I have just taken delivery of an E-Expert

https://www.parkers.co.uk/vans-pickups/peugeot/expert/2020-e-expert-review/

170-200 miles range, 200mph+ charging speed, quite a bit smaller than our previous LWB Vivaro, but still fits bikes and everything we need for work no problem. We don’t have off street parking but we do have a few slow long stay chargers within a short walk of the house (closer than I often used to have to park living in Edinburgh).

I think it will work out good. Ask me again after our trip to Torridon in September.

I have the feeling they are the semi secret sealed bearing Shimano hubs, heavy but at least they are sealed bearing, and a serviceable freehub body.

If you have a PC then playing saints and sinners on the quest is a bit if a waste, it’s one of the best games available and deserves to be run on the best hardware you can. It’s just about to get a story update too. It’s cross buy so you should already own it on the oculus desktop store 👍

Alyx, S&S and Boneworks all amazing on PCVR, Beat Saber, Smash Drums, Pistol Whip and the Climb get most of my time on native quest

We own an EV with no home charging and it’s fine for us. You really want to be within a short walk of some fast chargers, we are about 200 meters away from a pair of 7kw units, so it just gets dumped on there once or twice a week and we wonder over to get it before bed. Also twinned with a bit of rapid charging when needed, don’t forget you don’t actually have to sit in your car while it’s charging, a 10-80% charge for us is enough time for a run or a nice walk.

And if you are using it for going riding a lot of the places we go you can leave it on a 7kw while you ride, it’s even free in Peebles for now 😂

So you just find a way to work it into your life without sitting around waiting for it.

We have just ordered an E-Expert 75kwh on lease to replace our diesel Vivaro, really excited should be here in 4-5 weeks making us a full electric business and household… with no off street parking 😜😂

Getting any of the PSA group garages to even reply to emails or engage in sales about any of the 75kwh vans was impossible, no interest at all. So we leased one off drive-electric who have been great so far, and were smart enough to even get some on order for stock so we aren’t waiting until December for a factory order.

Hopefully by the time our lease runs out someone like Arrival has come in and done the disruptors thing and there is some competition for long range mid size vans. But until then, it’s Pug time 😬

Sounds like the smart thing to do would be get an electric van then 🤷

E-Expert ahoy

Sounds fine you just won’t be able to get the grant and have to pay in full for the charger.

We own one and don’t have any home charging, but we are 100 metres away from a 7kw public charger and a few miles from some 50kw that are in really nice places for trail running, so just stick it on charge and go for a run.

Haha, we do ‘sort of’ have them for sale, but it has been the worst frame launch of 2020, well, behind the Spur!

We ordered SIDLuxes for them from Rockshox, there was a delay in the order being given to RS themselves and in those three weeks the lead time jumped from 60 days to 160. It’s now apparently 300 days+. We ordered a small batch of frames to arrive a few weeks before the shocks, then the shocks went back. First to November, then end of April. We actually have a Fox setup ready to ship, DPS Factory Remote with Orbea Squidlock lever, same as the build in that insta post, and hopefully the SIDLuxes will be here soon and it will be finally ready to list for official sale.

We won’t pretend it’s our design, although it is very close to what I would want. In an ideal world I would re-jig the pivots to get better seatpost insertion, but I still have an easy 160mm drop on the medium. It’s an open mold frame that other manufacturers have access to (I have seen it being raced in XCO), we have worked to get a decent shock tune and a few finishing touches to hardware in the UK. I ordered the samples last year to test whether or not a short travel aggressive geo frame would work, with the idea to get a light hardtail built with similar geo in the UK. But then it arrived and we fell in love with it, honestly just a hoot to ride and suits our local stuff perfectly. So we ordered some more rather than doing the hardtail. The Spur is amazing too, or at least the two we have been able to sell are apparently!

Frame with DPS Factory + Squidlock is £2199 and with SIDLuxe is £1899.

A medium is 470 reach, 66 HA, 76.5 SA, 438 chainstay. Large goes to 500 reach and XL is 515 I think, from memory. Max 120mm front and 110mm rear.

My girlfriend and I fight over who gets to ride the sample I have here 🤣

“Nothing gets too close in terms of weight and geometry”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGLGj4bHo6J/?igshid=1kd3xotk2suzf

😜

https://www.pedalsbikecare.co.uk/products/2020-bombtrack-hook-adv?_pos=1&_sid=8ba7f6c0f&_ss=r

Someone buy this before I steal it

What are you looking for? Generally yes, nearly every new order is going to be August at best, but if dealers already have one on order for stock as mentioned or better yet on the shop floor.

