The backstory: We’d had an SWB high-top T4 for six or seven years. It was ace, we had a lot of fun trips in it, but it was starting to feel a bit small. The kids are 8 and 4, one of each and increasingly not terribly good at sharing a small roof bed. The bikes had to go on a rack, which meant we usually took vaguely sacrificial (ie crap) ones that we didn’t mind leaving on show if we went for a wander around town or something. We also wanted a decent sitting area inside that was unhindered by childrens’ beds so they could go to sleep at one end and we could sit up at the other. Munging all these requirements together gave us the basic layout. There isn’t anything quite like it available from proper motorhome companies, and if there was we wouldn’t be able to afford it, so we decided to build our own.

Spent a lot of time looking for a suitable van. Having looked at all sorts, we settled on the current generation of Ducato/Boxer/Relay because they’re wide enough to fit beds crossways, still fairly new and, well, dozens of pro converters can’t be wrong. The next challenge was tracking one down that was within budget, not impossibly leggy, a private VAT-free sale and not too wantonly abused. Missed out on a couple and finally took a bit of a gamble by hitting the Buy It Now button on an ’07 XLWB Fiat Ducato. Which came with this spendidly Clarksonesque bonnet badge:

It’s a 3.0 turbodiesel, which didn’t half get a shift on when empty. It’s also the “Heavy” version, with uprated suspension and bigger wheels — GVW is still only 3,500kg, but replating it to 4,000kg is just paperwork. No intention of doing that for insurance/ferry/other reasons, but it means I’m comfortable with it banging up against 3.5t in regular use. The empty van is a bit over 2t, so that’s roughly 1,500kg to play with, which has to include us and all our kit.

As bought, the van was like this inside:

Eeeuw. Previous owner was a heating engineer, so the interior was clad with a curious plywood/heating oil composite material. First job was to rip all that out and also remove this:

which did not feature in our plans 🙂

An awful lot of this kind of thing came out:

but we eventually got to the point where it was a bit more convivial and ready for the first of many trips to the timber merchant:

Anything in the UK? US copyright law is significantly different.

OK 🙂 Point me at an example case? Genuinely interested 🙂

No, sorry, that’s bollocks. There’s more to copyright than copying — here’s the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988:

16 The acts restricted by copyright in a work
(1)
16
The owner of the copyright in a work has, in accordance with the
following provisions of this Chapter, the exclusive right to do the following
acts in the United Kingdom
(a) to copy the work (see section 17);
(b) to issue copies of the work to the public (see section 18);
(ba) to rent or lend the work to the public (see section 18A);
(c) to perform, show or play the work in public (see section 19);
(d) to communicate the work to the public (see section 20);
(e) to make an adaptation of the work or do any of the above in relation
to an adaptation (see section 21);
and those acts are referred to in this Part as the “acts restricted by the
copyright”.

The “work” is the picture. The “owner of the copyright” is the photographer. Teva may not have technically copied the picture, but they’ve shown it to the public, communicated it to the public and (arguably) made an adaptation of it.

That’s ignoring the fact that the photographer has specifically stated that the image is not to be used for commercial purposes.

It’s the same guy, I think he’s employed by the Met Office to do that.

I have a Trance X3 2011. The overdrive 2 is wider at the bottom of the tapered steerer not the top.

The 2011 was OverDrive, which is 1.5in bottom and 1.125in top so takes normal stems. OverDrive 2 is 1.5in bottom and 1.25in top. However, not all 2012 Anthem Xs have OD2 — according to the Giant website the OP’s X2 is OD not OD2 as he thought. So in fact yes, any normal stem will fit 🙂

Actually they offered to pay and I asked for some branded stuff and a credit on the ad instead!

You’re clearly insane 🙂

I like the eccentric rear hub – neat solution to keeping the chain tension

The frame has an EBB, though…

Did they offer a t-shirt up front or did you have to haggle? 😉

OP: That image is licensed Attribution-Noncommercial:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

so, in a nutshell, no you can’t. Contact the photographer…

[Edit: The way you posed the question suggested that it was you wanting to use the picture, from the FB page I’m guessing that that’s not in fact the case 🙂 The photographer should very much get in touch with them…]

tapered steerers take ordinary stems.

Except Overdrive 2, which is bigger at the top than “standard” tapers. Think you’re probably stuck with Giant’s own stems.

To the OP: It’s a bit of a vicious cycle — you’ve been off a couple of times, you’re not confident and chances are you’re now pushing your weight back in corners because you’re worried about going over the front (you can be doing this without knowing it), which is making it worse. I’d work on consciously pulling yourself over the front more.

I’m pretty sure I’d just bent my Trek 930 and got a Dynatech MT-4 to put all the bits (Mavic cranks, Pace rings, Magura Hydrostops, onZa bar ends, USE post, Flite etc) on. So a bit like this:

Actually, thinking about it, I’d had it a few months then, it was probably almost exactly 20 years ago that I raced it at a NEMBA at Lyme Park and bent the back end in the trials comp on account of being no good at trials. Raleigh mended it, which was nice, but not long after that I wrapped it around a gate above Hayfield. Bought a second-hand Cannondale frame to replace it, which I still have.

The heads of the church deserve to be listened to because they represent a large group of people.

This would be more convincing if the large group of people in question had chosen who “represents” them.

there is no alternative to a Religious belief system that gives kids moral guidance and sets boundaries

I am amazed (and somewhat perturbed) than anyone genuinely believes this.

