In the interests of balanced discussions, it would appear that Canyons after care service is ok, see the other Canyon thread

In the interest of balance, I ordered parts for my 2011 Strive in September 2015. Eventually complained to CEO and even though that got things moving, only slowly and I finally got the last bits last week.

That’s a pity because I had issues with the Reverb shortly after I bought it and that was sorted really well, so I can only assume that they’re far from fixing their issues. I wouldn’t buy one until they can show all their issues sorted.

A couple of months ago the story was being run that the Ginger one was getting grumpy because he’d wanted her for the job and the BBC let her go off on other things. Clickbait headline in the Sun not backed up by any content? Whodathunkit.

and in 30 years you think it hasnt?

Some have. I have a BIL who coaches in NZ and if we applied that approach here it would be a major step forward from what I’ve seen recently here.

Having suffered neck and back injuries in school rugby in the 1970s and from which I still suffer, I’d be happy to see many elements of the game revised at school level, particularly any compulsion to participate. My Dad played at a high level, and I wanted to, but poor coaching decisions putting the tall skinny kid in the second row were to blame for what I suffered.

There’s just no excuse for subjecting kids at that stage of their physical development to risks they’re unlikely to appreciate in full. Keep impact out until they’re considered old enough to make informed choices would be my view.

Why does everyone seem to gravitate towards five ten shoes when using flats? Is it because the sole rubber is good, as with their climbing shoes?

Not everyone. I’ve been using an old pair of fell runners for 6 months. I may get some “proper” shoes someday, but the fell runners are handy for the hike a bike bits and haven’t slipped off the pedals yet.

SAP itself is rarely the problem. Usually poor specification of what you want, poor management of the project or trying to do too much too fast. Moving factory at the same time as implementing new systems seemed like a triumph of ambition over experience.

Not a fan, although the new Disco sport passed me at the weekend and that looked ok and its not that different IMO.

Our company has one. The fuel tank seems to be 10 litres smaller than advertised but apart from that seems OK. That’s OK rather than good and a drive in it the other day means I won’t be replacing my car with one.

The concern I have with these gawd awful things is that as they get higher are they going to ride up over normal car bonnets in a crash? Really don’t want to be T boned by one as I fear they’ll hit the window rather than the door.

You must have a different definition of “quickly”. The parts I ordered in September 2015 were despatched yesterday apparently.

But really, life’s too short to have to re-learn how I ride. So I bought a nice pair of Giro Terraduro shoes that will work nicely with my Time ATAC pedals. And I’m going to go out and enjoy my ride.

I’ve had this view for years, but unfortunately an injury to my foot means that unclipping from SPDs is really painful now so I’ve stuck flats on. If I didn’t have to I probably wouldn’t have, but slowly getting better on them and in some ways it is good to have to re-think how to ride. Ride what you like – pros and cons to everything.

On the other side of the coin, why do the older generation feel ‘entitled’ to a good pension, ‘entitled’ to good care in old age, and ‘entitled’ to have their property maintain it’s value?

And who’s expected to fund this? The young – the workers, those people that are struggling to rent, let alone buy.
Most of that is because they were told they were paying contributions through their working lives to get it. Doesn’t mean they will though, but then they’re probably used to not getting what they thought as many are the generation that were missold endowment policies and came through negative equity.

I’m glad you have managed to break the mould.

Erm… That is the mould. Those of us who bought in the 80s and 90s lived on beans & charity shop clothes so we could buy a flat in a crappy area. No car, no mobile, few nights out, trying to get a promotion / pay rise before interest rates went up again. Once we’d done that and saved a bit, then we could be selective about where to buy second time around. Your first property is little more than a deposit savings scheme.

The A9 – its actually less shite now, average speed have calmed things down quite a lot, its still a very boring road though!

It seems more the 50mph for trucks that have calmed it down because there’s less to inspire the lunatic overtakes. But very very dull, especially Balinluig to Perth on the way south.

Perth – Dundee – Aberdeen though. Hateful.
And the M8. either direction, any time. All rules of the road inverted.

Carradice saddlebag FTW

+1. Laptop, tools, shirt and lunch. Stops you getting a sweaty back and way better balanced than a single pannier.

I used to have an allowance, and was taking my £220 per month and chucking it into the holiday fund and driving a 10 year old Passat.

Similarly, I had an old Mk2 Golf GTi and the boss explained that clients didn’t expect to see people pull up in a rattly heap so either replace it or take the co car option.

Where I am now, the car scheme is part of my job so I can set the rules. As long as it is serviced, tested, can seat 4 and got NCAP 5 star, that seems enough.

