Totally agree with the OP. Me too.

Lose two stone
Stop drinking Monday to Friday (it’s only a glass or beer each night, but it’s almost every night)
To stop trying to relentlessly cram as much in every day, and running at maximum. Not healthy.
Smile more.

But if succeed with more time with my boys I’ll be happy.

Another vote for MacPac Vamoose. We love ours, junior 2 just about to start using it… Very comfy on and actually nothing I could fault.

Some of my son’s first rides were along that same spot.

The only heart in the mouth moment came when, as I was taking photos from a little distance behind, he sees a dog and panicked heading straight for the wall. In that a panic (he also 3), he didn’t pull the brakes and hit the wall at enough speed to endo, and I had a brief moment where I thought he was going to go over the wall. In reality, he was probably miles away from that happening but I did feel like a pretty poor parent at that point…

For those who don’t know it, the drop on the other side is about 10-12ft…

I did mine showing my son how easy it was to manual his 12″ wheel bike (he’s 3). Turns out it’s not easy at all…

It took about three weeks before I could get on a bike (about the same time it took my wife to stop laughing), but I couldn’t put any power on when I pedalled for about 7 weeks. Very frustrating.

It’s Bouchon Bistrot in Hexham above…

Great photos. Young kids means I haven’t done an all-dayer for ages, consider me a bit jealous too.

Funny how threads like this can be much more instantly inspiring than any long stories printed in any magazine…

geoffj – Member
*I have drank a bit of cider this afternoon. The maths should add up

I’m not sure they do tbh

Which bit is wrong?

Just to be clear, I’m not involved in a cycle shop or the cycle industry. let’s say it’s an average size shop with one mechanic, and it’s VAT registered.

That mechanic works 46 weeks per year (allowing for holidays) for 40 hours. In the best possible case, you might hope to sell 75% of his time on chargeable work during the year, giving him 1,472 hours available to sell.

Let’s pay the mechanic £20k (inc the 13% employer NIC) and put a share of the overhead of the business on to the workshop of £20k per annum too. You’ll need to charge him out at £32.60 per hour (£27.17 after paying VAT) to cover overhead and salary. So the shop charges £55 per hour to clear a profit of about £16 per hour after VAT, reducing to £13 after corporation tax and finally £10.40 after the owners pay tax on his dividend.

So for all that risk and investment the owner has made, he’s clearing about £15k profit/salary. That’s before spending money on tools, allowing for sickness, loss or damage/goodwill and so on.

Does £55 per hour still seem unreasonable?

*I have drank a bit of cider this afternoon. The maths should add up 😉

I like mine a lot too.

It could have been a frustrating build as it comes without a bottom bracket cable guide, barrel adjusters for the threaded down tube cable stops or a seat tube clap/front mech mount. Luckily I had all of them spare in the parts bins but I wish they’d told me to order them on the site…

Build quality seems pretty good though.

I didn’t buy one because of the swapouts, I prefer the cleaner look.

I hadn’t realised it was the same colour scheme as before, it looks darker on the PX website. I’ll look at more pics tonight, but leaning towards playing it safe with black…

I’m with Molgrips. Every one of my max heart rates have come at the end of an off road climb. Last one was the climb up to Captain Cooks monument, 199 clearing the final naggery bit at the top.

Once sat at 190+ for about five minutes on a road climb up Grenoble. Backed off when I lost colour out of my vision, vomited shortly afterwards… Wasn’t pleasant.

I’m on a medium and no toe overlap without mudguards. I’ve just put some muckle Planet Bike Cascadia fenders on though, and set up on Mud Xs it’s toe lap aplenty.

Should keep me dry though. 🙂

There are two different products being discussed above.

PCP lease purchase with a guaranteed final value is a safe way of lowering your monthly payments, just don’t put a big deposit in if your likely not to buy the car at the end.

Loans with balloons at the end are potentially trouble as the final payment is not guaranteed to be covered by the car, in really not a fan. Your monthly payments will be lower but your liable for this exact scenario.

In pretty sure handing the car back on the 50% rule doesn’t affect your credit rating (it’s a legal entitlement, after all) but I’m guessing it will affect an internal rating with the credit company you used.

You often here people saying PCP are not a good idea as you don’t own the car at the end. It’s an of sentiment as if you’ve only repaid £20k of a £30k car loan, how could you expect to own it at the end? Not being said above, I know.

I can’t really help other than to say I’ve got mine on a 31.6 post, it went on easily…

I’m pretty sure spare brackets are pretty cheap.

Thanks for that. I’ll whip them apart next weekend and have a look…

My riding suits 100mm, it’s the perfect travel for me (North Yorks, Northumberland and the odd trip to trail centres).

