The government pension advisory service will offer free advice also – worth setting up an appointment with them.

I have an Epic that I’ve put on a diet – was fast before when it weighed 12kg, but now it’s around the 10kg mark it is really quick.

I picked it up (ex demo) for a good price, otherwise I would have gone for a Spark or Oiz.

The riding I built it for is biggish mileage days out or multi days out. Also for short fast blasts if XC racing ever comes back.

Hardly any is the answer – I kept wiping the chain until it stopped spraying droplets and it seems to work. Or a dry wax lube should work.

You really only need minimal lube as it (shouldn’t) get washed off.

I haven’t relubed the chain in 800km of turbo riding

Stainless is just about as bad as you can get for corrosion when used with aluminium. Galvanic corrosion means the ally will disappear…..

Leaves are natural debris, however I wouldn’t agree that a binbag full of leaves is acceptable to dump somewhere. The neighbour should have a “green” bin for that kind of stuff though?

The market is small, and already quite full of Sparks, Epics, Oizs, etc. Probably for a small(ish) company they have to be very careful about what bikes they pour money in to.

Kerley – was a play on words from Weeksy’s post.

I have no knowledge of anyone here!

I’d go and not explain why – if she understands that would surprise me.

Keep the receipt – you might need it

We have the same problem (we keep chickens, so it is a side effect of that). But I have not controlled them for 6 months so now we’re quite over run with rats. I have a cheap air rifle that didn’t kill cleanly, so am (today) buying a new one. The gun shop I spoke to laughed when I said I had a Westlake air rifle and his words were “that won’t kill anything”. £150 gets a legal limit air rifle (plus scope etc). Looking at the various blogs for similar problems a good air rifle and a head shot are one way forward.
I also got an electronic rat zapper – delivers 7000V shock which kills instantly. I have used it overnight for the past week with peanut butter as bait and got the 1st rat last night.

Poison is (in my opinion) not a good option. Probably very effective, but also indiscriminate and you never find the dead rat. Supposedly they go into their nest to die, but it’s a slow painful death, plus it puts poison into the foodchain. I have used it in the past but am very mindful of it.

Proper spring traps work if you can get the rat to trust them – which after a few kills they’ll steer well clear.

Humane traps – I have one and have never caught anything in it. Not sure why but they clearly distrust it. Then you have the problem of where to relocate to…..

Another option is the local terrier club – but I suspect this is an option that may only suit certain locations (maybe not for in-house infestations!).

There is nothing pleasant about having a rat problem or dealing with it. So preventing the problem in the first place is maybe the best option – remove food at night or have rat proof bird feeders (they’ll get in if they can get to it – you have to stop them getting to it by having anti climbing measures or suchlike).

There are a few alternatives though – I have an Eberspacher copy supplied by KiraVans – it worked out at around £700 supply only, plus it took me a day to fit (would take half a day the 2nd time). Wasn’t difficult to fit, but did involve dropping the fuel tank and getting access to wiring. It consumes around 6-10 Amps when running so does have an impact on any car battery (leisure or vehicle).

There are cheapish 12V electric heaters that plug in to a cigarette lighter – but at 10 Amps these only kick out 100 Watts or so and will kill your battery (especially on a cold day). Probably better with a few tealights!!

Somewhere on the internet there must be a chemical based heat exchanger (like those handwarmers that you put in boiling water to “reset”) that is the size of a shoebox and kicks out 2kW of heat for a while. Probably unsafe though…..

If you can hook up to mains then those little portable heaters are brilliant

I have a T5 with barn doors and the same rack as the photo. I do carry 2 (lightweight) bikes on the rack, but wouldn’t put more than that on. The rack wobbles when the door is opened and shut, and it is all held on with 2 x M6 bolts at the top. More than (say) 30kg on the rack is going to be stressing the mounting points a lot.

Just had my overhead cable moved to an underground supply, and as the electricity supplier wanted to get away from low level overhead supplies, so did the work for nothing (as long as I dug the trench for the cable). They gave me the plastic shroud for the buried cable also (as long as I collected it from their depot). It helped that the overhead cable was more than 50 years old and quite perished. It’s worth talking to someone to see what you can encourage them to do. (Low level overhead supplies are really unsafe when you cut the hedge next to it (for instance)).

I did have to pay the sparky to move the wiring from the new meter position to the consumer unit (2 visits to coincide with the various building work bits – cost £450).

Fuel is not expensive enough for people to change their habits. We all think £1.30 / litre is expensive, but bottled water is often more expensive!! When we get to £10 / litre people will be forced to make changes.

Or the less penal route is to encourage people out of cars, which is going to take years (probably generations). More/better public transport, safer cycling, more working from home.

If you watch any rush hour traffic, the vast majority of cars have only single occupant, so people are not lift sharing or going out of their way to reduce their costs / footprint.

The governments have to want to make change – they are approaching it very softly today (clearly it’s not a vote winner to tell someone their freedom will be compromised), so a change of approach is needed. Make more places traffic free. Force people to walk the last mile to their office / school, charge for leaving cars parked up when at work, encourage people to think and make different choices, get the VIPs to set examples (give the mayor a Pinarello not a Bentley).

There is no offence of undertaking, so passing on the left is not against the law. Just don’t be reckless or careless about it, and moving left to undertake will be frowned upon. Staying left and undertaking just means that 5 manoeuvres becomes 1 manoeuvre……

I’ve come to the conclusion over many years that if everyone concentrated on improving their own driving and not criticising everyone elses, then the roads would be much safer. Better anticipation and observation would compensate for poor driving by others (after all, when was a mistake by someone else actually a surprise if you really thought about the warning signs?).

