Kalkhoff Endeavour?

Short travel front fork that is adjustable
Full mudguards

I would have thought that requiring both of these together would both greatly limit your choice, and also likely result in worse performance and value for money at that price point compared with a rigid forked bike with wider tyres instead of suspension.

There was a TV show a few years back called round the world in 80 trades, on one leg the guy bought some coffee beans from a farm and tried to sell them. At the big coffee buyers they roasted it and made 100 cups with it to check it’s taste, consistency, etc etc and had a whole lab analysing it. Before rejecting it for having a whole host of off flavours and inconsistencies despite the star being prepared to accept a low price as they would have bought his whole stock.

He then went to someone who sounds a lot like you describe (a little 1 man artisan coffee roaster/shop) who paid far more for it having done far less QC.

The analysis by the big corporation is not necessarily superior to that of the small roaster. At the end of the day, the only analysis that counts is tasting (specifically the process of ‘cupping’) and a very skilled roaster may have a better ability to identify potential in a tasting session than his equivalents employed by a large corporate, and he may be able to exploit that potential better when roasting, both by virtue of his skill as a roaster and also because his market/customers may appreciate his product in a way that the big corporate’s will not.

Here’s another real life example for you. A major food manufacturer which produced both premium products under its own brand as well as supplying product to the supermarkets for packaging under their own brands, had a surplus of its premium product. Rather than packaging it under its own premium brand, they offered it to Tesco for the same price that they would charge Tesco for the product that Tesco usually bought from them to sell as Tesco own brand. Tesco declined the offer because the premium product was too good for its own brand, i.e. its customers were not used to that quality/taste profile, which Tesco did not want to depart from (and possibly did not want its customers to develop a liking for the better product).

Historically coffee blends in Italy have contained a percentage of robusta beans, because they are cheaper. The roasters and baristas get the best out of those blends, and consequently Italians who have grown up accustomed to the taste profile of those robusta blends, are less likely to want/prefer the more expensive beans and blends.

The availability of different types and qualities of food and drink is generally a very good thing. If products like chorleywood process bread or farmed fish were not available, then the prices of ‘artisan’ bread or wild fish would probably be a lot higher.

Only a limited percentage of the coffee grown is suitable for the ‘specialty’ coffee market, and if people who currently drink/prefer instant decided they no longer liked that and started to buy ‘specialty’ coffee instead, the price of it would go up due to the limited available supply.

Not shopped at Has Been for a while but the prices do seem to have crept up a bit.

This post on Has Bean’s blog last year spelt out the impact of the Sterling fall after the referendum in cold hard numbers.

Surprisingly, they still have not (yet) increased the price of the annual subscription, and I can only guess that the fact that they get to decide which beans to send out each week has given them enough flexibility to avoid putting the price up so far. I have not noticed a deterioration in what they are sending out, i.e. more of the less expensive beans and less of the higher price beans, although I’m not attentive to the price of the different beans they send out for the subscription.

Regardless of who the roaster is, I imagine that price rises are inevitable if you like to buy the same single estate beans each time, and for blends the only alternative to price rises is to substitute some or all of the beans used in the blend with a cheaper alternative, which may or may not suit you depending upon the impact on the taste of the blend.

If you have a good local roaster, then you are fortunate.

Do I just have to suck up the £5+* a bag plus £4 postage for online coffee these days? Has Bean used to be reasonable but they’re mostly over £6 now.

The annual Has Bean InMyMug subscription is £250, which works out at £4.81 per 250g bag including postage. If the regular delivery of different beans each week suits you, then it is very good value.

The main downside is that the beans do vary each week: this is probably more of an issue for espresso, since with most grinders it can sometimes take a good few shots to dial in the correct espresso grind for a change of beans, and some beans can be especially difficult to make espresso with. For brewed coffee I think it’s a positive advantage, since I get to try something different each week rather than get stuck in the rut of ordering the same beans every time. I have an InMyMug subscription, and generally make a point of using the South American beans to make espresso (especially if they are bourbon) and the African beans to make brewed coffee.

However, the issue with volunteers (as always, and I’ve been on both sides of the table) is reliance on people who are giving up their spare time. There is often enthusiasm but there is a lack of accountability. When volunteers are good, they tend to be very good. When they’re not so good… Consistency, training and monitoring would be the key, as would effective guidance.

