Saddle bag, I love mine – 2 tubes, multitool, puncture repair kit, tyre levers, pump, surgical type gloves, spare brake pads and some emergency haribo.

I ride a defy, this is as much of a halfway house between a pretend racing bike and a sensible bike as I can imagine – wide tyres, not unless you consider 25mm wide, but it’s got a high front and will take guards and a rack (and I own, and regularly use both) I don’t want a slow bike though, as others have said, I love the feeling of effortless speed by comparison to my mountain bike, and if I ride slower, I just wouldn’t be able to go very far because my time is limited.

Booths, the supermarket for grammar pedants because they have a 10 items or fewer aisle.

I thought the racing was great, my favourite day was Stage 2 with the break holding out all day, really great to watch.

Not sure which bloke it is, but one of them was seemingly unable to pronounce Lulalemon (as in Specialized Lulalemon) the same way twice, and consistently did it with some crazy accent.

I’ve got some seamtape (stripped from an old waterproof and some sealant) to add to mine eventually, but it’s not currently taped. That said, it’s got very wet in the past, and only a small amount of water has got in.

Agree with the above, pretty good for simple directions, much quicker than stopping to check the map. Battery life is good, and it turns the back light on and off automatically, which is a bonus.

I used this fabric for mine:

http://www.abakhan.co.uk/fabric/multi-purpose/water-repellent-pu-coated-grey-150cm.html

It’s damn good, and very cheap compare to the P18 stuff.

On the bike here:

Because I want my apocalypse plans to be successful, I’m not going to tell you want they are.

The first rule of apocalypse plans, is that you don’t talk about apocalypse plans.

Been using Eurosport player for the last month to watch the Spring Classics legally, my wife made me after she endured a pixellated edition of Milan San Remo. The quality is much better than the pirate streams, and for the monthly price (I’ll cancel it at the end of the month) it seems worth it to me, pretty good quality if the connection is good, when the bandwidth drops, then so does the quality.

Needs something on misrepresentative statistics – although I accept that’s probably the most difficult thing to spot, and could probably have a whole top 10 all of it’s own.

GPX files are really simple – merging them is a case of copy and paste: http://www.ehow.com/how_7314918_join-gpx-files.html

Just tried to charge mine from my back up battery, no problems with it charging whilst switched on normally, Garmin have an external power pack for this reason.

The terrors of performativity.

I teach at a university, and have taught in a Further Education college, for about a year I gave up powerpoint completely, where I needed to express complex information, I wrote short essays (1-2000) words and handed them out to students in advance, in class, I discussed them, got them to do stuff and where it required it, drew stuff on a white board.

Students asked if there would be powerpoint slides available at some point.

I like Tufte’s view of powerpoint: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_pp really interesting, as is Garr Reynolds http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/

Power point doesn’t have to be a script, and it doesn’t have to be crap, but the fact it is easy to fall into the trap of it being crap, suggests that there should be some kind of license to allow people to use it.

Johnny Cash through to Merzbow and Plastikman via Tool and Metallica.

I’ve had nothing but trouble with conti tubes (Race 28 IIRC). The bit where the valve attaches to the tube has been complete crap in 4 separate tubes from two different batches bought from two different places. Really annoying.

I’ve taught older people on courses along side youngsters, and it really depends on the interaction between the two – some people are able to just get along and work with them, but I’ve had some people come in and try and play at being parents to them, which generally ends in failure, and is something I would avoid if I were you.

I had one mature student (on a degree course) complain that (during a break between 2 lessons) some of the other students were discussing lewd sex acts, I explained that not only do I not care what my 18 year old students talk about with each other outside the classroom, I certainly wouldn’t be doing anything about it – if they chose to sit with them (it was a town centre campus with lots of options to go elsewhere) then that was what you can expect from 18 year old boys. It never impacted on the actual teaching or work they were doing, but the person ramped p their opposition to young people being young people (e.g. that person has a hang over in your lesson etc.) and they ended up leaving because they didn’t feel that it was strict enough on the other students.

And the road out of Birmingham goes to Cannock.

Church Stretton/Long Mynd.

Zig Zak can be identified by the beeping of Garmins as they struggle to hold an accurate signal and/or tell the user they are not moving because the switch backs come so close together.

I just downloaded it from your link no problem. (Safari on a mac) let me know if you want me to e-mail it to you.

