I can remember sitting around with just candles 3 days a week

Born 1973 so I can remember my mum getting the candles and tinned food out when the lights went out.

Was reading the reports this morning about chances of it happening again early 2016 – yes I can get candles and tinned food out (and I have camping stove and down jacket!) but a massive amount of stuff I would usually need to get everyday stuff done using t’internet and mobile (and presumably even make card payments in the shops) will be screwed without a leccy supply.

I also think in the early 70s a lot of people had experience of the war (my parents for e.g. born 1937/39) so they had much worse experience of hardship. These days however, we have so much provided for us and have got so used to a life of comfort I’m not sure the same level of stoicism or even basic experience of dealing with material hardship will be available to see. We’ll see, I may be being pessimistic but listening to a lady stuck in Egypt last week complaining about the inconvenience to her and entirely forgetting several hundred dead Russians made me wonder about her sense of perspective

good news for our manufacturing exports then – lots of rich potential customers!

UK manufacturing currently in recession following 2 quarters of decline (seen this in the FT and Economist and noted it’s not reached headline status in the mainstream media!)

Rolls Royce share price currently in freefall – one of the very best manufacturing companies we have I thought?

Not disputing your point but current evidence not supporting it, sadly…

But a good rough measure of disposable income. spending it on a car is just a choice.

Not entirely, a huge % of cars are bought on finance, rather than savings built up over time from disposable income. A mate at Ford said before the crash their Finance division made more profit than the manufacturing division, a mate at BMW Finance said after 2008 crash they were screwed if they couldn’t borrow money from the markets to then lend on to their customers to buy their cars, and a recent article in the Economist made a point that VW will be in difficulty if they have their credit rating downgraded (which they now have) as they won’t be able to borrow money so cheaply to then provide finance to sell their cars

An interesting concept and considering how the Russians have apparently been sneaking around in their subs of late maybe they were gathering intel on places they could blow up with that thing.

A mate of mine used to be an engineer on UK subs. He said the amount of sneaking around by subs on all sides was really quite widespread!

Condor Tempo. Built for commuting with forward facing dropouts for easy wheel removal, carbon fork and full guards.

Not cheap – looking at c £1200+ for full bike but so nice to ride you’ll save money by not driving when you have small errands to do and you’ll not get upgraditis as it’s custom built

I ended up riding along the pavement today in Bromley because the cycle path appeared to just disappear – I just couldn’t see where I was supposed to go and couldn’t get back onto the road either… really random routing

+ 1 for one of the very best bike shops around.

I have the singlespeed Tempo for commuting and Fratello (non-disc) for winter/wet weather. Lovely bikes to ride – really comfortable. I think they’re keepers.

Customer service is excellent – they really know what they’re talking about in Condor. It’s nice to support a proper old-school independent business too.

For me the very best thing is the customisation. Ok they’re not cheap when you buy but because you buy the bike you want rather than something built to a mass market price point, you don’t get upgraditis in a year’s time – so in the long run I reckon they’re cheaper. Plus you get a bike fit for free so you get exactly the stem/bars/seatpost etc you need = no need to replace them, no need for a physio at £50 a pop.

I don’t need another bike but I want an Accacio just so I can go through the whole process again! The day you go and pick up your custom-built bike from Condor is just like Xmas day as a seven-year old 🙂

I believe Eric Clapton buys his bikes from Condor too, so you’ll be one step closer to God

Another Exposure TraceR user here – very bright and easy to recharge.
Also have a Lezyne Zecto – 2 years use through winter and still going strong. Have one on the bike and one on the bag.
Of the two on the bike I have one static so drivers can judge distance and one flashing for attention.
I have a Moon on the front of my helmet – it’s superbly bright – has stopped many many pedestrians walking out in front of me (they do an amusing double take!) and many drivers from pulling out on me so I would def look at Moon too.

+1 for reflective ankle bands – it’s the movement that catches the eye apparently

Not been through a divorce (never married) but a 6-year unhappy relationship ended years ago and it was one of the best things that ever happened to me – could live life on my own terms and it meant I had to accept responsibility for my own problems which ultimately went a long way to fixing them…

Worth getting access to a counsellor (Relate or other) to help you through?

Seen a couple of very close friends go through divorces – wasn’t easy for either but allowing yourself to ask for help and lean on trusted friends could help you a lot. Both those friends are now happily remarried.