Agreed. I guess that one of problems is not only how to attract and recruit volunteers, but crucially how to pick the ‘right’ people, in a similar way to finding a new employee to fill a vacancy. You need a selection process to weed out those people who will cause problems and those who promise their time and effort but prove completely unreliable.

One solution might be to contact the national organisations for user groups and see if they have any regional representatives and/or to contact any local clubs (Ramblers, cycling clubs, horseriders and 4×4 off roaders). The secretaries etc. of such clubs may be able to help find suitable volunteers.

On that note, with regard to which cycling clubs might be worth contacting, don’t rule out the racing clubs or the CTC/Cycling UK: many of the members will also be into off road riding, and some of those clubs will have more retired and semi-retired members who would be willing and able to give up their time.

All of this is still up for debate as it seems that HCC are still at an early stage of putting this together.

It might be best to start a very small informal trial. In HCC’s shoes, assuming their people are based in their Winchester offices, I would aim to set up a small trial covering the ROW within a smallish radius of Winchester. That should soon show if the concept would work and is worth developing and rolling out, as well as give an opportunity to identify and iron out any issues at an early stage. Keeping it local to Winchester should make it easier for HCC’s people to run and monitor the trial, and if necessary to intervene if problems arise.

A few thoughts:

– There is inconsistancy in the functionality of the various county council’s ROW website maps. One suggestion I would make for Hampshire County Council’s map, is to make it possible to turn Footpaths, Bridlepaths and BOATs on and off as separate individual layers (like the Wiltshire map). This makes it easier for cyclists to see how Bridlepaths might be linked together to make a route, and may make it less likely that cyclists would use Footpaths (which the Council would presumably consider to be desirable).

– Regarding the use of volunteers for reporting, a big potential benefit of getting groups of 4×4 off road drivers, horseriders and cyclists to report issues, is that such volunteers would probably increase the awareness amongst their fellow users of the issues, what needs to be reported, and when it is not appropriate to continue to use a ROW because that will increase the deterioration. In other words, regardless of any cost saving for the Council in using volunteers for reporting problems, by getting the user groups involved they are likely to find that more and more of the users will take ownership of the issues and actively play a role in helping the Council to maintain the ROW, rather than resenting their activity being ‘restricted’ by the Council and ignoring such imposed restrictions

– The other side of the coin with volunteers, is that they can be difficult to control and monitor. Inevitably some people would let even the tiniest bit of responsibility go to their head and report even the most minor issues and/or use it as an opportunity to be officious to members of the public. I suspect you would need a small tightly run group of trusted reliable volunteers, to whom other members of that user group could report issues (which the volunteers could either relay to the Council or check out for themselves first as they saw fit).

Train to Amberley with your bike, and then ride back to Brighton along the South Downs Way.

I’ll try the electrical tape.

I’ve just tried it myself with my loose bracket (I haven’t bothered with it before, because I use my other bracket). A small piece of tape about 3mm x 3mm placed in the centre of the V shaped recess which forms the base of the ‘triangle’ and which the sprung clip presses against should do it (maybe two pieces on top of one another if it’s very loose).

Let us know if it works for you. I’ve been thinking about getting cameras myself, and it would be ideal if the front would fit on the Exposure quick release mount.

I’ve used the Exposure Go Pro mount – too much play in the system. You must have some smooth roads! I sooo wanted it to work, but the mount needs to be metal not plastic.

Is the play between the Fly unit and the plastic bracket, or between the plastic bracket and the triangular slot on the handlebar mount?

If the latter, you might be able to eliminate the play by adding some electrical tape to the plastic bracket to make it a tighter fit in the triangular slot. I have two plastic brackets for my Joystick, one of which is a slightly loose fit, so there can be some variation in the fit of the brackets.

But you can still do that without having to use the app. In fact it’s probably quicker not to.

So you do it almost always by removing the card? Forgive my ignorance, is the removal of the card, insertion into a laptop, and then re-insertion into the Fly unit going to cause problems if it’s done as frequently as, say, once a week (are the unit’s fastenings and the card designed for that much physical wear and tear)?

Also, I expect the rear unit is sheltered from rain by the bulk of the rider/saddle and their forward motion, but doesn’t rain obscure the lens of the front unit? I would have thought that a small visor or lens hood on the front unit would be a good idea.