Aha, Gary has the Twitter-fu 🙂

Don’t think FoI has anything to do with private companies.

Lineker’s tweet shows up here:

@gnomeicide
Only the uncompromising extremist ones

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) August 22, 2012

But not on his feed here:

Tweets by GaryLineker

Bikebiz article referred to it mid-morning, was definitely there around 10am.

Posted 3:37pm Tuesday 21 August, so it was up for nearly 24 hours.

It was asking for experiences of people who’ve done something alternative. More alternative than simply working part time.

TBH I don’t think you’re going to find those people here 🙂

The travelling/working away seems like the biggest negative aspect of your current setup. It sounds like what you mainly need is more time. Do you necessarily have to be “alternative” to get that? Working in one location a sensible distance from home is about as unalternative as it gets but on the face of it would seem to be of benefit.

Don’t write it all out and then read it off the page. Just write cues on a card each and work through them. Doesn’t have to be detailed, just enough to remind you what you’re meant to be saying. You can get away with old cheesy gags as openers, everyone’ll be expecting one anyway. Round off with some complimentary stuff about the happy couple, do the toast, job done.

That’s famously difficult. I’ve considered it, not sure what I’d actually do. And it’s a huge gamble isn’t it? I’m not sure how I’d do it without putting my family security at risk.

I thought this, and didn’t set up on my own for years and years. Then got made redundant and went for it in the absence of any more compelling avenues. I’m doing essentially what I was doing before (minus the faff of managing folk) except more on my own terms. Not earning as much as I did and keeping very strange hours but I kind of like the direct correlation between doing things and (eventually) getting paid. And I very much like working in a shed in the garden, mostly being around for family meals, mostly deciding when I want to work — as long as it all gets done, the exact times of day I do it are irrelevant. MrsD looks after the books and numbers ‘cos I’m terrible at that stuff.

The main thing, though, is that I kind of wish I’d done it a lot sooner.

I’m trying to rationalise a bit at the moment.

Road bike
CX bike
Track bike
Shop/campsite/trailer-towing hack thing
Sturdy 26in hardtail
Racy 26in hardtail
100mm FS
Singlespeed 26in hardtail
Period-correct early 90s retro impulse purchase

So I’m back down out of double figures, which is good (I’m not counting the tandem, my wife’s bikes, or the kids’ bikes…). Looking at combining two of the hardtails into one. Can’t see myself getting below seven, though.

The ‘balance bike only’ race was much fairer!

Aye — well suggested 🙂

They’re going up in price, non-rusty ones command a premium, decent professional conversions command a premium. £5k seems decent if it’s what it appears to be (mileage seems unlikely for a 27-year old van). All caveats above apply, of course 🙂 The most sought-after conversions in good condition are easily in five figures.

Got to be impressed that the Avon Tyrrell folks are dealing with enquiries on here at 10pm 🙂

I have just put the yellow and green striped bit into ‘E’, the brown into ‘N’ and the blue into ‘L’.

I thought you said you could wire a plug? 🙂

Bit late to this one, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the Raleigh Pioneer that we got second hand (but hardly used). Decent frame, could plug a sus fork into it, has disc mounts, room for big tyres. The stock components are about what you’d expect but a few choice upgrades from the shed sorted that out. We use it mainly for ferrying children around but it’s fine on gentle off-road. Don’t know if I’d tackle the kinds of things Rob’s doing, but for the money I reckon it’s a great bet. There’s been a few on ebay for around £300 recently.

I’m going to post this again, because it’s got most of the family on it 🙂

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(The kids have Islabikes, but they just look like all the others 😉 )

Re: insurance — DVLA was being a bit funny about changing vehicle types to “Motorcaravan” for self-builds or conversions on already-registered vehicles a while back, but they seem to have relented recently. If it’s registered as a motorcaravan your insurance options open up considerably.

with a proper camper, not a conversion, there is not much space for bikes inside.

I’m not sure what distinction you’re trying to draw here 🙂 They’re all “conversions”.

It’s only about a foot longer. You’ll overhang some parking spaces, can’t think of any other major downsides.

We’ve got an actual toilet, but you don’t get much privacy 😉

I think we’ve done about 30 nights away this year. And we’ve had it five years and it was old and cheap, so I reckon we’re getting good VFM 😉

Also, wait until after the summer holidays, they get cheaper 😉

you get used to driving a bit more conservatory

They do have quite a lot of windows 🙂

T4 here, very much a second vehicle but also used for a lot more than just camping. Days out, carrying big stuff or just using when the other car is unavailable for whatever reason. It’s got 155,000 on it, though, so not too bothered about adding more 🙂

All these things were called nightmares. We’ve just adopted American terminology and differentiated two things that used to be the same.

Or science has advanced to a point where two things previously thought to be the same have now been identified as being different.

Also, Americans have nightmares too.

waking up with the unshakeable belief that I’m about to choke

Sounds like sleep paralysis — I’ve had that a few times, it’s pretty scary until you know what it is 🙂

Night terrors are when people have nightmares in America. Nothing more, nothing less.

As usual, the term has hopped over here and is now used in general parlance for ‘nightmare’.

Not according to the NHS: “Night terrors are very different from nightmares.”

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/night-terrors/Pages/Introduction.aspx

BRAIN intertia valves both ends (can’t tell from the fork by looking, but Spec’ has been using BRAINy RockShox for a couple of years so it seems a safe bet). In Ben’s pics the travel-measuring O-ring’s popped off the end of the shaft, so he was definitely using all the travel he had 🙂