Recent comments

As i said earlier, VED is for the use of the vehicle on the road and generally clogging up the place, you can use it off the road (ie. private land) as much as you want without having a VED disc thing. Afterall you dont pay VED on petrol or diesel generators do you?

I think i might invent VBD for road use, its based on how many Bananas you can carry and how quickly you could transport them a set distance, therefore effectiveley taxing big cars and fast ones equally, especially big fast ones! and not penalising cyclists at all as we can only carry about 4 and only slowly at that. Makes about as much sense as the current system.

Congrats on the purchase. As I have mentioned on here before, a friend of mine has the Secteur Elite, which is the same type of bike but in alu not carbon afaik. He sings it's praises constantly.

In fact when my father first mentioned replacing his TdF I suggested the bottom end of the Secteur range but he went for the Allez as he didn't want a triple. I still think he should have gone for the Secteur but that's another story!

I had never been a Spesh fan since my early mtbing days of the mid-80's as they were 'too popular'. With age comes wisdom and I have learnt that there is a reason why they are popular and being very good bikes is that reason.

Hence why my Allez is now my pride and joy.

When do you get your new steed?

Forgot to update all the bits fitted and it looks the part for sure. Seatpost can't quite drop low enough in the frame to be ideal so need to track down a shorter one than the 350mm supplied.

The bosses for the cage on the seat tube stop it getting lower btw.

Also fitted a bottle cage for him. He seemed over the moon and understandably so imho.

"They have really top-end bikes" - meaning that they have no excuse for sucking so badly this year.

"They have a nice bus", taken to mean "They all get the luxury treatment so they don't have the stomach for the fight and they're out of touch with their fans"

this is fun!

Murdoch owns nearly all the media so they are tired delivering papers every morning

any chance of just selling the 50t? what colour also?

Is it me, or do the Jakes have a distinct Trek look to the livery now? Dr. Good looks rather nice - not keen on the fork on the Honky at all though...

Our place has a draw to win a mountain bike today, free to enter to enyone who pledges to leave their car at home for the day. I only found out about it because someone complained that the regular cyclists were being discriminated against by being left out of the competition!

It's EUROPEAN and about parting people from their cars?

And you wonder why our press haven't covered it?

No. That gesture demonstrates the kind of abuse a significant number of cyclists suffer when trying to get from A to B.

How many of these "dangerous" cyclists have injured you while you were driving? Have you seen one wipe out a bus queue? Has one pulled out of a side road without looking and hospitalised you? To whom are they a danger? None of the 27,000 people killed or seriously injured on the roads last year were hit by a cyclist.

While I don't agree with wearing an ipod or using a mobile phone while cycling, your husband can't do an awful lot about the 2-ton car approaching from behind, particularly as he should be paying attention to what is in front of him. It's up to YOU as the following (and heavier and much more powerful vehicle) to give him plenty of room and anticipate his movements. YOU are the one in charge of the killing machine. Perhaps you should reacquaint yourself with the relevant section of the Highway Code. However, if he ignores the traffic, turns right without warning or rides in all black 'stealth' clothing then I won't be surprised when some SMIDSY half-wit driver with an attitude problem knocks him off.

There will always be cyclists that hop onto kerbs, jump red lights etc etc. There are silly/dangerous/stupid people everywhere, and unfortunately some of them ride bicycles, but please don't tar us all with the same brush. And you might like to bear in mind that cyclists riding on the pavement, talking on the 'phone and annoying you with their behaviour are FAR less dangerous to the people around them than you and me when we are driving a car.

As Jon said, on the whole they are a very good bike with a well rounded finishing kit. The choice of bars may not be to everyones taste but aren't too bad. I've ridden the AR2 and AR1 and they are a very planted bike which feels very stiff and stable underfoot. I've got a Felt F-series and the AR didn't feel as lively as that, but that wasn't a bad thing. They descend and corner brilliantly and you can feel that all of the power is going to the wheels when out of the saddle, either when climbing or sprinting. I can't honestly say that I've ever ridden one with the standard wheels on, only a variety of Zipp's but I have used the standard wheels on a Felt TT bike and they are certainly good enough for most uses, they aren't exceptionally heavy and spin smoothly.

As far as upgrades go, I would only really change the finishing kit if it does not fit you perfectly, a lightweight Ritchey bar and stem will lighten the front end you can buy the right size for you. Other than that its only really the saddle and wheels that may be next on the list. From purely an aesthetic point of view, you could change the shifters to the new style shimano ones, or the sram shifters as the bike looks a lot better with the cables under the bar tape and then just going straight into the frame