Yup, pretty much lost all interest this season though, complete right off. Unless some miracle happens, its Rafa's last season I think.

I think they are good for a 150mm fork, but I'd check with local dealer to confirm.

Definately don't need reverse lights for the MOT. Used to work in a garage and its not a legal requirement. Look at old Minis and the like, they never had them. Its why some of them had a great big lamp fitted on the boot lid.

The roads are in a right state at the moment, same happened last year after the cold snap. It'll be same as per ussual though and we'll end up with even more patchwork roads.

Always been a fan of the Shimano DX/MX30. Not the lightest, but one of the best shapes, tough and reliable. Bit on the thickside though.

Sadly, I think Liverpool are in need of a change, and I suspect a lot of the supporters are loosing patience with Rafa(think if it wasn't for the cost, he'd be gone by now). However sacking the manager is not LFC's style, although arguably theres not much of the old club left anymore since the yanks moved in.

Mine took about 2.5weeks. Worth the wait though, pretty damn good.
Just out of interest, as anyone bought one recently and got the helmet mount that I heard rumours of?

CRC, brilliant, really can't fault them. Parcel Farce on the other hand.. 🙁
Funny how conventional Royal Mail seems to offer a better service.

2 very thick buttered slices for breaky this morning. Sooo good.

I've got my Van insured with Churchill, best deal I could get, also covered me to drive my gf's Clio.

I'd have to ask how long your planning to leave alone each time. Me and my gf got a right Heinz57 mix (think a bit of Boxer and possibly Parsons terrier). We got her at roughly 12months old from the Dogs Trust. I'm lucky and have a job where I can take her to work and go for walks at lunchtime, but she does get bored and has already taken to chewing the wiring loom in the back of the van. I wouldn't dare leave her for a full day in the house, it'd be trashed! But being part Boxer shes great when we go out on the bike and loves going out in the woods. Shes also got a fantastic character and we've no concerns about her being aggresive to anyone or anything.
I'd highly recommend a hybrid/mongrel, as you say for the limited gene pool that gives so many problems with pedigree breeding. Not that mongrels are a guarantee against problems, but it does theres less risk. Having said that, we're hoping one day to get a Lab.
Also think about costs, we reckon about £10-15 a week once you include food,insurance,vets etc. On that I'd recommend getting a dog from a Dogs Trust shelter, we paid £75 and included in that the dog has her full set of vaccines, microchip and speyed. You'll pay in excess of £500 for a pedigree Lab, and then you'll need all them things on top.
I don't know how long you and gf have been together, but also realize you'll be committing to anything up to possibly 20years of a dogs life.

Got a Vauxhall combo, really rate it. Brilliantly reliable, just a bit slow. I don't think they actually sold a turbo version in the older shape, but conversion using the astra/cavalier engine is really easy. I regularly achieve approx 52-3MPG from a tank full, but fuel economy noticeably suffers above 65mph.
Theres no legal requirement for the MOT having high load rated tyres. Unless your planning on using the van for more than a couple of bikes and some kit, its not an issue. I currently have mine on extra load tyres, which is a nice half way between standard car tyres and full heavy duty high load.
Considering a VW Caddy next, but typically of a VW hold there price so bloody well.

I'd be interested to know how people have got on with the 661 Evos in proper impacts, few people wearing them and they are apparently comfy, but interested to know what the actual performance is like.

So he's an ultra-miling tw*t then? The record fuel economy for my Prius model was 112mpg averaged over a whole tank, using a coast and burn stragety on empty flat rural roads. Not really a very useful thing to be able to boast about is it?

Why isn't a useful thing to boast about? Why buy a Prius if its not about the 'not burning precious natural resources'? He's got a 15 year old car, its not digging more raw materials out for a new one every 3 years and its achieving a approx 75% improvement in fuel economy. Way I see it, thats far more cleaner and greener than your Prius will ever be.

As for the 80mpg story – he must've been driving like a snail. Anyone else who's driven one of those cars (and there are a lot of us about) can tell you that's not practical for normal driving ie not stupidly slowly

No driving like a snail, coast as fast as you like, and you'd be surprised how far you can coast if you really put your mind to it. He'll still achieve 75+ on average on a tank. He will stick to around 55mph, but only in suitable areas and I say 'around' because he doesn't lift or press the throttle harder for to keep the speed the same, just flat level.

