So, as a taxpayer, you want me to subsidise your living costs to develop and improve your home? You want me, to save you money? You want me to improve your quality of life?

Yes.

I’m a tax-payer too. All the money goes into one big pot. Gordon and Alistair decide what to do with it*. If they decide to make some of it available to people improving their home insulation, and I’m improving my home insulation, I will take it.

(*although it may have been Tony and Gordon who made this particular decision)

Entitlement and need are not the same thing.

I don’t need the NHS but I’m entitled to it’s services and use them.

So you want taxpayers money to improve your home?

Yes. If I’m entitled to it.

If I’m not entitled to it, either because I fail a means test or because our insulation improvements are tied in with other work, then fine – I’ll cope.

I’ve just seen a few pics of Souls built up big and strong with Pikes

I think there’s a warranty issue with forks >130mm on the Soul. Maybe a BFe would be a better Cotic to consider if you want a long fork on it.

kid(s) under 16? – tick
existing insulation over 10yrs old – tick

Much as I like the 7Stanes, Hora, I think they’d be missing out on Scotland if they restricted themselves to the trail centres.

Celia – I have a 3 day circular route round the Cairngorms I can share with you if you want it. My email address is in my profile so drop me a line and I’ll send it to you. We did it in early September which I reckon is the best balance between weather, hours of daylight and those hateful midges.

As a taster here are some pibs from day 1: http://gallery126268.fotopic.net/c1575877.html (overnight on day 1 my camelbak emptied 3L of water into my camera so no pics of the rest of the trip :~( )

Well that was chuffin’ hard.

If any of the three blokes in the silver A3 (S3?) next to me in the black Saab sees this… thanks again for the water. Much appreciated.

Some pics here: http://gallery126268.fotopic.net/c1681261.html

I’m doing it.

I’ll be the big fella on a white Titus.

Anyone who’s done it care to comment on parking? Plans to stay nearby have fallen through so I’ll be arriving towards the end of the starting window. I’m a bit worried I’ll struggle for parking and end up with a long ride to the start.

Really nice up there today. It’s not the driest I’ve ever known it but it’s pretty close.

But what was it before the establishment of the (arbitary) National Park?

And can somewhere be considered ‘in the Peak(s)’ if it’s outside the NP boundary?

There’s no ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’.
If you say one and I say the other but we both understand each other we’re both right.

higgo – the PDS is an event about the atmosphere. Sure that weekend is crowded but I thought that it was more a celebration of mountain biking than anything else!

True, but for me for atmosphere (and free sausage) wasn’t worth the lift queues and congestion on the trails.

If you havent done it before its well worth doing.

It’s a difficult one to explain – I enjoyed it and I’m glad I did it but it’s just that (with the benefit of hindsight) I think I’d rather have been there a different weekend. Conversely, having done the Megavalanche, I don’t think I’d enjoy a day on the Mega course anything like as much as I enjoyed the whole event thing.

Do you have a good reason for wanting to do it? E.g. mates already booked on to it.

If not, my advice would be to go a different weekend. You can ride the same area, using the same or better trails without the lift queues. I’ve done both and wouldn’t bother with the organised event again.

Oh and do people actually manage to ride up Jacobs ladder?

Annoyingly only when there’s nobody around to watch me. Give me an audience and I go to pieces, often not making it to the first corner.

Antigee – how do you feel about ‘The Dark Peak’ and ‘The White Peak’? I tend to think that things (including regions) are called what people call them. Having said that, two early references* to the area use ‘The Peak’ and not ‘The Peak District’

*refs:
De Mirabilibus Pecci (The Wonders of the Peak), Thomas Hobbes, 1636
Gem of the Peak, William Adam, 1840

I thought I was the only one who liked Peppa Pig!

Not in ‘that’ way I hope.

If I watched something I didn’t want to admit I certainly wouldn’t admit it here.

For example, I wouldn’t want anyone to know I record Jeremy Kyle daily and watch it as soon as I get home from work (if it were true).

And the fork (with the V and forward-facing disc mounts) is a special kind of ugly.

It’s a humpybackedf***pig – neither one thing nor the other.
It’s a hybrid for people who won’t buy a hybrid.

doing from Langsett and going to Fairholmes junk shop and cafe would only add about 2 (easy) miles

Why bother though? Unless you really want a dambusters tea towel. The stuff along the side of the resers isn’t the most thrilling riding in the Peak.

Can we keep this to things that really are the same but with a different badge? Not things that ‘share some common parts’ – so the Saab 9-3, for example, is not a rebadged Vectra.

(old) Ford Galaxy/VW Sharan/Seat Alhambra

thepurist…why a farce? …is football a farce because yellow cards are overturned? Is rugby a farce because players are cited after the match …

Big difference there is that the result on the day stands. I have never walked away from a football or rugby match having seen my team win to find out later that officials/lawyers have had a little think about it and they actually lost.

Having said that, if Hamilton has lied (cheated) he should be punished. Punishment should take the form of banning from future races or loss of points.