I had a Flux for a year or so, and a Yeti ASR-L for 6 months, a Meta 4 for a while but I’ve been on an Anthem (26″) for a year or so and I can’t see me changing it any time soon. For my riding style, it’s easily my favourite of that group of bikes.

EDIT: I often fancy putting a pair of 120mm forks in from my hardtail, I think the slightly slacker angle would stop the occasional problem on stuff like fast, loose corners where I find the front wanting to tuck in ever so slightly. Must try it sometime.

I’m psychologically bruised by no replies 😉

For anybody else who read this, I found that dropping the pressure to half and cycling the forks about 30 times appears to have cured it.

I read something on a search result which suggested air/oil where it shouldn’t be that this was the quick fix for…

Just download and burn memtest86+ and leave it running over night.

Even cheaper 😉

I’d consider replacing your RAM before you bin it. I’m no expert but a crash that regular sounds very much like a faulty RAM module (or a chipset failure on the motherboard).

Given how easily and cheaply you could bash some fresh RAM in though, I’d try that first.

W7 for 50 hours a week running all sorts here for four years on this box, never had a BSOD yet…

Just went to get the bike out of the garage for a quick hour. Flat front tyre, two punctures in seven rides back on GP4000Ss (quite unlucky, I accept).

Taking a mountain bike out instead, will order more Fusions when I get home.

Hutchinson Fusion on Dura Ace tubeless wheels were trouble free for three or four years. No punctures and a really nice ride.

Second ride last night on Conti GP4000S, puncture after 6 miles. I have no idea why I went back to normal tubes clinchers. 🙁

We’re on Google Apps for Business too, 13 users, with our email addresses are linked to the MX records of our domain, so us.er@ourdomain.co.uk

We looked at Office365 and nearly went for it, and I previously hosted Exchange with a 3rd party (Catalyst). I’m really happy with Google though. Emails are rock solid, spam filters are good, collaboration on multiple shared Calendars, Drive and Groups is great, contact sharing works well and third parts apps are really useful (we use Base as a CRM linked through Google).

I think I’m paying about £12 per user per month.

Telephone/email support is good and the remote administration for mobile devices is very good too. As a paid user, you can still use ActiveSync on Apple devices too, if that’s important.

Really can’t fault it at all…

I’m liking the guess the road game though. Halfway from Alston to Melmerby for the win… Maybe.

Edit. Obviously not 🙂

Best get it checked, but almost certainly normal.

I get them regularly and have done for nearly 20 years, from 500 to 10,000+ a day. Sometimes they are noticeable and can stop me from sleeping (especially on my left) and other times I don’t feel them. They used to really bother me.

Had every test, including more this year as I’ve seen a big increase in them since September. Cardiologist (an EP) keeps wondering what I’m doing in her office… I think she’s genuinely fed up seeing me! 🙂

Caffeine makes them worse, but I’m not giving up coffee for anything.

Booze.

No matter what I do I float at close to 13 and a half stone, at 5’11” and riding 5 or 6 hours a week. I’d consider myself reasonably fit.

I dropped drinking a couple of glasses of wine every night this month (which is probably too much, and never giving myself a break) and dropped half a stone in 2 weeks with no other changes in diet or exercise.

I’m on holiday in the lakes this week and have been for a few walks (carrying the little fella in a MacPac) and a couple of biggish rides: probably 18 hours of exercise so far. I’ve ate the usual but had one or two bottles of beer a night and I look like I’ve put half a stone back on.

As difficult as it is to believe, for me booze just seems to make a huge difference.

I like Canyon, but in this instance we’re talking about a boutique Italian Brand’s high end hand made carbon frame and top drawer finishing kit Vs mass made in Taiwan ally frame and parts.[/b]

I’m pretty sure all Pinarello are all made in Asia…

If you do much typing then buy the iPad.

I’m typing this on a Nexus 7 and have tried a couple of keyboards but typing is a poor experience. For just reading and browsing the Nexus 7 is impressive.

I like Android, but the app choice is significantly better on iOS (if you need them).

See, it’s threads like this that make STW. I’m not sure you can have these ones without the arsey threads too though. You need a mix.

I’ve seen the Truman Show. In the end, he leaves for an unemployed ginger* waitress. Too much moderation in life must be bad then**…

* 😉

** although I’m not missing TJ

I’d say go for a medium too. I’m your size and I’ve posted on your classifieds ad (mine’s a large). I wish I’d bought the medium, which I why I’m selling mine.

STATO – Member
Why not just add a feedback section on a member’s profile: would it be such a hard thing to code?
Its not ebay so you cant link a ‘sale’ to a bit of feedback so it would have to be an open system and there are enough arguments on here already (even in this thread) which could lead to inappropriate ‘feedback’ being left for one or more posters. A bit like the ‘tags’ issue a while back.

Yes, it wouldn’t be perfect but better thsn nothing, or not?

