Yeah, but skinny fast rolling tyres with more pressure in will roll faster surely, and I don’t need fat tyre type grip here.

And no, I’m not suggesting replicating Sudbourne at Thetford.

I am! Preferably even better though.

Done.

I had to be ambulanced from Sudbourne with head and neck injuries a few years ago

…and that is why it needs to be done properly. The discussions we had re location were regarding being sufficiently out of the way, but easily accessible to emergency vehicles and so on for precisely the reasons you state. Incidentally, when Sudbourne was about to be bulldozed I was one of the guys who went after the FC to engage rather than knock it down, and thats how TROG the XC lot at Tunstall came to be formed, as an offshoot of that process.

Keep Thetford natural

Know where you are coming from, but the truth is that there is absolutely nothing at Thetford which is “natural”. The forest itself is a planted and harvested commercial crop and has only existed in recent history. The original landscape being sandy heathland, pretty much all of the “wild” trails, (i.e. the unsigned ones) are the product of motorcycle enduros that have been held in the forest until quite recently. Not at all natural.

Regarding Sudbourne and a jump site. The situation is exactly the same as Thetford. Sudbourne is an adopted FC Bike Park, run and managed by a club. There are parking facilities there and it is right next to the Sudbourne Road where it is is easily accessible to all and also where it is clearly signed. It became so as a result of the FC trying to engage with and manage pirate jump builders who were building dangerous and ill thought out jumps that were causing serious hazards to others. The situation at Thetford is identical and much more pressing as the argument for a properly managed jump site is much greater simply because of the high visitor numbers as you have mentioned. Illicit jumps built into and around way marked trails have already claimed the mobility of more than one innocent visitor, and it needs dealing with before someone gets killed. (Usually its because of a crappy jump on a trail, with the material coming from borrow pits either side or in front of it, the non jumpist arrives at speed, sees the jump tries to ride round or over it, front wheels into the pit and a face ground interface ensues)

The view until TIMBER interceded has been “find a jump knock it down”, and “find a jump builder and prosecute”. Both Timbers view and the FC’s is now that it would be waaay more constructive to engage with these guys and provide what they want in a positive fashion. Trouble is if they don’t come forward nothing will happen.

I’ve already held discussions with several jump builders and the FC. The FC I have to say have shown much more committment than the jump boys. We actually got as far as discussing suitable locations, but there is no point in simply building it for myself, so without jumpists nothing will happen.

Surely its meant to be difficult, otherwise whats the point? The whole “I’ve climbed Everest” thing doesn’t work if theres a Cafe on top and a rescue team having a fag up the South Col just waiting for a chance to flex their toned and bronzed muscles. That being the case deaths and casualties are part and parcel of the deal aren’t they?

Incidentally, Edmund Hilarys trip was an commercial expedition, as they pretty much all are, (perhaps with the exception of Goran Kropp’s bike assisted mullarkey).

……. and the purpose is?

email me at bermbandit AT hotmail.co.uk and I’ll put you in touch with the right people….. might even help out myself.

BB – What are the chances of getting more ‘gnar’ stuff in there?

Google Sudbourne Jumps. Same management team as at Thetford. Its been there for donkeys years and is actively supported by the FC. We could have the same at Thetford. However it comes down to doing what the Sudbourne bods did, which is play the game from within. Timber would support you if you wanted to do it.

The only limitation is your imagination and application.

PMSL……. @ Singletrack forum user in wrong end of stick, posting about subjects of which they know nowt shocker!! 😯

The Truth

Thetford has different issues to most other forests in the UK, largely because it was one of the earliest to embrace MTB and is therefore out of date, and is flat. Partially for that reason the trails are easily accessible to those who are not competent to use them, therefore there are exceptional problems that have to be considered when the gnarly meter is being set.

FC closures: These are in fact very few and far between. Currently the only one is a drop off into Squirrel Scamper pit, where two people have been severely injured. This will reopen once TIMBER have got round to reworking it to mitigate the risk. (Mitigate means when the legal nonsense starts that there is a reasonable defence. Not wrapping everyone and everything in cottonwool). If you aren’t happy with that write to your MP about changing the legal system. Its nothing to do with TIMBER or the FC, simply a fact of life that we and they have to live with.

