[wtjs]

I think I am now at The

I think I am now at The Beginning of the End. I received several apparently disconnected emails telling me that my new bike was ready, although I had already stated it was the tyre only I was claiming. Eventually, I received one on Monday afternoon stating that my bike was ‘ready to collect’ (even though it was actually at my house) :

Cycle Repair     Qty: 1

ExOrder0000122 2WS External Part S/O     Qty: 1

Schwalbe 20×1.1/8-1.3/8 PRESTA (SV7A)     Qty: 2

I then received various phone calls which I didn’t answer, resulting in voicemails asking me to call Halfords Blackpool. I waited a day and tried to call- you can’t phone direct and have to go through what sounds like South Africa. A couple of calls failed where I could hear them but they couldn’t hear me. Eventually South Africa allowed me to speak to a Scouser in Blackpool, and we agreed I would collect what I was asking for: a single tyre without inner tube . I think they should have posted it to me but it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to insist on that because I have to go into Blackpool on Thursday anyway. Here’s hoping it really is a tyre which fits: a genuine 20 x 1 3/8 or 37-451 and not something like a 20 x 1.5 or 35 (or 40) – 406. That would be annoying as I tried to sort it out on the phone, with no comprehension or success

 

[wtjs]

I remember in the very early

I remember in the very early days of Mercedes introducing stability control, there was a crash where for unexplained reasons the car left the road and four men died in a Mercedes

Wasn’t that connected with, or about the time of, the A-Class stability questions which may or may not have been something to do with an elk/ moose etc. up in Sweden (hazy memory)?

[wtjs]

Not being able to see

Not being able to see Councillor Morgan’s tweets looks like an unexpected benefit. This is a very bad decision by Bolton Council- no doubt facilitated by a desire to appease the hyper-junk press and its misguided readers. Why were the malevolent drivers so keen on removing the wands? So that they could drive in the cycle lane whenever they wish!.. and if they hit a cyclist they can always claim that he couldn’t be seen because of ‘not enough H-i-Viz’, ‘sun in my eyes so I had to keep driving to get out of trouble’ or whatever the shyster lawyers dream up in return for payment.

While the wands were in place, there were loads of cars always parked between them

The answer to this is not to blame the cyclists for causing illegal parking by demanding a sanctuary which is then abused by dimwits, it’s enforcement of parking regulations

[wtjs]

Now that Halfords has

Now that Halfords has conceded the point by offering a complete replacement bike, I can’t see them publically refusing to provide a tyre. The main fault lies in importing a lot of bikes without a single replacement tyre. I don’t need a new tyre for now- my repair using x-ray film and Gorilla tape is working well and is undetectable while riding

[wtjs]

‘Kafka-esque’ is an overused

‘Kafka-esque’ is an overused term, because I think it should imply some sinister peril to the victim, which I do not allege. However, it does convey some of the surprising aspects of the case

Eventually, the day before I was due to enter the no-turning-back stage of the Small Claims Court where I would have pursued it the bitter ‘return bike and money back’ end, Halfords finally wrote and offered me a new bike. I was somewhat mollified by this offer, as it showed that they were taking the complaint seriously at last. The replacement proposal appears to be madness, all over a faulty tyre, but it transpired that ‘we do not have a tyre of that type in stock at the Blackpool branch’. What this really means, since I was asking for it to be sent to me by post , as opposed to their original idea that I had to spend 3-4 hours taking the bike to Blackpool and leaving it for 2 weeks and collecting it again, is that they don’t have any 20 x 1 3/8 tyres across Halfords UK at all. I then looked on the website to find that they don’t supply any tyres for this bike that they sell- there’s a 20 x 1.35, but no means of finding out whether it would fit (no quoted bead seat diameter etc), as 1 3/8 would be 1.375. They don’t sell mudguards for it either.

I didn’t want a new bike as I was very happy with the one I have apart from this ‘trivial’ rear tyre, and a new one was an unknown quantity. Neither did I wish to cause excessive trouble over what is only a minor setback. I proposed 2 days ago that, although it was surprising and annoying that they couldn’t provide a tyre, it wasn’t a disaster and that I would wait until they could find one. They haven’t replied yet, but the heat is off now and I have other bikes to ride!

[wtjs]

Report the lack of MOT and

Report the lack of MOT and VED to DVLA by using this link: Report an untaxed vehicle – GOV.UK 

You’re about 100 years behind the times- as if I haven’t gone through all that years ago! – it is not necessary to teach grandad to peel turnips (just invented that!)The official route to report missing MOT is to the police- Lancashire Constabulary ignore all such reports even with perfect evidence. They don’t even try the standard lie: ‘we have to witness the vehicle on the road ourselves’ (a guarantee that the offender would never be detected) – there is just no response at all. I have already pointed out that DVLA staff can’t even use their own database- if they could they would easily be able to nail people who have been untaxed for years but who have recently, or not so recently, taken the vehicle in to pass MOT. The DVLA doesn’t even have a facility to upload timed photos of the vehicle on the road- they do nothing at all about reports of untaxed vehicles, and I should know: there are loads of them without tax and MOT in this tiny part of Lancashire. This is the most recent view of MV57 GXO- reported long ago 

[wtjs]

I was cycling home normally

I was cycling home normally yesterday when I was close-passed out of the blue by white Zafira YK62 LHA and the male driver shouted at me out of the passenger window which had been lowered for the purpose by the female passenger. White now seems to be the go-to colour for offending drivers. In keeping with the theory that there’s generally something else wrong with people who shout maniacally at cyclists (didn’t hear what-presumably some sort of insult), the MOT expired on 31.8.22. The police will do nothing whatsoever about either offence, as they don’t care what happens to cyclists who deserve all they get, and absence of MOT and VED is normalised in Lancashire now

[wtjs]

But what about speeding,

But what about speeding, intimidation, close passing, hit and run, and worse?

Nothing at all

[wtjs]

Just like Lancashire, but

Just like Lancashire, but with better roads

[wtjs]

you can pull Strava data into

you can pull Strava data into the Cycliq app for putting gps into videos

Waste of time and won’t be believed- phone linking doubts etc. Has to be native in the camera. It works really well on the Hero7 Black- speedo readings very similar to non-GPS cycle computer

[wtjs]

The obvious answer is this

The obvious answer is this

Mounted on this 

The problem is that the biggest capacity bag is made of aged obsolete materials with obsolete buckles

[wtjs]

And this is night plate

And this is night plate capture, accomplished with Aldi front light on constant setting 2 out of 4, angled right. You don’t get them all! (no fault committed by this driver)

[wtjs]

And this is the driver at

And this is the driver at Sainsbury’s cash machine, showing a common feature of combining GoPro and the ubiquitous white car beloved of offenders. However, you generally can get a frame or two with legible plate straight out of the camera, and it’s easy to correct any individual image in Windows anyway. Mostly, all plates are detected even on the other side of the road

[wtjs]

Problem with GoPro is the PC

Problem with GoPro is the PC software which is really unpredictable and you can’t get it to load until another day- this is because it hasn’t been supported for years. The phone app is no substitute. None but the Hero7 Black have GPS, which is essential for me, but nobody seems to be mentioning this feature. My guess is that none of these other common cameras have GPS. This is white Seat Ibiza PK15 PCY performing really close passing and illegal crossing of double white lines at the same time

[wtjs]

it would be almost worth
it would be almost worth paying to see how quickly they can fit a Schwalbe Marathon plus
We now know the answer to this: for ANY bike tyre, it takes 2 weeks!

[Author]

Replies