Brooes – Yes you are probably right, my comment was somewhat tongue in cheek. In the UK though (discounting global capitalism)I think my comment is justified.

Missed the tongue in cheekness! 😳

All that’s happening in the west I suspect is that, having had overall rising wealth since the industrial revolution, we’re going back to long term trend and the rest of the world will start to catch up.

The reason for the growing inequality within the west is simply that the rich are better placed (information, power and connections) to keep hold of the wealth they’ve accumulated whilst the rest of us stand still.

One of the more lucrative local crops (therefore an alternative to growing heroin) is apparently pomegranate. So go and buy more bottles of Pom if you want to stop our taxes being used for the same end.
I can see a nice advertising campaign there 😉

Oh and think of the taxes saved on the results of heroin addiction – treatment/jail/crime/methadone etc. I suspect someone’s done their sums on this one…

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
I’d say capitalism is pretty much alive and kicking

I know the article’s a long one but if you read it, it’s saying entirely the opposite. Through hard work and entrepreneurialism, the poor are getting richer and we, the rich, are going to get relatively poorer…

So in a weird way, unregulated capitalism could lead to something closer to the socialist ideal…

The point of the post was to get away from the usual knee-jerk, polarised, belief-led discussion. Ho hum

mine are Rubino Pro btw, not the cheap ones

So this goverment can find money for this while making cut backs after cut backs for us .

Well if you’d rather they spent the money on paying our young men and women to go out and do it by force (and die/injure/traumatise themselves in the process)…

Moodscope[/url]

Is really helpful. Making you think about how you feel and leaving a quick diary really helps spot the trigger points and how you are, to a large degree, creating your own stress by the way you react to those points…

TJ – fair point – I haven’t read all 11 pages!
The amount of mis-information we get fed (and often happily lap up) scares me… if we took a little more time to work stuff out for ourselves we’d be a lot better off IMO.
Monty Python Life of Brian springs to mind 🙂

Don’t know if they’re the best for puncture protection but I really rate mine for grip and rolling resistance.
The fact they go up to 145psi helps the rolling resistance and I guess will help keep punctures down too…

TJ, you generally seem to have facts to back up your points but posting up TUC propaganda to counter Tory propaganda isn’t really moving the discussion forward…

Not doing this to be provocative but as was said earlier, if we believe what our politicians tell us (and Union leaders are elected politicians just like our MPs are) and allow them to divide us, then we lose…

Riding STW rather than real singletrack cos i’ve got a cold 🙁
But got lots of work reading to do so no bad thing staying in…

Got to me once – frustration with work.
Went to the doc, he looked me straight in the eye and said ‘it’s only a job’. Wise words.
As said above, coming on here to acknowledge is first and most important action to take. And not easy to do…
Now find a way to deal and ways to reduce it.
I used therapy – long-needed and hugely beneficial.
Mountain-biking and the fact it requires 100% attention (unlike road biking, running and loads of other sports) is a great releaser. But IME you need to find what’s causing it and sort that, not just ways to cope.
Also recommend yoga – great for core strength, great for finding inner calm.
Drink sensibly if at all, eat well, sleep well, exercise plenty.
And good luck. This kind of thing tends to happen to the good people.
IMO there’s a lot of it about at the moment so you’re not alone

Is the blogger/shop struggling hence the complaining?

If their sales are dipping surely they need to change strategy rather than blaming other retailers for milking/making money where once they presumably did? Albeit with differing srategies.

This is their strategy – PR. making the competition look bad to the trade in the hope they’ll get support from others.
Not likely to be effective IMO

to be fair, you need to take your lane in London so you’ve got some space to go to other than the kerb when you get squeezed, which will happen.. It does feel a bit like open season on bikes here at the moment…

BKB was getting some trail maintenance last weekend which probably helped…

Yoga.
Great for core strength + flexibility + countering the short hamstrings that regular cycling tends to leave you with.
More relaxing and fun that being a gym bunny, more social and you feel great afterwards

As a few said elsewhere, go easy on yourselves, seeing someone get killed is traumatising, and not having a severe emotional reaction would be surprising. Feeling as you do strikes me as very reasonable and to be expected from any caring person.
Best wishes for your recovery

Winterfold was empty. which was nice..

