Richard Hammond. Cowardly, ignorant, pathetic, whiny, charisma vacuum of a human being.

My grandfathers last conversation with me before he passed away always stuck in my mind for many reasons but mainly because he took the opportunity to share his philosophy on life. Knowing that I am someone who is guilty of over thinking and over analysing he pointed out that the future and past don’t exist, the future is just a concept and the past is just memory and therefore you should only live in the here and now. You can’t change the past so regretting it is futile. Nothing to be gained from regret.

I’m riding down rangers on Friday. I’ll let you folks know how it is, regarding the new additions, when I return.

All the things I wanted to do, but didn’t
None of the things I did, even the ones that didn’t work out

It is a cliche, but when I really think about , I have done many things which ended up being bad decisions or choices but the only ones I regret are the ones I just didn’t act on at all. The things I considered doing but didn’t are what I regret because I’ll never know how they would have turned out. Where as the decisions I made and followed through that then went wrong… I know what the outcome was and I can live with those choices, I don’t regret them.

A pastime that was relatively affordable has, over the past five or six years become the target of cynical price hiking and opportunism.
Cycling HAD a universal appeal – that is now being lost as the industry dissappears up it’s own arse in a rush to separate the fashionable from their cash

Couldn’t agree more. I’ve just bought a new bike today (in a sale with 45% off). The last time I bought a new bike was just under 3 years ago. They are similar in terms of their targeted use, frame weight etc but the spec of my old bike which I bought at full price, cost almost the same price as the new bike with 45% off yet actually has a higher spec. That’s just in 3 years, so when I started looking for a new bike I almost immediately felt utterly disenfranchised with the sport and it’s pretty obvious that we are, by the industry as a whole, being taken for one big ride.

Mountain biking shouldn’t be elitist in anyway but the industry is doing its bloody hardest to make it that way.

Yeah, that United bike is a real bargain. I’d get that myself if I was after a new one.

Ask them if they want to take her collection of sex toys.

What sort of budget?

I don’t think finances are the be-all and end-all for whether you can do mountain biking or not. Everyone seems to indicate it’s too expensive for all but decent earners. I don’t buy that at all. I’d suggest that the reason mountain biking has become the bastion of the middle classes is more due to the value people place on certain things. As someone said, if you have an iPhone or a full on sky subscription etc then you could afford to get yourself on a mountain bike.

I’m not well off by an stretch of the imagination but I place a very high value on being outdoors, riding a bike so I sacrifice the things that most folk have. I have a 20 quid pay as you go phone. I don’t have sky, I don’t even have a TV licence (don’t watch TV before any has a go), we have a 9 year old car between us and our holidays are weekend trips in the UK to go riding or kayaking. Our house is made up of furniture we have bought second hand and refurbished and we live without anything other than absolute essentials but the money we have is spent on doing the stuff we want to do, which means we both have decent bikes, riding gear, kayaks and camping gear. We also don’t live anywhere near decent trails or mountains so we have to travel.

I just think it’s about the values you have. Horses for courses. But I struggle to see mountain biking isn’t accessible to anyone that places a high value on it.

It will state on your tenancy agreement if you are allowed to give notice during the fixed term period. If it doesn’t then you are liable for the payment of rent for the entire period of your agreement.

Met in Sweden on a Uni trip in 1999. She was planning to come and study in the UK the following year. I was smitten and said that I could ‘show her the sites’ when she arrived, exchanged numbers but never thought I would see her again. 9 months later she called me and said in broken English “I’ve just arrived in London…. Can you meet me?”. I did and 10 years later we got married.

You’re watching the wrong films?

I was listening to an old mark kermode podcast not so long ago. They were discussing audio levels in many movies (Hollywood) being incorrect on DVD and blurays causing dialogue to become both distorted and drowned by sound effects/incidental music etc. It was from a podcast dating back to 2010 I think and they had a few film producers being interviewed about the issue.

Certainly I find with some of my DVDs that the sound effects are painfully loud but dialogue is barely audible.

Did it at sunset – can imagine sunrise being equally as good

sunset

Wow! What a photo.

Setting off at 4 from Llanberis would get you to the top between 6 & 7. I’d leave it an hour or so you get up there about 7.30, 8.00 ish. Any earlier and you’ll be descending in 1/2 light and it’s miserable up there at the best of times (never seen a view from the top). Rangers is way more fun than the Llanberis, bags or no bags. It’ll still take you less than 1/2 an hour to get down though!

Cheers Jon. I’m going with my other half who, although is a competent enough rider, might find very technical descents intimidating. She did the red DH at Nevis Range happily enough. How would Rangers/Llanberis compare?

…. Actually might go up and then down llanberis? At least I can sight the run down on the way up…. Sort of.

Do wish the White family were a bit less irritating though, so far all the Skylar and Junior stuff just feels like a distraction.

It doesn’t stay that way. Stick with it. 😉

ndeed, which is why they are currently filming a Saul Goodman based prequel

Yep, should be great. So many characters in BB could potentially have their own spin off series…. Most of the characters in fact.

