We are those mythical Cash buyers – sold our house in six weeks in April for 6% below asking price to the third people to see it. Moved into rental and have been trying to buy a house since. In our experience a single agent independent has been easily the most helpful, honest (really) and informative of all the agents. This is in money-grabbing Windsor, where people have some ridiculous ideas about house prices and mobility (“Oh we will move in the next 12mo, once I’ve sold my businesses”…).

We almost bought a house, until the vendors wouldn’t let the surveyor in and decided they didn’t want to move (Thanks for that Lapierre I could have bought instead). Are now buying through Hamptons after our original offer was deemed “ridiculous”, but two months down the line and no other proceed-able offers – guess what?

The whole process is a farce, but there are some decent agents out there who give honest valuations and provide a service. And then there are most of the rest! If you have reasonable expectations and know what things are worth, eventually things will work out (I hope).

Mclaren. Folds with one hand and a foot (originally to board a bus while holding the baby), went lengthways in the boot of our car. Aluminum for light weight, blanket, shade and rain cover. More recent designs have seen the weight of buggies creep up, get over to retrobuggie and see how it’s really done.

My sisters have Phil and Ted for more heavyweight duties and off road, but always go back to the Mclaren for simple town use. We’ve had 10 kids between us, every one has been in a Mclaren at some stage.

As I tell new parents – cheap pushchair, expensive buggy, because six months down the line, that pushchair will be in the garage and you’ll be out with the buggy.

You’re a long way out of SF. You could ride up over the hills and out to half-moon bay, back along the coast. Lovely area, but the roads are busy. I also recommend blazing saddles and over to Marin, but it would be quite a trek for you.

If you’re buying IF, most people would assume it’s steel anyway – that’s always been their USP – custom steel. :lol: . Now if you were to buy a Merlin, there’d be the opposite conclusion.

My titanium road bike is lovely, so is my steel Kona singlespeed. I can tell them apart.

42″ Pioneer Kuro 8th generation. Sadly now discontinued, the best plasma screen ever made. I spent a year looking for mine. I’d avoid Freeview HD and go for Freesat with a Humax PVR (£300), higher bandwidth means more HD channels can be carried in the future, we already watch BBC1 and ITV1 in full HD plus BBC HD and ITV HD.

As others have said, go to John Lewis, good service, knowledgeable people and reasonable prices. Plus a five year warranty. AVForums is also worth a read.

What are you viewing at the moment? If it’s Sky HD then my point on Freeview is moot.

French, pretty much the same as the British on most statistics, but with better food, wine, cycling, style and longer life expectancy…

Son1 still has this problem from time to time. “Urgency” is a medical problem, but there really aren’t any treatments to speak of. It’s frustrating and he may grow out of it. Best course is not to treat it as an issue and accept that sometime he’s got to go NOW! Sometimes he will just forget. Oh and Son1 is 13 now…

There is a closed form solution for a cubic, with one or three real roots – ALL cubics have at least one real root since they start at -infinity and go to +infinity or vice versa. You can get the condition on whether the other two roots are imaginary or not from your parameters. It’s all a pain though and I only needed the real root once in my thesis. To be honest, I’d stick it in solver and minimize (goal seek), it’s not a hard problem and will be fast enough.

Had an original iMac, last of the G5’s just before they went to intel chipsets. It NEVER recognized my iPod Photo, but my Windows NT laptop had no trouble! Apple discontinued support for that OSX and I couldn’t run the Blackberry software as the G5 can’t be updated – backwards compatible you say? Then it died. So I moved to W7 on a laptop and think it’s great. I also have Ubuntu on an IBM T40 and love that too – Kids use Openoffice which is good enough for Sun. My view of Apple is somewhat tarnished to be honest…

Well now you know that for A) y = 5-x and for B) y = x-1, these lines are perpendicular. you are looking for the combination of x and y that meet, so set 5 – x = x – 1 and rearrange this expression as follows:

Add “x” to both sides
Add 1 to both sides
simplify to find x

Now substitute this value of x into either of the equations for the lines (since they must meet at this value) and you will get the value of y. I’d pick the second y = x – 1.