Good luck

Have a chat with her coach? (I assume she has one?) They must have seen stuff like that?

I wonder if it’s a fear of failure thing – give up rather than try and fail? Obviously I don’t know her so it’s not supposed to come across as judgemental, but sometimes people do prefer to quit than fail. As a few others have said, the learning she gets from working hard to a goal and achieving will stand her in good stead as an adult – so long as it’s done because she wants to.

My career has been an utter mess but I keep going because I remember how it felt to win running races at school – and I still want that feeling of success. Without that early learning of perseverance, hard work and feeling of success I think my life would be a real mess right now -I’d have quit.

I think the reviews said the front end was jittery

Roadcc

What I noticed most was horrendous brake judder. Initially, I got the most frightening chatter under braking I’ve ever experienced. I tried the usual tricks of raising the too low straddle-cable, replacing the brake blocks to some of better quality, and toeing them in madly to try and minimise the problem. But it never really went away

Despite two of our club members working for Rapha, if anyone turns up on a club run in that getup, we’re going to struggle to keep quiet 🙂

This is how fast you need to be running

Trust your gut feeling, our intuition picks up on things our conscious mind doesn’t – little body language cues etc. I’ve been seeing a lady recently who I had jitters about from day one – and the more I learn about the mess her life is in the more I realise I’m best off running away (not walking, running!)

Walk away – your feelings about how other people are being treated are irrelevant and various players in the situation may well not thank you or even really hate you from making your feelings known.

did you hear any of his interviews before the report came out?

Hardly sounded like man waiting for his opportunity to use the smoking gun he knew was coming as he had just been waiting for his opportunity

Don’t be daft, this is STW 🙂

But seriously, given who he’s up against he could well have needed to play the undercover cop role – these kind of ‘Armstrong/McQuaid tactics’ would be the role he’d have to play to ensure he didn’t raise suspicion that he’d be a troublemaker…

If he did not know then he is incompetent if he did know then he id complicit

I’m not defending Coe at all but we have to consider that he could only deal with it once he was at the top – and to make any move beforehand would’ve blown his cover. Let’s not forget he’s up against the Kremlin here – they have previous for putting enemies out of action…

I’ve got to the point where I pretty much assume any pedestrian in London is about to wander into the road with all their attention on their phone. They don’t like it when you shout ‘oy!’ at them, but at least you’re still upright and so are they and the driver behind isn’t having to stand on his brakes.

Nothing to add to the OP here as I really don’t think there’s enough to judge but heal quickly and well and remember that London is full of hazards for everyone – drivers, cyclists, pedestrians and someone, somewhere at somepoint will do something daft – ride accordingly. Personally I like riding singlespeed cos it stops me accelerating too fast off at the lights and I top out c 20mph – and that helps keep me relaxed rather than trying to rag it everywhere

IIRC Cookson was around during all the doping too but didn’t stop it
Citation needed please.

Wikipedia

Cookson previously served as president of British Cycling from 1997 to 2013, after becoming a member of an emergency committee to rescue it from insolvency in 1996.

I’m not suggesting Cookson did anything underhand at all – just that he was in the governance of cycling and had a relationship with UCI but didn’t come out shouting about the corruption which he must have at least had a suspicion of – he was more political than that and playing a long game – almost certainly necessary when you consider what he was up against. The possibility I’m suggesting is that Coe has played a similar game – essentially don’t warn your enemy you’re coming, keep your cards close to your chest, sneak up quietly and trip then up when they least expect it…

I do remember when all the revelations were coming out over the Summer that Coe was in the middle of an election for President of the IAAF and remmeber the press were saying he had to tow the party line of nothing is wrong here to get elected. the thought was that after he was in he could do something about the drug allegations .
I suppose I am ever hopeful that he is a reformer rather than a steady hand for the druggies, but I didnt realise he has been vice-pres for the last 9 years – wasnt he running London 2012 for a fair few of them ?

IIRC Cookson was around during all the doping too but didn’t stop it, but he was overt when bidding for presidency that he was going after the corruption e.g. the minute the vote came through I believe they walked into UCI headquarters and seized all the computers.

So slightly different approach but similar circumstances – get in someone who’s been close to the corruption but not actually involved in it, to replace the corrupt leadership. Has to be done by stealth and political means. Time will tell but it’s possible Coe had to go very gently to hide his real agenda from the people he was out to get. You never know, he may have secretly commissioned WADA to do the investigation and report, knowing his reputation would take a hit as it was the best way to undermine the incumbents without outright conflict which they may win by playing extremely dirty.

