One of my childhood heroes. I met him once at a BMX racing national in the mid-80s and was a bit starstruck to say the least. In my defence I was only 11. Good to see he's made a success of himself. Wonder if he can still do those 30ft quarter pipe jumps?

I'm curious to know where they are going to find 100 top heads who want to take over a shithole school?

Presumably they'd tempt them with higher salaries. Oh, hang on!

…. £800bn of national debt

It's called investment. The public debt is perfectly sustainable, and is lower as a proportion of national income than countries like France, Italy, Japan and the US. I'm guessing from your posts that you'd prefer us to still have the money in the bank and crumbling schools and hospitals and people waiting 18 months for a routine operation?

Everyone's pretty much agreed that there should be no rewards for failure, right? So why oh why would anyone vote to re-elect Labour?

I think it's fair to say that all the things which are now used to bash the labout government – Iraq, the banking crisis, recession, public debt etc – were the result of policies which we can be fairly confident the tories would have followed to the letter.

Would the tories have invaded Iraq? Yes.
Would the tories have reigned in the banks? No
Would the tories have prevented the recession? No.
Would the tories have stopped everyone getting up to the eyes in debt? No.

The only thing they probably would have done differently was spend less on frontline services, and as a result we wouldn't have the hundreds of brand new schools and hospitals which now exist.

I'm no particular fan of Brown or Blair, but all this talk of 'broken Britain' and the public debt is a smokescreen to deflect people from the undoubted good things that have happened over the past 12 years.

Yup, Manchester seems to be where it's at. As well as Platt Fields and all the nearby tracks, they're also planning an new indoor track at sport city…

http://www.manchester.gov.uk/news/article/4908/proposals_for_24_million_bmx_centre_announced

Where are you based? I'll point you in the direction of your nearest club.

Thanks all. Sounds like it's a goer. Looks like I could be in the market for another bike. Mrs Daz will not be pleased!

I'm in Manchester so I guess the Manchester BMX club is the obvious port of call. Anyone been to any of their club races or gate practice sessions?

Care to elaborate? I guess what I really want to know is will a 35 year old bloke be laughed off the track by all the kids?

If you don't want politicians interfering with the day to day running of the NHS then you won't be wanting to vote for Labour then, will you, as they attempt to micromanage everything.

Well seeing as politicians of any colour will be interfering, I think I'd rather have the ones who guarantee the funding and keep it under state control than those who's natural urge is to palm it off into the private sector so that they and their mates in the private health companies can cream off a tidy profit.

TBH TJ, you should be first in the cull of NHS workers. Your job is obviously not that important or needed as you seem to be on here most of the time.

Apologies for butting in, but this implication that everyone in the NHS is lazy gets my goat. My missus works in the NHS (drug worker) and works so bloody hard that I think if I had to do half of what she does I'd be off with permanent stress.

And from what I know, TJ is right. The main thing holding the NHS back is lack of/insecurity of funding and interference by politicians. If the clinicians and managers were left to do their job free from interference with adequate, secure long-term funding, then the NHS would be second to none.

Just found this:

http://www.on-one-shop.co.uk/?page_id=2230

Think it answers my question.

Well if you ask me people should sometimes consider the fact that all this peadophile hysteria is whipped up by tabloid newspapers who at the same time have pictures of 17 year olds with their tits out or pictures of teenage celebrities either sunbathing or getting out of taxis in a compromising position. Funny how there's not the same fervour for stringing up newspaper editors though.

Tricky one. I'm a pretty much lifelong labour voter who recently had resolved to vote liberal next year as they're quite good round our way (I usually vote for them in the locals) and Gerald Kaufman is the labour candidate so it should be a no-brainer.

Trouble is I have this nagging, creeping, growing terror of what will happen if/when those self-interested c****s the tories get in. Especially since my two daughters are just starting school. What to do? I have no idea.

All I will say is that the stupid, short-sighted, reactionary idiots who seem to decide these things (ie. marginal voters) will probably get exactly the government they deserve.

