For most (or even ‘all’) people wanting to summit Everest it’s about bragging rights – and in that sense it’s a no-brainer. Tell your sherpa you want to follow a big party full of tourists, wait for one to get in trouble, then bind them in ropes and roll them to the bottom.

Bragging rights in a bar, rescuing someone off Everest puts you in a far more exclusive group than being towed to the top like Homer up the Murderhorn.

And when I’m 99, rich, and weeks from death I’m gonna pay to go up, climb til I can’t climb any more, strip down, stand up, face the path, and freeze in place waving my tackle and ‘flipping the bird’.

(And I think that that bloke who left a 4×4 on Snowdon should sneak one up Everest and park it on the summit so no-one else can get there without the keys.)

It says ‘bike forum’ at the top which is perfect to me.

It likely says that at the top of most motocross, enduro, motorbike, and BMX forums too – but as it says that in the context of a motocross, enduro, motorbike, or BMX forum people seem to get that ‘bikes’ doesn’t mean banana barred tour bicycles.

Could just put all roadie stuff in the chat forum, but it’d dilute the chiropractic renewable holy communist ghost content, so I propose the roadie threads go here: http://forums.roadcyclinguk.com/%5B/url%5D 😆

While we’re here – Environmental heresies, an educational quarter hour for ya.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUxwiVFgghE

The green movement has long been dominated by people who think that society would be better if we all grew our own food and wore grass shoes. The green movement hate nuclear, not because it isn’t the answer but because it IS. For society to revert to their imagined pre-industrial utopia, there must be no way to continue as a modern economy.

This is why ever increasing numbers of environmentally minded people are becoming pro-nuclear, because they are scientifically minded people with the habit of critical thinking who care about energy future rather than engineering an agrarian society.

Read The Geek Manifesto, it’s all in there.

One of the most hilarious threads ever. 😆 I love the wrestling with rudimentary logic (‘all societies that lack art die out’ implies that ‘all societies that die out lack art’..!?).

But everyone seems to have missed this: “I felt a dog brush against my arm, and it couldn’t have been any kind of animal because the dog in the room would’ve gone nuts”! OK, I’m sure there’s a reason why the dog was ruled out, but “animals have super sensory powers” and yet the dog in the room didn’t react to a ghost in said room!?

Seriously though, surely arm outside the covers chilled slightly and got goosebumps. Or a spider or fly ran over it. Occam’s razor, innit bruv.

it’s ok mate, not everyone is cut out for road riding!

It’s not that I dislike capuccino, I’m just not fussed. But put the capuccino at the other side of 50 miles spent staring point blank at the back of the tumbling spuds inside a pair of hotpants stretched over a middle aged man’s bum and I’ll do without. Especially after the recent thread about ‘less than perfect opacity’ in some such garments. 😯

^^^ CAUTION : TRIATHLETE ^^^

Outside, now! 😆

Have you not realised by now that in my opinion (and in fact, in fact) road riding and road bikes are the epitome of suckage? Adding the equally tedious tasks of a long run and swim would not elevate the experience.

Drop barred bikes should not handle badly. Mine’s superb

Bu, bu, but Shirley, its just the rider !

Road bikes handle dreadfully; reluctant to turn, yet twitchy – a real achievement that as those characteristics are usually considered opposite ends of a spectrum. Might be easy to assume it’s ok if you’ve never ridden a two wheeler with good – or even average – handling! 🙂

(And it’s not as though “uncompromising quest for speed” makes sense as an excuse, as the diamond framed bike is an also ran in those stakes. Recumbent streamliners averaging 50mph – now THAT’s what you call a “Tour de Wherever”!)

There are some (a small minority, plural of anecdote is not data, etc) cyclists who hate being passed by any motorbike. I don’t like getting involved in such competition cos their drop barred bike road has appalling handling, hopeless brakes, obviously no mirrors and the harder the rider tries the more they’re looking down at the floor!! I did have a rider shoot past me on the left and only just not smack into the bus 8 feet in front of me!

I delightedly clocked a brompton at 37mph shimmying like crazy on rubbish tarmac at about 30 degrees lean angle on a hilly bit. Briefcase held on the rack with blue nylon rope, fluro bicycle clips, tie flapping over the shoulder, grey old gent with glasses like bottle bottoms. Legend.

The wider a tyre, the flatter its profile, and the smoother its surface, the more likely aquaplaning is. Road bicycle tyres are rounded profile and very narrow, can’t talk in absolutes but aquaplaning is unlikely.

