As 40mph is just over 17mps, the recommended 2 second rule would leave a distance of 35meters, or nearly double what you are implying is hanging back and not overtaking…

And yet, that is the gap that Mr Important is going to force his way into when he fails to overtake the entire line of traffic.

I haven’t read all of this, but you lot are just ignoring or misunderstanding molgrips’ point and then presenting your OWN misunderstanding of it as his problem!

Bossing your way down a moving queue of traffic without consideration for where you are going to re-enter the queue nor consideration of the other drivers in that queue is crap, selfish and dangerous driving. If you can see where you are going to get back in, and you can see that it is safe to get there then fine, but don’t go bowling down the wrong side of the road if there is a pretty good chance that one of the cars ahead of you is going to block your safe route.

OK, sorry. Some of the people who want him gone…

OK, so I googled – he is accused of various crimes, nearly all to do with saying things. Some of them amount to incitement to murder and to rise up and take arms, which are illegal in an ordinary mainstream sense without specialist terrorism legislation. So – if they were true then he would be tried and convicted of those crimes. But he isn’t?

I find that the very people who are in favour of summarily imprisoning or even of just murdering him are the same ones who have the least idea about what he is accused of. Which basically means they are racists who want to kill bearded foreigners because they don’t see them as being as human as everyone else.

Not convinced. Vibration or shudder is from asking for more from the “wrong” revs – there is no need for that. 99% of the time just rolling with almost no power, then change gear if you want to accelerate. Driving relaxed and slow in a high gear doesn’t create any problem, provided you use common sense and select a suitable gear to accelerate with.

Some people just don’t want better economy I guess. Or rather, they aren’t prepared to make any change to their habits.

Edit – I frequently drive at 20mph – through towns and high streets. If you avoid the silly temptation to mirror exactly the speed of other cars (accelerating/braking all the time) it is easy and relaxing and economical.

DMF? What’s that?

The engine will only labour if you’re trying to accelerate or pulling up a hill – just rolling along as if in snow, letting it lug along at tickover or a bit more, is no problem. I think the problem is that people want a sudden burst of acceleration all the time, rather than just rolling with it.

Why would you drive along in 2nd at 15-25 mph? All cars will happily lug along at tickover – all the driver has to do is keep a nice big gap (multiple seconds) to the traffic ahead and use the gap to stop all the micro accelerating and braking.

Getting low mpg at very low speeds will be because you are stopping/starting/braking/using a low gear. Get the car lugging along at tickover-ish and minimise acceleration and braking and you will get far better economy.

Can anyone actually give an example of this hatred that he preaches? I’ve never seen any reported – we are just expected to take at face value that he is a “terrorist”?

Such a tired, boring argument that F1 has too much aero and not enough mechanical – heard it all before a million times. Some of the best races are wet or drying – those are the races where the ratio of aero to mechanical is even higher, so that gives the lie to that theory. Aerodynamics is part of the fabulous technology of F1, and the drs pretty successfully addresses one of the pitfalls of that.

Last season was yet another brilliant cliff-hanger with great races all the way throughout the season, more winners than ever and the Championship settled by a scant handful of points in the dramatic final race. Fer crying out loud! What more do you want?

Whats to understand?

Some people declare it false and seem to think that it allows cars to overtake that shouldn’t really be able to. Also that it makes overtaking too easy and possible without skill or risk. All untrue. If you think those things, I don’t believe you really get the drs and understand how they fine-tune the points on the track. It won’t be perfect every time, but they alter the activation and detection points every year to get it pretty good, and it is less imperfect than just being stuck behind much slower cars because of the aerodynamic effect.

I don’t think you understand DRS if you find it so awful. That in itself might be a problem for DRS (ie not being able to get an easy appreciation of it) I suppose – but it is pretty well designed, imo and does exactly what it set out to do. If DRS gifted overtakes t cars that did not deserve to overtake then the other car would immediately re-pass the very next lap every time, but they don’t.

I can’t bloody wait for the season to start though.

The ranger posted that he had blocked some new trails recently, so I assumed it was those. See his post 15 January.

