I’m quite looking forward to fitting the 2.35 inch Big Apples I ordered to my Karate Monkey but as it is still filthy from its last ride and the weather is even filthier I’m quite happy to wait.

Panracer Ribmos. Stupid name, tough tyre. They roll nicely and I haven’t had a puncture in the two years that they have been on my tourer.

Definitely try to fix it. You may well find that trying to get away with only three bolts will put them under more pressure than was intended by the manufacturer and that they will shear off as well. I had the same problem with an FSA chainset except I didn’t realise it had happened until the chainring had twisted itself around the remaining three bolts. The inner ring was ruined along with two of the bolts that were still attached.

There are four bolts there for a reason.

Range Rover Sport =

My dad has a 1.2 Panda and its a brilliant little car. Its five years old now and has weathered the years a lot better than previous Fiats the family has had; only one item of interior trim has fallen off so far despite some heavy use.

The fuel economy is excellent and I have to say that driving it always makes me smile.

I think the Pegasus is made by a different factory to the one that does the Swifts. My Swift is beautifully made.

I have a signed copy of his book somewhere. I met him at a signing when it was first released. He was very dry humoured when I met him and he seems like a lovely bloke. The book is a hard read at times but well done to him for putting in all the bad stuff that has happened to him.

I’ve just finished building up a Karate Monkey with drop bars and V brakes. It rides quite unlike any cross bike I’ve ever tried although I’ve yet to give it a good trashing. I think it will be the ideal bike for on and off road exploring although it is a bit ponderous on tarmac with 29er tyres fitted.

It is still a work in progress (no pics yet) but I can confirm it is damn ugly. In a good way obviously…

I’m quite lucky. Even though I live at the top of a hill the head of services at the local council lives on the same street as me and the grit bin always seems well stocked as a result. He was even out gritting the road this morning to help out the neighbours; proof that some council workers do earn their keep.

I actually bought a couple of bags of rock salt from Wickes in October just in case the public bins near me ever run out. I share a long driveway with two other properties and it seemed the only sensible thing to do. We were all out yesterday morning shifting the snow from the street and gritting before everything froze overnight. Be nice if everybody took that approach.

Kim Jong Il looks like a scruffy pensioner in the majority of those photos. :-)

I’ve always found Wiggle excellent. I’ve only had to contact customer service once over a product that was a bit faulty and they were spot on in their response. They refunded my money with no quibble.

In my experience all of the online retailers I’ve dealt with have been excellent as long as you are polite with them.

or some shoveling + brushing

Isn’t that technically known as Curling?

Probably best not to attempt it with a car…on a public highway.

Make sure you practice the presentation with a couple of run throughs before you have to give it. That way you will be confident it makes sense and know that the timings work.

As said above, make sure your IT set up works and keep the powerpoint aspect simple.

Did it at my grans funeral a few years ago. Unfortunately I was at the back with my dad and my uncle and a friend of the family, both of whom are a bit shorter, were at the front end. There followed a rather ungainly stagger down the aisle as the coffin threatened to slide off the shoulders of the two pall bearers at the front!

evolution questions answered better than i think STW could

Surley that can’t be. With all of the well informed and balanced personalities on this forum we could end all of the worlds ills…opps, sorry, forgot for a moment this is STW.

Fair point PC. Its just a shame that despite talking what seems like a lot of sense Dawkins comes across as a bit of a twunt.

I think mavisto’s post sums up the arguments going on in this thread quite well; bad things happen to good people and sadly none of it makes any sense in the grand scheme of things.

And if you’re an atheist, fair enough, I’d be interested to know what you do when you simply can’t MTFU?

I’m an atheist and I just tend to take the attitude that if I don’t MTFU nobody else is going to do it for me. If this sounds over simplistic I can only say that I certainly don’t think that a faith in some wider spiritual belief system will help me out of hard times. Good luck and hard work are all that counts when things are stacked against you.

