If you’re already entered it’s worth also entering this win a BMC granfondo GF01 bike competition. As I am the proud owner of one such piece of gorgeousness (also won) I can’t recommend it enough. It’s totally worth having a go:

Just enter here[/url]

Just spotted this on my Facebook feed… another GF01 is up for grabs. You (just) need to be entered for the Tour of Flanders and to enter here:

BMC GF01 Competition[/url]

Good luck MrSparkle! And anyone else who has a go. It’s completely worth entering :-)

:D

They’ve still got a few months… I reckon that putting tarmac down before the winter the weather is over can destroy the good work (yes, it’s fine right now but last year it wasn’t).

See you all later. Might only turn up for the social now that I’m all dark side n’ that.

Boxelder – this was the lucky pitch[/url].

Just thought, this is the first time I’ve beaten MrSparkle at anything ;-)

:(
It’s always worth setting up an ebay and gumtree search – quite a few bikes end up there eventually once they think you’re not looking.

Particularly sad to see that this wasn’t a German Christmas cake edition of an On One (might not be awake yet) but horrible theft.

Hey Crazy Legs, I’ve ridden in a couple of times then last week did a there-and-back on Wednesday. That was pretty killing. Might be riding back on Wednesday if you’re interested in coming along for part of the ride?

Minion? Yes, I am now slave to the dark side. Although hoping that trading my soul in to it will make me super fit so I can rule the trails all summer….. :twisted:

Hope she’s ok. I didn’t go down quite as badly on my first proper ride with bf but I did look like a victim of domestic violence for a bit. Didn’t put me off (although binning it was because I bonked, didn’t realise what was happening and why I was suddenly all over the place) and I now race ;-)

Thanks :D

I loved the cobbles when we did the medium Tour of Flanders. Slightly worried that the 100km before them will be a bit wearing. But I’m on The Plan so I’ll be up to it.

It so has now egf but the kitchen isn’t tidy enough for photos :wink:

So no Monday Night Pub Road Ride then? :wink:

Ooh, you can have a go on her MrSparkle! The bike bit has only sunk in very slowly and I’m trying hard to deserve such a beautiful piece of engineering.

Thanks for the heads up.
Go Anna!

Hmm, great thread. I have to confess that I took one, brief, look and thought of my all-time favourite cycling website:
Jahvahaah[/url]

But then, I am not your target market. I am, hangs head and lowers voice to whisper, a girl. Sorry.

Poodle or poodle cross if you’re not allowed a full sized one!

[/url]
Clover[/url] by BeateKubitz[/url], on Flickr[/img]

Ace! Not long to go now. First time for me, but I’m doing the medium length one. On my Day One.

Great! We did that one two years ago, it was enormous fun. We can compare notes on Monday. TTTP™ has been suitably adjusted. :D

Great ride :-) thanks for the link :D

I won a bit of the dark side and have (to my delight and mild terror) got to train to ride the full Tour of Flanders. 244km.

So, I’m on a Terrahawk Training Plan™ which says intervals on Monday. So only if authorised. Or maybe we could all do intervals and you can share my pain? No? :D

I’ve thanked a truck driver before for an immaculate pass (he was pulled into the next lay-by for a butty – don’t often get the chance). He was a cyclist too.

Agree on H Crabtree but I wouldn’t say that all the quarry truck drivers on the Hayfield to Buxton stretch are as good and if they’re not the nice ones they’re super scary.

Maybe we should start an award for considerate lorry drivers. The Singletrack Forum Award for Genteel Truckers. :D

:(

+1 for bike fit!

Just a normal Charge spoon on most bikes but feels completely different on different bikes – don’t notice it at all the mtb and cx bike number one. Sadly, new cx bike (same saddle) is sore but I think it’s down to position not saddle so I am going to have to mess around with the set up.

Also, I once cycled home from work (40 miles) on my other half’s bike. We use the same saddle and similar set ups. But carrying a heavy pack changed everything… I couldn’t sit down after 25 miles. 15 miles standing up is pretty tough…

Strepsils.

The instant I start on the get fit for summer programme I get a cold. Grrr.

Kant’s problem was whether the dog is really as we perceive her or even real independent of our perceptions of her.

Schroedinger assumes the cat is real and that his equation models the way that quantum mechanics work and draws attention to the paradox that that the equation implies two simultaneous states – until an observation is made, the wave collapses and the equation is solved for one state or the other.

As I understand it.

I’m sure Kant would have liked quantum mechanics and multi-dimensional maths, and I wonder whether he would have taken them as evidence of things which exist beyond our ability to perceive them.

As it was, he was immediately succeeded by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Schopenhauer went all zen and eastern mystic on the existence of a transcendental reality. Nietzsche invented perspectivalism which abjures a ‘one truth’ approach and does not necessitate a transcendental reality. Although much of Nietzsche’s work is in aphorisms and you can argue that he meant pretty much anything. Sadly enabling a great deal of misappropriation.

Kant? You could set your clock by him. If you lived in Koningsburg in the late 18th century. That is.

No, really, he was such a creature of habit and orderliness that the locals set their time pieces to his daily perambulation.

Gosh, this is really exciting. A three year philosophy degree and I can finally provide some information to someone on the internets that really really wants it.

