At the moment I bank with Santander and natwest. I have a cheque in my wallet that I want to pay into a savings account (part of my compensation for being knocked off my bike by a car earlier in the year) so trying to decide between the devils I know and those I don’t…

This morning I saw why the convoy needs a police escort. I got to the city centre as the convoy was leaving the hotel they’d stayed overnight in and heading towards the start of today’s route. They needed to turn right at some traffic lights.

Lights turn green and the lead police car goes, followed by the coke bus. Lights turn red and the samsung bus goes through anyway (not in a no time to stop way – in a “the light’s red but I’m in the convoy so can go through” sort of way). And nearly crashed into the traffic coming through the green light from another direction.

Having seen the torch a couple of times already (and cycled behind the convoy for a mile or so last night), I decided not to bother going to watch it again this morning.

I’ve been knocked off my bike by a driver who was blinded by the sun. And even though I was the one who went over the car, part of me was still thinking that I could have done the same thing as a driver. I’ve driven that bit of road enough to see it from both sides. So I can understand how a jury might come to a not guilty verdict in that situation. That doesn’t mean it’s right (and in my case the insurers accepted liability very quickly so there is certainly “fault” on the driver’s part). And I’ll go another way next time there’s low sun. It’s not worth being right and dead.

I’m sure this happened to me. I broke my ankle on holiday. I was happy to leave it as holiday (it was on the last day – on the way to the airport as it happens) because you only got full pay for 6 weeks sick in a rolling 12 month period and I was going to use it all up, but they put me down as sick from the day of the accident.

Or that’s what I think happened – it was a while ago now.

I also vote for a mix. We talk about bikes to each other and we sometimes ride together if it’s a pootle-y sociable day out, but a lot of the time we do our own stuff. Particularly off road where we like different things – on road it’s more a question of speed whereas off road I won’t even attempt some of the stuff he likes which makes route planning tricky! But it is good to get home and talk about a solo ride to someone who is interested, and it means neither of us feels guilty about bike shopping 😉

Walking, definitely. I’m constantly amazed at how many colleagues get a taxi from the office to the station or other places in Leeds city centre.

Also not expecting to be able to park right outside everywhere and being prepared to walk the last bit. A couple of years ago there was a bit of fuss kicked up at work because they wouldn’t subsidise parking in the ncp next door for junior staff (senior staff get a pass as part of their package). When I was junior I got the bus or parked outside the city centre and walked in, and for the first year of being entitled to parking I didn’t even have a car! But apparently it was unacceptable. Admittedly the car park is stupidly expensive, but no-one’s making them park there.

I’m 34 and have no desire as yet to have kids. I’m fairly sure that I never will (but you never know). For one thing I don’t like the idea of pregnancy and childbirth at all. And I struggle to fit everything in as it is. I can’t imaging having kids and doing my current job so it would need a big change in my life to make everything work. And I’m just not maternal, I’m barely even domesticated! Being stuck in the house with a baby would be my worst nightmare.

I love my nephews to bits but I’m always glad to hand them back and have no responsibility going beyond the fun bits.

I think my family wouldn’t be surprised, but OH’s family have started making noises (he’s an only child). I haven’t discussed it with him directly, although if he’s missed the hints then he doesn’t know me as well as he thinks! To be honest it’s been hard enough convincing myself that I can enjoy being in a relationship without feeling trapped, and so far I’ve not let him move in because I need space so I think he knows that children aren’t on the agenda at the moment!

34 and I haven’t been injury free for 9.5 years – I have pins and plates in my ankle after a bad break and it’s still visibly swollen, stiffer than it should be, and I need to be careful with it. It’s far better than they expected it to be, and I can run marathons and cycle and climb on it – it tends to be silly stuff that sets it off like sitting in the wrong position (e.g curling my leg under me and putting too much weight on it from the “wrong” direction. At the weekend I set it off by jumping down from a bouldering wall and landing on it a bit too heavily. Most of the time I can discount it because it doesn’t hurt if I keep within its comfortable limits – but even so, the fact that I can’t go outside those limits means that I’m not injury free, if you see what I mean. On the plus side, taking up cycling was in part motivated by the fact that it may stop me running at some point and I wanted to have something else to fall back on.