I don’t have any experience of organised religion having skillfully avoided it all my life so I wouldn’t want to make any sweeping comments about the relative merits of different religious views. All I will say is that religion has always appeared very alien and very very outmoded to me. Witness the Popes recent comments regarding his tacit acceptance of condoms and the oppresive treatment of women that some religions seem to tolerate. Religion seems to be a very ancient social and political control mechanism that struggles to find a place, or value, in the modern world.

My view is that the most important decisions in life are normally the hardest ones to take and the easy answer or solution to any problem is very rarely the right one. If you want to be a better person the simplest thing you can do is be more open minded about the opportunities that you come across and to be more accepting in your dealings with other people. Why not try some voluntary work? Its a vastly under rated way of doing some good in some small way and it is very rewarding on an emotional level.

Jeff Buckley is dead. He made one album

One can only assume MrNutt has a very small record collection in that case.

For the record (pun not entirely intended) I quite like Muse.

If you feel the driving was really bad then yes you should report it.

I’ve actually just written an email to a haulage company complaining about one of their lorry drivers who was driving like a complete tool earlier this morning and nearly drove over the bonnet of my car as a result. Way I see it is if you’re driving a vehicle with the company name in foot high letters down the side you’re fair game if you drive like a moron and endanger others.

Are Surly coming out with a single speed version?

If they did it would come in an odd colour, be heavier and slightly uglier than the alternatives and have a stupid name.

Fiver every 3-4 months.

Don’t like getting my hair cut and certainly don’t want to waste money in some mincey hairdressers.

I think I’d fight in defence of my country, but I’ll be buggered if I’m fighting in defence of somebody elses country or on behalf of a bunch of selfserving politicians who see “gains” (whatever they may be) to be had by going to war with somebody else.

I share the same sentiment. If it was to defend my country I would like to think I would have the courage to fight. I do however feel sorry for todays armed forces. They are deployed seemingly on the whim of idiot politicians. War should only ever be seen as a last result, otherwise it is just brave young men being sent to die by stupid old men trying to prove some sort of political point.

For the record though I do think our forces are fighting a foe that definitely needs to be tackled in Afghanistan.

You can add me to the list of Beatles haters.

Can’t stand any of their stuff.

Don’t like Liverpool either.

Put a reflective sticker on it and tell your mates it uses mystical energy to make your bike roll faster.

You tell ’em Big Dave!! In my day they’d have all been darn’t pit. Not poncing around in their skinny jeans drinking latte’s.

Can we not nuke the lot of ’em?!! Bloody layabouts!!!

Even when I was at university myself I hated students. Going back as a ‘mature’ student to do my masters five years after my first degree was sheer hell. And before anybody asks; no I didn’t get a grant. I had to get the money together myself but just accepted that building up a bit of debt was all part of the process of growing up and taking responsibility for my own career. The grant system for my first degree was largely meaningless as it was so meagre so students have had to deal with debt for a while now. Really can’t see what the fuss is all about.

Incidently, the reason why I had to get a masters was because the job market was already flooded with out of work graduates ten years ago and employers wanted to see that people had put more effort into their education even then.

Whay aren’t they busy studying? If they want a degree and good career options they won’t get there by causing criminal damage. Stupid feckers who obviously have too much time on their hands.

I reckon the whole university fees argument has been blown out of proportion by a news hungry media and a few self important students union members. Universities run the risk of pricing themselves out of the market if they set their fee levels too high and only the very specialist ones will be able to charge higher prices. When it comes to the nonsense degrees like media studies and tourism there will be a fair bit of competition on prices which means students will be able to shop around and the rubbish universities will gradually be weeded out. My own relatively recent experience of higher education has shown me that universities need to up their game in terms of providing quality courses, teaching and facilities. Students are already going overseas because US and European universities are able to offer better resources and higher levels of professionalism.

I’m sure the really gifted students will be offered support if they come from poor backgrounds as the universities will need to show that they are producing good quality graduates to justify their fees.

