Good to hear. They should really come with a stretch warning or something!

I’ve got some Fox Enduros and I was between a Large and a Med. I went for the Med in the end, as like yourself had heard that they stretch a little. They were a little snug for the first couple of rides (as in, aware that they’re there but. It restricting movement) but have relaxed since. Not sure if that’s helpful.

That is helpful as I also have the Enduros. Snug is how I would describe the current fit. A little bit of a muffintop on the tights over the top band.

Maybe i’ll try wear them around the house for a bit to see if they loosen up!

A few months back I got an email from Glassdoor telling me I’d won an iPad – I was convinced it was a scam, the email has weird bold words randomly, no company logo – it thought it was a scam so much I forwarded it on to Glassdoor via their Twitter just to let them know.

Anyway, turns out it was a real email and I’d won an iPad. To top it off, they engraved it and it arrived saying “Love your job” on the back.

Those Premium Lagger frames were awful!

Awesome, thanks. We’re looking forward to it. I don’t mind flowy/jumpy downhill bits but my partner will be very pleased to hear there aren’t any!

Had assumed that if in CD would be going to Dalbeattie, Mabie, Kirroughtree and Ae

yeah these are the ones we’re looking at, glad to hear they’re a bit more chilled! We have a mixed ability group!

Awesome, thanks all. It seems as I thought – some tougher bits perhaps from a technical point of view but always chicken lines available, but really not that far off our comparison to Swinley.

you would be hard pushed to find someone that will support the Red at swinley, on either technicals or distance.

Yeh, it was just a frame of reference that I felt like a lot of us here know well! Well aware Swinley is an easy red. (Though not as easy as Thetford. That really is pushing the definition of Red Route)

Currently live in a Belway flat/development in London.

Our flat is actually fine, but everyone else in our block have had all sorts of issues.

In one particular funny (ish) instance, a neighbour thought their circulation system was rather weak in a particular part of a room. They got a guy in to take a look, and it turns out the plumber had put a copper pipe right where the ventilation pipe would need to go, so they just capped it off and didn’t bother connecting it!

Another flat had flooding from the roof raining down on their balcony – turns out someone left a drinks can in the drain on the roof which then caused it to block.

But others have had more serious issues, long standing leaks, unsealed windows, etc.

The block opposite in our development has some penthouses on the roofs with flower beds. No one bothered to architect the drainage for the flowers so a year later all the standing water has destroyed the ceilings of the top floors – they had scaffolding up for most of 2020 fixing it.

Theres other stupid things like communal doors not locking etc. It’s all just silly stupid stuff but it mounts up.

The worst our flat has is some shoddy skirting board that they clearly measured once and cut once – theres about a 20mm gap at one end that they couldn’t be arsed to fix.

I have a Fox Speedframe Pro (MIPS) and it fits great – has no more wobble/movement than you’d expect from any well fitting helmenmt.

.

I use the Raceface Chester ‘plastic’ (composite) pedals – they’re very hardy. I’ve given them my fair share of pedal strikes and they’re fine. Grip a shit tonne too.

Fat bloke made it look like a mini moto.

I am merely making the point that some people like different things

Right, but without getting argumentative the whole premise of this discussion is that we’re not talking about ‘some people’ – we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of households across the entire South East of England.

Households that have 4 bed houses, middle of nowhere outside of London, two luxury vehicles on the drive, etc etc. It all costs money, where do/did they get it?

I think it’s an incredibly fair hypothesis to say “More people are in love with cycling than there are people in love with Volvo XC90’s”

I think it’s another incredibly fair hypothesis to say “The Volvo XC90 is not a particularly popular car among car enthusiasts”.

It’s a very safe, very capable, alright looking car. But enthusiast or cult vehicle it is not. I don’t see people meeting up in Tesco Extra carparks on a Sunday night to meet other Volvo XC90 enthusiasts.

Yet, you see them everywhere. Ergo, you can reasonably assume those who buy XC90s are not buying them out of love or enthusiasm like you might an £8k road bike. Therefore you extrapolate that the money they spend on a monthly repayment is not significant enough to represent an ’emotional purchase’.

If it was an RS4 or BMW M4 I’d totally see your point. But you’re arguing for a Volvo XC90.

Wish I had the grit to start a business like that! I wouldn’t even know where to start let alone actually be able to run a business to success.

Well, my sister works for a website called onlyfans.com most days. Seems to do alright by all accounts. Nice house in Dorking. Owns a fast car too.

