Almost all the cycle tracks are tarmac or concrete surfaces. Were I to go back I’d take the road bike, but probably with 25mm+ tyres just for comfort.

Another vote for it. The bike tracks are so separate from the roads and follow the scenery linking villages so well that we found it the best way to get around when the kids were both on tagalongs.

To leave the car on the mainland and ride over the bridge though you’d need to be fit as the distances to cover the full island would mount up. If you actually want to have time to see the north of the island rather than just ride there and back, parking in the middle somewhere like St Martin de Re and riding from there would work.

You can of course argue about the need for prudence in preparation for said event, but before that can any of us here smugly own up to having made a fortune from correctly prediciting the crash of 2008? In which case I will of course acknowledge that it was utterly obvious to all.

Well, not a fortune as that would have required one to start with. But I predicted its inevitability from 2003 and acted in summer 2007 to protect what I had. No inside knowledge, just an accountant who took an interest in the data available.

Those in government and opposition with greater resources behind them should have made better decisions.

Contrition – no. But he may be forced to through the class action against RBS.

KPMG been naughty
There’s a bit more today, although not from bankers. KPMG resigning from a couple of audits as one of the partners was nabbed insider trading.

Well, a second. Fred Goodwin agreed a reduced pension. Given a chunk of his pot was from time as a partner at Deloitte and at Clydesdale Bank, not all of it was ill-gotten at RBS.

Can’t remember how fast, but mine certainly arrived a couple of days faster than I expected.

WHW site

If you go to the WHW website, there’s plenty in the planning section on what to take. You may get away with less. Late May should be before the worst of the midgies.

Biggest issue will always be what’s on your feet. Whatever you choose, buy it now and wear it in. Long distance walking is no place for new shoes. There’s nothing technical on it, so decent lightweight boots will do.

My brother and his wife had twins several years ago in similar circumstances. The smaller one was 1lb 2oz with a hole in the heart.

First 3-4 years were grim with treatment, surgery etc but she’s now a healthy happy teenager. The only long term issue is she’s always a bit behind her sister on size & co-ordination.

Some folk just have to be at the front, it’s a character flaw no matter what you tell yourselves about making progress, time is money etc.

Not necessarily. Sometimes I drop well back to avoid potential trouble. Sometimes I get ahead of it. Getting 1/2 mile ahead and then seeing in the rear view mirror the person you’ve just passed come round a corner sideways on the wrong side of the road might be good decision making rather than a character flaw.

weirdly that’s what my baby no 3 looked like when he came out! we called him monkey boy for quite a while

Also like my younger one. Who then grew out blonde. 5 years of trying to get through passport controls with a blonde child carrying a passport with black hair was entertaining.

Not been out, as from my window they’re covered in snow. I was contemplating ski touring, rather than biking.

scotroutes – Member

Is that not like having an over-paid, under-performing employee and then being too scared to take the risk on replacing them?

You’re proposing firing someone and taking your luck in what you get as a replacement. I’m suggesting I want to see the range of alternative candidates presented so I know there’s a better option before I consider firing the old one.

2 – Oldbloke – if you can actually dot the “i”‘s etc everytime you employ someone then well done, I tend to find that a great deal of recruitment is still done on trust, a bit like voting for your government.

I know what I’m going to pay them and I know what is written in their job description & employment contract. Their ability to perform is trust / judgement.

We are going to vote on something which doesn’t have the equivalent of those and are going to have to trust the politicians to negotiate pay & conditions as well as ability to perform.

You may well be happy to give them that authority. I’m not.

scotroutes – Member
oldbloke – I hear what you say about the “independence at all costs” folk but let’s say it’s a Yes/Yes, based on amongst other things a settlement with the EU. What happens if in, say, 10 years time a different Scottish Government is elected that decides to pull out of the EU – or there’s a re-negotiation of some other sort?

Then a future Scottish Government can try and convince the electorate to go down that route.