(This isn’t a rebuff to all the posts above, and yes I do get frustrated at inconsiderate or ignorant driving, and yes I do make mistakes (too many for my liking). I like to think of motorway driving a but like a game of chess: how many manoeuvres can you predict before they happen……I think it should be at around 6 or 7, but for most it will be around 1 to 3. It’s a sign of tiredness also when things start becoming a surprise.

Yes, got told this on a driving course I did. So if you are approaching a crossing, and the person waiting is holding the bottom of the box, they could well be blind. It’s worth picking up on little clues…..

having said that, I had forgotten that until just know!

Driving a car fast on the road has a little to do with car control and much much more to do with observation, anticipation, and smoothness, then you can worry about speed, position, gears and lastly, speed. Get yourself on a police driving course or IAM course.

Try saving your route with waypoints as a tcx. I think it has worked for my 800 in the past.

Then copy into the \newfiles folder on the 800

12981 km
134051 m of climbing
388 rides

Mostly commuting with a Highland Trail 550 thrown in

I have some 2012 Reba’s which suffered the same problem. After much servicing, trials of up to 4 air tokens, I came to the conclusion that I had a bad pair and swapped to DT Swiss which have been faultless. Apparently swapping to a dual air set up fixes Rebas, but this is not cheap.

No one has any view on a 1030?

Use a laserjet printer as the ink doesn’t run if it gets wet like it does with an inkjet.

And print double sided.

Was the tops over from Glenn Golly down to Achfary sopping?

The first 2 years I did it it was barely rideable it was so wet, then this year it was a great ride,

The Xfr that was run at 225mph at the salt flats was a standard engine, with calibration mods to unrestrict it. Just over 600bhp if I remember correctly. Lots of aero mods to reduce drag, but a fairly standard car.

It was some of my old team who supported the engine management mods.

I would avoid goretex boots, once they fill with water (and they will as there are numerous rivers and deep puddles) the water gives you trench foot.

The foot problems most people have are to do with trench foot.

Best approach I have is some fairly easy draining shoes, and wooly socks, plus a dry pair for the night (bare feet at night don’t seem to dry as well as dry socked feet).

3 times vet

Did this 3 years ago or so, andpunctured within a few km of the start (racing ralphs), so ended up riding back to the van to stick a tube in and get a spare. Carried all my food, but picked up water at the cafe near the far end, and at the canal (there are taps for the boats to restock) that was 2/3rds of the way back. Good easyish ITT – 175 miles..

Defintely use decent tyres, and acrry food you like. Jam sandwiches are a favourite of mine…..

How did you all protect your eyes? I had no end of problems, especially on the orange descent ( the waterlogged track) and the descent into the campsite. After 8 laps I couldn’t see, and had so much grit in my eyes it took 4 hours of flushing to get the right. Shame, as I gave up the 12 hour lead to an old nemesis!

I used glasses perched on the end of my nose for a bit, but couldn’t see area in front of the bike which was disconcerting. They annoyed me so I took them off.

St Johns ambulance did a great job of cleaning up – I don’t think I was their first customer.

It’s great isn’t it. And you get home at night and work is a distant memory. Stress free living has it’s own benefits.

I suspect he confused motorbikes and mountain bikes. Unless you were on an ebike….

No one has right of way, you might just have priority over other road users
Cars hurt if they hit you

Ride assertively but defensively, an accident avoided is much better than an accident that is someone elses fault

Eastenders
Coke
Fat food places

I did the Dragon sportive a few years ago and watched a rider in our group throw a wrapper in the ditch. Like a man with no balls I said nothing but just seethed – I so wish I had kicked his front wheel from under him.
Did an ACycling event last year, and Matt Page was very keen that any littering was reported and the guilty rider would never be allowed to enter one o f his events again. Top bloke with principles.

I hate littering. Hanging is too good for them ( as it leaves a mess).

Mark at spokesman wheels does nice builds. He has done 2 29er wheelsets for me and they have been great. Novatec hubs are light and srviceable, Around £400 should get you a good set

In general I agree with many posts above about us being seen as a minority. When asked if I am a “cyclist” I tend to say that I ride a bike a lot, but I don’t like referring to myself as a cyclist as I also walk a lot, drive a car, work in a company, etc etc. I just find it sad that so many apparently rational people view “cyclists” as an irritant/separate type of person, but couldn’t pick one out of a group (lycra aside).

Does lycra / helmet wearing enforce the view of cyclists being different? Should we wear “normal” clothes?

Lester – Member

“Daily Mail reading tw*t,

seems like a couple of prejudices going on here, maybe ask yourself why you feel that way about daily mail readers and you might have your own answer, ill informed generalisations about individuals

As I said above when this was mentioned – it was my attempt at irony. Clearly lost. I have no view on Daily Mail readers as I couldn’t pick one out of a crowd.

Bigblackheinoustoe – you might have the impression that I am some kind of cycling vigilante – quite a long way from the truth. I wasn’t asking for comment on my action – I was asking why cyclists are seen as different.

My comment may have been passive aggressive, but there was no malice involved, and he could have said “yes mate, I know”. Instead he offered his jaundiced view of every cyclist, most of whom he probably doesn’t know (he doesn’t know me for a start).

It was my attempt at irony

I love everyone, just can’t understand why others don’t.

But he was a right fat c*#t – he can’t dislike everyone not like him – can he?