I have a lovely Wild FS M10 MyO in black with subtle green highlights, but we have been too busy to get it online yet 🤷 So there are things out there.

I went for the soul too and love it. Niro felt like we were always peering over the bonnet as used to vans/Doblo/panda. Also it came with all the bells and whistles plus a bigger commercial discount, as it’s weird looking. But we love it. My skateboard fits in the hidden trunk with the charger, but you can also get really nice froot conversion boxes too. We don’t have a home charger but 200m away from a few 7kw, and a few miles away from a bunch of 50kw. Show up at 20%, go on a 10k trail run, leave at 85, commute for the week, repeat.

Does this mean we have to bring out the unofficial STW Pedals Bike Care Banshee Support discount again? 🤩🤩

The other auction I had at the same time buyer backed out in the morning. Re-listed on a cheaper buy it now and it was gone by the next morning, and the buyer was a top bloke.

Yes he has been refunded and it’s from me. Taken out of my paypal yesterday.

I genuinely didn’t expect ebay to side with him, it just seems insane.

Max claim value is £50, so nowhere near covers it. I guess my question is, does anyone know how I can email royal mail to get an update about my investigation, and if you work as a posty how likely is it they will be able to provide a statement saying it was delivered in good condition?

I have spoken to eBay appeals tonight, they say get a statement from royal mail.

He is claiming an empty box got delivered, and is somewhere in the south of England, I live in Scotland.

https://youtube.com/c/PlugLifeTelevision

Euan is a battery scientist that makes information videos about EVs that are based on real, traceable information. Interesting watching whatever side of the fence you are on.

Our EV does 250 miles on a charge. I drive it part way to work 3-4 times then run or cycle the rest as there is no parking near work. After a week of this I either take it to my local slow charger that is walking distance from the house, then pick it up just before bed, or leave it on a rapid for 45 mins while I go for a walk. We do not have a home charger, but there is scope for some bollards in our street to be converted in future.

Destination charge stations will play a big part in the future of EVs, and are starting to pop up already. Fancy a nice walk in Stirling? Head to the new solar powered mega charge station with space for about 50 cars, whap it in and head off for some outside time.

The cables lock in place until they are done.

Our fast chargers are all at Stephens the bakery’s, so you can get a pie and a charge if sports isn’t your thing 🤣

The alloy squorx nipples aren’t that bad,and you can buy brass ones. If you want to use normal nipples just use Sapim, they have the exact same seat shape as the squorx, whereas normal DT nipples have a much flatter shape as you have seen.

A B1 circlip will not be safe to ride in an A1/2 post. Not sure it will hold at all, and if it does will give way again soon

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ9Iw7EBgcd/?igshid=bpxfyelvtucq

Not mine but I wish it was 😻

‘Inspired’ by my SS Moxie 🤣 The Sirius suits it a bit better though. Built to fairly easily have gears dropped on.

I thought they looked under speced compared to the Korean cars, and ended up with a Soul. Test drove a Niro for two days and it was great, but felt like we were peering over the bonnet. We have been driving Doblo/Vivaro/Pandas for the last 15 years and they all have less bonnet. The Soul is perfect.

Smaller boot space until the seats go down, then it’s massive. We don’t have kids so once we get over the fact it’s new a bike or two can go in the back no bother. Got a nice boot liner for it too.

My skateboard fits in the hidden boot area next to the charge cable, perfection 👍 You can get pretty nice frunk/froot conversions for them too.

I spent a long time looking at them all an ID3, Niro, Soul or Kona would all be great.

One of the lighter weight Assegai up front, in 2.5 then a Dissector 2.4 on the rear 👍

Very disappointed, not his usual creativity at all. No Flo and Joan that’s for sure

From that Instagram, it’s a shame that Jordan only got a load of debt when Tim got a Focus ST

They had a tee you could buy that was an area for some text you could write and a Sick! logo underneath.

I wrote ‘No. 1 Marino Reseller’ and bought it, with real money.

Sadly they never printed it, I thought they might see the funny side but apparently not. Got messages off each of them. I think Jordans just called me a **** but Tim’s was very long and revolved around how I ruined his holiday to Disney land. And indeed, there he was on Instagram at Disney land. And he did look sad.

They refunded the tee.

