I thought this about my Pitch which I bought in 2010. It’s heavier than other bikes for sure and has too much travel for a lot of riding. I questioned my choice a lot…..

But then I stopped thinking about it and just rode the flippin thing. Tow path rides, rides round the park, steep and knarly, long XC, downhill practice. Everything really. I just realised that even if I spent £k’s on a new bike all that would happen is that I might be able to move a little faster on the uphills. Other wise it’s still a bike, just ride it….

I still ride my 94 Kilauea, fully rigid with V-brakes. Yeah sure its not as fast on the rocky bits but hey ho, it’s still gets there in the end and if I’m slower than other people I would be better getting fitter and losing weight than buying new kit.

I have one of the Anker batteries, good quality and work really well.

However I do also have one of these which does the job waaaaaaaaaay better…. ;-)

Well it seems like we are done! Just accepted an offer on our house for a decent amount more than I was expecting to get for it. Chuffed to bits about the couple who are buying the house, they remind us of me and my wife when we bought the house 12 years ago.

Now all I have to do is find somewhere else to live….. 8O

Thanks all.

Really you can’t compare 2 size tyres properly unless they are exactly the same model and only difference is width.

Will be Manhattan only for the most part but will be seeing most areas within there, might be going into Brooklyn one day though.

I am in a similar problem from the other side…. http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/neighbour-building-extension-my-rights-party-wall

However I am rational and realised once I had exercised my rights, discussed things with my neighbour and cleared the air as best I could I could do no more, life is too short.

If your neighbour is kicking up a fuss now I doubt you will be able to do much to bring her round – is she sat at home all day speaking to her mates and complaining to them (sounds like it!) – she’ll just be festering in her own hate and the few seconds you see her won’t tip the balance back.

Only thing you can do is kill them with kindness, they will either soften and you’ll get along again (this happened successfully with a previous neighbour of mine) or not, but if you do what you can it reduces the stress on yourself and your wife and puts you on the higher ground. Hopefully.

I find it bizarre that people build stuff with no planning, especially if the building works would affect others who are obviously going to grass them up.

Asking building control to check the construction but not bothering with planning is double bonkers!

Dunno, the neighbour said that planning had checked the new plans and said they were ok. So either planning changed their minds OR they weren’t given the full story by our neighbours/their builders/architects I suppose. I suspect by the way my neighbours have after its probably one of the latter options.

One of the car mags did a test to see what would happen if you left tyres on all year round, winter ones or summer ones and compared against changing them with the seasons. Changing with the seasons is the best but if you want to leave one kind on all year round the benefits that winter tyres bring in the winter outweigh the negatives that they bring leaving them on in the summer.

ctk – Member
They probably think you grassed them up to the planners
POSTED 3 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

We objected to their original permission for a massive extension they asked for and that was fine, they know that.
When I had a chat with the neighbour she said the planning dept was keeping a close eye on it and had said their new smaller plans were fine so it must be annoying for them to have to change their plans again. They should know it doesn’t have anything to do wth us. Benefits us, yes, but I think they know we are innocent!

But of an update. I mentioned a PWA agreement to my new neighbour but they said they didn’t need one. We had a chat about their plans and I decided to leave it, but monitor the building works closely – pretty easy as I see it constantly so didn’t have to snoop. The builders are really good so I chatted with them a bit and helped them out a bit with access if they needed it.
We would have been able to see the new extension from our lounge but as it was PD there was nothing to be done about it now so I accepted that no problem. However the planners were keeping a close eye on the building works too it seems.
I came home last night to find that the side of the extension facing us had been moved back about 3 feet away from us. I asked the builders why and they said the planning officer came round and said they couldn’t build it as big as they were trying to as it would have blocked access down the side of the house where there is a little passageway.

The result is that we now can’t see any of the extension from our lounge and the effect on light in out garden will be much less.
I feel sorry for my neighbour as they now have a much smaller extension than they wanted but I’m happy I kept calm, knew my rights but let things slide when I realised being a pain just wouldn’t help matters. The result is that we aren’t affected as much as we feared and we have kept on good terms with them, which will help us and whoever buys our house in the future. :-D

Update?

With House Network you are free to set your own price and you can change it to what you want. I suppose there might be a lot of people setting a high price and sticking to it even though it isn’t selling. We got a load of tailored advice on our house from HN once the rightmove stats had come in advising us to stick at the price we had it at for the moment as there was a glut of similar properties in the same area at the same price which is unusual but not unexpected I suppose for an area with a lot of terraced houses in it. The quality of our house compared to the competition appears to have won out it seems as I reckon we’ve been offered a decent price.

I think there is a lot of speculative sellers wanting too much for their houses at the moment.

We’ve now had four viewings. House network have been very good so far and really helped things along. Detailed discussions with them about our price and analysis of the rightmove stats as soon as they were available.

We had an offer put in on our house which I think was reasonable so things have moved very quickly!

Thought about a frame set? The build is basically a 29er as far as the wheels and drivetrain go so a decent build shouldn’t be expensive. If you go flat bars it’ll be a bit cheaper too. 27.2 post, standard BB etc.

I can’t understand people’s thinking when they buy gifts when cash is requested. Surely buying them a gift in those circumstances means you will be certain of getting them a present they don’t want….

My wife and I are nearly 40 with no kids. If we ever changed our minds we’ve always said there’s plenty of kids without a decent home waiting for someone to look after them and give them a decent life, hopefully we could help with that.

What exactly went wrong?

Can someone else please post the ITS A TRAP picture?

