Probably best year yet. Did a brilliant "epic" ride in Scotland with the mrs, then followed that up with a week on Skye. The Bucks 121 was superb, got away a fair bit to places like the Peaks, Wales etc. Finally got a Soul too.

Would have preferred to have got more biking in during the weeks, but work is too intrusive. Also, the year confirmed again that the Chilterns is the wettest place in the UK, it never, never stops raining.

A dry 2010 (with some spare time mysteriously appearing!) would be perfect.

Go for it, you'll wonder why you didn't before after a few weeks in the crud.

OK thanks wwaswas – posts coincided.

Cheers – maybe I'll take the plunge.

Ahhhhhh…this is where I sound dumb I know. Sorry. I've largely avoided tubeless as the terminology gets me. Is "ghetto" the Stan's system for use on conventional rims? Sorry to ask, I trawled round the net but got totally lost (not hard at my age!). Does it really solve punctures then?

Only 2 – Ti 456 and Soul. Both great.

The answer is that cucumber, courgette and celery are the unholy trinity of Satan's vegetables. They are somehow one and three at the same time and are, errr, evil.

Fortunately carrots are on-hand to light the true path by appearing in cakes. That's how it works – FACT.

Click on the "DalesBikeCentre" name in green on their posts above. Top bunch.

Carrot cake = true, fine upstanding cake in a manly (or womanly) nation-saving sort of way. Without a doubt. The true King of Cakes.

DMB = Top bunch too.

Jenga – what bikes do vicars ride at mtb centres then? Just curious.

My vote goes without a doubt to Jeremy Clarkson, for all his immature twaddle and general anti-cyclist stance.

Orange!

Thanks everyone.

Simon_g – I was thinking of locking at home. Thanks for the article.

Ononeorange

Sobering video. Watching that makes me wonder why anyone bothers locking bikes!

Woody – nice!!

43 next week but with the body of a 75 year-old hanging on in a financial services job, though. Used to be a metallurgist at a steelworks. But like someone said above, would rather be riding my bike.

Wish I'd seen this thread before ordering BB and phone package last week.

Had BB up until now and it's been great, but concerned now about their ability to put in phone reading the above comments.

Still, it's not BT (the selling point to us)!

My personal view is that it would be a shame to break what I think is such a wonderful car. You obviously know they take a fair bit of looking after (lack of time to do so is why I don't have one), but they're great fun when going. Far more fun than an identikit modern box.

Clearly your time / money / choice. Just thouight I'd throw in my tuppence worth.

Did one early in the year with some mates. It was well organised and a bit of fun – not something to take as a serious competitive event, but a good crowd.

Haven't had 18 bikes build me a bike, but did make a special trip there on holiday and they were really helpful. Great shop.

Souls are ace too but then I guess you know that already!

Excellent pics of the wedding, you clearly had a great day.

And back on the bike as well – great news.

Very best wishes to you both. Keep on answering them back when they try to fob you off.

Thanks everyone. I should have said we're moving house whch has made us think about all this – the new house doesn't have cable but can apparently do the broadband / landline thing according to Virgin – I think it must use the existing line.

Cheers

If this thread has been narrowed down to where we've actually lived, then Oldham for me has it. Good grief! Only lived in a mate's house there for a few weeks, but there was a brothel next door and I woke up one night, looked out of the window and saw a guy climbing through the hole where the kitchen window used to be (which he'd conveniently dumped on the patio after removing it).

Lived in Newton Heath (Manchester) too, a close second. I had a car follow me up the pavement and tried to run me down, and the local shop had more security screens and wire meshing than a border post in Soviet Russia.

Mrs Ononeorange spotted this post and insisted I posted just how good both of our 5's are (2005 and 2006 models). Neither of us has ridden a Commencal to be fair, but the 5's are ace!

CHEERS! I'm sure you had a perfect day.

Anyone know what's actually in 853 (apart from Iron, and a little carbon)? Or is it a big trade secret?

Thanks Chainline and Carlos. Some very helpful points.

(Back to security planning….)

Probably only about 25 miles, but about 75 mins each way on the train (in theory). A lot less than my previous 2 and a half hours each way (wooo! that was about 35 miles!).

Not sure how some on here manage to find trains that are rarely late….mine are always all over the place and TfL don't give a ****.

Apologies for sort-of hijack, but has anyone used the Almax Evil stuff in Chainline's really helpful post above? It all looks good on their site, just wondered if there's any real-life experience before shelling out that sort of cash?

Cheers

Went on a maintenance course that was just for me to learn the basics – I came from virtually no knowledge / experience.

It was I recollect around £100 for the day, covered the basics (as far as wheel truing, brakes, hubs etc) and there was one other person. A max of say, 7 would be fine though. Yes, it gave me basic knowledge and more importantly, the confidence to tackle things, which is what I was after. It would have to be weekends, otherwise work would bound to throw out a late one and I'd just miss it.

Very best wishes for the big day on Saturday – have a wonderful day, you'll enjoy every second of it.

(I would raise a wheel to you both on Saturday, but I'd just fall off!).

Decimalisation, oddly enough. It was February 1971. I was seriously concerned what was going to happen to my big old-style penny.

Classic!

I've had a spate (well two) of celeb sightings in a couple of weeks of each other – David Blunkett somewhere in the Peaks, and Jeremy Paxman in the Chilterns. Neother was on a bike, so I actually noticed who they were.

Used to listen to them 20 years ago – still do! Great (IMO).

I'm a complete Luddite and look on all this tosh in cars as being more to go wrong and just an unnecessary drain on the battery (OK, I admit the electronics probably don't use much). Not really got over my suspicion yet of this new-fangled electric heater thing on the rear window.

But Volvos – they haven't yet mastered the technology of basic on/off switches, have they…..lights always jammed on…..!

Don't want to hijack this one, but is there a source of "sensible", unbiased information (ie, not someone with something to sell) on all of the various ways of self-generating power? I would love to know if anything is yet realistically feasible, but as the above responses suggest, there is a lot of tosh spoken to sell kit.

Slippers are good. The "outdoor shoe police" are vigilant at ours – it's impossible to get past the mat with shoes on. Which means – cold feet on tiles or slippers. And they rock!

+2 for Walk On By by the Stranglers – awesome!

Thanks everyone – much appreciated.

The results according to the oracle that is STW are:

Miele 3
Bosch 2 (-1)
Technic 1

Cheers!

Essel – nice one! Made me laugh.

Thanks for the other bits.

+1 for Kent. Grew up there and moved away largely because the biking was so awful (and the train service as well). Just across into Surrey it's far better, admittedly.