Done that trip several times with the kids and the bit that makes it possible is using the Hull / Zeebrugge ferry. What you gain in time by shortening from that route to 24 hours you lose in recovery time.

Leave Edinburgh midday. Scrape into Hull as the last car through security. Relax and have a few drinks over dinner on the boat, decent cabin and a breakfast where you can take enough for lunch. Cheap Esso station on the way out of Zeebrugge and even with bikes on the back, that gets to the Alps in time for dinner.

I think I’ve listed the life of woe with a Saab 9-3 TiD on some threads before. Don’t. Just don’t. Petrol would be a different story, but buy couple of spare sets of springs anyway, as they’re consumables.

Some people feel the same about kids

Absolutely! If only leads were allowed for them after the toddler stage, life would be so much easier.

No. You have a reason to dislike those four dogs. I hope you’ve given your son a chance to meet some nice, under-control dogs and appreciate they’re not going to hurt him so that he doesn’t go through life scared of dogs.

As we’re all formed by our experiences, my view of dogs is overwhelmingly negative. I have no intention of seeking out “nice” dogs because I neither want them nor need them in my life.

Rather than project that onto my son, my efforts to try and persuade him that it was a one off have been undone by so many dogs we’ve met since then not being controlled by their owners. The apologies from the owners need to be replaced by proper control in the first place. I can’t influence that.

I tend to think that people who have a blanket hatred of dogs aren’t worth knowing.

That’s great stereotyping, in the same class as “all dog owners are irresponsible”.

So, say I was attacked and bitten as a 6 year old by an Alsatian. And say I’ve since been bitten by a Jack Russell whilst minding my own business in a public car park, had my heels nipped by a Collie whilst on my bike and seen my son flattened and bitten by an out of control dog. Do you think I might have a reason to dislike dogs in general?

I’ve certainly noticed an increase, but then the population of people round here is increasing so I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise. Two dogs came at me yesterday when I was out running. They were clearly just having fun but I didn’t really want to be covered in all the crap they’d been jumping into. At least the owner had the decency to apologise, which is increasingly rare.

1745 and the death of Highland cultue? Blame a Scottish dynasty and their repeated attempt to seize the crown of a country that no longer wanted them. If it hadn’t been for Bonny Prince ****ing Charlie the Highland Scots would have been fine

True. The thing we tend to forget in Scotland is that this period of history wasn’t about Scotland vs England. It was more about Protestant vs Catholic and the various strands of regal family fighting it for power were ultimately all offspring of James VI and I.

The problem with patriotism and sense of identity based on historical headlines is that the full story is rarely so clear cut. Like Rangers fans lauding King Billy’s Irish adventures but launching abuse at the English King behind the events which led to the Glencoe massacre.

Each of the home nations has plenty to be proud about without needing to denigrate its neighbours.

All 26″ here. Although I can’t say I’m on it as Canyon can’t seem to be able to send spare parts out in less than 4 months.

Yup – After School Club. At my wife’s Primary there’s one on school premises but others who collect the kids and take them to other club locations for the afternoon (lots of church halls etc in the area).

Billing is usually by the day but see if your employer does childcare vouchers / the after school club takes them as that can help with the cost. I think the on site one is £8 / kid / day

The photos on the BBC site look like the people doing the inspecting are below road level, so doubt it is the cables. Last report I read on the cables said that the efforts to contain the decay were working.

Truly grim commuting for anyone going through that.

That story is so short it invites the judgemental response.

BBC carries more and says it will be converting an existing plane to use when the RAF aren’t using it for its day job. Fair enough. Until Dave wants to bomb Syria a bit more when it will spend all its time doing its day job.

Given that the worst car I’ve ever had is still with us after 10 years, and just got through its MOT last week, I suspect anything will last 10-15. Saab 9-3 diesel. DMF, clutch, lots of springs, electrics – all had issues although none so expensive as to be terminal yet as most parts now seem to be OK priced.

Why not buy what you want to drive and just look after it?

I’m training for an ultra – I’m doing some long runs and some short fast runs. The short fast runs are far more difficult than the long runs. I doubt the long runs do anything other than get my head used ot being on my feet for hours on end.

Same sort of thing I’m aiming for too. The head side of long distance shouldn’t be underestimated – how to manage thoughts, pain, pacing, variations in terrain, navigation, stopping technique getting ragged – all whilst tired. And the side to ultra-distance which most forget at first: learning how you burn up energy and when, how and how much fuel to take on board.

Nothing. Again.
Because Canyon have so messed themselves up that they can’t even send out the spare parts that were ordered 6 weeks ago. Still, it is making me run more.

