I used to like living in Balham. There are lots of houses like you describe, it is quiet, full of green stuff (surrounded by Clapham, Tooting Bec & Streatham commons) and it is easy to get out of London from (and you're at the right side of London to go riding). Houses are probably quite expensive round there though.

You'd have an easy commute (northern line to Moorgate / Bank (or bike obviously). To Paddington would be change at Elephant and Castle, but at least you'd be getting on the Bakerloo line at the end of the line.

Although possibly some horrible place in N or E London might be a bit more practical from the commute point of view (like on the Hammersmith and City line or something), although they suck in terms of riding, are more expensive, you'll probably get mugged, and everyone knows that south of the river is where all the nice green stuff is.

Joe

If insurance was needed for cyclists, we'd have it already.

Not having insurance doesn't stop you being sued if you cause an accident, it just means you have to pay yourself. If it was the case that there were anything more than a tiny amount of serious accidents where cyclists caused car drivers to crash into 3rd parties, or cyclists crashed into cars and it was entirely their fault, then it would become a big enough risk that to cycle you'd have to have insurance if you didn't want to have to pay out tons of your own money. The fact that hardly anyone has this insurance suggests that it isn't really that high a risk. Whereas cars crash into people tons, and cause far more damage than cyclists, so it is worth your while having insurance.

Joe

The important thing that you're missing here, even if you assume that dressing up nice is done entirely to pull men* it may not be done to pull you (or the sort of man who hangs around making comments about sex to random women in public which is presumably what this is about).

Joe

*There's obviously more to dressing up than that – there's surely a social thing amongst women too about dressing up with their friends, saying ooh, you look lovely etc. and a lot of people just enjoy wearing nice clothes, sometimes it isn't all about you you know!

Have you tried the 'convert to route' trick in viewranger yet? The deviations you get from a nokia gps are typically many tiny ones, not one big one, so it is hard to see them in viewranger. For example if you leave it on during a rest. I've had 2 miles added to a 10 mile ride once when I stopped to fix a puncture.

For what it's worth, I've used bikehike a fair bit, and the distances it gives are spot on, I've also used the viewranger record track feature, and the distances it gives are almost always an over-estimation until you convert them to routes, so it is probably that your gps distance is way out, rather than the bikehike route distance is wrong.

Joe

As I understand it, machines can build as good wheels as you are willing to pay for. The thing is that building a wheel to tighter tolerances takes the machine more time. So cheap machine built wheels will be built to low tolerances, but there is no reason why an expensive machine built wheel should be rubbish. I guess there's a point where the cost of machine time becomes greater than the cost of paying someone to hand build a wheel though.

Joe

I've skidded my front wheel in an emergency stop – from 50mph, down to 10ish (corner tighter than I remembered) in a very short amount of time.

Surely whether you go over the bars or skid just depends on if you keep your weight back when you use the front brake. On any well set up bike it will be possible to make the back wheel go up in the air if your weight is forward, and possible to skid the front wheel if you keep your weight back. If bunging on the front brake just chucked you over the bars, there'd be no way to brake sensibly when going downhill or going fast. The front brake = over the bars thing is surely only if you're not very good at braking?

Joe

It's probably that you stopped a lot and your phone gps jumped around a bit, leading to inaccuracy. Are there any obvious spikes in the track when you look at it in viewranger? 17 miles vs 12 miles sounds much more like a big gps error than a slight accuracy difference on the website.

Try going into viewranger, going to your track, and doing 'convert to route', with a minimum distance of 30m or so. That gives a much more accurate idea of the real distance.

One last thing, which is probably not the case, but you haven't got the phone set to km have you?

Joe

If you're off to university, check out what language courses they offer. I know at quite a few universities they do language courses that any student can do and it is often either very cheap, or free.

For example at Nottingham we offer a bunch of languages at pretty much any level, and I think undergraduates on any course can choose to do them.

Joe

My wife punches me if I snore until I roll over. I don't usually wake up, but apparently the snoring calms down.

Definitely sleeping on your side too, I can't sleep on my back any more.

