[Duplicated post deleted]

On a running machine the effect is that your front foot lands higher than the place it lost contact with (I think) so that’s what makes your muscles feel like you’re climbing. I can’t conceive of the same effect on rollers as nothing is being lifted up. Only difference I suppose would be body position would be a little different?

Interesting, in that situation I’m not sure there was much time to react. The pedestrian changes direction in a completely unpredictable way with very little reaction time possible. I’d have been aiming for between the pedestrian and the curb and I’m not certain I’d have avoided that collision.

There are very few circumstances where, to avoid an unexpected collision, you swerve but make no attempt to adjust your speed, or at the critical moment even having swerved you make no (or very limited) attempts to reduce speed further. I can accept that swerving and shouting might be good starting points, but even if it only becomes clear very shortly before impact that the shouting and swerving is having no effect, being able to apply the brakes you’re legally required to have fitted will always make *some* (potentially small) difference.

That’s a lot to fit within a very short space of time.

As an aside, a pedestrian stepped out in front of me yesterday. My instinctive reaction was to swerve round her. My bike has disc brakes and the road was dry.[/quote]
I disagree that its a lot. As a car driver, and equally so as a cyclist, i’m intent on being aware of what’s going on around me. If I’m on an open country road with nothing obscuring my vision, I’ll happily ride around without the brakes covered.

If I’m riding in an busy urban environment I’ll be riding (and driving) being prepared to stop or change speed as soon as something unexpected happens. Once I’ve had time to shout “Oi!!” I’ll have had time to apply some pressure to the brakes as an instinctive reaction and potentially change direction. None of this is rocket science in terms of what I have to process, most of it is instinctive reactions.

Consciously deciding not to brake, for me, would be a more complex decision than deciding to try to brake.

It’s a matter of debate as to whether he could’ve avoided the victim by using a front brake, so IMO it was not unreasonable for him to swerve. If we accept that shouting and swerving is a reasonable course of action by a competent cyclist on a legal bike, then the argument about the fitment of a front brake is rendered irrelevant.

That was his defence and the jury didn’t buy it. They’ve seen the CCTV footage which might prove that to be bollocks.[/quote]
There are very few circumstances where, to avoid an unexpected collision, you swerve but make no attempt to adjust your speed, or at the critical moment even having swerved you make no (or very limited) attempts to reduce speed further. I can accept that swerving and shouting might be good starting points, but even if it only becomes clear very shortly before impact that the shouting and swerving is having no effect, being able to apply the brakes you’re legally required to have fitted will always make *some* (potentially small) difference.

Agreed, there is a burden of proof of causality – did the wilful neglect or misconduct (or wanton & furious driving) cause any bodily harm. But any bodily harm is a very small test to satisfy, so if (beyond reasonable doubt) having no front brake (wilful neglect or wilful misconduct) *any bodily harm* was caused, then the offence is committed.

I can see a common sense reasoning that if the force of impact would have been lessened, even by a small amount, then causality is proven in terms of causing any bodily harm. Common sense is allowed in the jury room, even if not guided by either the prosecution or the judge.

I know that the “wanton and furious” bit is being well discussed, but are we certain that that is what the guilty verdict entirely was?

The legislation is drafted as

35 Drivers of carriages injuring persons by furious driving.
Whosoever, having the charge of any carriage or vehicle, shall by wanton or furious driving or racing, or other wilful misconduct, or by wilful neglect, do or cause to be done any bodily harm to any person whatsoever, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years

So there doesn’t need to be a finding of any wanton or furious driving or racing, there just needs to be “other wilful misconduct” or “wilful neglect”, either of which could legitimately extend to deliberately riding a bike on the road which is non-compliant with the law – i.e. no second working brake.

Once its proven that he deliberately had no front brake (whether or not he knew that that was the law), and it is proven that actual bodily harm was done he’s bang to rights surely?

I wonder if the “wanton and furious driving” phrase is just being lifted because it is good media?

Surprised at the perjorative language on the Guardian breaking news – “Charlie..convicted of causing bodily harm after mowing down” the woman. Mowing down seems a bit harsh.

Seems a sensible outcome.

The issue for the majority could be that they are settled (or have a good majority) on the lower tariff crime, but have only nearly a good enough majority on the higher tariff crime and still want to resolve that.

I think those stats on sentencing do something to bust the myth of convicted drivers getting off scot free constantly. The reality is that the statutory driving offences relating to deaths requiring “beyond reasonable doubt” judgements on whether the driving “fell far below” or just “fell below” acceptable standards of a competent or careful driver. And whilst the judge can (and will) direct the jury on this (if it gets to a jury trial, as opposed to a magistrates trial) then the jury are ultimately making judgements on all of those factors. And all the research shows that the majority of drivers believe that their approach to driving is better than average.

