Like rats in a sack the easily manipulated who form their opinions based upon tabloid headlines and thin on facts, sensationalist, irresponsible and biased journalism.

Then they get to vote “tactically” in the vaudeville show. Enjoy the personality assassinations, demographic demonisation (we’re better than them), outright lies, made up crystal ball predictions, pacts being made, stepping aside jiggery pokery while NOT thinking why can’t I vote for what I actually want rather than playing chess!

Learn to use a DAW, possibly the biggest timesink known to man! Second only to becoming a modular synthesis enthusiast. Watch your body morph into an emaciated creature of the night, a skin tone described as somewhere between grey and rigor mortis. Beholden to the silicon pushers, inevitably found broke and dead, clutching a handful of patch cables in your hallowed synth cave!

@Kelvin – oooff horrible shame indeed.

They were a hangover from the 80’s in the 90’s. So trying the same shit again won’t wash this time round either. The face of audience confusion in the video priceless!

West End Girls was peak PSB.

Back in my clubbing days I used to hate the way they felt the need to add a vocal to house tracks before releasing them on general sale, for example Spiller’s Groovejet having Sophie Ellis Bextor added to it.

The 90’s was a bad decade for that. There’s almost too many to name. Cringe worthy out of place rap sections and/or atrocious vocals, out of key/tune/time/ridiculously repitched. And then you get some production and performance experiments/errors that worked and became a sound/trend!

The much maligned middle 8. Eight bars (not always Fibonacci and all that) of genius or a crowbarred in train wreck.

2.4 Ibex (hr2 copy)

Not sure who copied who! Both come out of the same factory. I remember buying Ibex tyres when Maxxis were still knocking out the original (shite) DHR.

May I also suggest syncing it with this video, muting the audio of course!

Not new or all time but….. Couldn’t do that anyway it changes day-to-day!

Always thought it was called the Smiley Curve for EQing Hi-Fi audio so that it sounded nice.

Then there’s the bathtub for manufactured products reliability 🙂

US based and per hour of activity, well that is a surprise! An interesting way to interpret it.

Anecdotal but a mate who climbs and rides MTB (he’s good at both) reckons MTB is generally worse for injury not death.

Would be surprised if riding motorbikes on the road (even if just recreational) was not much riskier, in the UK at least! Never known anybody die MTBing. I know it happens but it is rare. Plenty of broken bones, awkward shoulder injuries, concussions, I’ve heard of the odd heart attack but not known a victim yet. Known a few who have ended up in the graveyard riding motorbikes on the road though 🙁

In other news “a source” close to Labour party HQ overheard a Malcolm Tuckeresque rant about Diane Abbott.

“For **** sake don’t let her talk to the press, in fact anyone, til after the **** election. She can roll her eyes and say whatever the **** she wants after it! Can we put her under house arrest, move her into the **** Ecuadorian embassy til it’s all over. Surround her with an entourage wherever she goes. Say it’s down to death threats or she’s been struck down by a mystery illness, which has rendered her deaf and mute til after the election. We can’t have a repeat of that **** millstone taking her shoes and socks off to count on her toes”

Bung it down the bookies. Christmas number one, you heard it here first!

Bin bins Christmas number one. Let’s make this year the one boyz!

Surprised no one has mentioned BMX race tracks. You can usually ride a HT (26’er even better) on them as I do.

I’m lucky enough to have an ideal, free, outdoor one near me. All weather hardpacked with huge tarmac berms, four straights with rollers, one table and doubles if you’re fast/skilled enough!

I can vary my session by doing complete laps, half laps or just one straight at a time. It’s an intense and exhausting workout if you sprint and pump everything, as you go 100% from the first turn of the pedal till the lap/section is over. It’s bike skills and interval style fitness in one, win win!

Assuming there are no leaks. My monies on the expansion vessel bladder having a slow flat.

You can pump the bladder up (this is done in a service) with a bike pump. You can measure the pressure once you have relieved the system pressure via the blow off valve using a tyre gauge, they are typically charged to 1 bar.

You can just keep pumping them up every so often and topping up the CH system but a proper fix is a new vessel.

1 X Vintage trainers to go with jeans, leather jacket and driving gloves when I’m deluding myself I’m still fashionable
1 X Pink Crocs for round the house
1 X Black Crocs for going to bingo at the working men’s
1 X Camo Crocs for holibobs in Thailand “cave diving” etc.

@ Malvern Rider

Like you I prefer a more abstract and qualitative approach. Loving the GIFs BTW! I’m slowly working my way back from video toward hand painted in shit flick books.

Besides I blame it on Punk Rock and a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude adopted later in life.

Loads around Goyt Valley today. Good pics BTW.

blasting round leeds bike park before and after work is double ace.

Always gives me that warm feeling going there. Seeing all kinds of bikes, bikers of all demographics and so many smiling faces. That’s what it’s all about!

@tomhoward

Well played sir, well **** played. A symphony no less absolutely outstanding.

And inevitably this:

And as we know from this thread a dog can never do anything wrong in the eyes of most owners, such is their blind devotion. Contrary to statistics, laws put in place to prevent humans being injured by dogs. Real world experience both reported and unreported, which demonstrates people being bitten (but not seriously injured) is much more prevalent than official statistics suggest.