I’ve got a bad feeling this could get worse for you. ;-)

Just goes to show that some bikes are just so good they need next to no adverts or tests to sell out completely!

I’m not surprised, I got mine a couple of months ago and my brother got it for me but struggled and he worked in a Genesis dealers!

I remember when my wife and I first moved in together, we had £160 ish for living on (food/transport etc) every month after bills went out. We lived simply and have done ever since, paying similar amounts in rent/mortgage since that time and saving the rest – this has meant we can now buy pretty much anything we want or need nowadays and are going on our third USA trip in 4 years despite us not earning loads.

We went to the bank recently and they wanted to lend us loads for a new mortgage as we don’t owe anything and have been overpaying ours for years. We could get a mortgage now for a £250k house but are sticking at £160k as it will still enable us to have surplus to save or if rates go up.

Peoples eyes have been far larger than their wallets for some time now…

I know someone who could really use these, email sent.

Nothing wrong with it. It’s big heavy and sturdy, big tubes welded together, it’s never going to get floppy mechanisms like some of the cheaper ones I’ve seen. It’s 3 legged so is always stable on uneven surfaces. No it isn’t Qr but it only takes 2 seconds to spin the clamp shut and I prefer to control the clamping force myself to avoid damage anyway. Height adjustable.

I got the work tray and adaptor for mine at Christmas which are fab, not cheap though.

I paid £50 for mine when it was on offer somewhere and I really wish I’d paid for one years back!!

I have one of these and I’d rather have it than the Lidl one!

So after the first week I spoke to our senior negotiator at HouseNetwork. They have a system where you tell them when you want to be called. When she rang she said she’d already checked my listing and said it was good with the right amount of pictures but she did say there is a lot of similar houses at the same price in my area so I won’t sell ultra fast but will sell. She asked me to include details of the local school catchment, something I hadn’t thought about as we don’t have kids, but the details are on there now.

Got the right move statistics now which might indicate that we might need to adjust how we market the asking price but I’m going to leave it for the time being as we have a viewing this weekend.

I have just weighed the front rack I took off my TDF. 552g without bolts. Rear rack probably weighs a bit more as its bigger so I reckon 1200g for both racks. That’s 2.6lbs for the racks alone.

It’s easy to spec a bike in the shops without all the kit you need and make it look light!

The tyres that come on the bike are awesome touring tyres that will handle some light off road too and surprising to get standard on a £900 bike. The tyres and racks alone retail at £100 and are pretty much standard kit for a tourer.

I have a dynamo hub and permanently attached lights on mine so it’s never going to be light!!

I got 50mph on a gravel track in the Dark Peak once. Still trying to beat it! I don’t understand this small chainring stuff, I need big gears!!!

I reckon you have to go a long way to beat a paper OS map for route planning. The whole area in front of you, without having to scroll around. Maybe get into Strava and use it to mark up the OS map with some popular places people ride and you’re golden.

I can’t imagine just downloading routes from someone else and blindly following a Garmin on your bars, no thanks.

Chainset is a lower end shimano MTB one but it shifts beautifully. Correct gears for a touring bike too, plenty of low ones!

Just doing the online thing with my house….

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/online-estate-agent-housr-network-the-adventure-begins

I have a discount code for them if want, email me.

They are super heavy, I went for a Fuji Tourer, lighter and £400 cheaper

They may seem heavier than a lot of other bikes in the showroom as they already have 3 cages and two racks and guards on which is amazing for the price.

I also put some lighter 35c tyres on, Vittoria Voyager Hyper ones, cheap at PX. 422 each which saved 370g per tyre on the standard Schwalbe Marathons.

By changing those tyres and the seatpost I saved 1.85 lbs.

No it isn’t light but thats not the point. It’s meant for loaded touring. I really like it, with the new tyres it feels a little zippier than before too. It’s really comfy and stable, but not ponderous. You have a more upright position than a CDF and you sit “in” the bike. I was riding down a potholed street after a long days riding and doing it one-handed without realising it (I was very tired).

Durable enough for the weekly commute – the standard drivetrain may be a little low geared for a fast commute but I love it. Although the drivetrain spec seems a little lowly it changes perfectly and I’m well impressed.

Mine….

Now I changed to flat bars for extra comfy and pootling ability

Soon to come, some Dura-Ace bar end shifters and Pauls Component mounts to convert them to thumbies….

Flat bars enabled me to put Deore trekking hydro discs on, which work a treat with the rotors that were on it.

I had a whole new set of wheels built by my brother PeterPoddy…

Exposure dynamo front hub, XT rear on XM319 rims, 36 rear 32 front.

Nice touches…. spoke holder…

Side stand mount…

Nice cable routing…

I put one of my custom covered saddles on and a X-Lite Metal Matrix post…

I love mine!

The money doesn’t matter. You don’t get to this level without having some sort of racing sickness, they need to race and would be doing it no matter what the money was. If he was earning £25k a year he’d still be doing it. So money isn’t a consolation when you lose a race you were going to win through no fault of your own.

As much as I can’t stand Nico I thought his interview on BBC was quite nice, he was very charitable towards LH and admitted he had a huge amount of luck come his way to win the race.

A decent fitted proper Flexifit hat should look ok. The one Wiliam Hague is wearing is one of those slightly too small one size fits all cheap ones, always looks naff.

39 and still wear one but I hate the new flat peak designs, can’t seem to get the proper ones.
I do have an issue with a massive head, my current favourite had to be imported from Sweden as I couldn’t find any other XXL Flexifit hats (It’s a Fox Racing one).