I swore by my Giro Athlon when I used one lid for road and off-road. They’re going for £50-60.

I’ve got it. If you’ve already paid for it, I’d say your conscience is clear if someone *ahem* were to send it to you.

Without looking through the Charity Commission[/url]‘s guidance I can’t tell you if it’s legal or not, but it sounds pretty dodgy and could even be considered fraud (obtaining money by deception?)

I wouldn’t let him in next time. If you want to do something for charity, there are plenty of legit ones that submit accounts and reports that show their finances and impact.

For what it’s worth, there are some ‘charities’ that are actually limited companies to avoid the restrictions on political activity that comes from being a registered charity, Greenpeace for example.

I’d keep it, but if you want to be super-cautious, drop the HR person running the recruitment process an email in advance to explain why so it’s not a shock. That way the panel will be looking forward to seeing what your mo looks like, rather than recoiling in horror when you step in the room.

I’d keep it, but if you want to be super-cautious, drop the HR person running the recruitment process an email in advance to explain why so it’s not a shock. That way the panel will be looking forward to seeing what your mo looks like, rather than recoiling in horror when you step in the room.

Nope. My gtalk address is @gmail.com, so no domain setup necessary.

+1 for Radiohead at Glastonbury 1997. I’ve got the recording on my Freesat box. Proper legendary gig.

Yes! We bought one a couple of years ago and it’s going strong – not missed a beat, but best of all there’s hardly any scale build up on the element despite our water being harder than Chuck Norris in a bad mood. Our previous kettle wimped out after 18 months.

Buy cheap, buy twice.

Thanks all!

@stoner – thanks for the pic, I think that’s almost exactly the look we’re gping for with cream cupboards and a butler’s sink.

Do you need any form of sealant between sinks to stop splashes soaking into the wood’s endgrain and swelling it? I can’t see how you can paint the oil on.

I read a review that took the dialogue apart – comparing lines from the book to their equivalents in the film. It was painful how the spirit of DNA’s writing had been removed from the script, apparently to make it more palatable to the American masses.

I was an extra in the big temple scene with John Malkovich, and even I can’t quite bring myself to watch the film again.

But Zooey Deschanel? Oh yes.

I went from 20 years riding 105 equipped bikes to a Campag Centaur Van Nick two years ago. The decision was emotional, rather than rational: I’d always lusted after Campag for that lovely shiny intangible halo their stuff has. In day-to-day use, it feels very mechanical and solid rather than the slickness of Shimano. It’s dead easy to work on and replace spares within components, whereas Shimano seems to be chuck the whole unit and replace it.

The only element that you might not get along with is the placement of the downshift levers on the inside of the brake/shift levers, rather than in-line with the brakes on Shimano/SRAM. Everything else is standard.

The only frustration I have with it is the non-standard freehub spline pattern, so rear wheels aren’t interchangeable between Shimano/SRAM and Campag. There are ways around this, but they’re a bit of a faff, like swapping freehub bodies on 3rd-party wheels, or 3rd-party cassettes that have campag spacing but Shimano spine fittings.

I don’t have any research to point to, but my gut feeling is that Campag-equipped bikes probably keep a higher resale value than Shimano.

Good luck, whatever you choose.

My pompino’s still for sale – £300!

Doh. Searched for mumsnet and it didn’t appear.

As you were.

I loved the start with Watson’s blog and the updated names for the old adventures

Have you seen that it’s a live site?
http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk/

Sherlock’s is here:
http://www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk/

It’s one of the classic XC races of the year! I’ve done the last three and will definitely be doing it in 2012. I’m just deciding whether I’m going to be up for a pair or a team before putting my entry in.

Here’s the GPS trace from my Onederdog lap last year (one lap time trial, enter on the day, free tea and cake afterwards):
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/109214865

From memory the goodie bag had a couple of energy bars and a gel in it, a few lezyne patch kits, a bunch of brochures and a voucher for the evening drinks on Brighton sea front.

…that ‘calculator’ is not anywhere near an accurate means of testing how environmentally friendly someone actually is. It’s just sensationalising the issues, without really offering practical real world solutions.

