Absolutely bamboozled there are so many cars on inters!! Loved Magnussen’s comment after being asked if it was too wet for inters: “it’s too wet for both types of tyre!”

Nice one, cheers. Think I’ll get some seals ordered and have a pop at a DIY fix (bodge!)

Does dropping the lowers require any specialist tooling/knowledge? I do most stuff myself other than forks/shocks.

No knocking at all. Seem to be running sweet as a nut in spite of the red leaking fluid!

I’ve just fitted two Thule Pro-ride 598 (replacement for the 591) carriers and must admit they’re very good. Not cheap (£85 per carrier) but very solid and not a complete eye sore.. I don’t mind paying a bit extra when it comes to strapping a couple of grands worth of bike to the roof of my car!

There are a couple of nice developments over the 591 (large lip at bottom of clamping jaws, diagonal wheel straps, etc.). However, the standard fitting kit is for T-track only and if clamping to non T-track bars you need to buy an additional kit.

“Fur coat and no knickers” was one my grandma, bless her soul, used to come out with.

Aye they’re like hens teeth. I’ve got a 50mm (I think) Thomson one on my Mega. I have another in the parts box that I could measure if the above doesn’t work out. No idea what make it is.

Mine seem to be mainly commute related.. People who close-pass (or do something else daft) that have **** BIKE CARRIERS on their **** ROOF!!! **** sake MAN! I have no bloody chance if other cyclists are trying to take me out on the way to work.

There’s a bloke near me with an Audi A6 estate with no less than 4 Thule Prorides constantly on his roof (never seen any bikes on there mind) that close passed me twice in a week once. If he gets a third strike I’m going to follow him home rip his left wing mirror off and **** burst him al owa with it.

It’s absolutely hilarious. Me and me mates have been laughing about it for days! He does a pretty sweet velociraptor impression too.

There’s no middle ground like. Shown a couple of people at work at it is either full blown belly laughing or nowt!

People with mucky old knackered oil burners that spew black shite oot the back of them every time they look at the accelerator. Like the Jag X Type on this mornings commute that overtook me. I thought I was going to howk up a **** lung or two. It’s alright though the tit in the fiesta seen all this and thought the appropriate response (as we were going over the A1 on a windy fly over) was to close pass me and then just hang around alongside for a bit as I wobbled around in the wind choking on a black cloud of Nox, until we both arrived at a traffic island at which point had to brake to let her back in. The **** shite I need to go through just to cycle to the office. **** sake.

Cracking speakers! I’ve had a set since new.. I harassed my dad for some when I was 15 for Christmas (I’m now 31!) and they’re still going strong. I had them hooked up to a 2nd hand NAD 320 I bought with my paper round tips for about a decade and it worked rather well. They’re currently wired in to an Onkyo home cinema amp so probs not getting the best from them currently.

Aye “driveability” that’s the word I should have used in my post yesterday! Cheers Northwind. Out of interest was your focus a diesel or petrol? Our Mini Cooper 1.6 petrol sits between 3000-3500 rpm at 70 IIRC in 6th gear.

Definitely don’t need a diesel! Never owned one, hopefully never will! To quote someone off of here “Diesel engines belong in agricultural machinery and trucks, they have no place under the bonnet of a car”.

As nice as it is having power reserves it is also good fun to hear that lovely straight 6 as you wring it out to the redline!

Interesting thread. To answer the OPs question – it probably is getting a bit silly.. However, being a petrol head I can’t say I’m against it. It has meant I’ve been able to get a car (M135i) with mental performance and 5 door hatch practically at a relatively reasonable price point (I can’t afford a fun car AND a normal car so this is a perfect compromise). Only last week I managed 39.5 mpg on a 240 mile round trip. Staggering really to think it’s better on the juice than my old ’04 20v 2.0i Passat that had 130bhp..

Do you really need all the power? Absolutely not. However, one of the main things I enjoy is that due to the incredible amount of performance available the car is so unstressed on the motorway at 70mph (just below 2000rpm in 8th) it’s incredibly relaxing and enjoyable to drive. No buzzing, harsh vibrations, etc etc. Our other car is a Mini Cooper and I think that has about 120bhp – although it is quite powerful for a little car it can be a right pain in the arse on long motorway journeys. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy many other things about the little Beemer as well but it’s not all about red lining it sideways everywhere. Mind you what does piss me right off is the lack of a temp gauge.. It has the functionality you just have to type in a wee code using the odo reset button every time you get in if you want to display it!

Interesting point on the long service intervals. The 135 has just ticked over 10k after a year and isn’t due its first service for the same again.. Maybe a call to the local indie for an interim oil service is due.

Interestingly enough (for a loser like me anyway) the cars I generally see getting howked al owa, tailgating people, cutting people up are in 90% of cases 4 banger 2 litre oil burners in the rep brigade (320d, A4 2.0tdi etc etc). Most of the other 10% are mentalists in vans, and that’s what worries me the most… A heavy van with generally shite dynamic ability getting hoofed along at 90mph.. Dodgy. As. ****.

