I had no idea there was so much anti 1X. I see words like “rich”, “fashion victims”, “gullible”, “sheep”,

WTF ??? It says much more about the ones using those words than anything else.

Rich ? Cycling stuff is cheap as chips and the move is sometimes cost neutral anyway (it was for me when I first did it 7 years ago).

It really is simple : it works for me on ALL levels for MY riding. I have no issues whatsoever with anyone using more than 1 ring so why can’t that work the other way around.

Each to their own is a very very simple concept to understand.

Thanks a lot – and presumably if I ever upgrade my brakes to XT M8000 I won’t be able to fit the B-spec XT M8000 shifter, or will I ? Cheers. Nick

Thanks but even confused. The shifter I want to buy and linked in OP is the 11-speed XT M8000. It comes in a B-spec version. But I don’t know if my SLX M675 lever is B-spec ? The description says “2nd generation” ispec, but I don’t know if that means B.

Anyone ?

Oh I am sure I’ll eventually convert but you know resistance to change, fear of the unknown etc…

Sounds like a faff. Not sure I want to give up on tubes despite the benefits of tubeless.

Not meaning to answer my own question not confuse the issue even more (is that even possible?) but I spotted this :

I think by “2nd generation” it means I-spec B NOT I-spec II, which is massively counter-intuitive. Could anyone confirm please ?

We’re all in the same boat, it would seem…

It did cross my mind !!

I agree with you but I really like the idea of a “clean” bar, purely for cosmetic reasons, and particularly with no rear shifter (I even removed the RS remote from the other side). Very shallow though !

Yeah that was a bit OTT !!!! I really can’t see the point of that at that money vs £6.49 yearly… and a bit of patience!!!

Thanks for all the help everyone – changed the cable and outer for XT with the rubber boots. I couldn’t see anything wrong with the old cable/outer.

By god, they must have been totally FUBAR though.

Took 2 minutes to adjust the mech and the shifting is so sharp/immediate/positive, like an entirely new tranny, which it is really…bar the cable.

I now realise that shift quality only progressively/gradually worsens over 2 years so you don’t really feel it getting worse and only realise it has gone shyte when you change the cable.

£6.49 well spent as the kit comes with x2 of everything and I only have one mech!

Sorry for the grumpiness too.

I had the original Time Atac. No idea why I switched to Crank Bros. Fashion and novelty I suppose as I couldn’t break the Atacs after 10 years. Won’t take that long to kill off the CBs so will be “coming home” soon.

Thanks guys – so for confirmation the hard one with a thin bit coming out is in fact a replacement for the conventional caps ? It was confusing as the kit came with 5 pieces of pre-cut outers all having 1 conventional cap at each end.

Not sure what yours is ? ;-)

LOL

I reckon that a new £3,000 push bike will depreciate more than an old bike bought for £50. And both might satisfy someone’s requirements and/or budgets.
The same applies to cars.

Comparing old/farted in to new is not exactly relevant.

But if that’s done, then all parameters should be looked at.

Imagine paying to spend 24 hours on a bloody boat !

Although I suppose it’s like a mini-cruise ?

Plenty of punters are quicker than Sabine in a Golf CS there, they just decided not to show them.

Personal friends of yours? You go there often enough to know this for a fact? She lives there! Possibly knows the circuit better than any one single person, a professional racing driver, done more than 20,000 laps, increasing by around 1200/year! But I guess any random jackass with a fancy car can show her a thing or too…

Yes some personal friends will be quicker than her in their car if she is in the Golf but probably not if they are in the Golf too. I only go there 3 times a year but that’s only been for 8 or so years. I can’t remember saying that anyone can be faster than her, can you ? I said plenty of people will be quicker than her in their car. Just go to a DN event or even an evening TF and you’ll see other locals in action too. There is only so fast the Golf can go, isn’t there ? She might be worth 10s more than the average serious track pedaler there in the Golf but many cars are worth a multiple of those 10s. The program will have you believe that the Golf is quicker than a rental GT3. It really isn’t, and even Sabine can’t change that.
She is probably amongst the quickest drivers there but she is not a magician. I have only done 600 laps or so which means I only know 90% of what I need to know and I am fully aware that the other 10% would take me 500 years at this rate but the law of diminishing returns hit far earlier than you may think. You don’t find minutes by being a local. You find the last 10s, at best. Which isn’t enough to beat a GT3, unless my neighbour drives it!