Very interesting website thank you, I spent a good afternoon doing research and my bank account seems to be £500 lighter.

Jokes aside, seems the themes are:

1 – They’re all old(er) and bought the houses for 200k in the 80’s. The cars are all on lease because they cleared their mortgage years ago, so £500 a month for an XC90 is ez money.
2 – They do all commute to London, after all
3 – Theres a bunch of industry i’m not aware of in these areas eg, Pharma.
4 – They’ve all started their own businesses.

Seems I’m on completely the wrong track. That said I don’t miss driving 30 minutes each way to get to work. Maybe I’ll stick to getting the tube…

Mrs’ Mum got the email last night – £1000! Absolute bobby dazzler.

I’ve only ever won £25 once. Boo.

But some people think that dropping £8,000 on a pedal bike is mental.

I think even the most seasoned riders think spending £8k on a bike is mental, difference is we absolutely love riding.

I don’t think that many people are absolutely in love with a Volvo XC90 yet you see them everywhere.

I totally hear the comments of cars not being representative of wealth due to lease etc –

but ultimately you still need to pay the monthly repayment whether its lease/pcp/whatever. For some 60k+ cars that can be 500/600 or more a month which baffles me. I earn ‘quite alright’ by any measure but the thought of paying 500 quid a month on a car seems mental. So surely they’ve got the income to support that…

Maybe they stay in the London flat during the week?

I guess the slice of people I’m most interested in isn’t the level of those who can afford to do this (or have the company pay) but those who have all these 4 bed family houses, Volvo (or X Brand). Probably bought their houses in the 90s for £400k or something, but now its sky rocketed to the 700-800k or so.

They’re probably not millionaire-rich, but have enough to pay for the 70k vehicle. One assumes they’d need a job/family income to facilitate that.

Grew up on the edge of the NF in Totton – rode MTB for 5 years or so through the forest just exploring trying to find trails where I could.

Got moaned at once, didn’t pay it any attention. Was by a typical Hunter wellies and Land Rover Discovery despite being a 20 degree day in Spring type.

Its pretty shite for riding. Good for distance. Not really any trails.

I moved not so long ago and now have access to Epping Forest where there is a completely different attitude – it’s great to see bikes everywhere!

These are more likely off the back of a lorry or stolen from a business rather than stolen from bikes and stripped, just based off of how brand new those jockey wheels (well, all of it really) are looking. Theres not a spec of crud or single scratch on any of it.

Doesn’t make it right if it is stolen mind, just pointing it out.

EDIT: On further inspection maybe I’m wrong. There is some wear and tear on some of the items. The guy really has cleaned em up!

Any kind of flat skate shoe will work, but some may prefer more support in the midsole so you dont get cramp around the pedals.

I’ve even seen lots of riders wearing basic Vans. Not quite sure how they do that, they’re super thin!

Have you considered emailing the CEO of CRC directly?

Tbh i’d skip that step and go straight to Tweeting the President of the United States.

Those Grand Seiko’s are lovely – massive fan of the black dialled versions. The movement is incredibly smooth ‘in the metal’. Love em.

The problem with Rolex though is that you’ll never be quite ‘there’ until you get one. That’s the draw of Rolex. It’s the watch that you’ll always be slightly curious about. Always eyeing up. Always stopping when you walk past the AD to see whats in the window. Always checking Chrono24 for prices. It’ll always be ‘the one that got away’.

Good luck ;)

It’s launch control will do 0-62 in 4.7 – it’s very very fun

Great to see SBP is still growing! I’ve never ridden the park myself, but passed through a bunch of times on the way to Lordswood.

Since moved out of the area but if I’m even back i’ll check it out!

Great race. The emotion from Vergier on the win almost brought me to tears!

I feel in the bike instead of on it

This is such a good feeling isnt it.

Have we done the new Rolex Sub and OP41 yet?

I’m really into the sub, I think the lugs are so much better than the maxi case.

Here’s a thought , what about rent caps based on the local average income? That could be fun.

This would be interesting.

Rent control works particularly well in Berlin – you still have private landlord ownership, but the culture around home ownership is slightly different there, anyway.

Rent control, with tightly regulated living condition laws, would be a great step forward for consumer/renter rights.

You run the risk of landlordship becoming unprofitable which would see an influx of property on the market. I would forsee the government having to step in to ensure there were enough private rentals available via subsidising or direct council ownership.

I think some people think that all [insert make] dealers are on the same side; of course they aren’t.