That said, compared to dirt tarmac has a not very progressive transition from grip to slide and wet tarmac is even worse, so a loss of traction is likely to be sudden and catastrophic. That’s why motorcycle racing in the dry tends to have more deliberate sliding than in the wet, when riders are more wary of approaching a narrower limit.

Tread doesn’t just move water, it allows a tyre to heat up quicker (but wear faster) as the blocks get smoodged about. I understand they may also allow more progression in a slide as blocks deform before letting go and not all blocks on the road let go at once.

I keep thinking I want a 26er rigid (29er fork for slackness) with huge bald tyres, motocross handlebar and no front brake. It’d be rubbish, but I bet the smiles would never end.

Go for what’s fun!

Nothing from Dainese. They stick to your knees until you crash then magically move out of the way.

Stops ’em gettin’ scratched! 😆

I cycle every day in central London. I apply a good sense of paranoia to the highway code when I use the roads. I assume everyone is trying to kill me. I do not take any risks.

Excellent! As a motorcyclist this attitude is drummed into you in training. In advanced training. In riding tips articles in the motorcycle press. You’re vulnerable, so you need to look out for yourself. No point worrying if that’s how it should be, that’s how it is.

A noisy minority on this forum seem to advocate the opposite. “I’m vulnerable so it’s up to everyone else, and the law had better catch up soon etc etc.”

I often see cyclists confused at “weird” choices motorcycles make in traffic where they share common space and speed. But the biker has seen the junction, the indicator, the driver’s head movement, the gap left in a queue. But then again how are cyclists supposed to learn this stuff? Would a few ad campaigns be enough?

This year I’ve seen a proper sized penny farthing, a unicycle, a mother and son on a tandem (she obviously thinks he isn’t getting beaten up enough at school) a revolting narrow barred emo brakeless fixie with a kiddie seat and toddler (no brakes remember!), and one of those ‘two bikes welded one on top of the other contraptions’.

Still, compared to TdF style hot pants and drop bars at least they’re showing some imagination.

Most people buy their houses on “finance”. It costs a lot more than saving up and buying outright, and if you lose your job you might lose the house. And so on.

Frankly it’s up to the individual to make the “save or borrow” call according to their circumstances and perception of risk.

I don’t see the point of downhill. If you’re not going to go up the hill under your own steam just fit an engine.

That definition actually disqualifies the first mountain bikes! 😀

Again?

Really..?

If you wouldn’t find it on the front of a box of fudge, it shouldn’t be in the countryside – no exceptions!!

(Well, except mountain bikes. One assumes.)

Any Arabic speakers care to chip in on whether the subtitles are what he’s saying? I hope they are, really really do, but you could put anything there and I wouldn’t know!

Scab asics.
(Running shoes that make your feet bleed..?)

if i ever see one on the trails i will just point and laugh till tears roll down my face and i end up in a pool of my own steaming piss.

That’ll show ’em. 😆

No adjusting seat height without undo-ing 4 bolts or fitting a dropper post. Hardly a step forward. The rest is nonsense or been done before. (Or, this being a mountain bike, both!)

Hmm, is ever increasingly ‘out there’ modes of dress that attract the give it a goers?

Rubert the Bear trousers topped off with a sun visor thing for golfists, sponsor emblazoned hot pants and tube tops with clip cloppy tap shoes for the defectors to cycling.

I predict next year’s “golf” will be morris dancing or Mexican show wrestling! 😀

If we’re talking “Genuine innovations in mtbs”, then you can’t have

31.8mm bars
“X” Speed
29ers
650b

Making the same thing but slightly bigger, smaller, middler, or with “one more” isn’t an innovation.

You also can’t have:

Disc Brakes
Suspension
LED lights
Tubeless

All innovations from somewhere else, arriving on bicycles eventually.

Propedal, instant change in damping to suit conditions, yeah maybe.
Weird parallelogram arrangements of lever and pivots in rear suspension to avoid pedal bob, also a yeah maybe. Although, most of these arrangments go with a propedal equipped shock so one does wonder! 😆

Apparently the original point does need clarifying, because this is completely backwards. The original post was about the MOD suggestion to annex parts of scotland post-independence.

Well, the Guardian said so – and they even quoted “sources” “spokesmen” and an ex-minister. The UK government, however, says different:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-23267584

Does the Guardian have a stance on independent Scotland? Cos this kinda stirring could influence the vote.

MOST lower back pain simply requires physio (or stretching and exercise if you prefer). I don’t think you can detect oozes of squidgy stuff on x-rays. You are not a radiologist. I doubt anyone else on this thread will be either*. Being sent from hospital to GP is the good way round. You’ll be fine.

(Well, bits of you will.)

