The only problem with paying money on top of the £1000 is that by using the C2W scheme your employer is the one who owns the bike and the money you are paying them is for leasing the bike for the year, they still own it after that until they decide to sell it to you, which they don’t have to do…

Obviously, most companies don’t want loads of bikes kicking around so will sell it on, but there is the possibility that they might keep the bike so if you have paid on top of the £1000 you’d risk losing that…

A small group of us have just done a day in the Peak with AQR this last weekend, and they were excellent. They covered everything we asked them to cover and I think we all came away having learnt things, and also with things we need to practise. They were also a good laugh, and it was a very chilled and fun day out, so yeah, they are well worth a look see…

Wooot… just spoken to my local Leisure Lakes and they take the Halfords B2W vouchers, plus they can get hold of Cotic.. so I think that’s a Road Rat coming in my near future…

Hehehehehe

Pretty much my dilema as well as it seems foolish to pass up the oportunity to get a 40% discount but I don’t have a clue what to get…

But if you want it… buy it..

:D

Now to just decide what I want…

I never did find out what type mine was when I did it about 4/5 years ago or so… but as you are probably finding out it hurt like ****! The weirdest thing was just letting my muscles relax on that shoulder and I could feel the arm dropping down and my shoulder seperating…

Anyway, didn’t need an op, but it was a possibility for a month or two, depending on how well it all healed. I had it in a sling with no movement allowed for about 4/6 weeks before being sent to the physio for some exercises. All through this time I had a bike on a turbo set up in the lounge and would ride that every day… but didn’t get on a bike until about 8 weeks after it happened, and then only on the road for a while.

That shoulder still isn’t quite right even now, and I have a nice little lump where one of the bones sticks out at the wrong angle, plus it clicks nicely if I move it around too much, but for the most part it’s not a problem.

Good luck with it…

If you can wait until SSUK I’ll have my pair with me and you can have a look…

When I was trying them on I found the 34’s were too tight on my thighs, and so I ended up with 36’s… nothing to do with the belly, honest!!

aw… looking at the Boardman road bikes, the top alu bike has exactly the same kit on it as the bottom of the range carbon, it’s just the frame and forks which are different, with the carbon being £200 more expensive.

And no, no need to be changing a carbon frame every twp years at all…

I’ve got the dilemma of what to get, but have no idea what I can get that won’t overlap on any of my current bikes too much… but I want to do it as it seems silly to pass up a 40% discount and a years interest free credit!

Possibly thinking a road bike(Boardman), cross bike(Croix de Fer), cargo bike(Yuba Mundo), race bike(Cube or Boardman)…

It’d be a lot easier if they gave us more than 1k to spend though…

Put a bolt in it to stop you mangling the threads and then **** it, sorry, tap it with a hammer and a drift…

Sorted…

There was a thing about it on the news the other night, saying they expected about a 1/3 of the worlds population would catch it this year, and they’d be expecting about 3 deaths for every 1000 people who do catch it.

Coley as well.. although not as close in texture/flavour to cod as pollock is…

neil… Oh, it’s a very home-brew puller involving a length of M12 threaded bar, some washed ground down to fit down the fork legs, plus allowing them to slip through the bushes, and then using the old dust deal, a large socket, an 18 tooth SS sprocket and a big stack of normal washers… I’m not sure a photo would help too much, but I might try and rustle up a drawing that shows the salient points…

peachos… it’s an ’04 Z1 FR and it took a bit of finding, but there is a post on MTBR (can be found via google) that has downloads of all the Marzocchi owner and service manuals…

It was due to be delivered yesterday?

D’oh… so much for my hard core reading skills then!!

Well, using a home made puller and after a lot of grinding and filing of washers to make them fit, I now have a set of fork legs sans bushes…

The next job is to get the new bushes fitted without destroying them!!!

How come all the hand wringing about otter abuse when earlier everyone was quite happy with burning ostriches and penguins doing menial labour!!

Mister P… I have one on a set of forks at home, so I am guessing it must be possible… :wink:

RRR… how did you mange to get hold of it so quickly? I thought it was only being delivered today, and if they can’t deliver it to me then I have to wait at least until the next day, if not the day after, before I can pick the parcel up from the sorting office…

They are about, you’ll probably have to trawl eBay for one though. I use one on my singlespeed, but that came with the fork I bought off here…

Occasionally they also turn up in the classifieds, so keep looking, and good luck.

Crell.. when did they stop dealing with Merlin? They were able to source bikes from them a few months ago as I pointed a friend of mine at a bike at Merlin for her C2W and she got a cracking deal..

Just done a little more diggin on the heat thing, it actually looks like a good idea as the coefficient of expansion of magnesium is about twice that of steel…

So definitely something to take into account..

