Greetings

It's funny how british people look erm... british. I imagined you'd be tall and skinny.

Haha I'm definitely ageing the wrong way, I was asked for an ID last week when buying some cider Mind you that pic is 2 years old, it's the only one I could find without the missus. She sticks her head into every single pic. This is more up to date.

Hardly have any pics of myself.

Biblical knocking from the rear end in the Daihatsu resolved. Shock absorber dead (closely resembles a bicycle pump), what's amusing is that the spring was welded to the chassis on one end, and to the shock absorber on the other :bow: It's too short, broke off and was banging against the strut tower. Anyway, new shocks are like 15 quid, so going to get two.

Koxx design is hard to beat. Shame there are so few of these Sky bikes around.

The Party with Peter Sellers is my personal choice when it comes to wheelbuilding movies. It's really relaxing and doesn't require much thought. I love the house in which they shot the film. Big no no for drinking beers while wheel building. I'll find later on that I crossed one spoke incorrectly or put one into the wrong hole in the rim. That usually means that all the spokes you install subsequently end up in the wrong hole. edit: as for the sprocket removal:

Came back from the dentist. Must have been 10 years since I last went for a check up. Found the courage because it turned out one of my rallysprint buddies is a dentist, kind of explains why his daily driver is a brand new S65. Was really amusing having him check my teeth while talking about new wheels he's bought for his M3 and whether I think 225 section tyres will fit onto an 8" rim. I think he expected answers each time but didn't bother removing his tools from my mouth Anyway, what makes me really happy is he did an x-ray, scaling, sanding and something else and didn't want a penny for it.

Back from what my friends call a "nocturnal training session". I can hardly believe it, but we covered 120!! miles in woods and on fields. At one stage we might have been running away from the police, we're not really sure if they were after us or just taking the same route. Quickly got away. All together lots of fun, very high skill from all the drivers. They all race rwd cars and in the winter they bring out their cheap tatty 4WD's and enjoy themselves. I live in a flat part of the country and I couldn't believe the elevation differences we got on the stages. Many of them were absolutely amazing, fairly twisty and with drops and inclines through the corners. Can't say I'm getting the hang of driving a 4x4, it's definitely getting more familiar but there's still a long way to go. As far as I can tell, the way to go through a corner not stupidly quickly is to actually do all the steering before the corner and keep the wheels straight while you're in the corner, steering with the throttle. I think this is called a Scandinavian flick? It's similar to a feint drift. Either way, I can't feel the mass of the car, can't always find the grip to go in the opposite direction to the corner before turning in. Also not sure what applying the brakes does. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. Weird. One of the most amusing moments for me, Bednary is a very small town but also a disfunct airfield which until recently was open for drifting events, rallysprint and so on. Once you paid, you could do whatever you want. They no longer allow motorsport. My mates kept saying they know how to get in, that there's a hole in the fence somewhere. I think the general idea was that if we got in, it was certain someone would call the police. And while it would usually take them about half an hour to get there, we though there's bound to be a patrol car nearby considering we might have been chased earlier on. Usual sight, we'd complete a stage, then wait for everyone to come through, turn back and do it again. We'd repeat each stage no more than 2-3x each way, there are occasionally houses nearby and it's not uncommon for locals to call the police. It's also apparently illegal to drive in woods. I think this is a GTR, not sure though. Guy had to go back home fairly early because one of his brake pipes burst and he didn't have any brakes. And the only powerful car there, everything else was below 100bhp.

Paid a deposit on the S2k do secure first dibs for the spring. Car is coming over for it's annual winter storage in a week or two. The owner has been kind enough to give me a choice of what mods I want to buy it with, so far chose these: - Seat belt lock - XYZ 330mm 6 piston brakes - 4.56 final drive torsen diff - Buddy Club RSD coilovers - Fujita cold air intake - NRG X-Brace - Pimp Alpine unit, amp and speakers, all nicely hidden away There's still a Supersprint exhaust to buy if I'm interested, would probably prefer stock though. It's not a quiet car as it is anyway, and induction noise is always going to be better than exhaust noise. Can't wait. Out of all the cars I've ever driven, the S2k is the most fun by a long way. Not sold on the white coat but that can be removed easily and cheaply. More pics:

oh my god. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyRdtXQ-SM8

No problem, hope you manage to sort out shipping and that you're satisfied. These are my old XR01 intermediates: They were absolutely superb on a wet, clean track. Very good in the dry too. I think you'll find that shipping of tyres to the UK will be very expensive unless they have a very good deal with a freighter or use some other mode of transport. Considering that their website is run in English, they might have a way of cheaply shipping them out abroad.

Never mind. Just noticed the bashring is a separate part, so if you're left foot forward you just order a different bash with the cranks. Cool product, nice to see some innovation in a part you'd never expect.

