Not ripped off, but back when 29ers were rare, Richmond Cycles (at that point pretty much the only person selling 29ers in London) spent 6 months not getting me a single ludicrously expensive tyre, and not returning calls as they repeatedly promised. Clearly the distributor’s fault if stock doesn’t appear, but what is the point in saying ‘we’ve ordered it, will be in by the end of the week’ ten or so times when you are clearly lying and don’t have a clue when you’ll get one in. Thank goodness for online suppliers where ordering something is in some way related to receiving it.

In the end, managed to pick one up from some shop run by someone on here that didn’t normally do mail order.

I wear some cheap tennis socks. As long as they’re clean to start with, they seem fine, were 3 pairs for a fiver from jd sports or somewhere like that.

If it is really cold I have some cold weather cycling socks (wooly boolies I think), and if it is snowy I’ve got hiking socks which do the job.

I’m a bit sceptical about the whole gait analysis / corrective shoes business – I’ve bought shoes from the same shop twice and been analysed, and been told that I need pronation correcting shoes once, and neutral shoes the other time. I just buy neutral or less cushioned shoes. Fit is important in the same way as any other shoe – you don’t want blisters when you get wet, but if the whole corrective shoes thing was true people wouldn’t get so many injuries any more when they clearly do.

Same for the whole chuck out shoes after a couple of hundred miles thing, always seems like something made up by running shops and shoe manufacturers – I change mine when they have too many holes, and they seem fine to run in (and I don’t get injuries).

I had a close call with a bit of pipe in the inside of our shower. Had it open, replaced the solenoid valve, screwed up various bits (but still had the cover off), turned on the water and turned it on to check that it was working, cue an incredibly loud bang, and a small u shaped bit of plastic pipe shooting off over my shoulder at warp speed. Turned out I forgot to screw a couple of the screws holding the pipe system in, and that water is under quite high pressure in there. Oops. Fortunately the fix was just to plug the pipe back in and do up the screw, and it is fine now, but was a bit of a surprise at the time.

Oh and all the manufacturers of the current top Android phones are quaking in fear right now thanks to the google announcement of the Nexus 4, which looks to be pretty similar to the top end things, except for being dirt cheap in comparison. So I would wait until that comes out before buying an Android phone, to see what happens with prices there.

Joe

You have to ask yourself would you rather have £500 cash, or the latest shiny incremental update on the iPhone. It isn’t like the 4s is going to stop working for a good couple of years, and personally I’d wait till 4g technology settles down (and stops being ridiculously expensive for data ) before getting that – especially if you don’t live right in the centre of a big city.

Even taking into account the 6 months left, the difference in cost between an iPhone 5 contract and the equivalent sim only is going to be £20 a month more than not buying a new phone* = £480 over the two years.

Personally, unless I need something different for work or whatever, I’ve decided just to buy phones when my last one breaks. My HTC Desire is currently 2.5 years old (bought it pretty much bang on when it came out) and still working perfectly darn it. The amount of money you save is shocking. It isn’t really looking so much like phones get out of date any more, at least until apps stop supporting it (which might be true of say an iPhone 3g, but not a 4s).

Joe

*note – some contracts are only approx £10 a month more, but you have to pay £250 for the phone = which equals £20 a month extra total over 2 years.

If you can wait a couple of weeks, google nexus 4 is supposed to be released on 17th. For 239 sim free unlocked. From the early reviews it looks pretty much on a par with the galaxy s3 if not better and a couple of hundred quid cheaper. Personally I wouldn’t bother tethering, it is a pain, and some networks don’t allow it or charge more for it.

If you want a cheap phone for riding, just buy a ten quid nokia / get a mates old phone and swap the sim over. Or just buy a waterproof bag to keep it in (either a ziplock sandwich bag, or a fancy twenty quid aquapac thing).

The article now says ‘£2bn of underlying profits’. So skip the maths, £500m (ie 25% of 2bn) is the right rough figure.

We had the help of a relative who is a surveyor and does buying houses for a living. We made a cheeky offer, which was flatly rejected, saying that they wanted the full asking price. Left on our own, we’d probably have thought, sod that, seller clearly doesn’t want to sell that much.