FC support for MTB and trail building: Is in fact fulsome, substantial and wholehearted.

The Plan: To renovate and weather proof the existing trail network, before looking to create more ambitious trail features. This is the reason TIMBER was formed, to staunch the mud that was engulfing the forest. Currently the Red route is pretty much sorted, we are on the green and black and blue will follow shortly after that.

Currently the family trail offer is in poor repair which is therefore driving riders onto the more demnanding cross country trails. Therefore, higher priority is being given currently to improving those family trails. The photo shown is a connecting section along a forest ride about to be used for one of those low grade trails. The work being done is to elevate the trail to give it better drainage than the surrounding area, and it is intended as a flat 2 metre wide line for children and families, nothing more nothing less. The contractor built section was to rectify a rooty boggy sludge, and has been done to protect the root system in a very small area.

Current concerns: The High Lodge, BCP and Santon Downham blocks have had little or no thinning and harvesting for 15 years or so. Unfortunately, that is now being rectified with wholesale harvesting works being done currently and for the next 15 months or so. Accordingly, TIMBER have been discussing ways and means to renew, replace and reinvigorate the “wild trail network” which will be severely depleted by this activity. The FC’s suggestion is to consider the controlled reintroduction of Motor Cycle enduros, which is what created the trails in the first instance. We have other ideas to assist in that process. Allied to this there has been active co-operation with Thetford MTB racing/The FC/TIMBER to utilise the thinning and harvesting program to produce better arena opportunties for their events.

Long term plans with broad approval but not necessarily funded or through the planning procedure.

1) A pump track (funded and site identified)
2) A range of technical trail features to augment the current Black/Red trails
3) Red and black to be rebadged to red only, (graded as such by dint of distance rather than difficulty) (Funded and in process)
4) A jump site, (presuming jump orientated folk can be arsed to get involved with it)

Things holding us back

Lack of volunteers, and uninformed criticism leading to demotivation of those we do have.

So don’t whinge, get involved and guide the process its much more fruitful and who knows you might just enjoy it. Regarding distance, if you live close enough to ride there you live close enough to get stuck in. My average journey there is a round trip of 80 miles.

Zimbo, I don’t know what planet you are on, but his celebrity marriage actually comprises of his has been and not particularly talented wife marrying a global sport superstar, as opposed to a global sport superstar marrying into money or fame. He is renowned in the sport as being one of the hardest working guys in the game to this day, and at the very least you have to credit him with the intellect to get the right people around him to guide his career. There are plenty who are not that smart. His current income at the end of his active sporting career is in the region of $50 million per annum, He also has the highest number of England caps for an outfield player and is the second highest of all time….. so frankly your criticism is a bit monty pythonesque in the “what have the romans ever done for us” vein.

epitomising that ever-growing style-over-substance, celebrity obsessed, I’m-special-cos-I’m-famous section of our society.

I think you’ll find there is very considerable substance as well as the abundantly obvious style. If he is special its simply because he’s bloody good at what he does, and nowadays that extends way beyond the game of football.

Personally I’m not fond of India as a place. Its dirty, in a way that scares the crap out of domestos, I hate the class divides, and the way that the society clings to religion to maintain the status quo really squeezes my pipes. However, there are many notably great things to come out of it and I’d be the first to acknowledge that, but I’m not going to be going there again from choice, ever!

A Maccy D’s franchise is likely to set you back £250,000ish before you even look at premises, or at least that was the case when I looked at it. So the big guys know their value view is totally true.

There are no guarantees when you buy a franchise and as I said before I came to the conclusion that if you could do it as a franchisee you could do it alone.

I think a lot of people look at a franchise through fear or lack of knowledge, probably both. Its a comfort blanket. The reality however is that you still have to work bloody hard to make it work and success will not just fall into your lap.

