Not had many issues with it myself, watched all of the ITV coverage of the Tour de France from here in India with minimal issues.

Cheers, Rich

The documentary is certainly worth a watch, some proper laugh-out-loud moments :D

Cheers, Rich

Steel – might not be doing to well in a lot of the western countries, here in India there’s massive growth – will certainly keep us busy for a while!

Cheers, Rich

Endura Stealth is a nice slim fit, gets my vote.

Cheers, Rich

Spent my honeymoon in Dubrovnik, lovely place.

Hotel was this one, one of I think 2 at the time which are within the city walls.

Would recommend kayaking around Lokrum island, and exploring some of the other islands nearby too.

Cheers, Rich

If I was in your situation I’d do my sums and increase my company pension contributions (as these are deducted before tax, effectively increasing your personal allowance) to keep me in the 20% tax band.

You wouldn’t see the bonus immediately, but you wouldn’t be worse off, and the tax man wouldn’t get his mitts on it immediately.

Cheers, Rich

Paging Surf Mat :lol:

Cheers, Rich

I spent a few months temping while between jobs.

Some of them were quite fun, others not so!

2 weeks in a mustard factory was pretty crap
a few days as a hospital car park attendant was remarkably OK!
sorting mail for a day was fine
assembling electrical equipment was quite fun, although I’m sure there should have been more training and testing!

Cheers, Rich

hamishthecat – Member

What is it?

sarcin innit. Kili Racer in magnesium – c.2003/04 I think.

Ah, soon to snap the protruding part of the seat tube then :?

Courtesy of Joolze Dymond

Had 2 snap there, although the second did last pretty well.

Cheers, Rich

Recovery also depends a lot on age – I shattered my leg when I was 14 and needed a couple of operations, an external fixator and some casts. I was running again after 3 months :D

18 years later, I suspect it would take a bit longer to fully heal up!

Sorry, not very useful post I’m afraid, but in general, if it hurts, take it easy.

Cheers, Rich

SLR’s on all but one of my bikes, work fine. Edges are a bit fragile due to the shape, but I don’t mind mine looking scruffy, so not all that fussed.

Cheers, Rich

Quicktime Pro works a treat for this, not sure if it runs on Linux though.

Cheers, Rich

Is that where your username originated?

:lol:

Cheers, Rich

Vortex makes a very good point, as a training tool a SS/Fixed can be great, especially on an undulating route, as you can never take it easy. Hills have to be attacked on the way up and spun like crazy on the way down!

However, if you’re feeling off or after a nice gentle recovery day, you find yourself longing for some gears :lol:

Cheers, Rich

Sounds fantastic, Jamie, I hope you have a cracking time 8)

Alas I’m stuck in India working 7 days a week for the rest of the year, regardless of the fact that I’ve got 6 weeks of holiday entitlement remaining :(

Cheers, Rich

How do laptops cope with the vibrations of being on a bike rack?

I know my dad killed a laptop a while ago which he used to carry to work every day.

Cheers, Rich

This gives me a good excuse to post my lightning photo :)

I have a camera up a pole on a construction site taking a photo every 15 minutes, the lighting in the shot above was pure fluke.

Cheers, Rich

Wino thread is ^ :)

I wouldn’t go abroad without a specific contract if I were you, could be on rather shaky ground on numerous fronts. It’s always nice to have everything clear in writing in case things get messy, even if you do have a very good relationship with your boss.

Eliminates things like getting double taxed for starters!

Feel free to email me if you would like to see a model of one of my ex-pat agreements.

Of course for short trips like yours it’s not so important, but might be helpful in the future.

Cheers, Rich

Unless the laws have changed significantly recently, to be non-resident for UK tax, you need to do a full tax year out of the country. Obviously this isn’t applicable, so you’re into the double taxation and reciprocal tax agreements between countries.

If EG doesn’t have an agreement, then I think you’re a bit stuffed unfortunately.

However, I’m not really qualified to comment, although I have been working abroad for the majority of the past 7 years, I’ve recently been on equalised tax agreements, where I don’t need to worry – the company pays whatever tax is required in whichever country I happen to be in, and I get a guaranteed amount net regardless.

Sorry not to have any definitive answer.

Hope you get it all sorted, surely the accountants your company use will know this?

What did your contract say regarding tax?

Cheers, Rich

I’m glad my company pays for my passports, since I’ve had 2 new ones in the past 6 months 8O

Cheers, Rich

Sorry to hear about the breakage.

Have you considered getting it repaired instead?

Certainly cheaper than replacing, and you’d still have your wedding present.

Several Wi welding places around, I had a disc tab welded on my last Ti frame, although I can’t remember who did it for me, I’m sure the STW massive will be able to suggest someone.

