I’d happily have green skin if I could have that sweet car!

I’ve never found the M25 to be that bad. Never been on it at usual commuter rush hour to be fair, but been on at all other times. Can be busy but not normally slow. Should be ok at 9-10pm I reckon.

You’re all lucky. I get to spend Christmas with Peterpoddy 😉 😉 😉

EDIT I don’t know why people visit family or allow family to visit that they don’t like. Why bother? I just can’t see the benefit in it. If they can’t behave like normal human beings towards their own family then i wouldn’t want to spend time with them. Especially at Christmas, which I love and want to be special for me and my wife. Visit another time for a shorter period or when the weather is nice so you can get away if you want to.

I think I’ve tried all the routes, going around Manchester and down the M6, down the M1 and the M42/M40 (IIRC) route. All pretty much the same, but the M1 route is the shortest (210 miles) by 20 miles.

Generally I’d travel during the day or late at night but I know traffic can be very different around Xmas so was wondering if it would be more busy/less busy than usual.

Hoping the weather will hold to make the journey nicer, but also to reduce the chances of accidents holding things up.

Yes, I understand I can get live traffic updates…. 🙄

I am travelling at 6pm.

There was a guy on the radio earlier said it’s top to to toe in tailbacks.

http://sniffpetrol.com/2002/12/25/festive-fears-for-rea-2/#.VJlfJAgEM 🙂

Junkyard – you were being judgemental by assuming hora was being judgemental. He was just stating a fact.

When I rode at Moab I would have killed for one of those. It was so hot I had to find a rock to get some shade – I was feeling ill it was so dry and hot.

Not had that in Yorkshire funnily enough.

Just read the BBC report – 6 dead. Awful awful awful.
Hope people worrying about loved ones get good news but my heart goes out to the families affected. Christmas will never be the same for them.

A company I deal with had the owner driver of the HGV lorry they have banned for 29 years for repeated defects in his truck (no accident had occurred). Sounds like illness in this case but now I know why the penalties can be so severe for HGV’s as the consequences when something goes wrong are multiplied so much.

Oh nearly forgot – I swapped out a pair of 1600g Planet X wheels for the Ultegra open pro combo and didn’t notice any difference in weight. Yes they are heavier on the scales but the open pro rims are probably a lot lighter than the minimally spoked wheels rims so they probably feel the same. The hubs are heavier but you don’t notice the rotating weight of the hubs as its in the centre of the wheel.

4 spokes hardly make any difference to weight but a lot of difference to strength. Don’t worry about it.

I bought a friend some of the 105/Open pro wheels from Rose and they are a bargain and very well built. So much so I bought an Ultegra/Open pro wheel set from them too and I’ve been very very chuffed with them.

Perfect for lightly loaded touring I’d say.

I got some brown Spesh Enduro XL grips for £7 a pair so I bought 3 pairs, love them!

These ones : http://m.specialized.com/gb/gb/ftb/gripstape/grips/enduro-xl-locking-grips

I got some Specialized thick lock on grips and I love them. Think they are called enduro (ie after the bike they make?) grips.

It is getting daft now…… I think it may go full circle and my 94 kilauea will become the “new” standard again….

I’m afraid to say that I used to sell pressure washers in the big DIY chain I worked in, we stocked several makes over the years i worked there and Bosch ones were the worst by a long way. I love Bosch stuff but someone else makes their pressure washers and I would never buy one now – we got nearly every single one back faulty.

I’d prefer STI shifters
To be fair, it wouldn’t be £899 if it had STIs. I wouldn’t want them on a proper touring bike, either – though if it’s not going to go further than Europe or North America, then I can see the appeal.

I’m planning on putting flat bars and MTB shifters and brakes on it. Maybe get some lighter wheels down the line – I’ve already bought a 36h Goldtec front hub!!

Bruce – weight, really, on a touring bike? Sounds like you need another “type” of bike, audax maybe?
The frame and forks weight is normal for a tourer. The components may be a fair bit heavier than some better stuff (brakes/wheels/chainset/mechs) but it’s super cheap for a very well thought out bike and it’s ready to roll out of the box really.

You could always just get the frameset and build it up with your own gear.

Anyone got a TDF yet?

Unovolo- love that Saracen, job very well done there.

Browsing for 10 mins or so I get the request to share my location with Audi (why, so you can tailgate me nearer home???) about 10 times.

Slackboy. I’ll never ever sell it. I don’t have any sentimental at all apart from that bike. Getting it back after nearly 20 years apart was so special, it’s the best bike I’ve ever ridden. I would be genuinely very upset if I lost it again. Cost me twice as much to restore it as it was worth (about £900) but it was worth it to me.

