Reported online? I would have pulled over and called 999 straight away.

JDT Tandems in Gargrave have a Cannondale you can take out for a demo. They’re good people.

Personally I’d hate to ride an MTB tandem on the road and for touring (do you mean Sustrans trails and the like?) I think an MTB is overkill, unless you’re covering seriously rough ground.

31.6mm seatpost and a piece of metal from a drink can has secured the seatpost on my London Road.

I think it does bother you and somewhere deep down you care for her

I think you might have something there, but…

If the only contact you have is to say I love you then so be it…you have a clear consc[ience].

It must be draining to have anger and resentment to those you are supposed to love.

With respect I couldn’t disagree more strongly. You are not “supposed to love” anybody other than (IMHO) your children.

This woman made the OP’s life a misery. It will do him no good to ring her and tell her he loves her.

Children of abusive families sometimes think that if they only had the skill or the will to “fix” people or relationships then everything would be alright. But people cannot be fixed. Relationships with toxic people cannot be fixed, unless the toxic person takes on the responsibility.

isn’t walking by a bit lame or rude?

Hmmm I know what you mean, but reread the first post about her behaviour when they were younger. Whilst I’m sure she will have a different perspective on it, the OP’s recollections, experiences and feelings about it are valid. He owes her nothing. He is entitled to protect himself by not engaging with her. He is entitled to his desire not to have her in his life.

I’m not sure what I would expect from her tbh – maybe just to appease my dad who’s hurt by it all

Don’t be guilt-tripped into putting up with / accepting The Family Shit. Sorry but I expect that if your Dad was so concerned about yours and your sister’s relationship then he could have / should have done something about it decades ago. It’s not on you.

No you don’t have to like your family, but in the case of toxic relatives, you must retain control of contact.

My mother is a nightmare. She’s not evil, just damaged and selfish. I do choose to have contact with her and it’s mostly all good. But as soon as she starts, I just get up and politely take my leave.

Sometimes she’ll let me down or get to me, and it’ll be because I’ll have forgotten to never expect anything of her.

But if your sister is such a horror, why chase her? Has she been in contact with you? If not, I’d examine carefully why you want a relationship with her and what you’re expecting from her. Because be careful – she’ll probably not give you whatever you’re hoping for.

Happy days.

I remember trying and failing to get off with Helen Mortimer.

I remember someone stole the giant STIF banner. And someone else knacked themselves climbing the outside of the beer tent and sliding down the other side.

I remember some guy we met popped his collarbone in the bomb hole and we had to drive him to hospital. He had RC35 forks on his bike. Which were ace.

I remember the queue for Jo Burt drawing people a little Mint Sauce.

I remember helmet peaks being a new “thing” and MBR magazine were giving free stick-on ones away.

54cm seems quite big for someone who is 5′ 6.

This.

Getting a bike that’s too big is a classic rookie error. Try a 52 or even a 50 before you commit. Stems can be lengthened and seatposts can be raised, but there’s very little that can be done with a frame that’s too big.

Wow. Been using ATACs for years and never had that problem.

Or conversely the car is the projectile that takes you out when it gets shunted towards you?

Yes. I know someone who was killed on the hard shoulder this way.

My scabby van suddenly died on the outside lane of a very busy M6

From similar experience, scary but possibly safer when the road is busy? Everything slows down and drivers can anticipate the hazard better from what other drivers are doing.

At a guess she probably ended up with the driver side against the barriers, car not moving due to bodywork on wheel, ripped tyre etc, and climbed out of the passenger side this putting her in the way of the HGV in the middle lane.

Beat me to it. But yeah – this.

I was in the outside lane when my car started emitting smoke from the airvents. Even with the loss of power (blown gasket), it gave me enough time to put the hazards on and get to the hard shoulder. I do remember it being a bit dicy to switch lanes with a car losing power.

Yeah I’ve had something similar on a busy motorway – my front nearside tyre shredded and disappeared down the road. Put my hazards on and a couple of wagon drivers realised what was going on, and hung back and “protected” me while I got across to Lane 1.

It was the M60 at rush hour with road works – no hard shoulder just a concrete barrier. I limped 2 miles to Birch Services driving on the rim at 20mph.

In the case of the woman in the article (RIP), I wonder if she’d stuffed the driver’s door in the collision, so got out of the passenger side into the path of the wagon in Lane 2.

It looks like CGI.

All I know is that every time I see it, I have to go out and slash a horse just to ease the pain in my soul.

A good 12 miles and you’d have to cycle over the North London Alps!!

Yep. Make sure you take a satellite phone and leave a route plan at the ranger station 😀

Uncanny, that’s exactly the respond Comic book guy would make.

Man angry with people because they don’t like Coldplay…

…accuses others of being childish

😆 😆 😆

Oh sorry – wrong emoji

🙄

Well I wouldn’t put it that strongly but were it a choice between Coldplay or silence, I would choose silence. But then, I can’t listen to Radio 1 or 2 for the same reason.