He was perfectly happy to call up a day or two later and say that the offer was still on the table, point out again that it was to complete quickly, no chain etc. and they took an offer very very slightly above our original offer (but nothing like the original asking price). There’s no such thing as cheekiness when you’re buying things where haggling is involved – it is just business.

Now you’re not in a chain, if you’re still interested, I’d be calling back the two that you were interested in, saying that you have no chain, could buy their houses within some short amount of time (a month or two), and giving the same or perhaps a lower offer.

It is hard for people selling who bought recently, because they are getting offers for less than they bought the house for, which is psychologically hard for some people to deal with.

I learnt using http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

If you are not completely tone deaf, you can tension using pitch – like this:

http://www.bikexprt.com/bicycle/tension.htm

I don’t have perfect pitch, so I either build them inside near to the piano, or take a ukulele* outside to plink to get the right pitch. You can get mobile phone apps that do pitches also.

Joe

*yes, I know, but it is small, portable, and happened to be to hand.

Out of interest, how old kids do people put in their trailers? Was just wondering the other day as to when Rose might grow out of it (and worrying about how to go camping – we’ll have to get a rack for my mountain bike or something, and limit ourselves to places within her range!)

We have some not super expensive laminate.

You can put wet things on it or drop liquids on it and it doesn’t stain.

You can take things out of the oven and pop them on it almost straight away and it doesn’t seem to mind (I think this kind of laminate is something like 180 degree heat resistant normally).

You can knead bread on it.

It cleans dead easily same as anything else.

Seems to have lasted for about 5 years now and still looks the same.

When we got a different cooker and needed slightly more width, it was an hour or so job for the guy to cut the worktop down, move the cupboards underneath it, and put the ends back on the surface.

And best of all, if the worst came to the worst and it got stained or whatever, or if you need a bigger worktop fitting, you could probably replace it for way less than it’d cost to get repairs done to a fancy surface.

Only thing you can’t do is chop directly on it, but I don’t think there are any surfaces where you can chop on them (assuming you don’t want to either blunt your knives or damage the surface).

On the other hand, it doesn’t look as fancy as some more expensive surfaces. And you can see the joins at the corners.

Oh and she loves the trailer, and you can fit a weekend’s camping gear into it and go camping, take it to the shops, take it on holiday, it has tons of uses.

Easy to pull too, and stopping is easy compared to a bike seat, can just leave her in it when you stop until you’re ready to get her out.

Bike trailer, locked up outside our playgroup. I never asked, just leave it locked up in the yard / car park bit. We’re not in a city though, so there’s tons of space for parking and I’m not worried about leaving it there. I unclip the bike, then go off for a ride and a swim, getting back for pick up time.

I have a double, so I give her friend a lift too.

Do they have space for prams to be left – whilst it is quite big, a trailer is not much bigger than some of the massive twins prams, especially if you fold it flat.

Blooming heck – was about to buy two samsung phones for work, the nexus 4 is dirt cheap in comparison and appears to share most of the same specs, will have to buy one of those and see, might be able to buy 3 phones if it is okay!

Be interesting to see what happens there, Google and LG appear to have done a massive up yours to Samsung etc. with the price of the Nexus 4. I bet samsung and htc are pissing themselves right now.

This is a big ongoing thing amongst the outdoor swimming community; there is actually tons of anecdotal evidence from swimmers that regular immersion in extremely cold water (ie. swimming outside all year round without wetsuits) improves immune system response and makes people better at fighting colds. Whereas everyone who doesn’t do it says “oooh, you’ll catch your death of cold”.

I had a bit of a read through of some of the medical literature a bit back to try and find out. And it turns out that it is largely inconclusive. There is lots of evidence that getting extremely cold alters your immune system in some ways, but not much evidence either way in terms of whether it makes you healthier or less healthy.

Studies of winter swimmers in Berlin showed less illness than average, but they also had confounding factors such as generally being healthier people, eating healthily, doing exercise, which would make you expect that anyway. Various studies have showed that extreme cold stimulates various immune system responses, and some people argue that regularly exercising the immune system in this way may strengthen it, but no one has actually demonstrated any health benefits or negatives from regular cold water exposure.

To be honest though, unless you’re winter swimming, you almost certainly aren’t getting anywhere near as cold as swimmers do (typically you’ll get uncontrollable ‘cold shakes’ after every swim at this time of year), and if even that doesn’t have a massive effect on immune response, being outside biking or whatever is surely unlikely to do much to your chance of getting colds or the way your body fights them.

