He said she had refused to allow it as part of the pilot, but had made no mention of being against it being done for health and safety reasons at busy times.

Might try that logic for the next bike purchase.

“Oh Dearest, can I buy a new set of wheels for muddy trails.”

MrsBreathe “No”

“Ah ha, she didn’t mention I couldn’t buy some for dry trails. Result”

is the music on your iPod lossless or compressed? It might be worth checking with some lossless files if you haven’t already, it’ll make a great deal of difference. Then just buy a 160Gb iPod Classic to play all your tunes!

This is a bit of a smokescreen IMO. Look at motorbikes, much more materials used, much more R&D involved, mostly made outside the UK yet nowhere near the level of inflation seen in bikes.

But an extra pound on a moto fork isn’t gonna get it bad reviews in the media. Bikes haven’t really changed in years. MTB feels the need to reinvent itself every season. MTB stuff needs to be longer travel/lighter/stiffer/more adjustable/blinger/faster shifting year on year (apparently). If people are prepared to pay for that then don’t expect much to change soon.

Not that I’m defending the prices, they are mental.

Sergey Bubka – Pole Vaulter
had an olympic curse but dominated the sport for 16 years as world champion setting 35 world records and still holds the world record set 17 years ago…

Never smashed the world record by any margin more than 1cm which I always though strange until I realised he got paid quite a princely sum every time he broke the W. So 35 big pay days rather than 1!!!

Ripped a tyre last year out on road ride. Couldn’t sort it so limped home shredding the rear tyre. Stopped to help a van driver push his van out of a muddy field entrance (he’s tried to do a three point turn and trapped the front wheels). Did a cheeky “are you going my way, as bike knackered?” afterwards to no avail. 5 mins later he passed me without a wave or an offer.

Wouldn’t stop me helping again, or in a cyclists case just checking if they’re okay (my car permanently has a pump and toolkit/patches in it for some reason).

+1 for Charles Thyritt.

Basically you just tell them how long you want the sleeves. (though I don’t know how long they can go up to, 36″ was fine for me)

Sonos was a piece of cake to set up and run. Thankfully the iPhone app makes it easier to use than the old remote.

I was in the same position as you, multiroom, using NAS, PC off, blah blah blah. It got expensive (see Sonos!) when I finally realised for my needs an iPod dock (or docks) connected to the hifi was really all I needed, so I flogged all the Sonos stuff (for a profit on eBay).

do they work with any modem/router or do you need one specific to the plugs?

As long as the modem/router has an ethernet connection in the back there’ll be fine (and that’ll be 99.9% of modems). You can actually buy a nice little ADSL modem with homeplug built-in which tidies things up too.

I also have a wireless printer which struggles to connect, so I’m think I could use the Homeplugs too.

You can also get wifi extenders that work with homeplug, so maybe that’s an idea – plug it in close to the printer and hopefully it’ll have a strong enough signal to be less flaky.

Oh and out of interest do Power adapters have to be plugged directly into a power plug or can they be used in a multi gang extension jobbie?

In ‘theory’ directly into the wall is best, but mine work no problem on extensions. Think the main PC is even on a surge protection thingy and it still chugs away nicely.

Careful mind, there are different speed powerplugs and they don’t all talk to each other, so don’t expect the 95mbps to talk to a 200mbps plug.

Do Armourtex do posting, or is it purely dropping your frame off at the site and picking it up again a few days later?

I picked up a canny set from Jamo a while back, new on eBay for £20. Not the last word in hi fidelity but it’s always nice switching them on and hearing all the ambient noise disappear.

How far away is the bluray player? Could you run an ethernet cable from your router all the way to it?

What sort of mileage do people get out of winter tyres if they drive like an old fart? Just wondering if I’ll get two winters out of a set.

Guy who has just fitted mine reckoned on maybe four seasons out of them but then I don’t do a huge amount of miles or trash ’em.

Jonba – whres the one in Newcastle? Probably need to get the old CX bike resprayed after winter. Ta.

That Castelli stuff sounds like the Santini H20 stuff too.

DanW – there is Stealth and Stealth ‘Lite’ versions. The non-Lite are probably too warm for anything but sub zero work almost. Avoid also if you’re long in the leg – Endure seem to think XL, XXL and XXL people are all the same height.

Anyone rate these.?

Actually I rate mine very highly. Had a few other commuters chat to me about it at the lights while waiting. See loads of people with hiviz vests on with dirty great black rucksacks over the top of them thus defeating the object.

Only design flaw really is the reflective stipes are at the top and the mesh pocket is at the bottom so I’ve flipped mine over (never use the pocket anyway).

A bit expensive but there is a cheap version in some other shop that does industrial reflective that I’d probably try next time. For £9 it’s something to try Linky here

Maybe a stupid question, but how does a pension become ‘self funding’? Is there an assumption that the taxes from a teacher will cover their pension costs, or that the £x billion given to education each year covers the cost of the pension payments?

I believe this to be one of the aims – so then the schemes can be closed as ” no one wants to join” so then they can make everyone take out private pensions thus creating more money for their friends

More likely current pension funds will be ringfenced with no new applicants. All new employees will probably be on Local Government Pension V2, which will be either reduced benefits or something tweaked like accrual rates.

Basically like most private companies have done with their pension schemes.

Girlfriends brother was their nextdoor neighbours reverse into my car a few years ago. Girlfriend was best friend with their daughter, all on good terms, invited to parties together etc. etc. – think we was reversing it back to get some space to swing it into the drive before slinking back into the house.

