This is a trail for everyone. Fix the fells cant be expected to repair a trail with the 0.1% (horse and mtb) of users in mind. Any other method will be wrecked within a year and a gigantic waste of money.

Consider – what is better for your own niche sport or everyone else (99.9% hikers) who visit the lake district, and the long term preservation of the fells. Not much point spending thousands of pounds to preserve (at best average) mtb trails for a year or two when you can spend the same amount and not think about it for the next decade…

Don’t sign this, support fix the fells. In these times of austerity any actions to support our national parks should be supported by anyone who loves the outdoors.

but not systematic screwing of people, if life and reading STW has taught me a lot is that people struggle to read before signing and check over things.

Yes mate, but what I’m telling you is the systematic screwing of people has been proven to be happening:

CMA recently closed legal action on car hire sites breaking consumer protection laws AKA systematically screwing people.

Several recently opened investigations into damage charges in the hire care industry – again breaking consumer protection laws and the fraud act. AKA systematically screwing people.

It’s just taken me a month to get reimbursed from Enterprise for a fuel charge but that was mostly just incompetence rather than obstruction.

Ah come on man.

Well that is my experience world wide, might not be representative but I’d take any of them over the no names, BTW when did you last rate on trust pilot for good service?

Yeah yeah, there is some bias there no one is denying that.

But look dude – car hire companies are doing bad business, and they’re pissing everyone off. Yes, they have to make money, but they should be making money through hiring cars, not through charging people £20 a week hire, then £1000 to repair a windscreen chip. You cant easily escape these poor business practices either – its a terrible experience for many many people (although I do understand if you’ve never experienced it).

I also hire cars around 6 times a year for fun/work all over the world, and have been stung many many times (Europe is easily the worst offender).

All I can say is, do a quick google (or just read this thread!), look at the number of investigations going on into the industry and the issues that have already come to light (reports of 44% of people getting screwed) and you’ll see there is a problem in the way these business are being run.

FWIW I stick by my Scum comment.

Nah dude,

I mean just go and google car hire company reviews.

Trustpilot gives:

Sixt: 1.8/10

Enterprise: 2.4/10

Hertz: 1/10

Budget: 0.8/10

The facts are (and the Office of fair trading or whatever they are called now) back me up on this- see their report from 2015.

This industry is ripping people off all over the place, the evidence is all there.

Car hire companies are SCUM. They represent one of the worst, soul destroying, purposely anxiety inducing experiences of all time.

Step 1:

Advertise really low price

Step 2:

Jack up price actually paid with high pressure selling of insurance, extra driver nonsense, Fifty quid a week sat navs and baby seats, £100 a week snow chains that they wont let you leave the car park without. ad infinitum. Go to pay and “we dont take that type of payment”.

Only 2 people ahead of you in the queue at this point, but somehow photocopying a license and sorting out the bloke infront of you takes around 45 mins.

Be in an international airport, but only open 7-10:30 or other nonsense hours.

If you are weak willed and or susceptible to pressure sales techniques, your rental could now cost easily 4x the advertised price.

Step 3:

Take the car – but constantly on edge about a tiny scratch somehow costing you 6 years pay.

Step 4:

Return car – scramble to fill it up at last possible moment otherwise £2.00/L.

Familiar sense of dread returns when the “check in agent” who is clearly paid to find “damage” to the car goes all Sherlock Holmes on your vehicle. Sense of dread justified when they try and take £500 off you for a “scratch” that your brain isn’t even sure exists. Thing is, you’ve got a flight to catch, so you have to leave and cant argue the point.

Rant over.

P.S get the insurance that covers all your costs. Get it external for about £50 a year.

See “Theft by Finding”.

See “Living in the real world” and “Common **** Sense”

the rack was abandoned beside a tiny quiet singletrack road.

Upon returning the rack had vanished – so I hope that whoever took it suffers the same fate.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

You left a £200 bike rack by the side of the road.

Could have left it at your accommodation

Could have put it in the car with the bikes.

Could have at least made an effort to hide it.

But you thought nah, ill just leave it by the side of the road. **** me, this has gotta be a wind up.

Get a van.

Not been up in a few days but I am local.

