Taff, yes i think we’re talking about the same place….there was loads today, seriously would’ve taken somebody a while to put it all there….the walkers (i assume its them?) have the entire place to roam and the mountain bike trail is a mere 7 kilometres of QECP yet they still get spiteful about sharing….i cleared a route through so that its rideable again, this kind of thing really annoys me….i’ll be at the next dig if for no other reason than to smash up any decent sized logs around that area so it cant be blocked off again.

Scottfitz

Rode there today and noticed loads of branches and logs across part of the orange route that leads off a footpath up into the woods and singletrack….you probably know the bit, downhill along the footpath after the initial climb and this part branches off to the right and up into the hill….the logs and branches looked like they’d been put there deliberately?….wondered if the trail is closed for some reason?….or if some disgruntled walker tried to block off the trail?

Either way, i stopped for a bit and cleared the way through as best i could, thought you might like to be aware.

The table tops look good cant wait for that part to open!….was challenging this evening to say the least, rooty and slippery, time for winter tyres i think!

Johnny-met

‘Heavy’ was a bad choice of word, i should have said muscle tissue is more dense than fat.
Thisisnotaspoon also outlined what i was trying to get across about a fat cell having a different density to a muscle cell.

Somebody else brought this subject up recently on here too, they said that if they want their 150mm forks to work properly and use all of the travel then they end up being very soft/bouncy and the bike pitches fore and aft in a worrying manner, they said that when the fork is set up so it feels ‘right’ they only end up using about 100mm of travel anyway…it rang true when i read it and the OP’s post is along the same lines, compressing a long travel fork is going to pitch the rider forward…this can probably be sorted out with technique, particularly as you’ve been off the bike for a year but if i wanted more travel then say 120mm then i’d go for full suspension.

Dont panic if you do put some weight on, muscle tissue is heavier than fat and people often panic when they start exercising and the scales tell them they are getting ‘fatter’….they arent, they’re losing fatty tissue and building muscle tissue….a good thing.

My advice would be to abandon the scales altogether and gauge your diet and body composition on how you feel and what the mirror tells you….if your body starts to look softer then scale back on the food and/or exercise more….if you start to look emaciated then increase your food intake and/or scale the exercise back slightly.

In all seriousness they all do pretty much the same things now.

They all have the kind of browsing and download speeds that laptops had a few years ago and you wont be disappointed with an iphone or a Nexus or another HTC or the Galaxy etc etc….none of them really have a unique selling point any more, pick the one you like the look of and/or can get the best deal with.

Current next door neighbour has an English Bull terrier and a previous employer had one too ….dont like them myself, they get much bigger than people realise and both got all fat and just waddled about once their first few years had passed.

I’ve got Jack Russells, great dogs….bonkers personalities, never a dull moment, make me laugh every time they try and stand their ground against dogs several times their size….as other have said; they are fond of digging the odd hole, ours have killed pigeons, rabbits and chickens….they get on great with the cat (seriously) and the yappiness thing is a plus point for me…several people i know have Labradors and they have to be the most boring, pointless dog around….you may as well just buy a stuffed toy instead of a Lab whereas having a Jack Russell around is like having another person in the house!

Saw it when it came out at the cinema and watched it again last night, great film.

There is no plot as such, its simply about the mentality/psyche of people in stressful situations and how they react….in that group of three you have the black chap who is Mr Sensible, the bomb disposal guy who is a thrill seeker and the nervous one…i like the scene where the main character is back at home in the supermarket but cant adjust to normal life again…that is what the film is about, the people who put themselves forward for yet another tour of duty when they could be somewhere else.

TJ…i disagree about it being ok to mock the powerful, it smacks of the kind of double standards that some people dedicate their lives to trying to stamp out….if its ok to call somebody an upper class twit, a chinless wonder, a toff etc….then its ok to call somebody working class scum too….the principle is the same.

It goes back to the old phrase about sticks and stones….if people are still being offended by mere words uttered by complete strangers then they lead very sad lives indeed.

A comedian is an act, they go on stage and project a persona that allows then to use certain material to amuse, shock etc….its highly likely that most bigotted, racist, offensive comedians arent like that once off the stage….but it doesnt stop the pitch fork wielding hordes from complaining en masse when ever an offensive word is used.

