Company Car vs Car Allowance… Went through this 6 or 7 years ago. If you are on 40% tax and do less than say 30k miles per year, then the allowance is far more cost effective.

Pool Car – The company I was with circa 15 yrs ago went through this debate. If they insist on you making it available to other tell them to pay the tax or **** it. If you pay the tax it is your personal vehicle, not a pool vehicle. IIRC this is a dodge used by many (often med-small) companies to keep the depreciating asset of a pool vehicle off their books. Just refuse.

Strangely, The Navy Hymn – can't hear it without goosebumps / tears. Stirring stuff anyway, without strong personal memories.
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Plus much much more

Perhaps somebody can explain why …..or that car drivers dont need to be trained and rtested by their companies to be proved competent at driving as do any other industrial machine driver, eg trains, forklifts, cranes, dumpers etc.

Some firms do. We require a copy of drivers licence (as proof of competence at time of test), and then all staff required to drive on business have to complete an online risk assesment. All those scoring highly – young, inexperienced, high mileage, have to complete a RoSPA defensive driving course.

MAny of our clients require anyone visiting their sites to have taken defensive driver training

ALARP is a waste of time as a concept unless you intend to have any residual risk stand – particularly if you are trying to quantitatively assess risk.
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Reducing H&S legislation is not the answer – requiring the competent application of it is

7th Mayhem for me

Grizzly

In Europe – elk in Norway

How are you categorising it as "public land"…?

Do you know for fact that it is publicly owned eg council Fc, MoD etc

or is it privately owned but with public access?

I've got an older Polar HRM, and that works out about 800-900 cals per hour for normal fairly high exertion mtb riding. A couple of recent outings with the wife and kids have seen reported burns between 150 and 300 cals / hours.

From when I used to do mountaineering expeditions, we used to work on 6000+ calos / day energy budget – so circa 1000/hr prob not too high an over-estimate. Very weight sensitive though. The energy required to heft around a 15st bloke like me will be considereably more than needed for a sub 10st weight weenie.

I believe that the Garmin GPS HRMs give much higher calorie burns.

Managed to get some from the local Drain Centre. the guy did look quite alarmend when I said I wanted it for disk brake pistons…I think he had visions of me tinkering with my car or motorbike brakes.

The stuff referenced in my OP is what Hope use during assembly at the factory – so should be suitable…

… just need to be able to get hold of some…
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brassneck – yes, until last year I rode MM with a set of Cateye ABS30s…and to conserve battery power did most of each lap on the 10W bulb…

Ta all – as I thought – pretty low on lumens, but prob about ok for a non flying night lap.

I run ayups on bars and lid, and at 2x 2x 240 (?) lumens they're ok with both units on, but on the low side with just the bar lights running.

I've ridden Mayhem every year that it has been held at Eastnor…
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… and not once considered it to be a flat course

The only grease that would go near my pistons is Red Rubber Grease. Anything else is likely to swell the piston seals and cause problems.

The stuff referenced in my OP is what Hope use during assembly at the factory – so should be suitable…

Tried a couple of those firestorms after I passed my DAS – sound lovely.

Unfortunately Mr Bank Manager said **** off

Mrs rkk01 has been really pleased with one of these…

Canondale F2 Feminine – it's got her back into mtb after sprog break

Welsh Assembly Government to lunch 😯

If we had another we'd go regional – Tegan, Seren, Bronwen, Cait, Bethan

My mother's cousin has had a Ford Cortina Savage V6 for getting on for 40 yrs. Refurbed it a few years back – fantastic car for it's day and not as well known as the Lotus Cortina.

Yep, seen a vid of a Meteor (tank variant or Merlin aero engine) in a tractor as well

Tranny with a Rolls Royce Merlin / Meteor in the back

Look I will try and avoid using it – I realise that's nearly impossible but I will try. Very few BP stations down here anyway but yes, others use their fuel.

To add to your difficulties, the oil majors have been getting out of retail for years. Most of the forecourts are now franchises that have a particular brand "badge" and are tied in to fuel supply contracts – for fuel that may or may not have come from a BP refinery…

… infact, if you look at the previous link that I posted you will see that BP have / will soon have no UK refining capacity at all.

falkirk-mark… not really. UK refineries are located at major ports so import of crude and export of product is largely market driven.

See below

UK petroleum supply chain

Was that the guy that nearly high sided on the shellgrip then retired with an injured knee?

Yep, that's the one.

Dunlop's aggressive style is scary to watch at the moment – maybe just the material that makes the edit for the show, but it looks like he is pushing well beyond the envelope for that particular course.

so erm bring back Big John 2 Jags then?……

Sailor, Boxer, Union Rep, Politician, Egg catcher, Public puncher…etc..

In some respects, yes.

Surf Mat – very naiive about the fuel distribution and retail business. Have a look around your local geographical region….

… do BP, Shell, Total, Texaco, Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda etc all have a local refinery, distribution hub and road distribution network to support their retail outlets in your region??

No, of course they don't – actually, I'm not sure where the nearest Asda refinery is.

