Mark W

All the reviews I've read have said that the only negatives of it are that it's "uninspiring to drive" and that the engine isn't particularly powerful, but apparently it's decent on the motorway (thank you, 6th gear) and has more load space than most other comparable models so realistically it'll be fine for what I need it for*. Have a few friends down here who either currently own or have owned them and taken them well over 200,000 with appropriate TLC for them so it seems like it should last assuming I keep on top of things. Another bonus is they take part ex, so I'm hoping I can get the MX5 cleaned up, then basically drive up in that and drive home in a shiny new(er) car. Sounds like there's something new at the TB warehouse to shoot too so could tie in nicely. *Taking my mountain bike places to ride.

Alrighty, after years of threatening to get an estate I'm taking the plunge. Any thoughts on this/anything to be wary of? Checked the MOT history and it is super clean. Had a look at a few others that were a better price but seem to have fairly chequered MOT histories. Otherwise seems to be fairly reasonably priced compared to similar models, photos make it seem in decent condition, recently done cambelt is nice...

Because a lot of it is down to how efficient health boards are, I think it depends a lot on where you are as much as anything. My sister got her first and second doses before my Mum, as an example. Just the difference between living in a Cardiff health board and living in rural Wales. Heard a few stories of things like that happening. People are f**king morons/this is why we can't have nice things.

The devil is in the pissy detail. Just had the people who are moving in to this place after us come round for a second viewing (seemingly to measure up), so I assume that means they'll be throwing them in the moment we give the keys back in. This no doubt means it'll get the same standard of cleaning and re-decorating it had before we moved in.

You seem to be forgetting that inexplicably there are entirely different rules and standards for football fans compared to the general population. "It's the National Game", etc...

That wouldn't really be ideal. That's why the SRAM cranksets sold with those bashrings come with this spacer: That fits within the bashring constraints and spaces it out correctly. You could get away with doing it by filing/grinding/whatevering a regular 4.5mm spacer but it'll probably take some doing. It'll be better than running your cranks incorrectly spaced though.

The frame is a really good foundation. Quality of it is super high, and they have decent geo. The forks look a bit old school but are nice and tough. The only 'problem' is just that the spec is a little basic, but for the price it's not bad. Just something to factor in for upgrading further down the line. Nothing really stopping you getting it and riding it straight out of the box though, there aren't really any bad parts on the bike.

Yeah, although I guess £680 is a bit of a drop in the ocean...

Looking forward to seeing how he gets on at the World Cups! Definitely got the confidence/power/control going on...

Clean/Jitsie/Trialtech pads are all one and the same. The Hope ones are their own unique thing, and also worse The Jitsie style ones always gave me a shitload more bite and hold, but if they get hot they do glaze pretty easily. It just means you have to scrub the pads in a bit more (just riding around pulsing the brake on and off), but will mean they wear a bit faster than 'other' pads like the Hopes. It's a trade-off that was definitely worth it for me. It's worth noting that as they make your brake grabbier, if you use your brakes a lot more manuals and stuff like that they may take a bit of getting used to. I always felt the trade-off was worth it though as they really do make brakes work better.

Ah yeah, true true. Turns out my reading comprehension is directly correlated to my hours of sleep...

I don't know why, but this amused me: "A leading expert said his theory was "as good as any, and better than most". "It may look like something out of Last of the Summer Wine, but we've lifted a third of a tonne with it and theoretically it could move any weight," said carpet fitter Steven Tasker, 66, from Llanrhaeadr." Just something about a 'leading expert' being a carpet fitter from the middle of nowhere in Wales...

We got our letter through with our schedule on it from Nationwide. We completed on the 25th June, they're taking a first payment on the 13th July which covers the first full month and the part month from before it. Expensive month is expensive.

Yeah, think that's the point of the vaccines in a way - even if you get it, it's much reduced compared to what it would have been. Seems to be tracking with the data coming out of the US. Found out I've got my second Pfizer dose the Tuesday before we do our Big Move on the Saturday. Nic has hers on the Thursday. Hopefully those side effects will be minimal, not really looking forward to packing and moving anyway let alone doing it while living that side effect dream.

The phrase "It looks more like a Harley-Davidson motorcycle" is writing cheques those bikes cannot cash.

They didn't stock them separately but they were on some of the complete bikes they did. I don't think many people reported issues with them, but if you're in any way concerned about strength the Crewkerz forks are the way to go. They're more expensive, but you'd have to be going some to break them. The abuse they put up with from guys like Charlie and Jack is insane...

Pfizer? If so, waiting for my letter to let me know about my second vaccine date. Everything I've read from people who've had their second Pfizer dose does not have me looking forward to it... EDIT: That said, my sister's partner got the Delta variant recently and that sounded like a significantly worse time than the vaccine side effects.

