It’s in the North, so will be inferior to Cambridge.

Cambridge is nice. Head south a bit and you get out of the flatness into the more rolling countryside of Herts and Essex.

Nazism (and moobs)

That’s a bloke with sacred Hindu symbol tattooed on his manly chest waving to his mates.

Ride the Divide or Reveal the Path.

I’ve not got many gadgets for mine. The Magic Mouse was worth the money, those plastic covers can be a bit hit and miss with respect to fit, so choose carefully if you’re going to get one (I don’t use one). VMware Fusion is good if you need to run a Windows VM, I chose this in preference to Parallels. The best bag I came across was the Incase Sling Sleeve, I got mine at 50% off. I’ve also got a Cool Bananas Shock case, less bulky than the Incase and good for when the laptop is in a rucksack.

You can use Tesco clubcard vouchers on both Stenna and Irish Ferries.

The attitude these days seems to be, if you haven’t resigned then you must be happy with the package you’ve got. If you want more money then move on..

Wifey has a couple of bling watches. When shopping for women it soon becomes obvious that it’s about the look and not the movement. If she wants something big and shiney take a look at the ceramic Tags. Experience tells me that no matter how well you think you’ve got your wife’s tastes sused she’ll go for something completely different, so take her shopping rather than go it alone.

I’ve had my Nexus 5 for about a year and it’s been a great phone so far. Lollipop is reported as having battery drain issues with the Nexus 5, to the point where battery life is about 4 hours, unless you turn wifi off. I won’t be installing it just yet.

2unfit2ride

If you want a short travel frame and are 6 foot tall, I’ve got a large Yeti AS-R frame in the loft. 100mm of rear travel.

I’ve owned a couple of Ridley CX bikes. The bottom brackets were quite high, I wouldn’t buy one without trying it first.

Recumbents!

I used to race recumbents and know both Mike Burrows and Miles Kingsbury. To cut a long story short, recumbents are faster. An unfaired one will give you a small gain over a normal bike, say 3 to 4 mph. Smoothing out the airflow behind gives a decent gain, you’re now 10 mph faster. Bolt on a nose cone for another 5 mph. The real slick streamliners are fast as f@ck. At the World Champs in 96 on a 30k time trial I was doing a steady 28 mph on my unfaired bike, the top riders on full streamliners were cruising over 60.

It would be interesting to know who owned the dog, the people I see with that sort of dog tend to wanna be hard men. Maybe there was was reason it was done?

My new favourite is “implementation gap”.

Problem with cars like Elise’s on public roads is that you are going so much faster than you would in a ‘normal’ car, because they grip/handle so well that when it does go wrong you suddenly realise that A) you aren’t Seb Loeb and B) that lampost is only a few feet away.

The middle pic was a pair of journalists on a track in Belgium.

Driving the Elise every day isn’t a problem. I don’t find myself going too fast, in fact it’s just as nice to drive it slowly. More people can admire me that way. 🙂

I’ll write more later, just leaving work.

My Lotus Elise 111R (the 190hp version) is £200 fully comp (I didn’t miss a 0 off the end). This is parked on drive in Herts and regularly commuted into London.

mrbelowski
8k? Crivvens, you could get a decent Elise for that

A decent 7 year old Elise will be around twice that.

I’m not mad keen on cats but my father comes from a line of Preece’s, so I liked the piccy.

People with phenomenally bright lights on the front of their bicycles in broad daylight, more often than not set to flash.

I think this is a good idea. As a cyclist it might look a bit shit, as someone in a car, on a motorcycle or as a pedestrian it make sense.

The next time you’re not on a bike but see a cyclist take a look at the clothing they’re wearing and how they blend into the background. Doing something to make yourself stand out is a pretty good survival tactic.

Asian fit is a different pair of rubber nose pads that move the glasses further away from your eyes and has nothing to do with the size of the glasses.

I’ve just bought a pair of Fast Jacket XL’s, probably the widest of the sports glasses and fairly deep with the XL lens. Best bet is to go into every optician/sports shop you pass and try on lots of different glasses.

[quotechojin – Member

pirahna – Member
For £4k I’ll sell you my KTM 990SM.

Do go on…? [/quote]

For reasons of house moving I’m going to have to sell it. It’s an 09 with 14k ish miles. Just about to put it in for a service so £4k before the service or £4200 after.

At that price it’s well under the dealer buy in which is currently £4400. Dealer retail is £5200.

