I doubt we will see Lewis win for some time. Like a few others have said, we are entering into a new RB era of dominance just like the Vettel days. The season started promising with the new regs, but has resorted to a bit of a snore fest again, bar a couple of spells.

Oh, and I think Lewis will retire at the end of the season. Just a hunch.

Thanks for the explanation. In fairness, I’d say we’re heading for a recession either way, but I hope that this support will help throughout winter and beyond for the people who need it.

So this new cap that is due to be announced, how bad is the long term borrowing? I mean, more borrowing than covid? Is it all government money?

We’ve just paid a removals company for our move at the end of this month (fingers still crossed). There was no way I was considering doing it myself. We’re packing ourselves, but everything else is being done by them, including dismantling a few things like beds.

Yea, the 23rd September is the date everyone is working towards.

We have a couple of removal companies coming to quote us in the next few days, so will ask about cancellations or moving dates.

I am also constantly worrying that the buyers will still pull out, even though we are this far on mortgages have been approved etc.

Thought I would update this. Things have progressed, but the radio silence is deafening. Everything is good at our end, the new build is due to be finished end of next week. We now have a completion date of 23rd September, but just need to buyers solicitor to confirm they can meet that. All we are waiting on are the searches to come back for our buyer. I can’t see it throwing anything up as this is a new build, only 6 1/2 years old. We now have just under 4 weeks to go, but a date for exchanging isn’t confirmed. We need to book a removals company and start sorting the house. But this all seems like it could be in vein.

I like it, but nowhere near as much as mountain biking. Great as a ride to do from the front door and good for building and maintaining fitness. I live in a busy place, so if I want to do 30 miles from the house, it’s 10 miles dodging traffic, 10 miles of nice riding, and then another 10 back through the traffic. That is not an enjoyable part of it.

We pay around £100 per month for combined gas and electricity. We have quite a bit of credit also. Our DD was about £130 a couple of month ago, but has come down. We input readings regularly. They always overestimate usage. We live in a new build, 3 bed semi detached with triple glazing and a 1kw solar setup. Over the last 6 1/2 years we have made around 5300kwh through the panels. We’re about to move to another new build, but an extra bedroom and no solar panels. So I’m guessing we will see a big jump in our bill. But we don’t have a dishwasher, or tumble dryer, and there is only 2 of us. We don’t consume much.

Sorry for your loss. Me and ‘our’ dog don’t have the best of relationships. He is challenging to say the least. But if he died tomorrow I’d be absolutely devastated.

Similar experience here, I think I had to go up two sizes with my road shoes.

I stopped my Zwift subscription. Not because I couldn’t afford it, mainly because it’s sh1t.

Oh dear.

Doesn’t work on Mozilla, links broken. Forum main page is now a mess. Font is nice though.

Well, I have been thinking about buying one recently. And then realised I had a 3L OMM running hip pack. Cost £25. It’s a very simple pack, I take a few spares, a 500ml bladder bottle, and a snack. Does the job for short rides. Doubt I’ll pay at least twice that now for something with a bit of extra space.

This is really sad news, such a shock. I actually got chatting to Rab through Instagram a while back and he was more than helpful. Absolutely shocking.

Oddly, without thinking about it I’ve downgraded all the way down the Shimano hierarchy since my first full sus. Started with a mix of M970 XTR and XT, then on my Nukeproof it was Zee/SLX/XT, then SLX/Deore on the Reign and now Deore/SLX on the Ripmo. Performance wise, SLX/Deore is the best.

Public transport can and does work well in parts of the country

I live in Manchester. I’d expect it to work most of the time. I will say, the tram is okay.

Anyway, this is derailing the thread…

I’ll get my coat.

My girlfriend has a very nice Ergon saddle that she rates. It is the 3rd different one she has tried I think. The angle of the seat also helped. I can always recommend chamois cream, female or male.

Relying on the train is a recipe for disappointment or getting stranded somewhere!

Tell me about it. Anyone who tells me taking the train is the best way gets told where to go. I booked the train for a stag do up in Newcastle earlier in the year. Both journeys cancelled. New journeys took a chunk of time out of my weekend. My girlfriend has to travel to her Leeds office the odd time. The last 3 trips, have all been cancelled. She takes the car now. Public transport in this country is a sh1tshow. I love the idea of the train, they are much more relaxing when travelling, but they fall so short of my basic expectations.

I thought it was a good game. Utd didn’t exactly play brilliantly, but they did the basics really well. They hassled Liverpool and because they are off form they were fairly easy pickings. Luiz is a class player, he stood out for me for Liverpool. I know Rashford scored and contributed, but he still plays with his head down. His mind definitely seems elsewhere.

Another fun STW thread. Some folk really do wish we just immediately stopped our lives and lived in caves to save the planet.

C130 with wing tanks most likely. Plenty flying around the UK from the USAF.