For what its worth i use the word ‘Pikey’ all the time….and yet i have a couple of friends from this kind of background….unavoidable when my girlfriend is into horses but i treat them the same as i treat everybody i come across…start off nice and if they act the cock then i’ll treat them like a cock….if they are polite and friendly then i’ve got all the time in the world for just about everybody.

People need to stop being overly sensitive in general.

Its just words and unless they come from the mouth of somebody important to you then they are largely meaningless….if a stranger in the street calls me an ugly bastard then i’ll tend to think the bloke is a weirdo and forget it as soon as its happened but if a close friend or family member calls me an ugly bastard then the comment hurts.

Comments from comedians are material, just that….nothing more and nothing less….if you dont like Gervias’s material then dont watch it….this isnt rocket science.

The problem with naming bands like Nirvana, Beatles etc as over rated is that they have actually done some great stuff….the Nevermind album from Nirvana is superb, every track potentially a hit single and no fillers to bulk it out with….rare in this day and age….and completely different to some of the self indulgent shite they did afterwards.

My dad has every Beatles album and will happily listen to every track, i dont see the appeal in that respect but songs like Lucy In The Sky, Eleanor Rigby, Come Together and A Day In The Life are brilliant….again, completely different to the garbage like I Wanna Hold Your Hand or Love Love Me Do.

The Rolling Stones have done some sublime stuff….Sympathy For The Devil, Paint It Black, Gimme Shelter are all true classics and it shouldnt detract from the some of the pish they’ve also put out.

Basically if a band is around for any length of time then they will put out some good and some bad….perhaps a better question would be what is the most over rated album you can think of?

For me that would be the recent album by The XX, it was masturbated over by just about everybody in the industry so i bought it….utter wrist slitting crap.

For me a great band is one that releases an album that you listen to and cant believe your luck that there are 10+ tracks that are all brilliant, its a rare thing.

Pink Floyd….Another Brick In The Wall, Comfortably Numb, Money, Wish You Were Here….amazing songs and stuff that up and coming bands would love to produce.

Led Zep….Good Times Bad Times, You Shook Me, Whole Lotta Love, Stairway To Heaven, Kashmir, All Of My Love….

no bands putting out these kinds of tracks that are still downloaded by 20 year olds 30-40 years after the original releases can be considered over rated.

Houns, same here….

….i just dont get having to plug a phone into itunes and then wait hours for the operating system to download, ridiculous and archaic.

bol, its only licensees of Android that have to wait for upgraded operating systems or pinch them from the net to get a head start on their handset manufacturer (HTC, Motorola, Samsung etc)….the Google/Nexus range of phones get the update straight away and over the air…no plug ins needed.

Molgrips….yes it will be around on various websites to install on other Android handsets before HTC and the like put their interface over the top.

The Nexus range of handsets (Nexus one, Nexus S and now Nexus Galaxy Prime?) all run stock Android so get the updates over the air first.

The better half has an L200 warrior edition. She works with horses and it’s very much a work vehicle, it gets loaded up with feed and hay bales etc….works really well in that role.
I sometimes use it and it has a poor turning circle…but that’s the only negative I can come up with. It’s been reliable, is better on fuel than the Isuzu Trooper she had previously, the 4×4 feature was a godsend last winter too, the leather interior is a nice place to be, easy to sling the bike in the back etc etc…
Comparing it to things like a Subaru Forester or Legacy is pointless as they are cars and you’d royally mess up the interior of something like that if you tried to use one as a proper utility vehicle. The beauty of a pick-up is that anything smelly or dirty is in a separate part to the passengers, they aren’t for everybody but we wouldn’t be without it now.

HantsNightRider….havent cycled Selborne yet, i used to live in Alton as a child and my dad would take me and my sister to walks up the Zig-Zag…is your route anywhere near that feature?

The wood opposite Alice Holt is close to the road entrance, just go past a little further (if you were coming from the Halfway House pub) and its on your right….cant remember what its called, there is a sign….i think this area is used mainly by horses but i’ve never seen any there.

Went to Swinley today for the first time too….not bad, you have to work for the rewards as nothing is signed and its very easy to stay on the fireroads but i think i found most places!

I live in Churt too.