Oh, that’ll be interesting – I wonder how it works on a tablet.

Looking like I’m getting a wider range of OS versions etc. running the app now, which is great, thanks all.

Joe

The problem with flashing is that it is usually done by people who are coming up to your bumper at about 100mph and stopping about 1mm from your rear end if you can’t go anywhere, and is often done by the sort of idiot who thinks that people should teleport out of their way even if it would mean driving straight into a lorry which you are next to.

If someone sits too close to you on your bumper, and you have nowhere to go, like when you’re next to a lorry, the only rational thing to do is gradually slow down and hope they overtake; the sort of idiot who tailgates will speed up if you speed up to try and get out of their way.

Rose went to their races at 2 and 2 months, and wasn’t the youngest there. She’d been riding since about 22 months or so.

They do it in Birmingham too.

and races, we went to one earlier in the year. Pretty fun, although the 2 year old category was a bit of a comedy event, with most of them not knowing about races at all really, just all going in random directions, stopping etc.

Details are on:
http://stridercup.org/

Oh, there is an amazing kid who’s parents own a bmx company, who was I think 2, but was made to race in the 4 year old category, because he was just so good, that was quite funny.

How about a ‘give the politician of your choice a good leathering’ app?

Not sure my 2 year old has a politician of her choice yet!

She does have a goat of her choice – the yellow one with the pointy horns is hers (apparently, the turquois one with the goat-bell belongs to mummy, the red one is mine, the big hairy blue one is Grandad’s because it has a beard.)

Joe

Except your speedo probably over-reads by ~10%

No it doesn’t. It over reads by at most 10%. Very few speedos will actually over-read by 10%, because then if it was very slightly off (eg.10.1%), you’d fail the MOT. In my 12 year old VW golf, a bit under 72 is 70mph, ie. well under 3% over-reading. On a more modern car, it may well be more accurate, although they have to allow a very slight flexibility for tire wear I guess.

Try it and see. Although I can safely say that no goats were harmed in the making of this game!

It’s actually educational, kind of, I mean whoever knew that different types of goats could look quite so different? And you can learn colours and improve your hand eye coordination too.

Someone else’s kid, came up to Rose, who was holding her toy giraffe, and said

“that’s a nice giraffe”… (thoughtful look)… “you could kill it and eat its meat”

In the swimming pool changing rooms Rose came out with ‘look, man rubbing his nipples’. In the pool, she wanted to stand on the hot bit where the warm water comes in but a woman was standing there, ‘lady, go swim up and down please’. Hmm, we have work to do I think!

The thing about tv, is that whilst it’s pretty clear from the research evidence that all other factors ignored, not watching tv is better for young kids than watching it, hence various official recommendations in many countries that under twos shouldn’t watch any, and older kids should have it seriously limited. Any excuses we all make like that cbeebies is okay and itv makes kids braindead are just excuses.

But in practice, the effect of tv is way less than the effect of having parents who have a mental breakdown, or super stressed and angry parents, so there are obviously some situations where the child is going to be better off overall by being sat in front of the tv, hence we all do it sometimes. I had a bad point once where I did a whole work conference call whilst Rose was plugged into Waybuloo. It wasn’t as good as playing with her would be, but overall she is better off by me having a job than not.

One thing that does come quite strongly out of the research as I understand it, is that sitting watching tv with a parent actively watching it and talking about it is way less bad than sitting them in front of it and leaving them, or having it on in the background.

The big difference between walkers making motorways on Snowdon or wherever, is that that is millions of walkers a year.

If you look at somewhere like Wolven’s Lane in the Surrey Hills, they counted what they considered to be a massive number of 4x4s, something like 100 in a day on a summer weekend, and that was absolutely trashing it, to the point where if it rained, even the 4x4s could get through – at one point they were driving through the hedge into a field, along the field, then back through the hedge to avoid the worst bit.

Similarly with mountain bikes – look at the damage to trails after a big race with hundreds of participants; even the big lap races like Mountain Mayhem – whilst it gets bad, it’s absoultely nothing in comparison to the damage of 50 or so off roaders having a race.

