Also http://www.mbsk.co.uk/jasnamountainbike.html

Looks okay for somewhere that mountain biking is banned:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KoLil2iv90

Joe

There is some lift assisted downhilling in Slovenia. I don’t know where exactly it is, but the video I saw looked like a pretty big event, so I guess you can find it on google somewhere.

Joe

Kris Holm if you want a monster sized downhill rim. It is 10mm wider than all the rest, which makes a real difference when running low pressures in wide tyres. Narrow rims + wide tyres really sucks if you don’t want to run 40 PSI in them.

Although you pay for it in weight – 800g a rim.

Joe

I always wanted to try it, then I concluded that they’re not going to be that warm unless near a place for firewood, hunting for firewood would be no fun and for the sake of a 1.5kg 300mmx80mmdiam tent in the rucksack it doesnt seem worth bothering. Especially when it might be full so you need to take a tent too?

Ah but when you’re inside on a comfy bunk, the fire is roaring away, it is a really different thing to camping. Especially in cold weather, nothing beats a hut with a good fire going.

Joe

It’s from Europe, I don’t know if it’ll come in GBP or Euros, I’ve given them IBAN & BIC numbers.

Joe

As long as you can get there, the only thing I’d worry about is a thaw leaving the trails all minging and muddy. Riding in snow is great, and somewhere like that, at a weekend, you’ll easily be able to see where the trail goes (our local and somewhat less well ridden trails were ace today – at several points I wasn’t sure if I was on or off the trail).

Joe

There are set rates for international calls now. So prices have come down.

Only in the EU. EU is 40p a minute – which is still more than an international sim.

Outside the EU they can just make up numbers so it can be crazy still (mine is £1 a minute from the US). It has got worse recently with the currency (for example from South America, it can be £1.50 a minute or more). In the EU it makes a small difference having a cheap sim, outside the EU it makes a massive difference.

Joe

All the standard UK contracts are pretty pricey to make calls from Europe, and insanely expensive outside.

The best thing to do is use an unlocked phone, and get international sim cards. To get an unlocked phone, buy it not on a network. International sim cards you can buy either from dodgy small phone shops, or online. Sometimes it is best to get them in the country you’re going to, it is worth checking on google for the countries you’re interested in.

If you’re going to Europe, almost all UK phones will work (dual band ones). Other places you could do with a tri-band or preferably quad-band phone, which rules out the cheapest ones, but you can get a slightly more expensive one. Or if you already have a phone, find out if it is multi-band and if so get that unlocked (shouldn’t cost masses at a dodgy phone shop).

Joe

Of course she’s on the front of magazines. That’s her job, what she makes money out of, people pay her money to hear about her life.

It must be poo to have cancer. If I had cancer, knew I was likely to die, and had a job that could make me money out of it, to make sure my kids were looked after, hell I’d keep working, even if some people disapproved of what I was doing for some random snobbish reasons.

Joe

It was in the green room after a show, with the guests from the show there. When I was doing IT work, I’d have got myself sacked if I said things like that in front of a bunch of customers, and I wasn’t someone employed for my public relations / media skills. Whatever she says in private, she should know better than to be a racist nutter at work.

If it was anyone other than somebody Thatcher, the Daily Mail etc. would be trumpeting about how this was yet another example of how the BBC is terrible and their presenters are out of control, just like the thing with Jonathan Ross. It’s only because of the name that they’re supporting her.

Joe

Cool. Looking great for my lunchtime ride up Bramcote! 2.5 inches on our garden and still falling!

Joe

Oooooh a bit more snow disruption for me please.

The BBC are forecasting snowy goodness too.

Fingers crossed.

Joe

When I was growing up in the 80s, ‘wog’ was an offensive term, used by idiots to refer to black people. Anyone at school who used it would have got in trouble, same as ****, **** etc. It seems surprising that someone can have been so blinkered for the last 30 or 40 years not to have realised that calling someone this might be seen as offensive?