All the dealers are franchised out right? So a franchise might have 4 dealerships country wide, so you just gotta find a competitor franchise of the same brand and i’m sure they’ll happily clear your PCP and give you some cash if it means they can resell for another PCP deal fairly simply.

That’s really interesting – I wasn’t aware of that also.

Silly clarification question – you had a BMW and you were ringing around BMW group car buyers to basically get a better deal than the dealership you took the PCP out from was offering? (Which was effectively £0).

I was planning to do the whole buy out the car & sell it route when my PCP is up as my car will be worth a far few grand over the balloon payment. Something like £5-7k by my rough educated guesses.

But if this route is competitive enough within a grand or so it does sound like much less hassle ey!

Would it? Do you default when you have negative equity?

The problem is, is that it snowballs. That’s exactly what happened during the 2008 Financial Crisis – the snowball effect from those who were sub-prime defaulting, thus causing the surrounding property to fall in value, which meant more defaulted, which caused more of the surrounding property to fall in value, which mean more ….

And it’s easy to see why people would choose that. House falls £30k? Okay, thats a stinger but at least it means that other places have probably fallen by £30k too, and maybe in 5 years it’s back roughly to where it was.

House falls by £100k? Why am I paying a mortgage for £100k more than its worth? How low can it go? How rapidly will it fall? How long will it take to recover?

It’s basically the exact same situation as the 2008 crisis, but instead of subprime mortgages being the trigger it’s whatever this thread is proposing devalues housing.

What that video misses out on is that lenders then no longer want to borrow on depreciating, high risk, low yield assets. We’re already seeing a bit of this come into play – as the risk of borrowing has risen due to the potential aftermath coronavirus, banks are no longer willing to lend over 85% LTV.

Now imagine that the asset itself is risky due to depreciation, and you can get higher returns elsewhere for your investment. Boom – no mortgages for anyone, only cash buyers can purchase property.

tl;dr: It’s much more nuanced than saying ‘just make them cheaper lol’

For what it’s worth – I too think houses are stupidly expensive and the housing crisis is very real in this country. It’s even worse in many cities in the US and other countries. Something should be done. But it’s such a delicate and complex economy that I don’t dare claim i’m an expert and certainly understand that saying “houses need to be cheaper” is a gross oversimplification of the issue that borders on wishing for financial apocalypse.

Interesting how it’s a problem for homeowners costs to increase, but not a problem for renters / those looking to save a deposit.

But interestingly, the solve of ‘lowering house prices’ still doesn’t get those without homes on the property ladder, because now you’ve got no lenders willing to lend on a depreciating, high-risk, low yield asset.

if you have a lot of equity, why is it a problem that house prices fall a bit ? Did you really do anything to earn the increase in value of your home?

Because not everyone bought their current home in the 80s.

Lots of people would very quickly fall into negative equity on any fall in house value.

Which would mean a lot of people defaulting on mortgages.

Which would basically be the subprime mortgage crisis all over again.

So sure, you’ve got lots of cheap property now because demand has fallen. Demand has fallen because the banks don’t dare lend any money whilst house prices are falling. The only buyers are now cash buyers (!!!!) who can afford to weather the storm and come out the other side.

Not exactly the outcome you’re looking for, eh.

This is why I dont bother with auction on ebay.

Buy it now only, I accept offers within a reasonable range. Cuts out a bunch of faff.

0 – 60 in 5.7 seems pretty slow for a 300bhp engine. Is it front wheel only? That would explain that.

BMW have been left behind in the past few years, not really keeping up with what people want. Too much focus on their big saloons.

Though saying that, their new 3 touring with the m340i engine looks incredible. Expensive though.

If you really want electric, you’re shopping at the worst time imo. I think give it another 2-3 years and they’ll be many more options out there. We’re just on the cusp, but the only real players are few and far between.

Jag have a electric SUV that looks alright, but… it’s a Jag. And electric. Not a combo I’d be keen on.

I recently bought a pre-reg 5 month old S3 a few months ago and I absolutely love it. I did some work and got a ‘good’ deal compared to other PCP deals out there (12% APR on some quotes!!) and the thing makes me grin from ear to ear every time I get in it.

Life is too short for things that don’t make you smile. Enjoy!

Theres a lot of good advice here I wont rehash – the only thing I’d add is –

When you speak to your wife, be very clear it’s not about her, or your relationship with her. You need to make that clear so you can work towards a better future, together.

I’d suggest talking to Mind. They have an anonymous helpline that can get you started:
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/helplines/#collapse78ded

You’ve got this!