Really can’t fault the Burly Bee with baby snug, snug was cast aside from 18 months on… boy was in it from about 9 months (compromise with wife over 6 mths vs 1 year).

+ Wales Coast to Coast ont’ MTB
+ First ever podium at Bristol Oktoberfest
+ averaging 4 rides a week for the year
– The weather
– Burnout/lost mojo in the spring

take time for views

On verderers and freeminers? You need to get out more!

And you where surprised ??

To be fair, QOTSA are no way near as good on album as they turned out to be live, so yes I was!

Smashing Pumpkins! (I’m clearly born of a different era to most of STW, but I’m right!) Edit: I do wish they’d stop releasing awful new stuff though, weakens my argument a lot!

Also, Foo Fighters died for me the day I saw them get blown away by Queens of the Stoneage live in Hyde Park, not even that big a Queens fan but they were amazing and I could have happily left in the middle of the Foos.

15 front 20 rear on tubeless Hans Dampfs on a wide 29er rim. 75kg rider.

I had the same problem for ages, tried most of the above. In the end I started using Driclor antiperspirant instead – was a bit of a desperate measure but seemed to work. Stopped the t-shirts activating as I simply wasn’t sweating in the pits anymore and not had any problems since.

Amazing stuff if you can figure out how to use with without getting burning pits of death!

Gee, someone like you will struggle to spend a full day there unless you get a nice quick guide to take you on the natural stuff.

It’s great up there but in terms of amount, Verderers is basically Ashton Court with some gradient, maybe a bit longer. And the Freeminers red is a bit longer than Leigh Woods in Bristol, bit more natural, but with potential for bog.

It’s great up there, don’t get me wrong, but I tend to have to add in a few DH runs as even two laps of Verderers and Freeminers isn’t enough for a day out tbh.

Do you need one, no.

Will you struggle to go back to a cropped sensor once you’ve used full frame, yes.

The high ISO performance on something like a 5D means I can get shots where I wouldn’t even bother getting my 550D out.

That said, I’ve been on the cheaper Canon’s ever since they brought out the 300D and still have shots that I consider keepers from that very first body. But the 5D I have at work is something else, but then it’s easy to justify one when it’s for commercial use.

Size is a good point. I do a lot of DSLR video (more than stills in fact), and when I’m out riding and filming, I don’t even entertain taking the 5D due to its size.

Curve ball time but Bontrager 29-1…

They can get a bit repetitive but they’ve also resulted in me selling my roadbike in the middle of the wettest year in my lifetime. They’re a god send if you want to keep fit and don’t want to ride on the road. You’re right though, they’re ace and we’re genuinely spoilt by them tbh!

I even bundle them into my commute most days :D

Also I think the USA has a higher rate of Alcohol related deaths than the UK too, not sure how much Scotland would be on it’s own though…

How is it sickening?

Gun deaths per 100,000 2011

Brazil: 19.01
USA: 10.2

So Brazil might have double the rate, but then:

UK: 0.25
Chilie: 0.06
Ireland: 1

and

Mexico: 11.14

Still think the USA’s rate isn’t sickening?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

DIe hard Osprey Raptor user here.

Crossmarks are a decent bet.

I’m particularly thinking of Gran Turismo 5 for this.

Jesus, GT5 was brutal for that. Assuming car changes were needed, I always found myself lucky if I could get through more than three races an hour once you got past the easy 2-3 lappers just because of load times.

Also GT5, the bloody long boring races. I’m not even talking about the endurance ones, but 15-20 lap ones. The difficulty rarely goes up so it’s just 1 lap of racing followed by 14 cruising to victory. Something’s wrong when you’re near the end of the game but you’re under car-ing yourself drastically or giving them a headstart.

Oh and GT5’s inconsistent time penalty for bumping AI cars (online fair enough) but feels a bit game policing and when you’re pushing the limits on one of those rare difficult races and you misjudge and tap the car in front, it’s bloody annoying as the tap has already cost you anyway.

GT5 was sh*t btw.

I have phoned 999 once before though, aged 28 and genuinely convinced I was having a heart attack. The scary part was leaving it so long because it seemed too ridiculous. Was actually pericarditis in the end, spent 3 nights on a ward Tramadolled up and a further 3 months with bad PVF… not a good time in my life in all honesty.

Felt bad for the guy in the bed next to me who looked like he could be the heart attack sort (right age and lifestyle) but ended up having bad indigestion.

If in doubt ring 101, they’ll put you straight through if 999 would have been warranted anyway…

I’ve been on the Jury for an inquest… at least half the jury were openly prepared to say what they needed to say to keep it short.

Lost my faith in the legal system somewhat after that experience.