It’s going to be sub optimal that’s for sure. Hopton trails have suffered with a very wet winter and they won’t be dry. They’ll probably still be muddy wet sloppy fun though. And plenty of other places to ride nearby. Not too far to degla if you want surfaced stuff to.

I wouldn’t throw any kind of money at a diesel – all signs are pointing to pricing/legislating them off the road, and quickly.

Crazy to think just a few years ago they were being promoted as the economical choice eh.

I still maintain that the Chromecast default picture scroll is the best thing on telly

Truth

Yes you’re being wet.

Problem A is solved by not being a dick.

Problem B is not actually a real problem is it?

Yes there is space.

No it wont **** with the ignition

Its very much a DIY job, just buy the kit.

You’re not the only person to have done that, took me ages to figure it out.

MRW  I’m an American teacher

No tethering allowed, so unless your phone is the only internet you use I’d say no.

The rotational play is due to the slot in the post head being larger than the little brass coloured key that slots into it to hold the head in the correct orientation. this could be fixed by a larger key, but i’m just living with the issue, dont notice when i’m riding it.

For those struggling with the seat not coming back all the way up – get in touch with e13, get a new stronger spring sent out, it will come with a better seal too. Free of charge and quick UPS shipping.

No one seems to have a completely trouble free dropper on the market yet. But when the e13 breaks down, you can still adjust upwards by hand and its not the end of the world. Also its easy as **** to service – honestly, takes 10 mins to whip it apart and give it a clean.

I wouldn’t say im impressed with mine, but its issues are livable and its not going to become unusable half way round a 40k loop. Have previously owned reverd/elite/command post.

Late Stage Capitalism – from where I’m sat it looks terminal.

Uncharted games are awesome.

If you haven’t played The Last Of Us yet, then do that, it’s incredible. Same Devs/mechanics as uncharted.

No – the shifter won’t pull the cable (and then the mech) the right amount. Your shifting will be off!

No real jumps to speak of at eastridge, I’m quite local and ride there often.

Trails are fun, but in need of some TLC, particularly the drainage needs looking at. Much much much better in the dry!

In before “you should go to jail for ten years.”

It’ll be sloppy around there, but you will be able to walk along the swale, and the waterfalls will be looking nice!

<span style=”font-size: 12.8px;”>https://www.riverlevels.uk/river-swale-eldmire-with-crakehill-crakehill#.WmnCDahl-Uk</span&gt;

T130 is a super fun bike, from a UK company! Cant really go too wrong with them, thats why you see them everywhere.

Also, built with UK weather in mind – a feature I miss from mine.

<span style=”color: #444444;”>My GF hasn’t even finished her NQT year… Shes already viewing the £9k she spent on her PGCE as an expensive lesson learnt and can’t wait to get back into industry! </span>

Same as me.

Also, as previously mentioned by someone above me. Nothing quite as demoralising as having every single person senior to you say – “If I could start it all again there’s no way I would be a teacher”. Cheers, I’ll be off then.

The state of the job market at the moment (and will be forever!) is that you are going to be competing against highly qualified young people who are prepared to work for less money than someone who has been in the game for a while. <span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>I trained as a teacher – but I got out when I realised how much of a trap it is. Once you’re in it can be very hard to find other work, but it is possible!</span>

My advice would be:

1. Network, ask friends, family friends of friends for advice. Don’t push but its an easy way to show you are competent and have skills above and beyond teaching. Try to speak to people in person if at all possible. This goes a long long way.

2. Training. Go do some training relevant to the profession you want to get into. Almost all paths have courses/outside skills and certifications that you can acquire. Masters degree is quite standard in a lot of places now. Doing these will help with point number 1!

3. Patience is key. Finding a job is a slow process, be prepared for applications where you get no response. Be prepared to type out all the information in your CV into a web form…then attach your CV.

Good luck!

Poly sounds like someone who has no experience smoking

A. Cigarettes

B. E cigarettes/Vapes

C. Cannabis

Conjecture and your feelings is not the same as facts and actual research.

Get a decent one – spend £50+ plus, otherwise it wont hit the spot and she’ll end up back on the cigs.

Tried the cheap ones and they suck.

