I used to frequent bikemagic a bit. I only really bother now for archived/old reviews. If you find something old in the sales the readers reviews can be helpful a bit like mtbr i suppose.

xcracer.com forum is really great if you like racing but that's pretty much all they talk about. It is a very 'sensible' forum where you get sensible answers rather than MTFU ones or silly jokes about 29ers (which is why i mostly prefer this one i suppose) and the 'debates' about acing are both informative and often unintentionally quite funny if you take a step back. They also have a link to the numbplumz page that has pretty much every mountainbike even in the uk listed which is useful. i suppose it is in almost every sense the complete opposite of Mlehworld!

you building yourself or buying?
Build it yourself with xt hubs from on-one, dt comps from crc and xc717's from wherever is cheapest

Or get merlin to build you 717's on hope.

Or those hope hoops via wheelpro are excellent value.

The Bike Shed do organised rides in evenings and at weekends iirc. (one of my colleagues lives in exeter and i think its them he goes out with. Or Eexter Mountain Bike Club do organised rides too.

How can it be a stealth tax when it's governed by independant organisation to keep the Lottery in check with all the rules and regulations.

It's to do with what the government used to pay for out of taxes and duties, and now don't pay for because the lottery commission exists and does it. The amount of money museums, charitable foundations and so on receive compared to pre-national lottery days will vary depending on who you ask (Conservatives under whom it was set up and the lottery commission will say more of course but then they would do!)

But what is clear is that it is the less-rich people who buy the most lottery tickets. If you worked it out in terms of what people pay in income and council tax versus what they spend on the lottery it would look even worse. Considering they don't pay much in the way of council tax or income tax, via the lottery the low waged or unemployed people in this country still contribute a disproportionately high amount of money to what the government used to fund itself out of everyone's money and now no longer does.

You can bet your life that people will always buy lottery tickets in the hope of a sudden boost out of poverty, and that if there were 2 sorts of lottery tickets where the one which had no contribution to the lottery commission (but equal chance of winning) was half price, people would just buy twice as many cheap ones.

So yeah, stealth tax. Grumble over.

Earl – Member

Slight hijack – Can you use a 9sp chain with these sprockets?

No. Supposedly too narrow (though I have never tried.)
I use a 7/8sp one which is the same width as a 3/32" but arguably weaker cos its designed to shift between cogs and has bevelled edges on the inside of the outer link.

I haven't trolled/moaned on here for a bit, so:

indirect stealth tax on the poor imo.

Out of interest, do people prefer the same numbers or lucky dips? The 'suicide lottery' idea is an intruiging one!

what happened to that google earth map of where we all lived? And rode? (Yes, potentially burglarsome idea as was discussed at great length, so I put my pin on a nice 4 bedroomed executive home half a mile away so you can break into their garage and rob their his 'n' hers apollos instead).

i recall as a wide-eyed wannabe astronaut (age 8 or 9) that in zero gravity, Nasa used some sort of hoover pipe with an attachment that cupped over both ends to suck your number 1's and 2's up before they floated all over the place. I reckon you could use your tyre pressure and some heath robinson gubbins to make a similar vacuum device for the trail….

…meanwhile in an even pettier and sillier parallel universe, I am a vindictive bitter man with the username 'Droftaw' trolling about scousers over a long-held grudge over how Everton robbed 'us' of the FA cup in 1984. It was already in the keeper's hands, I tell you…..

though not a piece of kit, I would say that if you call it 4 nights camping in devon in July with a bike race thrown in, the bontrager 24/12 is outstanding value.

And i know they are heavy but they are fun (and extremely fun) not race bikes: the price of on-one 456's is outstanding at the moment.

For people that don't mind servicing them, complete shimano hubs to build your own wheels is waaaaay better value than any other hub for performance/weight and infinitely better value than their 'factory' wheels.

This headset press[/url] is also very sensibly priced compared to the nearly the same Park Tools version for 90-odd quid.

'roids, mate :wink:

both types are in one way or the other prone to inhibiting ones saxual prowess.

Its sunny and we all should be out riding, that's probably why.

Apart from the actual story itself, I remembered the McCannns as being doctors, well-off and living in a nice village in the midlands with 2 other children.

Thanks for reminding us that Kate McCann is from Liverpool. Crucial information! Is she a LFC fan? Or Everton? Or even Southport? Or does she even give two hoots about football?

