Your rants here.

pangolin

KingstonGraham wrote:

pangolin wrote:

Guy parked on double yellows decided to pull out as I went past. Shin clipped his front arch, back wheel bounced out, went down on my side. No real injury, bartape is ripped, rear wheel a bit out of true and tyre deflated for some reason. Shifters and derailleur all scuffed up (that's annoying, doesn't seem worth getting a new shifter for a scuff but it will always annoy me when I see it). Taking it to a bike shop tomorrow to get it checked.

He gave me his number and I took a photo of his car so not all bad.

No real injury, or no injury?

Well I felt fine but it's always hard to tell at first. 2 days later and yeah just a bruise on my shin nothing else.

awavey

twice this week Ive nearly been doored by morons flinging open their car doors fully open into the road, the most annoying thing apart from them doing it in the first place is the sheer contempt they have for you when they look at you. But tonights was special in note as I had to veer across the center line to get pass just as a car coming the opposite way turned into the road, and decided regardless of what obstaces lay in front of them, they were going to floor it :roll:

pangolin

pangolin wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

pangolin wrote:

Guy parked on double yellows decided to pull out as I went past. Shin clipped his front arch, back wheel bounced out, went down on my side. No real injury, bartape is ripped, rear wheel a bit out of true and tyre deflated for some reason. Shifters and derailleur all scuffed up (that's annoying, doesn't seem worth getting a new shifter for a scuff but it will always annoy me when I see it). Taking it to a bike shop tomorrow to get it checked.

He gave me his number and I took a photo of his car so not all bad.

No real injury, or no injury?

Well I felt fine but it's always hard to tell at first. 2 days later and yeah just a bruise on my shin nothing else.

Bike repaired, was only £62. Driver ignored my updates by text during this. Called him a couple of days later and he picked up, laughed when I said who I was. Started blustering about paying in a couple of weeks, then that he didn't trust me about the £62 (despite sending him the receipt) and he wanted to go back to the bike shop with me to talk to them. This would be my 3rd trip to the shop, he could have come on one of the earlier ones if he'd bothered replying. Then he said he'd call them and get back to me. Called him later on, said he was busy "looking for his wallet" and would get back to me. Since then has been ignoring my calls. What a f******g p***k.

For that much money who cares really, but I am hacked off. Called Leigh Day as I am a british cycling member. They advised I contact his insurance in the first instance as that's usually the quickest resolution. They were able to provide me with his insurer and policy number from his number plate, which is a nice feature, I didn't know they could do that. So after he ignored another call and a message saying I'd deal with his insurer if he didn't want to handle it, I have sent them all the details. Seeing it as an unlikely bonus if I get any money back at this point but want to cause him some hassle!

gbsahne001

pangolin wrote:

For that much money who cares really, but I am hacked off. Called Leigh Day as I am a british cycling member. They advised I contact his insurance in the first instance as that's usually the quickest resolution. They were able to provide me with his insurer and policy number from his number plate, which is a nice feature, I didn't know they could do that. So after he ignored another call and a message saying I'd deal with his insurer if he didn't want to handle it, I have sent them all the details. Seeing it as an unlikely bonus if I get any money back at this point but want to cause him some hassle!

Sounds like the shifters and derailleurs need to be replaced ....

kingstongraham

pangolin wrote:

pangolin wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

pangolin wrote:

Guy parked on double yellows decided to pull out as I went past. Shin clipped his front arch, back wheel bounced out, went down on my side. No real injury, bartape is ripped, rear wheel a bit out of true and tyre deflated for some reason. Shifters and derailleur all scuffed up (that's annoying, doesn't seem worth getting a new shifter for a scuff but it will always annoy me when I see it). Taking it to a bike shop tomorrow to get it checked.

He gave me his number and I took a photo of his car so not all bad.

No real injury, or no injury?

Well I felt fine but it's always hard to tell at first. 2 days later and yeah just a bruise on my shin nothing else.

Bike repaired, was only £62. Driver ignored my updates by text during this. Called him a couple of days later and he picked up, laughed when I said who I was. Started blustering about paying in a couple of weeks, then that he didn't trust me about the £62 (despite sending him the receipt) and he wanted to go back to the bike shop with me to talk to them. This would be my 3rd trip to the shop, he could have come on one of the earlier ones if he'd bothered replying. Then he said he'd call them and get back to me. Called him later on, said he was busy "looking for his wallet" and would get back to me. Since then has been ignoring my calls. What a f******g p***k.

For that much money who cares really, but I am hacked off. Called Leigh Day as I am a british cycling member. They advised I contact his insurance in the first instance as that's usually the quickest resolution. They were able to provide me with his insurer and policy number from his number plate, which is a nice feature, I didn't know they could do that. So after he ignored another call and a message saying I'd deal with his insurer if he didn't want to handle it, I have sent them all the details. Seeing it as an unlikely bonus if I get any money back at this point but want to cause him some hassle!

Shame about that injury, eh?

slowbike

Well - the rain last night was unexpected ... no overshoes !! and it was heavier than it first seemed ...
frantic drying of the shoes when I got home so they're ready for this morning.
This morning I was going to take in an early hill on an alternative route to work, but on riding out towards it I noticed ice on the side of the road - given this hill has a fast and fairly busy descent (like >40mph) I decided not to risk it and came the main road instead.

amrushton

riding up cragg Vale at w/end. it's a headwind but I'm going fairly hard so why when I catch up with a group (all nicely Rapha'd ) did I not just sit in and shelter? They were going at a fair pace and would prob have slowed me down by a minute. I am the wrong side of 55 to be so stupid. Then I'm on the way home and riding behind someone on a x1 set up. Looks to be a 38 ring with 9 speed. there is a headwind and a slight uphill gradient and we are doing 15mph and I cant get past as it isnt that far to the junction. So why do I have 2 chainrings? I was on the 36 on Cragg Vale and still on the 36 behind the rider.

wolfsbane2k

Slowbike wrote:

Well - the rain last night was unexpected ... no overshoes !! and it was heavier than it first seemed ...
frantic drying of the shoes when I got home so they're ready for this morning.
This morning I was going to take in an early hill on an alternative route to work, but on riding out towards it I noticed ice on the side of the road - given this hill has a fast and fairly busy descent (like >40mph) I decided not to risk it and came the main road instead.

yeah, that was quite the downpour last night wasn't it! I thought I'd managed to get out and in again between downpours, but due to being on the slow bike, forgot that my commute takes about 15 minutes longer...

Yeah, the ice this morning was a little unexpected, there were solid sheets of ice in the shadows, good observations skills.

timothyw

Cheeky bastard dentists screwing me out of money.

Right up there with used car and double glazing salesmen.

Cunts

elbowloh

TimothyW wrote:

Cheeky bastard dentists screwing me out of money.

Right up there with used car and double glazing salesmen.

*****

NHS or private?

I've noticed that some of the NHS dentists don't seem to be aware of the very clear rules on the 3 different prices that they can charge and the fact that they can only charge once for a single course of treatment, even if it is over multiple visits.

vpnikolov

pangolin wrote:

For that much money who cares really, but I am hacked off. Called Leigh Day as I am a british cycling member. They advised I contact his insurance in the first instance as that's usually the quickest resolution. They were able to provide me with his insurer and policy number from his number plate, which is a nice feature, I didn't know they could do that. So after he ignored another call and a message saying I'd deal with his insurer if he didn't want to handle it, I have sent them all the details. Seeing it as an unlikely bonus if I get any money back at this point but want to cause him some hassle!

I am glad you followed up with his insurers. I would have advised you to deal with them from the start. That is the best approach.

DrLex

^ indeed, and the idiot will pay more than your reasonable £ request in increased premiums for a few years.

slowbike

vpnikolov wrote:

pangolin wrote:

For that much money who cares really, but I am hacked off. Called Leigh Day as I am a british cycling member. They advised I contact his insurance in the first instance as that's usually the quickest resolution. They were able to provide me with his insurer and policy number from his number plate, which is a nice feature, I didn't know they could do that. So after he ignored another call and a message saying I'd deal with his insurer if he didn't want to handle it, I have sent them all the details. Seeing it as an unlikely bonus if I get any money back at this point but want to cause him some hassle!

I am glad you followed up with his insurers. I would have advised you to deal with them from the start. That is the best approach.

tricky call - fwiw - I think if I felt the original "Oops" was genuine and repayment offer was sincere then I'd go the same way as Pangolin - the only time it did happen to me was when I was a student - and fortunately the driver took me to the bike shop (with my bike), dropped me off at college, picked me up after college, came in with me to the bikeshop and paid for the repair there and then - I didn't have to part with any money up front.
Sometimes sh1t happens - hopefully it's not the issue - it's how it's dealt with that counts.

timothyw

elbowloh wrote:

TimothyW wrote:

Cheeky bastard dentists screwing me out of money.

Right up there with used car and double glazing salesmen.

*****

NHS or private?

I've noticed that some of the NHS dentists don't seem to be aware of the very clear rules on the 3 different prices that they can charge and the fact that they can only charge once for a single course of treatment, even if it is over multiple visits.

That's the beauty of it. So, I needed root canal and a crown (still need the crown in fact).

I asked for an NHS appointment.

I go in, they told me last month, it'll cost this much NHS, this much private for the crown but we can worry about that and discuss the options later. I signed the form to indicate that I understood this information.

Seems they've taken it upon themselves to do the root canal privately, without my consent or informing me (I paid my £250 at the time of the root canal which should cover the whole treatment on NHS, and at no point did they state that I was paying for private treatment, or that they couldn't do it on NHS).

I come out of a check up today and they say that it'll cost another £650 to do the crown. I'm like, er, that's much more than I was expecting to pay, I wanted NHS treatment, they're all 'oh, we can't do that, we've used up all our NHS treatments for the tax year, it'll have to wait until April....'

So they still want to charge me another £270/whatever band 3 NHS treatment is next tax year. They also want me to pay to do some 'prep' for the crown privately before that, another £120.

Well sod that. I'm in no pain (tooth is completely fucked anyway) and am a stubborn bastard so there's no way in hell they're getting that out of me.

Too pissed off about it today to decide what next steps are, giving myself a day or two.

redvee

TimothyW wrote:

Cheeky bastard dentists screwing me out of money.

Pain in the mouth I can handle, pain in the wallet, even NHS, I can't.

drhaggis

Went skiing to Pyrenees during scottish half term. The last day, gravity overcame my talent (nit that difficult TBH), and ended up with a grade II ligament tear on left thumb. The doctor almost felt disappointed he didn't need to peerform surgery. 4 to 6 weeks for recovery. Say goodbye to form, to weight loss, and to early March rides.

Anyway, because I'm a stubborn idiot, I cycled to work after coming back. It's a pain, and changing chainrings requires my right hand. What health and Safety?

But this ain't over, no. $DEITY sent me a signal: yesterday, on my way back home, I picked up a slow puncture There is absolutely no way I can fix that using only my right hand. So I can:

• Convince Mrs. Haggis to fix the puncture for me (AHAHAHA)
• Buy my neighbour, a bike commuter himself, a beer for 15m of his time
• Pay my LBS to do it
• Suck it up and recover properly

kingstongraham

DrHaggis wrote:

Went skiing to Pyrenees during scottish half term. The last day, gravity overcame my talent (nit that difficult TBH), and ended up with a grade II ligament tear on left thumb. The doctor almost felt disappointed he didn't need to peerform surgery. 4 to 6 weeks for recovery. Say goodbye to form, to weight loss, and to early March rides.

Anyway, because I'm a stubborn idiot, I cycled to work after coming back. It's a pain, and changing chainrings requires my right hand. What health and Safety?

But this ain't over, no. $DEITY sent me a signal: yesterday, on my way back home, I picked up a slow puncture There is absolutely no way I can fix that using only my right hand. So I can:

• Convince Mrs. Haggis to fix the puncture for me (AHAHAHA)
• Buy my neighbour, a bike commuter himself, a beer for 15m of his time
• Pay my LBS to do it
• Suck it up and recover properly

New single speed bike.

elbowloh

Trying to sell a property and moving house.

Shit innit.

thistle_

KingstonGraham wrote:

DrHaggis wrote:

But this ain't over, no. $DEITY sent me a signal: yesterday, on my way back home, I picked up a slow puncture There is absolutely no way I can fix that using only my right hand. So I can:

• Convince Mrs. Haggis to fix the puncture for me (AHAHAHA)
• Buy my neighbour, a bike commuter himself, a beer for 15m of his time
• Pay my LBS to do it
• Suck it up and recover properly

New single speed bike.

an electronic group set which you can program to shift through all combinations with just 1 shifter?

Tell the LBS why and they might fix your puncture for free when you pick It up.

drhaggis

KingstonGraham wrote:

DrHaggis wrote:

Went skiing to Pyrenees during scottish half term. The last day, gravity overcame my talent (nit that difficult TBH), and ended up with a grade II ligament tear on left thumb. The doctor almost felt disappointed he didn't need to peerform surgery. 4 to 6 weeks for recovery. Say goodbye to form, to weight loss, and to early March rides.

Anyway, because I'm a stubborn idiot, I cycled to work after coming back. It's a pain, and changing chainrings requires my right hand. What health and Safety?

But this ain't over, no. $DEITY sent me a signal: yesterday, on my way back home, I picked up a slow puncture There is absolutely no way I can fix that using only my right hand. So I can:

• Convince Mrs. Haggis to fix the puncture for me (AHAHAHA)
• Buy my neighbour, a bike commuter himself, a beer for 15m of his time
• Pay my LBS to do it
• Suck it up and recover properly

New single speed bike.

Mrs Haggis laughed at your suggestion, but didn't say "no". I'll take it as a yes then...

DrLex

And on it spec. Tannus solid tyres or tubeless?

Gallywomack

Have discovered (through the magic of Strava fly-by) a good training loop on a long and largely uninterrupted road in a top secret location that we'll just call 'Hotherithe' - ideal for interval/ftp type training and more or less on the way to work. So this morning went and did a couple of laps, somewhere in the region of 7.5 miles at above threshold (I'm flying blind as no computer/HR/etc but anyway, hard enough that I wouldn't have been able to continue at that pace by the end).

Got to work all excited to check my Strava data, only to find - it hadn't recorded. I'm almost 100% sure I started it when I set off but I suppose it could be user error. However I'm laying the blame on my phone. Was a bit strange as there wasn't even a partial recording there which there has been on previous occasions I've had recording failures with this phone. Anyway, quite an annoying start to the week, but I'll just have to console myself that I got the training benefit regardless...

(Who'm I kidding, that's no consolation :x )

bonzo_banana

Don't even have kids but the price of children's bikes annoys me. There is so little material in the frames, they often keep the same name as adult versions but use bottom end tourney components and freewheels and I know that in China etc aluminium welders learn on children's bikes first to develop their welding skills where it won't matter as much because of the low weight limits before going to adult bikes when skilled yet somehow many brands charge £200 plus for these tiny little bikes. The manufacturing cost must be incredibly low plus much reduced shipping costs. I've seen it stated good quality aluminium children's bikes can cost less than $30 factory door price (alibaba) and for an adult bike costing that it would probably be about £100-120 retail despite the extra shipping costs but for a children's bike often 2-3x that amount. Just seems like a ripoff that people accept but it doesn't take 2 seconds to look at those bikes and have an understanding of what they cost to manufacture. Also where as a adult bike may have butted tubes and other manufacturing process involved in the frame the kids bikes are often straight gauge basic frames.

drhaggis

Bonzo, you're very wrong. Popular, geared, kids' alu bikes are now £300+. Frog 52's went from £250 to £320 after a fateful vote in June 2016. Islabike's equivalent model is £390.

And you forgot that kids grow out of these very fast. Add to that a "hypothetical example", where Haggis Jr is just too old for Tiny Haggis to get into his bike straight away, so, again hypothetically speaking, we'd have to store a 20" bike while one's on a 24 and another on a 16.

Then again, a set of Mavic Aksiums is ~£170, and cosmics are rarely seen below £300. That's pretty much Magnesium alloy wheels for cars.

tgotb

By the time I'd bought my daughter's Islabikes 2nd hand and then sold them on for what I paid for them, they were effectively free. OK, so there's the cost of having a couple of hundred pounds locked up in a bike, but at today's interest rates that's a few quid a year...

Wheelspinner

DrHaggis wrote:

Went skiing to Pyrenees during scottish half term. The last day, gravity overcame my talent (nit that difficult TBH), and ended up with a grade II ligament tear on left thumb. The doctor almost felt disappointed he didn't need to peerform surgery. 4 to 6 weeks for recovery. Say goodbye to form, to weight loss, and to early March rides.

Anyway, because I'm a stubborn idiot, I cycled to work after coming back. It's a pain, and changing chainrings requires my right hand. What health and Safety?

But this ain't over, no. $DEITY sent me a signal: yesterday, on my way back home, I picked up a slow puncture There is absolutely no way I can fix that using only my right hand. So I can:

• Convince Mrs. Haggis to fix the puncture for me (AHAHAHA)
• Buy my neighbour, a bike commuter himself, a beer for 15m of his time
• Pay my LBS to do it
• Suck it up and recover properly

MTFU..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV4H04Rmkrw

drhaggis

Pffff... you lost me at the CO2 cartridge.

Now, seriously, amazing from the beginning to the end. I take off my hat to that guy.

Wheelspinner

I can't imagine the perseverance it would take to learn to do that.

awavey

why is it I always feel let down when a motorcyclist close passes me or cuts me up badly, cars,buses,trucks just annoy me when they do it, but then I dont really expect anything less from them most of the time,

but with motorcyclists, you think surely they get two wheeled riding, they know what its about, what its like and how vulnerable you are in those situations and would absolutely hate to be passed like it themselves, so why do it ?

seajays

So I commute the same route every day, and use Strava unfailingly. On the one infrequent day yesterday where I had to visit somewhere else first, it meant I was taking a completely different route home, about twice as far as usual, coming in from the north with some really good long uphills and downhills.

Got home and went to stop Strava on my watch... battery had given up halfway through for some unknown reason - and with the really fast bits all missed out too