BTW mortgages are the most efficent way of borrowing money… you can get a mortgage at 2.5% at the moment… not really sure how you can borrow money cheaper ??

Yes I take your point. If you want to borrow a large amount of money over 25 years then a mortgage is the best way. My general question was whether it’s better to have a higher mortgage value and keep investments or to reduce the mortgage value since it is expensive, even if efficient.

“My thought is yes since mortgages are not a very efficient way to borrow money”

Genuine question, why’s that ?

My understanding is that as a very general rule if you borrow a pound you end up paying back two.

My drilling advice would be to drill at a slight downwards angle (assuming you start at the inside) so that any rain, moisture, dampness drains outwards and not into your kitchen.

Nice, I wouldn’t have thought of that. Cheers!

” Tescos’ “

*ouch*

I was disappointed to see this go, I can’t see the reason to just turn it off.

I liked having weather, google reader and live market / gold prices on my homepage. I can’t do that with their suggested alternatives :-(

The cadence in the sufferfest videos are only a guide, some people are more suited to spinning faster than others, I have big feet and don’t have skinny cyclists legs, there is a lot of waisted energy going into spinning fast for me. I do fast spinning segments to train my legs to be prepaired to spin fast, but its not a low heart rate segment.

I think that’s the key, I find it hard to sit and spin at 110rpm unless it’s an all out, high effort segment.

Good timing on this question, I was searching the forum yesterday for the same question…

Doing the sufferfest vids sometimes it says something like:

Cadence 110rpm
Effort 4/10

And I can’t do it! It takes so much effort on a turbo to get up to 110rpm, even in a low gear that I’m working at more than 4/10!

Is this a feature of turbos really that they are much higher resistance? I really can’t spin at 100rpm for long on my turbo :-(

[/url] _DSC7284[/url] by blacklab62012[/url], on Flickr

[/url] _DSC7231[/url] by blacklab62012[/url], on Flickr

[/url] _DSC7237[/url] by blacklab62012[/url], on Flickr

From a Guinness World Record Quadtrac occasion! http://www.quadtracrecord.co.uk/

MrTucker,
Here’s a good twazzock pedestrian who was doing his best to get run down:
pillock

Odd video. Could have been someone in need of help?

Stop being such a pussy. Go and get your money back.

I was told they were late leaving as there was a problem with Police radios. I reckon 15 mins.

Going past the end of my road. I was a marshall in Priory Park trying to keep the crowds out of the Sky enclave. Enjoyed it. Few pics

Was going to say “For attention of course” but MrSmith got there before me.

EDIT: (not that pleasant to watch BTW)

I quite enjoyed the humans getting smashed.

Have a 12 plate Titanium X 2.0 TDCI (140 I think). It’s a nice car to drive, gearbox is smooth and steering is precise. Disappointed with the extras it comes with* (no sat nav, no auto-stop/start, no auto-park) but other than that it’s excellent.

* I only say that because the car before was a Focus Titanium X and it had all the above and more, so I presumed a Titanium X Mondeo would be specced similarly.

I like his commentary, think he does a good job. A good source of info. and facts aimed at a level for most people who aren’t as into bikes as people on here.

The battery is right under the BB, you can just see it in the 3rd pic. They reckon the battery is good for 6 months worth (of my level of riding). If you’re doing the Tour it’d probably be worth taking the charger with you.

The box on the nearside chainstay is a cadence sensor for my Garmin.

Ha Ha very good! Thats was a joke, right?

It was! 99% anyway ;-)

Also – it comes with a week-long lift pass for Alpe d’Huez (summer or winter). Nice.

looks very nice, what kind of mileage/riding are you doing on it?

(and I know the answer is ‘road riding’ but please tell me you didn’t buy it just for your commute).

Maybe 75-80 miles a week road riding if I’m lucky. Not commute. If I can get out three times a week for a couple of hours a time that’s good. The idea is to get out riding more often without the faff of mountain biking – time pressures due to young child etc. Wondering about entering Tour de France / Olympics as I’ve been watching them and they seem quite easy.

