Been quite successful with this, so far I’ve been paid out about £6.5K. I have been fairly ruthless in tracking this down as it turns out I was genuinely missold PPI, I’ve had cancer and despite telling companies/banks etc this they still sold me PPI which would NEVER pay out because I’d previously had cancer!

I felt a little bad about the whole PPI thing until I realised I was actually really badly advised and they took my money knowing they shouldn’t have done so.

My building society did the same and the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has ruled in my favour so I’m expecting an offer in the next 21 days.

Put the Maxx-D on and use the modes to match the roads you’re riding on. Having more light available IF you need it seems a good plan.

Had this when I was freelance but it was a new customer so I hadn’t been paid for any hosting, website creation or crucially the email and domain. Once I took his email down it didn’t take long for him to phone me, despite his mobile being lost!

I stood my ground and eventually he coughed up but paid by cheque, once it had cleared I put his site and email live again. I then transferred the domain registration and email etc to him, as that was what we had agreed.

Surprisingly I did work for him for another couple of years and when he wound his business up he paid me just before he closed down.

I don’t think you can take his site down but I do think you could either settle for 50% or go to the small claims court.

Peter Gabriel had moments of genius after leaving Genesis but also whole albums of utter tosh as well, I still like the fact he wasn’t afraid to experiment.

Phil Collins in Genesis made them shit, when he left his solo stuff was even worse – almost unbelievably so.

Didn’t really like The Verve much but Richard Ashcroft’s solo stuff is dire, he can sing (we saw him at CarFest South) but why he bothers is beyond me. A total dirge and he realy realy thinks he’s something special!

I went to Richer sounds and look ata few, choose one I liked and got them to set it to a ‘standard’ picture mode, still liked it so bought it. Mine’s only a 32″ flat screen LG as I don’t like my TV to dominate a room :-)

I run X2s on my HT and E4s on my FS and they both work brilliantly. As I’m on the larger side (90kg + kit) I run 180 rotors on both ends on both bikes with a floating rotor on the front of both.

At BPW (twice this year once very wet and once very nearly dry) and I didn’t need more than the E4s although i was only doing blues and reds.

Some rich people getting a kick out of being ‘special’ and on R2 seems a small price to pay for raising lots of cash for a great cause.

There’s lots of competition by charities so R2/Children in Need give big ‘spenders’ special treatment so their money goes to them and not another charity.

Had my first visit in Jan this year and really enjoyed the blues and a couple of the reds particularly Vicious Valley. The weather was a bit damp but it didn’t really cause any real problems as the trails re really well built.

I also went in June and had a less successful day as I was very tired due 3rd day of riding in Wales and a bit under the weather. I took it fairly easy all day and didn’t really feel like I was flowing and on the last run, on sixtapod, I had a big moment right at the top so I calmed down and took it very easy for the rest of the run which dropped into one of the lower sections of a red.

Unfortunately as I rode back along the access path to the cafe my rear suspension failed and pitched me off, I suffered a badly cut elbow, lots of bruising and serious damage to my shoulder! I’ve been off the bike since June 12th as my shoulder is non-operational with a serve bursa injury.

Will I go back to BPW? Yes definitely, will I ride more cautiously? Probably not once I’ve got back in the groove, will I wear shoulder, knee and elbow protection? Yes absolutely I’ve learned a hard lesson!

£45 per 30 minutes in Winchester for someone whose very hands on and makes progress, NHS very, very stretched hence I’d guess you’ll struggle to get it fixed unless you pay for private treatment.

Not having a go at the NHS BTW they do a fantastic job but if they don’t have any budget they are limited…

Had a colleague start talking to me at 10:59:50! I said come back in 2 minutes and he looked suprised but respected my request.

Having lost friends I always insist on the 2 minutes it’s the very least I can do.

Interestingly I’ve had some exposure to this since I joined my local parish council. In our village the data is collected and passed to the local police force if there are 3 separate recordings of excessive speed.

One of the two allocated areas in my village, you have to have permission to site a scheme, is where a 40 limit becomes a 30 mph limit and 100 metres or so after this is where around 40 school children stand to catch the school bus. Only this morning, as I was about to turn onto this ‘main’ road, I saw a car travelling at ~40 -45 mph with the driver looking at their mobile!

The police did some data capture and at least 35% of cars broke the speed limit by more than 10% during rush hour and one motocycle was recorded at 59mph and that’s in a 30 zone!