*A Better Together “analysis” recently announced that being independent would cost every Scot the grand sum of £1 per year. Don’t know about you, but I’d happily pay £1 per year to never have to listen to a Tory politician ever again

Exactly the sort of irrelevant nonsense which clouds debate. I don’t need to pay £1 to be able to just ignore them :-)

If you want them to dot every i and cross every t before you vote, it’s not going to happen.

It is exactly what I expect to happen. It is what I expect to happen when I buy a house, a car, when I resolve contracts at work, when I employ someone. Independence could be either wonderful or a total nightmare depending on its terms.

Maybe it is because I operate in a world where I have seen the impact of poorly vs well negotiated deals. But if I can’t read the terms, there’s no way I’m going to vote for it.

Bawbag:

Electing SNP was not Part 1. That was a national election, not a single issue vote.

Even it it were, part 2 does not happen 18/9/14. There cannot be the detail of a deal to vote on at that point. There isn’t time. If there were, I’d be delighted, but there won’t be. In my dealings with policitians, they couldn’t decide on the detail of their own headline policy within 18 months (it actually took 4 years), let alone conclude negotiations with multiple parties who are not so committed to the final goal.

scotroutes – Member
Oldbloke – what would happen on the event of Yes/No vote in your scenario?

It would have to be clear there were two steps at the start.

Part 1 – Yes vote = “go negotiate, come back to us with a detailed proposal”. No vote = “don’t bother, we’re not interested”

Part 2 would be binding on both Westminster & Holyrood.

In contrast to others, if this is the one vote we get, I see a No as a no-brainer. That’s simply because there’s no detail to vote for.

Were this part 1 of 2 which started negotiations and then part 2 was a vote on a specific deal on debt, taxation, EU, Defence, etc then a yes to part 1 might make sense now.

But, given the low calibre of Scottish politicians there is no prospect of me giving them a mandate to negotiate my family’s future without a chance to approve the final deal. I fear the desire to gain independence would see unfavourable terms accepted just to get the result.

When our younger one had only turned 3, he might have been around 90cm and <20kg then. No issue on the tag a long even though he couldn’t turn the pedals – just use them as footrests. He lasted all day trips on that as long as we stopped from time to time, talked to him, pointed out interesting things to look at on the route.

Reminds me – must tidy it up & sell it.

Do you have to go for something brand new? I got a deal on a 6 month old car. That made it suitable for finance and I got a better car than my limit despite the car costing much less than the limit.

That saving more than offset the additional NI the company had to pay on the higher benefit.

You might want to check that change in scheme rules is 139g. Sounds like the company has responded to the change in tax regime from 1 April 2013 where there’s a restriction in the tax treatment of leases for cars with emissions over 130g.

That’s just sensible maintenance.

Only downside I’ve experienced is that fixing trails led to increased use by people not so keen on maintenance which led to trails being trashed.

I don’t know what age your kids are, but is it possible to ride with them? My wife was really nervous getting back after they were born, both about riding trails and who she went out with. Going out with the kids for short rides (at first) got both her confidence and fitness returning to the point she’s now suggesting rides she wants to do.

Profile bars

I had a similar experience, so I switched to these. Gives the extended position I wanted, keeps hands on the controls all the time.

Also, unless you have a reason to carry loads of gear, possibly think saddlebag rather than panniers. More balanced than one lopsided pannier bag and some have enough space for small laptop, spare clothes & lunch. And way more comfortable than a rucsac.

Maybe not cool, but very practical.

Had one since June 2011. Long lead time but updates were accurate. Broken trivial part out of box replaced instantly. 2 x failures of the original Reverb sorted immediately. Happy with the bike & would buy another.

Having had a warranty claim refused on a previous LBS bought bike, I’m happy to take the distance risk.

they had failed to consider cyclists in the re-design

Has he been sacked? If not why not?

Though the guy later showed himself to be an idiot discussing accident issues elsewhere in the city, blame sits with Council members, not him.