Other than that I do seem to go through a succession of injuries and niggles. Some of them have clear external causes (being hit by a car, for one – proving that cycling isn’t the injury free alternative I hoped it would be…) while others do just seem to be wear and tear. I put some of it down to the ankle (I’ve had knee injuries that seemed to come from overcompensation) but some of them seem unrelated – the calf on my other leg tightens up now and again, on occasion I’ve torn it by not listening to the warnings.

I have constant tension in my neck/shoulders. There have been a number of falls from bikes, but there is also sitting at a desk all day in a stressful job.

Had a similar issue when I took some work outside to work on at lunchtime. I decided to put up with the wind and just keep a firm grip on the paperwork…

I fly from Liverpool to Las Palmas on Ryanair fairly regularly and on that route they always check at both airports (or at least when I fly they have), and enforce the rule of putting your duty free purchases in your bag not carrying them separately.

Having said that, they seem most bothered about wheely cases. I tend to use a squishable rucksack of a similar size (within the size limit but only just) and they usually take a look at it and let me through without making me put it in the size thingy.

Last time I flew I saw someone in the boarding queue wearing his cycle helmet so it was clothing rather than hand luggage 🙂

It’s an interesting one. I like cycling which predated me getting together with my OH. I still like cycling (and I’ve bought three bikes to his one in the last year…). But I prefer doing it on my own rather than with him.

On my own I can go along at my own pace and not be worried if I have to get off and walk sections. When I’m with him I get frustrated about how much easier he makes everything look, how much faster he goes on road, how much stronger he is on hills, how much better he is on technical stuff. The feeling that I’m holding him back or being pathetic then spoils my own enjoyment a bit.

I guess we get different things out of it. He likes pushing himself, whether that’s technical off road stuff or beasting himself on the road. I like getting outside, seeing the scenery, stopping for refreshments but not worrying too much about speed or distance. My current plan is to get him jealous of my new cross bike and persuade him to get one to do less technical off road stuff where there’s less of a need for speed, but nothing that will freak me out.

Another vote for plc (practicallaw.com) although it depends on your practice area. I use it far more than lexis which we also have but which I don’t find nearly as useful.

First ride with BB7s today and I was impressed.

Woo hoo – new bike is ready to collect tomorrow

To find out whether the new bike that was meant to be getting built for me on Monday has actually been finished yet.

I’m using bikeline (alyson France) who are in the wirral somewhere I think. No complaints so far (have got liability agreed by the insurers, in the process of working out quantum)

Hope you’re ok!

My car only takes about £35 even when the petrol light comes on! (although the way prices are rising that may not be the case for much longer…)

Yeah, I’d always assumed it was speculative but the timing just makes me wonder which is why I’m trying to trace what information they have and where it’s from rather than just ignoring it.

An interesting one. I was actually knocked off my bike two weeks ago and my initial reaction was that as long as the driver pays for my bike and helmet (written off) I wasn’t too badly injured and wasn’t going to bring a PI claim. But actually 2 weeks on my back injury is seriously limiting what I can do and I’m considering adding the injuries into the mix. As others have said, the payout for the bike and helmet themselves are unlikely to cover the actual amount of money and time I spend sorting it out, nor do they take account of the days when I’ve been in tears about it, the fact that I’ve found it really hard to get out on the bike again because of the fear, the fact that I’ve been unable to run and have missed two races I’d entered and all the rest of it.

As it happens I work for a large law firm that does a lot of claimant PI work (although I’m not a PI lawyer and we often make fun of the ambulance chasers upstairs) so they will act for me. Some of the partners doing RTA work owe me a favour or two. The only other people with full details are the police (I have details of the driver but she didn’t ask for mine and I didn’t think to give them to her). I haven’t attempted to make a claim on my home insurance for damage to the bike so no insurers are involved at my end and because I’ve gone straight to the people here to get advice I haven’t involved any claims management companies either.