Once the jury has made its decision on the guilt or otherwise, its then back in the judges hands as to the sentencing, and sentencing guidelines are generally well adhered to.

Surely a “reasonable cyclist” would, even if going at 20mph through there, would have the brakes covered by their fingers “just in case” and if he had time to scream “get out of the way” twice, that’s at least enough time for the brakes to be applied and a significant amount of speed scrubbed off.

I’m no expert cyclist, but in busy areas that’s exactly how I would behave.

That BBC article reports on the charge against him, which from what I can tell is this:-

35 Drivers of carriages injuring persons by furious driving.
Whosoever, having the charge of any carriage or vehicle, shall by wanton or furious driving or racing, or other wilful misconduct, or by wilful neglect, do or cause to be done any bodily harm to any person whatsoever, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years

So I’d say that the prosecution needs to prove:-
– “wanton or furious driving” – that would reflect his speed, the maintenance of his bike, its legal compliance etc up to the point that his “driving” his bike is “wanton”. Perhaps a less likely test to be passed beyond reasonable doubt due to the level of intent required
OR
– “wilful misconduct” – that would require some evidence of deliberately trying to hit her, even if mischieveously, which I don’t think is being offered as a route of prosecution
OR
– “wilful neglect” – that could equally pivot around the absence of a road legal bike, and then on evidence as to a) the contributory effect of a bike’s inability to slow if a front brake isn’t present and b) whether the woman who died did something that he could not reasonably have been expected to respond to, even if his bike had had a front brake

Note that “wilful” is a well defined and understood legal term and “wilful neglect” will also be well understood by the judge as a concept.

Also of note from that is the bike – from reading here I’d have put him on a flat bar, trendy, 70s styled commuter. This looks like a carbon track bike to me, designed and intended to be ridden fast on a track, and therefore in the same mode on the road if used as such? Doesn’t look like fashion vs safety, looks like speed vs safety.

Did Les Gets last year with a family of 6 – the 3 younger kids (aged 7, 10 and 14 – though the 14 year old has some disablity challenges) had no interest in MTB, whereas the 16 year old got a 14 day pass for the lifts.

The multi-pass is excellent value for families if you make sure you use it well, and what kid doesn’t love a ride on a chairlift or bubble. Morzine swimming pool (Park des Dereches, plus all the other things that area has) is excellent, didn’t do the Avoriaz one as I don’t think that was in the multipass, but the mini golf up there was fun. Free ice skating too in the multipass.

The swimming lake at Les Gets is nice to spend the afternoon at, and the lake at Montriond is stunning, with a nice small pool for kids and parents to play in.

The goat village at Lindarets is kiddie friendly, we parked up at Avoriaz and did the lift down to there, then up over into Switzerland and back down to Lindarets for lunch. Promptly getting stuck down there as an afternoon thunderstorm came over and they shut the lifts! Fortunately I was in my running shoes that day so “happily” ;-) ran up from Lindarets to Avoriaz on the road in a deluge of biblical proportions! 2/3 up I was saved by a lovely French family as I’d started thumbing for a lift on the basis that I was in fear I’d get struck! So perhaps, don’t risk that!!

Riding with the family we managed to accommodate by using the car to get bikes up the Les Gets side to park up at Chavannes and ride on appropriate trails down with them. All of mine can ride bikes, and we had them with us (though we’re talking Frog 62, Decathlon kids bikes etc) so we just picked a decent route down off the DH trails and then I agreed to ride back up the hill to the car on my bike (which in fairness wasn’t too bad) as I didn’t have a lift pass.

nealglover » It would be quite easy to show that anyone that rides a bike with no brakes is not acting reasonably.

Beyond reasonable doubt?

I would say so yes.

Anyone that removes legally required safety devices (from anything) purely to look cool, is a complete idiot.

Doing so is entirely unreasonable.[/quote]
The reasonable doubtedness of this is irrelevant. The offence will be one of strict liability – did you, or did you not ride a bike without a front brake. The concept of reasonableness doesn’t come into it – that was up to Parliament or the Secretary of State when the law was designed.

All that needs to be proven beyond reasonable doubt is that no front brake was on the bike and that he knew there was no front brake on the bike.

There’s a completely separate argument about whether it was reasonable or not, but the specific law in place takes that debate away.

The bigger question isn’t “would anyone buy it”, it is “is it worth buying”?

Small incremental gains for a lot of cash is the fundamental of bike buying, particularly roadies.

