Well done and very well judged,

Mines in October and the training is going OK so far, based purely on the fact that my legs seem to ache all the time.

chicken poo

Chicken? How very common.

Duck eggs FTW

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What if a poor baby robin has fallen from its nest onto the lawn and is shaking with fear waiting to be rescued by its mother; do you really want to be responsible for killing baby robins?

Or a small child may have wandered into your garden and tripped in the long grass; you could mow its face off; I know I wouldn’t want to take that risk.

Some guys chain slipped yesterday on the final climb up the Cauberg yesterday which nearly made him fall off, he was definately maybe using Di2

TBH from what I hear via my partner, any ‘improvement’ by local councils , tend to be just to create bland motorways

I guess you have to apply a generous dose of ‘be careful what you wish for’ but from my experience of the same problem the trails were reduced to completely useless axle deep mud baths for several months of the year, anything would have been better than that.

The ‘solution’ of chucking a load of straw on top of the mud really wasn’t ideal though!

You could try contacting your local highways agency, I doubt they will do anything though.

If the bridleway is getting really churned up it will be a risk to the horses so the riders should be in favour of improvements – maybe try lobbying them for some support?

Is Aluminum similar to Aluminium?

You’d be OK riding your aluminum bike in your baggy pants, just make sure you don’t try that on an aluminium one.

It’s got tiny little wheels.

There’s no need carp on about it. If they were smiley of coarse fish would be brill, it’s just a shame they all have such a bleak outlook. IGMC

A month after the event went up on ‘RiderHQ’ there were still places left so I just entered online, paid my dues and was in.

I can’t see how anyone can have a problem then, your in fair and square. Go all out to bag the first prime then pootle round to collect your winnings :wink:

I entered and got into the Vets national road race championships, so far so good.

The child in me says I won’t bother hosting a road race of this stature ever again

The only issue I can see is if I have interpreted the above correctly.

Are you (or your outfit) organising the race? If so, is this directly related to you being one of the first come first served? If so then I can see a bit of a conflict of interests.

If that isn’t the case, or it is and you can ride with a clear concience then go ahea. Just don’t get dropped on the first climb!

I use Rubbino’s on my commuter and can honestly say I have never had a puncture in 8 years of riding, the last set were down to the carcass until I got round to replacing them.

They are fine on hardpack surfaces and I’ve used them around the local trails when they are dry without any problems.

They aren’t light though.

Is there much difference between Petrol and Diesel in the Netherlands?

Diesel is much cheaper than petrol, I think it’s one of the biggest price differentials in Europe.

£1.43/litre! I remember those days, it were all fields round ‘ere and you could go t’pictures and have a fish supper and still have change out of a fiver.

€1.75/litre for standard unleaded here (Netherlands)

I had another thought last night, if you are going with a significant other who doesn’t want to cycle or stand around all day to watch the race or even if you are feeling a bit ‘metro-sexual’ there is a nice spa in Aachen;

http://www.carolus-thermen.de/go/verwoehnwelt-carolus_spa/english.html.

Mountain biking – http://www.mtbroutes.nl/route/1110/Valkenburg

Culture wise – nearby Liege and Maastricht are worth a visit, Cologne and Leuven if you want to travel a bit.

For the race – Take plenty of beer and snacks and find a nice place on the Cauberg before the Dutch get there

Edit – That could probably be taken the wrong way, I meant get there early becasue it will be jam packed if you leave it late.

I heard this little gem a while ago coming out of Hull train station; “errr nerrr snerrr” took me a few minutes to figure out what on earth she was on about, but I was also slightly dissapointed that it was snowing.

Steel is the foundation of worldwide industry because it is readily available, easy to work with and cheap. It is very rarely the ‘best’ material for the job but it is often the most cost effective. If people could afford to build ships from titanium they would because it doesn’t rust for example.

You really don’t think carbon hasn’t progressed from the days of chopped strands and hand layed up polyester resins? The bare material is still essentially the same i.e. carbon, but resin and manufacturing technology has advanced massively. You could just as easily argue that ‘high tech’ steel is still essentially iron.

The major use of titanium is as a pigment in paint, there is very little used in a set of golf clubs. Far more steel, carbon and rubber are used than titanium, which is only really used on the face of ‘woods’.

Back to the OP, I think the same as Ben, titanium is usefull in soft-tail situations where the chainstays flex to provide a bit of travel (like the Moots). As a regular full-suss design carbon and ali would seem to be better options, although the Eriksen above looks really nice.