So I was rather surprised to get a call from a claims management company yesterday saying that I might be entitled to compensation for injuries in my accident. I’m now trying to get details from them about what (if any) details they have and how they operate. What I got from them on the phone is that they get details from price comparison websites and if you say you’ve been involved in an accident as part of getting an insurance quote this flags you up and they give you a call. All very well and good apart from the fact that I’d never been in an accident before this one, and I haven’t got any insurance quotes in the last 14 days. And if I had, with it not being a car accident I wouldn’t have declared it.

I *think* that it’s entirely speculative, and they just get hold of names and phone numbers but no information about accidents then try to do some fishing to see if there is anything but I’m doing a subject access request to find out exactly what they know and where they get it from. Interestingly despite me getting stroppy with them yesterday about it they’ve tried to call me again today. I missed the call, but if they call back I’ll be making them squirm again…

Most dramatic was a run in with a car on Thursday which trashed the bike, had me landing on the car roof then sliding off again, and drew crowds of worried observers. But physically I’ve got away from it with a mild head injury and bruising, didn’t even go to hospital (although I have seen a gp since).

Most painful and embarrassing was the time I crashed on the 200m stretch of road between the car park and the trail, breaking a couple of ribs and buggering up my shoulder. No reason for it really, smooth road, car sitting behind me patiently waiting for room to overtake, but I was looking out for the turn and trying to brake and indicate all at the same time and just lost it.

I have big hands so bars and levers are fine on mens bike. I’m bigger than my OH in most respects (height, hands, feet, weight…) so if he can get away with mens bikes then so can I 😉

We actually have exactly the same hardtail in the same size, but my seat is higher with a ladies saddle. And the last time we went bike shoe shopping I bought a pair of mens shoes while the pair he bought were ladies!

I’d consider buying a ladies bike though – if it fitted fine and came with a ladies saddle as standard it might work out as a better option than buying an almost identical mens version and swopping the saddle immediately.

All my bikes apart from my hybrid are mens bikes, but I’ve had to change the saddle on all of them and I put a shorter stem on my two road bikes because my reach didn’t quite match up to the length of my legs.

There is a junction in Leeds like this and I think it works really well. It’s a big junction (Sheepscar) and coming from the direction I approach it the road I’m on is four lanes, splitting into two directions (with the right hand of the two then splitting again).

There’s also a toucan crossing which I always used to use but after watching other cyclists go on the early green I realised that it does give ample time to get yourself far enough ahead to be in the right lane (even if you’re coming from the cycle lane on the left hand side of the road to start with – because that’s the best place to be able to see the green cycle light rather than the main traffic lights) and visible to the drivers behind you.

Not much, but we were both on the same wavelength so that was ok – a card and a couple of quids worth of heart shaped sweet stuff (cakes from him, choccies from me) and otherwise a fairly normal Tuesday.

If she has a low sex drive she may not fantasise about anything and therefore not really have anything she specifically wants other than keeping you happy. I try to meet my oh midway and accept that he has a huger sex drive than me, but I’m very aware that it’s more for his pleasure than mine.

And it *is* hard to talk about this stuff. Particularly when the starting point always seems to be that there’s a problem that needs fixing, rather than accepting your differences and dealing with that.

Fat finger – will try again

Picking up on the ‘she doesn’t tell me what she wants’ thing – maybe that’s because she has a low sex drive and as such d

I know exactly how your girlfriend feels. I have similar issues in that sex just isn’t that important to me. It’s not something that I think about when I’m on my own. I was once single for a decade or so without feeling like I was missing anything and when I did get together with someone I quickly realised that it was far more important to him than it was to me – what I enjoy about the relationship is having someone to do stuff with during the day and to have conversations with, but when I go to bed I like to sleep. Once in a while I do fancy it, but sometimes I just don’t. That’s just how I am.

My advice would be to accept that that’s who she is. Don’t treat her as though there’s something “wrong” with her just because she has different desires and priorities to you. If you don’t think you can deal with that, then fine, but don’t think you’ll be able to change who she is.

And remember that sex is just part of the package. If everything else is good then maybe you can talk about it and try to find a way through it.

I have a MTB on 0% finance. I had £3500 sitting in a savings account at the time, but as I could afford the repayments out of my income it made more sense to me to take the credit and keep the savings intact. If for some reason I needed to pay for it on day 1 I had the lump sum sitting there, but as it was a fixed interest rate and there weren’t any charges for finance it was a no brainer. If there’d been a discount for cash I might have taken it though.