Alice Holt forest is reachable almost exclusively off road by going down a bridleway near the Frensham Pond Hotel, follow it to the end and you come out in Frensham village on the bridge over the river, turn left and ride for 200 yrds on the road then take next bridleway on the right and follow this to the end (Bluebell Pub in Rowledge), turn right at the pub and ride for another 500 yrds on the road and then take any number of routes off to the left into Alice Holt….Alice Holt is ok, the main routes are fire roads type stuff, head off into the trees and there is some decent singletrack that can be found….i once had an excellent ride there when i crossed the road near the entrance and went into the woods opposite, much better. :wink:

Whitmore Vale is good, its bigger than teamhurtmore thinks…he just needs more time to explore it!….the trick here is that it spans a couple of places and requires a road crossing at one point and then there’s loads more to ride.

Ludshott common….doesnt get much credit, decent place…nowhere near as sandy as other places in this area, stunning views, the dirt jump kids have built some handy drops/jumps etc in the trees on the outskirts of here too but i found them once and havent managed to again!….connects nicely to Waggoners Wells too for a longer ride.

Frensham Common (big and little ponds)….ok-ish…sandy, flat…more of a relaxing evening ride thing.

Thursley Common…sandy in places but hard enough on most of it to ride on, spent several hours over there one day in the summer, bigger than you think, some short sharp hills/descents….joins nicely onto Hankley common.

Devils Punchbowl….pretty good but the middle is boggy and often blocked by logging, mainly ride around the edge, nice views, shouldnt really ride there as there are signs saying no bikes but the walkers dont seem to mind when i’ve been there…on the other side of the road is….

…Gibbet Hill, great place. Used in the latest Whyte Bikes video, went there a few weeks ago…bugger to find, had to hot-foot it across the old A3 and avoid the Hindhead Tunnel workers to get to it, did see a tarmac road leading to where i emerged from the bushes and asked some walkers where it went….they said to the Devils Punchbowl so the two must link up somewhere?

Bourne Woods, where they filmed the battle scenes at the start of Gladiator. Few miles from Churt on the road or just drive (its about 3 mins in the car)…enjoy this area too but dont seem to go there very often despite always enjoying it?!….quite big and easy to while away a few hours.

Queen Elizabeth Country Park….ok not technically in or around Churt but only 20 mins down the A3 and well worth a visit, check out the thread on here by the trail building group, they are doing some good work.

Ceasars Camp….Farnham/Fleet/Aldershot….rode there once from Churt, involved a bitch of a road climb up Castle Street in Farnham so i was too knackered when i got there to enjoy it properly…i’ll drive next time!….nice single track, drops/jumps etc…was used recently for the Enduro type event that got a bit of a slating on here but dont let that put you off.

Swinley is also no more than 30mins away in the Frimley/Camberley direction but i’ve never been so couldnt tell you much about it.

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2010 GSXR-750

Thought i had better see what all the fuss is about….motorcycle journos rave about them: “perfect blend of big bike power and small bike handling etc etc”…..

….they’re actually not that far off being perfect, only thing i can find to criticise are the brakes….the stoppers on my 2007 zx6r were like hitting a brick wall, i never had to use more than one finger on the lever on that bike….superb. The GSXR lever needs a squeeze with a couple of fingers to get the same response…..other than that the engine is a peach and the handling is intuitive, look where you want to go, drop a shoulder and the bike goes there. Probably a keeper.

Yunki….got no problem with a criminal taking the choice of opting out from main stream society and deciding not to follow the laws of the land….but if thats the case then dont cry for these people when they end up prison or wail that they havent had the opportunity to rehabilitate.

Grum, you’ve got a fine way of twisting things. Your previous post suggested my views were those of somebody from a comfortable background, I told you my very average background and its still not good enough. You’re a joke.
The comment about choices at school was a separate discussion with a different poster with regard to improving education but well done on pulling it into your argument about something completely different!

I’m out of this now, I’ll end it by saying that the majority of people (even those without a comfortable start in life) have plenty of choices and chances to make good…a small minority will be born into the horror of drug addicted parents and abuse, once they end up in the criminal justice system they have the opportunity to get help but they have free will to decline this help. This seems to be the part that Grum (and others) struggle with, a refusal to accept some personal responsibility cannot always be blamed on society, at some point the individual has to take charge.

Tomsk01…agree about education, children need to be given good literacy and numeracy skills and then taught/helped to find what they are good at early in life…it may stop some of the drifting people do when they cant work out what they want to do with the rest of their lives and negate the appeal of crime in this situation.