I agree that is the handy think about accidents so easy to predict their occurence

Well yes, obviously. But personally I don't like wearing them on the road for a number of reasons (wind noise, comfort, sweat stinging my forehead, the straps chafing my neck), so considering this and the fact that the chances of me falling off are very small, and the debatable benefit of them in the first place in a road-crash scenario, I choose not to wear one. It's no big deal, just a preference, and something I'm completely comfortable with.

Can't believe anyone would ever get on a bike without one…although i know some do! Especially on the road….that winds me up no end!

Well at the risk of being flamed, I rarely wear a helmet when on the roadie or commuting. Always wear one off-road and on road when in big groups (ie. sportives). I guess it comes down to how likely it is that I think I'll fall off. I've never once in 15 years fallen off the roadie, hence the more relaxed attitude to a helmet, and obviously off road there's quite a high chance.

Not too sure why it winds you up so much though. Each to their own and all that.

BMX Bandits!

I saw that at the cinema in all it's big screen glory, and at the time thought it was the best film I'd ever seen.

Well seeing as we're listing them:

Me:
Cotic BFe – Trail centres, anything with jumps/drops
Spesh Epic – Longer rides/anything with rocks
Dolan Fixie/SS – Commuting/around town
Lightspeed Roadie

Mrs Daz:
Revolution Hybrid

4yr old daughter
Spesh hotrock (about to be passed on to 2yr old)
Isla Beinn 20

On the 'would like to have, but don't have the space and the wife would kill me' list:
Singlespeed HT for the winter
29er
BMX

I find it much easier to keep spare parts as assembled bikes than have have lots of boxes and drawers full of bike bits. Trouble is the more bikes I have the more spare parts I require, so the n+1 answer above applies.

Well judging by his mauling at the hands of Morecambe he's certainly not 'too good'. More likely he didn't want to be found out as a money-grabbing has-been.

Base Layer (Helly Hansens are good but they don't call them smelly hellys for nothing), lycra/baggy shorts, thermal lycra tights/leg warmers for mid-winter and a jacket (eg Altura Nevis). And sealskinz socks if you value dry feet when it's peeing it down.

I've a similar length commute and started off riding in work clothes but found there was no way to keep dry and non-sweaty if it rained. I now just put the work clothes in a small rucksack, leave shoes at work and wear normal biking gear which works much better and I don't need worry about the weather.

Yup, it's a nightmare. I work on Oxford St above rockworld so am looking forward to endless gridlock down oxford road for my commute. This combined with the stoodents being back and it promises to be more hairy than usual.

Another commuting addict here. People at work think it a bit odd when I tell them I really like cycling in heavy traffic. Not sure why I like it so much, guess it's just the adrenalin buzz of having to be super-aware of everything around you and having to make split second decisions whilst at the same time hammering along at 25mph.

Also it's pretty much the only time I ride the fixie (cue fakenger jibes!), which is probably my favourite bike.

First time I've done this. Really good I thought, although harder than I expected. I thought I was going well (for me) until my legs died with about 3-4 miles to go and I lost a lot of time crawling up the final climbs in the granny ring. I was also surprised at the number of people falling off on the fire roads.

You're in France? Check out the legal situation. AFAIK there are laws in France that protect tenants from eviction.

I know this as my sister-in-law is a landlord over there and always used to complain that it was impossible to evict non-paying tenants due to the very stringent tenancy protection laws.

Obviously these may not be much use if the landlord sends round a couple of mates to 'enforce' it. Good luck anyway.

Well I can second the exercise before breakfast tip. I read an article in CW some time ago which also suggested this as it forces your body to burn fat due to low blood sugar levels. Apparently it's doubly effective if you avoid/reduce your carbs intake in the evening.

Also I find that simply laying of the booze works wonders if I want to lose a few pounds, but then I do drink more than I should.

You’ll be fine on a small bike. The first climb is just a long(ish) drag which isn’t very steep, after that the climbs are just short switchback sections which again aren’t very steep and very easy from a technical point of view.

Last time I was there a couple of months back they were building quite a few new trails and what looked like a 4x track. Anyone know if these are finished and open?

I have eaten a meat pie whilst walking around Unicorn. I’m just beyond redemption.

Surprised you got out of there alive considering they don’t even stock anything with honey in it on account of the suffering it causes the bees!