Yep pretty dull race. As above, real shame Ricciardo didn’t have a couple more laps. I’ve been a die hard fan the past 5 years or so, watching practice sessions and qually where I can but I’m seriously considering getting sky sports taken out, saving myself some lowy and 3 hours of a Sunday. Properly dull but Monza was worse still!

Unfortunately, I don’t think the car you’re describing exists.. and you’re going to have to compromise on something..

I’ve only skimmed the full thread so apologies if I’ve missed this, but if you want something biggish, powerful but still dynamic the only thing I can think of is the new M3 (saloon) in a manual. Obviously you are compromising on the extra space of an estate (BMW really should make one of these to compete with the Audis!) and I’m almost certain there is no option for a towbar with the quad pipes, so bikes would be on the roof.

BMW seem to be hanging onto manual boxes on powerful engines longer than other manufacturers so maybe a good place to start? I specced the ZF 8HP on my M135 and TBH I really like it.. I’m sure the DCT’s on the M3 (or equivalent Audi offerings) will be superb. One thing I like about mine is being able to skip gears in manual mode – hit the kick down, pull the left paddle and it will drop you straight into the lowest available gear!

Some sage advice about it not mattering one hoot what I do, it won’t change the behaviour of said nobbers. Think that’s my key takeaway. And in response to an earlier post – I don’t need to “see” anyone about this.. that’s what STW is for innit?

Regards tailgating – best I seen was a monster of a man get out of his RR Sport at a roundabout like he was squeezing out of a Micra and walk up to the van behind him and shout “Stay the **** away from the back of my car!”. The van who had previously left a good 6″ gap extended that to about 1/4 of a mile thereafter.

Aye, some really good points above cheers. For the record, there was no way round him. It’s a weird 1 way system with a curb and bollards to the left in front of the shop (a good thing otherwise the lazy fat shit would probably have driven straight into the shop itself) and another curb to the right and a trolley park.

Last night’s incident (I think) was a driving standards/selfishness/ignorance thing more than holding me up.. although I couldn’t quite believe I got stuck behind some moron in an otherwise empty car park so maybe that was the ignition.. Anyway, great example for their daughter. Mam shouts/swears at people, Dad shouts/swears at people, Dad does what the **** he likes is his car, Mam never has to walk more than 20ft ever, etc. etc. The audacity of it! And he wasn’t even driving a proper 4×4.. Just a FWD hatchback with a hat on. At least if he was in a Rangey I could have expected it.

I’ve been toying with the idea of a dashcam.. Might be a good preventative measure in not recording the wiping of my own bonnet with my dial by some nutcase. Or a comedy horn.. Either way I’m going to challenge myself not to use my horn for a while!

Haha I have recently put a bag up in the garage a dug out my old bag gloves! And yes I think the loud horn is an excellent idea. Or maybe a comedy “fail” type horn?!

Sorry to hear about your wife and the rear shunt Lazlo, that’s horrendous. Tailgaters are another of my pet hates. Well played with the keys/hedge move! I would have LOVED to see that.

Cheers for the replies all. In terms of the rest of my life I’m very happy, easy going and don’t do confrontation.. I will caveat that by agreeing with Jimjam! I do lose my shit on the bicycle sometimes mainly (I think) because I know the consequences are lethal in many cases. Only last week I had a lass in a corsa brake check me several times as I tried to keep up with traffic through a set of roadwork traffic lights (to keep the flow) after she’d already close passed me earlier. She then thought it’d be awesome to show me th raw power of her piece of shit 1 litre car by horsing off to a red light. She got the hairdryer treatment

As noted above the ZF units are excellent. I have the ZF 8HP auto in my M135 and it’s silky smooth in comfort and smashes in upshifts like a dual clutcher in sport (Chris Harris had to re-record his review of the 1st car with this box as he thought it was a DCT) and sweetly matches revs on downshifts. Bottom line is this ‘box still has a torque converter at the end of it but is a far cry from old slushboxes found in old Beemers and it’s never been “caught out” yet in 1 year and 10K. I think it might actually be linked to GPS in iDrive for optimum gear selection..

I genuinely have no rational explanation for this one so any suggestions would be most appreciated! Everyone, other than the three of us that were there, thinks we’re mental.

About ten years or so ago, me and a couple of pals, probably about 20 yrs old at the time, decided last minute to head to the Lakes for a wild camping trip. Armed with little more than a cheap 3 man tent, a couple of slabs of Stella and some sleeping bags we drove West. We arrived in the area surrounding Keswick (I think) in the light and had a reccy into some woods after leaving the car in small parking area off the road. Once we had found an appropriate spot to camp/drink we went back to the car to collect our gear and walk the 15-20 minutes back to the spot at dusk.

We set up camp and then set about the Stella. At about midnight we realised we’d left some essential kit in the car (probably a ten deck of Lamberts or something..) and being the Geordie hard lads we were decided that all 3 of us should make the trip.. The last little bit of the walk back to the car was about 250 yds along a relatively narrow but quite straight bit of B-road lined either side with woods. We’re walking this last bit towards the car drinking our bottles, carrying on, chatting shit and such like, under a clear night sky lit only by the moon. Happy days. Then.. all of sudden a bright flash lights up everything (and I mean EVERYTHING!) including ourselves for about a second or so. I remember the flash duration as it was just long enough for the 3 of us to all look at each other with a shocked/disturbed/WTF/scared look slapped all over our dials.