Nothing wrong with a 1050 Triple for commuting, my one had a few issues so I got rid of it. For £4k I’ll sell you my KTM 990SM.

I’ve got Rotor rings on two road bikes and my mountain bike, I think they make a difference. I’ve got a 15 mile road loop I do most evenings, the first time I did it using oval rings I went round about two minutes quicker. Over the course of a month I tried round and oval rings on a variety of local loops and each one was faster on the oval rings.

Better riders than me seem to rate them. Carlos Sastre won the Tour using Rotors, Bradley Wiggins did his win on Osymetrics and plenty of other pros use them.

A long time ago barber taught me how to shave with a cut throat, I still do it from time to time just to keep my hand in, but a normal wet shave from a multi blade is as good if not better. With a multi blade you need to shave twice, lather up and shave down with the flow of the hair, lather up and shave up against the flow.

Nice for posing in but a (admittedly rare) 190 elise would be a better all-rounder.

😀 I’ve got one.

Power won’t a problem, driving comfort will be the biggest issue. Get your mates on the insurance and change drivers every hundred miles.

I’ve never found Lyon too bad. The road gets clogged with traffic at certain times but it’s very easy to find your way.

I’ve only done paris on a motorbike, it’s like commuting on the North Circular in London. Again, no problem with route finding but I’ve never fancied it in a car so will avoid.

For the Pyrenees I go via Le Mans, for Provence I go across the top via Reims then through Lyon.

I now fancy a trip to Provence with road bike.

One thing that caught me out on frame size for a CX bike is bottom bracket height. I’m 6’1, ride a 56cm road bike and bought a 56cm Ridley on Ebay. The bottom bracket was so high on the Ridley I reckoned it was good for someone 3 to 4 inches taller who wanted a very short top tube. I finished up with a Specialized Crux with measured up the same as my road frame.

100mm Fox Float CTD’s on mine, they were sensibly priced on Ebay when I was building the bike. Can’t complain but then I haven’t ridden to many 29er’s.

I’ve got a Jawbone Big Jambox, it’s a decent portable speaker.

Tell them to open the window.

Take a small rear light and a micro front light for the tunnels. The police will prevent you using the tunnels if you’re unlucky enough to be caught and if you’ve gone the conventional way round it’s a long way back. It can be a sunny 25 on top of the Telegraph and 5 degrees and pissing down on the Galibier, I know this from experience.

Womens watches are about the bling not the movement, so don’t get too worried looking for an auto that may not exist.

I went through a similar thing six months ago, I needed a car to carry stuff but something that was also a hoot to drive. I didn’t need both at the same time though. So, wifey has a Laguna estate to drive to and from the station plus cart all the bike stuff around, and I have a Lotus Elise.

I love my village home, but the cost of commuting into London is extortionate. Wifey does a drive to the station, train then tube which costs £6k a year.

I use a motorcycle for my 80 a day round trip which keeps the commute time down to around an hour each way. I’m currently running an old Fireblade for winter, a KTM 990 for summer and a Renault Laguna estate for everything else. Probably around £5K a year to keep everything going.

We’re thinking about selling up and moving to back into London.

Shag her sister.

Just read “Fast Exercise” by the bloke that came up with the 5:2 diet. It’s all around HIT and is backed up with a reasonable amount of scientific study, much of it around cyclists.

HIT on a turbo 3 times a week suits me at this time of year as I can’t be bothered to do evening road rides when it’s cold. I’ll report back if it has detrimental effects on endurance if anyone is interested. I should mention I still do a long ride on a Sunday and HIT strength sessions on the two nights I don’t turbo.

I use a heart rate monitor for all training, otherwise how do you know how much effort you’re putting in? Recovery riding is important too, again using a HRM so you know you’re not working too hard.

There was a TV series on BBC recently with a bloke doing the pilgrim routes. The only advice I can remember for cycling the route is that walkers are given preference for accommodation, so your early season plan might be a good idea if it means less people.

Worry about it now. Good equity can vanish overnight, example: I paid £26k for my first flat in 1982 and prices rose steadily then rocketed. In 1989 the flat was worth £75k but I’m off to Australia on a years working holiday, do I sell or rent? Rent was the wrong answer, but sadly the route I took. When I got back the housing market had crashed and the flat was worth a lot lot less. I sold in 1996 for £33k.

Some very clued up people saw this coming, most didn’t. My advice is to pick an age when you want to retire and plan towards it. The retirement fund could include property equity but it shouldn’t be the only source.