My North Face survived 4 weeks up the Khumbu. Wore it most days and came back in one piece

@ Binners.
That’s not the plan.
If she wants to smoke it’s her choice and I’ve no plan to try and persuade her otherwise.
But I don’t think I’d want to date her. Which is a shame cos she’s really quite hot :-(

Not an ex-smoker, no. Unless you count 4 weeks when I was 17. Always thought it was a nasty habit…

I guess it is one of those things which is a deal-breaker isn’t it…

I took up yoga a couple of months ago.
As well as making me feel stronger physically, it’s very calming and has a non-religious spiritual side about looking after yourself. I know that sounds a bit hippy but it’s really effective.
I have a total idiot boss at work who would normally stress me out but regular yoga is keeping me on the straight and narrow. Better than normal exercise has…

Interesting case study of how social media can be used to counter unhappy customers in a professional manner. Or Not.
Andy@crc worked out how to do this
Alan clearly has not and has IMO dug himself a much deeper hole with that tone of response. he comes across as defensive. Attacking CycleActive/Rich Barnard come across as very immature and irrelevant. For the record, as someone who IS a friend, Mr MC’s view of Rich is accurate…

A few thoughts:
1. No system is perfect, they all have their faults
2. Communism whenever it’s been imposed on a country by a minority (China, Russia, Eastern Europe, Cuba) has eventually been rejected. I don’t think you can describe China as a communist country. It’s also involved the ruling powers murdering their citizens, sometimes in the millions let;s not forget. I don’t think capitalism at it’s worst can have that criticism levelled at it.
3. Capitalism reflects nature – so anything else is essentially forced
4. Communism seems to be able to work where like-minded people agree to it. No evidence of it working when imposed on a country AFAIK
5. Capitalism has periodic shocks built into it, usually by people forgetting the lessons of the past. The current situation and threads like this reflect a lack of confidence/unquestioning faith but IMO do not mean the system is unrecoverably bust. My Dad helpfully pointed out that we have some kind of crash every 20 years or so. Better we just remember this and live/plan accordingly IMO. Maybe go less nuts next time? We never abolished boom and bust. That was a scarily delusional thing for our PM to say esp one allegedly so well-educated on economic matters…
6. Just because the world power is moving from West to East doesn’t mean capitalism is over. China, India, Brazil and the emerging economies aren’t getting more power by adopting a new system, the global system will still be capitalism. It’s just that we’re not going to be top dog anymore. Which is ok in the grand scheme of things isn’t it?
7. a good pt made ^^ IMO is that we don’t live in the UK in a pure capitalist society so can;t say the system’s bust when we’ve not properly tried it
8. Maybe this shock we’re experiencing will encourage us to be a bit more thoughtful and less selfish/more co-operative? I swear London Village has become friendlier in the last few weeks. Kind of needing a big group hug :-)

It’s very possible we’re also in a ‘lost decade’ of stagnant growth. 3 years in already.
We overcooked it for the last 2 decades basically and kept nothing for a rainy day.
I think the best we can do is to accept this, do what we can to maintain growth but a bit less hysteria from the press and politicians and the markets would help IMO
It would help of course if the national debate accepted a few facts:
Exports are unlikely to be that great as the global situation is weak except in a few niches
The western population is getting older. Unless you want your parents to live in poverty, changes are necessary
Rampant consumerism that led us here was never sustainable. Consider accepting this and stop complaining we don’t have it anymore. Be grateful and spend more quality time with your kids…

I wrote to Virgin’s MD after never getting more than half a meg, when they advertised 10
After weeks of dealing with the ‘priority’ customer services team who deal with complaints to the MD I went to O2.
They were useless. Wasn’t their fault, apparently…

Highly recommended
Will fit in a Mule. Can be a squeeze but worth it IMO

Where’s ‘Dorking Bike Park’?

