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update:
sold chainset & single pivots

I'm debating buying a second set of Volans with Toyo R888's on purely for track use, just wondered if you were up to something similar.

"Track use" - not really top of my agenda with the 2.7 tonne tractor...

I keep my racing to the human-powered variety- running and cycling. I'd be really dangerous if I were driving something fast.

2nd dibs on the saddle- I need one for my daughter's bike

Why are you flogging the Disco wheels?

'cos they are a second set and I need garage space.
They are minty - no kerbing at all (that I can see!)
Would go nicely if someone wants to put a set of off-road tyres on their LR and wants to keep the road set for daily use.

OK - so before I get too confused (already too late! Darn).
£50 plus p&p for the brakes (each pair):

1. Dura Ace single pivots - Bleakreference first dibs; SOLD
   
2. Dura Ace dual pivots - available;
   
3. 105 chainset & BB (£40 + p&p) - Cubist first dibs; SOLD
   
4. Discovery wheels - no dibs yet. Come on quick!
   
   

Will be chasing up to confirm with you this evening.

Thanks to all

not yet- but awaiting replies from "dibs".

I like where you're coming from with the TT idea...

[edited to add prices]

What sort of money do you want?

No fishing expeditions. You are either selling something or you're not.

Definitely selling these! Not a fishing expedition.

• single pivots haven't been taken off the bike yet, but I have a spare pair of tasty ultralight KCNC calipers in the garage that are destined for this machine so the DA are definitely going!
  
• dual pivots have been taken off the RR machine a couple of months ago, but I've only just got round to taking photos.
  Busy job + long hours + young family = little time for mechanic-ing, photographing and eBay listing. Hence a quick post here.
  What do you reckon? Is £50 + p&p a fair price for each pair? Too high? Too low?
  
  

I'm happy to sell to forumites- I've bought and sold a fair bit over the last few months as I built up my FG, but sometimes it's not really clear what sort of price I should be pitching at.

Without resorting to open auctions here (or the dreaded 'bay), what sort of money do you think reasonable for these?

{I saw a couple of sets of single pivot DA go for around the £45-£50 mark on eBay, but not sure of condition (they were missing pads, if I recall?)}

Having another clearout, and the following items are for sale.

1. Shimano Dura Ace SLR brakeset £50 + p&p SOLD
   Single Pivot (the last model, before they went Dual Pivot in 1994)
   This pair is fitted to my TT machine, and has been used only for 3 races since fitting in late 1994. I have been a #resting# TTer for a very long time...
   As such, they are absolutely mint condition. Imperceptible pad wear, as you would expect.
   NB the alloy pad bolts are not included in the sale - I will re-fit proper pad bolts
   These are retro classics and pretty powerful lightweight stoppers

2. Shimano Dura Ace Dual Pivot brakeset £50+ p&p
   Dual pivot set 7400. Fitted to my road race bike, used for one (short) season then unused since then.
   Condition is pretty mint, with minimal pad wear.

3. Shimano 105 Hollowtech chainset and bottom bracket £40 SOLD
   Shimano 172.5 mm cranks
   39-53 rings
   English BB (68mm)
   Used for a season then taken off my training bike.
   Plenty of life left in them, but they are surplus to my requirements.

4. Land Rover Discovery 3 alloy wheels (who knows - you might need some!)

Happy to post these at cost (looks like around £3 or £4 per set for brakes; probably £5 for chainset & BB)

Photos here -->
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14610196@N08/sets/72157622519703948

Anyone interested in these?

Most wheel builders will tension a track specific wheel higher than a road one, so it will be stiffer out of corners, etc.

Corners? On a track?

I used the Halfords scheme to get my Brompton.
Other colleagues have used it to get Cannondale, and even a Focus from Wibble.
You have to ring up the Halfords helpline and ask them to supply the particular bike / make. They then subcontract to LBS (in my case York Cycleworks) who liaise with the mfr / importer.
NB they used to be able to deal with Wibble and One One / Planet X. No longer do so, as I understand they charged 10% to the shop for the privilege, and understandably PX and Wibble have told them where to stick their business.

Other shops do accept the Halfords vouchers direct: I believe Leisure Lakes, BikeHut, CycleRepublic and Pearsons all do. Can't remember whether Merlin cycles do.

My scheme is a 3 year one so I have one year remaining before I can sign up again. I'll definitely be doing it.
Plan A is to find a bike that Halfords can't source (thoughts turning towards a custom build Kinesis Convert), so they subcontract to my friendly LBS. I then use LBS to buy £1000 worth of kit, under the "flag of convenience" of the C2W scheme.
Plan B is Plan A plus getting them to refund the value of the frame (ie technically ordering a "Kinesis" or whatever) plus lots of other bits, but them booking the frame into stock so I get the whole £1000 to spend on bits. (and for bonus, they've just done a full SRAM red groupset for my colleague for £999. That would be a fantastic upgrade to existing road bike)
Plan C is a simple - buy the Boardman Carbon
Plan D is plan C but sell F&F, use the kit to replace old 7 speed kit on my tasty Trek 5900, and eBay the old kit to retro geeks. Should work out cost-neutral.
Plan E is a simple f@ck it again but blow the full £1000 on a fancy fixie - probably something like Pearson Touche.

Apart from the obvious cost saving, the monthly salary deduction appeals (as it doesn't appear on the credit card as another "what the hell have you spent our money on?" item).
Plan B appeals, as senior management's super-sensitive spider senses are good on spotting new bikes but not so good at replacement kit.
Plan D appeals as it's frugal and allows me to upgrade at little / no cost.

Getting back on topic for a second, I notice that the "Carrera" carbon frames do seem to be re-badged far Eastern factory output, and none the worse for that. The £1000 Carrera TT special I saw in Halfords last month seemed to be very similar to another frame.

