Ok – really – folk are getting exasperated and I get fed up with folk ( not you) who are unwilling and unable to understand a lifestyle alien to them so really I won’t answer any more points.

Marketing has minimal effect on me ‘cos 1) I do not buy new goods very often.  and 2) I make decisions based on my own criteria I buy for what that thing is not what it is marketed as.  sometimes these are the same, sometimes it is not.  I do my very best to look behind the marketing and to minimize / mitigate its effects because I do understand much of how it works and many of the tricks used to persuade one to buy that product.

TJ, I think people are getting exasperated because you are saying that you are different to everyone else (and some people are inferring ‘different’ to mean ‘better’, which I do think is implicit in the way you phrase some of your comments, which have a value judgement that your lifestyle choices are better or even morally superior).

Marketing is inevitable when there is mass production, and the only way you could remove yourself from it would be to go somewhere where you grew and hunted all your own food, built your own shelter, and were entirely self sufficient (not even bartering for new knife), either that or travel back in time to before the Industrial Revolution.

To say that marketing (as opposed to advertising or other types of persuasion, which is possibly what the OP really meant) doesn’t work on you, is clearly wrong. In modern society if you have and spend money, then marketing will influence what it is spent on, because marketing will determine what is available.

As to who is right and who is wrong and the extent to which you and your lifestyle are alien to most others, bear in mind that the choices you make are influenced by the effectiveness of marketing on others. You are only able to buy second hand products which meet your requirements, because the marketing of those products was effective in getting the original purchasers to buy them. If everyone bought cheap crappy furniture that fell apart after only a few years, the second hand furniture that you like to buy simply would not exist. Moreover, marketing also helps to drive technological improvement and advancement. Without marketing, your Rohloff would probably not exist.

The suggestion that you are above all this, is a bit like a red rag to a bull for some posters. We are all of us in the gutter (even if some of us are looking at the stars).

There is a gulf of comprehension here because you do not understand my lifestyle or my values

TJ, I get it: you make your purchasing decisions based on price vs. value, and for you value is all about fitness for purpose (not about any associations the brand may have with a particular type of consumer or lifestyle).

However, many marketing departments will similarly target people like you with that perspective. In other words they know that some customers will not be won over by fancy packaging, celebrity endorsements, advertising campaigns etc. – only by the ability of the product to fulfil its function and be good value. So they will design, manufacture and sell such products accordingly.

The fact that you will buy second hand rather than new does not mean that you exist outside that system of manufacturers and consumers. Many products have a second hand market. Indeed, good quality furniture should last more than one lifetime. In contrast very cheap, badly made furniture will probably never last long enough to be capable of being resold. The decisions of one manufacturer to make good quality furniture and another to make rubbish that falls apart, are marketing decisions. By limiting your purchases to second hand, you are just weeding out many poor quality products and improving the ratio of price to value.

I knew the attributes I wanted. shaft drive, upright riding position, ABS.  I went round all the motorcycle shops until I found a bike with those attributes and bought it.  the only marketing involvement is that there was a shop ( unless you consider the engineering attributes to be marketing)  what badge was on the tank was irrelevant to me.

BMW’s decision to design, manufacture and sell that bike (with those attributes you wanted), was a marketing decision. They knew that there were a lot of potential customers (of whom you proved yourself to be one) for a bike with those attributes, and they calculated that such a bike would be profitable for them.

It’s fair enough to say that the badge was irrelevant to you, but don’t be dismissive of others buying based on the badge. The BMW brand (=badge) has a reputation, which is something which it has taken years to build up, and which they will be at pains to maintain and develop. It’s quite reasonable for some people to use the brand, or its reputation, as a basis for making a decision about which maker or model to purchase. In a sense, the badge is a short cut for the customer to make a decision. They, like you, do not have the time, money and information to understand everything good and bad about the product (unless you are an automotive expert with several degrees and access to workshops to dismantle bikes and test and compare them). So rather than angonise over it, they decide to get a BMW. If they are happy with it, who’s to say their decision making process was any worse than yours?

I bought it because it fitted my needs / criteria.

How did you establish that it had the attributes that fitted your needs/criteria?

What will constitute a nice light touring bike for her will probably necessitate a choice of geometry and frame tubes chosen specifically for someone of her size and corresponding (likely) low relative weight.

Nice light touring bikes are a fairly niche market even in common sizes, unless you widen the choice to include even lighter racier options or (potentially less relaxed) gravel bikes.

For someone of 5″, I think the best answer is the obvious traditional one: go to a custom steel framebuilder with a reputation for building that type of bike for small women. My first choice would be Dave Yates.

My first good quality bike had a 3 point fixing rear rack, and it was absolutely awful if used with loaded panniers. The rack would invariably start to sway slightly from side to side and the swaying was amplified by the action of pedalling. Partly this was due to the lack of triangular struts at the rear of the rack, but the single fixing at the brake calliper was a major factor.

Pretty much all the racks available nowadays are vastly superior, but I would still try and avoid using a 3 point fixing if I planned to carry heavy loads.

With regard to the risk of the seatstaty fixings of a 4 point rack fouling the brake calliper arms, Tubus struts are designed to be bent. Normally this would mean bending them down from the rack towards the seatstay, and possibly bending them inwards to bolt them to the inside face of a seatstay boss (instead of the outside face). However, you could probably just as easily bend them up towards the saddle, and similarly bend them outwards  (p-clips can be rotated 180 degrees to put the clip in line with either the inside or the outside of the seatstay).

Tubus also publish the dimensions of their racks in pdf format on their website, so you could get a good idea of whether horizontal unbent struts would be likely to foul the brake calliper arms and therefore need to be bent out of the way.