(Totally different to Telegraph – those sticks were not the ranger, and I was not saying that.)

That other thread refers to new trails put beyond use by the ranger.

Well, ok. If all was well the op would have read “I came across a blocked trail, but it’s ok I just stopped, moved the sticks and went on my way”.

Blocking trails is annoying and potentially dangerous, but not as annoying and potentially dangerous as being unable and/or unprepared to stop.

OP – just exactly like driving on the road, you must be able to stop safely in the bit of trail you can see ahead of you. And; be ready to stop for reasons of courtesy as well as safety. Even dedicated trail centres are not closed race tracks, and Holmbury Hill definitely isn’t.

Doesn’t have to be a staple for the same argument to apply. Not exact-same examples, but all in the same area. In other examples there is displacement of staple crops in favour of luxuries for us. Biodiesel is another example – price of maize goes us because we want the illusion of greener fuel.

So – the prevalence of the quinoa story is more to do with pointing at vegetarians than anything else. Meat is much worse, but there isn’t so much enthusiasm for knocking meat eaters.

What’s difference between quinoa (going beyond the price that locals can afford) and meat? And loads of other food stuffs for that matter. The quinoa story gets circulated as a way of laughing at rich vegetarians, but the exact same laugh could be had about chocolate, or a hundred other things.

Top Gear proves nothing at all. The car is nominally the same, but I doubt the preparation is anything like scientific – no account is taken of driver weight, air temperature and pressure have a big effect on engine performance, the track has very few corners, etc etc.

Having said that I don’t doubt LH is among the very fastest, and may well be especially good at jumping in any old thing and getting the most out of it.

I expect NR to be pretty similar in results – very much like JB was. The difference at the highest level in any sport is in the head.

The topic LH incites ludicrous defensiveness like no other. Just because he is a genius driver (in most respects – lacking in the temperament department) and he is black, doesn’t mean he is not a bit of an idiot.

In this instance it would seem the car’s brakes were at fault, but I don’t think it is impossible that he would stretch beyond limits in order to make an impression on his first day. Hamilton is the black Mansell.

There is a vanity panel – otherwise would be an abrupt step like last year. I think Merc have taken the regulation at face value a bit, whereas Ferrari have pushed to the limit and used the vanity panel for aerodynamic effect. As have Sauber.

So far I ave noticed:
– McLaren late on parade with a high chassis and have gone pullrod at the same time… will be bit of a learning curve, plus the back of that car is not as svelte as some others.
– Ferrari looks fabulous to my eyes.
– Red Bull ditto, but with even more extreme/absent gearbox – they are hiding something.
– Merc – meh.
– Sauber – looks pretty slim.

Testing tomorrow, plus more new cars. How sad am I? Love it.

That is too long, in my opinion. Sorry. It’s a hell of a lot of commitment – the walks can’t be missed either. Very rewarding if you can find the time though.

Lol-ing at being miffed at Ferrari and Schumacher for being too good.

New Ferrari does it for me – nice car!

Testing is obviously inadequate in other sports, including F1. But this is quite childish shooting of the messenger in the case of Mark Webber. F1 drivers are surprisingly fit because they need to be.

Thanks for that fullsome reply, vincieup. I did indeed go with this lens for the isolating effect of a wide aperture – plus the extra shutter speed flexibility that goes with it (gt a D300 and the latitude with iso isn’t so good as the latest cameras). I also like the look of the lens in terms of bokeh and contrast. I completely agree about focusing, and am not bothered at all about manual focus – the last time I was into taking pictures was way back when I had a Canon AE1 and 50mm 1.4, and getting accurate focus was never a problem. For all the other failings of my body, my eyes still work ok! One of the things that I don’t much like about the Sigma is that the focus ring is not really smooth and feels a touch gritty. So – thinking about trying a Samyang 35mm 1.4.

As for sticking with the Nikon equivalent, there are reasons. Mainly down to bokeh and “look”, and almost certainly part-nonsense from reading too many reviews and not taking enough pictures!

Of course, I’m overlooking the 30mm Sigma. Slightly put off by the focusing issues though!