Of the issues that need tackling in this country injury and death caused by obnoxious/any cyclists is extremely rare compared to that of motorists and attacks by dogs for example. Yet we all know which one gets the most media focus and exaggerated could-of claims, where a lack of courtesy, sometimes on both sides results in nothing more than a bit of handbags.

@Rich_s

And there was me thinking that sentence was absolute and self explanatory.

Just to add to it. The hard up cuddly insurance industry, the railway companies got the idea for their little telly programme from, can get teh **** as well.

In the future all civil matters will be dealt with by this guy and rightly so!

The poorest/ne’er-do-well’s should be punished by death, while the CEO’s and financial fraudsters get banished to the Caribbean colonies for a nice tax free cocktail and cruise!

Couldn’t give a shit about any businesses “Revenue Protection” private security and kangaroo court, let alone overpriced poorly performing ones!

I jokingly alluded to it about two years ago in another thread on the subject, or was it conspiracy theories, project something or other. Ehhh well can’t remember, maybe I imagined the whole episode or am stuck in some kind of time and space vortex.

So what’s the STW committee verdict?

There’s a new breed of dog owner who have relinquished all use of leads and decided training their mutt is just too difficult. They do a runner when their dog bites someone (why have so many people heard the phrase he’s never done that before), let their dogs shit everywhere, jump up on people and get aggressive. Before dogs became a family fashion accessory, they were owned, in the main, by people who really wanted to own dogs (nuisance owners and dangerous dogs were dealt with) and it was generally, but not always, accepted as a privilege to even be allowed in certain public places. If a child behaved like most peoples animals do, in public, not only would it not be socially acceptable, legal/social services intervention would be swift to say the least. The school have been on again, William shat in the playground and bit Harry on the face again!

These saintly owners with perfectly behaved dogs are fewer and further between than those on bikes who cause injury, including the minority who aren’t as courteous.

It’s as though we have to accommodate peoples’s pets every whim and the rest of us are in the wrong. Moving around minding your own business is not correct in the presence of some peoples pets. Just taking my bike out of a van in a car park was enough for someones dog to go ballistic. I guess I did it all wrong, probably moved too fast or some such bollocks.

Mr Fluffy Woofkins can do whatever he likes **** you all.

Tourism Soviet style!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRRy6t5K3R4

Compare the amount of US and ex-commonwealth news in/on any UK media and compare with the amount of news from Europe. I’ve compared Sky and TF1 on some days and had the impression the news was from two different planets.

^^^Agree with this.

BBC changes to US news late at night. The constant bombardment of American culture/ideals has been going on as long as I can remember and long before. Seems to be working with many UK adults speaking Americanisms day to day and consuming pretty much exclusively, American content via subscription services and social media. Not to mention the polemical politics, devotion to corporate products, pursuit & worship of fame and money, including derision of anybody who doesn’t share the same goals.

Amazing how we get such brief and glossed over news from our fellow European countries. Except when there’s a terrorist incident or football match/sporting event hosted there. Remember the European wide austerity protests that got the briefest coverage, compared to the amount and detail lavished on the thousands of miles away middle east.

Constant promotion of the royal family. Harry and Meghan the new public relations diarrhoea spray.

Rob Zombie.

House of 1000 Corpses
Devils Rejects

Had some really good pedals followed by some redesigned not as good ones. The NW chainrings were alright when at the right price. TBF they all seem to be trying to make 25-30 the lowest price norm for a single chainring!

Had a set of cheap and a bit nasty wheels. The front was ok, the rear hub poor quality and spoke tension all over the place on both.

A mixed bag and bit of a gamble IME.

Anything with PM and journalists of his ilk are dismissed out of hand and don’t get a second of my time. The man’s a turd that won’t flush.

Duplicata 😀

Right which bastard was it that said it’s not real? Don’t even think about ruining Christmas.

Yeah yeah mmm yeah mmmmm nice

I’m great at spooning but not a fan of penetration unless I’m giving of course.

Besides I need to get my monies worth out of my matching camouflage crocs and thong trunks. Only been to Mykonos and Sitges this year so a pretty quiet year so far TBH.

Grinder you know the score big man.

Yeah you’ll get used to it. Finding smooth lines and gaping things add interest to the experience.

Hardtails are a great excuse to go back to the **** about on bikes you might have done when you was younger. Find all the BMX, pump tracks and flow jump trails localish to you and hone those pumping, sprinting, wheelie/manual and jumping skills. Timed laps and sprints to push your fitness on.

If you put the effort in and stick to it the end result will be good for you on any kind of bike!

A collection of words:

Gerontocracy

Narcissism of minor differences

Supercilious

Bien pensant

Duality

Polemical

Rabble rouser

Parity of misery

From what I’ve read Pizza Express itself is largely successful and profitable, the problem here is that the chinese private equity firm that now owns them has saddled them with a metric shit-tonne of debt that they cannot afford to service.

@ retro83 – Can’t say I’m surprised there are a lot of runners and riders in that race to the bottom. The pump and dump of the investment world.

RRP and the illusion of a deal. Not the only ones up to that trick either, mmmmm bikes, tyres. How much is really paid for them compared to what you are lead to believe is the norm.

That’s business as they say!

I feel sorry for the staff that need the jobs, as exploitative, dead end and soul destroying as they may be.

I have mixed feelings about the social media sycophants and corporate cheerleaders though. It’s a cross between pity and a feeling examples need to be made of them, so future useful idiots think twice about it.