My solution has been to purchase a bag with helmet straps on it and just swap to a full face at the top of longer downhills that I want to hammer it on, for the swoopy up and down stuff that you usually get on the way to your favourite descents I keep my XC lid on but just cruise well within my limits.

A mate of mine is one of his PR guys 😈

This is what the Archi Enduroo does to peoples faces. Moral of the story, either buy a proper full face or ride a half lid and ride slower. Things like the Archi Urge helmet encourage you to go at downhill speeds.

Why so serious?

After surgery, not exactly fully healed eh?

http://forums.mtbr.com/utah/crash-report-urge-archi-enduro-helmet-795542.html

I think current thinking is that the idea of a nuclear winter is wrong – the planet is more resilient than that. And we’ve already set off loads of nukes…

Nope

http://www.atmos-chem-phys.org/7/2003/2007/acp-7-2003-2007.pdf

Jota that’s not an inner ear infection like the OP has, it sounds like you have Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo.

I had it back in 2007, sudden white flash across my eyes, followed very quickly (so that it was almost instant) by nystagmus causing a sudden spinning sensation that was so violent I jumped out of my chair…..then I’d go really weak….drop down to the floor…..this was then usually followed by a feeling that I was skydiving and being spun around more gently. This all happened in a split second.

Anyway, this kept on repeating itself and I ended up being put in Leicester’s neurology ward. The jumps (they looked like ticks apparently) and visual disturbances meant that the various doctors I saw suspected anything from meningitis to myoclonic epilepsy. Turns out it was just my ear lol!

Worst time of my life because I thought I had a brain tumour or something but it does get better.

My parents, sister and next door neighbor cried when I left England for a 10 month working holiday in NZ.

😯

I seem to remember reading that for a lot of the cold war they didn’t think about/hadn’t thought of the idea of nuclear winter.

The point being that both sides thought nuclear war was potentially winnable.

LOL!

Nowadays the thought is even if India and Pakistan had a limited nuclear exchange we’d all be ****!

In fact I can’t recommend spicy Chinese curry style chicken noodle soup enough.

Taiwan national history museum is meant to be nuts, up in the mountains, huge and hardly anyone there.

None of them, alcohol will probably dehydrate you further and then depress your immune system.

Chicken noodle soup is the way forward.

Hahaharrrrrr!

Also if a Tiger was running around your camp, yes the Tiger probably would be shot to death. Like a Polar bear would be on an arctic expedition.

Generally though, Tigers don’t go chomping on humans so you would really have to go out of your way to coax/piss off a tiger enough to come and eat you. Expeditions try to minimize the chances of this happening…. to satisfy risk assessments, to cut down on the waste of perfectly good ammunition, to save on coffins, to reduce the chances of your company being splashed all over the media for all the wrong reasons…oh and to protect the environment. Spiders on the other hand are a different matter – they get everywhere and you can’t make reasonable adjustments to avoid them.

Cheryl Cole has a forgettable vanilla face, the type of face the security services recruit.

High Rollers, although even in the 2.35 format they are a bitch to pedal compared to my previous Mountain King MK2’s. I used to use 2.5’s for downhillings, in combo with minions, wet screams, swampies depending on the conditions. I have no idea why I ever decided to use anything else.

Waaaiiii better grip than the conti’s – to the point I wonder how I didn’t veer off the track and crash in a ball of flames.

No, but should you find yourself a shovel’s length away from something that poses a real risk of serious illness or in extreme cases death 32 times faster than you could get to hospital, then batter it, and batter it good.

+1

Too many hippys on this site.

A really fluid voice command system would be great for me, a phone that I could operate from the other side of the room. Can any do that yet? I don’t know why but I’d find this awesome.

Bwaarp you have a very dim view of the country indeed if you think china is better. Maybe you should stop reading the daily mail and look at what is in front of you more

Nahh, the Daily Fail hates China. Besides my experience is based on democratic Asian countries. As if the only successful Asian country is China, you racist lol?! 😛

Only we have no union
No right to strike
No say over our current pension changes (that are happening now)
And somtimes you get a phone call in the middle of your holiday to say you need to be ready to leave in 4 hours your flying to meet your submarine and wont see your family for 6 weeks with no contact.