That’s your mission, it’s called solving simultaneous equations, and these aren’t too hard. Follow the steps, and we can leave some harder problems to check understanding. That’s what I do with my son with his homework.

I never jump red lights, always stop at zebra crossings and don’t ride on pavements (even with the kids), and I take a personal delight in berating those cyclists that run into the back of me thinking I’ll keep on going at the slightest hint of a lantern rouge. Want to be treated like a road user? Act like one. My commuter bike has a bell, lights and reflectors front and rear, but I confess that the pedals are reflectorless, but the overshoes are not. I don’t wear luminous clothing either.

I can explain the answer if you need it, but the key is in the fact that from (4,1) to (5,0) involves a slope of -1 for y = mx + C. If the slope is -1, then perpendicular must have a slope of +1 and pass through (5,4).

1) y = 5-x
2) y = x-1
3) set 5-x = x-1 to rearrange and get (3,2)

whence – got that one in my PhD thesis – not bad considering the subject matter (“A random walk forgets whence it came”).

Puberty helps…Goes to bed later and wakes later, but to be honest, some sleep and some don’t. First one didn’t and second one slept like a log from the start. A good feed before bed helps. I used to see the numbers on the bottle as minutes of sleep I’d get later.

Oh and the first never slept in the day either!

2009 Kona Blast Deluxe from Rutland cycles – they bought the entire stock of 14″ bikes from last year and have them in stock. I paid £379 for a bike that was selling for £300 more last year. Give them a call. Just looked on the web and they’ve upped the price to £449 :-(

As an aside, my son wrote off the front wheel riding around Swinley on its maiden outing, so the saving was only £200… A great bike

How often will you fold it during the day? Is it 11 miles each way?

Plenty of people commute on an Airnimal Joey, but I wouldn’t want to fold it at work then unfold it again. I’ve had a Brompton and now have an Airnimal Rhino. I’d ride 11 miles on a Brompton (in fact I rode 200km on one), but the Airnimals are faster.

Birdy’s are nice, as are Mezzo’s. The Bike Friday Tikit has a longer wheelbase which I think will be more suited to longer distances and can be rolled more easily than the Brompton. Fold is not as small.

To be honest, could you not just lock something up in London for when you step off the train?

Ixon IQ, not cheap, but definitely a commuter headlight rather than a portable off-road mini sun/torch… Beam is optimized for road use as are their excellent dynamo lights which I’ve used for years.

We bought a Jump King Oval pod – 15ft – it’s huge, very well made, has a secure net and has resisted my kids best efforts to damage it. It was a bu66er to put together, mind… All those complex radii. How old are your kids and how big will they get? Buy large to avoid impacts, and one at a time. My friend broke his daughter’s leg bouncing together out of phase.

+1 for quad-biking, afternoon in a nice warm pub thawing out, followed by Michelin starred restaurant would get my vote. After that you are on your own.

Other ideas:
Winetasting at vinopolis
Snowboarding lesson at Snow zone
Youth hostel and a hike in the dales
Trip to Afan for bike riding and warm pub
Clay pigeon shoot – great fun and I’m hopeless at it!
PAINtballing – if you must, my 13yo lives it.

A mix of outdoor activity and a quality meal would get my vote every time. If I were organizing, I’d pick the quad-biking again, it really was very good and not as technical as a bike ride might be.

Trek MT60. Adjustable stem AND adjustable cranks. Will fit your daughter for 1-2 years and your son immediately afterwards. I still have mine for nephew/niece duties and it has been ridden by my 10yo. Mine is silver and white so mixed sex.

Islabikes are nice, but they didn’t exist when I was buying. If you are near SL4, you are welcome to try it.

Thanks for a great day. Journey home was slow…

Merlot our cocker spaniel was subjected to the third of four Legoland extravaganzas this evening. Huge fireworks right over the house. Was OK last week – just barked at a few, but I had to clean up the bathroom after this time. Another tomorrow.

The guinea pigs seem just fine, and the snails didn’t notice.