The Lords had an opportunity to stop these cuts to tax credits tonight and chose not to. The House of Lords appears to be as much use as a chocolate teapot

I think this is how the Lords can be effective. What they really said was “we’re thinking about blocking it, but we’ll give you a chance to come up with a better plan yourselves first”. With Osborne now saying he’s working on revisions to the proposals it might be the way the Lords achieve the greatest effect.

I give up

You’ve explained your system firestarter and I sympathise with the position. But it makes your system unreasonable rather than the only way it can be done. We have to manage the holidays for quite a lot of staff where 7 day cover is needed and there’s no way we’d impose on them what you and Drac have to cope with.

No, no I don’t. I’m not sure if I mentioned this but my holidays don’t always fall when the schools are off. Sorry if that wasn’t clear enough.

I can see where pondo is coming from – kids are off school 12 or 13 weeks per year, roughly a quarter. On average that should mean everyone had a quarter of their leave matching school holidays. If anyone doesn’t get that then someone else must be getting more than a quarter of the year matching up.

We got GoTab Appi tablets because enough school work now seems to be web / tablet based, they’re c. £100 each and one of my teacher wife’s colleagues who is into the IT side of learning recommended them. Kids are older than yours and they still use them – we told them that’s the choice, that or nothing. Just as well – one cracked screen replaced for £35. Hate to think what that would have been on an iPad.

Most of the comments so far have not been so specific, they have simply said that education is an area where the SNP have not delivered

A couple have been specific about Curriculum for Excellence being part of the problem. If we want to go further I suspect there’s a need to apportion responsibility between local authorities and government, but there’s an increasing feeling of the combination of CfE, discipline policies and school management letting down both teachers and pupils.

BTW I reckon if youse canny even come up with one good thing, your bias is much worse than mine!

Or, possibly, maybe, an assessment of what they’ve done results in a negative view of them. Or maybe this forum isn’t representative of the demographic they appeal to. Just because they have been in government doesn’t mean the balance of what they’ve done has to be good.

Arguably, it would be a surprise for any party which had no previous government experience to do well because suddenly they have to deal with reality instead of the comfortable non-delivery zone in which opposition parties can live.

And the nonsense about the voting system being designed to avoid SNP majority? It works the same for any party. If you want bias in the voting system you play with constituency boundaries.

There are a couple of points within this debate I’m struggling to understand, mainly because I don’t have time to research them:

If investors require a return on investment and tax credits hadn’t existed to support earnings, would investors have accepted a lower return or would prices have been forced up to compensate – i.e. is government subsidising investors or consumers?

Did we end up with tax credits because the minimum wage became the maximum wage (as feared by some commentators prior to min wage introduction) where an absence of fixed min wage might have forced some wages higher otherwise?

Pondering what implications these points have for workers post tax credits.

None too impressed with the Police Scotland fiasco.
Wife’s a teacher and isn’t too impressed with how the Curriculum for Excellence is used.
Not impressed with free school meals for all P1-3. Those in need already qualified. Saved me money briefly but not necessary.
NHS seems slower to get anything done. I’d rather pay for prescriptions and have the money in services.
Gaelic schools disproportionate funding.
Double jeopardy.

But the big one is the high handed level of debate, dismissing anyone who disagrees in a play the man, not the ball fashion.

But in some ways that’s par for the course – no matter who was in power there’d be something to object to. But with the SNP I find little to commend them on to balance against the list of negatives – dropping the drink drive limit is about it.

I run them all year round, mainly due to the mileage meaning by Spring they’re not worth saving for another winter and with most mileage being central to NW Scotland, they’re worth having.

Fronts are just about done, so replacements are imminent. Yokohama W drives all round. Generally get about 36k out of a full set.

Was out on Cramond the other week. Some party goers seem to have decided to spread broken glass and other assorted crap over the north side. So if the OP wants to go there at the weekend he might find a bit of inescapable company.

How about Slatebarns camping in Roslin. Village for the pub, glen for the walks.

There was someone camped at Hunter’s Bog tonight when I went for a run round Arthur’s Seat. Central but the Park Rangers may have something to say about it.

How about Belhaven Bay at Dunbar. Straight onto the beach & John Muir Country Park. The Rocks is close (ish) by for decent pub grub & a pint. Walk along the John Muir Way to & from it.

newspaper headline appear to be petty and negative – they can’t have it both ways, the public won’t let them

Whilst the press can be far from benign, all they have to do is report that two of his shadow cabinet have said publicly that he got it wrong & the story is made.

There’s enough internal conflict to resolve within Labour at present that the press doesn’t need to resort to underhand tactics (yet, anyway).