Nothing against Sabine as I have been using her family’s facilities quite a lot but a little perspective will help understanding how embarrassing that feature was. Actually, that’s precisely the kind of attitude displayed that the Ring are trying to get rid off and the place has kind of become a little less loutish of late.

I’m pretty sure it was a track day, rather than touristfahren, which would explain
a) the cars parked up together at the start
b) the lack of bikes (track days there are normally cars or bikes)

the overtakes would look exactly like that as people aren’t racing. once someone’s caught you on a track day, if they’re going quicker than you, you get to a place you can ease off, and let them past (on the left, if its a touristfahren).

The overtakes might have been scripted/repeated, but they’re not contrived. Sabine in a car like that would probably be quicker than any member of this forum, in literally any car. Just in the same way that Danny hart would be quicker than any of us down fort bill, regardless of the bike he’s riding – particularly if (as the analogy would follow) he’s just on a mid-spec enduro bike (so pretty reasonable, if not absolutely optimized for the track) rather than a £10k carbon bling spec dh bike (ie a 911 gt3 or turbo)

I totally get that she would be quicker by a big margin than the average ‘Ring punter, but it just didn’t strike me as real at all. Few things – some of those passes were on straights, think one might have been on a corner exit, and no matter how good she is, she can’t make a 300hp hatch (two up) accelerate faster than a hundred grand sportscar. Some of the pases she made were on the right, and there was at least one rear-looking shot of the Golf from one of the ‘target’ cars. More than anything, I think it was the in-car shots – would Rory really drop a loser sign on a total stranger as they go past, and would the Beeb show it? Would either of them be that excitable? Would they be working out on the fly the cumulative values of the cars they’re going past? Who even does that (unless you’re doing a piece about how fast round the ‘Ring a 30k hatch is)? Just had “scripted” written all over it for me.

I agree – it was embarrassing to watch actually – loads of the giant killing was of rental cars including RSR, IE billies at 6/10ths (don’t blame them with a €20k excess) or guys on their in-lap/cooldown. The thing is it gave the impression the car was a giant killer. Good as it is it really isn’t. Plenty of punters are quicker than Sabine in a Golf CS there, they just decided not to show them. I quite like that Rory guy but he is into cars and he has waited that long to do 1 lap there : really ?

Yes but the money in the bank is depreciating too atm, with cash ISA rates at half of inflation…
Besides, the car depreciates exactly the same whether you own it or lease it…and you’re still the one paying for that depreciation either way.
On the other hand, if you do keep the cash and put it in property then that should be appreciating…

I guess that, from an industry point of view, leasing is great for selling new – and more expensive – cars.

I don’t quite know how the leasing rates are achieved, but I think they are generally supporting higher sales for the “premium” brands – because of the misty economics of depreciation rates for these cars.

I bet there’s something dodgy going on with corporation tax and / or VAT, too.

Nothing dodgy really. The capex are supported by the manufacturers through their local finance arms (VW FS for instance) who have access to very cheap wholesale money. But more crucially, VW FS can buy cars from VAG at extremely low prices that no dealer groups or large finance houses can. Plus they kind of control the second hand values through the network. It is a very smart way of discounting without giving away margin that the dealers would piss away. It also allows very fine/granular yield management…to the benefit of the cunning (and patient/lucky…) buyer. As a result, if you lease at the bottom of the market you probably beat depreciation by a good delta…

Mine is a wide ratio, could that be the problem ?

Thanks. I am also very surprised by the outcome and disappointed that a compatible Shimano product is actually not compatible. I am not too good with what the screws do tbh and I had tried to mount the mech another way which made it worse. The reputable LBS never really tried that hard to tweak/fine tune and find a solution as they kept saying the Zee is a downhill mech.
I have lost faith in LBS in general too as I can’t find one who even want to listen properly and use any critical thinking.

Depreciation curve shapes have evolved over the past few years, at least when looking at transaction prices (price lists have become meaningless). Because the brunt of new cars are financed/leased, the franchised networks have much tighter control over values up to 3 years. So if you can buy at a large discount (including finance contributions that can easily be triggered by short term “fake” borrowing), then churning through new cars every year can be very cheap. I sold my 12 month old M135i at £175 depreciation / month.

Conversely some of the heavily yield managed lease deals can return incredible results if you pounce on them and are flexible about what euro box you get.

“…zero tax on the first (currently) £11k.”

Not currently, you’re ignoring the first £8k being taken up by the state pension.

Whether the state pension has been abolished by the time you & I get there… that’s another matter.

Fair comment. I am referring to 55 to 67, ie time between pension kick off and state pension kick off.