Width is a problem. Their general thinking was that if someone needs wide tyres, they probably have a powerful car. If they have a powerful car, they can afford "proper" tyres. But these turned out to be so good that people are even using them on Evos. 225 is the widest slick they make, the Tornados come in 235 which is why I bought them. Mine are soft, reason is I have experience with the soft compound and it's epic. This is a mud/rain tyre, if you're just using them on a wet track with little standing water, I'd get the XR01 slicks in soft and ask them to put some extra grooves in. My XR01's are more of an intermediate, there's some extra grooves for removing water on the inside. By the way, the soft is not a typical rain tyre compound. If you've ever used rain tyres you will have noticed that they don't squeal even in the dry. These do. Conditions my soft pair has worked well for front wheels/non drive: - rain, any temperature - dry below 10C - work well even at -10C, get up to heat very quickly Rear wheels/drive: - rain Wear is not an issue surprisingly. The set I've got on the M3 lasted me 1 season during which I used them 1x rear axle cold dry, 1x rear axle wet, 5-6x front axle cool/cold but dry. Each event adds up to at least 35km of sprinting + at least 20km of training. The above use resulted in one tyre worn to the canvas and one tyre worn half way. The hard compound is equivalent to 595's apparently. edit: Our use of cars is completely different, I rely on maximum grip for 5-8km, you need to balance thread wear if you're doing many laps. If I were you, I'd go for rear softs and front... probably soft too but with your power output and FWD those could wear quickly.

No need for a photoshop actually, just remembered about this car. Looks a bit meh... Anthracite is an interesting call, could look good. Will look into it. Why no white? Prawn, those are tyres called Profil, they're a bit like Maxxsports except a lot cheaper. Without a discount they're about 58-68 quid in 18". I've heard from people who used both these and Max's and found that the latter have better sidewall stiffness and that's about it. This has been improved on the new batch of tyres I've got in. Their website is run in English, don't know if that means you can buy them around Europe though. Would highly recommend them. http://www.sklep.oponysportowe.eu/

I thought I saw some clips of you riding and you looked adequately sized to me? Being tall is so overrated these days.

Haha. If you're short-ish then I sympathize. Not too tall either, in your preposterous measuring system I'm 5'11 which by today's standards is probably classed as something between a midget and a dwarf? She's just a bit shorter than me in high heels which is perfect. Doesn't ruin my self esteem and looks great.

I love the wrapping paper which informs you that it's Christmas. Information is power!

Time for some epic cheap tyres. 50 quid a pop, 235/40R18 Avon soft compound rain tyre re-threads. Already used the slick version of this tyre and it's epic. Had to order one of those too because I forgot to flip them over after a few events and wore one down to the canvas. Can't wait to give the rain tyres a try. This also means I need to prepare a set of 18 inch rims. Got one but in green, they need a repaint. Got to do some VT, thinking about white, black or the exact same colour as the car (red). Ideas?

Never thought I would, but I actually enjoy shoe shopping with the "new" missus. She's got epic taste in high heels and actually wears them all the time, so for a guy like me who likes women in such shoes, it's time well spent.

I'm well aware of that, did some research on Chris a while back because I was wondering how he could afford a car like that, being just a journalist for a Youtube channel. Turned out he was more than that. I like Top Gear a lot, but with the time it was off air, I was forced to find some different sources for automotive entertainment and started to see certain flaws in Top Gear (well, mostly in JC and occasionally Hammond). They tweak too many facts to their advantage just make a point. One of the frequently mentioned dumb facts is that german manufacturers limit their cars to 155mph because "that's the limit of what various components can take". There are many more, can't remember now. Sorry if that doesn't make sense, I've been drinking.

You mean one of these? Came back from a drive in the jap. Just me and my friend looking for interesting stages, most are way too bumpy for our cars. Finding a twisty smooth route seems really difficult, no success today. No pics either, just this one from one of many "got to stop and check where the hell we are" moments. We did find a sort of triangular roundabout in one village, spent a while going around.

f**k me that evo is epic. Kind of reminds me of this beast: In related 4wd awesomeness, got the Daihatsu back since there's snow outside. Car is pretty much sorted now, just needs the thermostat removed. Waiting for it to cool down. Lowered the seat, installed a new boss and the wheel from the M3. Feels soooo much nicer now.

We went to a pupils' concert at the academy of music. I usually find it unbearable to sit in a chair for more than 20 minutes, this lasted 3 hours and I was hooked throughout the evening. And that's before I was told most of it was improvised. Love how the atmosphere is so relaxed and friendly with none of this uptight orchestral stuff. And you can see the musicians actually enjoying themselves. Next one on the 19th I think, gf has the dates. Can't wait.

Here you go, personally I find this chap a lot more interesting than the Top Gear guys who tend to talk a load of nonsense.

Went to a jazz concert. Found out I love jazz.