The most polite Nirvana have been described is as a ‘marmite’ shop.
They’ve upset a lot of people over the years, for various reasons. Usually around a lack of willingness to try and understand other people’s needs and views.
Even to the point of not looking after people who’ve had mechanicals or unplanned dismounts on their shop rides.

Sounds like new chain-old sprocket incompatibility if all the other rings on the cassette are ok.

don’t know about prices but the Campag hubs I have are the smoothest I’ve ever ridden. Just spin and spin and spin. Lovely :-)

It

My parents are down that way on holiday
If they come back with 2 heads each I’ll let you all know…

not faster necessarily, although a good pair will be very light, but help stop you getting injured.

if we all did this. As in ALL cyclists, you can bet we’d see a change in attitude from police and drivers.
People only behave badly when they think they can get away with it IMO

35mph is a killer. I wouldn’t beat yrself up about finding that hard.
Cross winds are nastier.
The only way to get round wind like that is either go out with a club so you get to hide from the wind once in a while.
Or stick the bike on the rollers in the lounge :-)

combined value, easily.
Road bike on it’s own, nearly.
Car before was only worth £1600 so bikes easily won. I took a perverse pleasure out of that :-)

I went to school with him. He never had a a rock star attitude, even though his career was starting to take off (this is late 80’s, before Take That), he always seemed to just keep himself to himself. Quite a quiet lad really.
AFAIK he’s just a great songwriter (I’m no TT fan btw) with a chunk of talent but not that gregarious.
Kind of the opposite to Robbie I guess. Prob why it worked so well…

I ran my original soul at 125 with 90mm stem
My new soul I run at 120 or 140 with 70mm stem. Can be a trifle quick steering but you get used to it

I’ve moved from spds to flats recently, in part to learn manuals and bunnyhops properly.
May take some time to learn the new technique but I find I like them, except still worried about bike dropping away on jumps and drops.
plus points: easier to get weight on the outside for cornering.
More pedal to push against for manualling.
overall I feel more in control on flats now I’m beginning to get used to them

not long on this earth. shame for his friends and family

Esoteric!
Can’t imagine James Hetfield being too happy being called a muppet. Although the Black album hairstyles weren’t too far away from the style :-)

Anyway, I see you your muppets cover and raise you this piano cover. Stunning. Shows how great Metallica’s musicianship really is. The middle soft section is beautiful. This girl’s done loads of this stuff if you look on YouTube

Piano cover version

for years driving in that London I’ve taken care of stopping at ambers. the general view seems to be amber or ‘just gone red’ is ok. So as per Don Simon’s Madrid scenario, if you do ‘arbitrarily’ decide to obey the law and be a responsible driver, you risk getting whiplash from the dope behind… it can be quite challenging trying to look where you’re going as well as checking the driving standards of the guy behind in your rear view mirror at the same time 8O
does make me laugh that everyone loves to have a pop at bankers and politicians for breaking the law whilst doing much the same ourselves at plenty of opportunity…

I struggle with long sentences
but to the OP.
A friend of mine worked in BMW Finance late 2000’s. End of 2008 he said we’re screwed. What we’ve been doing for years is getting money from the wholesale markets and giving it to our customers to buy our cars. Now the credit crunch has halted the wholesale markets we can’t sell cars.
Nuts isn’t it. No wonder it’s all gone pop.
A mate who used to work at Ford said the only bit of the business which makes a profit (and therefore holding the whole business up) was finance…

dig out their cover of ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us’ along with Sparks.
Stunning.
I still love how straight their cover of Easy is

Take some time off MTB?
I overdid it a few years ago. Barely ridden the MTB this year. Been getting into road biking a lot more, + swimming and yoga.

I can recommend road biking for allowing you to ride a bike but doing it differently – riding with a club is best for getting fit and for making it social and fun rather than hard work. as above, less hassle, and cheaper – things don’t wear out /break so much.

Or just go off and do something else for a while. Maybe keep your favourite bike so you can still ride and spend the income from the others on something else

What can you do to help him to be less of an arse?