Right, there’s this big debate in philosophy whether the world actually is as we perceive it or whether our perception mediates it to such an extent that all we can claim to know is what we perceive, and we can’t really claim to know what the world essentially is.

Kant examines our powers of perception and reason in the Critique. He recognises that our understanding of the world is shaped by our faculties for perception and reason (for instance, the way that we interpret what we see so that we perceive three dimensional space). This breaking down of the stages of perception into ‘sense data’ (for sight, the light hitting our eyes) and interpretation (our cognitive facility for understanding the patterns made by light hitting our retina) was an important leap in understanding.

However, it begs the question whether us making sense of the light hitting our retina and understanding that there’s a dog in front of us (in my case) actually tells us anything at all about the essence of dog. The ‘thing in itself’.

He wavers about whether we can really know the thing in itself, or whether we can just know that there is a thing in itself ‘beyond’ our perception of it but its essence is ineffable. Or whether the thing in itself, being unknown (as we only have our perception) cannot even be postulated. At this point you have to peer beyond the curtains of reason, and that would be a very worrying thing to an 18th century German.

To be honest, it’s 20 years since I last wrote an essay on Kant so I can’t remember what his actual conclusions were (hmmm, I think they might even have been a little inconsistent). However, my dog definitely has an ineffable essence.

Hey, thanks for turning up everyone! Always nice to show you lot round. Thanks for birthday wishes Binners!

‘Kissing the runway’? That was just to prove that despite being a year older, I still haven’t grown up… :?

Slightly scuffed with a nice bruise coming up on my cheek bone, but still waiting for the first questions about my ‘home life’. ‘Fell off my bike in Tod park’ does sound a bit lame…

Something similar happened to me when I was 22. Admitted to hospital with baffling level of infection clearly from somewhere in lower intestine. Hooked up to IV antibiotic whilst investigations took place but I didn’t have the standard appendicitis symptom (as in screaming at prodding of the area). Eventually they just chopped me open and found that it was my appendix after all (although behind my intestine rather than in front of it) and removed a large lump of festering gunk. Mmmmm.

I spent two weeks in hospital (week one for investigations, week two after op) and nearly six weeks pretty wiped out and trying to put back the stone in weight I’d lost. Take it easy! And don’t let your mother feed you lentils, it feels like gravel… :D

GWS

Thanks for that. Glad I dragged myself out and thanks for waiting :-)

Seem to have brought quite a lot of Prestwich back on our clothes & bikes. Luckily noone checked at the border.

Monday Night Pub rides win in my opinion – and it is just about every week. I can bring the spare lights box if I know in advance (and providing we are playing out – night rides are a bit of a scramble with work commitments).

I’m Beate btw. Also ride out from Todmorden / Hebden Bridge at the weekends usually and happy to show you the trails.

Hull? I could never work in Hull.

Just had a weekend on a Saracen Kili Flyer & it flew very enjoyably. They do a longer travel bike too, both around 3.2 k.

Hurrah! Will be there if we have a working vehicle.

Everyone has a dodgy knee/sore throat/broken fingernail every time we mention Todmorden :(

My OH moved in one bike at a time. Alternating with one guitar at a time. Seems to have worked.

We now officially have ‘a lot’. As in, I can’t be bothered to count them. As long as there’s a nice one for me to ride and we can still get in and out of the building (just) I’m perfectly happy.

Funny how Pippa Middleton looks a lot more human in cycling gear.

A large supply of cake.

Rest is covered. Have fun! :D

I sometimes forget about the rest of the world. And that, for my sanity, is a good thing.

*leaves internet to lie down quietly*

Hey, you’re 31! Loads of time to meet someone great. I spent nearly ten years with the wrong chap (loads of reasons and mostly my head not letting me leave someone who treated me badly) and didn’t get out ’till my late 30s. Have a great bloke now who got me into mountain biking too :-)

We live in Tod. Plan for Day one is to ride over on road bikes and stay in Reeth the night before, and watch it in the morning then ride home.

Planning an off-road route from Tod to where we’ve buried the beer for Day 2. Then back to Tod Park where there’ll be a large screen to watch the finish.

A friend is getting the briefings and the organisers are expecting an additional 4 million people to visit Yorkshire for the Tour.

I’ve only seen one big race – the Tour of Flanders which goes up the same cobbled climbs nearly every year. Houses on the route build nice platforms in their gardens so that they can see over the heads of the people 5 deep over the garden wall.

Happened to me a few years ago. A delightful young lady half-inched my handbag from a bar round the corner from my house in Hackney.

I realised very quickly and had cards cancelled before they could be used but a couple of weeks later I had a call from Argos Stevenage checking up on the account that I was trying to set up.

They were very cheery when I pointed out that I was in Hackney, not in their store. The staff apprehended the nice lady who was using my drivers licence – however from the description she was definitely not the thief. So there was a group – or details just get sold on to whoever will take a punt at them. This lot didn’t get to pass themselves off as me for very long.

Don’t know about modern stuff but I bought an old butcher’s block in a junk shop – at 3″ thick if anything ever stains it I can just sand it out. I’ve used various cleaners on it but water and washing up liquid works as well as anything. Nicks and stuff just add character.

I had it fitted instead of the usual work surface on top of standard wooden units. Looks great.