Can’t say I’m hugely surprised. Great result for Albon.

They’re quite good for cleaning stuff but not a patch on Plusgas at freeing up seized bits. IME GT85 is better than WD40, still not as good as Plusgas though. Tri-Flow’s good if you can get it.

I assume he means penetrating oils by those brands, not simply the oils.

Indeed, WD40, and 3-in-1.

Never used either though!

I’d go to a ‘known’ brand for forks (or handlebars) rather than a random punt on eBay, but there’s no real reason for that frankly. I’ve had a random frame and still have a pair of wheels from an eBay seller chosen totally at random, and both were/are fine.

The Deng Fu road frame I have as my ‘nice’ bike is the best road bike I’ve had!

No, definitely not. Sounds like massive asshattery.

It’s one of their Project One colours. “Cosmos”, although they seem not to offer Project One MTBs in the UK anymore.

Only an £1100 premium.

Sounds ace, who did you book it through? Any more details?

I realise it wasn’t my comment, but we just booked Costa Rica independently – did a few nights near the Arenal volcano (in the Lodge within the park grounds), a few in Monteverde cloud forest, a week by the beach in a posh all inclusive (easily the worst part of the holiday) book ended by a night near San Jose (which is a bit of a dump) in nice hotels. It was stunning. You couldn’t fly direct when we went, so you had to change in Madrid, BA now fly direct which makes it even more accessible. Want to go back when mini-njee20 is big enough to appreciate it. Won’t spend £25k though.

well OP had just described how Dave was happy to spunk £25’000 draggin the family round plastic fantastic roller-coaster land but kicked off at £200 on a tent for everyone else….

We have the OP saying that only ‘Dave’ is overly fussed about theme parks, not that they’re all loathed to go and are being taken to Florida against their will. If he’s genuinely spent £25k they don’t have (by virtue of their not then being able to afford a £200 tent) then I concede he’s a bell end. If he’s said “My bonus is paying for this epic holiday, and it’s what I want to do, but we can go camping next year”, and she’s said “well it’s a lot of money, but I’m sure it’ll be nice”, then less so.

I think this thread is more about the fact you don’t like Dave 😂

I’m getting that vibe, yep!

Because he’s spending money on something you’re not interested in? You sound like a massive bell end.

I can’t quite get my head around that, and also don’t get the £5k spending if it’s all inclusive and they’re just doing the parks, but each to their own.

I’m not that fussed by holidays frankly, and resent spending loads of money on them! We did Costa Rica for our honeymoon, which ended up about £8k I think, definitely the most I’ve spent! Was absolutely stunning though.

Makes sense. The Top Fuel isn’t really racy enough now. The Procaliber is really a hardtail, that looks like it may actually have a reasonable amount of travel. Iso Strut by the looks of it. I reckon there’s a BB pivot.

Those “Fork 32s” are incredible!

either way, if you want BA, the posh amex card is the best as it gives you a free companion voucher once a year (means someone can fly with you completely free)

You do with both of them, but you have to spend £20k on the basic one and £10k (IIRC) on the posh one. The posh one is £195 a year though.

You’re right, the S-works and pro are both the 11mm, but the elite carbon is only 9mm (front triangle with alu rear)

Just to point out it’s not 11mm it’s just 11m for mountain, to differentiate from the road ones which are 11r etc. It’s got no relationship to thickness or anything tangible, it’s just bigger number = better frame.

Increasingly the S-Works models do now share a frame with the model below as stated, and you’re purely paying for better bits and for it to say S-Works on it.

Close, just as good frankly, if that’s your bag:

NOT 2B is now on a green Range Rover, but suggests they’re still together.

McLaren round Sheffield with the plate ORG4ZZM.

Surely it must be something like UG 64 zzm with a nut on top of u.

OR64 ZZM

Bloody hell, totally mental!

John Lewis have the same price on the corded one.

For $9 I’m almost tempted to buy it just to see what the **** he’s talking about.

Is there an OP missing or something…?

You seem to know what it is, so stick it on eBay and see what happens!

The thing I always grapple with is the 130/110kph limit on the motorway. When is it “raining”, and thus the lower limit is in force? Is it drops falling from the sky? Damp roads? Puddles and spray?

