Chipps dancing on the latest Eurobike vid gave me a little chuckle this morning

Tescos Finest

This.

Or Tesco Organic, or some other stuff the missus buys in a big brown paper bag – just googled – Flahavans.

Much better than the Scots stuff imo

I like(ish) Howies clothes but had their rain jacket from a few years back and it died (zips), got a refund. Bought a NBL t-shirt a few years ago and it's by far the worst merino t-shirt of the 5 that I own . I've got 3 pairs of their strides which just don't fit me despite being a normalish size (34L), the jeans were too tight, too short and just cut "weird" while two pairs of their other trousers (bought in sale) one just felt odd and the other was laughably massive and also felt weird. I'm well pleased with a polo shirt of theirs I got though.

The logo was designed by Salvador Dali fact fans.

Wise man once say buy in August or regret in September

Good shouts so far. Basically any 70's dystopian Sci Fi especially Silent Running and how about

Slapshot

think it's the start of FIFA & UEFA cracking down on English clubs and their massive spending power, if we're honest and remove Real from this the "Big 4" have driven wages and transfer fees out of this world over the last few years.

Not so sure about the massive spending power of British clubs, playthings of oil billionaires aside, if you look at the wages

From Arsenal News Review

Money rules the world, as many running businesses in the current climate would know, and Arsene Wenger subscribes when he says [Telegraph]: "The great days of the Premier League will disappear,''

"Let's say a guy who gets pounds 1 million [gross] earns pounds 600,000 [net]. With 50 per cent tax you have to increase wages by 20 per cent to keep him at pounds 600,000.

"In Spain they pay 25 per cent tax for the first five years. It is a lost battle. We are privileged people and we can't complain but compared to other countries it is a disadvantage for the Premier League.''

Deloitte, said as a direct result of the difference in the tax rate, English clubs would have to spend 70% more than a Spanish club to satisfy a net annual wage demand from an overseas player of three million.

It said giving a European player a net annual salary of 3m euros (£2.6m) would cost an English club 6.8m euros. But a Spanish club needs only pay 4m euros to deliver the same net salary.

The UK figure is also higher than clubs in France (6.7m euros), Italy (5.7m euros) and Germany (5.4m euros) would have to pay – which may account for the lack of targets coming into the club.

Deloitte points out that overall Premier League spending has unexpectedly fallen for the first time in more than six years and foreign talent has slowed significantly, with only a third of all Premier League spending going toward recruiting players from abroad compared to around half last year, which no doubt had a bearing on potential foreign targets coming into the club.

I'll be selling my large Cotic Soul when I get around to breaking it up – probably next week, may be too big for you though? It's a 2006 Matt black with Orange decals

Terry's looking miserable

Prolly reduced on appeal to one window

Yes I'm wondering this too

I very much enjoyed

Niccolo Ammaniti – Crossroads

and I've just started

Black Swan Green – David Mitchell

and it seems like an excellent read so far

I've got a Focus Mares Cross expert and absolutely love it, even more than my mtb. However the ride is a tad harsh it's a racing bike after all and it has no rack mounts or mudguard eyelets on the rear if that bothers you. That Surly ^^^ looks great as an all rounder

I had the same antipathy towards canti's when I first got my bike and longed for discs however after owning it for a while now I realised you don't actually need disc brakes as much as I thought – just brake less. If you're gonna ride CX in exactly the same way and in the same places as your mtb then you might as well just ride your mtb?

If I could afford it and I didn't already have a dedicated crosser I'd probably get a Singular Peregrine, which is designed for disc brakes.

In monstercross guise

Techie note; The Hope GXP adaptors work with Hope BBs, not Shimano BBs.

The Shimano ones, and Acros too, run a placky top-hat inside the bearings, so the adaptors won't fit properly.

Thanks for that reggie – I was about to make an expensive-ish mistake

I really rate the Truvativ stylo crank which I bought a few months ago for £60ish

Merlin have em for £70.

Factor in a new bottom bracket soon though because GXP ones are proper cack. You can get some adaptors made by hope which enables you to run Shimano style BB's.

With the fall in the value of the pound and the rising standard of living (and therefore wages?) in Taiwan how much cheaper is it to make bikes in Taiwan?

I'll be selling my large Cotic Soul frame – matt black with orange decals when I get back from hols if you're interested

Could be. I'm not in any particular hurry.

If you are drop em an email in profile – won't be able to attend to it for a couple of weeks/10 days or so

I'll be selling my large Cotic Soul frame – matt black with orange decals when I get back from hols if you're interested

Virgin Sim only is what I'm looking at

I thought it was fairly common practice in good barbers shops.

Celtic vs The Arse in french

Is that a Peregrine? whatever I love that bike

Schwalbe Land Cruiser – cheap, much prefer them to RR's on mixed road/off road riding, not sure of their wet performance but they've worked brilliantly over the last few weeks down south in the dry

Land cruisers come in 35c or 40c

Iraq goals

Reason for putting the italians and spanish on that list is that they know exactly what is all round them all the time. Briish drivers are completely oblivious to their surroundings.

Serious LOL on that one. Italians neither know nor care what is behind them.

've had a specialized air tool for ages. The very bottom, plastic model I think. Works brilliant, even bought one for a mate as a birthday present, and he likes it as well.

Has enough puff to enflate and seal tubeless tyres, so I dont need a compressor or cartridges as well.

This. It works on my car and trailer too.

Something on R4 yesterday – America spends 17% of their GDP on healthcare, we spend 8.2%

Edit also I wonder what % of American healthcare spend is soaked up by the fat cats of and admin in the insurance companies

No.

Met Kaos?

nudie nazis

I blinking love mine – build is similar to Yardley_Hastings, but after nearly 3 years I've got a hankering for a change and am thinking of getting a 29er.

Use the camping gaz camping chef and it works fine. Regulator comes with the stove – well it did when I got it. You have to spend quite a lot to get your first bottle of gas, but then you just swap it for a full one for something like £15. I've been told you can usually find these Camping Gaz bottles at the local dump and then just go for the swap. If you've got the space you can use a big calor gas bottle which is cheaper in the long run but you'll need a different regulator (I think)

£9!

Hope GXP convertor

Presumably they'll work with other external BB's?

Denise Johns GB beach volleyballist

I really like that. Monster crossers look ace.

I think it's rubbish because of :-

the lack of variety,
the abscence of technical difficulty,
the very low height,
the feeling of being cramped in,
knowing that every single trail has been noted and ridden,
not having anything there that scares the beejeesus out of you,
not having miles of sweet singletrack,
not having anything to test you physically,
being really ugly to look at,
not being able to ride somewhere in the park all year,
having huge crowds getting in each other's way and on each other's nerves,
there's no uplift,
it's nothing like a trail centre.

For all of these reasons and many more, Dartmoor is rubbish and as others have pointed out, nowhere near as awesome as it's near neighbours.