and yet you are still paying the full BIK on it ????

Yep. Proper kick in the nads at a time in my life which was frankly shite.

I wouldn’t get an allowance. Its and old set up for the year dot. The funeral directors in the company had a “company car” as they were on call and needed the the vehicle for work duties.

For years it wasn’t even official, just owned by the company and we took them home without paying tax or fuel on them. Was a great benefit, alas prob not a fully legal one.

A few years after I was promoted as a funeral director and got use of one of the cars they got twitchy and the accountant wanted it above board. We loss the free petrol and started logging mileage and paying for personal miles. We also started paying tax as a “benefit in kind”, at the time we got a payrise to cover the loss of earnings due to the amount of tax we then started having to pay.

I’ll dig through some paperwork when I get home and see whats on my P11D and post it up here.

Its never seemed right in my eyes

Def not my car. Registered to the company, insured so that anyone can drive it and used by anyone in the company during work hours.

Used for removals etc during the day. I take it home evenings and weekends and when I’m on call its fr removals out of office hours.

One of the reasons I want to get shut is the fact thats its NOT my car. I seem to be responsible for it, eyes on me if a mark appears etc but evryone in the company drive it so it annoys the hell out of me that I’m held to account as if its my car despite the fact it isn’t.

There was a situation a few years ago when I was off work with meningitis and they wanted the car back to use it during the day whilst I was off, which meant I was without the car out of hours. Wasn’t really used but meant on a couple of occasions I was up the creek when I needed to drop the kids off at school. Seems to be a loaded deal with the company wanting there cake and eating it.

It’s always seemed wrong in my eyes.
Think small family business with 9 employees not big corporation by the way.

Ok to clarify a few points…

Car is owned by the company not leased.

I take car home but am taxed as benefit in kind.

During work hours it’s a pool car, everyone uses it.

We don’t use it at weekends as not really suitable. (Bike racks on roof of family car, dog in boot, two messy kids etc)

I don’t want anything extra or travel allowance.

If I don’t use it at weekends and I commute by bike then I would not being using it personally. That’s fine but I then don’t want to pay a shed load of tax to have the benefit of personal which wouldn’t be used.
I get it would be cheaper to have the company car than buying my own but the point is I wouldn’t replace it with my own. I’d commute by bike and use the family car at weekends as we already do.

You would also be able to take it home when on call without endangering the position that it is not available for your private use. You would then have no tax bill.

Tried this approach in the past but taking it home would mean I’m using it personally for my commute.

I just want to abandon it all together. Not have the responsibility of it or housing it for them, evenings and weekends when its not being used.

I fail to see what’s stopping you from cycling in, either. Just because you have the car doesn’t mean you have to use it every time you go anywhere. Why don’t you leave it at work during the week and take it home at weekends?

I wouldn’t want it weekends either. I could cycle in now and my personal mileage would be zero. What I don’t want it to be paying tax on a benefit in kind that isn’t being used. ie paying for the benefit of being able to use it personally despite I never would.

The 2nd car we have is my OH’s car. as a family we have two cars but don’t need two.
My OH needs her car and we use that at weekends etc. The only reason for me to have a car would be to commute and I’d rather do that by bike.

I’m not looking to make money and I won’t be able to change the company policy making it a pool car etc. I’d just rather not have something I don;t need or want.
I’d save a bit each month on the mileage I pay for the commute and the removal of the benefit in kind on my tax should mean I’m slightly better off again.
The main reason is a lifestyle choice though, I want to commute by bike for health reasons primarily.

Er you do commute?

Currently by the company car but only because I presently have the car. If I could lose the benefit of personal use I’d commute by bike.

They likely would and I know the current system is far from the most viable but they like to work they did 30 years ago! Very old school thinking.

Not sure if its the same thing but I sold something (not on ebay) and sent a money request to the buyer for payment.
They paid but then the money was held as pending and I couldn’t do anything from my end. Apparently the buyer had to confirm they had received the goods before the payment would go through. Stupid really as the payment sent including postage costs that couldn’t be accessed.