Joe

This might be an obvious one, but you don’t have decimal places in the numbers with English . in them instead of German ,

Joe

you want to use =countif. I can’t remember exactly how to use it, but it’s pretty straightforward in the help for countif. I think it’s
=countif(A2:A50,”<50″) or something.

Yesterday lunchtime at the local sledging hill. It is steeper than it looks and was covered with hard packed icy snow.

Joe

Broad End, Grey Crags is a nice enough walk up, it’s a nice steep climb up a scree field at the end, and a sort of path along by the stream for the rest.

It would probably suck as a ride, as you’d lose all the height on the stupid steep scree descent, which would be pretty dangerous too, then probably be pushing the bike for half of the bottom bit, I can’t quite remember how distinct / rideable the path was there.

Joe

It is doing

Rows.Count = the maximum number of rows that can possibly exist in excel – so it selects the very bottom cell, column 1, (that will be R65536 C1)

.End(xlUp) is doing the same as pressing End+Up together, which goes up from the referenced cell until it finds something, so it’ll reference the bottom most cell in the first column.

.Offset(1,0) offsets down by 1

It is a bit gross, but some people do it like this. The nice way is to use
ActiveSheet.UsedRange

Set rngUsedRange = ActiveSheet.UsedRange
intTopRow = rngUsedRange.Rows.Row
intNumRows = rngUsedRange.Rows.Count
ActiveSheet.Cells(intNumRows + intTopRow, 1).Select

this does something subtly different, in that it selects the first row that has nothing in, rather than the first cell in the first row with nothing in, but that is usually what people actually want.

Joe

joemarshall – how’d you get a mortgage if you are doing a PhD?

Actually I’m finishing off a PhD and have a job 50% of the time right now. Also, my lovely wife is 7 months more efficient than me on the PhD finishing front and is now a university lecturer, which appears to be quite well paid too.

Joe

vast majority of mobiles are quad band now so will work in the states

Yup, but not the Nokia 1600.

I just put in an offer for a house. So I guess I am possibly doomed. Although I dunno how likely they are to accept.

Other than that, if I manage to finish the PhD, I’ll with any luck be somewhat better paid than now.

Joe

If you can shower at work then mudguards are unneccecary, if its raining then how are they going to help?

They make you get way way less cold and wet when it rains. They also make you not get wet at all when there’s just water on the road. People without mudguards don’t realise quite how much difference it makes. With mudguards it is very rare that I’d need waterproofs for my commute. Without them I needed waterproofs maybe once a week to stop water off the road, plus I got way wetter on days when it is actually raining.

Joe

If you are buying an international sim, and want to buy a cheap phone in the US to put it in, be aware that many of the phones in the USA don’t have SIM cards and hence won’t work with the international sim. It depends what network they are on.

Joe

Your mobile probably won’t work – I think the bands it works on are European only.

Cheapest way just to keep in touch is probably internet cafes every so often. If you want to talk to them, just buy an international phone card and use it (you need to find a pay phone to do this – local calls are usually really cheap on payphones – and you can get phone cards that are local numbers in most cities. Even in hotels local calls are often cheap or sometimes even free).

Joe

Not until they start putting signs at roundabouts saying ‘car drivers get out and push’.

Joe

if you sell a home worth £200,000 at 20% less than market value – £160,000 – and buy a house worth £300,000 at 20% less than market value – £240,000 – then you’ll have lost £40,000 off the value of your home when you sell, but will make £20,000 profit when the market picks up again. So to summarise, if you are trading up and can get your current place sold then it’s a very good time to buy as there’s so much on the market that you can get a bargain and make capital profit after owning the new one for a fwe years.

Although in the last crash, thanks to inflation it was 12 years or so until your house was actually worth as much as it supposedly was in 1989/90, so your ‘few years’ could be a long time in practice. And what on earth do you mean by ‘market value’ – if houses previously worth 200,000 are selling for 160,000, then the market value of those houses is now 160,000.

