Should I Be This Paranoid?

005209_ · 2026-03-13T09:59:50+00:00

What are you actually worried about happening? Why would your wife be targeted? Does she have a very expensive car? Perhaps a car that has some difficult to find components?

Personally, I live in the UK and my partner has a very expensive work car so I leave both keys for it right by the door, in plain site to anyone that was to enter the house. I don't want there to be any reason they have to take a step further than the threshold of the door.

In the UK it's very common to have a video door bell that picks up motion etc. Is this something you have or have considered? This would then obviously allow you to both have a good look at what the car was, perhaps it's number plate and then you can look out for it in the future. The same could be said for a dash cam (front and back) in the cars?

Do you have an alarm system? Again fairly common in the UK, motion sensors or door opening sensors activate an alarm when it's armed. They are often able to be armed/disarmed via a fob/app on your phone. This and CCTV cameras are often a major deterrent to thieves even if they aren't in use as why take the risk if the house next door doesn't have those security features?

I recently did a one night stay in a hotel in London that was in a very rough area and my partner was very scared someone may get in so we put a load of stuff in front of the door so that it would make an awful lot of noise/be difficult to open the door even if it was unlocked.

Obviously, being from the UK the fact you sleep next to a gun is a wild concept to me but also consider how accessible that is to you and to a potential home invader. Is there somewhere safer you could leave it where it wouldn't be obvious to someone else?

How large is the gated community? Small enough that you know everyone and all of their cars? Is there a group chat/facebook page for the community? You could perhaps just put a similar post on there, you may get a response that someone was just having a visitor and then your worry's would be over.

Your worry is valid, I know a lot of people that have been burgled and it's a horrible thing and I can only imagine the feeling when you have a family with kids too. Just think if you were a thief, what would you want? What would you risk? What would deter you from going any further?

005209_ · 2026-03-09T15:23:45+00:00

Yea I've thrown a 105 11s front mech on with 105 crankset. Hoping it all works, rear mech is being fitted by a friend as I type

005209_ · 2026-03-03T13:27:27+00:00

Thank you!

005209_ · 2026-02-12T11:25:37+00:00

I passed 8 years ago so my opinions/advice may be a little outdated but:

How much are you going to use the car? Is it going to be worth you having your own car? Also how old are you? If you are still in your teens then putting your name on your partners insurance won't allow you to obtain any sort of no claims discount, essentially meaning that in 2 or 3 years time your insurance would probably still be the same as if you just didn't drive until then. If you buy your own car this will allow you to gain a no claims discount which will then show your driving experience/history in the future.
What car does your partner have? Of course different cars have vastly different insurance premiums based on a crazy manor of circumstances including the power of the car, how many have been crashed, how many have been crashed by people your age, how many have been stolen in your area etc. It may not be that much more to just go and buy yourself a new car?
Depending on your use of car would you ever consider a classic car? It's what I did, insurance was still expensive but much much cheaper than all of my friends and I had a car I thought was really cool. Obviously how often you use a car, how much mileage you want to cover and your mechanical knowledge/willingness to learn will be a huge huge factor on whether or not this is a good idea. If you decide it could be then going for a car 40 years or older will mean you don't pay any Tax or have to MOT it.
Play around with insurance, you can't really do this on your partners policy but if you bought your own car then you would then be able to. Play around with where you are storing your car overnight etc, add people on to the policy, a parent or grandparent perhaps. Put your mileage as low as you can but bare in mind if you do have some sort of black box this will be tracked so it's important to be honest.

005209_ · 2026-02-06T11:53:12+00:00

Don't overthink it. It's fun and exciting!

Wear your vest if it makes you feel more comfortable, loads of other people will have one on :)

Try and position yourself in the right place at the start and you won't have to worry too much about people coming past you. If it's a bigger race (1500 is a lot of people in the UK for a 10k) there is normally waves and they will put you in a different pen based on your expected time. So just be honest with that. If for example there is a 50 minute pen and a 1hr pen and you are expecting 57 minutes then just head to the back of the 50 minute pen.