Lastly, the straddle cable in the photograph looks far too high. Lowering it will improve the mechanical advantage of the brake.

wearing cycle jersey for more than one day at a time, then possibly have to get on a plane in it to

Merino might not smell after more than a day of cycling without being washed, but what about you? Assuming you are going to have access to at least some form of facilities for cleaning yourself – whether it’s a shower, a river or just a bucket of water – why can’t you at least rinse your top at the same time? That will get rid of most of the dirt and sweat. In that scenario, something quick drying would be ideal, e.g. polyester or possibly fine gauge merino.

Depending upon the weather and conditions, it might make sense for that garment to be your baselayer, and have a short sleeve cycling jersey (merino or synthetic) that you can wear on top of it. I would get a Coolmax or similar t-shirt (or possibly a fine gauge merino equivalent), since a t-shirt will be more versatile on its own as casual wear, rather than a dedicated cycling baselayer.

I’m not sure this really has a big bearing on the matter.

I agree that the presence or absence of a (proper) sign should not on its own make the difference between the OP being considered 100% at fault or the farmer being 100% liable, but it is a factor. We cannot say for certain that the OP would definitely have slowed down sufficiently to avoid the accident if he had seen a proper warning sign, but the farmer had a legal duty (under civil and possibly criminal law as well) to provide that warning.

If a policeman waved you to slow down would you ignore him because he didn’t have a reflective sign?

That’s not really a valid analogy. If a policeman was on the road at night waving a car to slow down, he would be wearing hi-viz and using a torch, and the first thing he would do is get whatever flashing/warning signs he had with him in/on the car out/switched on.

Did he? We know that’s a fact?

See my first post. The farmer is going to find it extremely difficult to persuade a court otherwise: the inadequate sign is compelling evidence that he caused it and that he was also aware of it and the fact that it was a hazard.

where did the farmer admit liability?

No one has said he did, merely that some of the usual/likely defences would be difficult to get a court to accept, because of the existence of the inadequate sign.

(I’m guessing that slowster doesn’t live in the sticks)

You guess wrong. Your comment smacks of ‘”townies not understanding country ways” – the Highways Act and civil and criminal laws of the UK apply just as much in the countryside as the city.

The only person whose opinion would ultimately matter is that of the magistrate/judge if it ever went to court (or of the claims staff of the OP’s and the farmer’s insurers, if they settle it without going to court).

IANAL, but I suspect there is a good chance that if the OP or his insurer succeeded in a claim against the farmer, some degree of contributory negligence would be considered to apply. If so the OP would recover a percentage of his excess and hire car costs etc., but not all, and he would still lose his no claims discount.

Personally, given the circumstances described, I don’t think the farmer (or rather his insurers) should get off scot free if the farmer is not bothering to make a reasonable effort to keep the road clear of mud and is too lazy/tight fisted to buy a proper reflective warning sign.

People have commented on the potential for unpredictable hazards like deer etc., and the need to drive accordingly, but the other side of the coin in this case is that the farmer knowingly created the hazard and did not do enough to try to prevent it causing an accident.

I have a Shimano XT 3w dynamo hub, bought from Rose bikes. I got it because it was half the price of the rest and only weighed a tiny bit more.

Malvern Rider, in case you were not already aware, they sell both 3W and 1.5W versions (and 2.4W of other Shimano hubs like Inter). Make sure you get the 3W, unless you are happy to be restricted in your choice of light and its output.

If my memory serves, the Sugino only goes down to a 30t inner ring, which to me seems not worth the price of the chainset, given that the OP can fit a 33t inner if he already has a 110 BCD chainset.

It may not be as pretty or as nice as something like the Middleburn Incy chainset, but I would get the Spa square taper chainset here, possibly with one of the Stronglight steel inner rings which Spa also sell and which are available with as few as 24t.

But he did not notice the mud the night before….ergo was it there ?

Read my post. He only needs to prove that on a balance of probabilities there was mud on the road.

If it wasn’t there did it cause the spin ?

If it wasn’t there, I think we can safely say it did not cause the spin.

I agree with many of the comments that I shouldn’t try to blame others- I fully accept that the crash was my fault. As others had mentioned the road condition to me I thought I would do more research, not necessarily to sue the farmer etc. I’m aware in other countries there are very strict rules on this kind of thing, but none in the UK that I knew of.

Let your insurers or the courts be the judge of whether or not it was your fault or not. Just give your insurers the evidence and see what they say (maybe even give the claims handler a call and talk to him/her, although some of them will be just junior paper pushers and you ideally want the opinion of the senior claims handler to whom they will refer the case to decide whether to pursue a recovery). One possibility is that the case might be settled by the two insurance companies or by a court based on split liability, i.e. contributory negligence.

As for the idea that too often people are seeking to blame others and get compensation, it is important to remember that the civil legal system serves a vital function in preventing accidents, injuries and deaths as a result of negligence. If there were no potential threat of being sued, very many people and businesses would take that as carte blanche to take excessive risks with other people’s lives and property. Knowing that we might be prosecuted and fined, or that our insurance premium might go up, if we are careless, encourages us to be careful and take proper precautions.

In your case OP it was thankfully only your car that was damaged. If the farmer were to lose a court case, that would encourage him and other farmers to be more careful about mud clearance in future. That extra care might be the difference between somone else living or dying in a similar accident. (That sounds like hyperbole, but there are statistics in the work related safety industry for the ratio of minor accidents:major accident:fatalities, and being pro-active to minimise the numbers of near misses and minor accidents helps to prevent the major accidents and fatalities.)

PS If you do decide to pursue this, I suggest you ask the mods to delete your statement ” I fully accept that the crash was my fault.” and my quote of it, since it might be used against you in the same way that drivers are told by their insurers never to admit liability, because (as in your case), the driver is not the best judge of that.

So you didn’t notice any mud that night but did the next day, how are you going to prove the mud didn’t appear in that time frame?