I've got 2 pairs of SPD shoes, one pair of Addidas-always bloody cold and one pair of Cannondales-always warm feet. Its down to the shoes, buy some winter boots and some good socks.

ourmaninthenorth – Member
Brother in laws missus has a new MX5, It's not so much the weight but the mid engine design
Eh? I think you might want to check that. Start at the front. 😀

At risk of being a ****, but a ferrari 599 is strictly speaking mid-engined, rather like the MX-5. The engine is in front half of the car, but its mainly behind the front axle line, so its mid-engined.
Bad car for snow? anything with tyres wider than about 195 profile.

Agreed. Some creative maths here methinks. I've now got an N plate Golf (no company car when you're on the dole! ) with the same 1.9TDi engine. It's a great engine for what it is, remarkable in fact when you consider at the time it came out all other diesels were crap underpowered junk with nowhere near the economy. But in my Golf, a lighter car than the Passat, the absolute best I've achieved when driving very sensibly is about 56mpg out of a tankful. More normally I achieve between 48 and 52mpg depending on whether or not that's more town or open road driving.

You have to realize, that the driver in questions has spent years perfecting a technique of engine off coasting, shutting the engine off at lights and absolutely no change in throttle travel. I've been a passenger on several occasions, and I'm not suprised, its quite scary his approaches into roundabouts etc 😆

I get 53mpg on tank from my 1.7 non-turbo diesel 1998 Vauxhall Combo, just shows that the prius is nothing remarkable. Though my van won't do more than 88mph downhill lol.

Molgrips, your right he didn't get 80 mpg from an old passat on average, he only manages about 77-8mpg then. :p
He can get the 80+ on a trip from Nailsworth to Gloucestershire airport, but can't do as well on the way back.
That Prius planetary gear setup is nothing new, and I'm not being funny. That setup, albeit with 3 planetary gears (instead of 4 and a multiplate clutch pack) is what connects the rear wheels of my Cavalier 4×4 with the front axle.

TJ – nice pic find, that gearbox has got to weigh a ton! 😛 😉
Interesting to see it in cutaway, so we've got a clutch pack, generator run on the first input shaft and differential type connection on the other end of the input shaft allowing the electric motor to run at different revs to the engine. Would be nice to see where the chain drive goes to and how it transmits power to the road wheels.

molgrips – Member
Mate, there's no gearbox in a Prius. Gearboxes are very heavy.

I could be arsey and say theres still a differential though 😉 I haven't looked into the gearbox, but interested to know how it puts power down from the motor and the engine to the road.
Out of interest, what MPG do you get from yours then?

I'm not sure how it being 'right wing' will make it automatically biased against anything eco, but the Prius is not eco friendly. For obvious reasons.
So a Prius in the US was 25-35k? So approx 50% LOSS on EACH car? Way to go, as they say in the States.
Oh and there was a huge surge in sales of European/small/economical cars in the States when the price of crude oil went through the roof, it dropped back and they went back to buying V8 trucks. Swings and Roundabouts.
Comment above about a smaller lighter car with modern technology will blow the Prius MPG figures is spot on. I can't wait to see how far solenoid controlled valves will take a diesel engine. Fiat's Multi-Air petrol engine is a good step to prove if its reliable in the real world. If one of my colleagues can extract 80+mpg from a old (L reg) VW Passat 1.9Tdi with some careful driving, what could you do with modern tech?

I would bet that the engine, motors and battery in a Prius weigh less than the larger engine and gearbox in a normal car.

That I doubt very much, I'm not sure if the electric motor in the Prius runs through the front axle with the IC engine or if its on the rear axle, or the specs of the Prius' IC engine construction (all alloy?), but on average most standard car engines are around 200kgs, if the current generation Prius battery weighs 38kg alone…..

Quick google moment, Toyota is 'encouraged' to produce environmentally friendly vehicles, the price you pay is subsidized by Toyota, it all goes round in green/carbon credits and that rubbish. So each Prius Toyota sells is at a loss. I've just been reading another site suggesting that Toyota is/was loosing $17,000 on each one!
More google gen, I said that Prius I mentioned was a grey import. http://www.toyotapriusbattery.com/ I'll let you read that.

molgrips – Member
but a tankerload of crude oil is going to drive more cars further, and also make plastics, paints, fabrics, chemicals etc etc etc etc. So it's way more cost effective.