For MTBs its simply the components – you see this best with Canyon’s range where they’ll start with a bottom of the range and then just spec up the parts, despite the fact that the core frame (& therefore geometry etc) remains identical – e.g. see Neuron 6.0 at £1,029 through to Neuron 9.0 SL at £2,949. You can probably bridge that price gap comfortably by simply pricing up the individual components that make the difference between the two.

I can’t conceive of anyone other than an elite rider who actually needs the performance gains of a £9k road bike vs a £2k road bike. But if you’ve got the dosh, you get to buy exclusivity, hopefully some great customer service & warranty outcomes, and the knowledge that you’ve got top of the range everything on the bike.

Physiologically it has to be about not fading as much as your competitors rather than actually getting stronger. Mere amateurs like us can get stronger as we ride more, but given the base level of fitness for elites like Froome I’d frankly be stunned if on any objective measure he is actually stronger at the end than the beginning.

I did note that in at least one respect he did appear to dip – if you compare the gap that Uran had to him on the first TT (51s from memory over 14km) that became only 30-ish seconds on the second TT over a longer distance. Uran had a lot more to ride for, so perhaps dug “deeper” than Froome who may have been cautious, but in that one respect it looks like Froome weakened relative to at least one competitor by the end of week 3.

The thing is, hitting the floor at 60+kmph is always going to hurt, and will sometimes result in something broken or badly torn. Not a great deal you can do about that short of slowing them all down or forcing them to wear airbags.

Perhaps there needs to be some sort of “neutral zone” to the sides where sprinting isn’t allowed, but at least might have given Cav an escape route. e.g. blue lines painted 1m from the barrier on both sides – allowed to cycle in it, but not race (e.g. no more than 2 pedal strokes etc)

(edit – I think it is s.198 not s.111 of the Act I was thinking of, but that’s now repealed and there’s a new clause saying the same thing)

Plus once you’ve put ridiculous costs through your books as a limited company, you then need to look at your relationship between you (as an employee of the company you own) and the company, and whether in fact what you are giving yourself is a benefit in kind (which may well be taxable).

So you buy a car through the limited company. It them appears on your P11D as a taxable benefit in kind. You pay your petrol costs – as an employee you receive it tax free only if it passes the wholly and exclusively test. The company buys a holiday for the director / shareholder. Potential for ultra vires transactions or wrongful trading.

A good local accountant will point you in the right direct and make sure you don’t store up potential tax liabilities, or worse penalties and convictions in the future.

And whilst the rest of us have to pay our due share of tax, don’t expect too much sympathy when tax dodging activities get you in hot water…;

you are entitled to spend whatever you want in your business as long as it is treated properly in the books.

Not if you’re truly self employed you’re not.

If you run your business through a limited company you may well be able to put whatever you want through your books (but be careful of creating too large tax losses or trading whilst insolvent etc), but if you are self employed then expenses need to be wholly, exclusively and necessarily for the purposes of your trade (used to be s.111 of the Income Taxes Act if I remember correctly).

I’ve got a bike setup just like this. Hasn’t caused any issues, no deflation (bog standard Decathlon rims, Gorilla tape, stans fluid and On One Chunky Monkey tyres). I’ve not topped up the fluid recently, but last time I checked there was still some sloshing. Stayed up throughout the winter with only a mild air top up when it came out again in April.

Warranties between yourself and the manufacturer can be non-binding as there is no contractual relationship between yourself and the manufacturer – you didn’t buy it from them, give them any cash (“consideration” in contract terms) etc. There can be duties of care offered (google snail in a ginger beer bottle) but warranties are something different.

So on that basis, warranties can be revoked, changed, updated etc. You’re on the right track if you assume a warranty is just something they’ve written to make you feel nice as a consumer, and you’ll have to rely on their goodwill to assume that they’ll honour it later down the line.

When you buy from a shop, your contract is with that shop, and any consumer law protection is between you and the shop.

So first Q is – did you buy it direct or from a shop? Have you tried getting a remedy from the shop first? If not – god luck – you’ll be relying on Spesh’s goodwill (which anecdotally they seem to be quite generous with in some cases, which is nice).

I like the lemon SIS Go tablets – no aspartame in the ingredients (uses a small amount of sucralose – 9cals per tab), makes bland warm water taste just a little nicer. Got a job lot of them about 12 months ago and still plenty to get through.

I positively like them, would have more if I didn’t think I might overdo the salts intake.

Tried extending the crank or the puller tool with a seatpost or similar to give more leverage? I had to resort to that with my first experiment with a BB after plenty of soaking, some heat / cold cycles, and other more physical interventions.

First gen Garmin vivoactive watch works really well and mounting on the bars with a cheap decathlon fixing works for me. Ant+ and Bluetooth with smart notifications and even an app dwMap that allows for route mapping and directions.

