Depends what offroad you are doing I guess – gentle bridlepaths and dusty trails are fine with panniers but anything rocky or narrow and they will catch and ultimately fall off in my experience of touring offroad in the pyranees

I’m looking for a solution at the moment – the drybag harness approach doesn’t appeal and framebags that are custom made for a particular frame don’t either.

I think I might go old school with a Carradice saddlebag!

I recently bought a Modular S1 in large. I’m 5ft 11 and three quarters…

CRC sent me a medium by accident. I run my saddle at 74cm rail to centre of BB for xc and the medium was just too small and cramped for me to ride comfortably – though as a play bike it would have been fine (wrong geometry though) so it went back. Really nice bike though, shame they haven’t any left

The frame is quite compact for a XC bike

I would say you could go for either but as the S2 is rigid and seems more set up for XC than hooning you might want to be a bit stretched out? If so the Medium will suit you best

In the NFPS employees pay 8.5% of salaries and employers pay about 11.8%.

In the NFPS there is a 2/3rds final-salary pension after 40 years.

Accrual is at a constant rate of 1/60th all the way through and a normal retirement age of 60 years. Members can in theory accrue a 45/60ths pension after 45 years.

Yeah, I can see why they would be striking over that

*shakes head and wanders back to the real world (private sector) where most of us will be working till we are 70 for a DC pension with a shocking annuity rate*

No not bought from there

But I bought one from Big ride racing for less money and it came in less than 24 hrs

She could simply gather all her stuff up, put it in a cardboard box and shuffle off whilst you smash up her desk and put a half finished stadium in its place…that would do it

Stick on a collar with a bell on it. Its mighty hard to sneak up on a rodent when you sound like Rudolph

This is actually a big issue in the Netherlands at the moment. There has been a massive increase in electric bike use and they are allowed on the cycle path network. They are mainly ridden by the old and less agile but are capable of 30-50kmh. The problem is that the fogies can’t react quick enough to avoid collisions with cyclists and there have been some serious injuries and even deaths.

On a the separate subject of electric motorbikes….this one kicks ass

They were both corpsing in the Flash entrance

A real loss – The comic strip team were my monty python and true innovators

What a tradgedy

That wetsuit looks a very good choice OP. I am assuming she is looking at the 3/2 full suit with the long arms rather than any shorty variant.
It won’t be super warm but is a good introduction to wetsuits as it will be flexible and comfortable – buying in a shop is a good idea as wetsuits are all about the fit. You could have a superb wetsuit rendered useless by water sluicing through it or being too tight to move in. Long sleeves are what is needed for swimming and surfing. £85 seems a good price too.

Ha beaten to it by post above!

what are the brakes? I had a similar problem with Deore brakes I hadn’t ridden for a while and so changed pads and discs plus put new fluid in. After 1 ride back to square one – apparently the seals leak after a while and spray fluid on the pads/disc. New brakes time.

ajantom are they avids? they look a little different

Does anyone use anything other than BB’s ?

That’s the stuff! Mary bars?

Like the saddle btw

aaaahhhh the old days when the internet was all fields

Being able to change your username and swear

Tubeless tires with tubes in them

Penguin spaff

The world has changed my friend

That concorde picture brings back happy memories of singletrack past

heh heh

Elderly lesbian couple round my way have a T4 camper with the plate

H8 COX

Makes me laugh every time I see it

I was about to say that back in the day they used to make funky cnc v brakes but that I’m sure they’ve moved on since then……

then I looked at their site

This one looks quite a good shape v value from Decathlon (£575) and has a mastfoot hole as well

On flat water on a big board (11ft plus) your granny could do it and frequently does

However it get harder in waves….though why you would bother I’m not sure

Seriously though, make sure you try it out in surf somewhere small and uncrowded first – those boards weigh a ton and you will fall off a lot to start with if you’ve never surfed (or even if you have as they respond like oil tankers)

Its great fun but has cons as well as pro’s

Firstly the hard boards are insanely expensive, heavy and difficult to transport and store. There are loads of inflatable options but I’ve never tried one so can’t comment on performance of those

its definitely not ‘cool’!

surfing a SUP in anything larger than 2ft slop becomes quite hard till you know what you’re doing and the consequences of messing up in a crowded break does not make you friends

Flat water Supping is great but its suprising how often the water is choppy or there is a swell running – this is not fun and is like being on a windsurfer with no wind

I used to live in France and we would sup to a break on smaller days from 1 or 2 miles down the beach, surfing the odd rogue wave as we went – then just surf the edge of a break where the waves were easier to get on a sup but where we didn’t get in the way of other surfers – then paddle back to our uncrowded and free car park. This is what they were invented for in my opinion

But when its firing – well then you want a proper board!