Anyway, unless you’re itching to upload something when you get to work, you almost never have to endure it.

I would have thought it was advisable to view at least a sample of the recorded footage regularly, e.g. weekly. Otherwise there is a risk that if the unit develops a fault, you might not know about it until an incident did ocur and you wanted/needed the footage of that incident.

However it takes a lot of work to inflate a 2.35 tyre and on the road bike struggles to get over 70 PSI.

You need two pumps: one with a narrow barrel for high pressure road tyres and the other with a wide barrel for high volume MTB tyres. In both cases the longer the barrel, the quicker it will be. So something like the Topeak Pocket Rocket will do high pressures, but the very short barrel means it will take longer, ditto the very short barrelled MTB pumps.

What’s the best CO2 inflator, or is there a roadie pump that will get Conti GP 4000 25s up to 80+ PSI in a flash?

If your bike will accept a frame fit pump, it’s hard to beat the Zefal HPX or Topeak MasterBlaster. Their long narrow barrels will give quick inflation and high pressure.

Edit – If your bike won’t accept a frame fit pump, you could consider the Topeak Speed MasterBlaster which is halfway between the Master Blaster and Pocket Rocket. I think Topeak have stopped making them, but I think you can still buy them at the moment if you hunt around.

A few thoughts:

– On a mundane practical note, if you are wearing cycling shoes, then you are likely to be at a severe disadvantage in any fight. This is especially the case for a road shoe with a protruding cleat, but even a recessed cleat MTB shoe is likely to give poor grip if it has a sole with hard plastic lugs.

– Pick your battles. Sometimes I have caught up with a bad driver and pointed out to them their mistake in a very low key non-confrontational way, e.g. “You were way too close mate; you need to allow more space when you overtake”. Sometimes the drivers are receptive and hopefully they will be more careful in future, other times I have wasted my breath because they refuse to accept they have done anything wrong. However, if someone is deliberately spraying you, then you know it would be a waste of time remonstrating with them.

– If you need to let off steam/get your point over but you don’t want to get involved in a discussion with the driver, don’t swear or shout at them (I know this is hard to avoid in the heat of the moment), just call out something like “That was absolutely crap driving” – there’s just a chance it might stay in their mind and prompt them to drive a little more carefully in future, even if they would never admit their mistake.

It looks like the PDW tabs have quite a bit more material between the bolt hole and the end of the tab, whereas a SKS Secuclip, for example, has only about 2mm of material.

One possible solution might be to place a plastic spacer, like these, between the eyelet and the tab. Those spacers are also useful if you need to move the tab away from the eyelet to avoid the disc brake caliper fouling the mudguard stay.

If a 32 tooth cassette and/or 34 tooth inner ring still won’t meet your needs, you could consider a super compact chainset. At the moment there are only a few manufacturers offering these, e.g. FSA and Sugino, and they are extremely expensive (presumably because they are still a fairly niche item with a small market, although I think the potential market is much larger once people realise the benefits of them).

A less expensive way of trying this option is a Spa Super Compact, which is simply a triple chainset on which the outer ring is replaced by a chainguard. It costs £60, but you would also need a square taper bottom bracket (and the necesary tools to change the bottom brackets). You would also need to check that the chainset and rings are compatible with 11 speed. The Spa Super Compact is available with various chainring combinations, including as low as 40/24 (although you would need to check that the front mech would not need to be so low on the seat tube that it would foul the chainstay in the small ring).

I think that if you are using something like the CAADX on off road climbs, the super compact chainset may give a much better range of gears.

I think most county councils have a rights of way map on their website.
For example, this is the one for Wiltshire, and you can select the layers on it to show just Bridleways. However, they vary in quality, functionality and speed.

You might find it worthwhile to read through this thread.

Given your budget, how about this bike which is mentioned in that thread and costs £370? I don’t know how local Decathlon are for you or whether they will do test rides, but it’s got Nexus 7 speed, dynamo, stand, chain case etc. etc. The downside is it’s 19kg, but you are unlikely to find significantly better second hand unless you are very lucky or wait a long time.

I would much rather buy a hub geared bike from new, because it’s impossible to see what condition the gears are in on a second hand bike: there are plenty of photographs on the internet of the innards of hub gears which are in a terrible state due to neglect, water ingress and rust.

You’ve not told us your budget, so it’s still difficult for the rest of us to suggest possible bikes to consider.