All guesswork on my part but IIRC there’s never been a shred of rumour that Coe has ever doped or taken part in any corruption when competing, so his previous character is 100% good?

I run hot and I find eVent the best one for breathability. But also, accept that when you’re working hard over a long period of time in wet weather – especially UK wet which is rarely that cold IME, you’re going to get damp.
A base layer helps here, as does good venting on all the layers you’re wearing.

Sometimes I think a windproof with layers is better than a waterproof – breathability is better but the layers keep the damp off your skin and the windproofing stops the wind from chilling you down

£200 is too cheap if you want astronomical. Try £25k 🙂

Don’t make the same mistake again. You and your family might not be as lucky next time. Buy a good quality light/ battery from a reputable source.

this.

Be interesting to get the opinion of your local fireman and see what they say. With so much cheaper stuff coming from random Chinese manufacturers with no brand reputation to maintain and a skint british public trying to save cash wherever I’d be surprised if they’re not seeing an increase in stuff like this

personally I leave nothing on to charge overnight, so if it goes I’ll hear/smell it and get busy with the extinguisher rather than find out too late when the smoke alarm goes off and wakes me up

I stopped behind a car yesterday that had come to a halt in the road – turns out some bloke’s toddler daughter had been curious about what was the other side of all those cars parked next to the pavement and gone to take a look… and luckily the car driver was one of the good, observant ones, observing the 30 limit…

Well they’re hilly. And in Surrey 🙂

Raising the debate up a little, it strikes me that a lot of scandals, decades old, seem to have come out into the open in the last five years. Not just sport. Could it be we’ll look back in time and see this era as the beginning of a new transparency?

After all, power corrupts, money is power and men have been corrupt since Roman and Greek times, it’s human nature, so corruption has always been going on but now it seems harder to cover it up.

It seems to coincide with social media and widespread use of computers and email – I guess its much easier for investigators to find written evidence, much harder/impossible for perpetrators to destroy it, and much easier for whistleblowers to get the information out in the first place as well as public opinion being given a collective voice/able to take direct action…

A few spring to mind:
Armstrong finally confessing
All the BBC and MP paedophilia/Saville
News International – although you might debate whether that’s actually been stopped!
Snowden
FA
Arab Spring (although now back under authoritarian control)
Bernie Madoff
Financial crisis in general – we know bankers sail close to the wind as normal activity but there was plenty of evidence for Libor and Forex which may have been easier to hide in the past
VW
Horsemeat
Tesco

Well they had their credit rating downgraded which will make it less profitable/harder for them to give credit to their customers to buy their cars… they might try to increase prices to cover the extra cost

Quite.
Good luck explaining that to the masses and persuading them to get a new perspective

^^ that’s an interesting one. She had previous for some pretty lousy driving but was still able to drive a tank like a Q7. We were chatting about this on our club run – I’d like to see some kind of endorsement on licences when there’s been a conviction for dangerous driving – or even speeding if it’s really extreme e.g. 50 in a 30 – so you can’t drive anything above a certain size or over certain bhp.
1. It be embarrassing to explain to friends and family why you’ve downgraded to a Nissan Micra – social costs like this can be very powerful. Very visible too.
2. It sends a clear message that there are serious consequences
3. It limits the damage they can do to everyone else
4. It takes the argument away from defence lawyers saying the crook needs their car for work and family – they still have a car but it’s embarrassingly small and slow…

Most in my cul de sac have already paved and there is only 2 of us left! The mesh does appeal more just hopefully its enough do stop the grass turning into a bog!

I appreciate the position you’re in there but by paving over you’ll be taking out the last bit of natural drainage left in the road – which may or may not be the tipping point next time there’s heavy rain. Just because your neighbours haven’t thought through the longer term and more distant impacts doesn’t mean the situation is improved by doing the same. Bit like speeding on the motorway, or driving a mile to the supermarket…

That said, maybe do some research on the least environmentally-damaging way to do this? Concrete mesh sounds sensible but there may be better solutions from a drainage and nature point of view

I have a Mavic winter jacket and lightweight windproof – love them both. I did check sizing and fit in a real life shop though.
I’m a relatively standard-shaped cyclist – narrow shoulders but my arms didn’t come from a monkey and there’s no pot belly either, thankyouverymuch!
FWIW I have a Gore windproof too and the fit is slightly closer than the Mavic but I wouldn’t say they’re massively different at all

something that big just shouldnt be able to travel that slowly though the air.

