That was me.

Linky[/url] to the original comic on XKCD.

Apparently you used to be able to beat them by changing lanes, but they've fixed that now.

That's what I read on te interwebz, anyway.

Thank gawd – I think we have finally found something that everyone can agree on.

Yay!

To celebrate, here's another classic XKCD.

If this is some sort of trick question then…

Pedestrians killed by cyclist on pavement: 9
Pedestrians killed by motor vehicle on pavement: 3885

Probably fair to assume that all the cyclists were on the pavement intentionally, but most of the motor vehicles weren't.

do you have mud down there?

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I saw a documentary once about terrorists at an airport… there was a big shootout and lots of innocent bystanders were killed, and then there were some explosions, and then the bad guys took off in a 747, except some bloke in a vest unscrewed the fuel cap and lit the trail of fuel with a cigarette and the 747 blew up in mid-air.

At least, I think it was a documentary :wink:

Yup, not a problem so long as you're discreet.

A lap of the Ennerdale skyline might fit the bill – start/finish at Ennerdale Bridge, along the Red Pike / High Stile ridge, bivvy at Gillercombe Head or on top of Gable or Kirk Fell, back over Pillar.

Or does it have to be circular? The Old Counties tops (Helvellyn, Scafell Pike, Coniston Old Man) make a fine expedition – you can get the bus from Windermere to Patterdale to start with, then back from Coniston to Windermere at the end.

Just googled to find out some more about your field, looks like some rather cool stuff at an interesting stage of development…

The diagram is just there to make clear the labelling of angles, wave vector components etc. as used in the text.

Total internal reflection is a special case of refraction. To derive the formulae for internal reflection you start with refraction, and then show the existence of the critical angle, which is what they do in the text. So it makes sense to define variables that way – it's just confusing they put the diagram near the end of that section of text instead of at the top, as if it showed the result of their derivation rather than the starting point.

The NT do have a lot of Lakes car parks, but so do the National Park authority and the Forestry (Grizedale etc).

You probably won't make back £40 in three days but there are plenty of other areas around the country with handy NT carparks, eg the Devon and Cornwall coasts, so it could well be a good annual investment.

Dont get too smug. The inevitable oops-forgot-to-unclip-too-late-fall-over-sideways will take place at the most embarrassing possible moment. Either outside your house with the neighbours watching, or at a red light in front of a long line of waiting traffic.

Happens to everyone :-)

170mm if you're short and/or a spinner.
175mm if you're tall and/or a masher.

One of each if you're SFB.

Boat trip to see the puffins on Skomer if that's your sort of thing?

Or there's a boat company at Solva who'll take you sea fishing for mackerel, though when we went out the boat was followed by a clued-up seal who stole the fish off the hooks before we could reel them in…!

The coast path along the Newgale – Solva – St Davids – Whitesands Bay stretch is all very scenic along the clifftops, there's a bus service along the main road so you can do one-way walks easily enough.

Can hire surfboards/bodyboards and wetsuits at Newgale sands & (probably) Whitesands bay.

The Sloop Inn in Porthgain is a good place to watch the sun set over a pint :-)

Stick with it TJ! You know it's worth it.

Gotta say, it's very kind of them to organise the Vulcan specially for my birthday :D

although we won that battle, the English lost the war.

To be fair, Henry V was all set to be crowned King of France, under the Treaty of Troyes, until he made the unfortunate mistake of dying from dysentery.

Can look rather good on the right bike…

Wrong kind of jetstream innit…

The map link shows an area further north than you meant, I think.

Upper Eskdale is a wonderful atmospheric place – one of the most remote feeling spots in the Lakes.

Used to walk over from Cockley Beck through Mosedale to climb on Esk Buttress or Scafell – in fact I was up there again a few weeks ago for a walk/jog around the Scafells, Esk Pike and Bowfell & back down off Little Stand where I met the Duddon fell race coming up :-)

[tedious one-up mode]

Saw them play in a (largish) pub 8) in Melbourne, 1990

[/tedious one-up mode]

Always wished I'd seen Husker Du before they split…

If the borrower deposits the £8 back in Bank A, then the Bank A can lend another £8 to another borrower (as long as total lending based on that class of deposits does not exceed 80%). Net Assets = £10 – £8 + £8 – £8 = Net Assets of +£2.

borrower 1 owes the bank £8
borrower 2 owes the bank £8
total owed to the bank = £16

If the borrower deposits the £8 in Bank B, then Bank B can lend 80% of it, or £6.40. Net Assets = £8 – 6.40 = +£1.60. And Net assets in the system = £10 – £8 + £8 – £6.40 = +£3.60.

borrower 1 owes the bank £8
borrower 2 owes the bank £6.40
total owed to the bank = £14.40

The total amount owed is never greater than 80% of the total amount deposited.

Sure, but that's not 80% of the initial £10 but 80% of the total amount deposited, £18, in which some of the original £10 has been counted twice due to being lent out and then re-deposited.

