morpheus – Member

yawn

of course! :-)

Lanesra, does Dr Dolittle want to fight you?? I had the impression you were going to enagage in some angry intercourse or something. :-) This could be the beginning of another beautiful STW love story. Hope you guys catch up soon!

Oh and fwiw NHS had a below inflation pay rise the other year (although they tried to dres it up as a 'staged pay award'). Does that count as a wage freeze too?

I'm hoping Dave will really lift the nation with a passionate speech setting out his vision for our (and our childrens) future.

…He has a vision?

If I wanted a guaranteed 9-4 with early Friday finishes, flexitime, easytime, don't-feel-like-working-today-time, more holidays, paternity leave etc Id go and work for a Local Authority.

Its not all rosy in public sectorland either….

The on-call rates for non-doctors in the NHS these days are ridiculous. I get 38p an hour (honestly! its a fixed percentage of my hourly rate) for being on call which involves taking phone calls, making clinical decisions, being available (and close enough) to drop everything and rush in to work at a moment's notice. Thankfully the weekends where the phone does not stop ringing are fewer than the quiet ones for me, but 38p an hour for no riding, drinking or even being on my own with the children (in case I have to rush off and leave them) is a complete pisstake.

after a certain grade in my nhs trust you can't claim for overtime at all and you are expected at meetings at 8am, and you finish when you finish not at 5pm. My boss and his boss above him both put in 50+ hours a week and they get a salary and that is all. Even near the bottom of the NHS foodchain the amount of unclaimed time from working through breaks and staying on late is startling in some teams. We certainly don't clock in and clock out like when I had a punchcard for it!

scaredypants – Member

I'm not here to think – I'm pitchfork monitor for the night

:lol:

…and no I think you would have to work really hard to make a whole living out of it, I can't imagine that after postage, ebay/paypal fees and so on you make that much on a frame or bike.

Nope, just the one login AFAIK. But he did change his ebay name to one less like his STW login a while back, curiously soon after I 'waved' at him a bit too much on here. And made all his ebay feedback 'private' so you don't see how many bikes and frames he shifts anymore.

Of course, if you were that interested you could make him one of your 'favourite sellers' though ebay and could probably get a little fortnightly update of what he is selling. I do this for a few genuinely interesting sellers who i who I have bought quite a bit from, so it seemed such an insignificant little extra click to find out that he still shifts four or five bikes and frames a month…. *waves again*

If it wasn't him then who were you thinking of scaredypants?

When they came to fit our alarms (having drummed up business at the checkouts in Sainsburys), our firefighters turned in an actual fire engine. I suppose I was expecting them to turn up in one of those red focuses (focii?) they drive round here, but I suppose they were also on duty and needed to be able to go straight to a call rather than waiting for half the crew to come back to the station. Anyway, the children loved it and keep asking me if we can get a couple more fitted. I am sure it is more of a drag than sitting around in the station waiting for a call, but what a great service. :D

…amazing what goes through the classified on here and ends up on ebay too. When this subject has come up before a few more regular faces than me have talked about there being a number of people they will not deal with on classified for this reason. The worrying thing is if a casual internerd like me can spot it, there must be plenty more lurking on here who I wouldn't have a clue about.

Nevertheless Pop, I have a feeling you could have sold your frame to someone else on that thread who would have also sold it on but covered his tracks better. *waves*

I have got one of these massive shimano cone spanners which is 18 and 28mm: the 28mm for the inner cone and then a huge adjustable or a vice for the outer lockring.

Be warned!

a)they are done up bastid tight.

b)by the time my slx started rumbling the drive side cone was a little bit scored already.

c)the bearings (normal front wheel size but a lot more of them) are in a plastic cage which you have to break in 2 to get the balls out.

d)it takes a few goes to get the cone and lockring done up just tight but no too toght, as you can't do it with an axle vice or on the 'wrong' side of a dropout like you would do with a normal size cup and cone axle. I suppose shimano service centres ought to have a vice mount for this that suports the inside of the axle and allows you to clamp the outside without crushing it, but i have never seen one.

Sadly another example of a good shimano design principles (angular contact bearings on a big axle sounds like a great idea) but that need special and scarce tools to service properly.