As I said, a court would decide the case on the balance of probabilities. If the OP has photographs showing that the road is covered in mud throughout the course of the next two weeks, the farmer is going to struggle to convince the court that on the particular night the OP crashed there was no mud and that the mud was only deposited on the road the very next day.

Again, nealglover’s link contains advice to farmers not only to use warning signs and clear the mud, but also to keep records of doing so, both as evidence of when the road was clear of mud, and also as evidence of taking reasonable precautions (so there may have been mud on the road at the time of an accident, but if the farmer can show that he cleared the mud every alternate day, he might be deemed to have taken enough action to protect himself against a claim).

Records can be falsified, but that is potentially dangerous: the moment he is shown to have provided false evidence, he is virtually guaranteed to lose the civil case. Moreover, given that the farmer’s insurance company would pay the liability claim, it’s not worth the risk of lying in court and providing false evidence.

More so if there was indeed mud on the road can you catagorically say the mud made you spin.

It doesn’t need to be said categorically that mud caused the loss of grip and the accident, it only needs to be accepted by the court that on a balance of probabilities it did, i.e. it was more likely than not that mud caused it.

OP and shermer75, I suggest you have a look at Peter White’s comparison of various dynamo front light beams here

Where does this [permanent] sign leave the council then?…

What does a sign mean? Councils put chevron signs on sharp corners to warn drivers – when drivers then crash on said corner does that mean they can still sue the council?

Read the link posted by nealglover. At the end of the day it’s all about what is reasonable and proportionate (especially in terms of cost, time, effort and difficulty balanced against the nature of the risk, both in terms of likelihood of an accident occurring as a result and in terms of the potential severity, e.g. more effort needed if the likelihood is high or someone might be seriously injured or killed, and much more effort needed if both high likelihood and high severity).

It’s probably neither reasonable nor proportionate to expect a farmer to hose down the road every time he crosses it with his muddy tractor, but as the link suggests, it probably is reasonable to do it at the end of a working day if there is significant mud on the road and not leave it overnight through the hours of darkness.

Warning signs have their place, but they are not something that can be used instead of taking proper precautions, rather they should be part of a package of preventative measures.

As for the defences suggested by poly above, there is no guarantee of success when pursuing any legal claim, but they are not defences I think any solicitor would like to rely on. Claiming that “It would have been dangerous for the farmer to clear the mud immediately because people drive at silly speeds in the dark there!” would probably severely harm the farmer’s case: if he knew that cars used the road at speeds around the NSL, then there is even more responsibility on him to ensure the mud is removed and a proper warning sign in place. Bottom line – if you create the risk (mud on the road), you must do something about it. Arguing that – having created it – it’s too dangerous to fix, simply invites the judgement that you should not have created it in the first place.  The solution in that scenario would be for the farmer to put up signs and cone off half the road while cleaning it. Indeed, if it’s on a busy road with a bend, he might even need to buy/hire a set of temporary traffic lights to control the traffic while doing the cleaning, just as a roadworks contractor would do.

Having a homemade sign is not good enough as it’s not visible enough. Almost certainly should’ve been reflective also. However it does prove the farmer’s liability as he’s aware there’s an issue, but can’t be bothered with his legal obligation to either clean it up or make people aware. Pretty cut and dried IMO

I don’t think it’s anything like cut and dried, but I do think that the sign is indeed something which could make all the difference, and which the farmer may well regret putting up.

The fact that there is/was a sign shows that the farmer was aware of the mud, that it probably was something which they had caused, that it probably wasn’t a random isolated and unpredictable occurrence that mud from the tractor and its tyres was ending up on the road, and that they were aware it was a significant road hazard on a bend where it would be likely to cause a car to lose grip.

So the sign will make it very difficult to rely on defences such as:

– not my mud, someone else did it (Bart Simpson defence)

– I didn’t know it was there

– it’s never happened before

– it wasn’t reasonably foreseeable that it could cause an accident.

For a civil claim for negligence like this, the case is decided upon a ‘balance of probabilities’ (not beyond reasonable doubt as in a criminal case), so you only need to prove the farmer was probably responsible (i.e. >50% likelihood), and the sign probably does that for you.

A defence that they absolved themselves by putting up the warning sign will probably fail. As noted, the homemade sign you describe is almost certainly not adequately visible, especially at night when you were driving on the road. (Edit to add – As the link posted by nealglover indicates, the farmer should “use ‘Slippery Road’ signs with a ‘Mud on Road’ sub plate to alert other road users” – a non-reflective homemade sign just is not sufficient).

If you want your insurance company to decide that it’s worth their while attempting to make a recovery, you need to make it as easy as possible for them and give them as much ammunition as you can.

So, if you have not already done so, take photographs of the sign and the general location. In fact take them on a number of days over a week or two to check/prove that the sign is just being left there (e.g. rather than any attempt made to clean the road instead). Take some photographs of the sign at night lit by the headlights of a passing car. Make sure the photographs have time and date stamps.

If your insurers advise that they cannot be bothered to try, there is nothing stopping you from making a civil claim yourself for your excess and any uninsured losses (reasonable car hire usage etc.), but if you do so you will need to tell your insurers, because they will want you to include the amount of their claim payment to you (because only one legal action can made for such a claim, so both your and your insurer’s losses need to be claimed for together). That might matter because the total amount might then conceivably exceed the small claims court limit, whatever that currently is.

Normal people don’t throw a strop when asked to make a very small amount of effort to host their mother.

