6 hours ago, jonathan.agnew said:

Yonks ago had dahon espresso - light & surpisingly fast for folder, so i whacked big apples on and gave it a hundred plus miles a week commuting, at which it promptly disintegrated. But it was good while it lasted.

What disintegrated? Frame? Tyres? There's at least one Dahon Jack/Espresso AKM rear hub conversion on the forum going strong, @RogerA 's. A couple of years ago I bought a second hand Dahon Espresso by accident - accidental ebay purchases happen a lot to me, for some reason sellers keep accepting my ludicrously low offers. Sadly this doesn't happen with Ferraris. The Espresso was supposed to be my non-electrical exercise bike, but after disassembling it and buying new parts, I couldn't muster the requisite enthusiasm to re-assemble it again, as the prospect of pedalling without the mad powerful e-assist I'm accustomed to was crushingly depressing... so I offered a stupid low £20 for a 250W marked Bafang G010 rear hub, and for whatever reason the seller accepted... but I am currently unable to summon sufficient enthususiasm to convert the Espresso either. I may be out of time as the Suez may be destroyed and Iran could get nuked, shipping will become wildly expensive, parcels radioactive, and I don't have a Geiger counter.

I may still buy a new old stock Dahon Espresso frame from CH Whites or his son, to languish in the loft with the Espresso and parts for practically forever.

6 hours ago, jonathan.agnew said:

Snag with full face helmet in my pretend gentrified neck of the overpriced woods is that the local crack dealer could confuse me with competition

Choose keeping your teeth.

Crack dealers don't ride Birdys, the intimidation factor is absent. Go with dayglow and jawguarded instead of standard crack dealer rinja stealth black. I carry this to spray them in the eyes before beating them to death with my long Dahon seatpost.

https://www.police-supplies.co.uk/farb-gel-defence-spray-with-pouch

Lycras never overtake my bike uphill. I ascend most of them at 25kph with very little effort.

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by guerney

7 hours ago, guerney said:

What disintegrated? Frame? Tyres? There's at least one Dahon Jack/Espresso AKM rear hub conversion on the forum going strong, @RogerA 's. A couple of years ago I bought a second hand Dahon Espresso by accident - accidental ebay purchases happen a lot to me, for some reason sellers keep accepting my ludicrously low offers. Sadly this doesn't happen for Ferraris. It was supposed to be my non-electrical exercise bike, but after disassembling it and buying new parts, I couldn't muster the requisite enthusiasm to re-assemble it again, as the prospect of pedalling without the mad powerful e-assist I'm accustomed to is crushingly depressing... so I offered a stupid low £20 for a 250W marked Bafang G010 rear hub, and for whatever reason the seller accepted... but I am currently unable to summon sufficient enthususiasm to convert the Espresso either. I may be out of time as the Suez may be destroyed and Iran could get nuked, shipping will become wildly expensive, parcels radioactive, and I don't have a Geiger counter.

I may still buy a new old stock Dahon Espresso frame from CH Whites or his son, to languish in the loft with the Espresso and parts for practically forever.

Choose keeping your teeth.

Crack dealers don't ride Birdys, the intimidation factor is absent. Go with dayglow and jawguarded instead of standard crack dealer rinja stealth black. I carry this to spray them in the eyes before beating them to death with my long Dahon seatpost.

https://www.police-supplies.co.uk/farb-gel-defence-spray-with-pouch

Lycras never overtake my bike uphill. I ascend most of them at 25kph.

Curiously, headset, bottom bracket, everything cept two well built wheels. To be fair (15 years ago; worked in uk, commuted fast terrible pocked, pot holed A road, unsafe, hammered bike relentlessly, 90kg) it knackered rohloff brompton, mezzo after. May just have been my espresso, not trying to knock brand, but lasting memories is of no grease in headset.

Ran out of space for new bikes, ebay too seductive. Decided i wll thrash birdy untill im fast on it. May make sense, but not sure crack dealer got memo re not using birdies.

Re working up motivation: Have pre ww1 raleigh roadster, worked on it today, tbf a pleasure, but think zen and art of motorcycle maintenance, forget end result, do each job as way to transcend, escape news cycle

14 hours ago, Tony1951 said:

The article says that the turnover fell by 1% and sales fell by 7.5%, so the prices have gone up as have the costs.

I expect most of that is the same problem that has afflicted much of UK business - they've been 'Raynered' and 'Reevesed'.

Wages were shoved up, NI was shoved up, and if you take on a worker, you pretty much can't get rid of them from day one, no matter how dreadful they turned out to be (short of being an absolute beast who justifies a gross misconduct dismissal.

If you hammer businesses like that - and I only mentioned some of the cost raising issues that were imposed by Labour, you shouldn't be surprised if they end up struggling or failing altogether. This has been especially an issue in the hospitality sector.

That IS a chestnut. Dont much like rayner or reeves either. But, if both of us take a giant step back, transcend our parochial prejudices - and stop ourselves from qouting gazillion news reports at each other about labour, reform, tory et al's scandals about being funded by offshore capital, hedge funds - wed have to recognise all parties in this nominal democracy of ours are utterly rotten. About cronyism, tax havens. One cant blame voters for voting for populist bellends either. Whats the alternative? Trump's not an anomaly, via rayner were heading for our own version of him.