It really depends on the area – our place in Kent sold (still STC – touch wood!) in under a week at about 10% below what it was advertised at but we had priced it realistically for a quick sale. We’ve bought a new build in Devon at only about 5% below the asking price after steadily working down from about 30% below. It was a real struggle to get the developer to accept even 5% below asking, but I understand that’s often the case with new build.

I was a late convert to discs and ran Vs up until a couple of years back. Never really had any problems with them other than in really filthy conditions. Did a couple of really epic rides in the Lakes and Wales including some pretty full on downhills and was still in one piece. I still run them on the Roadrat. If I rustle up enough funds for a 456 build then my old Gary Fisher would be built up with a rigid fork and Vs for summer blasts. I’ve got a lovely set of retrotastic shiny speed dial levers which I really want to use!

Regarding pads, I’ve found that the Aztec metal backed cartridge pads are really good. Perhaps not as hard wearing as some other pads out there, but really effective if set up right. The cartridge replacements are pretty cheap too.

Excellent – another one to check out. Thanks for that.

Thanks for that, will check out both tips. We’re moving to N Dartmoor so I was also looking at that area.

The area N of Postbridge along the East Dart River looks like it may have a few spots. It’s rideable from our new place so may have to do an early recce when we get down there next month.

32:16 is a good general purpose off road gear. You’ll be surprised what you can tackle after a while. If you’re mainly going to be commuting on the road on it, I’d look at much higher gearing though.

How does the single cog work on the cassette body?

You get a kit with spacers and a single cog. You really don’t need a single speed specific chainset, although a single speed specific ring is a good idea as the taller teeth could save your knackers one day. Just look for one with the same BCD as your existing chainset. Oh, and if you do keep your existing chainset you will need shorter chainring bolts.

You can get everything you need here:

http://www.charliethebikemonger.com/

.. or here

http://www.on-one.co.uk/

So does road travel, transport methods need subsidy. The railways did need and do need reform, we as a nation just seem tobe spectacularly bad at it.

Bang on, but spending on roads is seen as capital investment while pending on railways is seen as subsidy.

I’ve been riding pretty much exclusively singlespeed for about 3 years on both the road and MTB. I’ve always kept a gearie in reserve for “proper” mountain trips etc though. Pending move to Devon is going to involve a very hilly commute over Dartmoor though, so the Roadrat is going 1×9.

Surly is staying resolutely 1×1, albeit adding a couple of cogs on the rear.

Getting back on topic, my little boy (he’s 21 months) is also showing a growing obsession with Danny Macaskill videos. He also loved that Chris Akrigg “Hill in Spain” film.

I think he could end up being an expensive teenager.

Interestingly, the latest talk within the industry is all about “devolution”, and better alignment between the TOCs and maintenance/ infrastructure. There is a distinct possibility we could be going full circle within the next couple of years to a hybrid of the BR regional model and the pre-nationalised railway.

I reckon I may be getting out at the right time!

Chapter 14 of Christian Wolmar’s ‘Fire & Steam’ gives a pretty balanced view of the Beeching Cuts and the book as a whole is a pretty good primer on the history of Rail in this country.

My experience is that within the industry the prevailing view is that that although some of the closures on non viable routes were valid, the cuts went far too deep in most areas, largely as a result of the fact that the focus of the Beeching review was too narrow – ie on bottom line profitability of lines rather than the overall social / economic benefits of the rail network.

Wolmar references a book called The Great Railway Conspiracy by a guy called David Henshaw. Not read it, and by the sounds of it is very critical of Beeching, but may be worth checking out.

‘ve never snapped or bent any bottom bracket! I now feel totally inadequate and will no doubt develop a complex and require counciling!

Same here, and I’ve really tried!

I think it is just you

Depends on what is in the spreadsheets – it it’s just list based data then upsizing to a database may be the way forward, but to get the benefit you really want to look at breaking it out into some sort of normalized model.

If it’s more calculation heavy stuff then uploading to a database will only be part of the solution as you will need some form of front end to provide the same functionality / presentation layer.

Merrell Chameleons are great – last ages, my last pair lasted about 6 summers. Done some quite serious walks in them without problems. I’ve not got a pair of Teva Toachis as I wanted some which were a bit more water friendly- the first pair I took back because some of the stitching came undone, but the second pair have been great. Bit of a stiffer sole than the Merrells but really comfortable.

http://www.ldmountaincentre.com/product.aspx?id=2287&aid=2

OK, that makes sense (although the rent equivalent is quite steep, even for the area), but I wonder how people finance them given you can’t raise a mortgage on it?