I've seen shimano cleats on sale for £19.99. 8O I take it this is the new rrp as the shop concerned is otherwise pretty decent.

just about anything camelbak aftermarket seems hugely overpriced. I feel for nichey bike specific products with limited retailing and small market and I am sure a certain amount of the apparent high price reflects the very much smaller 'economy of scale' as it were, but was suprised to see camelbak all over the place whilst i was camping kit-shopping yesterday. Even in Sports World!

oh and probably teaching granny to suck eggs, but make sure you are undoing them the right way. I only mention this by way of confessing a similar half-hour altercation with an old bmx several years ago.

If the bike is built up, I like pulsgas and 'gentle but long' leverage eg big vice and big spanner or finding a way to prop yourself against a wall and using your body weight on the opposing pedal: i seem to have had better results with this way with old seized in bolts than anything 'percussive' as it seems to round off the flats a lot faster. Certainly worked on my car a few times as well as a few pedals, bottom brackets and cranks.

A proper big size/wide jaw pedal spanner isn't that expensive from halfords (its a rebranded cyclo one), you can use the 2 different angles for 'optimum' leverage and will last forever.

Have a look at this ridiculous r'n'b parody. :-)

Eh? it's only 2 so far, maximum. So much for your empirical methods, Psych-med quackboy.

Excuse my poor phrasing of this. I was talking about mental health forums not bike chat ones but that didn't really come across up there^^ did it? :oops:

There are plenty of real doctors on here (i thought you were too, non?), but try starting a forum about child psychiatry and see how many randoms you get there!

fwiw i am a senior nurse/manager in child and adolescent mental health but hey, how would you really know?? They check you out before they let you in on the one i mentioned earlier.

Lanesra shouting "nobhead"

…don't let that put you off, he always says that. Perhaps he has a shortcut key for it. It will be because you pointed at his willy or something.

For stuff like this that has a few 'loud shouters' responding who may not necessarily represent the whole picture, you may be better off joining and consulting a 'susbscriber only' email or forum based discussion group of other drug workers. We have a similar thing in our particular conrner of the already small corner of child psychiatry, partly so we don't confuse or worry people who get the wrong end of the stick of our discussions, and partly so we don't get the same 50 doctor-impersonators, angry teens or parents posting all the time and muddying the waters. Not sure where you would start finding the equivalent in drug-work-land though.
BB emails welcome but bear in mind my knowledge is based on the job (not drugs work proper but quite a few dual diagnosis psychosis cases) I did 3+ years ago, actually some of the above comments are news to me too! Happily ketamine is not of much interest to the messed up teenagers of devon and cornwall (yet!) so i haven't encountered any users for a while.

From a medical point of view, a sensible dose of ketamine isn't that bad for you (compared to medical risks of crack, cheap coke/amphetamines or adulterated cement-infused heroin that is) if you aren't too susceptible to the hallucinations and they don''t make you flip out and do something daft while you're on it. Or if you are susceptible to drug induced psychosis, or suffer from schizoprenia/schizoaffective disorder.

The thing that puzzles me is that for most people it really just isn't any fun. Its association with music/festivals/clubs/parties puzzles me cos you just miss out on all the good bits. Most people i know/know of who got into it did so as an almighty 'snooze button' to the alarm clock of real life.

Lanesra – Member

My first ever pill was a "Special K" at the Astoria in 1989 – I took it about 10pm, next thing I know it's 8am and I'm devoid of clothes dancing on top of a table – good times

…yours seems to have undoubtedly been good fun, but quite possibly not really ketamine but something a bit livelier. Under the table under a pile of coats would have been the response to proper ketamine. Probably just as well, I have worked with/looked after many poly-drug users and none of them had much positive to say about it apart from its relatively low price.

The medical application for it is anaesthesia, often in trauma/emergency care. If you are in the k-hole you don't necessartily lose consciousness (dose dependent) but neither do you notice them sawing your legs off to get you out of a motorway pile-up. Sounds like fun :|

I bodged my surly 1×1 fork (a little bit suspension corrected) and it looks fine: far better with the guard nice and close to the wheel.

if you sell the records afterwards then you are. This happens on the assumption that we will all keep our records, cd's and tapes in the loft after we have converted them to digital.

Personally i converted my record collection to mp3 ages ago and I now keep it in the garage, carefully cleaning lubing it and taking it for a razz round the woods. :D

Taylorplayer – Member

Someone on classifieds is selling a 2 year old Lowden 023 for £1500

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/ot-lowden-023-guitar

You can get them brand new under warranty for just over £2300:

http://www.georgelowden.com/

Shocking abuse of the classifieds – could it be the end?