It certainly feels like some kind of turbulence is kicking up a notch. I’m just hoping we can exchange very soon and be moved. For our example, we’ve sold in a very popular south Manchester area, and sold for asking price. We were actually a bit on the cheap side compared to similar properties. One EA wanted us to put it on £40k above what it sold. Some of the new build sites we went to view have called us recently. We didn’t think those plots would be available to us (we have to have sold ours before reserving on many sites). Things definitely seemed to have stalled in some areas.

Urgh @MrSmith, that fills me with more dread now. Hopefully it works out. We’re just about to sign our contracts and send them back today. Couple of small errors which have been sorted quickly.

So a bit of an update on this. I’m relucntant to start talking about it as I feel it will just jinx it all. We accepted an offer for the asking price around 2 weeks after it went on the market, great! At the same time we’d viewed houses, including new builds. We lucked out and found a great house that is all but finished and will be ready in September. Our buyers are chain free, I believe they are currently renting.

We’re now about 2 weeks into the process, mortgage application got approved really quickly, about a week and solicitors instructed. We have the contracts for the house we’ve bought and will hopefully be signing them and returning them tomorrow/Tuesday. We have a few things to check with them first which we found in the contract. So, it all seems great so far.

I was very nervous at the start as the buyer of our house viewed and agreed on his own and then brought his family back the following week. I was really worried she wouldn’t like it and the offer would be pulled. But they viewed and all was good.

I’m now constantly worrying it’s too good to be true and that the buyers will pull out. We appear to be in a great position, I really hope it all works out.

We could be new residents of Congleton very soon.

What happens when you back an angry dog into a corner?

Have a look at Nokia, the biggest high tech employer in Finland. When they folded, all the people who worked there didn’t just go home and cry, they went away and set up other businesses, or they went to work for other tech businesses who now had the capacity to do loads more work

But what people are demanding is less tech, less of everything. So all those people who are highly trained and skilled, do they just have nothing to aspire too? We all grow our on food and revert back to how we were hundreds of years ago? I mean, I’m all for change I really am, but the consequences either way are pretty dire. We either go out in a ball of flames or we kill each other on the streets. Yes, I’m being hugely over dramatic.

I assume all those that demand we reduce consumption are in favour of a UBI? I mean, once we all stop flying, driving, and working in many sectors, those people will need to earn.

This thread is fun.

Not sure if this has been answered or asked. How much more metal is used to manufacture a typical EV vs its ICE equivalent? Batteries are pretty big, but the motors are quite compact. Are we using more materials overall? They also weigh a great deal more, so are people getting through tyres quicker? My Octavia still has the original rears after almost 30k. I know most people look at the CO2 during manufacture and during use, but if we are extracting more materials from the earth then that would be counter productive.

Work colleague had a new R-Line Tiguan on order since June last year. Was due last month but VW actually called him to say they couldn’t build it. It had now become a ’23 model with a different spec. Delivery would have then been next Spring. It was cancelled and he bought a used one off Cazoo.

Tommy Dickfingers!

Too much anxiety.

Just applied for a mortgage yesterday, the best rate for a 2 year fixed was 3.89%, up from 3.15% the previous week (the banks knew what the increase was), for the small amount extra we want to borrow. Thankfully we have the biggest part of the mortgage on 1.59% for another 2 years.

That was a very interesting Twitter thread posted above.

Thanks all. I know Macclesfield fairly well, including the trails there. It will be nice to have more options within a shorter distance. Currently Rivington is closest and that is 40 minutes at best in the car.

How often is she going to be commuting to Manc?

No set days, it’s ad hoc currently. So maybe 2/3 days a month.

Thanks Tom. Best not tell the girlfriend about the trains! She would use them to get into Manchester. Suppose she could do the short drive to Macclesfield.

I’m guessing the rise of the Range is due to people moving in from outside the town. I’m bringing a very boring Octavia. Although it’s not signed sealed and delivered just yet, lots to go wrong.

I work from home so the morning commute isn’t much of an issue, girlfriend is the same although the odd trip into the Manchester office for her.

Good road riding is great to hear, where I am now in South Manchester it takes 20-30 minutes before I’m away from the busy roads.

Still around the mid 80s in most of Manchester for unleaded. Local Shell is £1.85, local Tesco is £1.86, local Texaco is also £1.86. Oil seems to have settled at around $106 a barrel, so I’d maybe expect another slight drop and then it to hold for a bit.

But anecdote; my mate flies big passenger jets, now 777’s but was on 747’s before, and as a young pilot was rostered to take a 747 from Gatwick to Manchester for maintenance or something. So they only put about 10 litres of petrol in it, rather than the 70 trillion it usually takes. No passengers, no luggage, no in flight catering.

I often go to MAN to take photos and always enjoy those short positioning flights. Not that long ago TUI were retiring another one of their 767’s and it almost looked fake as it went up like a rocket and seemingly only using about 5% of the runway!

and people now think that life is tough

Really? If you think my comment was in some way comparing high cost of living (mainly aimed at the fuel/energy crisis) to world war in this country, then have a sit down for a second. It’s all relative for goodness sake.

That’s a fairly bleak assessment isn’t it?

I have this feeling that this winter in the UK and Europe will be very very tough.