Germany could have won the war if they’d just started exporting Stollen by the truck load… we’d have all been too fat to fight!

If it’s just email, I’d go 123reg to buy just the domain, and then follow their guide to pointing the MX record (the emaily bit of the domain) to google and running your email out of google apps…

I tend to buy domains through 123reg, put my email through google, and host websites on media temple’s grid server hosting. The only thing 123reg invoices me for is the domain renewal itself.

123reg – I work in ‘web’ and I’m often having to try and deal with people’s domains on their behalf. 123reg is by far the easiest and most pain free to deal with that I’ve come across, and gives you proper control.

the vet has filled the container with memories and woofs

Nailed it!

Sounds like you handled it well though. Kids that age can be pretty ‘deep’, the cold shoulder I get when working late a lot is quite painful to endure.

I find a proper, full and fun weekend helps. Just book in loads of cool stuff and be proper close knit for a weekend and you’ll be great!

Edit: also, really sorry about the dog :(

That said, my old man was a legend and dragging presents out for hours, with the just the right balance between foaming-at-the-mouth suspense and actually getting on with it :)

My boy’s only two so he’s only half getting what’s going on this year.

I remember one year my Dad stopping half down the stairs to tie his laces (we weren’t allowed to go downstairs in front of him in case Santa hadn’t finished). When me and my brother realised he didn’t even have shoes on I reckon we were this close to pushing him down the rest.

Presents in the afternoon is mental!

Bristol will be much less filthy than FOD… it might be man made but it’s been so wet and there’s so much traffic up there, we got pretty plastered the other weekend. Bristol will be really clean if it stays dry as forecast tomorrow onwards.

I’d still do Cwmcarn though.

Edit: oh it’s going to be really wet Monday now. Bristol will still be relative clean to ride.

Yeah, he’ll be able to trundle around in the mid top 10 all season thinking that,

If he’d averaged 5th all season long he’d have scored 10 more points than he actually did this year…

Gyro and Rumblefish…

I can vouch for Bontrager (wheels and tyres as a system) Tubeless Ready being very good.

Schwalbes in (snakeskin versions anyway) tubeless ready have been superb on American Classic rims.

Due to a frozen valve cap last week I accidentally removed the valve core trail side when trying to let the pressures down a bit. I then stupidly unseated the tyre by accident moving the bike off the trail. Slightly panicing I was amazed that I managed to get it reseated and sealed with a tiny burst of CO2 and then finished with my mini pump.

I’ve got away with 10 psi in the front on the HD doing FOD downhill in the mud/wet. Did the usual trail side “I’ll let a bit out” and realised how low I’d actually been running them when I got home!

i run High-Roller 2’s front and rear on 40 PSI each!

How much do you weight? I’m 75kgs and I’d be pin-balling off of every rock and root, and washing out everywhere at those pressures!

I also run them fairly hard (30 psi front, 35 psi rear) as I’m paranoid about tyres burping at low pressure

Yikes, I’m like 18 front, 20 rear! And yeah, with those leathery sidewalls I find they don’t really give up all their available grip properly unless you go properly low pressure.

Yep, maps was the only issue and now solved by Google…

Good to hear I’m not alone on rating these… yes the rear is a bit draggy but grip wise they’re so addictive that I can’t bring myself to take them off, I’ve simply accepted a case of MTFU and just got fitter…

Oh and as a tubeless option, how easy? My track pump is awful and even then they started to hold air after a single pump and properly sealed on the second!

HD fine in a Fox Float…

For a car brand MTB that’s way closer to rideable and decent than any have achieved before. It’s a alu horst-link susser with Fox, DT Swiss, SRAM, Avid etc on it. As long as it’s under £2.5k and the geometry actually works, it won’t be all that bad!

not tried them in deep mud (which is apparently their Achilles heel but I generally avoid deep mud anyhow…)

For an ‘allrounder’ it’s remarkably good in mud actually. As long as you remember “it’s not a mud tyre” then it’s really rather good!

Silly easy to run tubeless as well, very tough, running the front at about 12 PSI and the grip level is nuts!

I guess I can only answer this in terms of ‘for me’…

Zelda: Ocarina of time. The N64 in general made 3D gaming looking really credible on a console but Ocarina of Time took it to a new level. Final Fantasy might have felt big but it was all a bunch of pre-renders. This felt big, I mean you needed a **** horse to get around!

Half Life 2: for me this was the tipping point at which games became more than toys. This was better than any film and people talk about the technological advances it brought, for me it was the cinematic and story telling experience it brought. Maybe the tech allowed that but it was just a means to an end in that respect.

Goldeneye: Took FPS games to the mainstream that no other has done. Even my Dad has stayed up night after night trying to finish it on ‘007 difficulty’…

I just ride this one in…