You could attach a covenant the house in the same way quite a few new build estates have bans on vans and the like. The difficulty would be finding someone who cares enough to enforce it and even then be able to monitor it.

This is pretty much the crux of the Brompton thing, any covenant to ban cars or vans from an estate just means people jam up the local streets by parking as close as possible without being on the estate.

I have been doing some retirement planning recently and the question I really struggle with is how much will I need when retired. Honestly, I have no idea. I won’t have a mortgage or kids at home but I will also be at home all day so I assume I will need money to do stuff.

Outside of family stuff that I wont be doing, my weekends are currently spent riding my bike, walking and popping to the pub for a post ride/walk pint and possibly a burger. I doubt I will have the energy to do that 7 days a week so what else will I do? Cinema, learn to play the flute, fly a jet, I have no idea and therefore how much it will cost.

I’d prefer not to have to sit in the dark and cold eating value beans on toast but I don’t need to be on a Caribbean cruise for 4 months of the year.

I used a roof box for years when my kids were younger and it made almost no difference to MPG, it could sometimes be a little noisier but the biggest noise came from the roof bars themselves. I had a half width roof box and started with cheapo square roof bars and it sounded like I was flying a kite, I changed to Thule aero bars and it was hardly noticeable.

Great video. The message is a great one for all kids, not just those with dyslexia. My nan had a phrase she used to say to us “everybody is good at something, you just need to find out what your something is”.

Thanks @Mark, yes I did check SPAM at the time. It wasn’t that I wanted anything in particular or I would have chased it up, it was more idle browsing for something I probably didn’t need.

On cyclescheme dictating terms, it is similar to what BUPA physio did a few years back. They announced to all the physio’s on their books that the new rate was xx an hour, take it or leave it. They were not allowed to charge customers more, even if the customer was happy to pay the difference direct to the physio. It is then up to the practice to decide if they want a high volume of low paying appointments or find their own customers but potentially be able to charge more.

It does make it easier for the customer, no conversations about in or out of rate and settling invoices above BUPA’s contribution. I guess it reduces BUPA’s admin overhead but the physios get squeezed.

The validation email thing is a bit of a pain and does stop me dipping in to browse the potential bargains TBH

Agreed, I gave up waiting for the code that didn’t arrive a while back. I’ve completed the survey.

Do people on here argue for the sake of it?

Are you new here ;-)

That’s very interesting to hear. I’m surprised details of this weren’t published in OP’s article as that seems very unreasonable and a valid reason for bike shops to be complaining to parliament.

Agreed, this little fact changes everything and should have been in the article. I wasn’t aware when I commented above.

It is good news indeed. Similar with the school run, over the years I did the school run I noticed more and more dads as the years went on.

I am a convert to KMC chains, they seem to last longer and have less surface rust than Shimano or SRAM.

@steelisideal – How often do you ride, I’d imagine that level of cleaning means you don’t pop out for an hour here or there?

No, but I am tight and only wash my bikes when they really* need it.

* when the dry mud cant be knocked off anymore and I cant tell if it is actually my bike.

I am curious what are JE James and Balfes hoping to achieve by saying CTW is killing the bike industry when @benpinnick says “C2W is very big for us, especially this year where UK bikes seem to be almost all C2W”.

As with my post above, I fail to see how extra sales are a bad thing even if it does come with extra admin.

On Saturday I spent slightly more than that amount on 3 pairs of pants.  So that’s this month sorted…

3 pairs, you flash git! It’s not even Christmas you know… ;-)

Although the scheme(s) could be better, I am not sure I agree. Without CTW, I wouldn’t have bought 1 of my bikes so the retailer would have gone without that sale altogether. On my 2nd CTW purchase I paid the admin charge so the retailer got to sell a bike for RRP, if it wasn’t for CTW I’d have more than likely gone 2nd hand or built up a bike from bits.

That is only my experience, yours may vary.

dc1988Full Member
I used to see them everywhere at my local trails just a few years ago, they were definitely the brand to have. Now everyone is riding ebikes, but none of them are Santa Cruz.

I take it you don’t ride in Surrey hills on a sunny Sunday morning 😉 there are loads of Santa Cruz e-bikes!

£99 for a Brand x 170mm dropper, 30.9 from go outdoors

https://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/16007680/brand-x-bx-dropper-post-16007680

Granted it isn’t a massive saving but may help somebody.

Good result but he loses any credit by saying “reach out to myself”

What muffin-man said. Having a sick baby is so unbelievably stressful that I wouldn’t even have answered the phone to work at the time, never mind contemplating going into the office. If they’d pushed me to go in I’d have simply told them to do one.

Mayabe I got lucky with an LWB tranny from enterprise a couple of years back..

Money well spent, though I thought they only did vehicles.

That’s the “enterprising” bit ;-)

What’s the problem with the trails there – I haven’t been for 20+ years, can’t really remember anything other than it being rocky

I suspect you will find almost nothing has changed other than sections closed for felling or trees down. That’s not a genuine reply BTW, not a sarky response.

I think that’s why the place isn’t busy, it just hasn’t moved with the times. I don’t buy the replies above about people not having money or wanting to travel. You only have to look at DYFI and BPW, even Morzine. There are a good number of MTBers who have plenty of disposable income who don’t mind travelling, you just have to give them what they want.

