There were a few cracking around the BB (might have been R3s) but they have a very good lifetime warranty and all cracked frames were replaced, even though Cervelo found them to be cosmetic rather than structural.

New Madone 7-series missing from your list, closest to a ‘superbike’ from a mainstream manufacturer I’d say! Similar weight to yours.

You could add the Evo to the list as well njee, but I don’t seem to get excited by bikes from Trek or Cannondale (edit: or Scott). The decision to go for the SL4 was a head-over-heart decision and I suspect I would probably have regretted it.

This won’t be getting any winter miles in, I have a Dolan with full muddies for that! 🙂

I’ve got the “Ford Mondeo” you mentioned

Oops! I absolutely love the Spesh – to my mind there are 4 or 5 “top” frames available, the SL4, C59, R5, Dogma and possibly the BMC if you’re not in the slightest bit concerned with aesthetics. 😉

Most of those are around the £3.5k mark, but the Spesh looked better value which was why I was planning on buying one. But then this half price deal came along and meant I could get the dream bike for less than the Spesh.

It’s that classic silhouette that does it for me, skinny seat stays and straight tubes.

However, I don’t anticipate it being as comfortable as the SL4…

Saddle is a Prologo Evo Nack with carbon rails… Hoover is a Hoover, I’ve no idea whether it’s posh or not, it’s used exclusively by the staff. 😉

sefton – Member

oh you bastard! hope you paid half price???

Sure did. I was about to click “buy” on a Spesh Tarmac SL4, but I wasn’t getting excited about it – a bit Ford Mondeo for my taste, but I do think it’s an amazing frame. But then I saw this at half price and, seeing as the R5 is my dream bike, I got my name down straight away.

Got it from Wheelbase at Stavely.

And no, not antigravity forks – there’s a rubber seal in the headset top cup that grips the steerer very tight…

Got to do the collar and cuff thing if it has 3T forks, Shimano RS80 C24’s are light and great value? The money saved on those put towards 3T bars and stem and sleep easy knowing everything matches?

If the collar and cuffs are important, then it HAS to be the DA C24/35s so the hubs match the groupset! Being fussy just cost me another 300 quid!

Might go the handbuilt wheel route on reliable hubs instead.

Those Wheelsmith handbuilts with CX-Ray spokes are very well reviewed, but I want something a bit blingy for this… I’m a brand snob when it comes to roadbikes!! 😳

Zipp 404s.

I had considered 303s but they’re silly money… And I wouldn’t really want to use something that deep every weekend round the Pennines!

And I believe the Queen uses Enve – she’s a Chris King fan 😉

What about Fulcrum Racing 3s? From what I can gather they get great reviews for being light and strong and good value.

I was talking to the mechanic at Merlin, he said Fulcrum wheels come back for warranty repairs/replacements than any other wheel!

I like the reliability of Shimano and the 3-year warranty and crash replacement of Mavic… What to do????

You can’t have just picked it up.. It is dark outside in the picture.

The “outside” you can see is actually the dining room. The pic was taken in my conservatory which admittedly, could do with more cleaning and less bike building!

3T carbon bars are around the 200 quid mark, and I fail to see how they’re 2.5-3 times better than the Eastons…

I have a TCR C3 (carbon)… Lovely bike, great handling in a short-wheel-base-snappy-handling sort of way. Great bikes.

To all those that have issues with Sealskins and the liner coming out, I contacted their customer service about this as the gloves were next to useless. They asked me to send them back and replaced them with a pair that have the liner secured perfectly in each finger.

They said it was a problem with a batch but they’d addressed it. They’re amazing gloves, anything much more than freezing and they’re a bit too warm.

Went to a Rotary Charter Night last night, some silly woman president from a guest club was making a speech about recruiting. She closed with:

“It just goes to show, you never know where your next member is coming from”

Cue stifled giggles from 200 blokes!

This thread needs a Dolan…

Shimano 600 Ultegra group (from 1992 and still working perfectly) Open Pro rims and SKS Chromoplastic mudguards… A proper winter bike 🙂

tracknicko – Member

size eight for a girl is a waist size of what 26 maybe 28 inch??? and then her rib cage is 10 inches bigger???

Christ, she was fit as a butcher’s dog, skinny with big norks… I’ll take a tape measure next time 🙄

I’m usually quite good at guessing. They were mouth-wateringly ample, bigger and perkier than my size 8 ex’s 36cs…

Happy days! Has she got a fit straight sister?

Rode Gizzy on Tuesday night, it’s our default night ride in wet weather as it drains so well.

Some bits are fairly cut up – almost like riding off road and you’ll probably have to wash your bike and clothes afterwards.

I hear the Velodrome at Manchester is nice and dry at the moment. 😉

I always leave a £20 note in the inside pocket of my black suit to cheer me up at funerals…

I’ve made a gold tracksuit out of a space blanket for mine… Now then, now then.