CLEARLY… I need to sort my lousy garden :-)

Yeah I’m pretty tall, 6’3″ so it’s a 62cm Cube sizing, which is a 60cm on normal sizing I think.

It was ‘relatively’ cheap. £1999, that’s a team carbon frame, DT Swiss wheels and Ultegra Di2. I was looking to get a road bike for £1500ish max but this tempted me. Big names like Trek/Specialized don’t get anywhere near this for the money as far as I can see. I’m very happy with it anyway.

Details[/url]

Interesting. They’ve just appeared on the Ford management car scheme. I’ve had the Focus a few times but boot is quite small so am on a Mondeo now. Prefer the Focus as Mondeo, although it drives beautifully, is a bit dated inside.

An estate ST would be ideal.

*tumbleweed*

In exactly the same situation myself.

I’m thinking I might go for one of these:

http://www.cyclesurgery.com/wilier-izoard-xp-ultegra-2012/wilier/bikes-components-bikewear/fcp-product/40299

Seems to get very good reviews. I don’t really know much about road bikes though, this would seem to be a good one for medium length to all-day rides. The stuff that reviewers didn’t like (tyres) can easily be changed.

Also thinking the Focus Izalco Pro 3.0 that won bike of the year 2012 but it seems a bit more difficult to try one out.

Great article, thanks.

Yeah, ask him for some pics of the niece.

I did not enjoy listening or looking at that.

What are some good bars for these widths then?

I see Easton Havens at 711mm, they look good.
Who makes 725 – 750ish size ones?

Halfords tell you – you can just type your reg. number into their site and it tells you exactly what you need.

Here

Protip: I’ve used that to look up vehicle details in order to report a van to the council for littering :-)

I move roof kits between different cars – currently a Focus and a C-Max. Unfortunately I have doubled up on everything due to laziness. Both those cars have fixing points inside the door frame.

I once let go a real beauty in Edinburgh airport. The airport was pretty quiet and the only people in earshot were a mother and her son who must have been 7 or 8 years old. The lad and myself were trying to suppress laughter but I could tell the mother was not impressed. The look I got when I turned back to my wife could have cut steel. I thought I was going to get a smacked bottom. I was 30 years old at the time.

Hahaha. On a conf. call trying not to laugh…

Duty-wise my Focus 1.6 TDCI is £0 per year, so still can’t see a lot of reason to try this 1.0l version if the mpg is that much worse.

Interesting about the MPG data. I was expecting much higher numbers than that. They do point out that 40mpg petrol is cheaper than 40mpg diesel but even so, I thought high 50s.

My gf works is in management at Ford so we both get cars which we have to change every 3 months / 3000 miles. I currently have 1.6 Focus TDCI which is nice and has averaged 51mpg since I’ve had it. I was planning on getting this 1.0 next time. Not sure I’ll bother now.

Our labrador must have caught a dozen rabbits. Probably half ended up being killed, half were not dead and I had to ‘dispatch’.

The best one was when he brought us a pheasant. We took that home and ate it. YUMMY. Even gave Max some.

Google clarified their position to deal with this sensationalistic reporting:

Updated at 8 p.m. to clarify that the first sentence of the Google terms states: “You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.” For more on this topic, See Rafe Needlemen’s FAQ.

Some seriously misleading reporting from cnet trying to make a story out of nothing.

More here: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/sr173/who_owns_your_files_on_google_drive_dropbox_and/

“What you’ll find is…”

I had one with the keyboard and fell asleep in the bath with it too many times and now have the touch one. Both are excellent but I never used the keyboard on the old one, so wouldn’t bother with it.

Seedless raisins. I have a pot by my desk that I snack on. £2.50 for a big bag from a supermarket, lasts me a couple of months.

No I appreciate your help anyway, it’s all a bit confusing. I think I’m right in saying instead of paying 32.5% income tax if I put it in pension no income tax is due.

Tax is due on dividends:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/Taxes/TaxOnSavingsAndInvestments/DG_4016453

To be clear, I have a job so pay tax on dividends at 32.5%

I did this one day last summer. Actually it’s a pretty boring line I suppose…