We are getting the ferry to Holland in July and heading straight off to Germany. Place near Koblenz for 3 days. Then down the Rhine valley to a site near Freiburg fr a few days then into Zurich to stay with my brother then into France Belgium for a few days and winging most of our stops using All the Aires guide. Will be making a pass at the Arenberg (sp) and Roubaix before heading back to Holland for the ferry.

If I knew how to work flicr I would show you a pic of Eric my Westy Joker T25. Enjoy it, I personally have only booked the first 3 nights at Koblenz so far and am getting slightly nervyas I think about how busy it will be.

I went for a look at a campervan in North Wales from the North East, didn’t buy it. Had already been to west Cumbria to see one. Ended up only travelling 40 miles for the right one in the end.
Mate of mine bought a Merc SLK on ebay without looking, a trip would have been an whole lot less trouble, lost 10k on it. Pillock.

All, thanks for your answers.

Sadly not in the west mids thats a very nice offer of you. Although if your near Wolves I might be able to arrange something.

Must remember not to pull the brakes!

My daughters took 1 week got it back on saturday

I think the pedestrian tunnel is shut till Feb best bet may be to go over the river on the ferry. £1.60 single to south shields and head to sunderland along the sea front

Not sure if the vacancy is still there, but the cycle hub down on the quayside were looking for staff at the café recently. Nice place with a great view. Its always busy

thanks for all the input, have put in my job app today!

Matt – bit of a middler I would say, big enough to be known but not a household name. In a way I see the chance to leave as a good thing, gives me a chance to do something useful rather than plod along a tedious corporate line in a dinosaur of a company.

After a number of years with the same company I was recently told my job no longer exists, no offer of redundancy just a way of saying your going to have to leave of your own accord. After a pretty crap Christmas worrying I go back to work tomorrow and await my fait. I have never been as down, trying not to let it show in front of the daughter who is in her final year at school and has lots of pressure on her with exams etc. Its sad to read the above and realise just how many on stw alone have been through or are facing similar issues.
Keep on riding people

Woke up from my ankle surgery last year in the QE Hospital in Gateshead to find the man opposite smoking a cigarette shock horror!! 8O , ‘its Gateshead’ I thought where people go to Tesco in there underpants ‘nothing to see here’. The ward sister calmed my impending rage by informing me it was a falsey and wasn’t a problem.

Got a feeling these things are being promoted the same as cigarettes were in the 50’s by Laramie man ‘safe, healthy and what a real man smokes’

EDIT: as a non smoker I couldnt give a monkeys, just fear that people are being mislead once again.

My experience was quite different after leaving a company they continued to pay me for 3 months despite repeated calls to payroll who said they would sort everything out the served me with a ccj for wrongfully claiming salary.
Ended up in court. Northern Rock.

Hope you get sorted out Houns

Flux here for my T25, only had the van since June and hoping not to have to claim for anything! Get uk and euro breakdown cover with that. Limited to 8k kms a year.

Got a passat estate as a work car which is great for about 3 bikes inside but i use the roof rack and 2 carriers mostly. In June i bought an vw t25 and have a tow bar mounted 2 bike carrier and is now the bike vehicle of choice as the passat doesn’t let you make a cuppa in the back.

*Submarine Pedant Alert*

RE: the Swedish having cools boats

They have cool ships.

A boat is what they are ‘investigating’

That is all.

I bought some software for my daughter at software for students website, that was cheaper. is there a similar site for teachers or maybe they offer it cheaper on that site

We are at the stage where she has to give herself a fallback uni if she doesnt get the marks she is hoping for and the best of the bunch in this position is QMU in London, hopefully all will go well and she will get her first choice at Glasgow or Sheffield, she seems impressed with QMU but the cost has really got her thinking. Lancaster and Nottingham are the other choices on her list. I think she wants to get all of this submitted next week and so far the limit off my help has been to tell her what the pubs are like in various towns and cities and what the local cycling is like, oh and the state of the holiday inn or premier inn that i’ve stopped at whilst working there. All of this is completley irrelevant to her at this momnet in time but its what I know! :oops:

I recently purchased some energy gels to take on my longer rides on my new cx, I’ve had 2 of them out of about 20 rides I keep forgetting I’ve put one in my saddle bag, still they make me go out further feeling a bit more confident of returning home still full of energy.

Thats the equivelant of having botox and thinking you look like Brad Pitt.

She has some real issues with affordability, she isnt really entitled to very much in the way of grants about £2k a year judging by her current figures. I’ve told her to forget about the student loan for course as its really not worth worrying about.
She is looking to take geography,a BA ( this all means nothing to me as I left school with an o’level in history) my brother was at SEESS in Russell Square so it didnt really have the uni vibe more the middle of London vibe.