2nd hand amp here

I’m selling my amp if you’re interested? 2nd hand makes it cheaper…

certainly didn’t. First ride round Surrey Hills for 18 months. Beautiful. One of the best things about mountain biking is it gets you out on days like today 🙂

I struggle with long sentences
Yoga for toning and strength without bulk.
Sorts out flexibility and core strength which help power on the bike too IME
And is more enjoyable & relaxing than reps in the gym IMO

Both Lou Reed and Metallica have produced some turkeys in their time. And some legendarily good stuff too. And let’s not forget that one of the reasons people love them is they stand up for doing your own thing.
Which is what they’ve done here. I reckon give it some time. I remember when I first started listening to non-pop music that the best stuff was often the hardest to access on the first few listens…

someone go and look at the demographics and stop arguing over political prejudices.
We’re an ageing population. As is most of Europe and the States (and China and Japan as it happens)

Private sector pensions are funded through contributions made over a lifetime and invested in the stock market (which have their own issues right now). But essentially the money is saved up in advance.

Public sector pensions are unfunded – paid by the current workforce so the money is not saved up in advance, rather it’s hoped there’ll be enough to meet commitments made…

The ageing population means there are going to be too few workers to pay for the pensions promised to public sector when they retire.

So unless you want our kids to be burdened with massive taxes for their working lives, we have to reduce the amount they pay for public sector pensions. In any case if they think the taxes are too high they’ll probably just emigrate and then we’re totally screwed, or have super high immigration…

It’s simple maths, not a political debate.

Another example where the ‘people’ are as much of the problem as the politicians. A landlord doesn’t have to charge as much as he can, does he? he could charge a reasonable and affordable rent which covers the mortgage and no more…

While I’m at it, buy to letters have helped create this problem – buying more houses than they need for themselves creates a shortage in the market for people wanting to buy and drives up prices.

So these people then have to rent, and massively overpay because the landlord, who helped force them to rent in the first place, is a greedy git…

The problem with pure banker bashing (as tempting as it may be) is that it ignores this fact and the interconnected relationships that led to the mess we are all in.

Totally agree. Banker bashing is a politically convenient/manipulative argument by vested interests to move the focus of blame to other parties. Not to say the banks weren’t at fault – they took advantage of loose regulation and did what all businesses do, try to make profit, but ignored the risks of getting it wrong.

It’s also an emotional response by a disempowered and ignorant electorate who would quite like to carry on deluding themselves that they were wealthy and would quite like to carry on buying ‘stuff’ and thinking of shopping as a leisure pursuit thankyouverymuch.

We all helped create this mess one way or another IMO. It beggars belief that anyone can believe the near-collapse of the whole global capitalist system was due solely to a few thousand people who work in the main financial centres…

<highhorse mode>I guess it’s more comforting to think of yourself as morally pure and not as greedy and consumerist as the next man </highhorsemode>

So if and when we ‘reduce/eliminate’ the deficit we will no longer be increasing the debt (are spending no more than our earnings each year), but will still be horrendously in debt with trillions to pay off. And therefore most of our hard work for the next generation (essentially the rest of my life given I’m nearly 40) will go towards paying off that debt and on its associated interest, rather than investing it in schools, hospitals, infrastructure etc, all the things that make our lives and our kids’ lives better.

And all driven by the desire for glory of a clearly deluded leader…
I try to stay politically neutral usually but screwing over one of the world’s richest countries for the next few decades for the sake of personal glory makes me quite angry. As and when the masses understand what’s happened he’s likely to need personal protection…

If the electorate was better educated in macro-economics and the long term impact of personal debt, we’d have voted him out long before he had the chance to do this…

For years now, when I start out on a ride, that ‘Vindaloo’ song pops into my head…
Dunno why.