G was awesome yesterday. Let the attacks happen and just kept his brutal pace and slowly drew them all back in. Even when Froome put an attack in (why not every other GC had!) he just kept his pace and rode past on to the front and carried on his duty again. Total respect, awesome rider.

Def a break away again, hopefully with little Tommy V in it for entertainment, he’s always chance his hand and turn himself inside out.

I’m about to do the same, although I’ll be doing a full diy job.
I’ve done a DIY conversion on a T4 SWB transporter in the past so have learnt a good few things on the way.

My original choice of getting a swb / normal roof T4 was the access of parking etc. What I found that parking isn’t that much of an issue with a LWB hightop as its only the extra length you need to worry about. The T4 was great fun but you had to be methodical about how things were stored and a lot of the time things had to be moved about to access / use things. The LWB will be a lot better.

I’m 6’2″ so the hightop is a must. The standard heights look better if you wanna be cool but no way as near as practical. I ended up with roof racks on the T4 to transport bikes so you were just as restricted to low bridges / car parks etc. The new build will allow a small garage / workshop based from the rear doors for carrying bikes and gear.

I’m looking at a Mk7 Ford Transit this time. The VW tax is a huge price to pay and I can get so much more for my money.

I’ll be looking at 4 berth. General rock and roll for two people and a pull out bunk starting above the cab. Beauty of the high top. It will all stow away above the cab when not in use and allow full standing height and when in use the bottom of the bunk will be the same as a standard roof height so still totally usable when deployed.

Put in a bottle, tied to a large helium balloon with a suitable message to the finder and let go

Definitely. Put a letter in proposing (extra points for pic of yourself on one knee) in the bottle with your email address and see what kind of women you find! Can’t be any worse than the last one eh?

I hadn’t but I’d have thought they were probably two big a company these days to deal with randomers with problems for other peoples products. Would be awesome though!

I sometimes get this on my hands or feet if I’m doing ling rides 12 hour+.
I always put it down to me spending too long in one position so try to move around on the bike as much as I can, keep mixing up the hand positions etc.

I’d try moving your cleats slightly back or forward dependent on current position. this will change the pressure spot slightly, experiment a little and see what feel right for you.

I’ve done a few long rides 24 hour+ where a toe or finger has felt numb for a long time. Funnily enough my middle toe on my left foot is still feeling numb 3 weeks after a big ride!

All depends on terrain but 8 is a good starting point. If your pogoing then that’s more to do with your pedal technique than tyre pressure. Low pressure will just eccentuate any bob so if your pedalling in squares you’ll get bounce.
Fat tyres take no prisoners but it’s great for improving your peddling technique.

anyone?

I was supposed to ride solo but a knee problem the weekend before put that out. Went to support a mate and had the family with us so was a good weekend watching and drinking!

We were at the top of the loong grassy climb heckling people with our little kids shouting for wheelies and bunny hops! Got some good pics so will put some up.
Top weekend. Definitely more of a peoples race than the racers these days but not a bad thing. Kids loved it and was plenty of things for them to do.

Yep I did it. Was a fantastic ride, well thought out and you can tell Markus knows the area well considering the amount of single track he threw in, was a great way to spread the field out at the start!

Pretty much the only bike I’ve ridden for the last 18 months. Ride lots of different things and it just handles the lot. I’m still ok going out on group rides with non fattys, just have to work a little harder on the up. Not a problem though and no worse than being on a single speed.
I’d never bother with anything else now. I built up a pair of nextie 29+ rims to add versatility to it and it rides amazingly in 29+ guise. Not as floaty as full fat but super fast for less knarly trails. Just did over 250 miles on it this weekend. Stockport to snowdon on mostly cyclepaths, up snowdon was a breeze and down was great fun!

Lots more stuff coming out for fattys now, tyres, cranks, rims etc and prices getting more reasonable so fattys def here to stay!

Evening all, local funeral directors here!