So to compare them to mountain bikes or walkers is a bit disingenuous. Yes walkers and mountain bikers do damage to tracks, but the difference is that up Snowdon, a track is being repaired for something like half million bikers and walkers. Whereas even in popular places like Roych Clough, at least the same level of repair works is required for probably 5 or 10 thousand people a year at most.

Of course. Why would you think they’re not? Even taking the most basic approach to this, some people are by nature more attracted to risk than others, and many crimes can be viewed through simple risk analysis; and everyone’s morals are abitrary, after all.

Let’s take a slightly obtuse example; until not that long ago homosexuality was illegal; yet hopefully we can all agree that homosexuality is not a matter of whimsical choice and environment…?

Oooh, only just noticed this. Sort of relates to some of our work stuff so I actually know a bit about it.

Sensation seeking (which kind of relates to risk taking and is behind much of the genetic link that you’re talking about) is strongly genetic. But what this analysis misses out though is the massive social factors which affect what outlet people’s sensation seeking behaviour takes. And further to that the punishment for their sensation seeking behaviour is. If you have tons of money and decide to go hang gliding, no one puts you in jail for it. Whereas if you have no money and decide to deal crack, you’re pretty likely to end up arrested. Even taking the same thing – if I smoke dope, I’m way less likely to end up in jail than someone poor.

Sensation seeking is fascinating – strongly genetic, not massively affected by home environment; but it isn’t anywhere as strong a factor on things like criminal tendencies as poverty etc.

I score quite highly on the sensation seeking scales in some ways, but I’ve got my kicks from various things over the years, everything from long swims in very cold water, to endurance events, to extremely hard rock concerts, dressing outrageously, being a bit of a slag, live performance, and the obvious drink etc. I’m middle class, so it was relatively easy for me to do all these things. If I wasn’t, the opportunities for my sensation seeking tendencies might have been far more likely to be illegal (or the kind of illegal where I was likely to get caught and done for it).

I’ve known a few people who’ve done this. Always costs way more than you might guess. We got advised by a relative who does up shells for a living, that it was pretty much never worth bothering unless you really have the time and qualifications to do all the work yourself (plumbing, electrics, plastering, roof etc.); he basically said that unless you know a lot of local tradesmen, and are commercial so buy stuff at trade rates, you typically end up losing out compared to buying somewhere that is ready done up. If it hasn’t been bought by someone in that trade already, then it isn’t a good financial prospect for a renovation, and they are calculating everything at trade rates, and hopefully without making any expensive mistakes while doing the work which us amateurs are more likely to do.

Not to mention that you end up losing any chances to ride bikes or whatever for years (however quick you think it’ll be, 3-5 years seems to be typical before they come back from DIY hell), which is rubbish.

Been doing it for years in Cambridge – set up a load of police in one place in the middle of town, and hand out £20 quid fines to anyone who passes without a light. Loads of people got them when I was there.

We had a Quinny buzz. I’d not recommend it. First frame totally died, second (replacement) frame was quite rickety by the time we put it in the loft (when she was 1 or so). Don’t buy one if you live anywhere with any bumps (we live on a cobbled street), or want it to walk anywhere other than flat city streets. Pain to fold too, and once they start going rickety, they only get harder to fold. It unfolds really easily, but whilst that looks lovely in the shop, the only point where you’re in a hurry is when you’re folding it because there’s no room to get on the bus or whatever.

For buses, a sling is a million times easier. We had a Moby Wrap sling to start with (hippy big piece of cloth thing), then a Connecta something once she started escaping the wrap. Also brilliant for country walks, where any pushchair is rubbish (unless you love carrying them over stiles).

Be aware that most people seem to buy a new lightweight pushchair at about 6 months, something like a cheap Maclaren. Once they don’t need to lie flat, any old thing will do, and they are way more practical than a massive beast.

I’ve found my cheap hammock to be extremely cold in winter. You probably need a fancy hammock with underquilt and everything, they are pretty darned expensive (more than buying a winter sleeping bag) and not all that small.

I bivvied in Snowdonia at the start of October once, at pretty low level (not far up from Betws y Coed), it snowed on me, and was <0 degrees. I was pretty cold in my 2/3 season bivvy bag. I would be buying or borrowing a bigger sleeping bag for proper winter use.