I think that’s ‘the look’ for golf hotels, have you ever seen Celtic Manor, it looks like Colditz

If you look up how Sport England produce their figures, e.g. the active people survey, you might not use Sport Englands figures to back up anything!

You have figures to the contrary?

Both very questionable statements.

I don’t think either are questionable, more people in the UK would see cycling as a sport as opposed to a form of transport. The more men do sport than women is certainly not a questionable statement, it’s backed up by Sport Englands published figures.

Where do you draw the line – running, going to the gym, Zumba?

the question asked was “Have you participated in sessions of at least moderate intensity for at least 30 minutes” so would encompass gym classes.

That article’s not about cycling as a sport.

Cycling in the UK is seen as a sport though, the only people in the UK that I know who ride their bikes are considered ‘cyclists’. It’s not like in Holland or Denmark where everyone rides bikes as transport but only the ‘cyclists’ get on the lycra and go out for a ride on a Sunday.

People just don’t see cycling as a viable form of transport, instead it’s considered a hobby or sport.

Sport or physical activity?

Sport – although to be fair I don’t know what that constitutes, remember reading some figures which showed that men participated in sport more than women by approximately 3:1 ratio.

Women in general don’t do as much sport as men, so why would anyone expect cycling to be different?

I have no idea, probably nothing

I have an idea, it’s something!

We (in Holland) can only get the BBC through a subscription service, it comes as part of the cable package it isn’t available free.

Of course you can get it via SKY with a big dish but that’s not exactly legal, you can also get it via iPlayer using a UK proxy but again that skirting the rules a bit.

Thanks again everyone for the advice, I had only just skimmed through the thread yesterday but had a longer look last night and some of the linked stuff was interesting.

Sheffield: I’d skimmed over your post without really taking it in, what I call running and what you call running are two completely different things!

We actually have a pretty decent running club at work but I’ve not run with them much mainly because I like to take the dog with me when I run to kill two birds with one stone, I don’t mind running or biking on my own anyway– I’m a bit of a miserable git. I always wear a HRM when I run or ride, I’m a bit of a stats nerd when it comes to training and I find it handy to limit the pace during recovery days. I’m not sure about park runs (I’m based in Holland) but I’ve seen a cross country league in the local woods during the winter so I would imagine there is something like that going on somewhere. There is also municipal track a mile up the road from my house and they run events during the summer so I might be able to get some track races which will be ‘character building’.

richP & Swedish Chef: I like the look of the plan, and will certainly be looking at something along those lines. I know I need to up my volume, but focused harder sessions fit better with me than just running endless slow miles where I tend to slip into a too comfortable easy pace. I could ride my bike on ‘rest’ days as long as I don’t get carried away.

I was wavering a little and wondering whether I could commit the time needed to do myself justice, but I had to pop into the chemists last night and Compeed and Deep Heat were both on special offer so I took that as a sign to go for it! So I’m going to commit to the marathon in all honesty it is something I have thought about for a few years but needed a kick to go for it. I’ll just take it as they come with the MTB races (I’m no where near quick enough to contend in those either TBH), plus a few new pairs of running shoes are cheaper than the S-Works Epic that I needed.

Ultimately though I’m going to ignore all your advice and am meeting a coach next week, He trains some very decent runners and cyclists so will hopefully be able to sort me out a program and some realistic targets.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, I’m liking fasthaggis plan, but think it will have to be some sort of combination of the others!

I was thinking that I would have to drop at least one ride, but I’m entered into a marathon (mtb style) series which runs through the summer so need some bike miles as well.

I can probably go a bit longer on the weeknight runs, certainly the Monday and Tuesday ones – I’m sure the dog won’t mind. I was expecting/dreading intervals to be involved!

We were discussing it over dinner yesterday and another guy who’s a very good runner thought that I was capable of faster time, he thought sub 3:00, but I would have to dedicate a lot more time, his words were anything slower than 3:00 is just jogging! I have run 2:52 in my only ever marathon, but that was 20 years ago.

I’m going for a run now, but it will be a steady one after yesterday!

Amateurs, you need a popcorn pan. We were given one by some American friends, they are brilliant. Chuck the corn in, wait a few minutes then start turning the handle. You get hardly any miss-fires. Add salt and it’s all gone within minutes

Nope; recipe for disaster.

Meh, what’s the worst that can happen. Lots of places have spark errosion kit these days anyway :D

The next concern I have is that the tap may remove too much material.