I don’t think it’s particularly cheap… you explicitly can’t get a mortgage on them, the MAX lease is 20 years and the rent is pretty high. Who actually buys these places?

Same thing happened in our village. 2 or 3 nimbys kicked up so much fuss they pulled the plans despite a pretty vocal set of local supporters. Depressing, especially as kids around here desperately need more facilities.

ah yes. move to the countryside, spend all your time driving around in it, because you ‘haven’t got a choice’…

hmm. london is certainly a different kettle of halibut, and is definitely in the extremes. however my work colleagues spend between 60 and 20quid a week on fuel commuting, in reasonable cars ( so depreciation applies too ), when they could move to the suburbs of the city we work on the edge of, in the SW, and ride or walk in, and put the money saved in fuel onto their mortgage. makes that house ‘in town’ that bit more affordable now, eh?

Well, yes Del – that is a clear choice, but the point was that the train really is the only option for a lot of people working in London who have been priced out of the city, and along with general population density one of the reasons why the SE accounts for most of the passenger demand.

Oh, and in my case my move to the country is going to see me both living and working on Dartmoor, and I’m going to be be cycling to work!

Careful…Are you running standard v’s or mini v’s?

Mini v’s work with normal road levers. If you are running standard v’s you should be OK with MTB calipers.

He was doing really well until he dabbed at 02:56 and ran over some poor fella’s Jack Russell at 03:44..

Seriously – I was thinking “I could do that” before that first gap jump on the limestone pinnacles. Really impressive. Any ideas where in Spain it was filmed?

Morocco is another good call – would also be great this time of year.

+1 for Lanza, especially this time of year – your best bet for decent weather without going too far, and almost guaranteed waves. I went in January a few years back and spent most of the week surfing in boardshorts and thermal rashie (you could spot the locals because of their full suits and hoods – they thought it was cold even though it was warmer than an average summers day here!).

You don’t mention what level of experience you’re at or but Famara is good for pretty much all standards and there are loads of local surf schools if you need them. There are more challenging reefs close by if that’s your thing.

Cheapest way to do it would be to get a cheap package flight out there with hire car included, and book lessons / tours / kit directly with the local operators, but if you wanted to book everything as a package, you could try these guys:

http://www.purevacations.com/europe/lanzarote/

Not used them myself, but they have been around for ages, so they must be doing something right.

A word of warning if taking your own board – do make sure it’s packed really, really well. The local baggage handlers are a nightmare. One of then rode over the tail of my Bear longboard in a truck on the way out, crushing an 18″ long section of the rail – this is despite it being wrapped in three layers of cardboard, lagging pipe and an old sleeping bag. I spent the week with it packed with wax and duct tape!

Getamap is OK, but small map isn’t great and it doesn’t pan very well.

Bizarrely, the old Multimap site has been working every time I’ve used it this morning and hasn’t redirected me to Bing once…. they’re watching us 8O

http://classic.multimap.com/index/

Thanks for the link – any idea what the daily use limit is?

…the smell of wet lycra in the morning?

No…? I’ll get my coat.

If you don’t mind non native, eucalyptus are also fast growing.

We’ve got a massive gum in the garden which we were going to coppice but according to our local tree surgeon you’re supposed to let it season for at least a year before burning it though, otherwise you mentholize your house, and the sap can apparently cause chimney fires.

Thing is, IMO bing have improved the service, as I can now click and drag and pan around an OS map, on my desktop and mobile devices, for free.

That’s not an improvement. You could do that with the old multimap page! AND you could search on OS grid..GRRRRRR

To be fair, the “red” route is quite a fun loop in the dry, but it is a sludge fest in the wet. The worst climb is the one out of the car-park at the start, which is also the start of the family trail! The rest of it is tight and rooty in places with a few short, sharp climbs but not very technical.

The rest of the forest is not “off limits” – there’s a lot of bridleway and other singletrack, but you ideally need a local guide as it’s easy to get lost away from the waymarked routes. I speak from experience :oops:

It’s OK for this part of the world but obviously not on a par with trail centres elsewhere due to the limitations of the terrain. I’d agree that there are probably better natural options in the area.

Streetmap doesn’t allow you to toggle to an OS grid view. I’ve looked at using Opendata, but it seems daft to have to develop something yourself when it was available freely via the old Multimap page.

The fact that the old page is still up intermittently via the link above suggests that Bing still have the facility but haven’t chosen to include it in the new interface.

This is the second post about the Lleyn this morning – was it on telly last night or something?