He completely and flatly denied putting a fist sized dent into the rear panel with the towing bar of his car. Couldn’t have been him, never felt a thing, blah blah blah.

In the end we made him get his car out and lo and behold putting the cars back to back the damaged matched perfectly with the tow bar. he sheepishly agreed it must have been him and coughed up for the repair.

Have a quick word. if nothing else maybe you;ll know whos car it is. Like people say, maybe the son or daughter borrowed it that day.

I turned up for work today after hacking off a weeks worth of growth last night to find everyone else has cheated and already have little lip hair.

Can I grow a Merv Hughes in a month?

Seriously though, it’s a good cause, all my paternal uncles have either got it or died of Prostate Cancer so to be fair I might need every little bit of help I can get in the future.

KingOfBiscuits – what make of frame is that? A thing of beauty.

(note: if the missus asks it’s purely for research reasons and most definitely for purchase consideration you understand…)

Nice one Kilo, I’ll have a look at them.

Open the non payment case.

Basically you’ll get your eBay fees back. Nothing more, nothing less.

Don’t expect the buyer to suddenly have a change of heart and pay up. He/she will get a non-payment mark against them which some people ‘may’ use to stop them bidding on their items.

Normally takes 2 weeks if I remember, but if buyer admits to non payment (they get sent an email) then it gets closed as soon as they accept they didn’t pay.

And next time wait for the money 😉

At a school year reunion last year

“So, how old are you?”

As to 11-speed, Shimano have done it the right way round. Electronic first, then 11-speed.

Why is that the ‘right’ way round? Looks like their ‘top of the range’ electronic shifters are ‘only’ going to be 10 speed. And the cheaper mechanical stuff is ‘better’ because it’s 11 speed. Marketing guys are going have a field day with trying to explain that one/hype it up.

An ipod classic holds 40000 songs apparently, you have a lot of music! ! !

Only at very low bitrates. My 160Gb ipod is full with about 400 CDs ripped lossless.

If he/she has just spent £thousands on your auction maybe they are waiting for the money to be transferred to paypal so they can pay you?

I’m more worried about the concept of an album dying out than the format they are transported on.

If you’re going to download most yoofs are just picking the singles out. You don’t get a chance to construct your album as people just want tracks 1,2,3 and 11.

Didn’t Wedding Present release a single every month a few years ago. I can almost see it like that all the time, just bang out a song a week/month ad infitum. You may never get those album tracks that would never be a single (or are frankly actually crap, but you like them for some reason).

Must remember MPs are the cream of the political crop – they’ve backstabbed, crawled, brown-nosed thiee way through the political hierarchies. You don’t get to the top admitting you were in the wrong about anything.

Done the ‘mates and a transit’ thing about five times now, including returning the favour.

Without kids it’s doable but ideally you want someone at the new house moving boxes around, and a couple of you going back and forth basically dumping stuff at the front doorstep. Takes a good number of trips in a transit so there comes a point when driving 15 miles to get stuff then turning around and heading back gets tiresome.

Last time the transit got a puncture, thankfully only a few hundred feet from new house but that could have been a ‘mare out on a main road changing tyres with a fully loaded van.

Mate hired a couple of men in a van to shift stuff for him, took the risk as they were no doubt uninsured (but then you probably are shifting it yourself) so maybe a halfway house – you pack stuff up nicely and get them to do the donkey work.

DT78 – try Greenbee next time – they were underwritten by the same insurers as M&S last time I looked (might have changed now) and the cover was pretty similar.

Then swap back the next year. And repeat.

Personally I wouldn’t touch anything I couldn’t at least seem moving with a bargepole.

Worth checking with the insurance company to see if they could insure for a month extra or something?

Spookily enough I was reading the new Cycling Plus at the same time (just arrived thru the door) and the unassisted cycling speed record was mentioned in there – it’s something like 83mph.

IIRC the speed record drafting behind a car is something like 155+mph.

And interesting how not having radios might have played a part.

Personally I think it’s great not having comms back to a guy with a laptop in a team car saying “you’ll catch the breakaway if you keep at x mph in y mins”. Makes the dynamics a lot better in the race.

Could you just get a smaller double chainset? Maybe like a Middleburn Duo?

Dukes are known to be a bit high geared and to be honest 6th isn’t much good until you get to 70.

Maybe just use 5th then, eh? 😀

i.e. would not a triple with the outer ring removed/bashed not have these advantages?

Just read in a magazine this is the new ‘in-thing’ – microdrive I think they call it – basically a new (presumably expensive) spider to bolt onto your double cranks to give you something crazy like 24/36. It’ll never catch on in my opinion…

Just don’t get the speedbumps sited outside your house (find a grumpy neighbour…). I remember the joys of cars slowing, kerrlump over speedpad, car revving away at the girlfriends old house in the dead of night…

Thats how trending goes – Apple has enough of a fan base for people to flock to the iPad. Then other people responded by buying them because everyone said they ‘needed’ them (think of it as a 2×10 or 29er mtb equivalent). And you get some momentum going, then people just keep getting added to the mix and you tip over from being a niche product to something that might actually become useful.

problem with sniping is the assumption is that you are sniping against someone who will incrementally increase their bid as the auction rises.

I stick in the maxiumum price I’m prepared to pay as close to the end of the auction as I can be at a computer. If I lose its only because someone wants to pay more than me.

Erm, do you know what sniping is? It’s just basically doing the same as you are doing – putting a maximum bid in at the last moment. Sniping doesn’t keep increasing your bid if you are outbid (certainly not when set to 5 seconds to go!!!).