I lost a lot of confidence after having a few fairly big offs. There was no major damage or anything but it was the regularity of them that was making me realise there was something fundamentally wrong with my riding. I traced it back to trying too hard on things like jumps and drops and as a result ending up totally out of shape leading to bad landings etc. I wound my riding right back, started going slower and working on technique and just worked it up from there. I’m a much better and faster rider now. Its also knowing when to call it a day as well. Nowadays i try avoid big technical descents if I’m knackered because I know its just going to end badly and end up ruining the ride for me.

One of my mates used to work on a farm and said a transit van of travelling chaps came into the yard one day and asked if they had any scrap, when told no and asked to leave they got out and started snooping round anyway. Eventually they got back in the van and noticed my mate noting down the reg of the van. The driver laughed and wound down his window and said theres another 5 plates under that one would he like to see them as well?!

C**ks

One of my colleagues races classic motorbikes and competed there last weekend. He said its just very flat only 4 corners but the patches that have been resurfaced (one on the apex of a corner) are about 1-2 inch proud so he had to adjust his line all weekend. Not sure if that will impact you or not! He also said the track cleaner they use was awful, spewing oil behind it making it pretty slippy in places. Don’t think he helped though when one of his bikes blew up!

Lindisfarne for me, the only exciting part of being dragged around Northumbria by my parents as a young lad

I remember martin Johnson talking about the and he said the reason he went for a pick and go after Dawsons break was because he knew JW was in the pocket and didn’t want anyone but Dawson passing it him. Hence giving Dawson time to get back on his feet and play the ball next phase. Pretty incredible moment one of those sports moments that you couldn’t have written. Like Man City’s title win in 2012.

I’m just happy to hear that I won’t be the only one getting the piss taken outta me for being endowed with an exceptionally large… nose.

I’m part of Andymc06’s group (Luke on the Norco)

See you all there :D

When we were renovating our house we were completely redoing the bathroom which had a frosted glass window into an old coal bunker next to the kitchen. Anyway, as me and the missus’ dad were working in there she was making brews and washing dishes in the kitchen. I’ll never forget the screaming and swearing that came out of such a normally well mannered mouth as I shoved a sledgehammer through the window about 8 ft from where she was stood.

That and the moment her mother decided it was safe to walk on the insulation we’d put under the floorboards, when the floorboards were still up. Left a hell of a bruise!

I was a fussy eater when i was younger and I still used to have to have my veg mashed until i was about 11 as it was the only way my parents could get me to eat them. I agree with Molgrips about the well cooked veg, and I still only eat veg if its cooked til its soft.

I only really started to become adventurous (for me) with food when I started going to friends/girlfriends for tea. Its a lot harder to refuse food when someone else’s parents have cooked it and so I used to force things down and discover that I actually quite liked certain things! It used to drive my parents mad when they found what I’d been eating at such and such a persons house because i’d never touch it at home.

In the end I just resorted to telling mum that the reason I ate them elswhere was because they were a better cook than her :D

2 weeks I think and it generally takes less than that to get a new one. That said it is cutting it fine.

Lost mine a fair few times now but haven’t bothered to replace it this time. Chances of desperately needing it ina short space of time are pretty slim and it doesn’t take that long for them to come when you reorder.

Warrior, when Tom Hardy has ripped the tendons/ligaments in his shoulder and he’s trying to fight on to win the money for his best friends widow and kid. And his brother’s reluctance to fight him… When he carries him out at the end i’m usually a blubbering wreck. Must have watched it about 5 times as well!

To my eternal shame, about 4 years ago, I once woke up at an exes house without remembering how i’d got there, she then informed me I’d driven. Even now i only remember glimpses of the journey, but what i do remember is back roads going about 15-20mph all the way (about 10 miles). I was 18 then and it was definately the kick up the backside I needed.

Now I’ll have no more than 2 and wait for at least an hour or two after the last drink before getting behind the wheel. Even then I definately pay more attention to my driving than I do normally, ie, i don’t let myself go into autopilot.

go on TV Golo.com for hundreds of goals better than Bale, some of them make Rooney’s look like something your fat mate attempted to do in the park when you were younger. Granted the majority of them are from minor leagues in South America etc.

Edit – I was behind that goal when RVP scored that volley, even as a Liverpool fan I had genuine goosebumps when he put that in. Unbelievable strike.

And I’m suing you under the trade descriptions act – “post op” my arse

You read it wrong, it said ‘Post Up My Arse”

We recently had one that basically involved filling in a 24 question survey a couple of weeks before. We were then given a full 17 page profile on ourselves, our strengths, weaknesses, how we communicate, what we respond to and vice versa. I went into it really skeptical and was amazed by this profile that they had built up as it was scarily true. We then spent the rest of the day looking at each of the different teams and the kinds of characters in them and through doing that learning hows best to effectively communicate with them.

In a team like ours with quite a variety of characters it was really useful to see the differences and seeing what others responded to.

