Can’t see those graphics holding out very long against heel scuffs.

It was a hugely over the odds PX allowance on her aged Micra that persuaded Wifey to buy her Hyundai new.

I was on the IOW ferry as it all happened. Shame I didn’t bother looking out of the windows at any time on the trip as it was dark and only found out next day on the news.

I-gotu from Maplins. It takes 5 minutes or so to download the data to it’s own software, create a gpx file and upload that to Strava but it’s cheap and about the size of a matchbox.

Tights from about 10C down to keep my feet warm. My legs would happily go lower but my feet would shut down if they weren’t being fed cosy warm blood.

Taking the whole family out on a Sunday afternoon and packing bike and kit for the ride home worked well for me when my son was young. For half the time I would be riding Wifey and Junior would be occupied with driving home.

EDIT: That also meant that on windy days I could ride with a tail wind all the way :lol:

@yourguitarhero nice to know I’m not the only one.

On a ride a couple of weeks ago a friend of mine offered me a go on his new Trek fatty, which meant him swapping to my rigid Surly 1×1 on freeride rims and 2.4s. We swapped back after a mile and:
Him — wow your Surly feels so lively and you’ve got the gearing spot on, what did you think of the Trek?
Me — er, it was alright……………

Love the blue and red at Swinley. I’m not a great jumper but the blue has given me my biggest air to date. Time enough mid-flight to look down at my front wheel and think ‘ooh that looks a long way off the ground’.

Yes Manton, I learned the oil lesson the hard way. We’d all been in the pub a couple of hours for our Christmas curry whilst the temperature outside dropped. My CK wasn’t the only hub to freeze but being by far the most costly I got the most grief and the most offers of liquid help from beered up mates.

In my experience it’s the freehub to hub body seals that are the weak link on Hope hubs. It also depends on what the soil is like where you ride. New Forest sand is very fine and seems to get past those seals particularly quickly. Rebuilds are an annual occurance for any bike used regularly through a New Forest winter.
Hope’s customer service is very good but they appear to prefer not to waste time getting into debates.

daveatextremistsdotcouk – Member
That reminds me – must moan to Chris King because their ring drive lube freezes below -4 and it just spins out.

Strip the hub and fill it with oil as recommended by CK for subzero use.

This is going back 9 months or so but then I had a customer arrive with his bike saying that he had had new cables and front mech fitted elsewhere (a large national chain that devotes 25% or so of it’s floor space to bikes) but still couldn’t get the chain on to the big ring. It turned out that one of the screws holding the shifter top cover on had been dropped into the shifter. The rest of the work was so apalling that I had to take some photos:

It beggars belief both that anyone employed to work on bikes could think that they’d done an acceptable job and that the customer could accept and pay for such work.

I had a customer before Xmas who bought a pair of Schwalbe Marathon Plus and a saddle, which I fitted for him. A couple of days later he phoned to say he’d found the tyres far cheaper online and I’d ripped him off with old stock. When he started on the threats and abuse I put the phone down (after warning him I would if he continued). He called back and went through the same routine several times with me hanging up on him. Eventually he gave me the name of the online shop and surprise surprise, it was they who were selling the old pattern tyres. He did apologise.

A few years ago I asked a young customer if he could help me out by taking the £20 note he was paying with to the bank three doors up to swap for change. An hour later I had a phone call from his mother who ripped into me with a ferocity that could only be justified if I’d taken her son into the back room and Saviled him.

Hope’s aftersales service is brilliant so I’d expect them to sort it for you. However, the seals they use seem to be pretty ineffective against certain grades of grit/sand/mud and if used regularly in foul conditions an annual (or more frequent) strip and service is essential for problem free running.

A little over 4000 miles, the same as most years.
About 2000 of that was off-road singlespeed and 1000 on-road singlespeed on the commute bike.

Biggest days:
146 miles London to Brighton night ride and then home to just outside Southampton on the SS commuter.
95 miles on Passeportes day on the full-susser. 20 miles of roads to get to my start point and on a mission thereafter.

And wider cranks and Q-factor (side to side distance between the pedals) will no doubt provide a healthy boost to the sports injury and hip replacement professions.

Oh how can I say this without sounding all crawly bumlick?

Yes Tazzy, it was SSUK and no I don’t want even a small thankyou kiss.

It’s not consumers that will be providing the initial demand for these new standards. A deal will be done somewhere for a bike manufacturer to use them as original equipment to set the ball rolling. Then all online retailers and bike shops that want to be seen as ‘up to the grade’ will feel obliged to buy in spares stock. Whether those spares are ever sold at retail price or remain on the shelves until they are obsolete and have to be cleared out for less than they were originally bought for is not the manufacturers problem.

Yes, spare a thought for your local bike shop trying to keep stock for all reasonable demands.

January — Final round of the Brass Monkeys, the only one I’ve been available for in this series and first outing in the Grand Vets.

