Anyone with any experience of claiming for crash damage? I got taken out on a club ride this morning and my almost brand new £4k road bike didn’t come out of it well. I’ve called AXA and they are meant to be calling me back with next steps so fingers crossed!

I’ll count myself in the 1 in 4.  I only got together with my OH (we’re not married) after I’d got a house and a fair amount of financial stability.  He also had a house and finances of his own.  We could each get by independently, but he ended up spending more time at my house and eventually sold his.  I’ve never asked how much for or what he did with the money, and neither do I itemise my bills/mortgage and ask him for half.  He gives me a bit of a contribution towards bills but I actually just put it straight into a S&S ISA as my salary covers everything anyway.  We did pay half each towards a new car but that’s the only real joint purchase we’ve made.

If finances were tighter then there might be more of a conversation to be had, but we’re both fairly relaxed about it at the moment – it’s less that we’re trying to hide stuff from each other and more that it works so why mess with it.

Some bloke in an Audi Q7 nearly took out a few riders on the Ilkley Crits over Thuscross yesterday… rolling roadblocks, plenty of motorbikes and patrol vehicles yet the bellend decided to overtake going up Dacre Bank when the peloton was heading down it.

Apparently, just been told, that Plod have got involved so hopefully a slap on the wrists for the driver.. He was wearing a pink shirt, and we all know what that means…

Similar in the Chevin evening road race last Tuesday out near Boroughbridge.  I was riding round the course in reverse to cheer on my OH and got to a junction just as they put the barriers out because the race was approaching.  I stopped, shortly afterwards a Porsche cayenne approached from behind me and just swerved round the both me and the barriers as the front group emerged from the side road (and because the barrier was on the side of the road he should have been using, going onto the other side of the road put him in direct conflict with the riders coming in the other direction).  Then the driver stopped where he was to have a debate with the marshall and almost got in the way of the second group too.

Cash for me, for both.

Fantastic 103 mile road ride yesterday on fairly quiet roads, enough (just!) left in the legs for a cheeky 25 mile TT this morning, winning a share of the team prize. Have mainly been sitting down with my legs up this afternoon!

Cracking stage today – really hoping Yates can hold it to Rome. We’re flying out there on Friday for the weekend – can’t wait!

Moto G5 range is old school now. The G6 has just been released. Going to try and get a G6 plus at lunch today (CPW exclusive unfortunately).

I bought the G6 plus earlier in the week – above the budget in the OP though.  Much better than my old G3 which really was on its last legs!

(and you should have had this in place under the DPA – the rules on international transfers have always been there…)

For a smaller company and transfers to the US I’d be looking at privacy shield first or possibly the standard contractual clauses if that doesn’t look viable.  BCR takes ages to get approved and doesn’t tend to be worth it for smaller groups.

That was ace. Took Friday off work so rode up to the cow and calf for the women and then Old Pool Bank for the men. Rode to Sutton Bank on Saturday and then yesterday rode to Barden Moor and then back to East Chevin Road. Plenty of clubmates to chat to on all the hills so it didn’t feel like we were hanging around too much. All rides started from home (Leeds) and I was wearing short sleeves/shorts with no leg/arm warmers other than the first half of Friday. Something like 165 miles in 3 days in glorious sunshine. Wish every weekend could be like that!

I have nothing particularly useful to add but am lurking because we’re heading there for our summer holidays with road bikes to coincide with the Vuelta

Not last night but I did a 24 mile commute to work this morning.  Trying to decide which route to go home (I only live 4.5 miles away but there are detour options…)

Tomorrow I have a work networking event all day.  Said networking event is a 50 mile bike ride*.  Oh, the hardship…

*I am prepared to ride very slowly to make it last all day…

I keep on meaning to.  I used to be of the opinion that my assets would end up where I wanted them to go anyway but an inheritance which has made the estate bigger, a partner I’m not married to and a desire for a decent chunk to go directly to my nephews rather than my dad/sister has made things a bit more complicated.

I do know that I’m the guardian for said nephews if something happens to my sister/brother in law.