I also use a credit card but it’s paid off in full by direct debit every month and is more for security when shopping online (aside from the fraud protection work the CC issuers do it gives me a buffer between a fraudulent transaction being made and the money coming out of my account which I wouldn’t get with a debit card).

No car loan, no student loan, no overdraft. I do admittedly have a sizeable mortgage but again that’s serviceable from my income (with a buffer for interest rate rises) so I don’t worry too much about it.

And I’d like to thank the cyclist on the way to work yesterday who let me know my main rear light had gone – all the more so as the backup light died on the way home but only after I’d changed the batteries in the main one.

One of my rules is not to filter at lights if I wouldn’t be happy with that amount of room if the cars/buses/lorries/whatever were moving (unless I know the timing of the lights and know I can get to the front and visible before the lights go green). Basically, assuming that the traffic *will* start to move while I’m filtering, and acting accordingly.

It doesn’t mean that I never filter – just that I use common sense when deciding whether to!

Ah, microfiche. I remember when I was a trainee and companies house was next door to the office. We’d order the fiche and I’d go round, pick it up and print what I wanted off it.

Speaking to current trainees about how easy they have it with electronic searches made me feel old enough but the follow up question “what’s a microfiche” made it so much worse.

Big national firm – nowhere near magic circle level though.

I’m a lawyer (and IMHO a decent one – I’m ranked in legal 500 and chambers in my subject area). I try to give sensible, commercial advice, try to make it value for money and know what the professional code of conduct says. My clients keep on coming back.

I think there’s a distinction between people who see it as a profession and those who see it as a business. At my firm there are some people intent on squeezing every last drop of profitability out of us, and getting processes in place to churn bulk insurance claims with the minimum qualified lawyer input they can get away with.

Personally I’d rather have slightly lower profitability and higher morale,  happy clients and all that but as I’m unlikely to ever get a share of the profits I would say that 😉

The other issue is those lawyers who want to be bankers and get in on that slice of the action. I’m sure some of them are decent but I get the impression that there’s probably a lower proportion of the traditional decent lawyers in that sector.

Depends here too. Some of the ones on my commute are sensible and either let me take a short cut (e.g. legitimately going the “wrong” way down a one way street) or avoid hold ups.

But some are just odd. The bits I find most bizarre are a couple of places where the council has just put bike signs on lampposts. There’s no cycle lane marked on either the road or the pavement so I assume that they mean you should use the pavement but without the slightest attempt at making it a decent shared use facility. No way. Particularly as it’s a student area and therefore a higher than normal percentage of dopey peds. I’d rather stay on the road.

And on most of my commute the cycle lanes have dashed lines and are mainly used for people to park in rather than for bikes.

I’ve been using that one for over a year and it’s far better than buying Pre-ground coffee. I don’t know how it compares to more expensive grinders because I’ve never had one, but it’s more than good enough for me.

I’m no expert, but I bought the Nanolight Force on Saturday and I’m really pleased with it after a couple of rides. I bought my first (fairly basic) road bike last year and it’s in a different league. My old bike will take mudguards/rack etc so this one is just for fun on nice days and it looks like it will do a fantastic job.

I’ve never used SRAM before (had Sora before) and it’s probably not quite as slick as I expected although I think the indexing needs a bit of work so that might just be a temporary issue. But it’s just so much faster and lighter than my old bike that I’m still grinning like a loon when I look at it!

I know of two places.

When I was last there I hired from Happy Biking. They’re Dutch I think, and based near the Tropical Centre bus station in Playa del Ingles. http://www.happy-biking.com/

There is also Freemotion opposite the Faro de Maspalomas bus station. They have lots of shiny new bikes, and it’s a much shinier new set up, but a bit pricier from memory. Their website says they’ve also got a shop at one of the hotels in Playa, but I’ve never investigated that one. http://free-motion.net/en

I’ve also recently found http://www.cyclegrancanaria.com/default.aspx which has downloadable pdfs of mountain bike routes, but not so much for road. I might give some of them a try when I’m next out there (my parents live out there so I visit a couple of times a year).