11. Do you shop at a vegan, organic, ethical grocery shop called Unicorn?

The only problem with Unicorn is the hordes of smug middle class chorlton-ites who frequent it. I remember it in the good old days before it became trendy when the only customers were hair-shirted vegans and there wasn’t a sun-dried tomato in sight!

Just thought, another decent place so far not mentioned is Whaley Bridge. 10-15 minute drive from Buxton, on a train line for access to Manc and bike-commutable as long as you don’t mind the traffic on the A6. This is not to mention the fact that it’s in the heart of the Peak with loads of biking both off and on-road. It even has its own Tesco and LBS, plus loads of pubs and a decent chippy.

Does anyone ride from Marple into the centre of Manc?

I live in Levenshulme so it’s not my commute but I often cycle to Marple on my way out to the Peak on the roadie. There are plenty of routes of varying busyness traffic-wise, is about 8 miles and should take about 30-45 mins depending on how fit you are. It gets a bit hilly once you get outside the M60 but nothing major and it’ll keep you fit. Also there are a number of off-road routes through places like Reddish Vale but I haven’t done them so can’t say much about them.

If your GF is adamant on driving to Buxton then you don’t want to be anywhere north of Hazel Grove as she will soon be suicidal doing the daily commute down the A6 due to the traffic. I’d second Marple as a good in-between place and it’s easily commutable to Manc by bike or train. I’d move there myself if my oldest daughter wasn’t already settled in a good school.

It seems some people take this sort of thing quite seriously….

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12575770

Perhaps the most childish (but amusing nonetheless) thing when you get a non-roadie wheel hugger, is to gradually crank up the speed so that the wheel hugger puts more and more effort in, and then just before they reach breaking point, shift up a couple of gears and sprint away.

To be fair, I did once get dropped like a stone by a man riding a 1980’s rigid hardtail who was wearing a donkey jacket. A very sobering experience. I suspect he was a Cat 1 racer in disguise.

Roadie commuter here. It’s always amusing seeing people on mountain bikes bust a gut to overtake when I’m trying not to break into a sweat on the way in to work.

Sometimes temptation gets the better of me and I can’t resist going up a gear or two to drop them but it always feels rather childish.

Like I said, it makes me laugh the rubbish that is spouted. You can choose to believe who you like. I’ve been there and seen it. But to counter your points:

1. How do you differentiate between a sab standing in front of a cantering horse and a hunter aiming at a sab at full gallop? The latter happened to me on numerous occasions.

2. I never once saw sabs with claw hammers or baseball bats, and I’ve been on some pretty hairy sabs. However it’s not to say it didn’t happen. What I would say is that any incidents like this were usually in response to a sab being deliberately maimed (or killed) by members of a hunt, usually the terrier men/supporters. It’s probably not too far off the mark to say that in some parts of the country a war was being fought with many tit-for-tat attacks on both sides.

What you fail to acknowledge though is that a large majority of sabs, and indeed hunt members were perfectly peaceful and never got involved in any of this, it’s just a pity the violence on both sides overshadows everything else.

Ex-Hunt Sab here.

Always makes me laugh the rubbish spouted about sabs. Take it from me, there are thugs on both sides. However in the 10 years I went out I saw far more sabs hospitalised than hunters.

As for this gyrocopter, I don’t know what to make of it, but the parallels with the two sabs who were killed in the 90s by hunt supporters are striking. Somehow I doubt the end result will be the same though (no charges were brought against the hunt supporters).

Oh FFS! Just found out last night that entries opened and then closed! Been checking the summit cycles website for weeks on an almost daily basis as well. Got no email either.

v. p*ssed off. This was the one event I was really looking forward to this year.

approved social worker approx 28k per annum, able to section an individual or take a child into care dealing with safeguarding……….. underpaid or overpaid???

A mate of mine is an ASW. He regularly gets assaulted/beaten up and once had to call out the armed response unit to rescue him from a nutter who locked him in their house and threatened him with a kitchen knife. This isn’t even mentioning the number of clients he’s worked with closely who top themselves or die from overdosing. And then he has a bunch of idiot relatives who put in formal complaints against him about a perceived ‘lack of care’.

It’s the job from hell, and definitely, massively underpaid.