I was terrible at IT and any kind of craft…not because i couldnt do it but because i had no interest in these subjects….sadly the national curriculum forced me to take at least one subject like this in the misguided belief it would give me a rounded education when all it did was make me rebel and mess about in these classes….i liked biology, history, geography, languages but again, the national curriculum dictated that if i wanted to do both french and german then i couldnt do history or geography….ridiculous….if i wanted to do either history or geography then i had to drop a language….if i wanted to do both history and geography then i had to drop both languages!….what kind of choice is that?….in trying to have all 16 year olds leaving school with the same qualifications and the same education we actually hamper as many as we help.

Grum….very much working class start in life, mother was one of 9 children from a very poor background, father was from farm labouring stock….state educated, had to work for pocket money (paper rounds) and flirted with drink and drugs during my last couple of years at school and then onto college (where my parents separated)….left with one A-level (grade ‘D’ in English) as i enjoyed partying too much….spent the next few years doing factory production work for poor money, got arrested a few times and then decided at 22 years old that it might be wise to knuckle down in life as my then current approach to things wasnt giving me the life i wanted….i dont consider that a privileged or comfortable start in life.

Grum….you think that a prison population has to proportionately represent society as a whole?….interesting argument and one i’m not against in theory but real life shows that the poor and poorly educated end up in prison….in the US that’s (generally) Blacks, its a money thing….in a different country with no black people (think eastern europe for example) the prison population will look completely different and is likely to comprise mainly of the unemployed or unemployable….i think throwing race into the argument muddies the waters.

Tomsk01….i work in custody suites across the south of England and see plenty of criminals, you would be astounded at the help they are offered as soon as they arrive in custody. From health checks with nurses, paramedics and doctors, to drug workers, social workers, mental health practitioners etc….they are given every opportunity to start the process of reform and rehabilitation from the moment they are arrested….and yet very few actually take the help being offered to them….why?….thats the billion dollar question isnt it?

Find the answer to that question and you will cure society’s ills….i dont want to go as far as to label some people as bad or even born bad but people have to want to help themselves and despite having help thrown at them in custody most people just want to get out and go back to their old way of life…maybe they dont want to undertake the hard work required to start afresh and effectively start at the bottom of conventional society?…i dont know, but how much lower can they get when they are already in the criminal justice system?

You can lead a horse to water but you cant make it drink….the same is true of people.

Grum…..massive jump from what i said to what you think i said.

By scum i mean scum….any sex, any race, any background, any class….if somebody lives their life by nicking things, threatening violence, carrying out acts of violence then i want them locked away from society….rehabilitation is nice if it can happen but for me prison has to be primarily about punishment and keeping the rest of society safe from those who live their life on the wrong side of the law.

I think some of the pinkos and hand-wringers on here have forgotten that prison is also a punishment….if somebody commits a crime against me then i want that person punished firstly and rehabilitated secondly….

….in fact if the crime was violent then i couldnt give a toss about the criminal’s rehabilitation and simply want to see the bastard punished.

Wrong attitude?….thats debatable but people seem to have forgotten that prison also serves a purpose for locking the scum away from the law abiding majority.

Their country, their rules….

….i do however like the idea of prisoners doing something useful like manufacturing goods for the government, that is called giving something back not slave labour.

Farnham in the Surrey Hills here….i entered the Eastridge Gravity Enduro in August and had a good time (even though i crashed and burned)….my rota so far for next year allows me to enter 2 of the first 3 rounds so i’m interested in this!

What a quaint way of doing things….my Android updates are sent over the air and take a couple of minutes while the phone reboots.

I’m sure the fanboys will still argue that everything Apple does is just so intuitive and user friendly! :lol:

How long does it usually take when everybody isnt trying at the same time?

I dont have an iphone so i’m not familiar with how this works, is the update sent out over the air?

The speed wobble you describe could be other things too, make sure you have ruled out a warped brake disc, wheel out of true, shagged hub etc before you automatically look at the geometry of the bike?

For what its worth i found the front end of my bike more stable when i switched to a shorter stem, i made the change to wider bars at the same time for the reasons somebody else above stated, it keeps some weight over the front.

Awful video….5 minutes worth of achingly ‘cool’ hipsters riding their fixie pieces of shit in traffic.