Would agree with all of the above. +1 for Aberdaron – it’s really nice, we stayed in our van at a fantastic, semi-wild campsite out on the point just outside the town. There is a pub with terrace overlooking the beach – can have a pint while the little ones are playing. Good walk up to Mynydd Mawr with great views. Boat trips to Bardsey Island worth doing.

Most bits of Lleyn are only an hour from the mountains for some proper biking too!

I sense a bit of tension about the Welsh language from some folk here – I’m from Anglesey (or at least was brought up there). Welsh is a lot of people’s first language both there and on Lleyn, in most cases they’re genuinely not speaking it just to wind up the grockles, although like anywhere there are a few folk about with a chip on their shoulders.

It’s not well served by bridleways so there is not much in the way of legal off road riding on the peninsular itself although there are some options North of Nefyn. Good road riding though.

Don’t let that put you off though – it’s a fantastic area with loads to do, and you’re only a short schlep from some fantastic riding in the mountains. Snowdon is about an hour away as is Coed Y Brenin.

I’d avoid Abersoch at peak times though – it gets rammed with half of Manchester. Western end of the peninsular is lots quieter – Rhiw, Aberdaron etc.

Because for an awful lot of people, they have no choice…

What he said… for most people in the commuter belt around London (which accounts for the highest density of passenger traffic, commuting by rail is the ONLY option.

And yes, people can choose where they live, but prohibitive property prices are pushing people further out to the ‘burbs all the time, meaning the demand is getting higher all the time.

“Paying for roads is investment. Paying for railways is subsidy”. Discuss.

Despite working in the industry, I’m thankful that I have only 20 more train commutes before we head to the wilds of Devon, not that I’m counting down or anything you understand…

I did quite a nice leisurely ride with my wife from Wells when we were up there a couple of years back. If you get hold of an OS map for the area there are a fair few bridleways and BOATs and a lot of Sustrans 1 is off road.

The route we did was something like this:

Out on sustrans route 1 along the sea wall to the lifeboat station, follow the trail out through Holkham Woods (some cheeky singletrack here) and after a quick ride on the beach (well you’ve got to really, haven’t you :-)), turn inland at Holkham Gap and then on through Holkham Park to New Holkham. Turn right, and follow the road for a few hundred yards, then right again down there a long bridleway following the course of a Roman road along the park wall. Follow track off the bridleway to Burnham Thorpe (Nelson’s birthplace) from here you can either follow the track out to Shammer and then the BOAT down to North Creake or you can go on to Burnham Market for a pie and a pint (and a giggle at the poshos).

From North Creake follow the lanes back to New Holkham to pick up Sustrans 1 again. Right at Golden Gates and into Gallow Hill wood. Downhill back to Wells via the track called Market Lane.

Nothing taxing but all very pleasant. We did it as a (very) leisurely half-day pootle with lots of tea and cake and pub stops but you could do it in an hour or so as a flat out blast.

Managed to rise above the lethargy and Just got back from road loop out to Plaxtol and back. Actually really enjoyed it and quite pleased as I cleared Rat’s Castle on a 42:18 singlespeed, so I’m not as unfit as I thought I was :-).

Ride sometime sounds good now that the nights are a bit lighter – Thursday evenings or weekends generally good for me. We’re in the process of sorting out a move to Devon but will be around until the end of April.

That’s me! Same conditions here… I’m still sitting here, kitted up already and keep on intending heading out but getting easily “distracted”….(must…improve… level.. of.. motivation…)

Have you read The Dice Man? A similar approach with the choices and results posted here could be most entertaining. :-)

I don’t reckon the doorman had any right to keep the licence unless, as you say he’s going to pass it to the police immediately. Call me a cynic but it wouldn’t surprise me if the doorman has a sideline in flogging hooky IDs to other teens.

Do countries protect their undersea fibre optic cables?

Probably not as well as they should do – if you remember India was pretty badly impacted by a multiple cable cut a few years back, losing about 80% of voice capacity – caused I think by a ship dragging it’s anchor whilst riding out a storm.

Most of the newer networks are ring-based so there is built in redundancy, but even so, they are still open to a concerted attack – the cables need to be accessible in order to repair them, which unfortunately means that they are also vulnerable.

Hello mate – I think we know each other from Sketchy – it’s Jon!

Oaken Wood is indeed filthy at the moment. I rode Mereworth last week. Some of the sneakier bits of singletrack were OK but the main tracks were a swamp. I’m going to head out on the Roadrat towards Plaxtol Ivy Hatch / Oldbury way and see how far I get.