Acupuncture = woo.
The plural of anecdote is not data.

You won’t go far wrong with Hein Gericke kit, they sell everything from basic thru to bling.
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Probably best as a starter would be a zip-together textile 2 piece with pull-out thermal layer.

Seconded. I commute 45-50 mins each way and wear HG all year. My local HG shop does special weekly deals, I got a 2 piece suit, waterproof with armour and back protector, for about 200 notes.

After months of being soaked and covered in grime and salt it needed cleaning and treating which you do in a washing machine – but it worked fine.

You might add a pair of dragon/draggin/whatever jeans for the sunny bimbles to the coast.

Loving the shots all you … “gents of significant experience” have of yourselves when younger and dumber on those two shock monsters. God knows how I’d have managed trying to lob one of those about.

Reminds me of On Any Sunday (I’ve got the DVD), the motocross bit is just amazing. You guys are probably all in it!? :lol:

I aspire to being not totally hopeless at enduros. Rode a KLX300 for a while but it weighed a ton and kick starting needed a run up! One fall and I’d expend 6 laps of effort getting it up and running again.

Now I have a YZ 250 crosser, the ‘wrong’ bike, but a real good price as it was a bit tatty. Fitting a flywheel weight, sticker set, bark busters, skid plate, quiet pipe (sic), and 18 inch wheel and it will still be a good price.

I’ve now re-learnt how to move around the bike without ending up straight armed and flat out. (I left the course at full throttle and cartwheeled into a hedge once.)

Saw a Suzuki twin shocker at Cheddar MX a while ago; he’d have beaten me any day. :lol:

There is a skillset to driving fast (or at all) on the road, it’s mostly positioning, observation, and planning. When done right, it can make fast feel mundane.

Some folks do a race school or track day and take that skillset to the road, but it’s completely unsuited. (An interesting context for Damon
Hill’s recent comments?)

As for bikes seeming crazy fast; if everyone drove trucks but for a few odd cars on the road everyone’d think car drivers were nuts, zipping and nipping about at ‘incredible’ speed.

Rule 163 states:

move quickly past the vehicle you are overtaking, once you have started to overtake. Allow plenty of room. Move back to the left as soon as you can but do not cut in”

“Plenty of room” is undefined, but no mention is made of two second gaps or stopping distances.

Rule 168 states:

Being overtaken. If a driver is trying to overtake you, maintain a steady course and speed, slowing down if necessary to let the vehicle pass. Never obstruct drivers who wish to pass. Speeding up or driving unpredictably while someone is overtaking you is dangerous. Drop back to maintain a two-second gap if someone overtakes and pulls into the gap in front of you.

Therefore, re-spacing the deck once an overtaking vehicle has pulled in is expected and required.

Sorry to spoil the fun.

29ers suck.

What coffeeking seems to be saying (feel free to correct correct me, especially if you ARE coffeeking) is that you should only overtake and pull in front of a vehicle that has a gap in front of it of at least twice the stopping/thinking distance.?

What if this country was run like a building society?

Your vote is weighted by the tax you’ve paid in the last whatever. And that’s tax paid by you as an individual, not by the “corporation” that “employs” you (and only you, at minimum wage).

Anyone wanting to vote here would have to pay tax here.

There’s plenty wrong with it, probably. The rich would have more votes for a start – but only if they paid their tax.

Also. If you’re gonna post on a forum about back pain, try one like this:
http://www.rebuildyourback.com/forum/index.php
Come back here when your rear mech has fungilated its spodgules and needs re-doobry-ing.

(Seem to remember there were quite a lot of folks on RBYB *because* they’d visited a chiro-quack-ter, back when I was looking at it.)

All these near death adventures and soiling oneself episodes at least have the advantage of being in some way epic, or funny.

I joined a group ride round the Mendips, which have some of the best riding you’ll find anywhere if led by someone who knows his onions. Note “if”.

Ya know those trails that you’d only ever ride in order to link to something else? This ride was ALL those. Absolutely no technical challenge to be found in the entire 3 or 4 hours. In the pouring rain all the way.

Worst of all, someone just a tiny tiny bit famous came along to be “shown the Mendips”. How desperately embarrassing. :oops:

If you dissolved all the soft tissue off someone, would what would happen to their spine? It would fall to pieces all over the floor. A spine is the shape it is because of the muscles and ligaments holding it up.

So if someone pushes your vertebrae into a new position, the “adjustment” is gone by the time you reach the carpark.

Chiro is pure woo. Yes, some money is too much. See a physio. Warning: physios usually prescribe exercise. (That’s why people prefer chiro.)

Honestly, I wouldn’t drop any sports (except taekwondo) from the games IF the emphasis in TV coverage was to shift. So used to them showing days and days and days of track and field, and then the odd 2 minute montage of some fencing or judo.