As I said, it’s indicative, rather than comprehensive. If you want comprehensive you’re going to be spending a lot longer filling in far more detailed questionnaires. This one’s pretty good: http://www.reap-petite.com/

As far as real world solutions go, I’d say the tips at the end are pretty good suggestions of how to reduce your impact (but then, I would, wouldn’t I?)

And what about the leccy used to power the servers it’s run from, eh? EH?

We did a huge job of looking around the web hosting market and found a company that offers the lowest energy per server in the UK. It’s all virtualised too, so don’t have a dedicated machine spending its life averaging 2% utilisation. Nice try though.

WWF= hypocrites.

I realise I’m getting dangerously close to feeding a troll but how, exactly?

It’s better than referring to her as “my current wife”.

…especially if it’s in front of her.

;)

A couple of footprint calculator answers:

I suspect that this calculator won’t produce a figure lower than 1 (less than one earth required to support everyone at this level of consumption) unless you are vegetarian and probably have no car.

It takes a lot of working through the tips at the end to get below 1, but that’s kind of the point – so much of our impact is based on the big infrastructure-level stuff that we can’t affect with our daily choices. It comes down to needing business and govt to see a public pressure to change. Sadly, in the current climate (no pun intended) that’s getting harder and harder.

3.81 for me but heavily influenced by air travel for work (once a month in europe on average) and a lot of driving (mostly commuting). Not ideal by any means but I do what I can at home.

Technically, work flights shouldn’t be included as they’re bound up in your employer’s footprint – they’d be passed on to the end consumer. Commuting journeys are as they’re down to how far you decide to live from work. That said, if you can influence your employer to reduce the amount of flying you have to do (video conferencing etc), then do it.

Is that bad, I have no idea what 1.69 means?

If everyone on the planet lived in exactly the same way as you, how many planets’ worth of productive land would we need? Worth bearing in mind that the current world population needs over one planet’s worth right now, so we’re building up an ecological debt. We (WWF) try to be constructive and positive, but there’s some scary stuff going on behind that.

On Edukator’s comment, it’s designed to be fairly accurate for the middle of the population bell-curve – it’s about giving people an indication of their impact. Its accuracy definitely drops rapidly if you’ve got a relatively low (e.g. you, by the sounds of it) or high (e.g. celebs/billionaires) footprint. There are calculators out there that give a much more consistently accurate answer, but they take ages to fill in and need you to start entering figures from bills and petrol receipts.

@CaptainFlashheart I’ve heard rumours about a HoB series. If true, you’re damn right. It could make Frozen Planet seem as pedestrian as Corrie.

I haven’t taken a plane flight (other than two unavoidable work trips) since 2006.

<shameless plug>We made this ecological footprint calculator that gives you a bit of a simplified rating of your green-ness</shameless plug>. I scored about 1.6.

@DezB – No! much nicer decals than last year, which I reckon were an unusually bad vintage for Yeti. I’m shocked more people haven’t complained about the yellow.

We’ve come to a “one in, one out” agreement on bikes in the garage now, which seems fair enough as there’s barely space for the seven (five mine, one hers, one son’s) and a half (tagalong) in there already. As long as there’s a good reason for spending on a new one she’s not too bothered. The definition of ‘good’ is up for debate though… ride2work scheme helps a lot though, it paid for the bike I bought her for xmas a couple of years ago.

The thread title was very tongue in cheek by the way. Maybe the capital letters were a bit too subtle an indication?

It’s been said before, but I really can’t understand the level of dishonesty some folk seem to think is natural in their marriage/relationship.

“Does my bum look big in this?”

’nuff said.

i like the idea that the poor OP will only ever be able to have yellow full sus frames for the rest of his married life

Or a series of “resprays”…

She didn’t spot* a baby blue Inbred turning into a Ti Inbred :)

(*or maybe she did, but just didn’t mention it.)

You probably won’t either….

Sadly true.

@LardLover Yup! With Campag Centaur and Ambrosio wheels. I love it.