I remember going to Farnborough Air Show and seeing a 747 get thrown around in the air like a fighter – I guess with little fuel and no people or baggage they’re just lightweight metal tubes with massive amounts of power but I was amazed at how manuverable it was

Can’t recommend this enough:

Ortlieb Packman

Not cheap but waterproof, tough, stable, vented, simple and has an additional helmet carrier which really helps reduce the amount of faff.

The only criticisms I could make are: the top blocks visibility a little when you’re doing lifesavers and it’s only got a single layer base and I don’t know how long that will last from being dumped on the ground but they have a 5-year guarantee

+1 for it being an investment rather than a cost. Look at the state of your typical non-cyclist.
It also reduces my transport costs by riding to work/the shops etc.
Since I reduced how often I rode MTB and now pretty much gone 100% road, the spend is negligible – my summer bike still has original brake blocks after 6 years and chain only had to be changed last year

Personally I wouldn’t make any assumptions about job or career security. Automation/technology/globalisation has come for the low-skill jobs already and is now coming for the higher-skilled jobs. Certainly incomes are static.

I don’t think your current same old same old is likely to be the same or even be there over the next 5-10 years.

You can turn these changes into a positive – it means you have new opportunities to do something else. You just have to keep your eye out for the risks to your current line of work and look for where the new opportunities are and be prepared to retrain/move etc etc

Oh dear. You’ve been lost to the darkside. You’ll be wondering just how high up to go when shaving your legs next…

Like any riding, get the best bike designed for the job you want it to do, that you can afford, ride it lots and you’ll be happy

+1 that the situation won’t arise in the first place, therefore it’s a false scenario.

Mind you, I’d like to see something more scientific/empirical about this particular debate cos it’s an important one for SDC to become the default form of transport which will represent cycling paradise.

I’m pretty sure it’ll get sorted – the size of the prize for Google, Apple and other tech companies to take the entire car manufacturing industry to pieces is so big you can bet they’ll keep working at it till they crack it. The legal liability of getting it wrong will be too high too, hence they’ll find a resolution… it’s one of the good things about capitalism IMO, when the money’s there for the taking, all barriers will be dealt with.

It’s all a matter of the spirit of the approach.

+1 IMO.

Although it may run the risk of legitimising the behaviour if a role model is seen doing it, or the role model loses legitimacy for seeming to be a hypocrite.

If it was followed by a proper chat ‘I did this so you could experience it for yourself’ etc then a lesson may be learnt. If not it may have just seen like victimisation (which may well be a continuation of what’s happening at home and would therefore risk driving up his anger towards authority).

Certainly if you try to give adults a taste of their own medicine it tends to go badly!

I’ve not ridden the new LOndon stuff yet. Seen it in construction. It does look ace 🙂

Expect to learn a lot.
Expect some attendees to remain as stupid and dangerous as they were when they went in… but really, that’s not your problem.

I felt the same as after my Bikeability – surprised at how much I learnt and glad I’d done it.

+1 for GrahamS idea re complusory re-testing every five years. It’d be a great revenue earner for government and probably reduce the bill for running an ambulance fleet and A&E, bring insurance premiums down etc etc

My thoughts
1. No surprise. Tories have not been honest about how close we are to going bust – there’s more cuts due in this parliament than the last – this is only the start. MattOutAndAbout is right on this one… cuts are everywhere. It’s going to be a shock as we realise how much is being covered up about how wealthy we’re not…
2. Gideon is a politician first and a human second so his policies are short-term, aiming to win the next election, so the fact that avoiding investment in cycling means and ever-larger long-term NHS bill as we eat ourselves to chronic illness is irrelevant – he’ll be long out of politics by the time that bill comes through
3. Cycle lanes don’t always solve the problem, which is lousy driving. I got a tirade of sweary abuse from a young ‘lady’ this morning for not being in the cycle lane. The fact it was a 30 limit and I was 20+ and the lane was full of wet leaves was not apparent to her. That wasn’t safe for me – the infra was not fit for purpose. Of course I could blame her parents but mainly, she was just ignorant – something a little bit of training would resolve in the matter of an hour or so…