The most common problem is not knowing what to do as a business. Good advice is not to try to reinvent the wheel. Going into a well served market is often avoided foolishly. Why? Well if there are already lots of people doing it you know there’s a demand, so the issue simply becomes how to do it better than the others, whereas reinvention of the wheel not only requires you to do it well, but also to establish a market from zero, which is both risky and very hard.

The downside of the unreasonable employer view is that I’ve had people who are too dim to understand that we keep records who have claimed to lost their parents more than once. Unfortunately that sort of experience tends to make you less reasonable.

Best advice = Sensible conversation, with understanding from boths sides of the fence works best.

I looked at it in detail a while back. The over riding conclusion was that if you were good enough to make a success of a franchise then you were good enough to make a success of a business without being a franchise.
What you need to look at is what its going to cost you in relation to what you are going to get back. What sort of training, marketing and product support you are going to get and what are the guarantees that you are going to get value for your money. Never forget you are the customer and you are paying (often handsomely) for what you are going to get, so be picky and make sure before signing anything you run it past a specialist franchise lawyer.
Don’t reject the concept out of hand, but do your homework and dot the i’s and cross the t’s.

this is the cause of the fudging.

… I think you’ll find that its a case of fudge nudging in actual fact…. 😯

The real issue here is how the hell has this thread lasted to 180 plus posts? I am stunned. Not enough to be arsed to read it all, but stunned nonetheless that the opportunity to express offensive and extremist views of either extreme hasn’t been fully grasped with both hands.

……think I’ll have to consider subscribing to some other grumpy old bastards forum …this ones losing its USP

The problem is that the largest component of property prices is land. land is in finite supply, and for various reasons the demand for it is growing (i.e. more people, one parent families, buy to let, to name but a few). For that reason if there is limited supply and demand exceeds it then prices will inevitiably go up. However, the same is true in the event that the supply of money increases, i.e. loads of money = prices will readjust to the volume of money in circulation.

In short the people who will benefit most from policies that create increased demand for property and therefore money are the property owning and surprisingly the finance/banking types. No prizes for guessing who they are, and who’s mates generated said policies.

Bit flipping rich to then turn round and point the finger at someone else…….anyone at all else in fact.

molgrips – Member
To the OP, I don’t think it’s at all obvious that it was a murder.

I don’t think I ever said it was, merely commented on the fact that the inquest thought someone else was probably involved.

please remember that far from all are involved in illegal activties much the same as mountain bikers.

Yep but good people are good people wherever they are. Mark you so are gullible people and evil people. The big difference is that those outside of the Church(s)don’t seem to claim the moral high ground quite so often, nor lose it quite so blatantly and regularly, nor be so mixed up in peddling what is clearly at best a lie.

What’s really horrendous here is the absence of any acknowledgement of how unbelievably shite this lot are. These revelations are not new in any sense. Make no mistake this has been going on forever. The whole institution is morally bankrupt and they know it, and that is why they have not acted. If they acknowledge it then they are done for. I mean just imagine the Pope standing above St Peter Square admitting that the whole moral authority of the church is fraudulent and always has been, (but its OK now because we are going to sort it out and put things into place to protect you all from corrupt and perverse priests, so please don’t leave and keep giving us your money) ……Oops 😳

I just hope everyone, press, fans, the FA and most of all the players give the guy a chance. Look at the successful managers SAF, Arsing Whinger, Sir Bobby Robson even, all have been given time and a run at the job which has allowed them to get through the problems and then build. It is already too late for the Europeans, Hodgson has no real chance of majorly influencing what happens there. The next World Cup will be down to him if he makes it that far.

Personally I reckon they’ll be burning images in the street by August unfortunately.

Damn foreigners telling us how to treat our colonials…. whatever next? Votes for women?? Bah humbug

Been there done it. It probably won’t be 4 months, seems to be they tell you worst case so when you find out its only a month that seems great. 90% certainty that it’ll be resolved with physiotherapy. If you’ve got tingly legs its probably a disc problem, but that why they are doing the scan so they can be sure.