I wouldn’t have issue with that (as a data protection lawyer) as long as the assistant was told not to read anything obviously private relating to a third party and to use their common sense.  Document that you’ve given the assistant appropriate guidance.

In theory I’m in favour of anything that reduces unnecessary plastic use but the logistics give me pause for thought.  We don’t drive to the supermarket.  We get a veg box delivered and get the rest of our shopping from a local shop we can walk to and which doesn’t have any recycling facilities.  While we don’t get through a huge number of bottles (and mainly when we’re out, so if there was a way to give them back pretty much on the spot that may work), this could mean making additional unnecessary car journeys to recycle them.  We’re already in this position with glass (and we do cope, but end up with a pile of bottles in the corner of the kitchen until there is a big enough pile to merit a trip – we’d now end up with two piles to deal with).

I’m buying a new summer bike at the moment and going rim. For a winter bike/commuter I would go disc but I have a stock of nice rim brake wheels and I’m happy enough with how they work to stick with that.

I’m using countrywide at the moment for a probate sale. I like the progress tracker but at v early stages so don’t know how I’ll feel about them by the end! Not actually who I would have chosen (the other executor sorted it) but no issues so far.

I’d usually take another bike. I have 2 bikes which are loosely designated as commute bikes. If I puncture in the first mile I walk back and get another bike, if I puncture in the last mile I walk to work and fix it at lunchtime. If I puncture in the three miles in between on the way to work I fix it, on the way home I tend to walk and fix it in the light at home during winter (more likely to fix it on the road in summer)

(my commute is 5 miles by bike but closer to 4 on foot so if I walk I can usually find a short cut)

I was pleasantly surprised by the driving yesterday evening/this morning.  I was on my cross bike and there were very few cars (on a main route out of Leeds).  Those people who were driving were doing it slowly and sensibly, and sitting patiently behind me until it was safe to overtake (uphill – when I was going downhill I was actually catching cars up).

Apart from the lorry driver who was stuck behind me through some (short) roadworks then tried to speed past without noticing the red light just ahead…

I’ve ridden TTs on it. Personally I prefer non dual carriageway courses but it’s close to home so I had a go to see how fast I could go. It’s not as bad as you’d think but I wouldn’t lose sleep about time trialling moving away from that sort of road. However, I don’t like the use of a TRO to force that and my concern is mainly about the precedent this would set – there are lots of roads which are statistically much less safe than that one and if the same reasoning starts to be used more widely then what happens?

I’m a few inches shorter so what works for me may not work for her, but pearl izumi stuff is always comfortable on me and seems to have longer arms/legs than some.

i avoid men’s if at all possible – I always find that the hips are far too narrow to be comfortable.

Manual for us. Our old car spent a fair amount of time off the road last year and while I didn’t mind the autos we hired, my other half absolutely hated them. We don’t tend to drive in heavy traffic anyway, so the new car is another manual.

For me I found her illness far worse than her actual death. It almost felt like I’d got a lot of my grieving done and had prepared myself a bit better than had it been sudden, if that makes sense. Not that I don’t miss her, but I was far closer to acceptance than the shock/anger stages of grief by the time it actually happened. I also got to know when I was saying goodbye (the worst bit) because she was in Spain and I had to fly back to the UK in the knowledge that I probably wouldn’t make it back again before she actually died (I didn’t)

I like mine – didn’t think the contactless payments were working in the U.K. yet though. I use it for cycling, running and gym mainly. Tend to charge it every 3 days or so (usually a minimum of 50 minutes gps use per day plus some inside stuff).

My partner is a 1.2 petrol – the nox emissions we breathe in while cycling to work are the main issue we said no when they asked if we’d consider diesel.

(For context we live in a city and do relatively low mileage – no business or commuting mileage and no family more than 90 minutes away. We’d love a smaller car but as the majority of our driving involves us having at least 2 bikes with us the berlingo/partner just works)

Just went from an 09 berlingo to a 17 partner – identical in pretty much every way save the badge and a few new toys on the newer model. once we tried the berlingo there was no going back. The in laws also bought a berlingo once they saw ours.