I don’t think there is less adventurous stuff going on. I think there is much more of a divide between people who do stuff and people who don’t nowadays. But if you want adventure, it is much easier to find people to do it with, and get information about it, and get out there.

For example I do a lot of ‘wild swimming’, or what in the past would just have been called ‘swimming’. In the past, lots of people would have swum outdoors every so often, so if I went down the river for a dip, your average person wouldn’t have thought I was a nutter. Yesterday, my pile of clothes next to the river was briefly mistaken for evidence of a suicide attempt (thank goodness I got back before they called the police – I shall hide my clothes better next time!), that is how odd outdoor swimming is to the average person nowadays.

But on the flip side, thanks to the internet, there is tons of information out there and I know loads of other people who also choose to go swimming outside on a regular basis. For example, I’ve got a bit of an ongoing swimming project relating to our local river. Before a swim, I have easy access to good maps and aerial photos to check out where is swimmable, where weirs and rapids are, what the banks look like, I can ask other local swimmers about the area and the access, I also get a lot of good info off canoe sites, the current water level is available on the environment agency website so I know if it’ll be deep enough, and sometimes I can arrange people to swim with. I can also access more information about how to push myself safely with relation to currents, extremely cold water, big lakes or whatever which mean I can do bigger things without being in too much danger.

Anyway, I find it weird that most road bikes come with a 34/50 front setup with say a 12-25 out back, and yet most mountain bikes come with 22/32/44 and 11-32. I know of tarmacced hills that are at least as steep as anything I’d ride off road, so why do road bikes not come with gearing to get you up the hills

There aren’t any hills in the UK greater than about 1 in 3, and not many that are 1 in 4. There are tons of trails that are that kind of steepness. Even in the Downs, some of the trails are surely steeper than the roads. It’s also way way easier to climb on smooth tarmac than it is to climb on mud or rocks off road.

It’s also normal to go a little bit faster on a road bike, which makes the point where you go from spinning to ‘powering up a hill’ be a higher gear – possibly whilst you feel like you’re ‘powering up a hill’ the average roadie would still be feeling like they were spinning in a low gear still. I know round here we have some steep hills (76 miles round here would be a lot hillier than that route profile above!), and if you look at a fit roadie round here, stick them in bottom gear and they would be happily sitting and spinning up pretty much any of the hills.

I have a triple, but mainly for the close ratios – ‘compact’ gearing on road bikes is just triple in disguise anyway. 30×23 is the lowest gear on my triple, which is roughly the same as a 34×25 on a compact. If I stick it in bottom gear I never have to stand up (except if I’ve got the kiddy bike trailer on the back!), and I’m not a very fit rider at all at the moment.

Foreign investors are buying up lots of London/SE. When have filled their boots there they will move onto the next big towns and the ripple effect will be felt by most.

In Nottingham, a lot of the new build flats were supposedly bought off plan by ‘investors from Eastern Europe’. They then promptly crashed in price by ridiculous amounts (like £100,000 in some cases – this bit is definitely true, although who the first buyers were is just what everyone said at the time). It only makes any difference if they are buying things that there is a massive demand for (houses in extremely fancy areas in the South East), rather than being ripped off by our estate agents & developers (buying flats in city centres in the rest of the country).

Wheelbuilding and truing wheels is a funny one – it’s pretty easy if you can follow instructions and hear the pitch of the pinging of the spoke, plus the tools are cheap, yet it seems to be seen by a lot of people as a real black art.

I guess it is a longish job sometimes, but not much longer than (say) changing a chainset or something, and doesn’t require stupid special tools for each type of wheel like all the different bottom bracket tools.

I’ve had wheels built once, because it was cheaper to buy the wheel than the individual parts, but otherwise, I’d never bother letting some random person in a bikeshop make me a wheel.

I’ve never actually been hit by a vehicle in either a car or a bike, but I’ve definitely had a couple of angry moments over the years when people have done stupid things near me when I’m on the bike.

One thing I do in the car, is try to notice every time when people do polite and nice things, like let you into traffic. Once you start counting those, you notice that they happen much more than the annoying drivers*, and have a much more positive outlook on driving. Otherwise you get in the mindset that everyone else is a ****, and you’re a superior driver and you’re at risk of being an arrogant idiot yourself.