OMG, I feel physically sick after watching the Camino Del Rey video… Why would anyone put themselves through that???

emsz – Member

Shibboleth, Cushion girl fancies you.

Well, she’s only human 😉

Seriously, not even a cad like me would have a crack at that one: best friend and work colleague of the girl I’m dating?? Not likely to be any happy endings there!

How was the fish n chips Emsz?

What??? And risk this???

A mental picture will have to do ononeorange: 26 year old South African, blonde, 5’9″, size 8, 36d, eyes like Charlize Theron, arse like Kylie in the good ol days… :p

I can honestly say that along with Beyoncé, Shirtswinger is the most named woman when women talk about who they’d be prepared to have a dabble with…

I don’t dish out points like that willy nilly… I’m at a loss as to how anyone could find fault with the Shirtswinger, apart from that silly little appendage Hamilton…

Nicole Shirtswinger isn’t that attractive??? WHAAAT??????

She’s as close to perfection as I’ve ever seen! She’s a 12!

She just kinda flung it against me and sat down… Maybe a bit flirty, maybe just friendly and ‘comfortable’. Gave me a great view down her amazing cleavage though, and her hair smelled intoxicating… 😉

She’s a 9.5.

Is that normal? I’m talking utter hatred, like totally venomous…

And it’s kind of started snowballing, we went out with some of her friends on Saturday – one of them is particularly hot. When we got home, I sat on the sofa and the hotty put a cushion against me and plonked herself down. Very innocent.

The following day, my ‘date’ told me she’d had nightmares about me having an affair with the hot friend…

Lots of little things… Like I said, alarm bells…

I wouldn’t mind a threesome though! 😀

Jambalaya, that sounds similar – I didn’t suffer as badly as a youngster, although it’s always been a problem.

Things like North Shore are a problem for me, The Fear seems to pull me towards the edge!

Please do elaborate . Please

Just some bunny-boilerish characteristics, constantly seeking commitment not consistent with only having known a person 3 or 4 weeks.

Plus, and I’ve no idea how this is going to sound, but she seems to have developed a really powerful hatred for Nicole Shirtswinger after I made a comment about her undeniable charms on Facebook.

I’ve pointed out that it would be perfectly normal and acceptable for a woman in a relationship to recognise attractiveness in other men, but this concept seems alien to her. Could be a sticking point.

Stat demands are a cheap and easy frightener – actually instigating bankruptcy proceedings are long winded and costly.

If they’re going to accept installments, they have no earthly reason not to compound it, but if they’ve agreed to installments and you’ve started paying, then I believe the demand will be compounded by default.

They’ll probably avoid putting anything writing as the last thing they want is to put your mind at rest.

So that’s 3 months of mails and texts, weird meandering thoughts, updates on work, general banter and some rather deep thought provoking stuff too, ohhh and Poems, lots and lots of Poems to each other.
I knew after the 2nd email…

I had a relationship like that. And then she moved back to the area and I realised she was the most annoying person I’ve ever met!

Have you seen her monkey yet?

+1

A badly tended garden is a deal breaker…

Yep, sounds like the inertia mechanism on SM is Mullard 😉

I’m on about wk 4, so maybe 10 dates… I know she’s not. 🙁

It took til about a week ago before she started coming out with some pretty worrying stuff, alarm bells have started ringing.

Expendable.

deadlydarcy – Member

Looks like davidjones15 is installing something onto a window up there. Blinds? Shutters?

No, I think he’s just mincing up and down the Jungermanns singing Right Said Fred whilst shaking his tail feathers at some bloke inside with a satsuma gaffer taped in his mouth and a belt round his neck. Fact.

Thanks for all the advice so far, that video made me sweat… Properly, like wringing sweaty palms, pins and needles in my fingers… Terrifying!

The roof of the house is a bit complicated with lots of dormers and flat sections, so lots of gutters. And it’s surrounded by mature beech and sycamore trees, so at this time of year, they really need doing once a week, so scaffolding would be impractical.

There’s a route up where I can brace the foot of the ladders against a garage wall – so no chance of slippage, and from a spacial point of view, climbing up between 2 buildings will probably help.

Guess I’m just gonna have to give it a go and MTFU. I like the climbing wall idea though, so I’m going to explore that. It’s really something I would like to control, not just for clearing gutters!

That’s probably not a bad idea Ewan… There’s a leisure centre nearby that has a wall…

Last year, my builder left a scaffold up at the back of my work premises so I could repoint the stonework. It’s 4 stories high and on a hill so drops away a few hundred feet at the back.

I was fine scrambling up the inside of one of the scaffolding towers, but couldn’t use the ladder he’d left me even though the ladder was far quicker, easier and probably safer!

It’s weird.