I don’t stop at too many shops with my bike, other than the Sainsbury’s local at the end of the road where I take it inside. There are no bike racks (although there are some barriers between the pavement and the car park that I could use at a push), but there’s a nice bike shaped gap just inside the door where they get access to the ATM and they’ve never said anything about me propping the bike up there while I grab a few things.

I have a feeling I’ve also taken it inside Tesco when I wanted to pick up a prescription on the basis that it’s no more of an obstruction than a shopping trolley, but I might be making that memory up.

The flashers are the ones who make me most nervous. So much so that I changed my route home to avoid one bit of road that’s particularly bad for it. I’m not sure it’s even just a bike thing – this bit of road has two lanes of traffic and bikes filtering inside/between/outside them depending on how confident the cyclist is. A car in one of the two lanes will flash and the driver who’s being flashed out will go, ignoring the car in the other lane and any cyclists. After all, if one person says it’s OK to go there’s no need to look, is there?

It’s particularly galling as it’s uphill and I need to maintain any momentum I can find rather than having to slam on the brakes as they pull across me.

I found some on ebay but can’t get the link at the moment because it’s blocked from work.

I didn’t buy one in the end – I have a map holder already (essentially a plastic pocket with a solid backing which velcros onto the bars) and the tablet is fine slipped into that – it helps that I have tri-bars on too which gives it a bit of extra support but it seems stable enough and the plastic stops me sweating all over the tablet while still letting me operate the touch screen.

Mind you, one day if they call at a convenient time I’d like a long chat with them about how they can reduce my non-existent unsecured debts to something less than 0.

I just tend to mention TPS which usually gets rid of them. If it doesn’t I throw in that I’m a data protection lawyer :p

Rather than get arsey with them I tend to be OK with them but follow it up with the relevant company, particularly if I get more than one call. I have been known to put in subject access requests in an attempt to find out where they got my information.

Although having said that I don’t get arsey, whenever I take this type of call and there’s someone listening (work colleagues/people I’m with at the time) I tend to get comments about the firmness of my getting rid of them technique…

I’m with plusnet and on the one occasion I’ve had to speak to them recently I came off the phone thinking that it was the most helpful customer service call I’ve ever experienced. May have been a one off, but no complaints at the moment.

I’ve done some northern France/Belgium cobbles including the Arenburg forest on a carbon road bike. It was a bit bumpy but it (and I) survived!

I’m ranked in legal 500 and chambers in my practice area so I reckon I must be getting there.

To my shame I only live 5 miles away but still drive regularly (I cycle once or twice per week in winter, more in summer). Mainly because I’m carrying stuff or because I need to go somewhere after work.

I hatedriving at rush hour though, so in the morning I come in at about 6.30, go for a run, shower at the office, go for a coffee and then go in to work. Going home I grin and bear it because my commute is short enough that it rarely turns into a complete nightmare (and if it does I could always park the car and walk the rest of the way). Having said that, it sometimes takes 15 minutes to get out of the office car park, at which point I find something to do in town before going home later.

Old thread revival alert, but just as a PSA – the information in that link is bollocks.

“But still one has to register his work properly to the copyright office for getting full proof rights on the original work crafted”

Absolutely untrue. There is no official copyright office in the UK for a start and no offical copyright registration process. It arises automatically.

I currently have cheap carbon (Planet X – which I really like) and am on the verge of buying a CAAD10 so we’ll see… Everything I’ve read about it sounds good so I’m interested to see how it rides 🙂

Sadly I won’t be able to compare them directly as the two bikes will never meet or be ridden on the same roads – my parents live abroad so the CAAD is a second hand bike which will live at their house while the Planet X stays at home.

But the point is, he wasn’t banned just for doping. He was banned for being instrumental in a doping conspiracy. You can’t test for that.

Final payment is currently due the day after my 50th birthday but I’m hoping to accelerate the process a bit at some point.

BTW I didn’t have BC/CTC membership at the time and it was no issue – solicitor acted on a CFA and I didn’t have to pay a penny. I suspect that the solicitors quite like it when you go direct as they don’t need to pay a referral fee.

If the insurers accept liability a decent solicitor may be able to get you an interim payment for your bike while the final figures are thrashed out.

When I was hit I got a cheque for everything that was on the bike shop’s quote (to the penny – no quibbling) and then a second cheque which was for everything else – damaged clothing, injuries, missed races etc.

I also found that the process took nowhere near as long as I expected – the accident was on 1 March and it was all settled in mid July. It helped that liability was clear cut, but the insurers didn’t actually try to negotiate us down on what we asked for which surprised me a lot.

SAR = subject access request (=request for personal data under s7 of the DPA)

I feel a new chain coming on, it snapped after the first lap so I ran 2 more pushing the bike!

Remarkably I wasn’t actually last…

I was meant to be going out tonight, would have been the first time in quite a while.

Someone cancelled and I’m on the sofa with wine again…

Doing the fun/novice race too. First cross race. *wibble*

Fiat 500 with a rear bike carrier (it has a glass roof so I can’t put them on top). Gets a few looks and comments such as “doesn’t it just tip over” when I have two bikes on it. But it got two bikes from Yorkshire to France and back and it does the job.