If they’re a good person getting things wrong, this might work.
BUT
This kind of personality is generally insecure, a bully and sometimes a full-on white collar psychopath.
They won’t change, and ‘helping’ them just means you’re playing by their rules. It’s not your problem.
But I agree if the person just genuinely can’t manage well but mean to then being a good follower can gain some ground.

the root cause of this kind of behaviour is usually massive insecurity or trying to cover their own shortcomings. It’s bullying, basically.
If you’re well-liked and good at your job they probably feel threatened by you.
personally I find political email responses only escalate the situation and plays into their passive aggressive territory.
Go and have a chat as suggested ^^
be mature, calm and pleasant and explain what you want. Stay reasonable and maintain the higher moral ground at all times
You may find you have to do this quite a few times until they get the message and treat you with more respect. Don’t expect them to change tho. They’ll prob just find another target once you’ve made it clear you’re unwilling to be one.

I broke my collarbone in 2007 which had a serious impact on my confidence and relaxedness/flow on the bike. But it all went away eventually and all in all I think I’m a much smoother and more confident rider now:
A few things which helped:
1. Not giving myself a hard time for riding craply – just took it easy and rode as fast as I felt confident. Riding on my own helped a lot with this – no pressure
2. Brian Lopez’ book (you can find it on Amazon). It’s superb. I’d read it in the evening before a ride and then go out and practice what I’d read and then come back and read when I got home. Made a massive difference to flow and smoothness and general control
3. Skills course. I gave the the coach (Rich at CycleActive in the Lakes, very highly recommended) a brief to a) help me with drops and jumps, which was where the injury came from and b) help me with general confidence and control.

Take it easy and give yourself time would be my main recommendation. MTB is too much fun to ruin your enjoyment by negative self talk…

This one in classifieds?

Email in profile if you’re interested?

Think about the people you know who are always into these things.
Are they generally sensible, sane, commonsense people.
Or a bit paranoid, insecure, odd…

I think the idea above about some people ‘needing’ them to make sense of a rather mad and random world makes a lot of sense…

Yoga is great for all round conditioning, flexibility and core
Swiss ball is good to do core.
BUT don’t just do stomach exercises, you need to do lats (sides) and back too or you;ll end up unbalanced.
Worth getting a physio or personal trainer to make an assessment of your current condition and some exercises to suit your particular needs. Worth it for avoiding injury.
It’ll make a massive improvement to the power you can put down, and to those steep technical climbs when you’re trying to put the power down whilst grovelling over the top tube to keep the front wheel down.
enjoy :-)

I don’t get why the yr boss felt the need to have a quiet word. None of his business surely?
If she’s sincere and drives more carefully in future then maybe something good will come of it…

There’s one called Iron Maiden moored up in Paddington. Got the right graphic style for the lettering but sadly no all-over Eddie :-(

Virgin Active do free classes for members. Don’t know if you are a member or whether they accept non-members.
As a recent convert I would do classes so you learn how to do it right from the off. Also works you harder so more likely to actually do the job…
It is bloody hard work but core strength makes you a lot stronger on the bike.
Oh and bendy girls are hot :-)

Motor insurance is increasing in part because of a massive increase in fraudulent claims…
+ I’ve been told that insurance cos do not just make profit by taking more in premiums than they pay out in claims. They take the income from premiums and invest it in the markets to maximise their profits. With the markets playing merry hell at the moment, they’re increasing premiums to cover the difference…

+1 for the 110-140 Revs. Maxle is good for the tech stuff
110 for climbing
120 for singletrack and most kind of riding.
140 is ace for the steep and rocky stuff however

If you go for non-adjustable, something with 120mm and a maxle would be my recommendation
Enjoy yr Soul – it really is as good as people say :-)

Bimble is Shank’s Pony
Pootle is mechanised transport of some description – Car, bike, whatever
Hoon is much more fun and can only be had on a mountain bike IMO