As for electric cars, well I reckon they're great for city cars. After you drive one for a while and then you go back to a normal car it seems horribly wasteful to sit there in a traffic jam burning fuel for absolutely no reason.

As for hybrids being greenwash, I am not sure I agree with that. A Prius contains less metal than a normal car and the battery's only a carry-on bag sized bit of nickel. The so-called studies that alleged Priuses were less green than Hummers was total rubbish. New Prius is rated at 89g/km CO2, that's quite hard to beat with any car, never mind a decent sized family car.

The Prius includes a few plastic panels – more crude oil as you say, but thats nothing new, Citroen were covering cars in plastic panels years ago, the old BX springs to mind, and the Smart cars are nearly all plastic external panels. The battery pack is a bit more than a 'carry on bag bit of nickel'. Maybe that much nickel, and a whole load of other nasty materials. Oh and its pretty much the whole base of the rear seat, the battery is massive!
Many modern cars now run the stop-start engine tech, nothing new there. Electric cars do makes sense as city cars, but not everyone lives in a London and thats where they fall down.
I think the bit about Prius Vs Hummer is related in a 'cradle to grave' sense, as I posted above.

Battery tech has got to come a hell of a long way before it makes electric cars viable. I'm not sure how true it actually is, but theres that oft quoted thing about the Toyota Prius being more environmentally damaging than a V8 Range Rover (in terms of from 'cradle to grave'). As I understand it, the major reason is the battery, mercury mined in canada, treated in africa, assembled into batteries in China, before going into the car in Japan. Its no wonder a replacement battery is so horrifically expensive. A friend of mine used to work in a Toyota dealership and one customer had a grey import Prius, and the pack gave up, I believe the quote for a replacement was around the £14,000 mark! Its also why I'm led to believe that buying a new Prius is subsidized by the Government, as the real price of one means its just not realistic.
I know this is going slightly off a tangent, but I'm trying to say/show that electric cars for now, just aren't realistic and are one of those aforementioned 'big white elephants'.
Unless of course there's a massive leap in battery technology.

I used to be a massive fan of the WTB Speeds, but mate lent me a Charge Spoon for a a week a while back, and I'm a complete convert. However seeing that Winstanleys had the Charge knife on for a good price a while back, I gave that a try and I love it. Not quite as much padding as the Spoon, still as comfortable, but 100grms lighter. Got them on 2 bikes now.

Does appear to be a slight thaw going on here, but i'm expecting that temperature to plummet overnight again and It'll all be sheet ice. More snow forecast for Tuesday, guess we'll just wait and see. Not getting too over excited just yet.

Yup, not in this weather though. Not bad in the dry though, quick rolling.

So bloody funny, is it real though?

I found their deals on ebay are also available on their website. I've only used once, using their website and no problems at all, quick and cheap.

I'm with GlenP on this one, wipe off the excess crap and relube, currently using finish line dry. Not much sticks to it. All this soaking in degreaser just washes out the wax/lube from inside the rollers and links, and you'll struggle to get that back in there after you've washed it out.

Surely for Jedi the Orange Blood makes most sense? Designed to take a bit of a beating.
Not sure what to suggest to the OP, most of the obvious ones are already up. I will +1 for the Santa Cruz Heckler though. I've got an '06 and its a very underated bike. Strong enough to put up some proper abuse and can be built light enough for all day riding.

Not sure what the card format your after is, but I can recommend 7dayshop.com. Just bought a 4GB compact flash card from there for a tenner!

Bloody funny, my ex did something rather similar when I took her out for a couple of laps on a track day.

Rutland cycles have always got some cracking deals on forks. I've been seriously impressed with RockShox lately and would probably consider either a Recon or Revelation. Lots of deals around.

I'm 6ft 3in and got the 20" and its a good fit for me. Personally I don't like the geometry, but seems more than a few love it.

Mate of mine showed me rathergood.com some time ago, been used for at least on TV advert in recent years. Its amazing what you'll find on t'internet 😯

I've got the 2010 Revelation Races, non U-turn. So far, damned impressed. I believe the Teams with the blackbox damping are fantastic. I think you'll find they're marginally lighter than the Floats too.