The OP has not thrown a strop. In response to the mother’s request to visit midweek, they simply asked her to come down at a weekend instead, and she came back to them and agreed to it and even suggested a weekend that suited her. Only afterwards for no reason did the mother change her mind and start with the guilt tripping. Reading the OP’s posts, he is simply venting his exasperation on this forum at why the mother behaves like this. Nor has this wife thrown a strop, she was instead “upset” by what her mother said and the by the mother’s crying in two separate conversations. The only person who has thrown a strop is the mother.

a very small amount of effort to host their mother

The OP has said “she expects to be taken care of when she’s here and doesn’t help out with anything”, so ‘it’s not a ‘very small amount of effort’, especially after a hard stressfull day at work each day. The OP and his wife are introverts, for whom socialising is itself potentially stressfull and tiring.

OP, many of the posters on this thread criticising you will never have had to deal with parents and parents in-law like your mother in-law, and what you and your wife experience is so alien to them that they are only able to see the situation through the prism of their own relationships and experiences and how they themselves would respond (which might not be appropriate or effective, e.g. the suggestion that you get a grip and just “tell the woman to get off her arse and help” might just work, but I suspect it might be more likely to cause her to behave even worse). As I said, I think it might help you and your wife to think of her mother as if she were a child when she behaves badly: don’t react to it or get drawn into heated emotions, just be very firm and clear about what is going/not going to happen. That will be much more difficult for your wife: it’s extremely hard to stand up to a parent like that, especially one that knows which buttons to push in the child that they have raised and conditioned. The most important thing you can do is support your wife, but if that’s not enough for her and she is unhappy about her relationship with her mother to a much larger extent than just this one incident has caused, then she might want to consider some form of professional counselling to help her better come to terms with the relationship with her mother.

the OP gives his opinion that the visit is inconvenient, but offers very little to support that opinion, other than that he cannot be arsed.

Rubbish, the OP has given quite a bit of information to explain his and his wife’s desire to host her mother at the weekend, as the quotes below show.

“We’ve both got fairly stressful jobs and are introverts, so after a day of dealing with people at work we like to be able to relax at home.”

“doesn’t help out when she comes to visit”

“she’s guilt-tripping my wife”

“Wife is understandably upset about this.”

What appears very telling, reading between the lines, is that the OP and his wife are in agreement about this and feel the same way. Unless the OP is being completely misleading and deceiving in his posts, this is not a situation where the wife wants her mother to come and it’s just the husband who is trying to force his wife to go along with what he wants and say no to her mother. They both feel like that. It’s the wife who is on the receiving end of the tears and guilt tripping, and who is being upset by her own mother’s actions. His wife is not being upset by the OP’s reluctance to host the mother mid-week.

Normal, decent, emotionally mature, reasonable people don’t throw a strop when asked to visit a few days later at the weekend instead of mid-week.

“It’s never been a problem before to come at the weekend.”

“After we said it initially she came back and said they’d both come down on a weekend 2 weeks after the date she suggested.”

“she just hates not getting her own way”

“she’s very used to getting her own way and usually has a strop until she does”

“she’s unbearably (and I mean unbearably) smug when people do what she wants them to if they’ve intially been resistant”

The above comments are also telling. When she was told it was inconvenient and asked to pick a weekend, she was happy to go along with that. So even though she had already agreed to the weekend option, she has now changed her mind for no apparent good reason, and decided that this is a battle of wills she wants to win, which entirely consistant with the pattern of wanting always to get her own way. Some people do that because it gives them a boost to their self-esteem and sense of self-importance, and it sounds like she might be like that. OP you and your wife have my sympathies.

Do you know them both personally?

No I don’t, I’m just going on the OP, rather than deciding who’s right and who’s wrong based on my own personal circumstances, which is what you appear to be doing. For example your comment in response to ebennett stating that a midweek was inconvenient was:

“Saying it doesn’t make it true.”

In threads like this we largely have to accept the OP’s comments at face value (unless it’s clear that there is a lot more to the story that the OP is telling or unless the mother in-law is a STW member and is going to post her side). Your comment was a rather shallow, pointless dig at the OP which added nothing to the thread. In essence, rather than ask the OP for detail/examples of how it was inconvenient, you simply implied that he was wrong/lying about the inconvenience, and that ergo he was wrong and you were right. That’s a pathetic way to post and contributes nothing to the discussion.

and simply served as an opportunity

A lot of posters seem to have ignored the following comments in the OP

“She’s massively taken the huff about this and has been phoning my wife and crying (twice)”

“I should also point out that she expects to be taken care of when she’s here and doesn’t help out with anything.”

I suspect some posters criticising ebennett are ‘projecting’ their own personal circumstances on ebennett’s situation, and conflating their own much nicer in-laws with ebennett’s mother in law. Some parents and parents in-law are such nice, warm, caring, easy going and helpful people that that their sons and daughters and their spouses would be delighted at any opportunity to spend time with them, knowing that hosting the parents will be a pleasure, and that they would not need to go to any great effort for a short notice mid-week vist, because the parents would not expect it, and will themselves help with cooking etc.

ebennett does not have a mother in-law like that. Instead he has one that resorts to manipulative emotional blackmail and expects to be waited on hand and foot (something which ebennett and his wife are willing to tolerate at the weekend when he and his wife are prepared to put in the effort that is evidently expected). This situation is entirely of the mother in-law’s own making.

Just as with children, it’s important not to give in to bad behaviour, like the guilt tripping, since it only encourages people like the mother in-law to repeat that behaviour to get their own way. So if only for that reason I would absolutely stick to my guns in ebennett’s situation, and make it very clear that turning on the waterworks to get what she wants will never work.

does a fixed Alfine or such like exist?

Sturney Archer offer them in 3 speed, but they are expensive, see here

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/sturmey-archer-3spd-hub-gears/

If you’ve got the space and don’t need to sell the bike, I would just put it away for now and enjoy riding your geared bike. Choice is a nice thing to have, and I don’t think it’s unusual to get fed up with riding fixed at times (or riding any other bike that is very niche or limited in some respects). At some point, you may find that you want to start riding it again, whether for regular or occasional commutes, or for leisure rides that don’t go up those hills on your commute.