Don’t have any information to actually answer your question though I’m afraid.

Cheers, Rich

Depends on how keen you are to have bees in your garden.

1 option would be getting a hive for them to live in, although the exact process of coaxing them out of your compost and into said hive could be interesting. You can buy hives for about £30 from eBay.

If you don’t want to keep them, then the council will probably be able to remove them for you.

Cheers, Rich

Have a look at the educational discounts here[/url], gives you an idea of the savings available.

Cheers, Rich

I’ve nearly finished an engineering degree. Most of it has been pretty straight-forward, as it is covering old ground on my first degree which I didn’t finish. However, had it been new to me, then attending tutorials probably would have been a real bonus, not very convenient for me as I work abroad most of the time! Have had some late submissions with assignments during crazy work periods, but assuming you have a good reason, my tutors have generally been pretty understanding.

Part way through my final project at the moment, then I’m all done – will be 7 years in total though 8O

Cheers, Rich

Possibly the worst photo in the world, but this is my SS rigid Tinbred

Weighs in at about 18.5lbs, although I’m not sure if that includes the spare tube taped to the saddle :)

Cheers, Rich

I’m writing this on the Vega i bought at Heathrow last week for £207 :)

Out of the box it’s pretty limited, as has been mentioned, but a few minutes and the ROM is now running Modaco, and it’s great! Faster than my Samsung NC10 netbook for a lot of things, although typing isn’t necessarily one of them ;)

Screen isn’t amazing, but for a fairly cheep and cheerful device I’m pretty impressed.

Cheers, Rich

Stoner, thanks for the link, unfortunately it’s not letting me download the required option.

Cheers, Rich

Aye, but my point is that I’m sure my old PC laptop didn’t necessarily meet the minimum spec, and it was fine. Same game on a 7 year newer machine, and it won’t even get past the first splash screen!

Looks like I’ll be uninstalling Steam then and returning this machine to simple media player duties :(

Cheers, Rich

Yup, I know what the minimum spec they recommend is for the game, just thought that someone might have a view on this.

My machine says that it has GMA 950 with 64 MB of shared system memory, so not exactly an NVIDIA, but certainly my Toshiba from 2000 didn’t either and that didn’t struggle :?

Oh well, only £7 wasted…

Cheers, Rich

After reading this yesterday, I thought I’d relive some uni days by playing some HL.

Installed Steam on my Macbook, and downloaded HL2. Just tried to play it today, and it won’t get past the very first splash screen :(

Machine is a 3 year old 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2 GB ram – should this be up to it, or am I expecting too much? Considering HL played pretty well on my laptop about 11 years ago, which was certainly considerably lower spec than this, I’m surprised that it’s struggling.

Any thoughts?

Cheers, Rich

I reckon you’d have major diarrhoea!

This is my DHi, pretty old now, bought 3rd hand off a mate and built up with bits and bobs, but good fun for chucking down a hill.

Cheers, Rich

1980 at a guess, no stylish quiff any more :(

Cheers, Rich

To wash ones i-pod once, Mr Rhid may be regarded as a misfortune to do it again looks like carelessnes.

Nice variation on a Lady Bracknell line :D

Cheers, Rich

What’s going on with the front mech cable? Almost looks as though it’s been converted to rod actuation in the 6th photo!

Cheers, Rich

I love my 500, certainly much neater than the previous incarnations I’ve played with, and pretty much looks like a normal cycle computer.

While there isn’t any real mapping function, ie it doesn’t have any built-in maps, you can upload CRS files and follow a breadcrumb trail (which zooms in and out automatically depending on bends etc) which I’ve found very useful.

Does pretty much everything I would want it to, what might swing it is whether you would ever want to use it off the bike as the wrist strap (extra part) doesn’t look particularly great. Battery has never been less than about 60% after a pretty long ride, although I don’t use any ANT devices with it.

Very good in-depth review here.

Cheers, Rich

My 1995 328i has been fine in the snow in Surrey, I did stick a couple of bags of sand in the boot though. Only running 15″ wheels though, so not the wide low-profiles which come on all the new models.

Bit of momentum carried in the right places, and I’ve been managing where other more suitable looking vehicles were struggling.

Must help that I’m a driving god :lol:

Cheers, Rich

GeeTee,

Were you on the Mojo HD? I was on the Orange Sub 5.

We split off from the couple with the dog after lunch and headed back towards Westcot, but didn’t have any offs, clearly weren’t trying hard enough :lol:

Cheers, Rich

We were out on Friday too, conditions were great – parked in Westcot with no problems.

Nice to meet you briefly at Peaslake heihei, we had a mad Labrador in our group. Certainly looks like you enjoyed your day of riding :-)

Cheers, Rich