In terms of the article linked – obviously if prices go down, it usually costs less to go up to a bigger house or buy a first house. Which is why house prices going down is great for almost everyone.

Joe

Have you got lots of space for a projection system? You need a decent amount of space for it to be worth doing (need to be a good distance back from the screen), and ideally really to only watch it with the curtains closed (even with a bright projector it is much better in the dark). Also be aware of bulb costs – some of the projector bulbs can cost £200-300 to replace (although they last something like 1000 hours).

Joe

I have an old trek 1200, which is similar to that Giant SCR talked about above – quite racey, but with mudguard mounts.

With mudguards on it is great. Drop bars are great. Every time I ride a bike with flat bars, it slow and uncomfortable, particularly down hills.

I don’t use a rack on it, I use a Carradice sqr slim saddlebag. It weighs less than rack+panniers, and takes a surprising amount of stuff (easily a full change of clothes + packed lunch). I used to use a rucksack, but that was way less comfy. This won out over a rack, because the weight is more central, and you add less total weight, plus it is quick to take off the bike when I don’t need it.

Joe

Conti gp4000 S, 23mm. I ride mostly on main roads, and ride on the road, so I don’t need them to deal with kerbs or anything.

No punctures yet (>1000 miles in).

They are a little bit more expensive than some tyres, but seem to last well (no obvious wear yet), have good puncture protection, yet are very very fast. As long as you keep them nice and hard (100-110psi), and look where you’re riding, they work fine.

Joe

I wouldn’t bother going to Europe right now if you’re skint. Even London is cheaper nowadays with the exchange rate.

Paris used to be slightly cheaper than London, but now the prices have jumped by 50% it isn’t the case any more.

It used to be that it wasn’t unusual to spend 12 euros or so on a couple of coffees and a piece of cake each, but that wasn’t the end of the world cos it was only about 8 quid, whereas nowadays that’s 12 quid.

If you really need to go to Paris and are skint – I’ve done Paris on the cheap – staying in hostels, eating lunches bought from bakeries / cheese shops / wine shops, and eating out only in cheapish places, and it wasn’t insanely expensive, probably no more than 70 euros a day for the two of us, although prices have gone up since then. We stayed somewhere up near the Rue Mouffetard, which is a nice area to be in for cheapish food – lots of students live round there, and has some v nice bakeries and food shops. Obviously you have to cross the river to get to some of the famous sights, but Paris is really small, so you can walk everywhere if need be.

Joe

Who you are (Name, NI Number, Address, Tel, Smoker/Non Smoker)

Skill Set – some people (especially IT, prefer you to rate your abilities in each area)

Most recent job (date to – from)
Brief outline of role and responsibilities
Any added value, benefits, budget saved, delivered early

I’d not put on ni number (why do they need to know?), and why do they want to know if I smoke?

At the top, be really clear about your skills. Bullet points, that make it obvious – for example don’t say ‘good leadership skills’, put ‘x years team management’.

On the rest – I always try and think of one thing per job that sounds impressive – for example one of my development jobs I say something along the lines of ‘specified and developed a major feature of their flagship product blah’. If you managed people in any of your jobs, make sure you’re clear about that.

I always have a small bit about personal stuff that lists various exercise things including mountain unicycling. Putting something odd on there gets me remembered by them, and guarantees an easy to answer question in the interview (I don’t think I’ve ever not been asked about that). I’ve never had any problems about it being dangerous.

I don’t list GCSEs since I got A-Levels / university degree / some experience. To be honest I can’t remember if I even listed A-levels last time. Although you do see CVs where they listed their Grade 2 piano exam etc. so obviously everyone has a different approach to this.

Joe

Forget Teflon, hard anodized aluminium is your friend.

For a bit anyway.

Still goes sticky, but after 5 years rather than 1. Although I’m considering having a go at it with some fine glass-paper to see if I can make it flat again.