If however after a year or two you are fairly confident that you will never ride it again, you could always sell it or convert it to a hub gear.

what is the alternative?

From pandabear’s comments, it does not sound like the man has an immediate pressing need to come off the mortgage, i.e. he is not likely to be in a position to look to buy a house/flat himself for at least a little while, and she is able to afford the mortgage payments herself. For the same reason I doubt he has an immediate pressing need for his half of the equity from their house, since it would presumably be used as the deposit to buy a house/flat.

In other words, no matter what his feelings to her are, the decent thing to do would be to give her and the children as much time as possible to come to terms with what is happening.

Looking at this from outside, why should she have the luxury of a part time job and why should he pay for it?  From what you said she couldn’t possibly afford this.

Why should he have the luxury of a well paid full time job with a good pension provision, which is  not compatible with being the primary carer of his own children? Why should she pay for that? Because in going part time she has paid for it in sacrificing earning potential and possibly career advancement, and will probably pay for it for the rest of her entire working life, at the end of which she will have a worse pension. He probably couldn’t possibly afford to pay for professional childcare that would cover his shifts.

pure pure hatred

He has to hate her. That’s the only way he can justify his own behaviour to himself. No one wants to look in the mirror every day and see a complete and utter shit. For most of us that means we behave generally decently. He doesn’t, so he has to twist it round in his mind to make himself the victim.

I’ve just gone on the Child Maintenance Calculator and changed it from me having the kids 1 night a week to 3+. My payments would go from £91/wk to £41/wk.

50/50 split doesn’t stop you paying, as one parent (usually the mother) will still be primary carer.

My mistake – apologies. I guess that would help the resident parent to cover those costs like clothes which are not dependent on the split of care.

In a separation there will be an even split of assets, care, access etc.  Your friend has an entitlement, but the fact they were not yet married may be troublesome (for assets such as pension valuation against property).

An even split of only jointly owned assets. If they are not married, she has no potential claim over his pension and it will have no impact on the split of the jointly owned assets.

Her partner is soon to discover the disappearance of economies of scale when living not in one, but two, households, I’m afraid to say.

I think this factor tends to affect the woman much more than the man, assuming that she is the primary carer of the children and as a result is often the one who sacrifices career prospects and earning potential, e.g. by staying at home or going part time. If an unmarried couple split, for the non-resident parent the financial impact could largely just be paying the legal minimum amount of child maintenance.

If she is forced to sell the house and move into rented accomodation, and is unable to improve her earning prospects because of the past and future demands of being the primary carer, e.g. continuing part time work, the long term impact on her is likely to far greater than on him.

Is she is the main carer then there is zero chance a court will tell her to sell.  But if they have 50.50 care then that could change drastically

Are you are solicitor or legal expert, because I am very doubtful that this is correct? I think whether legal action by him to get a court to order that the house be sold would succeed or fail would be very much dependent on the circumstances.

The fact that she can afford the mortgage on her own may not be relevant/sufficient, if her earnings are not enough for the mortgage company to agree to his name being removed from the mortgage, something that may be likely if she is part time.

If the mortgage company would not agree to his name being removed from the mortgage, then even though he would be making no future contribution to the payments, that would probably prevent him from being able to buy a house or flat of his own, and the amount of the mortgage would impact any affordability checks in the event of any other types of loan/credit checking.

Moreover, if they have is substantial equity in the house, can she afford to buy out his half of that equity?

If she were earning enough to be able to afford a mortgage on her own (even increasing it to raise the money to pay him his half of the equity), then I imagine she could stay in the house, and there would be no need for him to apply to court to force a sale. Otherwise, I suspect that a court would order a sale to free him from the mortgage and split the equity, to allow both of them to go their separate ways and find new homes. Obviously that’s going to be a damn sight more difficult for her as the primary carer on a part time wage, but I suspect that is what is likely. So she may find that she will have little choice but to move into rented accommodation.

As others have said, she must see a solicitor.

A full 50/50 split of which parent the children live with will affect child maintenance, i.e. 50/50 means that neither parent would be required to pay child maintenance, but that is a separate issue from the house sale. Even if residence is split 50/50, that would still leave the question of who pays for things like new clothes, school uniform and any school related payments (trips etc.).

I posted previously on another thread about my experience of fitting Vittoria Hyper 32mm tyres to a touring bike which has SKS P35 mudguards, which are supposed to be for tyres up to 28mm width. To provide enough clearance for the tyres to fit, I had to raise the mudguard at the fork crown (the bracket has a slot rather than a round hole to allow this). The sides of the tyre are just visible when seated on the bike, so I expect that in heavy rain and on wet roads the mudguard will not stop water being flung from the sides of the tyre when riding at speed/downhill.

There is good clearance otherwise between the centre of the tyre and the mudguard, so I am not concerned about mud etc. on the main central tread causing the wheel to lock up. That said, the Hypers are smooth road tyres, not knobblies, and I’ve no intention of riding that bike off road in muddy conditions, even with the reassurance factor that the SKS Secuclips provide.

My advice would be to get 45mm width subject to checking fork crown and rear stay clearances first.

Incidentally, there is quite a bit of variation between the different SKS/Bleumels guards:

– the Bleumels versions have a rounder cross section, whereas the SKS chromoplastic guards have a square shoulder section

– both brands appear to be available in standard and economy versions. The economy version lacks the front mudflap and the rear reflector. I replace the rear reflectors on my bikes with a PDW Fenderbot light, and the advantage of the version with the reflector is that the two mounting holes are also the correct position and distance apart for the Fenderbot fixings (and for other lights designed to replace the reflector in that position).

– The mudflap currently supplied on the SKS chromoplastic guards appears to be much shorter than the one on the Bleumels versions. Longer is much better for keeping spray from the tyre hitting your feet.