*for example, to me that looks like an x-ray of your foot. And some lamb chops. I think you have a veruca. I am not a doctor.

Just to get back to the original point, cos it needs clarifying.

In the event of the Scottish voting yes to independence the British Govt has no intention of hanging onto Furslane, and the (or more accurately, a very vocal “some”) Scots are very angry and say that’s bullying.

So, the obvious question: wuh!?

I think some people aren’t pushy enough, in an environment where a lot are too pushy.

I rang up and asked for an appointment and was a little non-plussed when offered a day my grandchildren might just live to see, so the receptionista asked if it was important. I said I didn’t know, I had a sort of lump on my abdomen and wondered if it was a hernia. She almost shrieked and demanded I come in immediately.

(That got me in the door so I could show the doc my sore toenail and talk about getting signed off for my nerves. 😉 )

…various ways to make F1 better…

It’s a hard line to walk, running F1. A true prototype class runs the risk of someone galloping off with everything and/or cars getting too fast for the track safety infrastructure, too many restrictions and you’re no longer the fastest series, then alongside that balance you have to try to make sure there’s plenty of exciting racing. Not sure how important the racing is, actually. Watching a rally car is exciting, and he’s only racing the clock.

But excitement is in the eye of the excitee. Some folk enjoy watching people cycle slowly along featureless tarmac for three weeks but consider downhill boring. Some people even like cricket!

True. But I am a semi-competent machinist, so double-ended drawing pins could be provided- which would be both easier to fit, and more amusing.

Much better!

Remember setting off at 0.3mph up a wide smooth featureless trail in a group of four in “diamond formation”, I was last. The two directly in front were chatting and wobbled towards each other, got tangled and fell in the bushes. I thought it was so funny my laugh reflex completely closed my windpipe and I rode up a tree and fell off. Guy in front looked round to see three riders on the deck apparently gurgling in agony. His look of confusion all but killed me.

At school age, a group of four of us were in “chevron right” formation, riding no handed through the park. Guy on the left swerved, collected the guy to his right, who collected the guy to his right, who collected the guy to his right, and all four of us crashed into one bin (poo, dog).

This is to be encouraged- forget banning them from the pits, we should have 10 times more in there. Let’s have some on the track. Blindfolded. And covered in drawing pins to encourage more blowouts.

But the points of the drawing pins would be pointing into the cameraman, unless you propose gluing the pins on which would be ridiculous.

You, sir, obviously know nothing about motor racing or stationery.

Crank brothers for me – i know haters are gonna hate – but for me they are the “Apple” of the biking world

Over priced shiney rubbish?
(Don’t know much about crank bros, but I know what Apple are!)

Do they actually tweak the rules in cross country mountain biking to stop people showing up on cross bikes (and winning everything)?

Kids play in my street all the time. When they see a car they shout “car” and let it past, it’s never moving very fast.

As for city centres, you need to provide park and ride and park cycle that is as easy as just driving in. If you simply make driving in harder then everyone will go to the out of town shopping centre with massive efficient access and free parking instead. (Maybe that’s what we need to move to, maybe city centres should die, or out of town shopping is the new city centre.)

As for why we base our lives around cars, well we base them around running water and electricity too – because these things are BRILLIANT.

Trams, great idea. Cyclists campaign against them all the time.

I remember hearing that regularly rubbing an egg on your head can cure baldness. I laughed out loud at such nonsense. Though once it was explained to me that you break the egg and use the insides I laughed a little less. Ya never know. Egg white is basically keratin. Or:

But in answer to your question, it’s mostly down to using sensible units of measurement, imagine what it would be if you were using imperial units…

It’s true regardless of units. Measuring energy in tonne furlongs per fortnight squared is just as valid as joules. Just not as easy.

There’s reasons why a lot of motorbikes run with lights on at all times…

My motorbike lights can’t actually be turned off. But I shall smash them immediately, as it’s up to other people to see me!

we all know what we refer to when the term ‘man made trails’ is used.

All trails (well, footpaths, bridleways, byeways, and trail centers) are man made.

a sad indictment on the music scene.

When I think of indicting the music scene I think of glorification of the pursuit of wealth, often through crime. Pop videos objectifying women – even when the artist IS a woman. Studio generated “bands” built up simply to be discarded. Looks over talent, and the autotuning of vocals, even when recording! Permanently sunglassed billionaires lecturing their fans on poverty and the evils of wealth.

Not a garage band done good performing for success filled decades and still going strong.

Thread just reminded me of when Ewan and Charlie first went adventuring on their BMW GS’s. They carried a complete toolkit – EACH. And a tent – EACH.

Silly boys. But anyway, what’s a UCI? A type of pump?