In general, there's a huge amount of cr@p written about carbon frames - even more than the mystical steel BS from 20 years ago when I first started road biking.
Yes- there are different grades of carbon. There are different fibres, different ratios of fibre to resin, different manufacturing options (vacuum molding, Trek's OCLV as an example).
BUT far more important than the grade of carbon used are 2 key things.

1. geometry. True now as it has always been. 73/71 degrees and a nice long top tube is a classic recipe for great handling, regardless of the material used
   
2. layup. The main benefit of carbon frames is the designer's ability to apply material to the places where it is needed. CAD analysis of stresses around head tube and BB can lead to fantastic designs using extra layers for stiffness and strength, whilst allowing minimal material deployment on lower=stress parts such as mid- tubes. This last point is FAR more important than the debate about what modulus of fibre is used: it is HOW you use it that is important.
   That's what Trek et al spend their research dollar on.
   But they then send out their designs to far-eastern factories to be built in batches. At which point, those factories can churn them out by the thousand, and re-badge the excess.
   I'm not saying that all factories are churning out frames for rebadging, nor that all high-end manufacturers get their stuff built overseas, but you can certainly see striking similarities...
   

Offer him £200 and accept £220.

42 x 16 with 170 cranks and 700 x 23 tyres.
Cruises nicely at 18-22 mph, and up to 30 just about on the downhills.
A bit of a struggle up the daily 1 in 6, but manageable.

If I lived in a completely flat area then I'd go up a bit, but seeing as I have the daily hill I don't want to kill myself.

Great value particularly for the Cycle-2-work scheme.
Can't comment about the ride qualty though.

Local (York) Halfords said they wouldn't allow a test ride as it would devalue the showroom bike.

Long top tube- as was Boardman's race style.

I'm tempted when I'm next eligible for the cycle-2-work scheme again.

3 years is correct- I think that all makes of lid need to be binned at this age.

That's what the shop told me.

Smiled when I tried to recall whether the sub-6 pro was 1992 or 1993 vintage...

... but it still did its job well, which was the main thing.

i've heard that people who do that thing where they cycle a stage of the TDF have found it harder than a marathon.

That'll be the "etape du tour" then.

Harder than a marathon certainly, if you don't do most / all of it in a 200-rider peloton.

All depends on your pace, ...
I did a 2.44 Marathon and was knackered for a month afterwards
...
Jim

D@mn right. I was battered after a 2'58 marathon this year, whereas I was taking marathon-length 3'30 runs in my stride several times in training

Having done lots of marathons and long distance cycling, I'd say that the two are quite different. Main point is that your body gets beaten up from repeated impact of running, whereas even long cycling only really takes it out of your quads (and backside).

The closest equivalent to a running marathon - in the effects on your body and time to recover- would be a 12 hr time trial. Even a hard 100 mile TT doesn't beat you up in the same way that a marathon does.

Personally, I'm pretty wrecked after 12 hr and 24 hr time trials, but I figure if you are daft enough to enter then you get what's coming to you.

I'm also pretty wrecked after a hard marathon - more so than after easier-paced double marathons! You #can# push yourself pretty close to the limit for 3 hrs in a marathon, whereas you've got to take it easy on longer events (and hence it doesn't seem to take quite so much out of you).

Get Lawyers. The insurer will just say "not his fault, we're not paying" and then you're gonna need lawyers anyway.

That's the impression I was starting to receive...

Spoke to the insurer yesterday and was sent straight to their legal rep who started questioning how old my helmet and shorts were.
OK so they are pretty old, but I'll have to replace them with new and therefore I don't want to be told I'll only get a couple of quid to cover this. If they start getting awkward then I'll have to make sure I don't get done over.

Thankfully I remembered I had free legal expenses cover from my household insurance, so I'm going to get them on the case.

All reported to Police and insurers.
Not sure whether to do it myself or investigate lawyers to pursue the claim though. I'll have a read of the sticky "accident" thread later.

Skelator- nice to know others were watching out. Your mate wasn't needed (I don't mean his concern wasn't appreciated!) - I had a couple of nice witnesses who mothered me for 10 mins or so and made sure all details were captured etc.

Still stiff and sore, 8 days on though!

Love my S2-LX. Not sure about the narrow Stelvio tyres option though- lots of punctures.

darn binmen

At least they were emptying the bins.

Going to go through the insurance route. I think my shoulder'll need physio, given how sore it is now. Glad I got it "logged" at A&E on Fri.

Last bike accident I had was in 1995- "wrote off" a brand new first-time-out (honest!) custom carbon fibre trek TT machine. Got just over £3,550 for the bike, and a fair bit for injuries.

I can justify around £500 - £600 for bike and clothing damage this time. Ironically I had decided to take the Langster to work rather than my newly-built-up Trek Madone road machine, otherwise I really would have been taking the binmen to the cleaners, so to speak!

Damage was:
Shorts - holed
Shoes - sole separating from upper
Cracked saddle
Bent bars
Scratched brake levers
Holed armwarmers
Helmet (obviously, given the hole in the windscreen!)
bar tape
front wheel

and it's amazing how it all adds up when you've got a bike made up from parts (rather than an off-the-shelf one).

Skelator - I was riding from the Minster along the crossroads at Museum st towards Lendal Br when the bin lorry turned into me. My right of way.

Cycle Heaven and Cycleworks both seem decent people. Not been to Fulford (not my neck of the woods).
I come in from near Helmsley - about 20 miles each way, with a 1-in-6 to keep me from getting complacent. I spin along the flats through the Vale of York doing around 21-22 mph on 42 x 16 - if it wasn't for the hills near home I'd fit a larger gear...