Personally I am not a big fan of SKS/Bluemells and similar designs as I find the internal stay bridges cause water to track out wards and drip off the end of the brackets, onto my feet/legs. Also they never last that long IME and are too prone to becoming misaligned if nudged etc.

I’ve seen the comment about the internal brackets made by many people. Looking at your bike, I note it is a relatively small size and appears to have significant toe overlap, so I wonder if this is generally more of an issue for smaller frames/bikes with pronounced toe overlap.

I’ve also read similar comments about the durability of the chromoplastic type guards, and even suggestions that the formulation of the plastic may not be as good as it used to be etc. However, I suspect that the key issue might be in the fitting, and in particular minimising vibration of the guard around the mounting points, especially the seatstay bracket (assuming the bracket is used rather than a bolt through fixing). If the guards are fitted to the bike such that they are “prone to becoming misaligned if nudged etc.”, that suggests that they may have sufficient play or movement available in how they are fitted, for the resulting vibration to greatly reduce their lifespan.

Toasting the oats sounds good – I will give that a try.

I would soon get tired of having the same breakfast every day, no matter how good the recipe. So I like to keep ringing the changes, including with porridge. On that note:

Brown sugar and double cream is where it’s at for porridge excellence.

Try muscovado sugar for the extra flavour from the molasses content, especially dark brown muscovado sugar.

Soak overnight, pre warm the bowl & maple syrup FTW

Try it with maple syrup and blueberries (frozen are cheaper).

Not quite what the article and linked report say. Women reported more close passes but we have no way of knowing if they were physically closer than passes on men or it’s just that men have a greater tolerance and so report less. That could be related to testosterone levels. AFAIK there has only been that one tiny, flawed study involving the guy wearing a wig that close to understanding what’s happening in practice.

Hmmm, yes. The linked article possibly overstated the findings, e.g. the use of the word proven below in relation to bad driving.

The experience of female cyclists facing disproportionate harassment and bad driving was proven in Aldred’s Near Miss Project. That women were almost twice as likely as men to be subjected to frightening ‘near miss’ incidents seemed mainly linked to the lower average speed reported by female respondents, compared with the men who took part.

As you note, the reports are inherently subjective, and having very quickly skim read the papers[/url], one of them does state

More research could usefully…attempt more systematically to triangulate ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ data and thus establish, for example, whether women experience more close passes than men per mile, or whether women and men have different definitions of what constitutes a ‘close pass’

although if the experiences of close passes was heavily related to the type of cycling, and women only experience more because they undertake more rides of the type more prone to close passes, I would have thought that it would be possible to use the results from men undertaking similar types of rides as a control (maybe they did, as I say I have only very quickly skim read the papers).

I imagine that more and better data will become available as cameras are used for such studies, but I can’t help thinking that the greater cycling participation by women in Germany, Holland and Denmark is compelling evidence of the impact of better and safer infrastructure. Rather than using cameras and lasers to measure the actual proximity of a close pass and see whether the same proximity results in different levels of fear in men and women, we need the political will/popular support/money to start building better infrastructure for cycling.

you don’t address the underlying difference which is that men and women evaluate risk differently (because of relative testosterone levels). Unfortunately, the difference in risk perception will still exist and that, in theory would still play out in the difference in participation levels.

Read the article and the linked article by Alix Stredwick. Women experience higher numbers of close passes, which has nothing to do with their testosterone levels, but is apparently because they are likely to be riding more slowly than men. That in turn is because a lot of their riding is slower utility cycling, e.g. taking the kids to school and picking up some shopping on the way to/from work etc. (‘trip-chaining’ as the article calls it). As the linked article notes, cycling levels by men and women are pretty much equal in Germany, Holland and Denmark (55% women in Holland) thanks to their better and safer cycling infrastructure.

The implication that more of those faster men will probably be leisure/sport cyclists on lightweight bikes in lycra/race kit, unlike women utility cyclists, is not really covered in the articles in depth, but I think a lot of people who take up cycling as a leisure/sport activity are likely to have used a bike for utility riding or commuting. So increasing the numbers of women utility cyclists may result in increases in other types of cycling by women.

On a side note, many years ago I was collared by my boss to go with him to a bike shop and help him choose a mountain bike. While there he also bought a mountain bike for his wife so that they could ride together. His bike was twice the price of hers and correspondingly lighter/nicer to ride. He also bought a child seat, which of course he told the shop to fit to her bike. I am sure that the fact that she did not ride it much was because of her low testosterone levels and the impact they had on her risk aversion, and had nothing to do with its weight.

The framebuilder Tony Oliver summed it up well in his book Touring Bikes:

Many couples find their speed and abilities different…It puzzles me that in many cases he has a super all-singing frameset with components to match, while she has cast-offs, cheaper tubing and a rotten design. No wonder riding capabilities appear different. Gents, if your companion is of a weaker disposition, then she needs all the help she can get – you ride the junk and get her on to 753.

convert – Member

The car he was following pulled over for the ambulance and instead of staying in line and pulling over too he elected to pull out to get around it and continue on his way.

tjagain – Member

the cyclist had plenty of time and space to tuck in behind the car already slowing to let the ambulance past.

When I first looked at the video I thought that the car (a Toyota?) had indeed pulled in to allow the ambulance to pass. If that were the case it would suggest that the ambulance had used its siren earlier (or that the driver was very diligent in checking his rear view mirror) and that the cyclist should have likewise been aware of the ambulance well before he reached the roundabout, and pulled in.