(I would like to see them reintroduce running in full hoplite armour and shield though – specially some hurdling like that!)

Any sport where an Olympic gold is not considered the greatest achievement possible.

So, for example; if anyone beat the 100m record while not at the olympics, the 100m would be removed from the olympics – until the existing record was once again surpassed at the olympics.

It’d certainly whittle down the number of events over time.

First of all, there’s no reason why Olympians should be amateurs – the original ancient Greek athletes weren’t.

Get rid of most of the running. All those distances, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1600m, 5km, 10km, Marathon… Good grief. Swimming is the same, but with different strokes too – there must be more medals on offer than competitors.

Never understood why there’s Judo and wrestling, should just be wrestling – learn it in a judo school if you like.

Taekwondo? Do me a lemon, it was embarrassing.

BMX racing actually seems a good fit, equipment is pretty simple and it combines explosive sprinting with guts, aggression, and technique.

And bring back pankration.

My other half does yoga.

Involves lots of strength and stretching training, which sound a good approach to general muscular and skeletal health (though I’ve heard some modern approaches would disapprove of some poses).

It also involves being told your body is full of little wheels that you have to make spin the right way or your qi falls off or something. which is, frankly, complete woo.

As already said, you’re being trained, and if you take the training on board as it’s given you’ll pass.

The instructor will tell/show you which bit of road to ride on.

Game of Thrones
Walking Dead
Spartacus
My name is Earl. (Hey, Crabman.)

Batgirl!

Got a parking ticket on the last night of a holiday in Spain. Couldn’t understand anything it said, so showed it to the hire car girl when returning the car. She looked at me as though I was a gibbering simpleton, and with movement that was somehow both economical and exaggeratedly dismissive she crumpled the ticket in one hand, shrugged, dropped the ticket (presumably into a bin under the counter) and said “You are a tourist – go!” and made little ‘shooing’ motions.

Spanish cops routinely shoo off drivers they’ve pulled over when they discover they’re dealing with a tourist, and when a relative was caught with a handbag stuffed with tobacco when returning from Gibraltar the senior cop waved them through with a dismissive exclamation of “Pah, (it’s only) contraband”.

I suggest the OP doesn’t lose any sleep.

I’ve often thought of getting a BMX. Trouble is that a mid 30’s bloke hanging around the local skate park is pro’ly gonna end up on a database.

Still, as I’m under 6′, it sounds like 20″ top tube is the thing?

And as for gearing, is the tiny cogs and giant cogs choice really more about a clearance/wear-rate trade off than actual gearing…?

(Used to have a raleigh super burner in gold and black. It was my first mountain bike. Cos there weren’t actual mountain bikes in Surrey back then…)

joao3v16

Motorcyclists will probably always use them as it’s a handy space to use when they’ve filtered past traffic.

When I ended up motorbiking into work, I saw all other motorbiklists using the orange box. I could understand why – we’ve been filtering to the front for 100 yrs and suddenly the front’s painted orange. Pah.

But I decided to at least start out law abiding. I filtered through traffic and stopped between the cars – no big deal, the nippiness of my bike would see me out first. A glance in the mirror showed me the line of cyclists who’d filtered behind me were now trapped between two lines of cars, and looking unhappy – they’d be in peril once the lights went green so I pulled onto the orange box, “un-corking” the trapped cyclists one of whom thanked me.

(I now stop in the orange box.)

I tend to avoid mud.

But I’d never criticise those who ride in mud FOR riding in mud cos of some “ruining the trail” nonsense. They’re so into MTB-ing they’ll ride in horizontal rain up to the spindles in goo, and I won’t. I can live with it.

(And they’re obviously perverts.)

raceface:

saw an apache longbow fly towards me,then stop behind some trees (practicing hiding behind cover most likely).they are pretty awesome helis (and they make a great noise too

Was riding a ZX-7R across Salisbury plain with one of them alongside, I looked at the pilot, the pilot looked at me. I rounded the kink that leads onto THAT straight. Looked at the pilot, he’s still looking at me. I got my chin down and pinned it while he kept pace alongside. What pointless laddish fun! I’m not proud to admit (your honour) that we probably got up to at least 64, 65mph before I had to abort.

I like to think that if any speed trappery mujiggers had been out he’d have opened fire on ’em.

A mountain bike wheel costs about as much as a motox-er wheel. A MTB Hi-roller is 60 odd quid and a road legal enduro tyre is about 45. Entering a motorcycle enduro – 45 quid against 60 for the mountain bike.

I hate the entire mountain bike industry for its shameless profiteering with overpriced under-engineered garbage apparently made of cheese mixed with snake oil.

But I like riding mountain bikes. :?