My favourite; Gogar Roundabout:

Just beyond the 40 sign is what used to be a signed cycle path running across 6 lanes of the one of the busiest roads in Edinburgh, the main city bypass. A bit like playing Frogger, for anyone daft enough to try it.

It was such a stupid route that I see they have now removed the cycle path signage.

They changed the layout there when they changed the roundabout. City’s cycling officer admitted around 2004/5 they had failed to consider cyclists in the re-design and could offer no credible alternative route.

Slightly puzzled. If those forks were designed for rim brakes, will the fork leg be able to cope with the braking forces applied at the bottom? So is a snapped fork leg just a matter of time?

Over on UK Climbing / Hillwalking there are loads of threads about options and opinions which are probably worth a look.

Negative interest rate? Interesting! No point contributing if that was the case.

You can find online calculators to do the check yourself, looking at my personal one it suggests you’d have about £1k annual income with a fund of £25k at retirement – but in reality you’ll have a lot more than that assuming in your pot by then. If you want to put down some figures we can see – how much you got now, how old are you, how much do you contribute?

I used to be a pension trustee so I know the subject well enough. I saw this as a remarkable piece of poor quality work by a pension provider. I am concerned that people will make incorrect investment decisions in such a case, which is why I’m looking for answers from the company concerned.

saying that a pot of £25k would give me a £264 annual pension

That’s a tiny pot but £264 isn’t right – maybe a month?

No – that’s what the letter said – the small print revealed they’d assumed a negative interest rate. I’m still waiting for a response to my query to them on their assumptions.

Having received a letter from one pension provider saying that a pot of £25k would give me a £264 annual pension, even my gross salary until the day I retire won’t be enough to provide a decent pension.

Added boarding, rather than stopped skiing. Board is really only used when there’s enough powder around to play as wipe outs on hard pistes tend to hurt ageing joints. I find pistes quite dull generally these days so the skiing is mostly ski touring.

I think it is useful to be able to do and enjoy both so you can make the most of whatever conditions you find.

Good effort doing it yourself. Always used Dip’n’strip – remove door, have collected in morning, back by evening all cleaned up. Handy when doing 20 of them and was cheaper than buying all the material.

There’s also been a set of changes to the law on Director responsibilities which places a duty of care on them which includes your safety doing business mileage whatever vehicle you’re in.

Many employers going back to company cars to cover that. If you want to keep the allowance you’ll eventually have to agree. Agreeing a time within which to comply is probably as good as you’ll get.

I like them , not had a newer model but dont think you would go too far wrong with an 05/55 or newer 93 or 95.

I did go very far wrong with my 55 plate 1.9. The list of repairs & failures is painfully expensive – usual diesel stuff like EGR, DMF (on its 3rd) plus Vauxhall hassles like broken springs and leaky hydraulics. At 80k it feels less solid than any similar aged car I’ve had before.

OldBloke – Did it in a day?

Really? Same route as on http://cairngormsloop.net/ ?

Not that one – it is new. It suggests it goes round twice but is based on an older route. We did another one widely discussed at the time of around 120 miles. Not spent the time checking the detail but this one looks about right.
Cairngorm circuit

Did it in a day in 2005 and found it easier than the WHW which we did a couple of years earlier. Certainly wasn’t as trashed at the end. Started / finished blair Atholl which allowed a decent bacon roll stop in Glenmore and a downhill finish to the route. The navigation is relatively easy, water easy to find and it was a really good day out.

Once did the same as the OP in the early days of e-mail at the end of an 18 hour day when a lawyer was holding up a deal. Replied to him rather than fwd to my lawyer giving my frank views of situation.

Problem was gone the next morning though…

Paul Pritchard’s Totem Pole is a pretty impressive. Rock, rather than mountains though.

In to thin air is very good.

Having read some of his other books and been impressed, I thought that one was a pretty poor bit of writing when it came to objective judgements. The storm of argument which resulted from it never really satisfied anyone