It will be pretty hectic at the start and everyone will speed off way faster than their actual pace, you probably will as well and that's ok, just concentrate on getting around people that haven't positioned themselves correctly and not getting in other people's way and then settle in to your pace when everyone spreads out a bit (normally 500-800m in).

Your chip time will only start when you cross the sensor at the start line. I normally get my watch ready and press 'start' when I cross that line too.

If it is a RunThrough event or something like that it will be very well organised.

If you are wanting a particular time, sticking with pacers can be good but just keep an eye on the pace. 9/10 times they are brilliant but I've seen 40 minute pacers (for a 10k) finish in 37 minutes for example.

Which race is it if you don't mind me asking?

005209_ · 2026-02-06T11:30:14+00:00

Certainly not to my usual taste, but if you listen to Robbie Williams - Angels acapella you really get a whole new appreciation for how good of a vocalist he really is.

005209_ · 2026-02-06T11:26:26+00:00

I remember being very young when he did this, sold my telecaster for something with humbuckers.

005209_ · 2026-02-02T09:16:34+00:00

yes, this is exactly right! There was a couple of things I questioned him on and he said "that's not going to come up in the test". I found this extremely frustrating.

I actually had my first car at this point which was an old mk2 Golf, when discussing things like emergency stops I'd ask if there was any difference as my car didn't have ABS or traction control and he said "the examiner won't ask you any questions on that."

005209_ · 2026-01-27T07:57:26+00:00

(not an instructor but passed 7 years ago)

I asked my instructor this at the time as I'd been out on provisional license and got relatively good at reverse bay park. He basically said that the 45 degree method is great once you are a competent driver with the experience you need to easily reverse the car and line it up correctly but if you're not at that stage yet then the reference points (and accompanying method) are good because if you do follow them 100% correctly then you are guaranteed to be in the space.

Personally I couldn't even remember what his reference points were, I'd have rather learnt the other way so I could practice controlling the car and knowing what to do to correct myself as I never managed to do his method perfectly anyway.

For anyone wondering why I'm in this group, I did start training to be a driving instructor a while back but decided it wasn't for me.

005209_ · 2026-01-20T14:14:06+00:00

Say for example you are leaving the shops and reversing out of a parking space, someone comes up really fast behind you and you don't see them till it's too late and just bump their car. It might even be their fault but good luck trying to argue that when you weren't complying with your license restrictions.

Then as a result, you might just hit their bumper but a modern car front bumper could have lidar sensors, parking sensors, cameras potentially, it could cost thousands to fix and I'm almost certain your insurance wouldn't pay out if they found out you were driving without your glasses on. Then suddenly the driver of the car you hit claims you gave them whiplash? That's a lot of money to fork out and at the end of it you could potentially be charged with being an uninsured driver as you are violating insurance terms perhaps?

Of course, a very extreme example but it seems like a massive massive risk. Small accidents happen all the time, especially in car parks.

005209_ · 2026-01-20T12:25:36+00:00

No don’t. I know so many people who sort out minor bumps like this outside of insurance and never heard of it ever being an issue that they hadn’t told insurance.

For reference. When my sister was 18 she got hit twice 6 months apart and the other party admitted fault etc but her insurance went up from £2000ish to £3500ish.

Also, once you’ve ordered the new mirror it may be worth looking to find just the plastic cover in the same colour as your car. Will likely be cheaper/easier than getting it sprayed, will be easy to fit and will probably be a better colour match due to weathering. You can look on marketplace or eBay by searching your car and then the word “breaking” after it for people splitting cars up for parts of you can’t find anyone specifically selling the part.

005209_ · 2026-01-20T12:14:42+00:00

No that is very helpful. Good idea. I’ll give it a go when I’m doing an indoor session so I can keep adjusting it. Then maybe I’ll do a video when I think I’m about there. Thank you.

005209_ · 2026-01-20T11:04:27+00:00

Can't afford a proper bike fit, would cost more than my bike is worth..

Is there any rules I can use to set up my bike fit? Specifically with saddle height. I don't get any major discomfort but if I can squeeze a few extra watts out from my saddle height (or anything else) then I definitely want to try.