Both my main bikes, FS and HT, are running 1 x 11 and I wouldn’t go back. With the right front ring and a large range cassette it seems to just work. I’ve had really good mileage out of my chains and cassettes so far so running costs whilst high aren’t ridiculous.

OK I have ROAM 40s and the bearings felt fine for about 14 months but when they did start to go it was almost instant. I had my LBS swap out the bearings which cost £25 inc bearings for both wheels, the ‘proper’ tools are a bit specific I think.

Depends on what hubs you’ve got, share that info and someone will be along to help :-)

On the first page of this thread I posted this:

Went to car fest south this year and sat in a Jaguar F-Pace, I’m 5′ 10″ (just) and sat behind a 5′ 10″ driver left me with a very very small amount of leg room.

For such a big car the inside is very tight/cramped.

For me IMHO so many of the SUVs you see on the roads are just status symbols, nothing wrong with that if that’s your thing but for me most SUVs are way too big externally for the practical space they offer.

I’ve driven a Williams Clio, M3s (E30, E36) and 911s and if I wanted something flash/fast/fun they’d be my choice again, but if I want something practical then a big SUV doesn’t give me enough useable space for my money.

Admiral put our insurance up by £100 so I shopped around. Admiral offered a 27% discount when i phoned. I got a quote via my bank which ended up being 50% cheaper with lower excesses and basically the same cover.

Report it ASAP, you’ll feel bad but if they kill someone then you’ll regret not reporting it.

It becomes your business when it wakes you up at 02:30!

No I don’t like being overtaken by anyone but as I’m not very fit it happens a lot :-)

The gender of the overtaker is totally irrelevant I’ll try and chase them whatever! I see it as a bit of mild ‘training’!

My 13 year old son now passes me on the harder hills and annoyingly he chats as he does so!

Would like a go with them and thought about it when they were first announced. Thinking my group of riding buddies might want to buy a set amongst us all (6 regular riders) as it seems to be the sort of thing you’d use a few times a year not every day.

I’ve never hit a deer but I clipped a badger once on a night ride and that didn’t end well!

Went to car fest south this year and sat in a Jaguar F-Pace, I’m 5′ 10″ (just) and sat behind a 5′ 10″ driver left me with a very very small amount of leg room.

For such a big car the inside is very tight/cramped.

My son plays a full size tuba nd the only car at car fest that we’d be able to fit it in and not totally fill the boot was a Volvo XC90, when I sat in the driver’s seat my son who is 6′ tall had loads of space when behind the driver seat.

I was hoping to buy something small and fun but….

Changed my SRAM GXP BB to a Hope one when it died and that’s lasted 5 times as long so far!

My experience of SRAM warranty has been really good, I had a broken freehub jamming on a 10-42T cassette onto my Roam40 wheel, SRAM replaced the freehub and cassette FOC as the wheel didn’t have a spacer added when it was built at the factory.

TF Tuned sent back my RockSox Debonair Monarch shock as when it was serviced as the inner shaft was chipped and SRAM replaced it with a Monarch Plus as they had no stock and didn’t want me shockless for more than a week!

As always some people seem to get better luck with warranty replacements than others, the GXP BBs are shoddy though!

I’m guessing this will blow over but leaving the EU will have economic repercussions in the short term, it may work out for the better in the longer term but that’s probably 20+ years away.

One obvious thing is that there is always someone somewhere making money out of these type of things, the recent drop in the pound will be totally devastating to some companies for others it’s likely to be a bonus.

The real winners as always are the bankers and financial institutions that thrive/drive their greed with economic uncertainty!

All IMHO of course :-)

51 and broken at the moment so my fitness is poor, year on year I don’t drop much it just gets more unpleasant! Up until I wrecked my shoulder and neck I was able to keep up on the weekly night ride doing 25+ miles at an average of ~11mph with 80% being off road, I’m the slow one at the start but able to push hard towards the end of the ride as we head to the pub! I’m the oldest of the group I ride with and the youngest is 40 and I am usually quicker over the whole ride than he is!

When I can ride again it’s going to be horrible for about 6 weeks and then I’ll be able to hang off the back of the group and use the pace to gain some fitness.

My wife swapped careers into teaching and at 51 she’s now doing her NQT year.

I think a lot depends on the school and the SMT, a few examples of what my wife has experienced as an NQT in a school that is considered slightly challenging:

No NQT mentor
Only German teacher in a school with ~800 pupils
New department head with no recent secondary experience
Of the 6 teachers in languages only 1 is NOT new to the school this year
No textbooks available for German
No-one setting targets or schemes of work so ends up being the NQT

My wife leaves at 07:00 gets home at 18:00 and then does 19:00 – 23:00 every night plus at least a 12 hour day at the weekend, her line manager has just told her that she needs to do all the performance reporting despite this being something an NQT is not allowed to do! She has no existing resources because the pervious teachers deleted them all so she’s starting from scratch for everything!