And don’t bother with the lifetime warranty ones it doesn’t cover the non-stick surface going non-non-stick.

Joe

In theory, you can get them to sign NDAs, to say that they won’t tell people and won’t copy your idea, and to make sure that it is clear they have seen your idea.

If it is a big company you’re talking with though, and you’re a small company / random guy with ideas, in practice it’d be surprising if they’d worry too much about breaking them (and quite a few big companies will refuse to sign your NDA), but at least you have evidence that they saw the idea.

If by any chance it is software, in my experience of software development, 99% of the work is on the development of an idea, loads of people have ideas that sound neat to them but not the skills to make it, and 99 times out of 100, the idea turns out to be stupid once someone who could build one starts thinking about building it. I’ve quite a few times had people saying “I’ve got a great idea for a program/website/gadget/whatever” that they obviously think is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Inevitably they want to give you a share of the supposed profits, rather than actually pay money for it to be developed.

Joe

I have em. They are very waterproof, but I’d be scared of not being able to brake, or catching them in the brake levers.

They are jolly big because they’re supposed to be worn over normal gloves.

I find the best thing glovewise is gloves that are warm when wet. I use some cheap hiking gloves if it is cold, with thin liner gloves underneath if it’s really cold. They seem to still work if they are wet.

Joe

Ooh, I’d love to do the ones in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. Big spiral staircase. A full-susser might be preferable, to preserve the spine, and of course you’d have to ensure no-one was coming up the other way…

I’m going to try and do that, and film the bastard.

http://www.unicyclist.com/index.php?page=gallery&g2_itemId=125951

They are a bit slippy slidy though and steep and tight, and yes, like you say, have someone at the bottom to check no-one is coming, you can see bugger all from the top.

I think we may have waited till the lift was going up from the bottom to run it*, cos then you don’t get noticed. We didn’t get any hassle for doing it anyway.

Joe

*When I say ‘we’ I took the sensible option of taking photos for this one. I’m a big fan of not being dead.

That’s true Joe, but you do not choose to buy from a particular agent, you choose to buy a house. You’ll ultimately buy the house you want, even if the agent is a lazy, patronising, stupid, arrogant, tool with a horrible shirt, over-large tie-knot, naff car and a stench of Calvin Klein aftershave. Thye know that, and have some interest in showing you as many houses as they possibly, possibly can rather than just showing you the good ones.

Not when houses are on with multiple agents, which several of the ones we’re looking at are. And we’ve already just said no to one viewing because it was too much hassle sorting out a simple first viewing, and the agent was too dodgy.

Joe

No it isn’t

D’you mean it isn’t in Derbyshire, or it isn’t small?

Cos it is, and 20,000 people isn’t that big a town, and it is small in the sense of having a compact town centre at least.

Joe

You understand that they don’t work for you, don’t you? If you want someone who does, be prepared to pay 2-3% of final purchase price to a finding agent.

They only don’t work for you in a market where there are more people to buy the houses than people who want to sell, so it’s just a matter of pushing the price up as high as possible.

In a market like the current one, it is to their financial advantage to get through sales at any price, rather than to work on behalf of the seller to maximise the price. If they worked rationally, they’d be working for us, no matter who the commission actually comes from in the end. They get way more commission if they sell two houses, than if they manage to sell one at a slightly higher price.

Similarly, there is so much on the market, and so many agents, that it isn’t to their advantage to piss off buyers, as buyers can just choose not to use them (especially with a lot of houses being on with 2 agents).

Joe

At least with Property Bee[/url] we can avoid the lies about how long things have been on the market, and what the price drops have been.

Joe

Well I sort of meant things that you’d seen yourself for real,

this boy is the best, ever end of.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uPznTbus3g

I overtook him last year. And I was on a unicycle too, there is a video of it somewhere.*

Joe

*admittedly this was on a road, and he isn’t a massive road rider and was recovering from a knee injury at the time, but hey I’m still proud!