May — Shepherding MB Junior round his first 100 miler at the Cycl;ists Fighting Cancer sportive in the Cotswolds. I see that being a big test of father-son harmony.

Sometime in the summer — French Coast to coast to coast (Channel – Atlantic – Med) which I think/hope I can do in a week. I’m still working out how to fit this one round family and work.

The button fly. Whoever thought that was a good idea was obviously never troubled by needing to go for a leak with numb fingers on a cold day.

Turned 50 and had an absolutely awesome party to celebrate.

Otherwise 2014 was very similar to 2013.
Took the boy skiing again
Rode the Passportes Du soleil again
Rode solo 12hr at the 24/12 again but got a bit dehydrated and didn’t do quite as well as last year
Took the family on the same PGL holiday canoeing the Ardeche again

Played tag rugby with my son’s club for the first time since leaving school and loved it. I even scored one try!
Took MB junior (aged 13) to SSUK which he absolutely loved.
Managed to start running again without crippling myself.

Next year I’d like to try and ride between all three of France’s coasts in a week. Coast to coast to coast?

I’ve successfully freed off stuck seatposts by bolting a stem round the post and then clamping an old fork in the stem. Shims will berequired depending on hte seatpost diameter but when everything is done u[p tight you’ve got loads of leverage.

If the flat’s generating an income why sell it?

My X-Fusions are the same, I run far less than the ‘recommended’ pressure. I’m not sure where these recommendations come from but the best thing to do is to experiment and go with what works for you.

Looks like a nice challenge. Wish I’d been there!

A very long way away from me here in Hampshire but bookmarked ‘just in case’.

Unless you feel you’re a contender for a top placing or you need the reassurance of having parted with money for any advice to follow I’d just go with the following:

-Ride lots

-Ride through the night and don’t go to bed afterwards once a month

-Make sure your bike is absolutely perfect before the race

-Take lots of food and make sure it’s not so bland tasting that you lose the enthusiasm for eating it when you should

-Take some mates to kick your sorry arse back out on the course when you feel like jacking it all in at stupid o’clock in the morning

I’m not sure why some people are so keen to rubbish multilap MTB races. As much as the physical challenge there’s the mental challenge of getting to know the course and being as quick as you can through the technical sections and making the right line choices to minimise energy expenditure.

Check freewheel/freehub and bottom bracket bearings and the chain join.

Far better than any of her mates.

EDIT. and miles better than any of my exes.

My neoprene ankle-cuffs/mini-gaiters. Cause I made them myself and they keep wetness from going in over the top of my winter boots.

Looks pretty tame by DM standards, unlike a few of the comments placed after.

Few points:

He’s wearing pink — I wouldn’t so I can see her point on that one
He turned up at a function in his kit — As above
He doesn’t ride in the rain — Wuss
He rides despite MS — Wuss
He’s riding for charity — Thumbs up
He’s inspired the kids — More thumbs up

Overall, incredibly balanced and positive by DM standards.

Could be an interesting summer with the new Mad Max film out too.

A PX offer has bog all to do with the ‘value’ of a car it’s a measure of what the dealer is willing to give you for it and that will depend on:

How much you’re spending on top.
How easily he thinks he will be able to sell your car.
How easily he thinks he will be able to sell the car you’re looking at to someone else if you don’t buy it.
Whether he’s had a good month to date.
Where the family want him to take them on holiday next year.
etc
etc
etc

capable of destroying any trail at any time of year, and in any condition

I hope the purchase price of one of those Turners includes a sizable levy to be paid to the Benevolent Fund For Overworked Trail Fairies.

Late 90s. I was riding my motorbike home form work, filtering past crawling traffic when the pick up truck driven by a builder type in his fifties, that I was passing started moving across, pushing me into the oncoming traffic. I could see the driver’s face in the mirror. He knew exactly what he was doing. I accelerated past then had to stop in front as there wasn’t a big enough gap to go any further. Next thing I know he’s nudging my back wheel with the bumper of the truck. I got off my bike went back to the truck to ask what the hell he was trying to prove. When all I got back was abuse I punched him on the side of the face, not as hard as I’d have liked as it was on the limit of my reach. I went back to my bike and he followed me, grabbing me round the neck as I sat back on my bike and started ranting at me. By this time the traffic in the opposite lane was moving faster and my first thought was how easy it would be to kick him across into the path of one of those cars. Eventually after I pointed out how his truck was now holding up the traffic on our side of the road he let go and we went our merry ways.

At 5mph definitely not.
Have you tried imagining how it would feel to keep your leg braced against that peg for the half hour or more it would take to get up a half decent downhill?

Most likely my CX bike although I’d want to change it for one with discs.

I’m still using IE8 which appears to be too ancient to allow a lot of the modernly formatted ads to display. :D

Coincidentally I’m now about half way through reading ‘The Martian’ by Andy Weir, about a member of one of the first manned missions who gets stranded alone on the planet. Very good read so far.