Good experience with Howdens – all done at the end of last year. Complete kitchen redesign (flipped a kitchen/living room around), and did a utility room too. Service was great and we’re very happy with the results.

Only challenge was ensuring we had enough time with the designers/reps. They were really stretched, but we got there.

As above, suspect it’s very dependent on who you get for your designer and how much time they have.

We used Kingston-upon-Thames if any help. Happy to share any further details if helpful.

I had a GTS300 a while ago – great bike. Was stolen from my drive in west London one night, never to be seen again :(

Jim Ratcliffe (Mr Ineos) also owns Belstaff, so I thinks that’s just part of his funding deal. Ditto the Grenadier – I’m sure there’s some of those stickers on the boat somewhere too!

I predict there’ll be too little wind to race on Saturday, so no racing until Sunday.
Then hopefully it’ll be quite windy, where I think Ineos have the advantage, and take at least one win.

Going to be close. Probably ;)

I noticed the ‘bouncing’ foil arm on AM too. I can’t believe it has some bounce by design, but it’s odd that it was so noticeable today and I haven’t seen it on any of the other boats.

I’m going for 4-0 to Italy – all wrapped up tomorrow and no racing on Sunday (again). And the US go home without winning a race after being the favourites for the Prada Cup!

But… we’ve seen comebacks before!

Yay – I’ve finished!

83,671st
27,932.2nm
Time doesn’t seem to be registering properly yet, but I think it’s 81d, 9hr, 57min

Enjoy the last hours/days for everyone still out there!
Nick (Kapow)

Looks like I (Kapow) should finish this evening. No pro-sails options here so reasonably pleased with the result, and just managed to edge out Stapleford Flier and somewhatbehind.

Fun sailing – I’m going to be both glad it’s all over, and miss it, in equal measure!

Nick (Kapow)

@peterno51 – did you used to sail an SB3 (or SB21)??

@sharkbait – I sent you a couple of messages on VR (via their chat feature – click on the speech bubble bottom right) – not sure if you saw them?

@sharkbait – are you Stapleford Flier? We’ve been racing pretty close for the past few weeks!

I’m still enjoying it! Close racing with the group in off the coast of Uruguay/Brazil – and a few different paths being taken (hugging the coast vs more out in the Atlantic). Be interesting to see where we all line up as we converge again overt he next 3-4 days!

Nick (Kapow)

I’m quite chuffed with my efforts. Only down about 4kg, but I’ve been hectic at work, lacked time to do as much exercise as I’d like, managed to get through my 50th b’day cake and still lost weight. Not got to my target, but not that far off.

Plan to enjoy Christmas and then carry on the effort in January.

Big thanks to @coconut for providing the motivation!

Try Waggle. They are pretty new, and seem good so far! We switched from coop to them about a year ago.

I ordered a set of wheels from Carbonda a couple of weeks ago. Other than the wheels and shipping they wanted 4.5% paypal fee. Still works out good value, assuming they get here, and in one piece!

That looks lovely – nice work! I was tempted with a Secan v1, but wasn’t quite right so placed an order elsewhere for something in titanium (still waiting…). But the Secan v2 looks great.

Happy gravelling!

>I find the small size means that the body can hold around 50% less dust than a regular model while it’s sitting on my shelf.

Made me laugh out loud! Thanks, I needed a bit of a smile!

Recently bought a pair of Le Col 3/4 (after trying their shorts in the summer). All good – very comfortable, and £50 off if you get the Strava discount.

Ordered a set of CGW01 wheels from the very helpful Adam at Carbonda yesterday. Will update when they arrive!

Nick

Thanks for the replies – very helpful. I’m looking at a pair of wheels, and maybe some new bars too. Will update when I make progress…

Cheers
Nick

Just ordered one as well (from their site with the BF offer). Let’s see when it turns up and if there’s any additional costs. I’m hoping not…

Stapleford Flier and BentandBroken – just added you on VR. I’m in KAPOW.

Cheers,
Nick

I have a decent condition black iPhone 7 I was planning to sell. I think it’s a 64GB model – I can check if you’re interested. Overall good condition – original glass and no scratches. A few marks on the corners where it’s been in a case, but not noticeable if you put in another case!