I’ve worked in the advertising sector for ~30 years and even when I’ve had to work 60+ hours a week at least I was being paid a decent salary. My wife’s hours and her pay as an NQT means she’s on way below the minimum wage – even allowing for holidays (which so far she’s worked 75% of).

I’d not ever consider it as a career!

I have a 2015 Works T-130 and the warranty replacement shock is a Monarch plus so I better check it fits!

I became a parish councillor at the beginning of the year and I’ve really enjoyed it, it does have it’s frustrations but I felt that I had no grounds to moan unless i was prepared to contribute!

I heavily recommend attend a few meetings before taking the plunge although that’s not always possible if a vacancy exists and there’s a deadline.

I love the comments about planning, we do have a chance to represent the parish BUT we don’t have any decision making power over anything substantial planning wise.

My first meeting was interesting as one of the public asked what we were going to do about the waiting lists for the NHS!

Sometime if it’s really really wet and muddy (sloppy stuff) I’ll run a Shorty on the rear but 95%+ of my winter riding is:

Rear: Minion DHR2 3C
Front: Shorty 3C

I’ve been using bibs, shorts and tights, for 25+ years. I wear baggies over the top for off road mainly as the baggies are more resistant to crashing than lycra :-)

Great in the winter as they keep your kidneys warm and better IMHO than liners as there’s no gap. They do get a bit warm in the summer and are a slight pain when you need to pee but the advantages, for me, far outweigh the downsides.

Every year, in Nov I think, the ferry is out of service for it’s maintenance so it might be worth a quick check if you’re thinking of doing this in late Oct/early Nov

I keep hoping that someone will comment on the fact that the dragon’s fire looks like it’s burning the poor Vauxhall Mokka, but only molgrips seems to have got it so far.

So stating the obvious – the dragon’s doing a public service :-)

I worry about the stuff I can affect so if it’s in the past I can’t change it only learn from it :-)

Was riding up a steep road hill on my single speed when a guy in a highways maintenance truck shouted “get on the f**king cycle path you c**t”

I caught up with him at the top off the hill as he pulled into the ‘works’ area, he was one of the guys working on building the cycle path which at that time was un-surfaced and fenced off.

I asked him how I was supposed to ride on the cycle track that he was still building, his mates started to take the pi** big time and as I rode off he shouted “fair enough but I still think all cyclists are c**ts”.

Considered reporting it to the firm doing the work but couldn’t be bothered as I assumed I get the same attitude.

Main reason I use removable cores is to avoid repeatedly* reseating tyres and risking damage to the bead.

* probably only 2 -4 times a year so repeatedly might be a bit misleading :-)

I had testicular cancer 20 years ago, lots of unpleasant treatments later and I’m still here. I also had a malignant melanoma 6 years ago and after more unpleasant treatments I’m still here, stay strong and positive as it is possible to get through this. HTH

So I’m a big fan of the NHS – when it really goes wrong and you need urgent life saving treatment there’s no-one better than the NHS.

Sadly when I turned up thinking my torn rotator cuff, as diagnosed by my physio and GP from an ultrasound, would be looked and surgery booked I found out I’d be referred for my neck not my shoulder! To be fair the guy I saw showed me the referral notes and my shoulder wasn’t mentioned! To rub salt into the wound despite the GP saying I’d torn my rotator cuff – whilst looking at the scan result – the guy I saw yesterday said I haven’t and it’s actually severe subacromial bursitis!

So today I’m off to Orthopedic Choice to see someone who is expecting, I hope, to see someone with a damaged shoulder! I’m 3 months in and have had an xray, an ultrasound, 8 sessions of physio (very hands one), 2 visits to hospital and I’m still not sure what my injury really is and how it needs to be treated!

I’ll 2nd Clive Powell, search for Elan Cyclery.

If you’ve had an injury (something that kept you off you bike for a few weeks) think back to how hard it was to recover from, now think about how you’d cope with the loss of your legs doing something you loved that you’ll never do again. Recovering from that to excel at anything is to me beyond labels and descriptions. It brought a smile to my face to see him winning yet again.

No but my excuse is I’m still broken!

Did it in June and really enjoyed it, especially the ‘free ride’ section at the top that I didn’t realise was not part of the ‘standard’ route!