Yeah well, that’s what happes if you’re thick enough to think becoming a soldier is a good sensible career route and running into a hail of machine gun bullets fired by a bunch of goat shaggers high off drugs is a brilliant idea. Although I have respect for the ones that do it for the kick – none of the others though. Fair play to the guys that plain out wanted to have a good old fight and kill people, but the ones that wanted to do it as a serious career option? HAHA

At least teachers create something.

Almost 50% of new teachers leave in the first 5 years. What a colossal waste of money training them is.

That says something about the children and parents as opposed to the teachers.

Exactly why he is making this point, I’m unsure – it’s pretty clear that we also have high achieving kids in this country also.

Guess what, most of those of from the private sector. What keeps their heads above the water is the fear of ending up in a school full of ‘chavs’ like the ones mommy and daddy threatens you with if you don’t get good enough grades.

This thread has given me Skyrim flashbacks

A few years back I was on the train back from London to the village in Kent where we lived. I was in the guards van with my bike and a skinhead bloke (in paramilitary gear – Black MA1 jacket, combats and boots) got in just as the train was pulling out of Victoria. He was acting really oddly – looked like he was speeding his nads off. Really jumpy and nervous. He leaned out of the window and as he did so, I saw what looked really like a hand-gun tucked into his belt…. really didn’t know what to do. Ended up diving out of the carriage and calling the route control on my mobile from the corridor (I worked for the railway at the time). They got in touch with the BTP and had an armed response team waiting for him at the next station. The hand gun turned out to be some sort of (still illegal) taser / stun gun thing, and the bloke was done for possession as well but still felt a bit daft nonetheless…. in my defence this was a few weeks after the bombings so was perhaps a tad paranoid.

The kind of person that can procure a ranged taser weapon (one that fires a dart) is the type of person that can procure a handgun. You made the right call mate.

I SINCERELY hope that Apple start haemorrhaging money like both they and Microshit did back in the 90’s.

Who’s David Cameron?

I thought Tony was still in power

Schhool was never designed to produce independent minds – it’s designed to create ‘well adjusted’ behaved citizens.

Think of exams and grades like teaching a puppy to sit for you using dog treats.

Can’t we just introduce a WWII style rationing system for fat people?

I was staying in rented accomodation in Liverpool, woke up beefore the alarm in the morning and felt body roll to the right with the weight of somebody sitting on the edge of the bed. I froze and stayed that way for quite some time….

This threads hilarious, imagine if that was actually a burglar, serial killer or worse a bum rapist? You’d freeze up, that’s the scary bit! I’d either shit myself and bolt out the window or go a bit psycho.

When I was about 7 or 8 I woke up, or dreamt I woke up to a giant big **** off blackhole/whirlpool thingy on the ceiling of my grans house.

Scared the crap out of me.

After that I become a stubbornly attached to logic and reason. This stuff only happens to people who believe they have a third eye/are open to being superstitious.

Must resist….must not laugh…..

this is why the yanks think we have shit teeth isn’t it. Instead of sorting the real problem out (the jaw being too small for the teeth, so the obvious treatment being increasing the size of the jaw) – we just rip kid’s teeth out.

This 5.10 is supposed to keep the water out a fair bit better than the others based on various peoples experiences.

http://fiveten.com/products/footwear-detail/10107-karver-smokey-blue

Personally I love 5.10’s, your feet stay glued to the pedals smashing through rock gardens. There is a technique to changing the foot position though, you have to lift/go light on your foot a bit to move them. It really isn’t hard though. I also find playing with the pin setup in my flats helps.

The new 2013 Mega would probably feel balance enough with 180mm fork on it. 170 is meant to be perfect with the external headset (and that’s what the new complete bikes will ship with) so it’s not like your going 20mm over, just 10mm over which will make stuff all difference.