It’s only the inept and inadequate that feel motivated enough to actually get wound up by the existence of a band they dislike.

Says the angriest contributor to the thread 🙂

All over the UK are Local Flying Areas, out of the way of commercial traffic, where private pilots can fly freely above and below certain heights.

Sounds like you live below one!

If you don’t want to drive into central London, park in the long stay at Stanmore station (just off the M1), get tube into town, ride back to Stanmore. About 8 miles from Euston at a guess and not a difficult ride in any sense.

What are we arguing about exactly?

2 people charged with GBH

At times reading beyond the headlines

I read the full article.

Having said that I think for the OP I’d be tempted towards the Gladiator. It raises the component level across the board (I’d rather have a standalone SSD but, that’s OK), makes the very useful jump to a K series full beans overclocking processor, comes factory overclocked and with a lot more potential, lots of spec choices. Scraps in just over £1000 with the nvidia 960, a decent 27 inch monitor and keyboard.

That sounds like a good call

Everything sounds the same, well I give you Radiohead

Yeah. Funny how “challenging and experimental” becomes “banal dadrock” over time. See also Pink Floyd.

I still think both those bands produce more interesting music than Coldplay though, but that’s a personal preference.

It does, and it’s obvious in the context why I mentioned it- you get more from building a PC yourself and learning how to do it. I didn’t know how to do any of it til I did it, and it’s not difficult.

But also, that wasn’t my whole contribution, if you look further up the page.

OK!

From the limited info given I still don’t think the OP wants to self-build, unless they come back and say so.

So in the interests of a fun and useful debate, use your knowledge to spec the best possible machine that meets the OP’s budget and they don’t have to build themselves, and post the link!

Gunz, “bloody good” ….I think the new vanilla ice album is out next week ,get on board the boat of banality !

We can tolerate each other’s preferences, surely. Let the man like Coldplay if he wants!

Valverde an outsider worth a punt

They’re popular because their music is the very definition of mainstream. Safe, unchallenging, nice, predictable.

To quote Muriel Spark:

“For those that like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.”

There’s probably a good chance he know exactly what he wants

Oh, and this^^^

It’s a pretty bad suggestion, that Currys PC, and no wonder. So yes it is helpful to say “don’t do that” even if you don’t give an alternative, in a thread that already has better alternatives.

OK, that’s fine – I welcome that people don’t agree my suggestion – but it would help the OP if people would post their alternatives. Us lot trying to outdo each other on price/spec would eventually lead to a Darwinian “this is the best spec for the price available – now go and buy it”.

Your own contribution to the thread included the phrase “slightly melty overclock” 😀 and the thread is in danger of turning into this.

I agree your points about customising and self-building (I have built my own gaming PCs) but right now I don’t think that’s what the OP needs. It’s like a “What newbie bike for £1000” thread and someone says “buy a frame off the internet then Merlin are good for groupsets”. Then someone says “just go to your LBS”, then someone says “get a Boardman from Halfords” then someone else says “don’t buy that – it hasn’t got XTR” and someone else says “don’t buy from Halfords because…Halfords” etc etc until the OP goes and asks on Bikeradar instead.

So how about this. The OP doesn’t have the skills and knowledge to self-build and wants a PC to play the latest games for £1000 inc monitor/keyboard/mouse/speakers.

My suggestion was this from Currys tower-only for £700 which has i5 6400 processor, 8GB RAM, 1TB spinny drive, GTX 960 graphics.

Please beat it. Post a link to a better PC for the money and tell the OP why it’s better. Whoever posts the best spec for the money wins the internet! 😀

I’m going to go against the grain here and say you don’t need to overthink it.
You can walk into Currys and walk out with a PC within your budget that will play the latest games at high detail levels. This, for example

sorry but that’s not a great gaming rig, you want double the amount of ram for starters, the system drive isn’t SSD, and it’s just a tower, not including monitor keyboard mouse speakers, it’s way over priced for the spec. If it was 30% less money ot would be ok.[/quote]

Right. Well it would help the OP if you could post a link to a machine that has all those features that you say are essential, and is within the budget. And they’re a beginner buying a present for their teenage son, so no, they’re not going to build one from scratch.

Otherwise, your comment isn’t really helping.

I’m going to go against the grain here and say you don’t need to overthink it.

You can walk into Currys and walk out with a PC within your budget that will play the latest games at high detail levels. This, for example

Whenever someone quotes “Darwin Awards” in relation to someone’s death, it demonstrates an appalling lack of empathy and taste.

Lamb steaks
Slimline dry ginger
Eliane Radigue

Casino not a bad idea. Comfortable and the door policy should mean it’s not full of drunken ****. Take photo ID.

Blackpool in the early hours can be rough. I’ve turned up for races at 7am on a Sunday and there are still people staggering round the streets shouting.

If it was me I’d just pay £50 for a Travelodge!

I suggest anyone interested in Lance and Lance-era cycling should read “The Secret Race” by Tyler Hamilton, if you haven’t already.

Absolutely agree. It’s a brilliant book.

Tough crowd in here today!