:lol: For the non-guitarists on here, wood settling and seasoning itself usually means that high-end acoustic guitars age an enormous amount better than bicycles. I would rather try and then buy a 5 year old solid-top than a brand new one! Sounds like a fine price to be starting out with (but much more likely to find a buyer on a guitar forum perhaps…)

cable end caps

ahhh, such silly times! I'd forgotten about the aerospace engineer one! It also opened my eyes to octopus smut. :lol:

Superstar HQ, this morning:

…it was much funnier than he tells it though. :D

I had something that looked a bit like this for tea tonight:

mmmmmmmmmm, paneer….

mastiles_fanylion – Member

Learn from it.

As always, the Cockman cometh…

…at least his login name is a bit more descrpitive these days! :lol:

in all seriousness, I'll be jiggered if i can find anything in the OP that definitely points to driver error. Did he edit it? Or perhaps TZF is operating inder greater understanding of the wording of a post than the rest of us, and has detected some error or carelessness in this that the layperson cannot.

For my own benefit at least, (I too am not averse to overtaking 2 vehicles on a damp-but-not-wet dual carriageway and returning to the left lane) what did he do wrong?

oh, and glad you are all in one piece!

yikes, top moth-spotting folks^^. Apparently they are quite common some summers. I am pretty sure I would have memories of backing away very nervously as a scared eight-year-old if I had seen one before.

In your case TJ you could just write 'tandem(insert partner's name here)' as she is the other one on the tandem.

For ages i thought that fire roads were to stop the spread of forest fires: on giving it some (well, more than a couple of seconds) thought I later realised the road would have to be about a hundred yards wide for that. :oops:

i tend to keep mine the same pressure top and bottom (you might think that if you have a higher negative pressure it will be more supple but actuially on the 2 dual air ones I've had it just feels rubbish).

But I think either I am not trying hard enough, or RS reccommended pressures are higher than they should be. I would just try dropping both in equal amounts.

also if they are brand new they might get more supple with time. Alas I have not fitted a brand new fork since 2006 so I am not sure if this still happens.

ROFL Harris – Member

Trying to "source" something – you aren't you are looking or buying, its a bike not a **** nuclear missile you are building

:lol:

on those parenting/childcare forums they would refer to 'mr (relevant avatar)' as 'DH' (which stands for Dear Husband) Yuck!

Also I find the bikey use of 'running' a bit far fetched, ie "I run monkeylights on all my bikes."
No, 'running' implies some sort of managment or continous adjustment of a complex machine. Like running a pub, or running a steam engine. You just bolted some handlebars on your bikes, and now just have them on your bikes.

Harumph.

TandemJeremy – Member

Juilian – no – JE james put up a thread advertising discounts available which was pulled by the mods

schoolboy error from a bike shop who advertises here anyway, I'd have thought!

paulosoxo – Member

Their adver-thread has been pulled

…was that the big long one errr, 'discussing' the service recieved from that there bike shop? I supose they do pay some of the rent here, as it were….

Though I wouldn't say it actively pisses me off, I have never come even close to rolling on the floor laughing at anything I have seen or read on the internet. No offence, ROFL/ralph/Rob. I am sure your login was chosen in this light.

Oh, FTW does get on my pip a bit.

Podiatry would seem to be the easiest of the AHP's to get into fairly lucratuive private practice with. (biiiiiig investment in kit to go private though).
otherwise i suppose think carefully about doing the same job as your other half. Mrs julian and I both do 'mental' nursing (she works in on of my old teams with loads of my old colleagues/friends) and it is nice that we have no 'business' with each other in our day-to-day work; and 'interesting' when we do not see eye to eye!

Would you be looking particularly at physio if your mrs wasn't one? Have you considered that whatever qualifies you for physio probably also gets you into Occupational Therapy, Dietician-ing, Podiatry, possibly paramedic-ing and dare i say it nursing?

But university as a grownup isn't that bad particularly since in health related stuff, half your course will be 30's or over.
Bigger considerations will be financial side of it and distance of placements from your home: unless you do nursing or ambulancing, most universities seem to reserve the right to send you literally hundreds of miles away for your practice placements.

Yes – we both said yes whilst having our lunch on a hill top

awwwwwwwwwww! That is very sweet: congratulations.
A five page thread wouldn't be complete without someone shoehorning a mention of the BBB in: will you be toasting/marking your betrothal in some way there?

museum curator or insurance underwriter.

I am a mental health nurse.

blimey Aleigh. You say 'agreed' like my wife does when she 'agrees' we are painting the bedroom lilac: does Rudeboy know you're marrying him yet? :-)

concrete hermit

and lots more nichey stuff.

When out with downhill bikes, we have a 'three more runs' rule for the last run of the day.