[unless you are Axa insurance – I phoned to switch the policy to the new car to be told that partners are on the list of cars they don’t insure. The policy I was trying to amend was for a berlingo. Tried to explain it was the same car…]

Lucky you …. I can’t even get them to take me seriously to buy a car…..

Soon as I say I want a berlingo /partner/doblo they seem to run away….even at the Peugeot dealer ship in town I couldn’t get a quote out of him on a new one (which I’m quite prepared to buy if I can’t find another as Peugeot are doing good deals on base models)

I actually bought a Partner yesterday and found the (Citroen) dealer pretty helpful. We went in a couple of days before Christmas intending to go for a new Berlingo via the scrappage scheme but they couldn’t find anything suitable in the system which would be available before the year end deadline. But they knew that we were happy to complete on something before year end so searched around and found us a 17 reg partner which had done about 1100 miles. In the end we didn’t quite complete before year end anyway because of the time to get it moved to them, but they were pretty good.

Not much haggling involved though.

We went to buy a new car last week. We’ve always had petrol and wanted the same again but they were saying that production isn’t keeping up with demand at the moment.

I’ve been the slightly annoying in law today. Meant to be at my sister’s house by 2, actually made it just after 6 due to car issues (mine broke down yesterday, had to pick up a hire car, do the car dependent jobs I was meant to do yesterday and then put a deposit on a new car…).

On the plus side I’ve been babysitting all evening and am staying in a hotel rather than their house so I should ‘t be too annoying!

No, don’t enjoy it at all. I don’t particularly want to either. I try to minimise the amount I drive, and not enjoying it helps with that!

Fairly decent. Wore just the right number of layers and there was a taxi drivers protest in the city centre. It didn’t affect the route I usually use but did mean that the roadworks heading out towards my office which I usually use a cycle path to avoid were really clear because no-one (except cyclists ;)) could get passed the blocked junctions to that bit of road.

Coffee 😀

https://www.pactcoffee.com/shop/the-pact-advent-calendar

I work in a law firm. Every month the day before dress down day an email comes round with “advice” on what to wear. A vacation placement student once turned up in a rugby top (on dress down day) and as far as I can tell he blew his chances of a job at that point (no sportswear). Day to day I push the limits slightly with dresses and cardigans rather than a suit but have got away with it so far.

One, but my commute is 5 miles and often easier to walk then fix it at home in the warmth/light particularly at this time of year. Loads of bike shops near work too.

Whoops, I replied above and forgot about pedals. 3 of the bikes I listed share one set of pedals (powertap) so I’d need 2 minutes to switch them across.

One at this very moment because I’m in Gran Canaria. The bike I have out here has new cables yesterday after we finished our ride. At home there are 5 which I’d be fairly confident of being ok (winter roadie, summer roadie, TT bike, fixie and cross bike). The mtb definitely needs work to get it rideable

Whoops, when we broke down on a smart motorway we put the triangle out – wasn’t aware of that rule. I stood near the triangle (rather than near the car) behind the barrier in the hope that if anything hit the car it would be shunted away from me. We moved in 3 stages – first a truck driver stopped on the slip road to the services (only 100m or so away but we couldn’t make it) and pushed us that far. Then The police turned up fairly quickly and parked behind us, followed by highways who towed us into the services properly where we waited for the breakdown people (it was the timing belt and a tow home rather than anything fixable).

I have a 7+ for work – definitely better for reading documents/complex emails. I do tend to use it for web browsing at home too in preference to my much smaller personal phone, but would only ever carry my personal phone on a run etc because it’s smaller.

My vivoactive 3 stays connected fine. It had a bit of a wobble when I tried to connect a second garmin device to the same phone but after I added it the two of them seem to coexist happily and sync properly.)-

All year round for me. Over the few years I’ve been doing it I’ve acquired suitable kit and it’s relatively short (5 miles). It takes almost as long to walk from the bus stop on the other side of the city centre to work as it does to ride the whole trip.

I adjust my route – some roads are a bit more sheltered if it’s windy and others are more likely to be properly gritted if it’s cold, and I sometimes use the cross bike rather than the roadie. I also sometimes run/walk it if I really don’t think the bike is safe.