Needless to say we absolutely legged it back to my mams 1999 Ford Fiesta in pitch darkness. Unfortunately, the “Finesse” model did not have central locking and this being a 5-door car meant that once I had fumbled the key into the lock and opened my drivers door and then had to reach over to the passenger side, open that, and then reach over the back and open the rear door as well! All the time my two mates clawing at the handles like their lives depended on it! We sat in darkness, the only car in there, for about 5 minutes.. We contemplated writing off the camping gear for about 10 seconds before concluding it would be completely wrong to leave all of our gear in the woods (waste valuable Stella) and so went back to the tent to drink the remainder of our night away around a camp fire.

I’ve never been able to explain this. It wasn’t lightning as it was a clear night and there was no noise. It was too long for a camera type flash and there were no speed cameras on that stretch of road. The only irrational explanation is that the three of us were abducted by aliens before being quickly rejected from the probing/testing programme for being complete idiots.

This counter steering thing has blown my mind! I give it a whirl yesterday on my commuter bicycle.. About 10 mph tried to turn the bars left and off I piss to the right! Been riding bicycles for 25 years since I was a lad and guess it must just be a natural thing??

I’ve watched about 5 videos on this as it applies to motorbikes as I’m currently saving up to get some rider training and get through my test. I take it this will be covered in detail by the instructor?

Good luck with it all Alpin. “Snout” – great word, haven’t heard that one in ages!

Good debate. Twisty nailed it for me with the short-sighted point.

Straight out of our office block is a road leading to 4 way lights (one of which is Newcastle police station!) and at least 1 evening a week someone actively tries to block me from filtering. It’s normally jammed up with 50+ cars and you only get 10-15 through per cycle.. These idiots only see the immediate, but fail to consider that I am 1 less car in the bloody traffic jam!

I’ve come to the conclusion that at least 90% of the entire population are complete idiots and/or dicks and most of them have cars (some of them have bikes!).

I wish my mate still rode bikes as he was a proper vigilante.. Best story was the bloke who cut him up on a roundabout – my mate screamed lots of swear words before proceeding to cycle up the hill to his house. Bloke had spun round in his car and come after my mate for a “word”. As soon as my mate spots him it was bike down, helmet off ready for a brawl. Bloke twigs and spins round (again) with my mate chasing him (now on foot) screaming “what the **** did you turn round for you **** if you didn’t want a **** fight you **** pansy **** OFF!!!”. I reckon there’s a fair few drivers kicking round the North East that probably now think twice about cutting up a cyclist!

Everyday is a school day! Thanks all.

*googles Freddie Spencer*

Thanks Phil – makes sense now.

“Bolt on top tubes” excellent!

Pour flour down hole.

I actually quite liked it.. Ipod in, shifting 25kg bags by hand, moving pallets, pretty good workout when more than one line was pulling from the hopper.

If I could get the same pay and hours I get now I’d probably go back!! Boring but completely stress free.

Cheers all! Old man bar defined (by my lass) by the smell and low levels of light…

Cheers Project. Wikl give that a go!

Tend to agree Kryton. I test drove an S4 with the same engine (supercharged V6 not the new turbo) albeit with a manual ‘box and it was fairly rapid but just didn’t excite.. I ended up going for an M135 with correct wheel drive for bigger smiles!

I’d wager on the box being the more efficient method. I don’t have anything to compare to (having never carried bikes on roof) but I recently hired a fairly un-aerodynamic looking box for my 135 and it only knocked fuel economy down by 2-3mpg (37ish to 34ish mpg) and I wasn’t exactly taking it easy..

Christ almighty that’s some filthy horrible bastards right there. I had reet good tut at some blokes who didn’t seal all their waste bags left on their pitch when leaving the Goodwood festival a couple of weeks ago! I’d have a bleedin heart attack if I seen that shit first hand. Unbelievable scenes.

Yep – Verstappen’s overtake on Rosberg for P2 on inters was special – absolutely millimetre perfect!! I think I actually jumped off the sofa shouting “go on lad!”

Sudocrem – well played PP, well played!

Some quality suggestions up there ^^^ but there appears to be not one ford in Tyne & Wear.. Garden sprinkler it is then! Some more ammo for the neighbours thinking I’m completley batshit mental.

Liking this ford idea though…!

*Googles ford near Newcastle*

That’s what I thought but we’ve had plenty rain in the North East and it did nowt.. I think because it sat on the campsite for 4 days after in quite warm weather it just baked itself onto everything!

Aye.. good point! Maybe I’ll just leave it, let nature take it’s course when the roads are wet and hope it all just falls off.

As above, call it in. Leaving the scene is pretty serious. I’d be absolutely foaming with that like. Good luck with it (think you may need it)