Well, the news ones I’ve got have a split in them, and it looks like the ones in the forks do too, but with the ends butted up against each other…

I have to say I was expecting them to be a reasonable press fit, nothing like this unless they are just corroded/stuck in there.

I’m going to be building a puller this evening after buying 1m of M12 threaded bar this morning, and then I’ll just try pulling them out… the official service manual shows them using a slide hammer, so a puller should be okay I reckon.

If that doesn’t work, then the oven/kettle method might well be next..

But also, isn’t RRR still into IWH for £100 or so for a spring? If I was in that situation I might try being IWH’s best buddy until I had that spring in my hands too…

Fingers crossed for you RRR.

Seals and bushings for mine were less than £30, and I already have the oil at home so thought I’d give it a go…

How hard could it be? :o)

I thought about that, and am definitely going to stick the bushes in the freezer before fitting them, but applying heat where it would make any difference looks like it could be quite tricky. Plus, with them being made from cast magnesium, I’m a little wary about putting in too much heat for fear of damaging them..

Nope, they are inserted using a hammer and a large drift… there is a clip holding the oil seal in place, but that’s already been removed.

It’s a fair cop…

But they will get changed, even if I have to beat them with a large hammer…

The forks might not work afterwards mind..

I reckon both would be absolutely fine, although I suspect that for the same rider, the SL would be faster up and the Spot faster down… so it really depends which you would prefer…

I’d be taking the 5 Spot though…

At a guess it’ll be 29.8 or 30mm…

I’d guess that strictly it would be classed as illegal to carry in public due to it locking…

But with most of this it’s just being sensible about it. If you are out on the bike with the Leatherman in your pack, even if you do get searched for some reason you have a reasonable reason to be carrying it.

I’ve got a spare Halo Freedom disc front wheel if you are interested…

Why not just apply for a new V5 and then you won’t have the problem… :)

I sense some anger issues here…

Now, can we all sit down for a minute, hold hands and take a few deep breaths…

…

…

…

There, doesn’t that feel better?

:D

Aaaaah… I went through all this over the weekend, and boy was it a pain in the arse!! But I did manage it so there is hope, and I only used a track pump…

What I found is that when the tyre is just sat on the rim before it’s inflated it just tends to sit away from the bead. Plus, on the tubes I had at least, there was a thicker rubber patch around the valve stem that tended to lift the tyre slightly around that area, so as soon as you start pumping all the air just pisses out.

I got round it using some nylon webbing that I had laying around.. you can get it for about a quid a metre at B&Q or similar. I then used this to pack between the rim and the tube for about 5 inches or so either side of the valve. This brought the tyre and the tube a lot closer together, although still not perfectly, but enough that a little squeezing got it inflated. Once I had some air in the tyre, just enough to keep the bead hooked in, I pulled out the webbing and the tyre sprung into place and seated perfectly. Then pump it up and Bob’s your uncle.

I also found that once you deflate the tyre to put the latex/gunk/whatever in, the tyre bead came away from the tube again, so I needed to use the same method to get them to re-inflate.

I’m beginning to think that maybe the tubes I am using are too thick, and that thinner ones would be better/easier. Am try some thinner tubes on the girlfriends bike soon, and see how they compare.

Had the first short ride out on the newly tubeless wheels today, and they worked fine… not sure what pressure to use in the yet though, the normal pressure that I run seemed a little hard, so some experimenting is called for I think.

Good luck with it…

The new spangly Rudy Project ones don’t seem to be available yet… I just get told they will be available soon when I call the distributors! I might have to give them another poke though, it was a few months ago last time I checked…

If they don’t pull their fingers out soon I’ll end up with some Oakleys or something… but I’d rather not pay quite that much really…

I’ve done that mod to the HL pivots on mine, and it certainly makes a difference to getting some grease into those pivots! Not that I had a creak in the first place, it just seemed like a good idea to me.

Would it be an idea to find out who the CTC use for their legal work, and then approach them? I’d imagine they’d be pretty much pro-cycling and be able to sort something out…

This kind of thing is the reason I joined the CTC, so that in case of an accident I am covered by their legal cover etc..

The bottom range Boardman bike looks pretty good as well, although it does mean you have to deal with Halfords!!

Push did make some, but they upped the rear to 5.7″… and I don’t think they make them any more.

I’m not actually sure they were ever that widely available, but it would be worth contacting the distributor, Silverfish, to find out. Or even try dropping an email to Turner themselves as they have fantastic customer service, and should be able to sort you out.

I don’t believe they are that cheap though, so if might be worth keeping an eye on the classifieds as they do turn up every now and again.