JohnMcL7

I had to dig all the way down to page 10 to find this topic, not good! Hopefully with the weather improving more bikes are starting to come out of hibernation, sadly I seemed to have invited the wraith of winter by taking my road bike out - it was only a couple of weeks ago so I was surprised to be fighting through the snow and blizzards, not really good conditions for a road bike. Rather amusingly the last CX race I did had superb weather with the sun out and bright blue skies which isn't very authentic for CX racing which is supposed to be wet and muddy but certainly makes for a more pleasant race. I had debated whether to race or not with the fat bike as a relatively flat and dry course didn't suit the big bike but given I just do it for a laugh anyway (wouldn't be competitive on any bike anyway) I gave it a go. I left the bike outside while registering and heard a few people commenting on how slow the bike must be and how much resistance the tyres must generate etc. so the funny thing was after all that, I got my best result of the three races which included lapping several of the CX riders. Afterwards a few people commented that I must be a very strong rider and would have flown on a CX bike but I did feel obliged to point out that I don't think so, although fat bike looked a slow bike and it was pain on the paved sections it was floating over the grass with surprisingly little effort and the huge traction meant it could carry a lot of speed through the corners. I decided to try three cameras this time which came out not too badly although next time I'm thinking of moving the bar mount camera down to the fork:

I never used the garage but sorry to hear what sounds like a decent dealer closing up, the local Skoda dealer was taken over by Arnold Clark who got rid of all the Skoda staff and their 'service' has been a complete joke, similarly some of the other Skoda dealers I've dealt with have been poor to say the least. i guess they're the ones that get the sales in because sadly like most industries I'm sure quantity counts over quality apart from for the customer.

This one isn't Bluemotion as that's only for the Facelift models, it seems the pre-FL models use the 1.9 PD105 and 2.0 TDI PD140 engines and the FL models switch to the 1.6TDI CR and 2.0 TDI CR140 engines. The FL models seem to get some slightly fancier options while the pre-FL models are more Spartan. Adblue is a new one on me, is that Bluemotion cars only? John

Thanks, that's exactly the information I was looking for. I was thinking it must be around 2010 but wasn't sure exactly what the face lift brought and whether it was a gradual one or not like the Octavias went through. John

Because there was no relevance in doing so - the question I asked was whether the pre-FL 2.0 PD engine used a DPF or not and what changes the facelifted Caddy Maxi brought neither of which have anything to do with whether I've had a car with a DPF or not. John

I never had the DPF light come on my car either but that didn't stop the sensor failing and it's the same problem that can occur on CR based cars which puts the car into limp home mode. Even if you never have issues with the DPF it's still a part that will expire and some of them far short of when they're supposed to. Regardless of what your DPF experiences are, it's not the question I was asking. John

I disagree on the CR engines not having problems with DPF's (even just based on posts on this forum never mind others) so if there's a possibility of getting one without a DPF that's a big plus for me.

It's not, the tyres will squish a little but it's the shock absorbers and similar on the bike which are doing most of the work - to take the extreme example, if you place a shock absorber at 90 degrees on a hard surface, it won't be able to absorb any up and down force on it. John

I thought this was asking here as there's often people with good knowledge of other VW models, I'm trying to find out details of when exactly the Maxi Life was facelifted and what changed at that point. I've seen a 2.0 TDI one for sale which is pre-FL, I'm hoping that means the engine is the PD rather than CR version and therefore no DPF. I'm also trying to work out what the stereo is, it looks something like an Amundsen which I think is the RNS-310? Any recommendations where best to look for this sort of information would also be appreciated.

No because the race surface is still largely level so when the bike is fully leaned over the suspension is at a very different angle. What you've said with centrifugal force would work if the track was also banked so that hat the suspension remained at the same angle to the race track. If you've not seen a film called Fastest (a film made about MotoGP around five years ago) I'd highly recommend it, I wasn't aware of this sort of issue and others - they had some superb super slow motion shots showing the entire bike chassis and fairing flexing as the bike rides over bumps while fully leaned over. One of the extras was a section about they physics with a couple of different people which was also interesting, aside from the crazy physics what's also difficult is they can't really measure any of it as it's all about the rider feel and the feedback they give. They've apparently attempted it by putting sensors in the bike's foot pegs, seat and other places but they couldn't make sense of the information - when they asked a rider why he was putting more pressure on the foot pegs in certain corners, he couldn't explain it as he just did what felt right. John

I was thinking of that when I saw this topic, they were thinking he must be a local politician or similar. I didn't actually realise Arnold Clark had many garages in England until recently, I thought they were just a Scottish chain. I bought a Seat from their Edinburgh branch as the sales person was very friendly obliging (unusual for me as most salespeople try to ignore me when I'm looking to buy a car), I knew I couldn't rely on the after sales service but it was only a couple of years old and never had any issues with it. I'm sure like most big chains there is some variation between the garages, Arnold Clark have taken over quite a few garages locally and they're generally useless particularly the Skoda garage they took over and got rid of most of the Skoda staff. On the plus side though their head service guy went to the independent garage I used which was handy when I had issues with the Octavia as he'd usually seen them before and fixed them without issue. John