So if I ruled F1, the situation would be that the results of the race would have seen Trulli 3rd and Hamilton 4th as they were when they crossed the line. Trulli would have 6points and Hamilton 5pts for the race. Then by way of punishment for lying to the stewards I give Hamilton a 10pt penalty so he starts the next race on -5pts.

thinking of doing it next week never done it before – how far is it there and back from langsett res

I don’t know ‘cos I’ve never done it from Langsett (must do one day).

I go from Ladybower (Fairholmes), along Derwent and Howden resers then up Cranberry Clough, over Cut Gate, right to North America, left, up Mickleden Edge, over Cut Gate again, down Cranberry Clough and back along the resers. I haven’t got the figures with me at work but I seem to remember it as ~22miles with ~22km of ‘proper’ stuff and the rest being the pootle along the resers.

Doing it from Langsett, distance would obviously depend on where we decided to turn back. Much as I love the descent of Cranberry Clough, I’m not sure I’d want to go down it then turn around and go straight back up.

Rode it on sunday

Not all dry (when is it?) but still very rideabe mostly. Theres a few bog bits in the parts where the path is a lot lower than the heather, but mostly rideable

Bingo.
If it stays dry this week (as forecast) I’ll give it a whirl on Sunday morning.

I’m not a big fan of trail maintenance/sanitisation but I’d really like to see something sympathetic done for Chapel Gate.

I gave up on the great tubeless experiment about three years ago. I was using Eclipse kits and putting a new tyre on. It was a direct replacement for the tyre I’d taken off which had worked fine but was worn out. I just could not get it to inflate and I lost it – the whole f***ing lot ended up in the field behind my house.

But for all the hassle one thing is sure – tubeless makes a significant improvement to the ride.

Time is, so they say, a great healer and I’ve had two BMX tubes and a bottle of wheel milk sat in the cupboard for a few weeks now. One day soon I’m going to give it another go. Because it’s worth it.

My Lavadome (with Project 2s) was £559. It’s a ’94 but I purchased it on Nov 13th 1993.

I still have the receipt if it’s of any use for your claim – not to pass off as your own but as a reference. It’s (probably) too faded to scan but I could pop it in the post to you.

Nottingham 9, Manchester 5?

It’s got to be gun-crime hasn’t it?

It’s not a BMW – they won’t put their badge on it.
It’s made by disgruntled ex-rover workers at Cowley.

As above I bed mine in by riding. First few stops are a bit dodgy but after that the pads are mated nicely to the rotors and they’re working fine.

Anyone else remain glued to their seat at the end watching the beach scene as the credits rolled?

Pretty much everyone in the cinema I was in.

You can pull it to pieces for plot, structure, some of the acting, some of the dialogue etc.

But I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I’m very impressed with mine.

Hmmmm….. so there’s a rider weight limit is there?

It would appear I’m 5kg too well built for them. I tend to ride on some pretty poor roads (Peaks) with cattle grids etc so maybe I’ll look elsewhere.

But then my current wheels (with less spokes, Fulcrum Evo5) take everything I throw at them. There’s one cattlegrid that I always end up hitting at speed with what seems like a huge gap between where the road ends and the grid begins. It always makes me wince as I clatter over it.

Agree about the Mavics – for some reason they just don’t do anything for me.

And I know the Mon Chasseral is all stock parts but it’s the white rims, you see. I know the sensible option would be getting something handbuilt but it’s those white rims.

Hmmmmm… one size (small) rules it out for me. Not that I’m looking for a new bike. Just interested really as I love my Blur 4X.

My Saab still exists too. It’s a 2001 9-3 SE TID close to 150000miles and I think Trimix speaks sense. It’s a fact that a new car would use less fuel, pump out less CO2 etc but that would mean dumping this one, with all its plastics, oils and metals. I wonder sometimes where the balance lies.

My understanding is there is a maximum size that the diffuser can be but Brawn and the others have bent the rules by using bodywork parts to effectively make the diffuser bigger

Ah, so something that’s not the diffuser is either doing some diffusing or helping the diffuser diffuse more effectively.

Aren’t all the parts designed to work together?

Rules are open to interpretation

That’s kind of what I’m getting at. What I heard reported was that the objecting team ‘felt it gave Braun etc an unfair advantage’ which is hugely subjective. Now I’m sure that there was more substance to the complaint than “We don’t feel it’s fair” so what was it?

I imagine these things are specified either dimensionally (absolute or area or ratio of a to b) or ‘must not produce more than x force when in and airflow of y‘ etc. Isn’t it just as simple as gettig the tape measure out or bunging it in an air tunnel? (Probably not)

Not on the scale of 13thfloorfella’s route but I’ve got a three dayer that’s basically Blair Athol – Loch Morlich – Braemar – Blair Athol. It’s not ‘my’ route, I took it from the offroad-adventures website that seems to have disappeared recently. Did it last year and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Happy to provide .gpx, .trl or .pdf info to anyone who emails me (PDFs are big though ~20MB in total)