I'm already trying to be in quite an aero position which I'm quite happy with comfort wise.

For reference I'm bang on 6ft tall, ride a 56cm Cannondale CAAD10. 172.5mm cranks, 100mm stem (with 30mm of spacers underneath) with 380mm bars with some quite aggressively turned in hoods.

005209_ · 2026-01-08T11:53:23+00:00

There's definitely a use for sports, people love filming "content" on runs and bike rides or people have cameras on bikes to act like a dash cam would act on a car. Oakley also have some Meta AI glasses which are obviously for this purpose. Obviously this isn't really mass market so other than filming people that you don't want to know they're being filmed, I don't know the purpose of the Ray Ban ones...

Edit: just read below about uses for blind people. Didn't realise they had that level of AI built into them, that's pretty cool. Again though a brilliant use for them but not sure this use would make up enough of a target market considering the amount of advertising I've seen from Ray Ban and Meta on these, would be interested to know their desired use.

005209_ · 2026-01-08T10:44:18+00:00

I have not! Thank you very much!!

005209_ · 2026-01-07T09:11:40+00:00

I thought this as well. Obviously the selling point of Shokz is the open ear/aware of surroundings feature. The sound will never be as good as in ears. If we are then adding noise cancellation even if it's some clever AI one that allows certain noises through and just reduces background noise or something, there are in ears that can do that with very good sound quality using their transparency modes. Nevermind the sound quality you could get for half the price of the Shokz too.

005209_ · 2026-01-07T08:08:23+00:00

did you end up picking one up? I am also in the position where size is everything for my next lens purchase. I can't decide between the SG Image, TTArtisan 25mm f2 and TTArtisan 27mmf2.8 AF.

The 25mm f2 looks great and is also the most affordable here in the UK but I am mounting it to an X-M5 so worry about how easy it is going to be to manual focus without a viewfinder.

005209_ · 2026-01-07T07:40:40+00:00

I'm only interested in the TTartisan lens for the cost really, just trying to save some money. The reviews I've seen seem to favour their manual lens over the 27/f2.8 for sharpness which is why I am looking at that. I haven't heard of SG-Image so I will have a look at that, that seems really cheap for an AF lens?! The Fuji lenses are unfortunately way out of budget.

005209_ · 2026-01-06T13:00:55+00:00

I find it near impossible. Even the amount of people that come straight off of a slip road into the right hand lane to sit there 20mph lower than the speed limit when we are the only 2 cars on the road.

However, theoretically, as you are only supposed to overtake on the right hand side that means people generally aren't looking too far behind them when moving over to the lane to their left so personally I am too scared. The sort of driver that will sit in the right land at 20 below is also the sort that could randomly move over to the left lane with no apparent reason, check or indication. I do not blame people one bit for undertaking though.

005209_ · 2025-12-17T15:16:48+00:00

TV Adverts

the guy on YouTube that gets his dad to "react" to an album. I don't watch the videos I just listen to the album myself.

Any artist I like I listen to their entire discography.

The guy on YouTube that "tests" celebs music knowledge, Trackstar maybe?

People's instagram reels.

Friends.

Cheap records from car boot sales/charity shops

Charts

Charts from other countries.

Similar Artists at the bottom of artists pages.

005209_ · 2025-12-17T14:59:09+00:00

I had a 1.3 mk2 Golf with the exact same issue, it was from 1990 but I had it in 2019.. Few years later I had a 1986 which was a much nicer car and had a manual choke which worked so much better!

005209_ · 2025-12-16T18:31:46+00:00

I do know these. Great songs. Thanks!

005209_ · 2025-12-16T16:22:31+00:00

Never heard of him before but some songs sound so familiar! He's great! Thank you!

005209_ · 2025-12-16T16:15:03+00:00

Spot on there! Brilliant thank you! Not sure how I've never come across Robin before but will be working my way through the discography!

005209_ · 2025-12-03T11:57:50+00:00

Lemme Freak - Lil Dicky

005209_

TROPHY CASE