What's quite interesting about the MotoGP bikes (and motorbikes in general if they're going fast) that I never really thought about is that as they tilt the bike over to almost flat, the suspension becomes less and less effective as it's almost perpendicular to the surface so they have to try and incorporate flex into the bike chassis so it there's some up and down movement when the bike is on its side. I've just dug my road bike out its winter hibernation and needless to say I'm finding it a little hard going on my arms going from a bike with a 4in 2psi front tyre to a slick 120psi front tyre :| John

goneoffSKi - I agree with you about the rally cars, it seems to be much the same across many of the rally cars and I find that frustrating. Many years ago although the Impreza or Lancer wasn't quite as powerful or light as the rally version, they were still powerful four wheel drive cars that clearly bore more than just a resemblance. For many years Citroen had a tremendously successful partnership with Sebastian Loeb winning record numbers of championships yet there were never any road going cars anything remotely similar to the winning WRC cars, although Ford were producing sporty RS and ST cars they were still all front wheel drive (only recently changed) John

I still can't get used to those cameras, as you say they do a fantastic job showing just how ridiculously low they get the bikes and while I understand the physics it still looks wrong how much they tilt the bikes. As mentioned above, motorbike riding is hugely physical as they mostly control the bike through the movement of their body and there's a lot of stress on their forearms particularly if the bike is suffering from chatter where there's more vibration coming through the front of the bike which Casey Stoner frequently complained about on the Honda. John

That's a real shame as it was an awesome race right down the finish line, I really hope this is a taste of what the rest of the season will be like.

I don't believe there's been a sharp increase in fatalities due to electric cars although I can see it being an issue as I found rather quickly when I started regularly cycling that many pedestrians do go by noise and would step out in front of the bike without looking. We obviously need hybrids to sound more like this: John

I have a small wrist so the Android Wear watches aren't suitable as they're too big although I probably wouldn't wear one anyway due to the very short batterylife. I like the look of the new Pebble due to it being smaller and slightly curved but will have to wait a while for it to be released. For now I've opted for a Garmin Vivoactive which is a cross between a fitness band and smar****ch powered by Garmin's new Connect IQ system. I'm pleased with it so far as I was wanting something fitness orientated and it's small enough to be comfortable to wear all the time and its transreflective display is very power efficient meaning it can be on all the time and batterylife is quoted at three weeks. John

As if petrol drivers aren't taken for a ride either, £260 for 170bhp petrol car despite the evidence showing diesels are not green either. John

This is obviously a huge thread so I apologise for not reading all the way through it - are there any recommendations for how to get games in GTA online when friends aren't about? It seems just as bad as the 360 version which I gave up on as it seems near impossible to find a decent game, all the invitations seem to be to heists and any games I do get into there's usually only one other person who often just quits. John

Yes, I bought it early access which means pre-release - I understood what that meant that it may be some time (if ever) before it was fully functional and content complete. However what I didn't expect was after paying all that money (early access was more expensive) to then find when they did finally add decent content it would require pricey DLC which is completely unacceptable. John

I've never used a steering wheel I liked the feel of so I use a control pad, there's no reason why the game can't work well with that. Having dealt with bugs and a lack of content for a while as well as seeing the price plummet, I'm not impressed at having to pay for actual content when it comes out so this isn't a developer I'll be supporting any further,

No, it doesn't stand to reason at all particularly given one of the main issues with the Ferrari is its difficulty in dealing with the disrupted aero when it's around other cars. Alonso may have been slightly quicker but not a chance he would have been anywhere near the Mercedes cars which suffer no disadvantages at the moment and appear to have been largely cruising, it's likely they could have been quite a bit faster if they needed to be.

Agreed and while I think LH does look a bit of idiot out of the car, I watch F1 to see him driving in the car where his personal image doesn't matter. I was never that bothered about Mercedes until I heard that phenomenal 6.3 V8 in person roaring by, I'd love one of the new C63 AMG estates Were the medical cars out doing hot laps during any of the practice sessions?

No, I haven't touched it in ages but a Touristfahrten online mode sounds like what I've been wanting from a driving game for years. Edit: Oh wow, they've added it as DLC?! This game is the biggest mistake I made buying it on Early Access and paying through the nose for it, I can't believe they finally have content I want and it's paid DLC, what a joke. John

I agree with jilwah, definitely plenty of times when other teams have been hugely dominant over the rest of the field - the one that really comes to mind is when McLaren introduced the third brake pedal and their two cars lapped the entire field. No-one stood a chance against the Red Bulls latterly and going back there's been other technical innovations which one team has jumped onto and others have taken time to catch up on. It's difficult to balance more flexible rules but I would like to see it particularly if it would mean cars with different strengths which would vary depending on the track and weather conditions.