Thanks dahedd.

I like Sorn. Used to be fun trails in the old quarry.

Mauchline. Family are still there but I’m down sarf. Dane love book about the history of the village talked about the connection with Douglas, and to a further extent, Melrose.

Thanks folks.

As much as i like the Douglas, I would like my own kilt to have a family connection instead of a geographical one.

That’s the 2nd time we’ve done a package. The first was to Geneva and the hire car cost us £100 (1 week) on top of the flights so that was a good deal.

Both from the BA website.

Jet lag is a concern but we’ve agreed we’ll take child care in shifts!

Ah right, Yeh I read it wrong. Just booking flights now. £2400 for flights on their own. £2100 for flights and 8 day hire car (ford kuga)?! I wouldn’t want BA having a say in the way my company was run. Oh, wait…….

We use BA a lot so we love T5 but this is going from T3 for some reason. I’ll check the deathrow website for facilities there.

Shes flown every couple of months since she was born and loves it, but it’s always been to the alps or Glasgow. Thanks for the long haul tips! We’ll need them!

BA have taken the car seat when we’ve flown before but we’ll double check before we fly in case long haul is different.

Brilliant! She loves the thing so that’s one less thing to worry about. Now just the long haul flight to worry about……

Spent a good 2 hours this afternoon getting reacquainted with forest of Bere (100 acres). I walk the dog there every other day so I refuse to ride it in winter as it’s a bog, but it was in great condition. Nice and dry!

This is turning out to be my worst bodge ever by the sounds of it.

No WT on the bottle but says for use on reverb and suspension.

The only saving grace is its my 10 year old run around with elixir brakes so probably needing replaced/upgrade.

I’ll get some dot and bleed it through a few times, then keep an eye on it.

Civilian Air traffic control officer. Started off as a stock room boy at 16 and still can’t believe I’ve got to where I am.

The work/life balance is great due to the shift pattern and the pay/pension is 2nd to none (maybe an MP!) I leave the building and never have to take work home.

Downsides are it is bloody stressful at times. Everyone makes mistakes but I’m constantly aware of the consequences if I do.

Worst thing about the job though is when my days off are over a weekend. I hate sharing the world. At least when I’m off during the week almost everyone else is working!

What singketrackmind said.

I did it last year with bhf. You really dont want to stop for more than 15min as it’s hard work getting started again. I stopped for 5min every hour for a sausage roll/scotch egg/energy bar and a smoke!

Plenty of water stops enroute to refill my camelback.

Didn’t use sun cream which was a mistake.

I live near Winchester so was dropped off there by my dad. The car was filled with spares and my dad was on call for the rest of the day. He had to meet me in Amberley to give me a spare tyre after it got slashed on the flint.

Leaving a car in Winchester is an option and getting the train back from Eastbourne. Takes a while though.

I had to carry all my kit but travelling with others I’d spread it out.

Mentally I struggled at the end so having others might help but if you have a slow group member that could be a bigger problem.

Climbing up cheesefoot head and watching the sunrise is my favourite mountain biking moment.

I know you’ve been and gone but I do like friends of ham. A friend of a friend owns it so I popped in on his recommendation.

RT blaming the one sided bias of the western media for inciting hatred because of their coverage of Allepo.

They’re also covering the state sponsored angle by saying that it’s an attempt to prevent the Turkish foreign minister from attending a meeting in Moscow tomorrow.

I have claustrophobia which normally comes out when I’m on a flight which could then be seen as a fear of flying. Working in aviation I know the procedures and safety records and that means I feel safe flying, but stick me in a snow hole, cave, metal cylindrical object then I get mild panic attacks.

Sorry Dan, in no was I implying by using another call sign he’d done something wrong. It fascinated me when I found out why he’d used that particular call sign. It was an indicator to me that the emergency training was so ingrained that it came out during the incident which is a good thing.

I get callsigns wrong all the time. It gets embarrassing when you keep calling easyjet, Ryanairs or vice versa. :oops:

I’ve seen the ground radar replay and listened to the RT of the ba777 incident at Heathrow.

When declaring the may day the pilot used the wrong callsign. The reason being that the callsign was the one he used when he was last in the simulator practicing emergencies. Physcologists could have a field day analysing that.

The response from the fire crews was impressive to see.

I’ve been up in my father in laws (retired BA 777) diamond for a go but that’s it.

As an ATCO I can request a familiarisation flight in the jump seat but I’ve never had the time. Want to hold out for a long haul as my mate ended up in Cuba!

From a professional point of view I’d love to do it. I really want to hear what it sounds like from the other end.

Every year we have courses where pilots from virgin, BA etc come along and we talk through what works best. Had Ryanairs chief pilot in for one last year. Top bloke.

Yeh, my favourite bit of singletrack there. The woods behind the ranges has some built track but looks like it hasn’t been used in years. Came across it on a night ride.

Yeh I read that too stoner. We have a friend working for the chalet were staying at in la tain who says chambery is getting an upgrade at the moment and Sundays aren’t too bad so we’ve went with that option. Gonna miss tyrolean gristle though…..

We have 2 options. Due childcare and shift patterns we have to do Sunday 5/2/17 to Sunday. Theres St anton via innsbruck or courcheval via chambers.