Similar with Afan and CwmCarn, close enough to the heavily populated, relatively wealthy, South East and yet the carpark is pretty quiet on a weekend.

I hired an EVOC bag last trip, I thought it was really well designed and put together. Bike survived too.

Good point on marking the bag so it is easily identifiable. When I collected my bag last time there were about 10 black EVOC bags so would be easy for somebody to leave with the wrong one.

Not changed but purchased a shit ton of stuff I don’t need really good bargains from the various PSA threads.

Did start to get quite bored and wanted to go home earlier than the others

Apart from the people I was with – the other rowdy folk in the place really started to annoy me. I was really trying hard not to be self righteous as they’re just having fun and I’ve been there a million times but secretly harboured annoyance and smugness.

I can relate to this, I also find pissed people repeat themselves a lot. I really hope I am not like that when I’ve had a few. That and one mates wife who insists on being 3 inches from my face during a conversation, never noticed it when she is sober.

Although it is a massive £ number, it is “only” a 12% increase. From memory 2023 was a bad one for the bike industry with a wet summer, high inflation, BOE rates going up etc. If rates do start to drop and we have some better weather, I guess 12% is not unreasonable?

Gonna disagree there.  While its expensive it does not feel like a waste or being ripped off given how good the food and service is.  Its not an everyday thing for sure but as a very rare treat its certainly worth it to me

You can easily do in £100 a head in a fairly normal restaurant with drinks.

And that fine, value is subjective. £100 was just a figure I used – if I’d said £200 people would have commented that it doesn’t have to cost that much.

Fancy restaurants, 100 quid a head for a 5 course tasting menu or similar.

Here is the thread on the Ribble post – https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/level-dropper-from-ribble-any-experiences/#post-13065955

The ribble one popped up in one of the psa threads, I asked for feedback from anybody who’d owned one and the feedback wasn’t good. I can’t find the thread now but I gave it a miss based on that. 

Decathlon glove liners under Briskers seem to work best for me in really cold conditions. Gives you the option to take the liners out too if you get too hot. I also have a set of the plant x lobster gloves but even in the snow, I find them too hot.

Not really answering your question but…I am on 2 MTB buying/selling pages and when the news about Orange started spreading, more and more Orange bikes went up for sale. I don’t recall seeing more than 2 or 3 for sale in the last few years up until that point but there must be a dozen advertised at the moment.

@kramer

I’d put it on a zero percent credit card.
Serious question; does such a thing still exist?

They do

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/best-0-credit-cards/

I’d pay, if I was short of cash I’d put it on a zero percent credit card. You won’t get any more teeth and they don’t grow back when they get yanked out.

Lastly, google dry socket. The single most painful thing I’ve ever experienced when I had a wisdom tooth extracted.

There is a definite case for US as a community putting some effort into actually reporting these problems, and then there is a fighting chance of getting some action.

Agree completely, I always make a point of reporting the bigger stuff. By this I mean a tree down big enough to need a chainsaw and telehandler to shift, smaller stuff I’ll just head back with a folding saw and deal with myself. Too many people locally moan on the local facebook group about something when the same effort could have been used to log it.

It is sad to lose them and I think it is more than neglect and lack of funding but landowners going out of their way to stop people using ROWs and footpaths on their land.

There are many examples near where I live but one landowner in particular is a nightmare. Last spring I reported a tree down blocking the ROW to local council, council contact the landowner (as the tree came from his property) to get him to remove it. He has 3 weeks to do this so after 4 weeks I chase up the council who chase up the landowner who says he has been up and down the ROW and he can’t see a tree down. It has now been 5 weeks but I give exact location and a photo to council who pass it on to landowner. Another month goes by and I chase it up again, landowner tells council that tree has been cleared so council ticket has been closed. I ride the ROW, tree hasn’t been cleared and as request is closed, it cant be re-opened so I need to open a new one, 3 weeks…etc

The end result is he eventually cleared the tree about 3 or 4 months later, by this point the ROW was overgrown with stingers and brambles as it has been used for so long so most people don’t use the ROW.

That’s just one example, I could list 5 or 6 just with this one farmer.

@benpinnick – good to have some industry knowledge about things, thanks for posting.

Not limited to South but some good routes here – https://lakesmtb.co.uk/lake-district-routes/

I enjoy this route, (not my Strava but I’ve followed the route a few times) – https://www.strava.com/activities/8797334816

I’ve actually figured it’s better and (professionally) safer for me to just pony up and buy the school a bunch of free standing ‘no parking’ signs, and just donate them!!!

I wouldn’t waste your money, they had the signs and the plastic bollards with plastic chain outside our local primary school. They had to be binned as they had been damaged by cars, I would like for there to be a punchline here but the driving standards and entitlement are such that this isn’t the case.

I challenged a mother one morning when her front wheel was on the base of the sign and she told me “it’s OK, I wont be long”, no amount of pointing to the signs and explaining improved things so I left before I smashed her car to bits in front of a few hundred kids and parents doing the morning school run.

it would be to have the ability to point my hand at any car that close passes me at high speeds, and to flip the offending car on it’s roof and causing serious damage ( not death ) to the offending driver.

Similar fantasy of mine but for cars sitting in lane 2 or 3 of the motorway with nobody in the inside lanes. I’ve often wished I could flip them straight into a nearby field.