Use a taper tap, it will align itself into the existing threads. The thread already exists in the part so it shouldn’t remove any metal at all. Use a really light pressure to start, if the paint has filled in the first few threads then the tap might try to start cutting in the wrong place so let it skid for a bit first (an alternative would be to use a de-burrer or countersink to clear out the thread lead in first) then just run it through, if you see much metal or feel it cutting then have a closer look to see what’s happening.

Ah I see, in that case you need some sort of pouch to keeps all your money in and stop it falling out of your pockets. You should get yourself a wallet :wink:

Go into Next, grab the first wallet you see, pay for it and run before all of the soul is sucked out of you.

No pockets in your jeans?

Is there any particular best practice on using the tap?

Don’t do what one of the apprentices at work did, he put the tap in a vice to hold it and turned the part (about 4kg of stainless steel)around it – he only broke a few taps before someone showed him a tap wrench.

For clearing out a bit of paint it’s pretty easy, put the tap into a battery drill, give it a squirt of WD40 and run the tap in and out a few times. The threads should be free running after that.

Anyway, would football boots make sense, or is that some kind of madness I can’t fathom?

No, they would be rubbish and you will sprain/break your ankle. If you run around grassy fields they would be OK, but if there are any hardpack sections or rocks then you will be like Bambi on ice – the studs are just too hard to grip on hard surfaces.

I think it’s a bit rich Webber taking the moral high ground because when he left the pitts Vettel was along side and Webber just stuck it up the inside on cold tyres, that was the moment that was the most dangerous for the team. After that I think the red mist decended for a bit on Vettel and he was determined to pass.

He tried to squeeze Vettel into the wall as well, if he was playing the team game then why would he defend to aggressively?

I would think that for any stitch setup you would need some type of rail system for the tripod otherwise you are going to get a fair bit of distortion aren’t you?

Anything remotely wide result in a lot of distortion as well? Like those big nose pictures you see when people use a UWA for ‘hilarious’ portraits.

My thoughts, based on the picture shown (but assuming you would want a wider field of view) would be to use as long a lens as practical and just move backwards to get the framing you want. Less distortion, increase depth of field (if that’s what you want), nothing to buy. You are going to lose some of the detail that you would get with a macro type image (unless you stitch obviously), but that has to be the case, you can take a picture of a fly that fills the frame and see the hairs on its back but you can’t get that level of detail taking a landscape.

Where are the images ending up? on the web at 800px wide or on a 48″ print?

Continental explorer as a cheap option? They are a bit flimsy in the sidewalls but for lightweights they would be fine. Not much use at all in the mud though.

A nice credit note for you then as there’s nothing wrong with the parts.

Not in scenario 1, the parts supplied don’t enable you to fix the bike so are not fit for purpose.

I think it depends on the way the whole thing panned out,

Scenario 1; you go into the shop, explain the fact that your stranded 20miles from home and need a repair to get you home, he recommends the parts needed for the fix and sells them to you and only then turns around and says you can’t use any workshop tools, then he’s being a bit of a cock.

Scenario 2; you go into the shop, ask for XYZ, which he sells you and then when you explain the situation he refuses to lend you the tools, then it’s more understandable.

In either situation I would want a refund on the parts that I’d just bought which were effectively useless. The next time your mates want some new bikes/shoes/shorts etc. and need to try some on for size before buying cheaper online I can guess where they’re going!

Get dressed or you’re going out naked

We have tried that one, she was sat in the car in the nude without a care in the world, our bluff well and truly called.

Sorry another doom story;

I shared a house at Uni with a lad from Jo’burg, me and the girlfriend went to visit one summer. The area they lived seemed safe enough but there were private security guards and regular police patrols (his dad was a policeman and it seemed as though most of the neighbours were).

One day the girlfriend and I went to see some of the sights and she got her bag snatched, I ran after the lad but lost him in the crowd, but found a police car. We explained what had happened and the officer said jump in and we’ll see if we can spot him. We drove along for a few mins when the girlfriend said that’s him. The cops jumped out and chased the kid down an alley and we heard gunshots. The cops came back and asked if the bag they took of the lad was ours, it wasn’t they had shot the wrong kid, the cop said jump back in the car and we’ll carry on looking – we just got a taxi back to the house and left the next day. I wouldn’t want to live somewhere that life has so little value to the police, let alone the criminals.

This was ‘a few’ years ago though, so things may have changed.