I disagree with what Jon Edwards has said, most people can ‘get on’ and get the work done in a professional sense but that doesn’t mean that they’re working together efficiently or particularly effectively. I agree some awaydays are pointless and immediately forgotten, but, done correctly with the correct follow-up work done. They can be extremely effective in improving the teams productivity.

this was entirely at the discretion of the stopping officer and I’m not sure why he was feeling so lenient that evening, so it’s entirely plausible as a story.

this, a lad from the rugby club got pulled at 134 on the M6 in the middle of the night in his RS4. The police officer just gave him a stern talking to and said the only reason he pulled him over was because if he’d gone any quicker he’d not have been able to keep up with him, but given the time and conditions he felt he wasn’t driving “dangerously” and so let him off.

Oops, upside ya head i said oops upside ya head…

They have been doing the same for rugby for a few years, selling a cheaper “stadium” shirt which doesn’t have the technical materials of the pro kit. I think before the last rugby world cup, it was about the same price as well.

they’ve been doing this since the 2003 shirt, there were the normal l, more traditional ones, then the tight ‘players’ shirt at about 80-90quid Since then you now have one in between as well.

can kind of see the point in rugby as there’s the traditional cotton jersey and the synthetic material of the playing shirts. But surely in football there isn’t a vast difference between the synthetic supporters shirt and the also synthetic players shirt? If you want it tight like the players buy a size smaller! Will look well on the average beer gutted football fan!

On the STW theme how about “Bomber Pursues” my thinking being if you say pursues quick enough it sounds like piss shoes. Both of which seem to be a recommended form of retribution around these parts.

I dislocated mine in 2012 and was told that it will most likely happen again. I was out of rugby for about 4 months and still strap it now. Tbh the dislocation isn’t the thing to be worried about its other damage. When i did mine i tore my cartilage and my acl. Which was only picked up on in october when they did an observation op, apparently my acl was hanging on by a thread but it was an old injury as there was a lot of scar tissue.

XL Norco sight for me at 6’4″. Really comfy bike. A vast improvement on the XS Norco i had before!

I had to do Sage training as part of my Accounting qualifications. Was very easy to use and despite not using it at work, I seemed to be able to come back to it sporadically without having to refamiliarise myself too much.

I assume that the fact its on the course means it must be fairly widely used in the accounting profession and thats usually a good sign.

Having said that, I’ve never realy had to use it in anger in the real world so there might be stuff i’ve not come across that would cause you issues.

We did a waterbased system in our bathroom. it runs off the central heating and as people have said it can take a while to warm up but then it stays plently warm for a while after its gone off too. We didn’t build the floor up though, we just routed out a switchback pattern into 22mm thick chipboard flooring, ran 10mm pipe round that was connected to the central heating, put a valve in to release air if need be (hid this under a floating wall/sink unit)and then put insulation under the floorboards to stop too much heat escaping under the floor and tiled as normal. Works fine for us and cost us about 60-70 quid in materials as we added in a few extra joists to support the slightly weakend chipboard flooring.

I’ve got pics somewhere i’ll root them out if need be?

+1 for the slammin Sam documentary, really good.

having watched some of his tries i think he’ll do alright, for all his size and power he is quite agile and steps out of a lot of tackles. His determination to get over the gain line/try line is pretty scary! He just shrugs people off!

still think he’s left it a bit late though. If he wanted to play in the world cup he should have come now and gone back to league a season earlier if theyre his plans.

Well its fairly clear that he wants to compare himself to SBW and even he took about 3 years to really get a grasp of Union. I can’t help but think Sam has left it a little late, he doesn’t come over until October, so he’s not going to be ready for the AI’s. 6 nations are going to be a huge push, and then he’s only got til the summer really to make his mark. Having said that, I think Lancaster will have him in the EPS for all of that just so he can see how he’s developing first hand.

As said above though the prospect of Sam breaking the line and then offloading to Tuilagi running at a scrambling defence is going to cause some defensive headaches for opponents.

On the other hand I think SL has learnt his lesson recently that having two crash and bash centres doesn’t offer as much as a ball handling 12. So it could be him and Tuilagi fighting for one place. Not a bad dilemma to have as not many weary defences would want to see either one of them taking off their tracksuit and warming up.

In fairness I don’t think many will be bigger than him! Be interesting to see how he copes with the smaller steppy players running at/round him. In league he seems to just deal with the big fellas just running straight at him (and deals with them very well!!) whereas in union he’ll have to deal more with the more agile runners.

A hell of an athlete though, I can’t wait to see him in action.

Either that or the clandestine car-park rendez-vous with the quick cash/parts swappery and niggling feeling you might be about to bundled into a van and kidnapped, only to find the most smiling and friendly person you could ever hope to meet!