However, I am not so sure that the Toyota was not stationary and positioned where it was because it was/had been simply giving way to a car already on the roundabout, and was just waiting for the opportunity to enter the roundabout and take the first exit. If so, the cyclist was simply getting in the correct position (to take the second exit) when he moved out and ‘overtook’ the Toyota. In the video, the siren starts immediately before the cyclist enters the roundabout: by that point he is already committed. If so, for the ambulance driver to then sound the horn seems possibly to be bad practice: the cyclist has already been surprised by the ambulance siren, sounding the horn might only result in uncertainty in the cyclist’s mind about what to do, and might cause him to panic and brake, blocking the ambulance’s path for longer.

I cannot advise on the mudguards, but Tubus do make a Mudguard Holder, which would presumably be suitable for your rack.

Getting back on topic, if – as per vickypea’s sample and kerley’s wife – the key reason for fewer women cycling is concern about the safety of the roads, that raises some interesting questions:

It might just reflect different levels of risk perception and aversion between men and women, but I suspect possibly not. I think that those of us who are already cyclists (men and women) are inured to the risks of the roads we ride on locally, and those risks are just as much a barrier to taking up the activity for men as women.

Arguably, it’s not important whether non-cyclists or women have a different perception of the risk, or whose perception is most valid. What matters is the fact that the difference between the numbers of men and women cycling could be used as leverage by the cycling lobby when campaigning for improved road safety.

In other words, if a study showed that the numbers of male cyclists would increase from, say, 5% to 8% if road safety were improved, it’s still small percentages for a minority activity, and unlikely to gain much political traction. In contrast if a study that showed that there is disproportionately low participation by women which could be corrected by improved road safety, then that might have much more political traction (instead of being about general participation in a very minority activity which has powerful interests ranged against it [roads lobby, many drivers etc.], it’s become a question of sex equality and discrimination).

sbob – Member

Indeed, and by definition if there is a substantially different outcome between two distinct groups, such as men and women, then that is a very clear indicator that there was not equality of opportunity in the first place.

Only if the two groups behave the same, which they don’t. They are distinct, different, by definition. You have concluded too quickly, and without consideration to other, quite obvious, possibilities.

Generally speaking, men and women are different, behave in different ways and display different qualities. Science has observed this.

I am in no way denying the existence of inequality of opportunity, but you clearly don’t understand how different the sexes are, and how relatively small differences in behaviour can result in very large observable differences of outcome. [/quote]

I deliberately used the phrase ‘very clear indicator’ rather than ‘proof’ (and ironically you have accused me of concluding “too quickly, and without consideration to other, quite obvious, possibilities.”).

When there is a significant statistical difference between such groups, it may be wrong to jump to the conclusion that the difference is simply down to something like innate differences in behaviour and the general different qualities the groups typically exhibit. I’ve read often that some of the behavioural differences within a group of men (or women), can be much greater than the average difference between men and wonmen.

So the fact that far fewer women cycle than men, might be down to the fact that fewer women than men like cycling as an activity, but it is important sometimes to go beyond that and consider why they don’t like it, which might be due to factors other than a pair of XX chromosomes. For example:

1. Cycling has been a predominantly male activity, which has resulted in numerous aspects of the activity being biased towards men, e.g. predominantly male clubs, bikes and components predominantly designed to fit men, far more money and opportunity for men to earn a living racing bikes etc. All these things are self-reinforcing, and while the situation now is far better than it was, the last 50 years has had a huge legacy effect.

2. Maybe girls are less likely than than boys to be given a bike and taught to ride when young? If that were so, it might have a huge impact on the pool size of potential adult women cyclists.

different =/= better or worse

Scotroutes, I think the issues may be much more subtle and insidious than a statement like that is capable of reflecting. Geetee makes some fairly sneery dismissive comments about the global patriarchy, and it’s very easy to see that word as conjuring up groups of imaginary pantomime villains plotting in secret to keep women down in the manner of the plot of a Dan Brown novel.

As I said above, I think labels are unhelpful. Rather than talk about patriarchy and misogyny, I think it’s more useful to consider that the society that we live in today is the result of centuries where men had greater power and wealth than women, and that has had a legacy which still impacts every one of us today. It was and is not even necessary for men in positions of power now and formerly to act to maintain that power conciously at the expense of women (or to desire to do so): rather simply by virtue of men having or having had disproportionate influence compared with women, their collective actions and decisions will tend to be a negative ‘invisible hand’ favouring the interests of the social groups to which they belong (e.g. male, white, upper middle class etc.) and resisting equality.

Put differently, I think it’s extremely difficult for any of us to fully appreciate how different the lives of others in other social groups can be, let alone altering our behaviour to take account of those differences. Instead we tend to prefer our own kind (or as Margaret Thatcher said of someone, ‘Is he one of us?’)

So why do so few men ride horses?

Possibly because of a lack of equality of opportunity. Social and cultural expectations and the nature of organised horse riding may be much more encouraging and supportive of girls taking up horse riding, which results in higher number of adult female riders. I think you would be able to find other cultures and/or types of horse riding where the gender balance is different, e.g. horse riding in the Irish traveller/gypsy community and in central Asia.

Moreover, the much higher participation by girls and women in horse riding may itself be related to a lack of equality of opportunity for them to take up and participate in activities with higher levels of male participation, such as cycling, i.e. displacement.

I’m not denying the possibility that girls/women simply like horses/horse riding more than boys and men, and that that gender difference leads to more women riding horses, but we should be wary of assuming that that is the sole reason for the levels of disparity.

Similarly with cycling, we should be wary of assuming that women and girls have as much opportunity to take up the sport and participate as men and boys, and that if they do not do so then that is down to a choice or failing of women. If significantly less women ride bikes than men, and there is reason to believe the numbers would be much more equal if women did not have such concern about sexual harrassment (whether actual, the fear of it, or misinterpreting comments made by men) and/or are more risk averse when it comes to road safety and cycling, then we need to give those issues serious attention.