A smallish bike will just about go inside with both wheels off, but no hope of getting 2 in!

The corner shop is sainsbury’s local. To get to the nearest “proper” corner shop I’d also have to walk past to coop and it would be much further away.

Fiat 500. Not an ideal bike transporter although I did once get two bikes to France on it…

About 4.5 if I go by the most direct route. If I run to work I usually take a detour to make it something closer to 6 or 7. If I cycle it tends to be about 13 miles there and a 5 – 6 mile route home. Unless it’s summer and a nice evening in which case I might detour on the way home too…

Oh yes. I really struggle to get warm enough to sleep if I run in the evening and even at this time of the year it’s a case of pyjamas on the radiator, bed socks and even a hoodie over the top for the first half of the night. If I’ve been inside all evening I’m not too bad, but as it gets colder the socks will get worn even on those nights.

I put up with the faffing at pee stops. It’s not ideal but I put up with it because I prefer bibs otherwise.

I use bikehike and download it straight onto the garmin from there. I didn’t like base camp for some reason.

I have gym membership, but whether I “use” it is another question! I tend to use the showers most days after a run/cycle to work, and I swim twice a week usually. But I don’t venture into the actual gym bit very often. It’s not too expensive so I get my moneys worth at least.

This week they tried to get me to sign up for a challenge to log how many miles you’ve done on the treadmill/exercise bike etc. I said that if it didn’t count the 10 mile run I’d done outside the previous evening or my 13 mile cycle to work that day there wasn’t really much point…

And the google brand guidelines

http://www.google.co.uk/permissions/guidelines.html

“Use the trademark only as an adjective, never as a noun or verb and never in the plural or possessive form.
Use a generic term following the trademark, for example: GOOGLE search engine, Google search, GOOGLE web search. ”

They don’t like free advertising? Really? Can you provide proof of that?

From a quick search – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/15/google_brand_abuse/

An old article, but should give you an idea.

The Garmin triangle is only a very small part of the logo though (and I wouldn’t see it as clearly indicating a navigation element – it looks like a triangle to me!). You look at the mark as a whole.

Screwfix – interesting one. I wonder whether they’ve got it as a logo mark or word only. You can get away with a lot more for logos as you’re not preventing anyone from using the word, just a logo that looks similar.

Trade marks becoming generic is a big issue that the companies who own the marks try their best to prevent. When first registered something like Hoover or Garmin has no link to the goods and is OK. As it gets more popular people start using it interchangeably with the “generic word (GPS/vacuum cleaner) and the company has to be quite careful to make sure it is used correctly in order not to weaken their trade mark protection.

Another example is Portakabin. or Google. They *really* don’t like people saying they googled stuff if they have used another search engine.

They did it for me over the phone. I ordered a bike in, 2 weeks later it arrived and the frame was damaged. They ordered a replacement, 2 weeks later they couldn’t even give me an estimated delivery date so I cancelled and bought something else elsewhere.

The Cannondale CAAD10 I’m planning to buy in early November. Not so much that the bike itself is ridiculous, but it is going to live in Spain at my parents house and I live in Yorkshire. It would be far cheaper to hire one when I go out there, but I can afford it so why not have my own and set it up how I want it.

I hate it. I’m never 100% sure what a flash is for or if it’s intended for me so I ignore it, and I never flash others. If I’m happy for someone to pull out in front of me I simply slow down/stop and leave them room to do it. Sadly that means that the people who don’t want to manoeuvre without a flash get equally confused by what I’m doing.

0 in 17 years. Although there was one time I swear I set a camera off (just after a speed limit change, I only realised it was a 40 after I saw the flash and was doing 50+), a nervous wait for post but nothing showed up. That did seem to be the trigger for me to start sticking more closely to the limits in future.

Which now means that pretty much every morning I get someone attempting a dodgy overtake on the way to work as they can’t possibly be held up by someone driving at the speed limit.

I tend to use a proper map for planning, but will upload it to my gps (which has os maps) so that it’s easier to follow the route on the go. I struggle to get a good picture of the area on the gps screen alone but combined with a proper map it does the trick for me.

I’m tempted . My 4 is due for an upgrade so I’ve been hanging on to see what the 5 looks like before making a decision. We’ll see…

I’m going tomorrow 🙂

My grandfather’s in hospital in Blackpool and I said I’d visit at some point this week – for some reason I decided that tomorrow would work best 😉

And one from my boss. I live and work in Leeds. My then OH lived in Dewsbury. We’d been seeing each other a while by this stage.

Me: [OH] gave me a lift to work this morning.
Boss: oh, that’s nice that he drove up from Dewsbury just to do that.

You could then see her brain ticking over as she worked out that he hadn’t just driven over to give me a lift!

My sister, when she lived in Spain, speaking to a Dutch friend.

Dutch Friend: which side of the road do you drive on in England?
Sister: it depends which way you’re going