To be honest mogrips, focus wasn’t all that far out – and at short distance it was bang-on. I need to do a more methodical check, but by trial and error I have it pretty good now. Other aspects of the lens I love. Funnily enough I may yet sell it, purely because I think I should have gotten something shorter for an all-purpose lens. I like the “75mm” short tele effect on my crop sensor camera, but often I can’t get much framework in the picture. Superb for portraits, abstracts, details etc.

So I might get a 35mm instead, but the Sigma 1.4 is too much money for me. Know anything about Samyang? :-)

BTW, procamerashop were very good.

A little while in and I’ve got to grips with it. Focus is now set to -11, although it is one of those annoying things that gets more confusing the more you think about it.

Anyway – here’s a sample or few:

Now I can agree with you! I know there are always ifs and buts, but (!) I think FA deserved it last year.

Chrismac – so presumably JB’s car was “massively superior” when he equaled LH’s results over 3 years?

Button’s problem was getting heat into the fronts, same for Webber I think too. The more aggressive hard-brake/point-and-shoot drivers like Hamilton were better off last year for this reason. The tyres are slightly different this year – they may or may not improve the results for the smoother drivers.

Fantastic self-contradiction there, mashiehood. The post you were railing against said that speed vs consistency was such that they came out about even over 3 years. You then complain that this is mere statistics, and then produce reams of statistics to prove what the earlier post was saying to start with!

JB would be a good bet, because his odds are quite long and McLaren are just as likely as any of the top 3 to have the best car. He has come in from 11-1 to 8-1 over the past week or so – so quite a few people appear to be having a bet on him.

Having said that, Alonso is my favourite. I don’t think Ferrari will fail again.

Snow is hanging around and has gone icy where compacted. But it was noticeably softer in the woods this morning, so I guess we can look forward to mushy slushy with rutty icy bits this weekend. Personally I’d rate it better for a walk than a cycle, but riding not impossible by any means.

Oh – and the common recommendation always used to be Optilabs. I had a pair from them once and they were excellent, with “normal” lens geometry.

I’ve worn glasses every waking minute for about 25 years, and even I feel woozy if the glasses bump around – which they can do if your helmet straps pull on the arms, so make sure they are properly snug and sitting firmly on the bridge of your nose. Other than that it sounds like you just need to get used to wearing them all the time.

One little caution – I once invested (a lot of money) in prescription Oakleys, with special prescription and curved lenses and all that… and they made me feel really giddy and I never did get used to them. So I prefer to just wear normal every day spectacles with same lens index and curvature as my other glasses.

Setting a position before looking properly at facts is hardly the preserve of conspiracy theorists, whoever they are. That, for example, is exactly what UK and US did before hundreds of thousands of people got killed in an illegal war. They even put forward an elaborate conspiracy theory to suit their ends – so why are they not lumped into the “conspiracy theory” category?

I’d be interested in the Professional Qualifications and relevant experience you have to make that statement ?

nealglover – Why do I have to have that/those? Is this a Court or something? I thought it was a discussion forum, so I had the impression that the qualifications required were that I join-in, have an internet connection and can type. Since you seem to think yourself qualified to judge me, perhaps you can let me know your qualifications to do that. Oh no – hang on, that would be equally as pointless as your request.

I’m not putting forward any alternative conspiracy, but I am perfectly entitled to find the official conspiracy story inadequate and wonder what the truth really is. I can hold whatever opinion I like without asking your permission.

Wind-ups aside, I do think there are unanswered questions which it should be ok to ask without all the “conspiracy theory” nonsense and finger pointing. And finding errors in a video doesn’t mean you should dismiss it entirely – if that were the case I would dismiss the official story in its entirety purely because there is no good reason for WTC7 falling down.

And, to reiterate – nobody can dismiss things with a blanket “conspiracy theory” call, especially if their own version of events is itself a conspiracy theory.

Actually Northwind, that’s the first I ever heard about missing money, so that didn’t sound any bells with me. Guess that means that everything else in that video is also false. Makes sense.

Oh hang on though – if there is one truth in there, does that mean by the same “logic” that everything else is true?

It’s all just too complicated – better just ignore it.