If you are looking for a second hand bike that is only a few hundred pounds but which is also an absolute bargain, then you are probably simply not going to have the luxury of being very particular about the specification, unless you are prepared to wait and watch ebay etc. until the right bike comes up.

If you can afford to buy new, then it’s arguably the case that commuting bikes under £1,000 offer some of the best value for money of any bikes, because it is such a highly competitive market for manufacturers around that price point.

The only way to find out would be to ask her, but that would spoil the surprise. I’m not saying I shouldn’t do that though.

If an absolute bargain comes up on ebay and it’s the right size and ticks enough boxes, then it’s probably safe to buy it as a surprise on the basis that if she did not like it, you could sell it without losing much. Otherwise I would not surprise her: much of the pleasure in buying a bike (or anything for that matter) is in the anticipation – thinking about different bikes, what we like and don’t like, reading reviews, looking at them on websites and in the shop and going for test rides, so why deny her that pleasure as well?

The weight issue is as much about handling the bike while not riding it. She struggles with it when the garage is full and she has to get it out from behind mine (and we will be moving house soon and don’t know what the bikes storage situation will be like), to get it in/on the car if I pick her up from somewhere for example, or putting in friend’s yards or hallways when we’re visiting.

I see a different and better solution to this problem – ensure that her bike is always readily and easily accessible in the garage. So you put your bike behind hers. Similarly, you put it in or on the car if you are picking her up. Incidentally, I think the ‘leaned over stack of bikes in the garage scenario’ is an example of where a stand like those fitted to most dutch bikes scores: if you’ve got enough space for it, the bike is ready to go straight away.

With regard to proprietary parts, I don’t think it’s an issue for standard commuter bikes (with the exception ironically of belt drives, where I presume you are locked in to the Gates or Continental systems).

I don’t think there’s any point in defining my requirements too tightly, because I’m going to be limited to what’s available fairly cheaply second hand. I know what to look for though (drivetrain quandaries aside, though I’m almost convinced a chain is the way forward).

I haven’t written off a Dutch-style bike yet though. TiRed’s post makes a lot sense (sorry, missed it before) and pretty much sums up my pondering over lunchtime. Edit: my biggest issues with this are price (potentially, haven’t really looked at any) and non-standard parts: I want to be able to fix it cheaply and easily, ideally sharing parts and spares with my commuter.

It still doesn’t seem as if you have fully thought through what the requirements are. You started out with a bit of fixation on belt drive, which has significant limitations in terms of the bikes available (especially second hand) and would probably be a relatively expensive modification to any existing frame (purchasing power and economies of scale will likely mean that the best value belt drive bikes are complete bikes from Dutch and German bike companies).

As V8_shin_print says, what does your partner want?

If it’s for commuting, then it’s possible/likely that there are other criteria that will be decisive for her, and your drivetrain preferences will be a distraction from the key choices.

For example:

– would she want/appreciate a step through frame, like the Kalkhoff in TiRed’s post? In stop/start traffic conditions, the ability to just step down may be much appreciated. She might also prefer it if she wants to be able to wear normal clothes, e.g. a longish coat.

– is she going to commute in the dark? If so, she might appreciate dynamo lighting that is always on the bike and available (no need to remember to charge battery lights or take them off the bike in case they get stolen).

– how light does the bike need to be? For flat terrain roads a heavier bike may be a non-issue.

Finally, a suggestion: take your engineer’s hat off and put your cyclist’s hat on instead. Think about what sort of bike you would most like to ride in her shoes, i.e. what will she find most comfortable, convenient and pleasurable for the sort of riding that she will do.

Edit to add –

my biggest issues with this are…non-standard parts: I want to be able to fix it cheaply and easily, ideally sharing parts and spares with my commuter.

This is what I mean by thinking like an engineer. What parts and spares would it need to share? You are not (or should not) be going to swap parts between bikes, and it is not particularly expensive or onerous if it has different but still common sized consumable parts like inner tubes.

I’m largely going to be limited by budget and what’s available second-hand locally, but are there any particular models I should look out for? I’d happily buy a frame and build it up, but I think the cheapest way of doing it would be to by a complete bike and swap out parts as necessary.

Your requirements are very prescriptive/niche, and I think it’s unlikely you will find just what you are looking for in a second hand bike that turns up for sale in the next few months (assuming that might be your time frame).