Depends if it’s enduro specific, and if you’ve got a 650b specific saddle, and 650b specific shorts, only then will the trails come alive.

I’ve been to loads of concerts on my own, cinema on my own, never thought anything of it until someone said it was a bit weird. I still think it’s fairly normal.

I have a home made handlebar harness, as I’ve used it in the past, I’ve always slung it up above the cables and hoses – this probably isn’t the best for weight/balance, but it’s worked ok. It’s also 20l odd – I think that I’m going to try and cut this down and fit everything into a smaller bag, and take less stuff in future (WRT will be my next trip out).

Harness off the bike up close:

Do you have any more information on this statement?

Section 77 of the act literally says these clauses are “unenforceable if…”

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/77

I’m surprised at how equal the US comes out in that. Higher than Sweden for instance.

Not sure we are reading the same thing – which measurement brings out the USA above Sweden? I could only find ones where Sweden was more equal than the USA.

I suspect most people wouldn’t reveal on here what they’re paid.

£33,855

It’s normally written into your contract that you are not allowed to discuss your wage with others.

This is virtually unenforceable, particularly following the equality act 2010 – if someone is trying to establish if there is a case for an equal pay claim, then they are allowed to ask and people are able to tell them, no matter what the contract says.

I’m on a pay scale, so there is a limited number of amounts I could get paid, and I have a job role within that, so people pretty much know within a range what I’m on, and I have no qualms about telling them what point I’m on.

[edit] clearly ‘proper medicine’ includes all the ‘soft’ stuff that goes on but in terms of homepoathy people seem to assume that the benefits they get from the soft stuff is actually being given by the sugar pills.

If people already know it’s only a placebo, does it lose it’s effect?

On a wider note if BOTH sides have billion-losses,

I understood it that the first £1.5bn was from the bank and the other £500m was from the other areas – retail, pharmacies, travel, agriculture, electrical, legal services and funerals – by comparison, Woolies was small, so it’s hardly a comparison.

The structure is the thing which will save it – there are a number of independent co-ops, which come together to make up the group, the individual co-ops will survive even if the group goes to the wall – it might look different afterwards, and it will mean that things like the bank wither on the vine, (because they are owned by the group not the co-ops themselves) and the areas where there is no independent cooperative will probably lose their stores, but the structure which makes it difficult if not impossible to change the structure is also the thing which will mean the co-op is here to stay.

If my kids tell on each other, then I tell them off for doing so.

I then, without the one who told knowing, go and speak to the one who has misbehaved – ensuring they do not know that they have had their desired result.

if a kid at school told on one of mine, I’d probably ignore it in the first instance, and talk to them after.

My monsters are 4/7/9, for reference.

There is a sustains doc here: http://www.sustrans.org.uk/sites/default/files/images/files/migrated-pdfs/17%20costs%5B1%5D(1).pdf which outlines per km costs for a number of different projects, all at 2007 prices.

It’s missing a chain.

I use Strava, but it’s not brilliant, and it’s particularly good for editing once you’ve made the route, and can get very frustrating. Almost pointless for off road.

I’ve also been using getamap – the OS software – which works quite well, better for off road, but doesn’t snap to the roads or anything fancy like that.

GPSies also works fine if you get the route right first time, but isn’t easy to edit afterwards.

Garmin Connect…pretty similar to the above.

All of them are a little bit slow and ponderous, I’m not aware of any that I could heartily recommend.

Labi Siffre – I got the

Is sampled in:
Eminem – My name is
Primal Scream – Kill all Hippies
Streets is Watching – Jay Z
Can it all be so simple – Wu Tang Clan
Envisions – The Psycho Realm
and loads of other even more obscure hip hop tracks beyond that.

Can you log on to iCloud and wipe the device from there? It’s part of the find my phone feature.

Ground Loop Isolator.

Of course, what you need is 650b specific cranks arms, and 650b specific pedals.

My commute is about 2.5km, even if I ride home for lunch then back up to work in the afternoon, then my commuting distance would only be 200km a month and in reality I hardly ever come home for lunch, and some days I work from home, making it generally less than 100km.

I’m generally trying to hit 200km a month, with 300km a month being a nice bonus. I expect to exceed this in the summer, but have kept within this this year so far – most of this is road miles, only 100km or so off road so far this year.