Good skillz Rich! I can't believe a 'unit' like you on a full sus beat some proper crossers. I might have to join you just so everyone has someone slow to repeatedly lap. Bodmin on 18th sounds good.

Other crossers, if I ride my skinniest mud tyres on a singlespeed will I make it round?

falafel flavoured burps (eaten)
innis and gunn
Adem 'Homesongs'

Le Blaireau:

Rather unadventurous but my favourite flavour combinations at the moment are peanut butter and cucumber, and 'proper' rum and ginger beer (rather unfortunately known in Cornwall as a 'darkie': I prtefer to call it Pirate Juice. Yaaaaaaargh)

if you mean bushings, try some cones and washers on a threaded axle, or different sized sockets between the jaws of a vice: I did my shock bushings like that and it was fine.

[edit] Much better explanation on the rp23 thread below.

Horse riders pay for annual permit at my local (FC) woods.
If it goes back into trails, why not? Haldon forest put the proceeds of their car park into the trails network and loos etc. (until the meter got stolen!) Only thing is that getting money from parking is easy to charge and police, not so for access/riding with people riding in and out or at night.

Wow, serious ancestry, Barnsleymitch! Stalin was his 'stage name' to give himself more political clout (it roughly translates as 'man of steel') -his original family name was Dzhugashvili and they were from Georgia, funnily enough his sons (given either or both names in 'istory
books) fancied taking his more famous name on as their family name too… Interesting how many Eastern Europeans with less infamous names who settled here also changed or shortened their names (pesumably to sound less 'soviet' or be easily pronounced by locals).

our local badger is called Hinault :D

So you bought some pedals you could have paid £30 more for equivalents elsewhere, and you won't be able to buy new pins for three months? Best see if you trash the pins inside three months then. It would seem having a pootle through the threads that pedals are one thing SSC does well. (no i don't know him and yes I have had varying rubbish-to-good experiences of ssc products) Stop moaning and have a squid cartoon :-)

I am: (well, 'managment' post means I do quite a bit less nursing on a day-to-day basis than I used to!) -childrens mental health.

Job security and a rather poor salary-to-qualifications-and-experience ratio, which is partially financially mitigated by a not so poor pension scheme (big bunfight on here a few months ago if you are interested).

I would see if you can get part time work as a nursing auxiliary to see how you find it, rather than flying straight into a degree. This will also stand ou a better chance of getting onto a course (some universities are fussy about experience as well as A levels) It is hard in some areas (geographical and departmental) to get into the NHS as a nursing auxiliary with no experience, but I wouldn't rule it out until you have tried working actually in the NHS a bit, as in my experience private and residential/nursing homes is less well paid and often less rewarding.

Oh and you will see lots of peoples' bottoms and stuff. There is absolutely no way you will get through nurse training (or even a week of nursing auxiliary-ing) withou getting your (gloved) hands messy in one way or another. If you don't like that, train to be an occupational therapist! :wink:

Perhaps I should have been clearer just then; palliative care is for people dying at home, usually but not exclusively of cancer. Perhaps you should have a trawl back though her posts to find out what's up with her lad (no he isn't dying) and how she gets on with it. [edit: perhaps the word you meant was 'respite'.]

Though her religious/faith persuasions are news to me…

professional palliative care

It's not terminal, you know!

possibly a daft question but why the 'cage' in MMA? Not all contests seem to have one (some would seem to have ropes which come up a bit higher than boxing ones). Perhaps it wouldn't get such a bad press if they weren't behind a fence.

Did anyone listen as far as the bagpipes bit? I'd forgottoen the full extent of this musical, errr, journey.

oh, 7.5 out of 10 for the Mull' too.

Stephen Merrit's not that fat is he? Agreed, 69 love songs is a lovely set of songs: 'love' being about the only thing in common between all of them.

Oh and Bob Mould is ace too.

£400 per month spare cash is about 200 more than I have ever had!

Where are you spending it all?

timdrayton – Member

the spelling is s o m e o n e

:D Well spotted.