Reallity is, a large proportion of the, say petroleum, leaving a refinery is at a stock grade and shipped to local distribution depots. If Chevron (Texaco) own the nearest / only distribution depot in an area they will supply their own retail sites, plus all the other majors who might not have a local distribution site. Each company then add their own closely guarded blend (comercial secrecy) of additives to create their own fuel brands from the base stock grade petroleum.

Buncefield / Total were mentioned above in respect of H&S prosecutions. That site has had major repercussions in terms of H&S and environmental regulation of fuel storage sites in the UK – but what is not so widely known is that the Buncefield distribution depot was a joint venture of four oil major partners…(Total, Chevron, BP and Shell + the British Pipeline Agency)

can easygirl be banned please.

Too useful a resource for that…

It seems to me that any mountain bike (or any serious road, CX, specialist sports oriented non commute / supermarket bike) is vulnerable to these elements of the law. They are too sports specific.

None of my bikes have a bell fitted – my understanding is that new bikes have to be supplied with one (and that, therefore, cannot apply to frame only build ups), but there is no legal requirement to have one fitted thereafter??

Regarding reflectors – I don't think I have ever had a front reflector on an mtb, and I gave up on rear reflectors on mtbs about 15 years ago as the vibration always causes the plastic mountings to fail.

Likewise with pedal reflectors – I use eggies / candies or DMR flat pedals. No reflectors on any of them – although my clipless shoes do have Scotchbrite on the heel cup.

I do agree with the be polite and politely enquire as to the reason for being stopped and questioned though.

OMG – How on earth did Dan Stewart stay on after his moment at Bungalow in the Superstock….???

Excellent fun when actually driving, but a PITA in traffic without a clutch pedal

Odd – the only reason I bought the DSG was because it was much better in traffic, despite being worse in actual driving! I hate having to tickle throttle and clutch for hours on end in traffic jams…

It's a few years since I sold the Golf, so might be suffering from fallible / selective memory, but being continually stuck in traffic on the Bryn Glas Tunnel section of the M4 with constant drivetrain shunt in 1st and no clutch was a PITA.

Out on the open road though it was super sweet, even if the sequential stick was a surer method than the paddles when the road got very twisty

Yep – that's the text I remember seeing…. only as you say, not any more…

me: environmental & technical engineering services to the Oil & Gas and Chems & Pharms industries.

Don't do upstream work (ie production), but plenty of work on environmental controls, regulatory permitting and corrective actions in the downstream side (refining, distribution, retail).

Work with the HSE systems for several of the oil majors. They are all very safety obsessive compared to what anyone in a "normal" job would anticipate.

I got a lift to the pub with a local Manxie a few years back. From Ballugh Bridge to Douglas in a Toyota Avensis (!) at an indicated 100+mph over the mountain.

It was the first year that the mountain road was made one way and I was absolutely cr@pping myself as he used the whole road – with bikes going past at half as fast again….

Hmmm,

That's not encouraging.

My Lucky Strike cracked at the end of May, and last time I looked (although not currently) the VN website were honouring the Airborne lifetime warranty

West Devon / East Cornwall.

Plym Trail, Tarka Trail, Camel Trail – all easy off road and very scenic. Also some more progressive stuff on Dartmoor

EASTNOR
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Then either do a rain dance on the opening ceremony or add sprinklers to get it properly slippy

We work with BP (and other oil majors) – and compared to what most of you will have experienced, they are fanatical about safety.

Part of this is driven by the magnitude of the hazards inherent in the petrochems industry, part is driven by an acute awareness of reputational risk.

The comments about Texas City need to be understood in the proper context. Yes BP were the owner / operator and rightly had to take responsibility – but, they acquired the reputedly dilapidated refinery from Amoco, and if you read the catalogue of issues in the run up most of the procedures, processes (and arguably failures to rectify) culpable were within Amoco's tenure.

Traditional controls rule…!! Cant beat proper clutch, gear lever and handbrake.

Used to run a DSG Golf. Excellent fun when actually driving, but a PITA in traffic without a clutch pedal

Brazil and Korea are the only good looking ones there.

Oh, I don't know…. the Italian looks rather cute. S Korean looks a little, errr, unnatural. Agreed on Brazil though

Glad TT is now on mainstream TV (I know, it was last year too)

But have to agree, the camera positions / angles / high motion cameras really show the intensity of the event. Over the superbike and supersport races both Dunlop and Martin had some "moments" where I was OMG how did they get that back together.

Miss going over to the IoM. Stayed at home last 2 years – too expensive to justify and wife working term times…

Strongly recommend anyone to go at least once – even if not a bike / motorsport fan. It's a fantastic atmosphere, and the noise makes the hairs on your neck stand up.

One in particular had more kit than anyone I've ever seen at a race, all mounted on a tripod, and seemingly taking pics automatically as riders passed. He sat there looking bored stiff. If you were there, you'd have seen him. You couldn't really miss him!

Tripod? automatic snapping kit? Couldn't miss him?

Was he wearing high vis, with one of these deployed….