Osprey was all open at the weekend. The Kersey Cleugh section on Deadwater was closed the last time I was there (end of June/beginning of July), but you’re not missing much there. However, at that visit, the Up and Over trail (again on the Deadwater trail) was open for the first time in ages. Not been on Lonesome Pine for a while so can’t comment on that.

Why don’t you give The Bike Place at Kielder a ring (or post up on Kielder Trail Reavers’ forum)

Lonesome Pine, Deadwater and the Osprey trail will give you around 50k (and plenty of opportunity to stop at the cafe).

Cross border is more about the mileage and the remoteness ather than out and out fun (although I liked newcastleton, and the route includes the lonesome pine trail). My Strava link above reckons it is 39 miles.

3 kielder trails: https://www.strava.com/activities/14886905
Cross border + newcastleton: https://www.strava.com/activities/13655200

It’s not in the same league as GT, but I still quite like it. Lonesome Pine is a nice trail, especially the Skydive descent. The blue is good too, flows nicely. If I’m up there on my own, I often string together lonesome pine, deadwater (minus the top climb/descent) and the blue for a long day out. Alternatively, the cross border route plus newcastleton trails is 45 miles of XC riding. Feels properly remote.

Not many women who fulfil both those criteria! As a committed female Strava-addict, hopefully I can boost those numbers!

Stress echo would involve exercise of some sort. Possibly not enough to get OP into zone 2 though. And they’d only be looking for one particular outcome.

Stress echo is usually done with a medication to raise the heart rate to 85% of age predicted maximum (we use dobutamine). We look for overall heart function at rest and on stress, changes in blood pressure, and also look for any regions of the heart muscle that are looking sluggish when stressed, indicating a problem with the blood supply to that region. It’s a good test to rule out any major coronary artery disease.

hope MrLegolam isn’t just playing Xbox.

Nope. PS3.

Could be worse. I’m trying to pretend that I really don’t want to go out riding today so that MrLegolam doesn’t complain that it’s the only thing I ever do, and our coffee machine is broken :-(

B.O.R.E.D.

http://www.britishcyclingnortheast.org.uk/index.php/get-involved/mtb/north-east-xc-mtb-series/175-2013-north-east-xc-mtb-series

This is the local NE of England XC mountain bike series. I’d never raced before but went along to the second race earlier in the summer after a bit of banter between riding buddies. I’m a girl with a full time job and no training, but I’m by no means the slowest rider there (although I’m also getting used to being lapped!). It’s a really supportive way to race and I’ve made a few friends in the process. The front guys are fast but friendly, and those of us near the back have a bit of good natured competition going now.

P20 and Ahsat from this parish came along to the last race and the organisers are keen to get people involved (it’s only the second year it’s been running).

The last race of the series is in Hamsterley on the 7th September – there are promises of podium and cake at the end. Join us!

CaptJon – Member
Not Northumberland, but i bet bits of Chopwell are still wet
POSTED 4 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

There’s one muddy patch up near the golf course, but the rest is bone dry – unbelievable! Chopwell is usually the world’s biggest mud bath.

Pretty certain I have a brand new white one with orange lettering in the garage – I bought it for the boyfriend’s bike but he decided it didn’t colour match or some other girly excuse. I keep meaning to put it on the classifieds but never quite got round to it. I’ll check it’s still there tomorrow if you’re interested?

Spent the whole day at Glentress. I’d have cycled till my legs fell off if I didn’t have to drive back to Newcastle. Epic day!

I’ve loaded up quite a few trails to http://www.mtbtrails.info

Chopwell Woods is a good place to start – just pick a trail and see where it goes!

There are various ways to biopsy a lung mass, depending on where it is. If it is close to an airway, they will do it via bronchoscopy under sedation. If it is near the edge of the lung, it can be done via a CT guided biopsy under local anaesthetic or via thoracoscopy (keyhole surgery) under general anaesthetic.

Ask your father in laws’s physician (with his consent, you could make an appointment for a phone consultation via his secretary) for more details if you need them – as medical professionals, we often forget that the general public don’t see this every day and don’t know what a biopsy entails and how scary the uncertainty is at this time.

Andrew Marr’s stroke was caused by a carotid artery dissection, a very rare cause of stroke caused by a mechanical tear in the main blood supply to the brain from the neck. This happened while he was doing HIIT on a rowing machine, and it is thought that poor technique with rapid flexion and extension of the neck initiated the tear. The tear will have happened at a point in the artery that already had some furring up/cholesterol deposit due to his previous smoking and unhealthy lifestyle.