Quite so TJ, but its a bit chicken and egg, it leads to a culture like that, which then goes into a downward spiral of covering backs, which ultimately is corrupt and so on. But if anyone thinks thats unique to the Police come and work in my company for a few days. You never get a call from anyone saying “I’ve dropped a clanger can you help me”, its always “I’ve received this product from you and it was damaged when I got it” etc etc etc. No real difference, apart from the fact hopefully no one dies.

A bit patronising MSP if you don’t mind me saying so.

The fact that they fecked up does not necessarily mean that they were trying to “clear the officers involved”. Especially when the vast weight of evidence suggests the exact opposite, including the fact that the 31 officers involved as witnesses will not speak to the IPCC. Not really the actions of those having their backs covered for them is it?

The trouble with this sort of thread is its easy to wile away the day making up all sorts of conspiracy theories, but the reality usually is a lot more mundane, i.e. someone somewhere has dropped a bollock and then tries to cover it up because the consequences of that bollock being dropped are so dire.

But hey, lets not let reality or facts get in the way of a bloody good whinge.

Incidentally, are you still convinced that 9/11 was carried out by the US government?

Actually the problem with this case is that the IPC set out to clear the officers involved, rather than find the truth.

What absolute tosh. The IPCC are nothing to do with the Police whatsoever. The clue in fact being in the name….. and also being the reason why the name was changed from the Police Complaints Authority a few years back.
If anything the Police Officers apparent refusal to be interviewed by the IPCC suggests the exact opposite if anything.

Might be worth reading this

‘money grabbing little tramp’

I think if that were true the correct response would be to pursue a complaint of blackmail, as opposed to slating her on Twitter. However, as with most things about the footballers in this case there hasn’t been much that stands up to examination, so no real reason to expect any difference with the latest halfwit to throw his hat into the ring.

Personally, I hope he gets a similar sentence to his rapist friend, hats off to the girl involved, this must be like getting attacked all over again, and frankly I think she has displayed considerable courage in standing up to these twunts.

I have often used a thing called the Bradford Factor to manage absenteeism, its simply the square of the number of occasions multiplied by the number of days, and works on the basis that single days may well be avoidable absences, whereas longer periods probably aren’t.

So for example 10 single days = a factor of 10 x 10 x 10 = 1000
As opposed to 1 period of 10days = a factor of 1 x 1 x 10 = 10

Two ways of doing it, one being to reward those whose attendance is deemed to be good or better. Personally I view showing up for work as being a minimum requirement and therefore don’t go with bonuses or whatever for merely doing what is expected.

Generally I’ve interviewed all staff below the average of the group, along with all of their absence returns over the period. Usually, the process of interview alone has been sufficient to achieve a modification in behaviour. However on one occasion there was an individual who I highlighted as having consistent time off with a “stomach problem”, and therefore recommended she took the data to her GP and got a check up. It transpired she had bowel cancer and because of these actions it was identified early enough to be treatable.

Last time I did it I was managing a business that initially had absenteeism in the order of 10% and in this way we reduced that to about 1%, with a total of one dismissal, the diagnosis mentioned above, and no other negative outcomes.

I very much doubt if any company would institute a disciplinary hearing without the right of reply or defence, unless of course they want to be paying your Mrs out at a tribunal sometime later. Best bet for her is to keep a contemporaneous diary of events, it can be used as evidence later, but to listen to what is being said before passing judgement.

Been there done it.

Example 1: close personal friend was asked to guarantee business loan for boyfriend/significant other. Large dosh. Been living together 19 years at the time. S.O. goes bust and **** off. My mate is now left with the debt, while SO wanders off into the sunset scot free.

Example 2: My Brother in law needed help to set his business up. We lent him the dosh, however wifey and I had decided before we did it we could a) afford it, b) didn’t expect the money back, and c) prefered the happy family relationship to the money. (We got it back with interest).

If you are operating as a lender, apply sensible critieria, like am I going to get it back….answer YES = Do it, answer NO = don’t? If you are operating as a family member, do it without expecting it back, but hoping. Otherwise refer him to a good debt counsellor.