Could be up for this, what the date?

Maccruiskeen

Spot on, living standards are (generally) pretty good with most people having what they need (rather than what they want)….therefore demand (and by nature growth) will slow down….the rich find this hard to deal with but i’m with you…..shouldnt it now be celebrated that we have a situation whereby most people have a good standard of living and access to information?….i’m completely underwhelmed by advances in technology beyond what we’ve got now….beyond watching a bit of TV, making phone calls and browsing the internet (all of which can be done on one device now!) what else do i need from a consumerist point of view?

There needs to be a change in culture and perhaps quality of life/longevity/medical advances are what the government should focus its efforts on now….i’m a firm believer that a capitalist society will look after itself….for example if the population expands then demand is automatically created without government intervention and then growth occurs natually….with this growth and demand people go into business to supply and wealth is created, growth occurs etc etc…

Governments need to stop panicking over a lack of growth, it will inevitably ebb and flow depending on natural demand and population changes…if they arent getting the tax revenue they would like then they need to look at services they provide that can be cut back or abandoned altogether.

Quite simple really isnt it?

I think I’m correct in saying that Apple didn’t actually invent much of the technology present on their products, most of it existed in some form or another on other devices (notably the early smart phones from Nokia and Ericsson), what Apple did was integrate the functions into aesthetically pleasing products and make them user friendly. Much like the Japanese are famous for, very few original ideas but refined to the point of being perceived as the best.
Good businessman, but no different to Gates or that bloke who owns IKEA.

Let the failing banks fail. There wouldnt be the doomsday scenario they like to scare people with. This is business and the banks that are solvent (here or abroad) would move in and take over instead, should have happened last time and then maybe we’d have a healthy banking sector instead of a tax payer supported system.

So you dont think that the previous iphone having an 800Mhz processor and approx 500mb of RAM was the reason it lagged behind the 1Gh devices out there?….Youtube is full of videos showing browser comparisons between the iphone and its rivals and it is almost always slower in loading pages and browsing the internet….isnt this THE key function of a smart phone?

HTC and Samsung released 1.2Ghz twin core devices with 1Gb of RAM earlier in the year and the speed with which they work is superb….Apple respond with 1Ghz and 1Mb?….poor show….particularly with 1.5Ghz devices round the corner.

The holy grail for smart phones has surely got to be the kind of speeds that laptops are capable of?….Apple seem to want to focus on gimmicks like voice command instead.

(isnt the ‘new’ Apple A5 processor made by Samsung?!)

Pinch-to-zoom is an Apple patented gesture. I wonder how much Nexus pay to license it?

What about double-tapping on a column of text to zoom to the width of that text? Pretty sure that’s an Apple one too.

They may well be Apple patents but these features are no longer exclusive to the iphone, the fact is that other phones have these features and i dont personally pay to use it so i’m not concerned what it costs Samsung, HTC etc to license this innovation.

At one point an iphone was without question the best smart phone available….however everybody caught up with the range of 1Ghz mobiles that came out in 2010….i cant help but think the new iphone with only a 1Ghz processor is going to seem quite slow when compared to the 1.2Ghz items currently available from HTC and Samsung….and then there is the 1.5Ghz Nexus Prime later this month.

The Android phones with 1Ghz were already faster devices than the iphone in 2010….i cant help but think Apple dropped the ball by not giving the new iphone some more processing power.

Who was the last top performing downhiller on a hardtail?….when did the last of the hardtails stop being competitive downhill?

Serious question….i missed out on that era of the sport.

I cant resist rising to Apple bait!….i get irrationally pissed off when iphone users think their phone is the only smart phone that does anything useful!

I have a Nexus-S and showed a mate at work a photo of my motorbike when he asked what i rode….he took the phone and used the pinch-to-zoom-in-out technique on the screen and looked visibly shocked when it worked…he was previously under the impression that only iphones did this….same story with that Angry Birds game, i was sat at work playing it when one of my colleagues seemed genuinely confused that i wasnt using an iphone….i tried to explain that most apps are now available for both platforms but it didnt seem to sink in….

….this is what i find annoying, that Apple have done such a good job with their own marketing that the masses at large now think that if it isnt an iphone then it cant do anything the iphone does when in actual fact if you take the top phones from the top manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, Apple etc and test them all together there is actually very little difference.