Feel free to pm me if interested.

Cheers
Nick

@Ponty. All of their policies are lifetime options as far as I recall. We are definitely on the lifetime plan.

Nick

We use waggle. Was cheaper than renewing with the coop and seem like a nice organisation to do business with.

Hi Nick – trying to message you about the Cutthroat offer you’ve had, but I can’t get the PM working on here! Let me know if you’re willing to share details.
Cheers
Nick B (another Nick!)

Personal choice, but I’d never spend “big money” on a quartz watch. I’d go mechanical (manual or auto) – at least it then has some real engineering qualities to justify the cost. You can buy a quartz watch for a tenner…

Mrs nickb has a Cartier tank auto – beautiful watch. Having said that, it’s not great at staying on time, but maybe that’s part of the charm!!

Go vintage. A nice 1960s or 70s Rolex or Omega. Maybe one from her birth year??

Recently bought a 2020 Supersix. I went for the SRAM Force AXS one. It’s not super light, but it’s brilliant. Quick, comfortable… a real joy to ride.

Use amazon?
Did you know if you buy everything from smile.amazon.co.uk you can choose to send a small amount of what you spend to one of a number of charities – RNLI is on the list.

It’s only 0.5%, and only on qualifying purchases, but every little helps!

Nick

More info here:
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/chpf/about/ref=smi_se_rspo_laas_aas

“Amazon will donate 0.5% of the net purchase price (excluding VAT, returns and shipping fees) of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases.”

On a GPS enabled ipad (or iphone), you can easily download a section/area of a map on google maps to save offline and use for navigation without the data connection enabled (e.g. if you’re roaming).

When connected to wifi, use the google maps app, select the area you want (zoom in/out to cover the required area – might be just a city, or a whole country), then type ‘ok google’ in the search bar. Hit go/search/ok (whatever the button says – I can’t remember) and your selected area will be saved offline.

Hope that helps!

Nick

I have plenty of photos, and probably some good enough to ID it, to my eye at least. And I know two of the bolts on the adjustable dropouts are almost rounded out (as I tried to undo them a month ago…!)

Not sure any of this would stand up to police scrutiny though.

My insurance (Hiscox) were great and have paid out already – should I tell them, or inform the police?

Nick

Sadly I don’t have a frame number (note to self: go and record numbers of my other bikes!).

Still there – I was having problems with the link. STW forum was adding some odd characters – now should work.

All odd – a classic Ti frame on a 24 hour auction with virtually no info, spelling mistakes and poor pics.

What about Rigo? Second in GC last year – anyone think he has a chance of improving on that?

@bearnecessities
Yours for a spare £650k…

Virgin Atlantic Challenger 2 PRICE REDUCTION!!!

https://www.apolloduck.com/boat.phtml?id=380904

We’ve used ESF in Les Deux Alpes for the past couple of years for kids and adults lessons. All english speaking – kids loved it! Going back again at Easter…
http://www.europeanskischool.eu/

Nick

So how does this work on bikes that are still available as 2017 or 2016 bikes new (at a discount) vs secondhand? I’m looking at a bike that was about £4K rrp, but is now available new for about £2.6k, or s/hand on eBay for about £2k.

Should the 50% 1st year reduction be on the rrp, or the current new/discounted price?

Any views?

Nick

Most of the time, I felt safer in Manila than I did in London

I guess it’s personal experience, but I live in London and feel very safe. I’ve travelled quite a lot and I’ve never felt more “at risk” than walking around downtown Manila in daytime. Maybe i was having a bad day, but I never felt more that 6 feet from being mugged!

My advice would be to stay in the “safe” areas (airport, Makati, probably others) and focus on enjoying the rest of your holiday elsewhere!

Nick

BTW, avoid any of the airport taxi touts. Uber works in Manilla and is great there.

Generally agree with above.
Business district/Makati is probably best (read: safest) option for hotel (unless you stay near the airport), and the Blackbird restaurant in Makati is great. Avoid the main commercial/shopping areas (downtown – can’t recall the name).

Nick