My old chap was on a carrier in the Far East during WW2 most of what they carried went over the side afterwards, and they were then tasked to repatriate POW’s and displaced civilians. I think dumping of kit is pretty common post hostilities. It was certainly done by the Yanks after Vietnam and defo in the Gulf. Came up against similar stories in Russia in the late 80’s. Didn’t believe them either until we were in a factory that covered 4 square miles in Chelyabinsk, and realised the scale of went went on and how much stuff was simply stashed away after the war.

Any hardened zinc plated screw will do. All the other stuff, decking Spax etc are just window dressing and unnecessary for your application.

International is a pain, but as a general rule of thumb I would apply pressure immediately the invoice is overdue. The deal is you supply, and they pay. You’ve done your bit, so there should be no bashfulness about asking for your due.

In my company we put people on stop the day after due date, and will not supply further goods until the account is up to date. A county court application made out in their name appears through their inbox after about 10 – 15 days. Everyone told me that we would go bust if we took that attitude. Strangely, we haven’t and our payment situation is extremely good. We also pay all of our suppliers ontime, largely because we don’t have cashflow problems generated by slow payment of our invoices.

Does make you wonder what the yanks have up their sleeve doesn’t it? All I know is that each stage of their “secret” technologies have only become public when it suited them. By the time we knew about U2 the Blackbird was nearly an antique, when we knew about that people were reporting stealth fighters as UFO’s and so on. Personally I reckon you can bet your bottom dollar that if we knwow about the missle nailing laser they are well past that already. Who knows?

So because they don’t agree with you, people are half wits?

Obviously…

Same old same old crime and punishment debate.

Simple Truths

1) You don’t get punished for breaking the law, you only ever get punished for getting caught.
2) Locking people up demonstrably doesn’t work.
3) Repeating something that doesn’t work expecting a different outcome is mental.

By that logic, investing more in detection, less in punishment, and more in correction could well be the way forward. Unfortunately however, to get elected it is necessary to persuade half wits to vote for you, therefore the chances of positive change appear very slim in the foreseeable future. Sad but true.

What amazes me is that anyone would believe that he is actually going to lamp into himself, his family and his mates and still expect to be welcome at the Bullingdon Old Boys Annual Rugger Buggers outing. Personally, I reckon either that hes a lying twunt, or alternatively TJ’s right and hes not thought it through fully.

Spot on IME

So if you aren’t secure, but want to stay there, the way forward is to make her feel and look good. Don’t worry, if her boss has got anything about them they’ll figure it out. Just don’t rock her boat until you have to and are sure of your position. Right now shes in a corner, and there is only way for her to go which is out with teeth bared and snarling.

explain how you’ve come to this conclusion from what I wrote?

I tend to operate on the basis that everyone behaves rationally according to the world as they see it. From what you are saying your immediate bosses behaviour is not rational. So then its a question of what would make it rational. 35 years experience as a senior manager tells me that the most likely conclusion is the one I’ve come to, i.e. somewhere between incompetence and the fear of being found out. Might very well be wrong, but from your last post that I’m now answering I’ll bet you a pound to a pinch of snuff that I’m not very far away.

Edit: If thats not clear, think Peter Principle, i.e. people get promoted to their own level of incomptence, i.e. you get moved up every time you perfrom really well until you don’t then you stay there. Its not at all unusual to find someone occupying a chair thats just too big for their backside, and too scared to admit it. So what do they do? Try to ensure that no one highlights it.

Pretty straight forward.

This is what I’m doing and how I’m spending my time. However, I think you could also get better value for what you are paying me by asking me to deal with this, that and the other, which I am very well qualified to do.

Probably from the sound of it you may well be a threat to your immediate boss, so its important not to increase that threat to her, but to get the message across positively and from preference as if it were her idea. Of course it wouldn’t harm at all if you could also subtley drop it to her boss that shes not making good use of her resources.

Whatever, don’t leave it to fester, and try to retain your integrity without damaging your reputation.