Joe

Speedo style trunks are banned in all the US waterparks I've been to, never thought the UK would go that far too, thought people were more sensible!

Yeah, I freaked out several American friends by wearing speedos to go swimming when we were in Canada. I wanted a proper swim, and shorts always feel like they slow you down.

A place with waterslides etc. I'd probably wear shorts anyway, it isn't exactly somewhere you're going to go for a long swim, and shorts are just comfier to sit around in when you're not actually swimming, but it is a freaky and weird puritan thing that they ban them.

Joe

They will all be noisy this time of year though (I guess any campsite will be).

Joe

Any of the ones in Edale are okay. ukcampsites has them all listed.

Joe

they use modestly priced cabling.

Soldered themselves by ham fisted sound engineers onto cheap plugs that were bought in bulk.

Joe

or £5 maplin cables or similar http://www.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_wire.htm

That offers a million to anyone that can prove they are better, not anyone who can tell the difference. Obviously no-one can prove their superiority because it is subjective, but anybody at all can hear a difference.

I think he was actually saying that nobody can tell a difference between $100 and $7000 cables in a double blind test, where no-one knows which cable is which. The manufacturers of the $7000 cable refused to take him up on this, so they're obviously not confident that they can.

But then maybe everyone should be using coat hangers:

http://consumerist.com/362926/do-coat-hangers-sound-as-good-monster-cables

Joe

Called an xtracycle[/url]

If you're out doing nothing wrong it should not bother you at all. If its a pro photographer using you as a model *and you're readily identifiable* then you have a legitimate claim on rights, but otherwise you're nothing but a passing object of interest.

Only if they were using it to sell something / to do something that implies something about you that may not be true (like that you support a particular company/product). If they're using it just to show that you were riding a bike there, or just to illustrate that people ride bikes off road, or simply selling pictures of someone riding off road, they wouldn't need a release. Otherwise newspapers wouldn't be able to function.

There's a few posts mentioning being asked and to me, that's the point: if somebody asked me and explained I'd probably be fine but I didn't get asked. Now yes I could have stopped and asked but I don't want to have to: when your flowing down a piece of singletrack the last thing you want is to come grinding to a halt and wander back up to find out why they are taking a photo. I just think it a bit rude to presume that people would be happy to have their photo taken.

Right, so if someone stopped you in the middle of flowing down a piece of singletrack, asked you if you were okay with having your picture taken, and perhaps you could go back and ride it again so they could actually take the picture, that is better? Whereas if they just take a picture, what the heck does it do to you? It's not like they're taking away your soul or something.

Joe

I've used both quite a lot. I'd always choose Python not Perl. The only reason I'd touch Perl is if I need to maintain someone else's code, or if I'm being paid specifically to use Perl.

Python is very handy for that kind of thing, anything that is just a bit too complex to do easily with a batch file.

Perl is an okay language, but is spoilt by the culture of developing in it, which is often about writing compact code, using various shortcuts or symbols, and it has loads of wacky syntax that is a nightmare to read, so people often don't write easy to understand code.

Python forces you to write readable code, and much of it is pretty understandable even if you don't use Python much, which whilst it isn't everything, is a good start.

They are both equally powerful nowadays, so it's mainly just about preferences & who/what you want to work with.

Joe

cluncky shifting and lots of extra weight.

Why is it clunky if you've set it up right? At least between top and middle ring shouldn't be clunky – if anything it's more clunky on the big jump of a compact chainring.

As for extra weight, it's only 200g or so, and not on the wheels – it'd be amazing if anyone could notice the difference without looking down to see what they were riding.

Joe

Personally I prefer the triple as I can ride it just like a 39/53 double which I find easier to maintain a more constant cadence between front ring changes. The inner ring can be kept in reserve for the really steep bits.

That's what I do – 53, 39 on the front, 12-23 on the back, plus a 30t ring for in case I need to carry heavy loads up hills, pull a trailer, or if I have a hard day and need a rest, riding back from doing other exercise or whatever. We have a load of 15% or so climbs in the valley, which are fine in 39×23 usually, but if I'm tired or I've just bought a load of shopping or something, then having the triple to fall back on is great. As a bonus, I have a nice close set of ratios on the cassette, which is handy. It seems to very neatly go so that middle ring = uphill, big ring = downhill – I don't have any flat on my commute, but if I do ride flat, it is mainly big ring too. I also spin out 53×12 on two hills on my commute – so I guess I wouldn't be happy with the compact.

Isn't compact just a compromise for people who want to look like they push big gears all the time, but don't actually want to push a big gear? I doubt I'd ever notice the 200g of weight saving (I'd take the mudguards off if I was that fussed about weight).

it gives you more options on what you can run. Which is the advantage.

So I can put a 34 ring on when I'm doing lakeland passes, or a 38 for flatter routes. And I can still keep a narrow block on which is preferable for riding in a group.

Kind of like having a triple, except that you have to guess in advance that you might get a big load of shopping / come down with a cold this afternoon or are planning a very hilly ride or whatever and unbolt a chainring and fit a new one, rather than just pushing a lever with your left hand to change into the lower ring.

Can someone tell me what the disadvantages of a triple are? As far as I can tell, all they are is:

1) Macho fashion victims won't like it
2) 200g extra weight

Whereas advantages are:
1)You won't have to change cassettes / chainrings for different rides.
2)You have a nice low gear if you're carrying heavy loads or feeling a bit ill.
3)You have nice close ratios at the back.
4)You piss off the macho fashion victims.
5)If you get to a hill that is too steep for your level of fitness, you don't have to walk.
6)You can use an efficient cadence up very steep hills.
7)You have a nice high top gear for steep downhills.

Joe

You're in public – there's nothing wrong with people taking pictures in public. Loads of people take pictures of me out riding, it doesn't make any difference to me.

If he started following you around to take the pictures, that would be weird, but just snapping pictures of random people riding, don't see the problem, or what harm it does to them?

I've taken pictures of random people on horses / walkers on the top of hills, surfers on beaches etc. If someone asked me not to then I guess I might not take a picture of them, but otherwise I don't see the problem.

Joe

22nd out of 77. Not bad for a somewhat infrequent jogger (83km so far this year), although I guess all the hill walking helps too, and I do tend to hurry a bit when I'm out on the hills. It seemed to me like all except the top 10 or so runners were pretty slow up the hills, about the same speed as me on the downhills, but blimey they go fast on the flat bits. I think I could do with some practice where I don't just run up or down a hill – sounds a bit boring to me, I only really like running up hills.

I think I had an advantage in that the course is very local to me, so I've ridden / walked all of it tons, so I knew exactly where I was all the time, and didn't take any wrong turns.

I had one completely out of control descent which was fun – there is no way I'd ride that particular section as fast on a bike, it is covered in rocks and roots and I was just jumping over them and trying vaguely to aim in the right direction. Overtook 3 people on that section, although the buggers just managed to get back past me on the next flat bit.

Not really aching this morning which is nice. I think my Art of Running book with it's funny Alexander Technique based way of running appears to work okay.

Joe

Don't do it – other people have different tastes to you. Particularly if it's a fancy detached house, people will surely want a fancy expensive kitchen to match?

Joe

The cost is down to using 1:25,000 scale mapping I think

Partly that maybe, but £17 for the equivalent to a single £7.99 paper map is ridiculous.

Hi BWD – I'm new to this so forgive my ignorance – but can you run ViewRanger on a Mac? Does it work similar to Memory Map etc?

Viewranger is a mobile phone application, for Symbian mobile phones. It doesn't run on a computer at all.

Joe

Ah. I have googled more thoroughly now.

I don't reckon I am likely to be mudged. But only because she probably wouldn't deign to enter our little Derbyshire race, I'm sure I will be beaten by several women.

Looking at the weather, it is pissing it down, maybe that'll stop some people turning up meaning I'll get a higher position? Or is that not what fell runners are like?

Joe

Would you object if a mobile mast was errected <100m's to your own home?

Surely this is about 500m from any houses, and the only real thing that people are objecting over is people driving lorries down the lane, thus making it inconvenient for them to drive their cars down the lane?

Joe

Blimey – £17.38 for the equivalent of a single paper map? And no obvious way of buying the whole country. Looks like they think Mac users are made of money.

Oh, plus $99 for the software itself.

You could buy a copy of windows plus memory map for the price it'd cost to get a decent set of maps for even a local area.

Joe

Hopefully not any of the definitions here!

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mudge

Mudged.

?

I love the fact that the main objection these people have to oil drilling in the area is that for a few days it will inhibit them driving their petrol powered cars down the lane.

Joe

Hmm.

My first fell race appears to be today. I have just looked at last years results – if I can run as fast as I did in my last training run, I won't come last, which would be great. It looks like I will be easily beaten by my friends sixty something year old dad though, which I'm sure I'll hear about in the pub.

Joe

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/

Not quite as well integrated as mapmyride.com, but it has Ordnance Survey maps too. Much better for offroad route planning.

Joe

I'm not being dim, that's exactly what it says in the instructions. Surely that's a step in the wrong direction by SRAM?

Yes it is stupid. Maybe it is something technical, or maybe they just wanted some of the money that shimano make by selling chain joining pins. I mean who wants to spend a couple of quid every time they take their chain off? You can buy 10 speed reusable links from other people though (I think it is Wipperman who make them).

Joe

dotbike.com sell them in 26s, which I think is 13 links worth, and cost me £14, which given I wanted 2 links worth straight away (i.e.about £5 worth of individual links) is pretty good. I don't think I'm going to need to buy any more for a long time.

Joe

I have a Carradice Sqr Slim saddlebag. It does the job and is quick to detach. I wouldn't use it off road (it can go up and down a bit if you're riding off road and things get shaken around in it), but it is great on road. Once it is taken off, all you have left is a mount on the seatpost, so you don't need to fit a rack.

Joe

aye, it's all down to the suit. doping is only prevalent in cycling…;)

To be fair to the swimmers, there's loads of evidence that wetsuits make you something like 5% faster in the water due to added buoyancy*, and those fancy now banned suits were getting a significant advantage using exactly the same well understood principles.

Joe

*Which is why triathletes will wear wetsuits even if they are not compulsory in a race, and open water swimmers will put them on if they're allowed

But do you know nine other people who have unicycles?

Yes. Actually more like 15, but typically about 10 people turn up at a regular Tuesday night practice.

http://www.emunicyclists.info/

There's even a UK league (with up to 10 teams playing in each tournament), big European tournaments (there are loads of teams in Germany – like 50 or so I think, more in Switzerland, some in France) and a world championships.

Joe

I've come round a corner and had to skid to a halt because there was a person on an obviously borrowed bike riding at about 2mph (at Cannock). I've also come round a corner to find someone has crashed there an(at Coed y Brenin), and was crawling off the middle of the trail. You have to ride so you can safely stop even with just bikers there.

It is a hassle when dog walkers spoil your downhill or whatever, but realistically it only slows you down for a few seconds, not the end of the world – same thing as when you're riding a bike on the road, and someone has to wait behind you for 5 seconds until it's safe to pass.

I don't see that there's much anyone can do other than the forestry people signposting each entrance / exit with danger signs, and riders keeping an eye out when riding round corners.

Joe

Unicycle hockey is where it's at – like bicycle polo, except with fast and manoeuvrable vehicles, and without all the hanging around that bicycle polo players seem to have to do.

http://www.unicycling.org/iuf/unicon9/hockey.jpg

There is a guy in the USA who started playing polo with some bicycle players whilst riding a unicycle, but I think they don't let him play any more, as once he got good at riding, he had such an advantage.

Joe

The campsite in Llanberis just above the youth hostel is nice, it lets you have fires. If you are not worried about being slightly cheeky, you can walk footpaths across to the waterfalls, go up above the big waterfall 300m and then cross the river and over a field and you're on the Llanberis path, just by a fantastic little cafe run by a crazy Welshman that is well worth a visit for the lovely scones.

Although Llyn Gwynant is a bit more secluded and is lovely too.

Joe