I’ve been reading some research which suggests it may be ‘one of those decades’ 😯

How out of touch are GM?
I’m writing a presentation about social media at work – great case study of how it’s changed the balance of power in favour of consumers 🙂

This thread is Jungle/SC’s opportunity to show us how great their customer service is.
Let’s hope they’ve not read the Sierra Cycling book of how to deal with customer complaints in social media 😉

very happy with mine

The response to this thread is very predictable!

If by core conditioning you mean lower back/ab/lats – core strength – then yoga is your friend. Improves flexibility too.
Although being a cyclist means any of the positions requiring straight legs can be quite challenging! Short hamstrings-tastic

Been out with them twice. Two great trips. Accomodation good, food good, guiding good, very friendly, great service.
When I turned up and one of my brakes didn’t work despite having paid for them to be bled by Evans a week earlier, they delved into their spares box and found a spare for me and helped me fit it.
Very good IMO

Don’t compare yourself to the Cycleactive guys… they’d be ace on anything!
FWIW they used to ride Trek Remedy’s and they rate the Alpine Fives as amongst the best bikes they’ve ever ridden…

Riding without lights (at night) or RLJ is def the cyclist putting themselves at risk
In my post, I’m not laying the blame on the riders, I made a mistake when I went to overtake. But IMO riding in a line of 8 makes it harder to overtake safely and they could have acted to make themselves safer.

I have a big ‘give cyclists room’ sticker on the back window.
Was driving back from a ride in Surrey Hills on the A25. Windy, fast A road.
A row of 8 mtb’ers riding single file – so correct according to the Highway Code. I eased up and sat behind until I thought I had space to pass them all. Was part way past when a car came the other way. I needed to pull in but the cyclists were there. They could see the prob though and slowed up so I fitted into the middle of the group.
I know you should only pass when you have time and space. But 8 in a row makes this very difficult.
I felt really bad that I nearly took some cyclists out but couldn’t help thinking they should have ridden in two smaller groups with distance between them to make overtaking less risky for all
Either way all was ok thankfully

anyone know anything about the planned replacement?

Wow, imagine that. A life where we dont actually ever have to leave or front door to do anything or meet anyone.

There’s definitely some downsides.
But humans, like nature, often take the easiest option and a short term view ignoring long term implications
I think this trend has already begun
From the bbc yesterday

British Cycling, the national governing body for the sport, has doubled its membership since 2007 to 40,000.

The organisation says that since 2009 it has increased by 74,500 the number of people cycling once per week

Is this because people love the idea of riding a bike (bearing in mind how anti-cycling the UK is generally) or because they’re looking for alternatives?
Boris bikes have been a hugely successful alternative to getting around London for utility…

Wow.
An interesting vision.
For years now, most people who live and work in London avoid owning a car. London is often ahead of national trends
The car sharing schemes are now providing all the access to a car that’s needed
It’s impossible to drive anywhere at a normal time of day without congestion, which everyone hates
Cost of running (fuel and petrol) is astronomical. This alone will persuade people to change behaviour
The whole trend of ownership and status through ownership has been coming through since early 2007 – this is not new
Working from home is now possible – no need to commute
easy to stay in contact with people without meeting face to face (Skype/BB/smartphones/webinars) all reducing need to travel.
Supermarket deliver to your door
Shop from home and have anything delivered…

The gains?
Less pollution
Cheaper not to run a car
Less stressful not having to drive
More free time, not having to travel

All setting up to be an emerging trend this one. From a cyclist’s point of view it’s heaven.
One of the main reasons people avoid riding bikes is the danger from traffic. We’re already seeing massive increases in cycling in London. No-one commutes by car here.
Be interesting to see how long it takes to get to the tipping point when car becomes the minority choice and cycling/public transport becomes the norm.
I’m not anti-car – I own one for getting to the trails – but bring this on…

Anyone?