When something you understand (OP understands bikes) goes wrong, it’s easy to deal with it in the wrong way. Imagine you know nothing about bikes, or imagine it’s a washing machine.

Bought washing machine, it went wrong within weeks, they replaced some part. It went wrong within weeks again. Could you reasonably say ‘naff this’ and give up on that washing machine?

Would you ask Comet to look for converters that take a different part but make it fit into this washing machine?

My CRC story: I ordered the wrong bottom bracket, and when it arrived it didn’t fit.

They redeemed themselves with the free return service thing, a week from dropping it into a local newsies I had my money back.

I’ve run mine backwards ever since buzzlightyear borrowed the bike, pinched flatted the rear, and put the tyre on backwards while repairing it.

It basically gets over or through everything I’ve pointed it at just as well as various carefully picked specialist tyres on other bikes on the same rides.

Basically, there’s 3… No, 4 possibilities:

Lance didn’t cheat, everyone else cheated.
Lance cheated, everyone else cheated.
Lance cheated, no-one else cheated.
And (I almost forgot) no-one cheated.

3 combinations in 4 say he’s either unimaginably awesome or merely the best by a very very long way.

I think I’m going to take a 450 KTM round Cannock just to piss off Mr Spoon.

There’s a vid where David Knight took an enduro bike to some trail centre and raced some guy, and he didn’t make a dent on the place. Probably didn’t skid.

(He lost too, but they should’ve done an aggregate time of down, then back up! :lol: )

It’s not the stuff we love, it’s what the stuff lets us do.
It’s not the guitar, it’s the playing.
It’s not the bike, it’s the riding.

(No such mitigation can be applied to a glitzy handbag, or strappy shoes. We win. On no account should you point out that we win.)

At the … “track where the sport that must not be named lest thisisnotaspoon ends up bearing twins” is done, the braking bumps only appear after the experts have been out – I doubt skidding has much to do with it, those guys brake late, hard, and effectively.[1]

So keep the rubbish riders, ban the GOOD riders – and in case The Pinkster is right, ban the forestry commission too.

[1] First time I really hit the powerband on my crosser, I accelerated about one quarter of the way from one corner to the other, locked up and skidded the other three quarters, and didn’t go round the corner… Right ratio, wrong order, poor outcome. :lol:

Mountain biking is motocross (or enduro) with pedals, bumps are part of the sport. :-)

I was riding at Cheddar moto-cross track yesterday, and there were braking bumps there too. Added to that the track was made of mud, which is very slippery. To top it off some of the gradients are arranged in such a way that if you rode at them too fast you actually left the ground!!

How are you meant to enjoy an off-road racing sports activity in these conditions!

I’m glad that mountain bikers, unlike moto-crossers, don’t put up with this sort of thing.

I think a lot of resistance to the idea of MMGW came from hardcore greens insisting that the only solution is a regression to a pre-industrial society.

Turns out that while certain famous NGOs run around touting subsistence farming and smallholding as the only future we can have, a lot of clever people are building the clean technologies that will push us onwards anyway.

I still have half an inkling that climatology is a bunch of half-arsed ‘models’ (or ‘spreadsheets’) and inappropriately used statistical techniques. That said, seeing as this is a question, essentially, of fossil fuel use there are already so many reasons to quit fossil fuels that global warming is just one more, and not the biggest either.

The great thing is we have already invented the technologies we need to replace them – we just need to start building the stuff.

I’ve never seen another Kona Five-0 when out riding.
(Which is odd as it’s the best mountain bike ever made.)

Leave 4, 5, and 6 alone… Until you figure out a way to digitally replace ewoks with wookies.

Much more important is rebooting 1 , 2 , and 3. Starting with rewriting the stories from scratch.

The feed in tariffs from solar panels take money from those who can’t afford them (the poor) and put it into the pockets of the those who can (the rich (ish)). Surely the workers’ paradise that is The Republic of STW does not approve of this..? 8)

If you bung some dakar style rallye stickers, bash bars, and gnarly “ammo case” panniers on the beemer it might become a little more heart-ish.

A topbox on a GPz900? How could you… 8O

Oh, as for speciation, one definition of “species” is that an animal can or will only mate with its own species. So that would make a chihuahua a different species to a great dane.

By that measure “speciation” has certainly happened in human, if not single lifespan, timescales.

To get somewhat on topic, for those who are interested in evolution and biology I can recommend Dawkins’ “The greatest show on earth”.

In terms of religion bashing (which people might expect and be put off by) it’s not that sort of book, I recall there’s a small section at the beginning describing why he wrote the book, and another anecdotal paragraph later on.

Other than that it’s all about the science of evolution and biology, and the guy is a great writer and delivers it brilliantly.