The steerer tube is dead short as well, a fair bit shorter than my old mans Nomad I reckon – so whilst it’s slack…..the bars are pretty slammed.

Talking about bars, if you do go down this route try some wide really low rise or flat bars and very few if any spacers and a Thompson 45mm 1.5 stem. The decreased height and increased width of the bars should give an aggressive stance to help keep the front wheel weighted and gripping during cornering, it should reduce the wander a little on climbs and the short stem should help alleviate the slower steering caused by the boat like forks (increased wheelbase) and wide bars.

All in all, I reckon it would be pretty sweet.

That bike will see CO19 putting 7 rounds in your skull on the London underground.

Funny, although I hate pugs!

This makes me glad I went to an American style orthodontist and ended up with a lantern jaw.

No impacted wisdom teeth for me….buohahahaharrrrrrrrrr…..although I’m sure it’s **** up my nasal passageway.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/feb/07/chinese-children-school-do-well

Becky Francis, a visiting professor at King’s College London, director of education at the Royal Society of Arts and one of the researchers, says: “Our main argument is that families of Chinese heritage see taking education seriously as a fundamental pillar of their Chinese identity, and a way of differentiating themselves not just within their own group, but from other ethnic groups as well.”

Where as on the other hand, the British are on the whole anti-intellectual oxygen thieves. All you have to do is compare the attitude to learning between the two ethnic groups, bright high achievers in Britain are labelled “geeks” and relentlessly bullied in the state school system – there is no respect for learning. Where as in many Asian countries the classroom are full of children competing to try and be the biggest nerd.

In case you can tell I take a very dim view of my fellow countrymen.

Educationalists as a whole are not that well respected in society, but it is difficult to put a finger on why. Anyway, all this talk about teaching beats fretting about tyre choices for this weekend!

Because unlike in Asia, children are not taught to respect their teachers, other adults or elders. We live in a very individualist society, what suprised me once is that I overheard an expat American woman commenting on how little British parents could handle others disciplining their children when compared to the States. If we’re worse than Americans in that regard, then there is something seriously wrong.

At the heart of the problem is that every generation has been increasingly spoilt with a larger sense of entitlement. This rot started with the boomers and the lot born in the mid to late 70’s really accelerated the rot.

It’s certainly better than continental Europe, especially our universities. The conservatives would like to turn those into mediocre poorly funded continental styles institutions as well.

Teachers pay is on nationally published pay scales. You can see my payscale at http://www.teachers.org.uk/docs/files/pay-scales-2010-11_0.doc

I’ve been teaching for long enough to have reached P3 which is £36,279. This puts me in the top 25% of earners in the UK, but outside the top 10%. My train driver friend earns more than me, as do lots of people I was at uni with. But living in the North East means I’m well paid compared to lots of people locally.

I’d not argue that I or other teachers need more money or more holidays, but I’d happily have less work to do each week and I’d love to get my weekends back. I’d swap shorter holidays for fewer contact hours in a flash, so that I can get all of my work done during the week; at the moment the holidays are a trade-off for spending evenings and weekends working at home. I’d also like some more flexibility in my work as planning to do anything on a weekend is almost impossible.

Not really, average male pay is 30k.

as for “poorly paid”? you have just said that pension and wages have been cut in real terms.
which is actually my point, it’s a bit shit for a lot of people. in case you hadn’t noticed there was a credit crunch/recession and cuts are being made across the board while living costs rise, savings fall and wages are static or falling. FOR EVERYONE (apart from bankers)

Actually for the top 50 percent real wages should go up by 2020 and the bottom 50 percent will probably see their wages fall in real terms. Basically the statistical variation from the average real wages between the these groups will increase. A lot of teachers pay scale falls below the average wage, so I should imagine that your theory will prove to be flawed.

So, don’t you think people teaching your children need to be treated better instead of constantly being undermined by parents and governments with political agendas?

That’s because millyplank doesn’t want to be seen as one of ‘them’…..ie a public school Oxbridge graduate.

+1 Junky