I want her to go away to study and not feel she has to stay at home to reduce her costs or debt, she has a PT job now and enjoys the independence that gives her, don’t think she wants to give that up for a life of debt as thats all she hears everytime somebody on tv talks about student life.
She spends a lot of time looking at the students reviews of places and social networking now gives a lot of immediate access to people at certain uni’s for feedback.
As usual I just search on here for the answers and tell her I’ve got the best brains working on a solution! Cheers all.

I’ve had sonicare and oral b. Prefer sonicare myself. Running costs vary depending where you buy brushes from. Cheaper online than in supermarkets. If you want to buy a more expensive electric brush visit a dental exhibition where phillips will sell you them for about £40 + Vat, mi was £250 in boots £60 to me!

230 miles into owning my arkose 3. Love it to bits.

Cheers all, jonv don’t have any gps type storage thingy but thanks anyway. Jambalaya email en route

Still in my all time top albums, great sound.

We used the trains between villages. If you want to cycle the paths its fine to hire a bike but you won’t be able to take the bikes into some of the villages. Lots of steps and hike a bike amongst hundreds of tourists won’t be fun.
Its a beautiful area and well worth visiting. Take the train and a camera

Now that does look nice, but got to stop looking at stuff and make a decision. Personally banned myself from looking at the Tripster thread cos its real nice to look at.

awful.

Quite like the look of the Hack, just been looking at the Whyte Sussex down to £675 in the Edinburgh Bicycle sale this weekend.
I love riding bikes but when it comes to shopping around for a new one I’m hopeless, to many choices.

Similar questions here, I have £850 worth of C2W voucher in my desk draw at work, struggling between the Arkose 3 and a couple of others. Was kinda hoping I would get back off my hols at the Arkose would have dropped a bit more in price with the new range due out.
The Caadx 7 looks pretty decent.
Need to get a shift on as the first payment comes out of my wages this month and I’ve nothing to show for it.

Tried this with homebase after months of wrangling. Emailed ceo and financial director. Took 2hours and the pa of both was on the phone. Owned by the same mob as Argos.

Walked past the Giant sponsored pick up in Howe street in downtown Vancouver one day last week, gutted to be in BC but not at Whistler this week. Still the weather is great where i am so shouldnt grumble

I’m looking at the arkose 3 as well, i was told the price would drop below its current £900 which is already down a £100.

Evans told me voucher good for 6 months and that i should wait to mid end august for sale prices after the 2015 models are released around that time. I’m looking at cx as well.

Need a hosting site first but will give it a shot! Got a 5th wheel trailer for a week as well!

But how did she cope when you were in hospital? Did she post pics on some home alone wives website asking for advice on how to deal with a tidy house due to a missing male?

Sorry couldnt find the link to the guys blog on the T4 forum but if you have a look on this site within the camping section there is loads of good stuff. Also check out the 80-90 club website this is about T25vans and the camping and travelling bits are great

last year I read a brilliant ‘blog’ on T4 forum. A guy and his wife headed on some pretty decent 3 week tour of Europe, on further digging he had done it 3 years on the trot and had blogged them all on the forum. He was heavy on pics and info on campsites and routes and food photos and stories. Really good fun and inspiring.
I will have a search in a mo and try to find a link to it.
In the mean time, after 3 years of searching and waiting for the right van, 2 weeks ago I bought myself a beautiful T25 Westy. Just love it. All I need now is a tow bar rack and me and the bike are off…..

Has anyone actually been? I’m working in that there London in a fortnight and its about 5 miles from my hotel. As my colleague is a dick and i can’t be arsed listening to him i will be taking the bike and figured i may as well have a look at it as i don’t travel this far south ever and there will be bot all on the telly!
As for paying for it, well i pay to park in a lot of places and its only the price of a beer in my hotel anyway.

Got to be the worst way to finish a race after 250km +, 300 yards from a second successive win (possibly) and you over cook.

Left school with 1 GCSE but that was in 88. I’m doing ok, but its a different world these days they reckon, not sure about that. Work hard and believe in yourself.

If Murdoch sports are to pinch the cycling you will see them introduce it to the sports news in the year before they take the contract. Right now they have started talking about the IPL cricket, year before it was F1 that started to get noticed. Take notice of how much the comment on the world cup football this summer, barley a sniff of coverage I reckon.

try cyclingfans.com for coverage details on tv and online, or if your twittered up try @cyclingfans or @_pigeons_ for details they are both always on the ball.

That’s for the tips and offers of rides, will see how work pans out tomorrow and maybe drop you a line later on Monday. Cheers, Ian