BSc Physics – Imperial College
PhD Physics – Imperial College
Postdoc in Physics – Sussex University
Postdoc in Biology – Oxford University

I now work in a subject doing Maths and Medicine. Would recommend a Physics degree to anyone mathematically inclined – opens up a LOT of doors, and not all of them say accountant!

May be up for this, just need to sort out rugby duties and a domestic. If I can come then there will be room for three more in the CRV, now I have the new bike racks…TooTall?

Never needed levers to put tyres ON a rim. I presume you have one bead on. I normally get most of the way round the second bead up to the valve stem. Then starting opposite the valve again, force the as yet not seated bead into the centre of the rim all the way round working back up to the valve on both sides. Because the middle of the rim x-section is lower, this frees up precious mm’s and you should be able to pop the tyre bead over the edge of the rim at the valve.

And this works on some devilishly tight continental road tyres. I’ve yet to be defeated, it really is technique. Getting them off however will require Pedros or Park.

Have one on my airnimal and love it. Changing gear downhill on the brakes or when stationary soon becomes second nature. Just be careful when changing the wheel as it’s an order of magnitude more pain than traditional hub gear linkages.

+1 for Schwalbe Land Cruisers – my 10yo rode around Swinley on Sunday Morning in the rain and commutes to school on them daily. He did slip around a bit on some of the more technical stuff – but never complained. He is a bike handling god, however…

I use Schwalbe Marathons, but they are rubbish on muddy towpaths (20″ wheels).

Flowing down singletrack with my two boys. Admiring their developing skills and wishing I had them. cake at the end comes third… Oh and I like climbing on the SS for a reasonable CV workout.

I cut two 3″ (ish) “tubes” from the bottom of an old wetsuit

If you can manage with about 2″ then you can try these[/url]. You will be able to tighten them. Fantastic visibility aid for commuters too.

Depends where you are and what type of water you have. Devon – almost anything tastes wonderful. Thames – I like Clipper and Yorkshire, but not Yorkhire Gold. Try changing the water first.

For real tea, Twinnings Darjeeling without milk…

Nikon FM and 24mm f2.8 Nikkor. Small, fully manual and a lovely feel when winding the FP4… I used to run several films per wedding for friends as a present and was never dissappointed. Processing is normally by Ilford on pearl paper. A manual camera will teach you all you need to know about photography and put you in good stead for digital.

That peaky temperature and shivers is your body’s immune system working hard to fight it off. That tired feeling is the same. Be sure to take paracetamol – (no more than 4g/day) and take comfort that the worst symptoms really only last a day or so.

Lemsip has 500mg of paracetamol, so I normally add an extra 500mg tablet for the full pharmacological effect.

These, absolute bargain and holding up well for commuting/suit duties…

My sons wear Kukrai tops and shorts for rugby. The tops are used for cycling. Good thermal properties, but I agree that wicking sweat is not a priority. Buy long sleeved, as these go well with the short sleeved jerseys. CCC is another brand that are common on the field.

I’m the same height as you and commute on a 56cm Merlin Cyrene road bike. It fits me perfectly and always brings a smile to my face. You got a great deal and will enjoy the bike immensely.

When it gets dirty wash it down, if it scratches, use 3M brillo pads to restore the finish. You can replace the Merlin stickers with new ones as needed (although mine is engraved). hand it down to your grandchildren like a good watch…

Expect lots of questions on rides from fellow roadies, particularly those who ride plastic bikes. There aren’t that many titanium bikes around and nobody has a better reputation tham Merlin.

Wait for a 16″. Mine learned on a Raleigh Bluebell. Solid 12″ tyres. Great bike, it was about fourth-hand when it came to me, 38 years old I think.

‘Darren’ just appeared in the middle of the 20th Centry. There were no Darrens, then suddenly there were lots and nobody really knows why.

Indeed, my name is effectively over, a small epidemic

+1 for open office. Feels like Office 2003 and can save docs in that 2003 word profile. We use it at home for everything and the compatibility is not an issue.

I test rode one at the cycle show over the boards and liked it. Can’t say it felt much different to my Kona Unit 29-er, geometry-wise. But it is a nice colour. Definitely like the colour-matched steel forks.

But I love steel bikes…