We might be able to advise better if you tell us:
– your budget
– the commute requirements (distance, road type, terrain incl. how hilly, what’s to be carried and the likely weight)
– where the bike will be kept overnight and during the day (in the open?)

I’ve recently fitted some 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) and push the mudguard close to the limit of the available length of the stays (if you have not cut the stays down too much already, this might not be a problem).

There is now a degree of toe overlap, but it’s not been a problem for me (as usual with toe overlap, strike is only likely with very slow speed manoeuvres – that may be a bigger issue for you on a 29er riding off road than for me on a tourer riding on road and gravel tracks). 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.

Based on my experience, I would say that it is likely that it is the distance across the stay brackets (and the extent to which you can push them to the limit of the stays to get them further from the tyre) that will determine the maximum tyre width you can get away with.

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.

In other words, it’s not just a question of tyre width vs. mudguard width: the amount of clearance your frame and the mudguard stay lengths will allow is also key, as is the type of tyre.

Even if it comes to nothing it’s still a shot across the bows for the driver, may even make them think twice in future.

This.

Given the circumstances and given that it would be your word against his, I imagine that the Police would not be able or willing to charge him with careless driving or similar. They might be more able and willing to charge him for leaving the scene of an accident, but given that you say you ‘just touched’ he will probably be able to get away with it by lying and saying that there was no contact (assuming no marks left on his vehicle as evidence).

Despite all that, reporting him and forcing him to have to deal with the Police when they make their enquiries, might make him change his behaviour and be a bit more careful in future. If it doesn’t, I would still think it would be good to do: if that driver is involved in another incident, your report (and any others like it) might tip the balance when the Police have to decide whether to seek a prosecution.

Carol Boardman was killed by a hit and run driver. If we don’t report these incidents and let drivers like that get away with it, it just tacitly accepts poor standards of driving and road safety, which ultimately mean more fatal accidents involving cyclists and other vulnerable road users.

As for feeling guilty about having made a mistake yourself when driving, don’t. You did not leave the scene of the accident – instead you have faced up to the fact that you made a mistake (like we all do) and you have probably learned from that mistake and will be a better driver for it, which is the complete opposite of the driver who knocked you off this morning.

Having looked at the video on Youtube at 0.25 speed, I can see that between 30 and 32 seconds the driver is slowly creeping forward. The gradually narrowing gap between the passenger side front wheel and the road arrow marking clearly shows this, and the movement is even clearer if you stop the video and click at various points on the timeline bar in the video between 30 and 33 seconds.

The teacher then turns from looking away to the right to stand with his back directly to the car driver. It looks to me as though he did then deliberately sit down on the bonnet, because he kept his hands in his pockets and because the movement in his upper body posture is consistant with the action of sitting down (neck/head and upper torso lean forward at 34s to maintain his balance).

We don’t have the full court transcript etc., but I suspect that when the teacher turned with his back to the car, it was because the car had crept forward sufficiently to press against his left leg. The driver was trying to force the teacher to get out of the way by pushing him with his car. The teacher was quite justifiably determined to maintain his position and not give way. I cannot tell from the video whether the car was pushing against the back of the teacher’s legs when he sat down on the bonnet (i.e. he had to sit down at that point or step/fall forward), but frankly I think that is academic: the responsibility was entirely on the driver to back down and reverse.

won’t be getting the wheelset, just the arc rim

Why not buy the 32 hole version? Just one in stock at CRC, so don’t take too long to think about it. Buy a 28 hole for the front and get £10 off using the CLEAR2017 code.

My wife has one, she likes it but they weigh a ton so if it’ll be used anywhere hilly expect complaints.

It’s probably a classic example of cheap, light, strong: pick any two.

If you want lighter, but you still want the perfomance advantages/benefits of a dutch style bike, there are options like belt drive instead of the chaincase or a Hebie Chainglider etc., but inevitably there are ‘trade offs’. The Gazelle Heavy Duty NL is even heavier than the Pashley (23kg vs. 20kg), but there is a lighter Gazelle, the Esprit[/url], which is 17kg. It doesn’t have the front rack or a stand but it still has an enclosed chaincase and hub dynamo lighting.

I would suggest you have a read of this thread.