Some people need a bit of schooling in the rules[/url].

…probably including me:

[/url]

I’m racing at the Rapha thing on Sunday, just Novice though, mind.

Tequila shortcut? I’m in!

Good advice, thanks all. I’ll just lock my forks out and go skinny on the tyres, rather than my current 2.1″ Fire XCs

@gearfreak Tempting – are they wire or kevlar bead?

@traildog ditto – wire or kevlar? Do yours have much wear and how much £?

orange 29r’s will be out before the new year i reckon…….

Before the end of the week, more like…

Great quote from Oli of Morvelo who described the course as “harsh but fair”. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

The results are up!

Main categories
Onederdog

The bear wasn’t killed after the event, like we’d destroy a dog for fear of it doing it again – it was shot during a frenzied attack, as others have suggested: kill or be killed.

They’re beautiful yet terrible predators, and you don’t mess about when you’re in their habitat, much like tigers, lions, jaguars and many of the other figurehead endangered species. It’s a tragedy for all involved, but they knew what they were getting themselves into, which is why they were armed in the first place.

What sickens me isn’t the individual stories, but the casual disrespect shown for their environment by the oil companies intent on drilling in the Arctic. That’s got a far worse potential outcome for the bears than one death. Imagine the sight of one of those magnificent animals covered in oil.

I’ve got a Giro Athlon that’s perfect for swinging both ways. If I’m doing a road ride of any decent distance I pop the visor off to make it a touch more aero.

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

My calves are bloody killing me this morning after Sunday’s run. Any way (other than huge amounts of nurofen) to stop this happening next time? More stretching? Ice baths, rather than just the cold shower?

I always hated running, then on a treadmil I discovered that landing on my toes made it all feel soo much better, like taking a 50lb rucksack from my shoulders. So I did some research about technique and learned a hell of a lot. Like smacking your heel into the floor out in front of you actually slows you down quite a bit leaving your legs to try and make up for it.

+1

Buy some half decent socks too. Don’t need to be proper running ones but materials plays a part in blisters.

Summer weight Merino cycling socks ok?

I had a good chat with a colleague earlier about the whole gait analysis thing – he told me that trail shoes don’t correct your gait as off-road surfaces are all over the place anyway. I reckon >50% of my distance will be off-road, so not sure if it’s a big deal? Sounds like some of your results with it are pretty mixed anyway…

And this is why I love the STW forum :)

Thanks for the great suggestions – Couch to 5k and Fartlek (snigger) sound like they’ve worked well for people, so I’ll check them out.

I’ve got an appointment with the running shop in Guildford for gait analysis and a new pair of shoes. My current pair are utterly knackered. Also nice to hear others are recommending the barefoot style midfoot strike (not sure I’ll go with drawing pins though)

I’m with simon_g, for me it’s definitely a solo activity with good music and preferably in some woods. I love the idea of riding somewhere, running, then riding back. It’ll be triathlons next!

Get in touch with Etymotic’s customer service team – their service is second to none. I’ve had a slightly out of warranty pair of 6i’s replaced with a brand new pair, and both earbuds of my ER-4s replaced when the stem of one cracked. All it cost me was the postage to the US.

If that works, spend the dough you’ve saved on a pair of ACS custom earphone sleeves – best audiophile upgrade ever – £90 for two bits of rubber seems pricey, but the difference to comfort and sound quality compared to the triple flange tips is well worth it.

I was a lucky recipient of a portion of Netdonkey’s meat. It was *amazing*. Properly pink on the inside, yet crusty and marinated on the outside.

I even remembered to pour some of the tasty juices over the meat on my plate for the full effect.

Oh dear.

+1 on Van Nicholas. I’ve got their Euros with Campag Centaur and some nice, classic silver Ambrosio wheels (none of your black rimmed, aero-blade-spoked, covered-in-stickers wheels for me).

I specced it with the main thought of creating a bike that could last me the rest of my life. I think to fully qualify, it really needs a nice Brooks Swallow saddle on it.

Carbon or ti? Nice problem to have.