Gone the same way a couple of years ago – I estimated that a leased Touran TDI 2.0 Match would be cheaper to lease than buying a 2 year old one that had been farted in, when all parameters are taken account of (MOT, servicing, tax, opportunity cost, warranty etc etc). At £5,100 total over 2 years inc servicing it has proven to be the case by a long way. Lease prices have gone up over the past 6 months though so maybe the pendulum is now swinging the other way…

“…for me pension is a better bet as you get a 20%/40% uplift straight away”

Balanced against not being able to access any of it until you’re 55, and apart from pulling out 25% tax-free you’ll be paying 20%/40%/whatever-the-rate-is-by-then on the rest of it.

An ISA doesn’t get the tax relief, but OTOH it doesn’t get taxed when you take the money out.

This is the quandry I’m grappling with at the moment, and for now I’m coming down in favour of building a suite of ISAs.

LISAs might be worth a look for some people. They seem to be a pilot for when the government stops giving tax relief on pension contributions.

That’s why I said “depends on age and future need for cash” which you conveniently didn’t quote !

Either way, it’s about balance and not using at least in a small proportion the fiscal benefit of pension (while it’s there) is very naive particularly vs ISA. If the OP is in his 40s then it’s financial suicide.

As someone said, you can draw down up to the allowance tax free. So you gained up to 40% to start with, capitalised and now zero tax on the first (currently) £11k. Sounds good to me.

I already have a second nationality (French) but I need a first one in order not to be kicked out (British) potentially – problem is I don’t think you can have both although my wife and kids are British.

My main issue is of principle – if I am not wanted here I’ll **** off back to Frogland. But then who will run my British export business employing British people and who will contribute to the economy (including fiscally) as much as I do ?

What I really dislike is being used as a negotiating pawn. We have no negotiating leverage against the 27 so we the EU nationals seem to be the gvt only negotiating asset, which is a serious worry.

Ironically, Brexit may well force the EU to change into something more people would have voted to remain.

Precisely – it will eventually get leaner / more pragmatic, but we won’t reap the benefits. But I am sure trading with NZ will help offset the loss.

Anti-political correctness has become so politically correct.

OP, I assume this is for commuting to work ?

Cheers Del !! Will get myself a stand too !

Good to hear that cables don’t stretch – I’ll probably get the bike to a shop this week although I inherently don’t trust them as they focus on symptoms rather than root cause.

What is the other adjustment to the mech ? Some sort of angle I think ?

I am wondering if this is not also due to my bizarre choice of rear mech which is compatible with 11-36 according to Madison (surely they know) but in fact is not compatible as my chain has loads of slack at one end and is super tense at the other – I wonder if that’s related and/or is fixable with the other mech adjustment or with a Goat thing from the US?

It might be simple if I go straight to 11-speed and sell the hardly worn out parts.

DI2 seems to be the way to go to get rid of the seemingly archaic way gear are still being changed – should be a £50 premium in 2/3 years so might wait until then to upgrade if I can get the fing bike to work !!

Thanks all – what a faff.

Cheers!!

What cable/ferules do you suggest ?

Problem with new cable is it will stretch and the adjustment problem/snow ball effect will start again. Isn’t there an alternative solution like electronic or something?

Caps are plastic, but as opposed to what ?
The cable is 2 years old but low mileage.
Happy to change it but no idea how to change it at the shifter end : is it hard ? On current form that probably means a new shifter…

Cheers – I did clean and lubricate the cables just now but wish I hadn’t as detaching the cable made a bad situation worse anyway. I was probably nearly there but nowhere near now. This all seems very medieval all this stuff tbh. Hasn’t anyone invented something a bit better yet ? I am probably too old for SS!

I tried the bike upside down and ruined my RS lock thingy plus the saddle but no big deal – it was shifting OK at one point then rode the bike and zero correlation to the way it was shifting under normal load so that didn’t help sadly

Well it didn’t go well – if the process is 5mn, it took me 15mn to reattach the cable alone – it simply won’t come back to the original place as if it had become shorter – I have checked it all the way and all is in place – but it’s now all frayed at the end. I did try and align without the cable and it was running smooth but you can’t tell if spot on as turning either way doesn’t make a huge difference so plenty of room for error – anyway followed the steps and despite apparently being in line the sifting is even worse than when I got it worse than this morning – basically compared to now it was fine yesterday.

If that’s a job that shouldn’t be done without a stand, could someone please tell me.

Majorly ruined my sunday PM. Booking a track day – I love cycling but hate the faff!!!!