Well of course the money lent out won't all end up back in deposit accounts. Some (after being spent) goes to servicing other debts, some more ends up under a mattress somewhere. But the rest has to be deposited or invested in some sort of instrument or institution from where it'll inevitably get recycled…

shells and goats

Dunno about that, but I've got a fortune locked up in Flainian pobble beads, know anywhere I can exchange them? :wink:

person 1 deposits £10
person 2 borrows £9

Collectively they now have £19 where there was previously only £10.

person 2 pays that £9 to person 4, who deposits it.

person 5 borrows £8.10, and pays it to person 6, who deposits it.

person 7 borrows £7.29, and pays it to person 8, who deposits it.

person 9 borrows £6.56, …

…and so on.

Collectively the depositors now have (almost) £100.

Thus is the magic of banking.

Definitely not my eyes! the one I drove was a company pool car, I had my own car (405 estate at the time) for comparison.

Unless they've improved them since – that was an '01 Focus, or thereabouts.

Which ever you go for get the quick clear windscreen, its fantastic on winter mornings.

Be aware some people (eg. me) hate these for driving at night as they generate a fuzzy halo effect around oncoming lights etc.

Then again, not everybody seems to be bothered by this.

What anc said, a "join the dots" ride from Ambleside connecting the various BW's over Loughrigg, Claife, Grizedale, Iron Keld, Tilberthwaite. Gives you (a) plenty of options for cafe/pub stops and (b) easy to extend or cut short depending how the weather turns out.

Sample GPS trace here but not hard to spot other options on the 1:25000 SE Lakes sheet.

must see places on the isle ?

…the Laphroaig distillery…
…the Lagavulin distillery…
…the Bruichladdich distillery…
…the Bunnahabhain distillery…
…the Ardbeg distillery…
…etc etc

:D

Our group above Hayeswater (me on the left):

SFB and the bogtrotters are somewhere in the background, coming up!

For the full-length version I always go northwards – much better value overall.

The other way, going up Loadpot and then south to High Street would be a long grind. Dropping off Thornthwaite Beacon into Troutbeck is a fun descent but I’d rather push/carry up it for 45 minutes then get the full benefit for the next few hours.

Also, you wouldn’t want to miss the fast descent from Arthur’s Pike towards The Cockpit and then doubling back down to Howtown – it’s one of the best bits of the long ride.

GPS trace here if you’re interested.

MS, maybe the crash replacement was offered because it was crash damage.

Shuld have bought carbon…

…because carbon frames don’t break? :roll:

Yep, belatedly spotted the photo timestamps, we were there around midday. We were staying at Sykeside & went up the Kirkstone at 9am so the traffic was still light. Actually it made a change doing it first off – when I used to live in Ambleside it was the sting in the tail to get home!

Glad to find the slices of ginger cake at Side Farm cafe are still the size of paving slabs :-)

You were up there on Saturday? We were out as well doing the full length Troutbeck-to-Loadpot version… what time were you at the Beacon? Can’t have missed you by much. Somehow we dodged the showers and caught the sunshine – at the end we got back to Brotherswater thirty seconds before it chucked down :-)

Sounds like a self-extracting system – undo the inner bolt with the outer “ring” in place to pull the crank off the splines?

The usual growing-up bikes, Raleigh racers etc. for riding to school & around locally all the time (when not falling out of trees).

Went to live in Ambleside early 90’s as a climber mainly. It rains now and again in the Lakes (!) so needed something else for wet days. Got a pearly white Courier and did long solo rides over the fells, High Street & Helvellyn, bendy boots & no helmet, proper old skool.

Had the Courier welded back together a couple times and then upgraded to a grey Ridgeback, ex-hire stock from Biketreks (thanks Andy!) still fully rigid (oh my poor shoulders) and pretty much wore it out completely in about eighteen months.

Moved to Cambridge in 1999, put slicks on for commuting, went to Thetford a few times, but mainly did epic drives north for climbing trips. In winter 2000/2001 had eleven ice-climbing weekends in Scotland between January and April. Similar story the year after. Then got sore knees for a couple of years (duh).

Moved on to the west country and found carefully measured doses of cycling helped sort my knees out. A colleague at work had just started riding around the Mendips & had instituted the Shipham Thursday night group. Yay!

Also, in the intervening time since I was riding in the Lakes, forks & suspension that actually worked had been invented. Double yay!

Also, somewhere along the way I picked up a taste for Ti hardtails. Expensive yay?

Learnt to ride this southern twisty woodsy rooty singletrack stuff, bit different from banging out the miles over rocky fellsides. Got to know and love Ashton Court & Leigh Woods, the Quantocks, North Downs, and these newfangled trailcentre places.

Pushed harder technically, got a Five (wheels off the ground yay!) and discovered how much more it hurts when you fall off going that much faster. Three months off last summer as a result. So this year I’m focussing less on hooliganism and more on fitness (or at least slowing its decline…) Even started thinking about proper road bikes again.

This weekend completes the circle (in a small way) – going up to the Lakes with a bunch of Mendip locals to show ’em some proper mountains – the full length High Street ride, of course. :-)

Manitou <=========== there’s the problem.

Sounds more like a damping issue (ie lack of it) than spring rate.

Unlikely to be worth spending much time/money/effort on unfortunately.

Ah well yes, tyres…

[quietly shuts shed door to hide contents]

[whistles nonchalantly]

150k a week

That’s a lot to spend on chains…

:wink:

Mid Somerset: scorching. Not envying the thousands of Glasto refugees heading back home up the A37 this afternoon.