I think the issue of different levels of risk aversion between men and women is especially interesting and important for the numbers of people who ride bikes in the UK. Those of us who already ride bikes regularly, whether for leisure, sport or utility/commuting, are a relatively small stakeholder group with very little influence with political decision makers. We have made a decision to continue riding despite the risks, and can easily be ignored by politicians. Ironically, I think politicians might pay much more attention to the potential numbers who don’t ride but say they would if they felt the roads were safer. If there is a significant disparity between the sexes, then that may encourage politicians to give the issue even more attention/effort/money.

I think labels like ‘patriarchy’ are unhelpful and counter productive: witness geetee’s sneery dismissive use of the word. I think it’s more useful to discuss specifics. In this case, the seemingly different levels of risk aversion between men and women, and its possible influence on the number of female vs male cyclists, raises the question of which sex is ‘correct’, or rather how those differing levels of risk aversion should influence road safety policy. Our current levels of road safety are very much of the legacy of political decision makers and also car drivers who have been disproportionately men. It would be no bad thing for all of us as cyclists (men and women), if women’s greater risk aversion started to have increasing influence on road safety policy and standards, and reduce the impact of that male dominated legacy.

geetee1972 – Member

But I do not deny that the experiences of men and women are very different, by and large, and that we should wherevever possible try very hard to create equality of opportunity.

sbob – Member

Which people often forget is quite different to equality of outcome. [/quote]

Indeed, and by definition if there is a substantially different outcome between two distinct groups, such as men and women, then that is a very clear indicator that there was not equality of opportunity in the first place.

We’re back to the perception of risk and the negative traits of low agreeableness/high neuroticism debate.

No, that is your own narrow perception of the issues from your own limited perspective and life experience. The experiences of women and men can be very different both in terms of what happens to them, e.g. women can be raped by men but men cannot be raped by women, and also in terms of the effect on them of those experiences.

To attempt to to reduce all these issues to a discussion of perception of risk and personality traits such as low agreeableness/high neuroticism, is facile, trivialises the issues, and distracts/deflects attention from what matters and what could/should be done about the issues.

Do you receive as much in the way of unsolicited comments while riding from women as from men?

Yes though obviously they were different in their nature. The comments I got from the women in my office were awful and yes they were sexual in nature, for example the image of Polish cycling team i used to receive in email. [/quote]

Being on the receiving end of that sort of behaviour from those women in your office sounds very unpleasant. However, I think that it is potentially much worse for women cyclists on the receiving end of unsolicited and unwanted comments from complete strangers while out riding, given that they are likely to be alone at times during the ride and consequently be and feel more vulnerable to any actual or perceived potential physical threat (most leisure cyclists prefer to ride in the countryside, rather than in conurbations), and given that there is an asymmetry in the potential worst case scenario of any sexually abusive behaviour between men and women, i.e. the fear for women is of being raped – a fear which would never occur to a male cyclist. Even though rape may be a very rare crime, the fear of it can significantly influence women’s behaviour, e.g. in the same way many women would not go out alone late at night.

The article is arguing that a key reason for the low participation of women in cycling is because they are exposed to sexist attitudes and harassment while out on the bike. The definition of ‘sexist’ is treating one gender differently from another and in this situation what we are seeing is that men are reporting very similar experiences, so while the behaviour being reported is highly negative and toxic, it’s not actually ‘sexist’ (though it is harrassment).

Do you receive as much in the way of unsolicited comments while riding from women as from men? Or does your definition of ‘very similar experiences’ equal men and women both being treated the same by other men.

Because if the experience is the same then it’s not the experience that causes low female participation, it’s some other variable not accounted for in the article.

This is very close to victim blaming. Arguing that men experience the same/are exposed to the same risks, and that because they respond generally as a group in a particular way that is different to how many women respond, does not mean that the women’s response is inappropriate (or that the men’s response reflects a better/healthier attitude to risk, because they ignore the risk or are more willing to put up with it).

cranberry – Member

“I’ve even had ‘keep pedalling, nearly there’ – from a male cyclist. They wouldn’t have said it to another man, it’s so patronising and uncalled for.

WTAF! It seems that it is wonderful when other women do it, but horribly patronising when a man does it.

Oh and I’ve had people do it to me when I am slowly and sweatily trying to get one over on gravity and it isn’t patronising or sexist, unless you are looking for offence and excuses. [/quote]

Those people who did it to you, were they by any chance overwhelmingly – or even exclusively – men?

As is implicit in the comment geetee1972 makes about women potentially being more likely to take umbrage than men, you cannot ignore the fact that an umprompted comment like ‘keep pedalling, nearly there’ from a stranger may be perceived and received very differently by different people (even if the person making the statement was trying to be encouraging rather than patronising or mocking). It can be difficult enough sometimes for a man to judge the nuance/intent of such ‘banter’ or encouragement from another man if they are strangers, and frankly I would probably only be confident that it was encouragement if it was made to me by another cyclist.

I cannot ever recall any such exhortation being made to me by a woman (cyclist or otherwise), and I can understand how a woman might take offence if she would never speak similarly to a man in those circumstances (and the fact that most/almost all women do not so, is as significant as many of them taking offence at such comments from men: which sex gets to decide what is and is not appropriate behaviour between the sexes?).

It’s absurd to pretend that there is not in some situations a general imbalance between the sexes, and to consider that that would not or should not have an impact on how we treat and react to members of the opposite sex in those situations. In other words, if you are thinking of saying something that could easily be misconstrued or give offence, you either need to know your audience well enough to be confident that they would not take it the wrong way, or you need to be that very rare person: someone who is not only extremely encouraging and positive towards others, but also whose encouragement is unmistakeably genuine and honest even to a complete stranger.

I wonder how I would react if Nicole Cooke rode up alongside me and gave me some advice about improving my position and technique (before riding off and leaving me far behind). Taking it further, how many male racing cyclists have female coaches?