Sorry for the bad news Derek. Whether a PM is done or not abroad is totally dependant on the circumstances of the death and in which country it happened. In Morocco I’d expect one to take place. The authorities abroad along with a local funeral director will get together all relevant paperwork that will allow the body to be repatriated back to the UK.
When the body arrives back in this country then all the paperwork will be sent to H. M. Corner for the area in which the body will be cremated / buried. The Coroner will then decide to either provide the relevant paperwork for the service to go ahead here or whether further investigation is needed. The only time a further PM would take place here is if the coroner isn’t happy with the finding of the original PM taken place abroad of if the documentation is illegible.
This sometimes happens if the PM results, death certificate etc are in a different language.
The families funeral director will do all the leg work for the family. It is worth appointing one sooner rather than later as a decent funeral director will be ahead of the game with getting copies of paperwork and forewarning the coroner etc which will minimise delays in the service taking place.

If you have any questions just his me a shout, there’s not much I haven’t seen after doing this job for the last 15 years.

I’ve got a pair of Nextie 50mm 29+ rims I put on Fatsno’s for my Mukluk.

I was very happy with the rims and order to receiving was about 3 weeks and that was over Chinese new year so not to bad.

I went for Matt UD as it matches the Salsa Makwa fork I have on the front.
I’m very happy with them and as soon as I have the money i’ll be getting a pair of the 80mm dragons as well.

I’ll always give to people that are doing a self supported challenge.
I personally feel the same as most here that I won’t give a free holiday, to easy to get a free experience by tagging a charity to it.

I do loads of personal challenges but will never have them sponsored as I feels that taking the focus away from my intention, to challenge myself. Forcing myself out of comfort zone is part of that challenge so I don’t need to name a charity to help me. I’d only be picking a charity at random anyway as they’re a nothing close to my heart.

That said if I did want to support a specific cause I would bend over backwards to do so.
Has it happens I’ll be one of a group of MTBers riding 240miles to bivvy on the summit of Snowdon next Saturday.
It’ll cost all riders involved a fair chunk of money and time to do aside from the blood, sweat and tears but something’s are worth the effort. In this case it’s a local family who will loose two young children to Battens disease in the near future and I’ll do my utmost to give these kids some good experiences whilst they’re still able.

If you’re in the mood…
http://www.justgiving.com/oasnowdon

I’m one of the 11 tackling this monumental effort, please support us if you can.
To get the niche vote I’ll be doing it on my fatbike so if you own a fatbike you have to donate!
#ridethatfatty

doh! wrong forum, please move to chat forum!

Sounds like dropbox it is then.

Will just be used for keeping all of my docs online which I can then access and work from either at home or work.
Will mostly be pics though so i can upload them to dropbox then share and work with them (blog etc) from wherever I happen to be.
Like the idea of the extended history as so I can retrieve pics If I deleted them my accident etc.

We are supposed to be on a quick broadband speed here at work so I’ll look into that! Just done a speedtest and although download is quick upload is slow which it shouldn’t be.

Go on then, I;m biting. Where can I get some good quality Ti bolts…

About 20 foot from where I was got then. Hope the guys ok. Could easily be a local we know.

Where about’s in Disley was it? Come through that way a fair bit and was clipped by a car who pulled out in front of me a few months back at the Ram’s Head junction.

Yeh there were a few smug people with 5″ tyres on 100mm rims!

Not hilly at all to be honest. 4000feet all in. The trail is hard going and slow but more in a zapping way rather than a hillfest.
To be honest I trained by just doing lots of long and full laden rides and replicated the terrain by compensating with big hills so after dragging a 70lb bike around the peaks taking in 10,000 feet of climbing on a ride it was like a breath of fresh air!

Had a fair few thorn punctures over the last year but i’ve covered thousands of miles on my Muk so a law of averages I guess.

I’ve had two snake bites in that time as normally when clattering down something very fast and baby head rocks kind of terrain.

I run Bud & Lou combo at the mo with 7psi in the front and 8psi in the rear (15 stone + Bivvying stuff)

*picks up binners sausage roll*
Nom Nom Nom

Punted for a Dakota 20 in the end. £130 over at Go Outdoors.
Thanks everyone

Excellent cheers buddy!

Can’t decide whether touch or not would be better!

What Mapping is that Junkyard? OS Mappings? was planning on the toasty versions but an OS map at a reasonable price would be cool!

mmm bummer…

Any other recommendations?