I think that the step through (ladies) version of the Gazelle Heavy Duty NL[/url] or the Batavus Personal Bike Plus are better choices: they are genuine dutch bikes designed and manufactured for hard use and longevity, rather than trading on a nostalgia for bygone days when the district nurse rode something like the Pashley.

As I understand it, three speed hubs are a lot less complex than and likely to be a lot more reliable/longer lasting than the Sturmey Archer 5 speed or Shimano 7 or 8 speed hubs. I believe it is possible to lubricate the Shimano and Sturmey Archer 3 speed hubs via the hollow axle, unlike the various 5, 7, and 8 speed hubs, and I’ve seen it suggested on the Cycling UK forum that half yearly lubrication of the hub should be sufficient (and should greatly prolong its service life).

I would give the nod to the Gazelle Heavy Duty over the Batavus Personal Bike Plus, although you might prefer the latter if you want 26″ wheels instead of the Gazelle’s 700c wheels.

These videos give some idea of Gazelle’s build quality and attention to detail, and I very much doubt Pashley can compete with that (or even try to do so).

If it’s metal to metal contact that is creaking, try a quick spray of GT85 or WD40 on the cleat and/or the parts of the pedal that contact the cleat. If it works it will probably need repeating fairly frequently, but that is not a lot of trouble.

If you can stretch your budget, Ribble are selling the Kask Mojito for £74.32 (use the discount code HELMET20). If you take a size Large, the Black/Red colour is currently only £64.76 with the discount.

It might also help if you make your main meals more of a ritual, as opposed to a more rushed or very casual affair (if that is what they tend to be). Again this would help to create a clear distinction in your own mind between when and where you eat and the rest of the time.

A few suggestions, which might or might not work for you:

– Don’t buy snack food/have it in the house.
– Failing that, some snack foods may be better at making you feel full without lots of calories, e.g. popcorn (not sweet or buttered) and possibly rice cakes.
– Rather than casual grazing and grabbing food outside mealtimes, make having something like a cake or biscuits a sit down affair at the dining table with a cup of coffee or tea at a regular time. In other words, turn it into a bit of a ritual like mealtimes (preferably with family members). So instead of unthinkingly working your way through a packet of biscuits over a couple of hours, you only have two or three biscuits at the table, and you train yourself not to eat or think of eating outside that time and away from the dining table.
– Be fussy and demand the best. The best and nicest snacks and other foods are often expensive (so you can only afford less of them). I would rather have one very nice good quality expensive biscuit than half a packet of cheap digestives made with palm oil.
– Taking that a step further, home made cakes etc. are even better (and making them yourself will occupy your mind and give you something to do instead of eating).

Didn’t think the pans were particularly bad, was a set of these don’t seem obviously warped but they rock slightly on the hot plate, funnily our much cheaper steamer sits flush and actually achieves a boil.

I have not seen or held one of those M&S pans in the flesh, but I would be sceptical about the performance of their copper base. Copper is a very good heat conductor, but there needs to be a good thickness of it, e.g. 2mm/2.5mm, to get the benefit of using it in cookware. Very often when copper is used just on the bottom of the pan, it is only a thin ‘wash’, so you do not get the benefits but you do get the disadvantages (not induction compatible, and you need to be careful about cleaning them, e.g. not in the dishwasher). Moreover, the key benefit of copper cookware is rapid response to lowering and raising the heat, so it’s likely to be of less value for saucepans as opposed to frying and saute pans. The fact that a single good quality piece of copper cookware like this costs nearly three times what the M&S set sells for, is telling. You could argue that that copper frypan is not three times as ‘good’ as the M&S set, but you could get better pans for less than the price of the M&S set, i.e. you are paying for the M&S name and the aesthetics (the look of the copper base), rather than the performance and the quality. Put brutally, the M&S pans are probably the equivalent of an overpriced BSO, as evidenced by the warping.

Assuming you will have to replace those pans because the bases are warped and/or they will not work with any induction hob that you might buy, I would suggest you look at the pans sold by Nisbets, such as the Vogue brand: if they are what restaurants and hotels are using, then they are likely to be far better value and longer lasting. If the appearance and aesthetics of the pans is as important to you as their performance, then consider something like the tri-ply range from Le Creuset, although they cost a lot more (but will probably last a lifetime).

If it’s going to be possibly some time before you decide and proceed with a replacement, then – if you have sufficient counter top space – I would consider getting a double ring portable induction hob, e.g. like this.