My cars get better mileage than my bike….

However my bike cuts through traffic like a knife

and is much more fun

Road tax and insurance are also much cheaper

Buuuut I don’t need £1000 worth of kit to put on before I get in the drivers seat of my car

See – its swings and roundabouts (watch out for those btw)

All in all I suspect biking will not work out cheaper but will work out quicker and more fun IF you like it. Some people do, some bail after the first arse clench moment – there will be many of these.

I would echo the sentiments above – do a CBT and if you like it do a DAS – its the only route left now anyway as the 33bhp door has been shut

Good luck!

Am I the only one who finds this incredible? – its a large family car for gods sake – not a track day car or a convertible. It should go without saying that stuff can be put on the roof.

Do not under any circumstances buy that awful bar thing that clips to a youngsters bike – they are totally crap

Not sure I agree with you TINAP

Whilst everything he spouts up to the last paragraph does indeed place him in the cheap laughs/poorly researched/lowest common denominator category that so many hacks fall into – the last paragraph could at worst conceivably induce violence towards cyclists and at the very least adds to the vast body of work out there which normalizes aggression towards us. The PCC should have noted this and asked for removal of the last paragraph from the article.

Hooped bivy so no tarp – and yes I’ll be going the stealth route as much as possible but may well end up on the odd campsite

I think a cheapo alarmed disclock might do the trick

My new LBS had clearly ‘reserved’ his allocation for his mates

2 more I rang on the list were not taking part. List has now gone from press release……

In the press release it says that once the tyre allocation has gone after June 1st there will be no more – well its May the 27th so that would suggest that they can get more but aren’t bothering

Well done to those that get some but I reckon this could have been handled better

Both my girls got 20″ geared bikes at 7 years and you will be surprised how useful they are. However make sure they can operate the gear lever – one has a Spesh Hotrock which has a lovely light action 6 speed twist grip but the other has a Mongoose Rocadile which is a great bike but has totally stiff unuseable 7 speed gripshift which I had to change

I guess you could always get one of these

Old simless IPhone in a rubber case, Motion X GPS App. Downloaded Opencycle map tiles on the home wireless

Battery lasts about 8 hrs which is fine for most days but am looking on ebay for a Garmin – the 705 seems to be a good buy these days at around £80-100

The more police/magistrates/insurance companies who think that wearing a helmet when cycling = the norm, the more likely it is that we will be lectured/let down in court/not get compensation

And it all starts with people thinking like the OP

My dear OP, I didn’t see any debate – just a very silly and inflammatory post calling me a **** as neither I nor my wife would dream of wearing helmets on a cycle path.

I therefore replied with same.

x

Brilliant – thought the OP got idiotic post of the month till stabilizer piped up

1988: Hoo Koo E Koo

Many many bikes

2014: Sunn Tzar S1

I love cycling me!

What are the fees? And are you planning on moving within 5 years.

2 year fix would have to be fee free to really make it worth while unless you are likely to move in which case you will have to port your 5 year fix or pay an exit penalty. Porting a mortgage is now much more difficult in the sense that lending criteria have stiffened up so relying on one lender to advance you more when you move may restrict you considerably.

If you are not moving and the fees are not high v the amount borrowed (say 2k on 200k) I’d go for the 5 year fix

These are pretty good too

rubbish name though[/url]

They seem like a bargain to me. £200 up front, kid gets a great bike and starts a life long relationship with 2 wheels then a couple of years later you sell it for £30-50 less than you paid for it (or even less if you are lucky)

versus £80-100 quid on a Halfords BSO which the child can’t pick up and which then falls apart or gets left to rust in a corner. Resale value nil.

Kids DO care if they can’t ride the thing because the gears are too stiff for little hands or the stupid fake suspension forks fall apart.

I stupidly bought a Halfords piece of junk and it broke (unfixable) on holiday ruining my daughters week – it was 6 months old.

Now she has one of these

Awesome – my new LBS is taking part! Lets see if this works.

if that chuck is so good why don’t topeak put them on their pumps?

I’ve just read that the SKS compressor falls over a lot – I hate that in a pump…

I don’t use tubeless

Does it matter which one – there appear to be loads! Sport 2 ok?

Rancho wasn’t 1000cc!

and you won’t find an old 4×4 panda for reasonable money anymore

The obvious choice would be a 2cv but I’ve always had a hankering for one of these: