Search found 460 matches

by Nigel
5 Mar 2024, 9:06am
Forum: Campaigning & Public Policy
Topic: "The Political Influence of Motorists"
Replies: 28
Views: 1654

Re: "The Political Influence of Motorists"

Debs wrote: 5 Mar 2024, 1:06am What i don't understand is how they're pushing us to give up ICE cars and to buy a very expensive and overpriced EV with money we ain't got, and meanwhile; allowing motorsport to continue completely unabated.
F1 has stagnated into utter glitzy boredom these days [ IMO ] a millionaires club of young men who drive powerful go-carts around and around in circuits burning rubber and fuel like there's no tomorrow.
That's a description of motorsport all the way back to its origins (eg. the "Bentley boys"). If not interested, don't watch it.

The fuel burnt in a motor race is pretty much irrelevant to the planet. The fuel burnt by the visitors to the races is huge, most of them driving there. Just like the fuel burnt by visitors to the FA Cup final, Glastonbury music festival, any mega-music-stars current tour of large stadiums, or any other large event. Or the fuel burnt by people commuting to work. Or jamming up the M5 on bank holiday weekends. Or thousands of delivery vans going round dropping "next day internet orders".


The pressure to buy an EV consists of: you won't be able to buy a brand new combustion car in 11 years time. And that's it. We'll be able to buy a used combustion car after 2035. On the basis that combustion cars are still quite good at 8-10 years old, there will still be decent combustion cars on sale in 20 years time.
by Nigel
28 Feb 2024, 9:55am
Forum: Bikes & Bits – Technical section
Topic: Are there any modern cranksets that aren't goppingly awful?
Replies: 41
Views: 3442

Re: Are there any modern cranksets that aren't goppingly awful?

At a fairly high price, there's Middleburn. Can look very traditional if the right combination of "spider" and "rings" is selected, or can look more modern-chunky with different combinations.
by Nigel
21 Feb 2024, 1:01pm
Forum: Campaigning & Public Policy
Topic: Default 20mph for Wales
Replies: 574
Views: 553107

Re: Default 20mph for Wales

Pebble wrote: 21 Feb 2024, 11:57am Is it actually been enforced in Wales ? are people being fined for above 20 but below 30 ?

We have had this law for about 3 years in the Scottish Borders and I don't think it has ever been enforced - Police won't answer a FOI claiming it would damage their integrity or something.
........
What passes as local press these days have reported police checking speeds. As most of those would be 20mph now, then yes, there is some enforcement.
https://www.bordertelegraph.com/news/23 ... ders-town/


- Nigel
by Nigel
7 Feb 2024, 10:11am
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: Halfords Cycle2work
Replies: 38
Views: 1730

Re: Halfords Cycle2work

pete75 wrote: 3 Feb 2024, 9:10am
Jupestar wrote: 3 Feb 2024, 8:07am
pete75 wrote: 3 Feb 2024, 12:28am deferred members do accrue further benefits. Certainly in ours a deferred member receives a pension based on what his salary would have been had he stayed to retirement
That's certainly not pension trustees/actuary definition of accrual. Changes/increases to Final Pensionable Salary, from time left service to time of retirement, are normally CPI/RPI linked and often capped at 2.5/3/5%. Basically they allow for inflation.

Accrual means going from n/60th to n+1/60ths. Based on increasing years of service. Which is a luxury only about 750k or 3% of the UK workforce currently have.

DB is sadly a dying breed. Killed off because funds got into deficit, lumping the investment risk onto the individual, rather than the investment actuary/managers.
That figure of 750K seems very low. The NHS has 1.5 million employees, most of whom will be in it's pension scheme, ditto for half a million civil servants, 140,000 in the armed forces,150,000 coppers and about 2 million in local government. Ok some of these may have changed to career average, but to all intents and purposes that's little different to a final salary scheme and perhaps fairer because it relates the pension more directly to the person's contribution record.
Except that "career average" is just that, an average over career. If one elects to reduce pensionable salary through a salary sacrifice scheme, the amount to be averaged is reduced. Hence, in career average, a bike-to-work salary sacrifice has a negative effect on pension. Which was the point made about bike-to-work schemes a long way up the thread.

As others have shown, Final Salary is in rapid decline. Very few private sector employers offer them anymore.


Current NHS pensions are career average. Though which of several NHS schemes someone may be in, for which years of their employment, depends on when they started their NHS employment. It gets very complicated.

Civil service pensions are not going to be recorded on the Pension industry figures quoted, hence 750K looking "low". Whilst the pension is final salary (DB), its funded through taxation (todays tax pays todays pension payments), not through any investment scheme. So, it doesn't appear in pension fund calculations, worries about viability, etc.. Civil service and local government are, by far, the largest DB arrangement accepting contributions in the UK.


- Nigel
by Nigel
2 Feb 2024, 6:50pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: Halfords Cycle2work
Replies: 38
Views: 1730

Re: Halfords Cycle2work

pete75 wrote: 2 Feb 2024, 5:43pm
rjb wrote: 2 Feb 2024, 5:07pm It can also reduce your works pension when you retire. Cant remember the details but it was pointed out to mrs rjb when she enquired about the scheme. She didn't take it up in the end. The saving wasn't that great and the extra hassle wasn't justified.
Salary sacrifice means your pensionable contributions based upon your salary may be reduced because of it. :(
I'm no expert on this. Any accountants here.
I was told that, but found it doesn't make any difference. Pension payments are usually based on how many years you've been paying in and your final salary when you retire. I suppose if you used the scheme in the last year of work it might make a difference, but not otherwise.
Depends massively on your pension scheme. Maybe if you're in a final-salary (or near-final salary) then the impact is nothing, but final-salary schemes are now a dwindling minority. If you're in money-purchase, or career average, then a reduction in pay (which is salary sacrifice) impacts pension contribution which impacts final pension.


As said by others in the thread, its possible to do Cycle-to-work, legally, with high-value bikes, without needing the external management company. But, for anything other than very small companies, the administration of having hundreds of bicycles on the company's books is going to be extremely off-putting, so the external management credit-hire arrangement is way more attractive.
by Nigel
31 Jan 2024, 4:25pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: Travel/ cycle insurance for Europe
Replies: 6
Views: 499

Re: Travel/ cycle insurance for Europe

Jdsk wrote: 31 Jan 2024, 8:54am ...
• It's strongly recommended that you take out personal health insurance as well as EHIC cards.
.....
Now called the GHIC for people from the UK. Cover similar to EHIC, but check specific countries as there are differences.

Definitely take out health insurance for injury/repatriation, and check that it covers cycling (which some insurers would class as a "dangerous sport" and therefore exclude).


I'd suspect that cover for luggage on a bike is going to be weak/limited as its very easy to steal from a bike's luggage if the bike is not attended.
by Nigel
23 Jan 2024, 2:03pm
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: The name of the warning gadget
Replies: 78
Views: 4320

Re: The name of the warning gadget

horizon wrote: 23 Jan 2024, 1:24pm

One problem with the extended "lollipop" was that it might exceed the permitted overhang from the side of a "vehicle" even though the recommended/legal passing distance comfortably exceeds this. ........
Can you show that the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 (C&U) apply to bicycles ? (Where the 1ft / 305mm side overhang is defined ). Or is this in some other regulations ?
The C&U usually applies to motor vehicles. A string-search of the Road Vehicle (C&U) Regulations 1986 for "cycle" produced 93 matches, and all were for motor cycle, nothing about pedal cycle or bicycle.
by Nigel
14 Jan 2024, 3:07pm
Forum: Electrically assisted pedal cycles
Topic: Battery
Replies: 4
Views: 531

Re: Battery

To add to the post above with its sensible advice, it is often possible to rebuild a bike battery, replacing those cells which have become defective. There are various small specialists who offer to do this, and it may be cheaper than a replacement battery.
by Nigel
13 Dec 2023, 8:27pm
Forum: Bikes & Bits – Technical section
Topic: Car rack for a Toyota Yaris
Replies: 11
Views: 1002

Re: Car rack for a Toyota Yaris

Cowsham wrote: 10 Dec 2023, 10:02pm A small trailer would be better -- you could store a good tent and camping equipment as well. We had a yaris but I'd say a bike would over hang the sides as it's a narrow car.
Check the specific Yaris for a trailer rating, without one, you can't tow anything.
A lot of small cars have no (or zero) trailer rating. ( As do a lot of electric cars ).

A zero-towing rated car may be able to have a bike-rack only towball fitted, as its not for towing. But check, as per the hybrid comment above about "not suitable" - it may depend on the specific year and specific model of the car.
by Nigel
25 Nov 2023, 9:22am
Forum: On the road
Topic: Reporting vehicles parked in a cycle lane
Replies: 25
Views: 2994

Re: Reporting vehicles parked in a cycle lane

Pebble wrote: 21 Nov 2023, 10:21am Image

thankfully come Jan, pavement parking will become a big NO NO in Edinburgh - of course technically this is not on the pavement.
Oddly that one might have a get-out. There's some sort of rule about "1.5m of clearance" on the pavement (which I don't fully understand). Though it is obstructing a bike lane.

See this article, where it mentions the 1.5m clearance get-out.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/transport ... ed-4417958
by Nigel
25 Nov 2023, 9:12am
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: Cycle Club Insurance
Replies: 6
Views: 792

Re: Cycle Club Insurance

I think you need to decide what you mean by "cover".

There is cover for actions of club officials and club members which leads to third party losses (ie. losses suffered by people who are not club members or taking part in the club event). .

There is cover for actions of club officials and members which leads to losses of other club members (eg. a poor decision on route plan, or bad decision on a ride, leading to another club member suffering injury or loss).

There is cover for members for damage/injuries to themselves or their possessions.


They are all different, and what a club has as "cover" as a club belonging to British Cycling or Cycling UK isn't all of the above.


- Nigel
by Nigel
24 Nov 2023, 2:30pm
Forum: Bikes & Bits – Technical section
Topic: Messing up a 7-speed MTB tourer upgrade
Replies: 14
Views: 1153

Re: Messing up a 7-speed MTB tourer upgrade

The FD is designed for a particular offset of front rings. You are likely to have a narrower offset of rings on an older bike with small diameter tubes.

This can be solved if the FD has a band for fatter tubes (which yours has, as you've said you had to pack it out). You need an eccentric packer to move the notional centreline of the FD band towards the non-drive side. As for making one, not too difficult, I've done it before, but I have a lathe (I made a plastic spacer from some Delrin I had, an alternative these days would be 3D printing it in a light-stable plastic).

Or, you need a longer bottom bracket, to move the chainset further out to match the FD. But that might then mean the chainset isn't in line with the rear cassette (centre ring of triple in line with centre sprocket of cassette).


You may as well go to 8 speed, even if not using one sprocket because your shifter only does 7 (assuming rear wheel hub requires a spacer to take the 7-speed cassette). The spacing of gears is the same, and there are more cassette options available.
by Nigel
22 Nov 2023, 11:27am
Forum: On the road
Topic: How can I carry a Brompton on another bike?
Replies: 16
Views: 1938

Re: How can I carry a Brompton on another bike?

hoogerbooger wrote: 21 Nov 2023, 7:45pm Whenever I see a huge camper towing a car ( which really gets my goat)...... I wonder how I could tow my Brommie from my tourer.......
I have no answer as yet.......
Ah, that one is simple.... Rack on "huge camper" for the tourer. Rack on car for Brompton. Problem solved...

:-)
by Nigel
21 Nov 2023, 5:47pm
Forum: On the road
Topic: How can I carry a Brompton on another bike?
Replies: 16
Views: 1938

Re: How can I carry a Brompton on another bike?

Cobbled solution might be... Fully unfolded brompton, lift front wheel from ground, tie front wheel to side of rack on forward bike.
Try it carefully on a very quiet road to see if Brompton is now a single-wheel trailer. Concern as well as cornering behaviour might be the Brompton rear wheel folding into its folded place under the cross-bar...

( Completely untested method, I don't have a Brompton...).
by Nigel
27 Oct 2023, 7:31pm
Forum: Campaigning & Public Policy
Topic: People are right to trespass in fight for right to roam in England, says Green MP
Replies: 177
Views: 24704

Re: Right to roam

pwa wrote: 25 Oct 2023, 6:44pm
Jdsk wrote: 25 Oct 2023, 12:29pm "Labour U-turns on promise of Scottish-style right to roam in England":
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... in-england

Jonathan
I'm not so sure I want the Scottish system here in Wales. We were up in Scotland for a few days in the summer and I really missed having a map with clear lines that I should be able to navigate across fields, through woods and past farm buildings. Without those green dash lines it is difficult to work out a route you are likely to find do-able, unless you stick to boring well-defined tracks. Where the field gates didn't line up to make a path, there were no stiles or pedestrian gates, so effectively there was next to no practical access across fields. Whereas here in my Welsh village I can hop over a stone stile a hundred metres from my front door and continue over numerous stiles to cross a dozen fields on my way down to the lighthouse.
I think you're conflating different issues.

In Scotland, before the Access Legislation, there were few rights of way in a legal sense. Lots of custom and practise access, particularly on the mountains, and locals knowing what was fine in their locality. The legislation changed that, and requires "Core Paths" which local authorities document to give access in local areas. The Core Paths are broadly similar to the lowland path network found in England/Wales, but without the stupid anomalies which exist at parish boundaries.

Mapping is a different issue. The OS maps don't show Core Paths. The answer is use other maps which show Core Paths, and for that matter, what paths/tracks exist on the ground. Local authorities have them (online), as do some of the open-source mapping websites (and the best of those have really high levels of detail, such as whether its a style or gate, show gates in field boundaries, etc... ).

I can walk around my bit of southern Scotland with ease using maps, but the OS maps are not where I'll find information around paths.

- Nigel