I know my brother Peterpoddy has been made redundant the last two Christmas’s – not great. Thankfully I’ve been ok in this job but my sister was almost affected and we are both public sector.

I guarantee you that my lounge is smaller than yours and my wife is quite happy with the 5.1 surround system with proper sized speakers and an amp. 😉 IIRC the room size is about 3×4.5m

Those forks nearly killed me. The design was so bad (they were a bad copy of Manitou forks) the steerer pulled out of the crown, which I only noticed after some investigation about why my headset kept coming loose. Only about 10mm of the steerer was left in the crown….. You can see that the forks in the pictures look like they are pointing forwards, rather than parallel with the headtube as they should be – yikes!! Could have been a loss of face moment, in the grimmest sense of the phrase.

Just grow a pair and buy some proper speakers, not pretend ones. 😉

I can’t beleive how utterly gopping every single bike has been on this thread. The only one that comes close is the Ritchey on page 1.

Has no one noticed that all the full suss bikes look exactly the same? Tubes bent in the same places, just different angles and derivations of the same style of computer drawn graphics. Awful. And I include my own full suss in that as well.

No MTB in the last 10 years can ever be described as good looking.

I’ve got more……

1994 Kona Kilauea

Bought in 94, stolen on 96, got it back in 2013. Ground up but and bolt restoration, full custom respray and decals, treated to NOS XT stuff, Flite Ti, NOS skinwalls, Pauls Components levers, NOS Thumbies. Rides beautifully and faster than a lot of modern bikes in the right setting.

Before.

After.

This NOS Tange Prestige Concept decal cost me £15!!!

Oh, and me with the original 1992 bike in 1992. 🙂

1992 GT Tequesta – a replica of my first proper MTB. Bought another from a cash converter, had been sitting out in the rain for weeks and was seriously rusted. (Condition was way worse than the photo shows).

Stripped, removed seized BB and post, polished, hand painted the decals to repair them then sourced all the components I had in 1992.

Result.

I tried night riding and I really didn’t like it. Even with some good lights that I had I couldn’t go as fast as I wanted to

Some people love it but I just can’t seem to enjoy it.

I am the same, I just pack the bike away safely and don’t worry about it. I’ve been riding since 1987 so you’ll always have your ups and downs. I can’t ever imagine having any other hobby than cycling though.

3 are beyond crap, at least in our experience. Naff all reception at our house despite EE having 1-2 bars minimum. Poor reception in most places. Also got quite nasty when I rang up to get my PUK code. I changed my wife’s phone to Virgin and it’s been miles better and cheaper per month.

Pigface – Member
No
Same here……
And I just sent an email to my bosses which showed I recovered £180k for them
I think you work for the same quango as me. I directly saved £910k on a single project this year.
Yep, still not been paid our 1% pay rise cut (for the 5th year running.)
Our Christmas meal is today but it’s £25, a few of us just can’t afford to go.

I know what you mean about the Christmas meal. I seem to recall we used to get something towards it when I joined 6 years ago but we don’t now. I could afford it this year so I went but I wouldn’t blame anyone who didn’t go.
I can’t stand the unions for stopping people getting that 1% for so many months. If they didn’t stick their oar in we’d get it for Xmas.

Still better than working in retail though. I earn 10k more doing what I do now than when I was an Operations Manager for a large DIY chain. 🙂

they’re certainly not part of normal incentive structures in this country anyway.

Problem is that incentives to work hard have reduced or eliminated almost completely over the years. Yes we should just do the job to get the standard wage we are promised but there never seems to be anything above that to show that your efforts, even when they are way above what is expected of you, are actually appreciated.

I haven’t even got the standard 1% cost of living increase which we should have got in June yet….

Pigface – Member
No

Same here…… 😉

And I just sent an email to my bosses which showed I recovered £180k for them.

If bike “journalists” were real jounalists we wouldn’t have 650b right now. Just bowing down to whatever is new and not rocking the boat. 👿

Love that photo, that’s not PGTips he’s drinking, it’s posh tea; there’s a string with a tag dangling over the side of that bucket he’s drinking out of!

To be fair its probably a cafe he’s got it from…… At least he’s left the bag in.

I assume the sheer biblical amount of tea he drinks means he probably won’t say no to any type of tea, ever… 😉

I love the beautiful small stations. Big impressive city ones are always great but the lovingly kept smaller stations always lift the spirits.

I went to Birmingham Moor street once – wow! It’s like walking into a museum – it’s beautiful.

I have a 1980’s Roberts radio which sounds better than any of the wireless music things I’ve heard so far!