Why not just add a feedback section on a member’s profile: would it be such a hard thing to code?

Failing that, when buying why not update the ‘selling’ post with the outcome? At least it would show up in a search…

I’ve bought and sold a fair bit on here, made a few donations and now subscribed as a thank you. People who tend to be polite and friendly by email tend to be in real life. Arsey, impatient or trite emails at the start means I don’t take the sale/purchase any further. Hardly a perfect system but it is free…

Fusion 3 on DA wheels here. My main motivation for tubeless was puncture protection. A lot of the lanes where I live have a lot of Hawthorne bushes besides them and regular punctures, especially in the autumn and winter, were a pain in the arse.

In two or three years running them I’ve not had a single puncture. I think they are a tiny bit more compliant than my old tubed Conti set up, but don’t know if that’s the tubeless set up or just different tyre brand. I have lost about five thumbs in the last two years getting the damn things on the rims though, and I’m happy I’ve got a big compressor too…

Mud X all year round on my Fargo, too. I think they’re pretty much unbeatable as an all round tyre (in a permanently wet north east England) but some on here hate it, especially in 29. Really don’t know what they don’t like about them.

We sell SMH10s by SENA more than anything else, and it’s what I use myself. They are a bit over £300 a pair (can’t remember exactly) but they are the best I’ve tried so far. Range is up to 500m comfortably, battery life is good and the call quality is good too. They appear to be on eBay pretty cheap too.

My disappointment would be the volume they go is a bit low. Fine without earplugs but a bit low with well inserted plugs. The best thing about them is the simple interface and big control knob that’s dead easy in gloves.

At your budget, look at wired units. £100 will not likely get you anything worth having wireless. Unless somebody knows better…

Have you ever thought that folk like me who choose to stop and not go through on amber, choose to not close down gaps close to the kerb, leave 5 seconds before setting off to make sure cyclist are clear, are the ones who keep you safe?

No. What keeps me safe is knowing how to ride safely for the conditions and traffic, trying to anticipate other users and safe appropriate speed. But thanks anyway, Batman. 🙂

If people can honestly not imagine a situation where this is safe and even sensible then frankly the skills you lack in anticipation make me nervous and I’d suggest you shouldn’t be on road.
Personally, I wouldn’t have thought commuting through a city centre on a bike was that situation.

I wonder if you’ve ever commuted through a city centre then? Imagine, you’re in a left hand lane which goes left and straight ahead and you’re at the head of the queue, the first three of four cars are turning left. The lights turn green and you’ll find yourself cut up on more than the odd occasion by traffic turning left as it out accelerates you.

Not sure if this is as clear in type as it is in my head…

CaptainFlashheart – Member
Can anybody give a proper valid reason for RLJing that would stand up in a court of law?
I RLJ when I think it is safe to do so and like to think my judgement is good enough to ensure nothing bad happens when I do but if it did I’d happily accept responsibility.
So that’s a no, then?

Of course it’s a no. In the same way jumping a red light covering a pedestrian crossing on an empty dual carriageway at 4am in the morning when you have 500m visibility is still breaking the law.

piedi di formaggio – Member
If people can honestly not imagine a situation where this is safe […] you shouldn’t be on road.

Who’s saying this?

My post wasn’t really aiming at you, CheesyFeet* but actually I thought you did:

piedi di formaggio – Member
Personally I don’t see any reason that a red light should be jumped

There was no mention of whether RLJ was right or wrong in your OP, just whether there was a reason for it. Conversely, I didn’t say it was right or wrong, I thought I was just illustrating a possible reason.

We’re no going to agree though and I’ve got a glass of wine and this weeks MCN to read, so I think I’ll just…

EDIT: I know this isn’t the translation: it’s just I always think that’s what it sounds like… 🙂

And one day a salesman gunning his BMW

BenHouldsworth. ::roll::

Plenty of red lights cover junctions where you can see all of the entry points and therefore accurately assess risk. Furthermore, on routes you regularly commute on you get to know the traffic light sequences and where the gaps are. I commute through a city centre most days and frankly I jump red lights to make sure I’m clear of a junction before the traffic starts to move.

If people can honestly not imagine a situation where this is safe and even sensible then frankly the skills you lack in anticipation make me nervous and I’d suggest you shouldn’t be on road.

I wonder if these are the drivers who stop at roundabouts to check for traffic rather than assess this on the approach (where possible) and get around the roundabout with the minimum of interruption.

Furthermore, wonder if they only cross the road when the green man says it safe, and press the button to cross the road even when the road is empty? And if the answer is no, what makes you think it’s safe to cross the road without pressing the button?

Well, if I had £12k to spend on a bike that would be a near perfect build for me (saybe SR mechanical would be the only change). Very, very nice.

What’s the geometry numbers and when will you be selling it? 😉