With annoying drivers, I consciously try to say ‘****’ under my breath once, then forget about it. On the bike, I’ll sometimes shout ‘woooaaah’ or similar if someone does something that really seems dangerous, as I think it’s good that they know that they have had a near miss.

When it comes down to it, I think it’s always good to try and remember that pretty much no one sets out to be an idiot, and whilst it is threatening to you, it usually isn’t actually deliberate.

Joe

* at least they do in rural Derbyshire – might not be such a good tactic in some towns!

The thing about motorcycles, is that it is possible that you might be able to ride them safely, but it wouldn’t be as quick.

And you’re talking about a vehicle who’s only real purpose for most people is that it lets you go really quick. If you didn’t want to go quick, you’d be more comfortable in a car.

How it lets you go quicker than a car is:
1)By filtering through traffic jams.
2)By going round corners on bendy roads faster than you could in a car
3)By overtaking really fast in situations where you probably wouldn’t in a car.

All of those things seem to make it way more likely that you’ll make an error of judgement (miss seeing someone coming in from the side when filtering, overtake without good enough visibility, overdo it on a bend etc.). That’s before you even consider the fact that if someone else messes up you’re way less well protected.

So it seems pretty obvious that motorbikes are going to be more dangerous than anything else to me?

Does the LSE not sit within the UofL?

Like I said up there, LSE is part of the Uni of London, but it only has a limited set of departments, so probably won’t offer what you want unless you want to study political stuff.

If you’re interested in Cambridge and Oxford, you should be aware that they mostly don’t do 2 year masters courses, only 9-12 month MPhil or M St. courses. Oh and that whilst it is commutable, it is going to cost four grand a year for a season ticket or something around that.

I also would totally not recommend doing a degree at an Oxbridge university without living in the city at least in the week – their systems are very much geared towards students living extremely close to where they work, and there is not much flexibility from the uni, and you will be expected to be flexible if they want to mess things around (when I was an undergraduate they even used to specify a certain maximum distance away that you were allowed to live, I don’t know if that counts for taught postgrads too).

But really, like I almost said in the post above, all the advice in the various posts above is pointless and completely lacking in value until you know what kind of masters you want to do. For a Masters, it is much more a combination of good department and the right kind of course – there isn’t usually just a ‘masters in English’ for a subject which every department will teach, there’ll be various ‘Masters in some subsection of English’, and the range of them offered by each university will differ. You should be looking at the various English depts in the University of London (and Oxbridge if you want a shorter course), and see if any of them have something that grabs your fancy.

Bear in mind that particularly in subjects with few obvious career prospects such as English, Masters courses can be really quite hard to get onto, particularly at good universities, so you may not get your first choice. You being a foreign student willing to pay 15 grand a year is supposed to help slightly at some universities, although I don’t know how true that is.

The photographer owns the copyright of the photos taken. The employer owns any materials used to take the photos. Model releases are required for any people in the photos before publication.

No, no no. At least I’m pretty sure that basically all that is untrue for this kind of situation. It’s true if you’re commissioning freelance advertising photography. Not true if you’re doing photography as part of your employment (ie. taking photos for your employer as part of your job). If you’re doing it as part of your job, the employer owns it.

More details here.

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/ukcs/docs/edupack.pdf

The model release thing isn’t right either – for most school uses of photos you don’t need model releases for things – eg. where you are just going to use it in a documentary sense, for example if you take a picture of a bunch of people on a school trip, and publish it in the local paper as ‘a bunch of kids from yr 11 on their school trip to the zoo’, you don’t need model releases.

Obviously if you sold it to the zoo for use in their advertising campaign, accompanied by some bumph about how much kids lurrrve coming to the zoo, you’d need the model releases.

Although for promotional material, there is a fine line between ‘here are a bunch of kids on a school trip’, and ‘here are a bunch of kids on an awesome trip that they are just super loving thanks to our awesome teachers’, which means that for promo stuff at the university, prospectuses etc., our marketing people are sometimes use releases.

So how do so many people know exactly where this bit of footpath is from this description? Is there something I am missing?

He did say later on, but if you know that Wrightyson rides round there, it was pretty obvious from the first post anyway. Bit of an obvious grumpy landowner path with the great big no cycles signs he’s put up.