We were planning to go this Friday evening. Get there late (midnightish) get a few hours kip in the car and set off at about 4ish. Have a cuppa up top, watch sunrise, then back down Rangers.

Not done it before. As a plan does that sound the best approach?

The slightly twisted point of breaking bad was that you weren’t meant to like the characters or what they did but you still rooted for them. It’s a fascinating series in that respect.

why has the horse got a rider and the bicycle not?

These new fangled,modern mountain bikes practically ride themselves. Never had it so good.

Placed in order of priority and importance too.

Like some who’ve already posted… I’m a coaster/drifter. I started out after leaving school with high hopes. Went to College then Uni but had no real direction even then. I’ve done a bit of this, a bit of that and now at 31 I occasionally look back and think I’ve done it wrong. But the truth is that so far I’ve enjoyed my life. I’ve been largely happy and have done the things I wanted to do and ultimately drifting around was still my choice. If I looked back and thought I’d been utterly miserable and done nothing I wanted to do then yeah, I’d be pretty upset about it.

You only have yourself to answer to ultimately so it’s important not to let the expectations of others get in the way of your own desires.

That made me laugh quite loudly. Excellent.

Exactly as Northwind says, it sounds like you are saying that doing the whole rat race, financial stability thing isn’t what you really want, rather what is expected or deemed normal. You seem to be more or less doing what you want to do already. It just needs a bit of reinvigorating.

Sounds like you have things pretty good in all honesty, embrace it and tweek it to make it exactly how you want.

Hear, hear!

+1 😀

Not much fun having to clean that up.

The frustrated dads are getting a bit carried away, ” re read this” , ” remember that” .

Before you could make any kind of worthwhile judgement you would need to hear from the cyclist, until then the OP’s first line strongly indicates he hasn’t got a clue (sorry) what he’s on about.

For that reason. I’m out.

Interestingly all of your posts in this thread so far seem to indicate you haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.

It’s a show which often displays a surprising level of talent and is very popular with the masses, but is sneered at by pretentious insecure middle-class snobs. Often it is contemptuously dismissed by people who have never seen, who aren’t sure what it’s about, or why they don’t like it. HTH

Orrrrrrr it’s exploitative television designed to both mock and sneer at people with little singing ability and place people with singing ability on an almighty well marketed pedestal whilst simultaneously making a mockery of an entire industry all in the interest of lining the pockets of one hideous, bloated man.

Mayonnaise?

I’m amazed.

Other than the cosmetic issue with the crack how have those who’ve bought one found them so far? I’m looking at the team CX Possibly but wondered how they stack up generally? Was initially looking at the Planet X but could be tempted by the boardman.

Well, I borrowed a friends CX bike this weekend to see if it was definitely a worthwhile investment for me. For various reasons I couldn’t get out on it yesterday while the sun was shining so had to force myself out in the pouring, relentless rain today.

Had a bloody great time. Got myself waterproofed up as best as I could, set out on road for about 7 miles to my local woods (fairly flat and muddy) and spent 2 hours blasting round, getting plastered in mud, soaked through to the bone and generally grinning from ear to ear during every sketchy moment that I nearly piled head first into a muddy puddle. Back home on road covered from head to toe in mud with folk looking at me like I was some sort of crazy swamp monster. Fantastic morning.

Sadly I now have to clean my mates bikes before he picks it up tonight.

In a bit more detail…. It’s a very cheap, very badly directed, very poorly acted, edited on iMovie, straight to DVD (car boot sale) sort of thing.

It was on LoveFilm when I watched it. I wish I hadn’t.

Yes, thats correct MrSmith. Who wears trousers in your house? Car is for a real man. If you hear a lady complaining and moaning about driving there is simple answer -driving is for men.

Can I help you with your Neanderthal scribblings?

Yes, that is correct MrSmith. Who wears the trousers in your house? The Car is for a real man. If you hear a lady complaining and moaning about driving there is a simple answer -driving is for men. Ugh.

It’s funny the reactions people give me now because rather than explaining that I don’t personally have a car but my wife has a car etc I just usually say ‘I don’t drive’. The looks of horror I get! I immediately become an outcast. When I lived in the city it was perfectly acceptable with people, but living in the countryside and being a none driver is almost the worst thing you can be….. Apart from being a different ethnicity of course.

Athgray…Heroes in a half-shell, on a mission, when there’s a battle got the enemies wishin’ that they’d stayed at home instead of fighting, these ninja turtles that move like lightening

Woah woah woah. It’s ‘these ninja masters with moves like lightening’.

Compensation for the loss of fun and enjoyment? How much you hoping to claw back?

I have. We have a car in the family but wife uses it almost exclusively. She uses it for her substantial commute in the week. I manage by bike or public transport. It’s tough as we live in a market town bang in the middle of nothing so public transport is very poor.

I cope and I don’t want my car back. But we would find life near impossible without one car between us.

The kings of summer
Sightseers
Rush

It is pap. You made a wise choice.