That will give you the fast heat for cooking pasta or rice with an accompanying sauce, or for frying etc. You will need to buy some new (induction compatible) pans, but you would need to buy new pans anyway for whatever permanent replacement cooker and hob you eventually decide on (and if your pans have warped, it sounds like they were not very good: for copper pans to work properly, the copper needs to be thick, e.g. 2mm or more, in which case it is very unlikely to warp).

I can’t believe in this day of HSE (and the amount I have deal with in engineering) that scruffy Transit van ‘companies’ like this guy can exist.

It’s difficult for the HSE to monitor peripatetic small contractors like that. However, if you can provide them with the evidence, especially if you take photographs (or even better video), it makes it much easier for them.

I feel sorry for his Nike airmax wearing sandblasting guy who’s up the ladder doing the actual blasting.

Exactly. For you and your neighbours it’s an inconvenience, but that worker is the one whose health may be being wrecked without him even realising it. That is why you should report.

Not good enough. It’s illegal to use a fire hydrant without permission (bet he hasn’t got it). Report him to the fire brigade or water company.

It sounds like that is his normal working practice given the lack of sheeting (I would not have expected a sand blasting contractor to carry around fire hydrant connections as a matter of routine).

I would report to the HSE and the water company, otherwise he is simply going to carry on doing it to other people.

sand (silicosis)

If there is a genuine silicosis risk, then the HSE would be able to stop it immediately with a prohibition order. If the sand used either contains fine dust or the blasting process creates fine dust sized particles then I imagine there may be a risk (to the contractor and his employees more than to anyone else).

The threat of a phone call to the HSE may itself be effective, since a prohibition notice will force him to stop until the HSE is satisfied that remedial action is taken. That would mean more than just sheeting, since they would be looking at the PPE and RPE issued to staff, risk assessments, maybe health monitoring etc. etc. In other words, a lot of trouble for the contractor.

Suggest you read this article.

A big advantage of the Pearl Izumi Amfib bibs is the ‘gasket’ or gaiter which fits over the top of your boots/overshoes.

The issue with fit as mentioned by CFH is largely due to the fact that the softshell fabrics used by Pearl Izumi (and others who make that type of bibtight) inevitably have less stretch than the ordinary fleecy roubaix fabric used in bibtights. Hence complicated panel cuts are often used, and they will not be forgiving of unusual body shapes.

I suppose an analogy would be if someone is driving a car and a pedestrian steps out in front of them in similar(ish) circumstances, i.e. with similar stopping time requirements. In that situation, it would not be acceptable for the driver to just sound their horn a couple of times while maintaining speed, in expectation that the pedestrian will get out of the way. In fact I doubt any reasonably competent driver would do anything other than immediately brake hard (and would probably not even think of taking a hand off the wheel to hit the horn as well).

From the description of what the CCTV shows, there were parked vehicles and on the other side of the road oncoming traffic which caused the victim to stop. It would seem therefore that the available roadwidth was fairly narrow, and the room for Alliston to be able to avoid her by swerving was very limited (and probably dependent on her and him doing exactly the right thing very quickly, i.e. she moves left and he swerves right or vice versa).

Even if we accept that the severity of the injury to the victim could have happened at any speed, and that the actual collision speed was not a factor (purely as it happened to turn out in that instance, whereas very often collision speed would be likely to influence the severity), a reasonably prudent cyclist would have braked hard (and probably done so instinctively without thinking first of the possibility that a vehicle might be behind them and run into them).

A cyclist on a fully braked bike who braked hard might still have collided with the victim, and maybe she might still have died. But maybe he would have been able to stop or the collision would have been less severe and they would not have bumped heads. We will simply never know, but Alliston denied himself that possibility when he decided to ride a fixed gear bike without a front brake. In some respects his assertions that he did nothing wrong, that he had right of way, that he was a skilled cyclist etc. are reminiscent of similarly aged new car drivers in a hot hatch who have an accident.

The Pig and Limewood are under the same ownership. Someone who had eaten in both told me he reckoned the Pig was better. If you look at their two websites you may get an idea of which you might prefer: Limewood has a tie in with Angela Hartnett, and the Pig is all about local sourcing, including their own garden etc.

In your shoes, I would go for the Pig, but either should be good.