchises and so different store directors have differing standards.

I’d say the sales volumes allow them to operate differently. There are good and bad tales all over but some smaller opticians without these big volumes may try extra hard to extract every pound from each customer whereas [some] Specsavers staff are not so desperate because they are so busy.

Testing times may be shorter (depending on the franchise / optometrist) but either way the optom is in danger of being struck off if they do not do their job properly.

Some top Optometry students work / worked in Specsavers (or used to) because they could pay some of the best salaries (because of number of sales) – again different franchise directors have different priorities and some I guess would try and run it as cheap as they can.

edit..franchise owners of each store are usually UK resident paying UK taxes on store profits…but stock and other costs will be going to head office.

done…

Your donation amount is: £30
Your reference number is: INC02474065

have a look at AJ Bell too http://www.ajbell.co.uk/%5B/url%5D

I’m struggling to get a Lezyne pump mounted securely at the moment (pump might be nice but mount is rubbish and I find the pump slips and rattles. I’ve just mounted it upside down to see if that is better otherwise I’m buying another Topeack RaceRocket (worked fine on my other bike for a few years).

I think I saw some in Blazing Saddles…I’d ring to check….

https://blazingsaddles.co.uk/blog/swrve-clothing-is-on-the-way-watch-this-space/%5B/url%5D

When I spoke to the local constabulary, they just told me to make sure my employer informed the DVLA, even though I told them of the location of the vehicle and the time when he would be leaving work to drive.

How about putting it in writing to the police (and dvla?). It’s easy for someone on the desk to fob you off but if you put it in writing then there is a record of them being aware of the issue and choosing not to investigate or take action.

google Low House Forestry, Milnrow to find a telephone number. It’s been a few years and I think getting hold of them took a few calls but they cleared loads of trees and bushes from our garden for little money

just one example from Jonathan Richman stuff e.g.:-

Here come the Martian Martians
And they’re riding on their Martian bike
Well, we have to find out right now
What kind of ice cream do the Martians like?

Peaches by Presidents of United States of America – I love it !

Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat me a lot of peaches
Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat a lot of peaches

Peaches come from a can,
They were put there by a man
In a factory downtown
If I had my little way,
I’d eat peaches every day
Sun-soakin’ bulges in the shade

etc etc…

…Millions of peaches, peaches for me
Millions of peaches, peaches for free
Look out!

Holme Moss isn’t ‘steep’ anyhow (not in my book anyhow). Ramsbottom Rake is pretty close but never done it myself.

I’m going to buck the trend and say that it can be pretty hard – certainly at the 9 hour end of things. I’ve finished it 3 times but twice after I’ve bailed out when other people have been finding it tough and I’ve had no particular reason to want to drag myself around again. Worst was when the sun was blazing hot (it does happen now and again)…found it impossible to get past the ice cream van at Ribble Head (which won’t be there the time you really want it to be) and suddenly find you don’t have enough water (the streams are not very inviting for drinking!). There is some variation in routes…early days I remember going straight up Whernside from Ribblehead but in later years I’ve followed the railway easy which is longer / steadier (TBH if feeling fit I’d opt for steeper / shorter).

When tired I’ve hated the long stone path off Ingleborough into Horton and since I’ve started at Chapel-le-Dale (or RibbleHead) to get that done when fresher.

Navigating off the top of Ingleborough in dense fog can be challenging…a compass and the ability to use it may help but generally navigation is simple.
For a group pack a load of blister plasters, also if you can have a support car parked up with extra supplies then this could be invaluable…although in our case it just meant that we decided to pack in and go to the pub.