Haha, this has just reminded me of meeting a guy at a service station to pick up a Nomad frame for my brother on the way down to his. He turned up in a blacked out Navara and we immediately thought ‘Oh god, what are we dealing with’ then out steps this ridiculously good looking surfer dude. One of the nicest guys I’d met. Handed the frame straight over with everything as promised and wished us well on our way… I still see his pearly white smile when close my eyes to sleep sometimes…

I did this with my SLX mech at Xmas. Just replaced the old triple crankset with the new double and wound in the HI screw on the mech. Works fine. This is a 2013 bike and running gear as well.

What’s a sentance?

I cracked my norco back in summer and so took it to the Trafford store that I’d got it from (30mls away) to speak about a warranty replacement. Staff in the shop were really friendly and told me it was likely to take a few weeks which I was fine with as I was injured anyway. They said they’d keep me updated. After I’d heard nothing for 3 weeks I rang them up to see where it was up to. Unfortunately, the guy who deals with warranty repairs wasn’t in but they’d get him to give me a ring. A week later I’d still not heard anything so rang again and managed to speak to the guy dealing with it. He said due to an import problem it was taking a while to get through customs but he’d let me know as soon as it was in. Again, fine with that as it was out of their hands. However, another two weeks of me ringing for updates and being told he’ll ring me back passed (with no return calls). Eventually I got the email through to say my bike was built up and ready to collect. So that afternoon I went in to collect only to be told that as I’d buckled one of my wheels they were just going to true it so could I come back tomorrow? Well, no not really I’ve been waiting for 6 weeks for this, I’m not leaving without my new bike! To be fair they then pulled out all the stops to help me and I ended up walked out with a brand new 2013 Sight 1 with the xt wheelset, to replace my 2012 Sight 3. Happy as Larry!

The main issue for me was the lack of communication, every time they said they’d let the guy know to ring me back and they never did. Fantastic in the shop but a pain to deal with at distance. I think if I’d been fit and able to ride I’d have been a lot more pi$$ed off because it was 6 weeks of my summer riding wasted.

Red pancake 8O

In fairness i tend to speed probably more than i should, but i never have an issue with people doing the speed limit. Its the people who trundle along at 20-30mph in 40-50 zones that are my biggest bugbear. If there’s no reason not to do the speed limit then why don’t they do it?! That’s what leads to stupid overtakes in my experience and that’s when the danger element kicks in.

Awaits angry mob and pitchforks :D

But please don’t try and make out that they’ll be mixing with some broad cross-section of society, because they won’t.

Not necessarily, I went to a school most would consider posh but had a huge range of people. From sons of people in the Forbes richest list, to people who had their school dinners paid for them and wore second hand blazers. The rich kids didn’t keep themselves to themselves and the poor kids didn’t either. One of my closest friends boarded because his single mum (shock horror) didn’t want him to go to the local comp (which was dire). So whilst he was living during the week with sons of millionaires etc, he was spending his weekend in a two up two down terraced house in one of the roughest areas of Preston.

This all boils down people wanting what is best for their kids. You have no right to chastise people for that. Some people I don’t think are particularly bothered where their kids go but others, like my mates mum, worked hard to put him in the best place she could so she didn’t have to live a life like her. It also brings a better appreciation from the kids as they can see how hard their parents have worked to put them where they are.

I think its like anything, you only get out what you put in. I went to a selective, all boys state school with a fantastic reputation and to be honest i squandered it. However, although academically i maybe didn’t do as well as i should have done, i had some pretty spectacular experiences. From rugby tours to Japan, Hong Kong and Australia to geography trips to Iceland. All things that wouldn’t have been possible at the local comp (and a lot of private schools as well tbh).

when i have kids im going to leave the decision of school completely up to them.

I witnessed a similar level of obliviousness on Saturday on the 61… This person was in lane 2 doing 60 or so with a completely clear lane 1. Wouldn’t have been too much of an issue if they had been doing 70 but as they were so much slower that the rest of the traffic it led to a bottleneck in lane 3. It seemed everyone who went past made a big point of then moving across the 3 lanes then to try and hint to them but they were in their own little world. Hugely frustrating mainly because there’s just no need for it! People now just seem to switch off on the motorway and go into autopilot.

It’s terms of attractive bikers Hannah Barnes (mtb) is far superior IMO.

having said that apparently Victoria presented the awards at work a few years ago and had all the men enchanted. There weren’t even any crass comments (at the time)

CG – The gf experienced something similar when her grandfather died. I forget the ins and outs of it but basically he died a week after he received his first pension payment. The DWP then tried to claim back the month stating that he had not had full use of it and was therefore not entitled to it. There were also other issues but the lack of compassion shown was deplorable, it took over a year to sort out, a year when everyone involved wanted to move on with thier lives.

This is someone who had worked solidly for 40years paying all his taxes etc. to then have someone at the end of the phone telling his children he wasn’t entitled to one months worth pension was infuriating! :evil:

I have it but it’s one of those things I kind of forget about , but then once I’ve noticed it it drives me crazy! And now reading this has made me notice it even more, such a numpty reading this before I go to sleep :evil:

Love Raikonnen’s explanation for using 7 haha. :lol:

it’s the number I already had last year and I saw no reason to change it