Don't forget a capital letter and a full stop if you're feeling really correct though, Tim. :D

Spelling and grammar pedantry gets my goat. Incorrectly spelt or constructed spelling and grammar pedantry is just asking for a pedant pile-on!

If you wait long enough somenone will usually be along with a sensible answer though.

36 hours! 8O she must be totally shattered!

Congratulations! -and my baby tips are (if/when you end up bottle feeding) Infacol and the 'dream feed' at 11pm.

3 bel-airs amongst my mates, all creak to varying degrees/volumes. Still not enough to put me off getting another one though, mine is on my commuting bike and its lovely.

they are the same as all the other ones ie 2.5mm thick, (though the ones on mine are metal not plastic) so any brand will do. Try putting a wanted ad on classifieds I'd have thought.

yes, riding it. In a funny way I am glad it is only 60k this year as the physical shape I am in this month, I am not sure I would finish 90k before teatime! Apparently it will just be one enormous lap this year though.

yes it should have some spacers with it in order to fit a 68mm bb shell. Mine has 2 on drive side and 1 on non drive.

I have an old (2005, when the shock got reliable) scott genius mc50 which wmb gushed over with their funny little 'award' logos, and ST mag said was very precarious and not a lot of fun to ride. It is a proper hoot to ride now I have a bit too much sag on the back and pikes on the front. Hardly a marathon race bike anymore though.

The perfect turbotrainer album. Honestly, its really good to spin to.

Also LCD Soundsystem did a mix album called 45:33 as a shameless cash-in with Nike. That is great excercise music too.

Last year was lots of the following:
newnham (most of), the bridleway between newnham and elfordleigh wood, elfordleigh wood itself, cann wood, those woods across the stream from cann you're not supposed to ride in, much of the old tramway incline (one bit went down, another bit went back up), crownhill down (boggy and sloggy but its been dry and windy here for a couple of weeks so you never know…), the china clay works, the 'rim wrecker' (which is waaaaaay more cut-up than last year now) stocker's pit and surrounding bits, moorland back down to that little farm behind newnham. It was mostly ace, gives you lots of ideas of cheeky rides in the vicinity.

yes. Its really hard living anything like your normal life, especially for the first 2 or 3 weeks as you have to elevate the leg most of the time.

Best thing for me was a 'satchel' with a shoulder strap hanging at the front as your bag pulls you forward not backward (easier to overbalance forward that backwards) and it hard to carry anything around with you if you are on crutches. It sounds silly but having lots of spaces to put things down every few feet in the house helps as you can put your tea down, hop forward a bit and then move it again.

Also I had a sort of drybag with a neoprene collar round the thigh (a 'Limbo' iirc) which means you can prop your leg up and have a good soak in the bath without worrying about getting the cast wet.

I've had bargain brakes from merlin (juicy 5 and k24) and crc (old saint) and they have all been bagged not boxed. All have worked faultlessly, and come with pad spacers and proper instructions. The saints even came with spare olives and barbs to shorten the 'will definitely fit your bike' long hoses. Only thing to be aware of (and they should tell you in the blurb) is if they come with shorther hoses or no rotors/mounts. Then they are not such a bargain if you have to buy extra bits…

loud last-season's (ie cheaper) roadie bib shorts as undershorts, oh yes. Especially when you wear them under downhill shorts with body armour and a full face helm.

I have a couple of bib tights, 2 thicknesses of legwarmers and we have matching dad'n'daughter campagnolo roadie caps in red and barbie pink. And a few roadieish tops I suppose.

On the other hand I don't like fingerless mitts, baggies seem better for falling off in (i think its something about having 2 layers of shorts sliding over each other a bit when you slide to an ungentlemanly halt on your side…) and I don't really spend enough time sat in the saddle to feel justified in spending £150 on posh bibshorts.

10 members! Rad!

i've wrecked a couple of tubes by just inflating them and pulling the valve out of the tube. Not really sure how: track pump hose on presta tube with collar done up in xm317 with a spesh nimbus. The only thing i can think is that the tyre pulls the tube away from the (fixed in the rim) valve as the whole thing inflates and the tyre seats. I tried one just now with only enough valve showing (still loose) to get the pump head on and it went up fine. Any thoughts?