James from Pedals here, thanks for the kind words. It’s not that there are no bikes available, but for us at least it’s full suspensions under 3k that are the issue. We have plenty of great stuff available, it’s just generally all custom built. Really good to see folk like Ben planning well and keeping the Bird availability good 👍

Forbidden Druids, loads of Guerrilla Gravity frames some now more in Jan, our own Project DC (like a Spur), really decent stock of Banshees, a few Chromag frames, some Pipedreams both HT and FS, even a few Transition Scouts and shhh… Some free stock of Sentinels next week (ish)

We have built up a decent base of build kits and forks so have loads ready to build, just little off the peg. I am going to be riding the Druid over Xmas and really looking forward to it.

If you can fit 50mm the Hutchinson Black Mambas are really nice, pretty fast, decent grip and you won’t find anything easier to fit or inflate tubeless 👍👍

It is worth remembering that your not so old van doesn’t just go in the bin, it will go to someone replacing an even older van with even worse emissions and become a camper or work van for someone that can’t go electric yet.

I have just bought an EV to replace our personal car, but will need to wait a few years before the van can be replaced, but like you keen to see what is coming out 👍

Glad it arrived ok 😊 I finally took the plunge and ordered a Prime – in raw – to build up 29+ (at least at the front) ❤️

I use a Brother Big Bro for exactly that. Does a nice singlespeed too :)

Banshee all the way! The new frames look so nice, current planning a new Prime with 29+ front…. Perfect for the steep tech!

Warranty is now 4 years.

At my shop we have all 2020 X2 equipped Banshee frames at £1750, mix of Titans and Runes. Only a large orange showing in stock but all sizes available at the same price 🤟

https://www.pedalsbikecare.co.uk/collections/whats-in-stock-now/products/banshee-rune-v3-frameset

Dishonored 1, 2, plus the entire Metro series. Metro Exodus was the last ‘flat’ game I played….

Although as a lifelong gamer I would spend £299 on the new Oculus Quest 2, if you don’t mind using Facebook products. Gets Walking Dead Saints and Sinners at launch which I have been playing the last few months via PC.

Brother Kepler Disc – it’s what so run for sustranning and commuting. Stock has been gone for months but I found two frames in the basement and Brother are getting more stock next month

Or petition Norco to change distribution model 👍

Use Transglobal Express .co.uk, they are a courier comparison site but also a freight forwarder. Really easy to use and will be about £100 for a frame box with the fork inside too.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBqrITWnGxn/?igshid=10vzew9lbmbdi

Here! 470 reach in medium, 66.5 HA, 76.5 SA. Very light. Aiming for full XT, SID Ultimates with SID Luxe shock, 1500g wheels and your choice of tyres for £3500-4000 est.

You just have to wait about six weeks while we get our lives in order. Lockdown has been a little hectic for the bike trade and we are a little behind.

I have been riding that one, it’s 25lb and a total rocket.

Downcountry is the future, the Stoke is high

We have no off street parking, so it’s either a cable out the window with a cover over the pavement, use public chargers or try and find a way to pay and get the bollard outside our house converted to a charger. There is a company in England that does this, but then it becomes a public charger and we essentially lose one of ‘our’ parking spaces (it’s all free public parking)

I do think it would be a good idea for the council to offer home owners the chance to convert things like this into private chargers, it’s the future!

The train station has two chargers 100m away, 200m away we have a large BP garage that I assume at some point will get one of their charging places (that I think you get a year free on with the Corsa) and there are a few business local that advertise you can use their chargers after hours, less than 500m away.

So I don’t know, it seems like a leap of faith but equally I can’t fill up with petrol from my house either..

I just feel a bit stupid/wasteful driving everywhere in the Vivaro, and the Panda is a bit crap to drive but basically free to run. Can’t really afford a new car personally but with the 0% benefit in kind on electrics for the next couple of years the temptation of taking a business lease to get the vat and corporation tax reductions is pretty strong.

The idea of driving for skiing in Aviemore or Glencoe and back on a single charge from Edinburgh in comfort is appealing!

Finephilly that’s not a full service.

A lot of places will be very booked up, still recovering from being short staffed and in demand. If it’s Fox then Fox UK might be quicker. Otherwise a semi local suspension service place might be able to get it in sooner. At pedals in Edinburgh we are booked up until about the same time as TF but might be able to get something in sooner, or if you are further north then Basecamp Suspension. For England, not sure! What has broken?