Agreed, buy some more lenses. prizm trail lenses let a lot of light through, great for on the mtb or trail running, but I prefer more light block in other situations, or clear lenses in the winter months.

This

Prizm Trail are great under tree cover etc. They also make really good road riding lenses for duller days and forested regions etc if you’re that way inclined.

And this.

I really rate the Prizm Trails for MTBing and winter road riding, but like something a bit darker for road riding.

I use Shoe Shields (to good effect), it’s exactly what they’re designed for, the wear comes in the area immediately surrounding the cleat, not from the extremities of the pedals, so you don’t need huge coverage.

Eating tuna.

There’s a guy who lives down my road, literally 50m away, we used to commute the same way, we follow each other on Strava, have loads of mutual friends, but I’ve only actually spoken to him once, when we bumped into each other on a ride. I saw him last week riding down our road (I was driving), I nearly waved, but realised he’d have no idea who I was, and I only know what he rides from his Strava feed!

Used to regularly chat to a guy between Clapham and the City, but he moved away. I’m always amazed that I don’t see the same people more often, but I guess if you’re a similar pace you only need to be 200m apart and you won’t actually see them.

When I was commuting out in the sticks I used to see a guy in jeans and a hoodie on a BSO ever day, turning his biggest gear at about 20rpm, he must have been doing 8ish miles each way (based on where I saw him), every single day. We always acknowledged each other.

God knows what’s going on in my brain, I read this thread title as “Air New Zealand Clone”; which confused me greatly.

Top effort, well done.

Pfft, like I read the manual. Just buy the Decathlon (or Garmin, or Polar, or Wahoo) one where you don’t.

I’ve had two of the HR sensors (first one replaced under warranty) and both have absolutely eaten batteries – it’s like they keep transmitting when there’s no signal. I now remove the ‘pod’ from the strap, otherwise they go flat in about a week.

Reminds me of Carly Simon.

WTAF?!

That is even better. Somehow that’s really funny!

For clarity I could obviously see the peas were ‘upside down’, but actually describing that to someone who couldn’t see the image would not adequately convey how weird it looks!

I find it candence is similar then and can pic and choose how much grinding or spinning I do on said hill.

I presume the issue is more that whilst one can choose sit and spin at x watts on a less steep hill on a 25% one you’re simply ‘getting up it’, therefore trying to replicate the lowest gear you’ll have and the actual effort you’ll have to muster, not just the power you’ll need to output, for which you could choose a descent and sprint down it. Wouldn’t make great preparation though.

That’s incredible. I can’t describe why it’s wrong. But it’s so wrong.

Because they were all using proper deep section fronts with disc rears…?

Don’t think I asked the question very well there. I am looking for a saddle that matches the shape and size of a phenom as closely as possible. Oh. And it needs to come in 155 size. Cheers.

But if you could get a cheaper Phenom on eBay, as suggested, then isn’t that better than something which is “like a Phenom…?”.

The Phenom Comp seems to come up quite often, a few selling for <£30, admittedly 155 is probably the least common size though.

I used to like the Phenom, now much prefer Bontrager Evoke.

Then you’ve got a needlessly heavy and tight tyre though…

I was totally underwhelmed by road tubeless. I didn’t have any flats, but they lost air, in a couple of cases between cycling to work and coming home again which even latex tubes are fine with, and I saw no benefits.

Tubes on the road, tubeless on the MTB.

We put virtually all our utilities under the road, which makes for neater verges, but means lots of patch repairs when things need digging up.

I suspect the key thing is that we do them on the cheap. Most newly surfaced roads are just tar into which we dump a load of chippings, and let it bed in. Roads that start with beautiful smooth tarmac tend to last a bit better. Traffic volumes are high too, so lots of wear.

But usually over the duration of the fix the fee upfront version is cheaper. There are a number of exceptions I’ve spotted to this though.

Nah, under no illusion that it’s ultimately under palliative care, and I’ll replace it (or the bike) at some indeterminate point in the future! Also keeping an eye on it.

I did look at replacement rims, buying one is so bloody expensive though, $40 shipping and the fees are virtually the same (or at least not proportional) versus $45 shipping on a pair! Tempted to get another pair of rims for “next time” as well!