I want St anton, the wife courcheval (her friends there). Child care, catering and price are broadly similar.

My question. Is chambery bad on a Sunday? I’m hearing some horror stories.

There are many reasons for and against wearing a poppy but in my opinion only 1 or 2 reasons are justified. I wear one to remember ex colleagues and donate to a charity that supports them but a great uncle refused to because he thought lessons weren’t learned.

The right try and use it as a patriotic symbol (don’t get me started) and the left try and vilify it as glorifying war (deliberately missing the point to suit their ideals).

Wear, it don’t wear it, I really couldn’t give a flying monkeys, but the minute you start looking down on someone for their choice, you wouldn’t get a pint off of me post night ride.

What moose said.

Thanks, I’ll check them.

Holding the swing arm and then moving the wheel is where I feel movement, not between the swing arm and frame.

Tried tightening the maxle up still the same result.

I reckon Farley mount would be great. Little bit awkward for me to get to for a quick spin so I’ve been in forest of Bere (100 acres part) going over the same trails to try and make them more obvious. Keep meaning to take a little hand saw to tidy some of them up.

There’s a lot of discussion about ground capacity in the south East which is good. Expansion was always going to happen.

I’m looking forward to how they’re going to redesign the airspace above the south East to cope with the increased levels of traffic. At the moment, its already complex and overcrowded. Unlike ground space, where you can bulldoze a village or two for more room, the sky is finite.

Although not RLC, I went through an RLC troop at Pirbright for my basic training in 98. The attitude of their DS was terrible compared to other cap badges DS. The rumours going around the Platoon about phase 2 at Deepcut made me and the other non RLC lads happy we were off elsewhere.

I was back in 2003 with the royal anglians and we had to cover the gate duty at the back of Deepcut (where a lot of the shootings happened) when the road was opened at certain times during the day. The RLC phase two soldiers weren’t allowed to.

As for 5 rounds to the chest, I reckon it’s doable.

“I hope I give you the shits” nailed it for me.

I class a good film as one that if I see when channel surfing I’ll watch it again and again. By that criteria;

Downfall
Platoon
Saving private Ryan

But the most accurate films to capture squaddie humour for me are;

Dog soldiers (woeful otherwise)
Kajaki (frustrating)

Was on it Saturday. Parked at the beach car park and cycled past all the cars so don’t wait with them. You get on the ferry in the passenger side door and there’s plenty of space so very much doubt it’ll be a problem at rush hour. £2 return.

I’d rather have the BV206. Awesome bit of kit. Worked on them for two years. Getting them sideways on the frozen runway in Voss was always fun.

Saxon was great as it was sooooo simple but I’ll be glad if I never change another washer pump on them again.

Glasgow to Birmingham. Mate phones me at 1am sounding pissed. Couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Hed left with the rest of the company a month ago to Afghan so I was confused why he was back on r&r so early. I eventually hung up only to be woken up by another mate phoning me.

Turns out he’d been in a snatch land-rover that went over an ied killing two lads doing the top cover. He was in sely oak full of morphine, hence sounding pissed.

Drove down for 1 hour of visiting. It was a long drive fearing thee worst. He’s got more metal in him than a T1000 but now works back to back seasons in Japan/NZ as a ski instructor.

I’ve got a mk5 R32. Everything is now 2.0 turbo so hopefully because of the V6 it’ll be a classic.

I was the 2nd wave away at 0507 and finished about 1920. Hard work but really enjoyed. Spent a bit of time trying to repair a slashed side wall at checkpoint 2 but didn’t work. Dad drove to Amberley with the spare so had to nurse the bike along for a wee while.

Also got burned. It was supposed to be 19 and overcast!

Oh, another one. Me 15, brother 18.

We’re up the stairs in our room watching TV and I happily boast to him that I lost my virginity the previous night to my then girlfriend. Knowing he still hadn’t got his end away, I started taking the piss out of him.

He doesn’t believe me and asks me to prove it. I phone girlfriend, she confirms it (immature 15 yo I know!), I continue to take the piss out of him.

10 minutes later, a stony faced mother storms in the room and sends brother out. She’d heard the whole argument from the hall. Cue 30min long excruciatingly embarrassing birds, bees and condom chat.

Brother is meanwhile out with our mates telling them everything. I was single very shortly after.

My brother, who must have been 12 and me 9, was chasing me for some reason that I can’t remember. It must have been bad because I truly feared for my life. As I was smaller and nimbler I could always climb trees better, so to get away I ran to my favourite one.

Once I got to the top I realised I hadn’t quite thought my plan through as my brother was cruel enough to climb the tree and hang off my legs until I came crashing down.

I resorted to the only option left. I dropped my fly and pissed on him.

I still giggle about him running and crying back to mum which doesn’t quite make up for the slapped legs…..

Just about recovered…..

Parents are down from Ayrshire to look after the little one tomorrow as my wife will be in work. Currently cooking some square Sausage to be had for breakfast in the morning.

Weathers looking good but I’m nervous about whether I’ve done enough prep.

Line prophets as well. Think mine are 2013 so not too pretty but do everything I ask of them! Powder in St Foy last year brought out the best of me!