Dont smoke kids.

Classic london

Dust on crust

Plus I don’t have anywhere warm to work on bikes (I refuse to bring oily or dirty bike stuff into the house) so any attempt at doing it is restricted to summer only.

Wahhh wahhhh poor me.

Old sheet, Jesus H Christ. You’ve got yourself in a real pickle about all this – see advice about not being a chopper.

I don’t stand a chance in being able to learn this stuff.

Wahhh wahhhhh wahhhh. Suck it up and learn. No one is buying the “I cant learn to use a spanner” line. What a load of bollocks.

I wish we didn’t have the mud but unfortunately we’ve got it and it’s something to put up with and it costs me a lot of money.

Any yet it doesn’t seem to cost anyone else anywhere near the figures you’re quoting.

I’m gonna be blunt here, but you seem to be asking for advice and then completely ignoring the advice given. Stop being such a chopper and learn how to fix your bike, its not some magical black art that requires a doctorate in mechanical engineering. Its a few spanners, hex keys the odd £30 tool (if that) and some youtube videos.

Maddeningly, you cannot view GPS data anywhere but on the watch face – you can’t even look at it in the iOS or Android Amazfit app that you sync the watch with. This means GPS records are only on the 4GB hard drive of the watch and meant that we never bothered fiddling about looking at them.

Other running watch set-ups allow you to take a deeper look at stats on your workouts, whether that’s on your phone or computer. Here, the cool little map of where you ran is just a squiggle on a watch screen, with no map behind it. It’s frustrating, and means you will never really be able to see if you’ve improved by looking at the raw data, such is how it’s presented.

To add to this disappointment, the app is meant to communicate with Strava, a more popular social exercise analysis app, but basically it doesn’t work, and the interfaces within the Amazfit app are frustrating.

Lame

So I’ve had a Fenix for coming up 3 years now & it’s great

I just got a fenix. Should have bought one years ago!

How ever from the outside with the blinds down it’s just a parked van with no indication of anyone inside

AKA being discrete.

Basically when I say be discrete, what im actualy saying is “dont be a **** so the locals hate you and ruin it for everyone else”

I’d park on under loughrigg lane, up near where the bridge over the river goes into the park. 10mins (if that) walk from town.

Be discrete, you’ll be fine.

Only they didn’t get away with it they’ve just gone bust

Don’t kid yourself. This kind of thinking is why there will be public and government apathy a few weeks from now.

The facts are that people in charge of this company have been running this company into the ground, pulled out millions of pounds for themselves and will walk away.

Anyone with >1 years experience in construction (or any common sense) could see what they were doing and the mistakes that were made. Its the ££££££ > anything else mentality that makes me sick. Also, they are/were horrible to work for.

I’ve been alone a couple of times.

Hokkaido snow is incredible, however as others have noted you are better off staying out of Niseko. It has become over-run (like every other large ski resort, banff, whistler etc) with dick head aussies who think they are travis rice. This sucks.

You can get a bus from the Grand Hirafu welcome centre to other resorts if you choose to stay there.

– Rusutsu
– Moiwa
– Kiroro
– Asahidake

Are all excellent. In bounds terrain is more limited than EU/NA, but thats not what you go there for. Touring/BC is world class, less threatening terrain than canada etc.

I’ve stayed in hostels. Not a bad option if you want to meet people and cheaper than hotels. Do eat too much katsu curry and go to the onsen. Do try and make the effort with a few words of Japanese – this will go down well.

Disregard the poster who said driving is hard. Hokkaido is quite rural, and driving is easy easy easy. Operating petrol pumps will be baffling the first time. Car hire is costly. Ask locals for advice on resort/weather choice – winds can close lifts before you would think it might be an issue.

Really? They did you a colour matched crown on the NHS?

Yeah. The machine matched the colour and just made me one that was bang on.

Go get it sorted.
The pain stopping is the nerve dying off – its only going to get worse from here.

I just had a root canal and crown – £250 on the NHS.

They took a laser scan of my mouth and 3d milled me a colour matched crown, and fitted it there and then. Making the crown took 15 mins, and is indistinguishable from my actual teeth. Absolutely amazing.