There is a worrying belief in this country that you can only succeed in the job market by having a degree. A lot of the businesses I deal with on a day to day basis are owned, run and staffed by people who have gotten to where they are by sheer hard work and ingenuity. Very few of them have many qualifications past O Level/ GCSE standard.

Check Ebay if you end up going for a Brompton. There are usually a few on there selling at a decent price in fairly new condition. I suspect a number of people buy them and then decide they don’t like them.

I was interested in a Fargo but ended up going for a Karate Monkey (even though I’ll never make the most of it the possibility of mixing different drivetrain and brake combinations won me over). I’ve built mine up with similar intentions as MrTall, a sort of mixed use on any terrain kind of bike. Great fun it is too.

Before you contact your LBS check out the Ison Distribution website as it should give you an indication of stock levels and when the next load of Fargo frames are coming into the UK.

There is no shame in riding a folder. I love my little Dahon although I don’t get enough opporunities to use it at the moment.

The Birdy and Mezzo look pretty high tech but I think the price of the Birdy reflects this. The Birdy is noce to ride however. It is possible to blow a load of cash on a top end Brompton and the Brommie is definitely the best when it comes to folding and storing on a train. I’ve never found Bromptons to be a satisfying bike to ride but that is just my own experience. Some people love them.

There are some decently specced Dahons but the higher up the range you go the more obsessed Dahon seem to be with light weight wheels. I’ve got a basic Speed 7 which is fairly comfy, can be ridden a decent distance and is cheap enough and tough enough to take a few knocks.

If I sit with the traffic at a red light, there’s every possibility that a bus/lorry could turn left across me. As death doesn’t seem like a good option, I’m completely relaxed about breaking the law and going over the white line. If a fine comes my way, so be it.

Not sure I see your logic on this one. If you jump a red light there is always an outside chance that a vehicle trying to beat the red on the opposing set of lights will speed through the junction. In which case a fine will be the least of your worries…

Bells get ignored by everyone 100% of the time.

I tend to find that using a bell normally gets a smile and a positive comment from walkers. I think its because its the last thing people expect to hear these days.

keeping a thin piece of wood for stirring paint

I use an old screwdriver for stirring paint. Does that count? It comes in handy for opening the tins of paint as well; I guess its as close to multitasking that a man can hope for.

Anyhow, the proper headset removal tool works how, exactly….?

Hmm. Let me see…. You don’t belt it with a hammer do you….? Nooooo surely not..

You do indeed but I can speak from experience that it can be a better option than using homemade alternatives… :oops:

I used to run my Swift with a 38:20 combo and it was a bit ambitous on steep terrain. I actually run it as a 1X9 now and I still think I need to reduce the size of the chainring.

Now, can anyone recommend me a headset press that isn’t park tool expensive?

I’ve got a Cyclus headset press. As others have said, its a quality bit of kit. Fitted three headsets with mine now and had no bother with any of them.

I think its a pretty stupid idea. I think the little bit of extra light we get in the mornings by setting the clocks back one hour is actually quite important for road safety.

From a personal standpoint I don’t think the argument that people will exercise more if the evenings are slightly lighter during the winter is a convincing one. People generally excercise outdoor less in the winter because its cold and the weather is bad.

The fact that some parts of Scotland won’t get light until 10am will also cause all sorts of long term problems. Just look at the incidence of depression and other mental health problems in some of the Scandinavian countries that have to endure extended periods of darkness in the Winter.

I present to you the Range Rider developed by a bloke called Geoff Apps. It was even a 29er so niche enough for this forum.

not titanium – FAIL

Fail? Oh I don’t know. It had what would be regarded as alt bars today and the later models even had hub gears. It also appears to have more than one top tube. Like all true modern 29ers Geoff Apps also had trouble getting hold of suitable tyres.

A man truly ahead of his time. Possibly even the first STWer :wink:

I run a 1X9 set up with a Truvativ Stylo ss chainset up front. I don’t use a chain device. Not had any problems with the chain coming off so far.

A British mountain bike? I present to you the Range Rider developed by a bloke called Geoff Apps. It was even a 29er so niche enough for this forum.