I got fearful of the Coke bottle going pop with my kids around so for an old extinguisher from work.

I didn’t bother with drilling out the pressure release valve as mine looked a bit different to most I’d seen on here, so instead I used a three way tee and a simple tap valve so I can fill the extinguisher through the outlet with the handle held in the open position.

Definitely not as neat as most other solutions but it means the pressure release valve is still in place and all works perfectly fine. Had fun at the weekend with the kids using the extinguisher to fuel up Coke bottle rockets which was fun!

The contract would be between LBS and you as the purchaser, so whilst the additional manufacturer’s warranty would be between the purchaser and YT, the actual legal obligations would be being taken on by the shop if they bought it and sold it on to you.

And possibly the manufacturers warranty wouldn’t be applied to you either, as YT could argue that the purchaser was not you etc etc.

Ref VAT, they’d buy the bike inc VAT from YT, sell it to you inc VAT and pay over net the difference between their input VAT and their output VAT (i.e. tax on the “value added”, hence the name!)

So the only way you can get the LBS to make some money off it is to get them to charge you for an initial build or something similar.

Discovered last week that my cousin is a soigneur for the OMX team.

http://omxprobike.com/portfolio-item/danny-smith/

Son has worn his Trail Cross Terrex since 2015, soles are looking fairly well shredded with the pins on the Superstar Nanos, but they’ve stood up very well over those two years. Nearly time to invest in a second pair.

I’ve got a pair but I’m not as gnarly as he is, but find them to be my “go to” shoe for walking around in just as much as riding.

Wait – you’re advocating gripshift AND rapid rise?

*grabs pitchfork*

Just for kids, you understand.

Grip shifts for kids could be alright if it wasn’t for the fact that the higher force required to move down the gears (7-1) rather than the opposite way around. Just when kiddy-winky needs the easiest possible gear, they find themselves struggling with the force required to pull the cable tight. If there was a derailleur which worked in the opposite direction to make loosening the cable bring the easier gears into play I think grip shifting would work OK.

Put the ebay one on the bike. Ride it. If it works, who cares?

(And carry the CRC one as a spare?)

I put on a Smorgasbord on a low end Mavic wheel which had previously run a Maxxis Beaver tubeless at the weekend. Went up first time with a single chamber track pump and the valve still in the core, couldn’t believe it! I normally need a ghetto coke bottle inflator to get them up.

I wear mine, my kids all wear theirs, my wife wears hers. They see a picture of someone on TV riding without a helmet, they point it out in astonishment.

All of use get our health benefits from cycling, and as a double whammy we reduce (albeit perhaps in a very small way) our risk of some head injuries in some situations.

To me, that’s the best outcome – making cycling with PPE the norm for a generation, just as wearing a seatbelt in the back seat of a car is completely the norm for my kids.

Ultimately it has to be personal choice. It’s no skin off my nose if a cyclist chooses not to wear a helmet and ends up being the outlier in the stats as the one fatality that would have been prevented by helmet wearing.

Had a tomtom runner, good battery life, nice clear screen. Mounted on a cheap decathlon watch bars mount worked fine.

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/sv-300-handlebar-watch-holder-cycle-computer-accessory-id_3341513.html

Now got a Garmin vivoactive (I’m mainly a runner anyway) which is even better, but not quite as cheap.

Prefer the watch option as it allows me to keep the phone safe and sound hidden away.

Not got a hotel sorted yet, but hotel room is obviously a sensible option. Depends what we manage to find!

@nickc – whether it is set correctly or not is irrelevant for measuring total ascent / descent during an individual ride. Yes, it will have the starting elevation incorrect, but every metre you climb or descend from that point will be accurately recorded. Having said that, keeping it calibrated so that whenever you dig it out of your pocket it properly records your elevation is a faff, but something that pilots have to cope with doing before every flight etc.

@allthegear – Oh yes there is – I’m using it right now on my work iPhone 6!

e.g. link to a pilot website about it – http://ipadpilotnews.com/2014/10/use-iphone-6-backup-altimeter/

I don’t follow iPhone developments as I hate the damned things, but I know I’ve got on this on my work phone – I can tell you at the moment the pressure in my office 1022.30 hPa, which is what my iPhone is telling me!

Yes, Strava corrects the altitude unless it was recorded on a device with a barometric altimeter, which is the “best” way to record elevation changes (seems to work for aircraft, and I think it’s important for them!).

Sometimes the Strava one takes a short while to be corrected from what you actually recorded.

If you recorded it on an iPhone, that does have a barometric altimeter built into it (though I’m not 100% certain that it is used when Strava is recording) so I suppose it is possible that your reading could be “more” accurate than the AUK one.