Yeah, that's the case as far as we're aware. Think it depends if they argue it was 'professionally cleaned' before we moved in, in which case they could swipe the cost of 'professional cleaning' from the deposit. They might find it hard to do that though as the letting agent who did the inventory before we moved in actually noted that the bathroom floor was 'filthy'... Anyway, in brighter news, we have completed. To keep the theme going, we were told the keys were ready at 12 for us to go and pick up. We got there at 12:10 and they hadn't been dropped off yet. We got them later in the afternoon with just enough time to have a quick look before Nic had to be back for a video meeting. All looks in pretty good condition inside, apart from some bits where they've f**ked the paint on the walls where they've hung stuff. The worst bit is in the living room where they had a wall mounted TV. Seemingly they put the bracket on then painted around it, so we now have a large TV bracket shaped area of random coloured wall with a load of rawl plugs in it. Primo. Nothing major either way, although I can already sense that my opportunities to ride in the short to mid term future have drastically diminished

In mountain biking, the fit of a bike/setup is really important, so there are plenty of different frame sizes, bar heights and widths, stem lengths, saddles and so on. For trials though, it seems like a lot of riders (not saying this is you!) just use whatever setup their favourite rider is using and leave it at that, without really experimenting much to find out what works best for them. The clearest example is the whole 'Carthy bars' phenomenon where lots of riders run/ran bar angles that you really don't need to suffer with for the majority of riding they're likely to do. I think guys like Jack can get away with more extreme setups because they're riding all the time and will have built up strength and to a degree some tolerance to it, but for riders who are just getting out once or twice a week for a few hours it may be doing more harm than good. There's a lot of things with setup on trials bikes that isn't really optimal, but it is possible to mitigate them to an extent. I have a feeling that for riders who appear to suffer less without necessarily doing the body prep, it could just be that they happen to have found a sweet spot for their body size/type and their bike. Even things like running the wrong brake lever angle and reach can have an impact throughout larger parts of your body - if your levers are too high or low, that impacts how you grip the bar, which in turn impacts your wrists, which then affects your elbow positioning and so on... When I first started I got a lot of wrist pain, and simply changing my lever angle by a few degrees totally alleviated it. Similar with back pain too. Just changing my stem and spacer setup allowed me to get a more comfortable setup that didn't give me any back pain. That said, I do agree that getting into stretching early is a good thing, although I don't think you necessarily need to go down the whole sports massage/gym work routine unless that particularly does it for you. Most riders are more likely going to benefit from spending an additional few hours on their bike every week getting their technique better rather than spending that time in the gym.

My topic, I can do what I want - it's now covering EWS too Anyone else going to be watching out for this? Watched everything I could get hold of for last years (and got the Misspent Summers 'Meltdown' book which was well worth it) and really enjoyed it. Looking forward to seeing what it's like with a full strength rider line-up again. Guys like Jesse Melamed and Jack Moir are looking f**king quick from their YT videos, although Sam Hill is Sam Hill and Richie Rude is Richie Rude.

It can, but it doesn't have to. It just takes a bit of a different mindset - there are positive things about riding on your own, even though there are obviously negatives too. You just have to focus on the positives rather than dwelling on the negatives.

They are surprisingly close - with the spoke hole offset factored in on the hOle rim, that ERD is 542.5. The standard Try-All Rear 26" rim is 541. I'd generally put new spokes in regardless though. If they're old spokes, they work harden through use anyway, but also develop notches/grooves in the spokes themselves where they cross in the existing wheel. Those positions will change when you lace them up into the new wheel which is usually a bad time.

Oh, sweet - didn't realise that, but just read up about it and it seems to be the case. Bueno. We found out early on in our contract here that this letting agent do whatever they can to get money off your deposit, so I suspect it'll be a faff getting the full thing back. We've been here two years but the landlord is fully opposed to spending any money on the place, and neither the landlord nor agents appear to be aware of the concept of 'wear and tear'. The DPS sounds like it should mean they can't totally screw us over, but I suspect we'll be losing some of it.

We know what his Strava is, and he is set to being on an e-bike. The problem is that he's literally riding straight through/over/across corners and off sections of trail just to straight line it all and try and get KOMs. At some of the shorter trails, he's doing an insane amount of laps on them (thanks to the motor assist to get back up), and just caning the shit out of stuff. The amount of wear people like him put on trails is quite something. It's just funny that he's the stereotypical e-bike rider that makes people hate e-bike riders, and then it turns out he's also an estate agent - another group that people typically hate. EDIT: On topic, just paid the deposit to our solicitor. EDIT 2: Just got confirmation of the mortgage transfer. It's actually happening...

Yeah, we tried. Our lettings agency are absolute f**kwits* and wouldn't budge. No option of pro rata rates or anything like that to reduce rent, even though they have to pro rata the final month because it's offset from our payment schedule. Proper piss-take. We let them know ages ago but they just kept saying that it has to be notice given on the 25th of a month to last until the 24th of the following month. Definitely not what we were told pre-moving in, but it seems that agent we spoke to was just making shit up. Thanks again for the help @Private Repress! *Fun fact: There's a local e-biker who keeps posting videos of him really egregiously Strava-lining his way down local trails, straight lining through/over turns and berms just to try and get some KOMs. He's adamant that he can do whatever he wants on them until all the trail builders involved message him personally to request otherwise. He also used the fact he apparently has 'all the KOMs in the area' (he doesn't, even with his cheat lines) to chat shit to one of the nicest guys around here, who also builds some of the best trails here - said trail builder was riding up a hill on his normal bike, and this dickhead came up behind him on his e-bike turbo'd up and had a rage at him for not moving over fast enough and ruining his time going up there. He was having a pop at him for not 'respecting' him and his KOMs enough by taking too long to move out the way. Turns out that guy is the son of the family who own the lettings company who we deal with, and is an estate agent for them. Suddenly it all made sense.