So blaming it on vigorous exercise doesn’t exactly tell the whole story!

Oh, and only the Kersey Cleugh section on the Deadwater trail was closed yesterday (and the Up and Over black section has reopened).

Depending on fitness, a combo of the Lonesome Pine, Deadwater (minus the top climb/descent) and Osprey trails is do-able. Just under 50km in total, with just under 1000m of climbing.

See here for route

BenHouldsworth – Member
Leglam, the EWTD has covered junior doctors since 2004/2005, how are they still getting away with giving those sort of hours?
POSTED 55 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

It’s averaged over 17 weeks, so somehow it averages out at 48hrs/wk. Not quite sure how!

Junior doc here. Fully signed up to EWTD so my contract says I work 48hrs per week. My rota has me working 76 hours this week (5×12 + 2×8 hr shifts) and I’ll have actually worked >80 by the time Sunday finishes. No overtime payments.

Only around 10% of the measured cholesterol in your blood is actually attributable to your diet – the rest is manufactured in your liver. Therefore, you may not be able to lower it without drugs. Statins are safe and hugely effective – they are the only cholesterol lowering agent that has been proven to save lives by preventing heart attacks and strokes.

Work out your 10 year risk of having a heart attack or stroke by going to http://www.qrisk.org (this is an online calculator that is validated in the UK and is what I use on a daily basis as a cardiologist). If my QRISK2 score was greater than 20%, I would definitely take a statin (and BP lowering agents if my BP was “borderline”).

The advice to get your glucose and thyroid checked is good. If you smoke – stop!

Hope that helps (I’ll be doing myself out of a job soon!)

I read it as:
Enduro – 1 lap (those who entered the full enduro but dropped out after 1 lap)
Enduro – 2 laps (dropped out after 2 laps)
Enduro – 3 laps (completed full enduro)
Half enduro – 1 lap (entered half enduro but dropped our after 1 lap)
Half enduro – 2 laps (completed half enduro)

It was my first ever race and I found it pretty brutal. Epic amount of climbing and longer laps than anticipated (although I was already struggling despite that) meant that I also missed the cut off for the full enduro. I had fun though, and had the pleasure of being lapped twice by Radoggair (and many other people!).

http://www.mtbtrails.info/Trail_Venue.aspx?VenueNumber=125
Nice loop from Reeth taking in Fremington Edge and some fun singletrack.

Fatal cat AIDS. Or costochondritis. But probably cat AIDS.

Hmmm. I’m rather regretting entering the full enduro as my first ever race. Saw the report from last year and thought it looked fun. I only have Maxxis Advantages on my bike – will I die?

It really depends on which valve is being done and by what route,why it’s being done, and also how fit your dad is normally. A typically uncomplicated aortic valve replacement would expect to be in intensive care for around 24 hours, in hospital for 5 days, but not fully 100% for 3-6 months (mainly due to the sternum healing). The cardiac surgeon will be able to give specifics for your dad, including a percentage chance of serious complications around the op (known as the Euroscore).

Fair enough. If nothing showed up on the ECG, then I’d be less worried.

Did you get symptoms when you had the 24 hour tape machine on? And, when you were given the “all clear”, was it “we’ve seen your heart rhythm when you have symptoms and it’s nothing to worry about, or “we didn’t see anything abnormal on the tests that we did, so it’s probably fine”?

Intermittent palpitations are a tricky thing to diagnose, mainly because they’re unpredictable. The only way to really know what’s causing them is to see an ECG when they’re happening. A 24 hour tape is one way of doing this, but there are ways of recording the heart for longer, such as CardioMemo (where you activate the recording when you feel palpitations) or an implantable loop recorder (like a USB stick under the skin on your chest that can record for around 3 years if necessary).

Seeing a cardiologist seems like a sensible thing to do.

The S2000 is a marvellous car – a real driver’s car. I really miss our’s despite it being terribly uncomfortable as a passenger (stiff suspension), noisy (couldn’t hear the stereo over the engine), and it had a tiny boot (enough for one overnight bag). Pre 2005 models don’t have traction control either (not many of them on the market for this reason!).

[/url] Honda S2000 GT[/url] by Legolam[/url], on Flickr[/img]

Please don’t do that. You’ll end up with (at best) a pissed off cardiologist and a worthless bit of information (see Stoatsbrother’s comments re resting ECGs above) and, at worst, get a procedure with a 1:200 chance of killing you.

Luv ‘n hugs
A cardiologist

We went to Mauritius for 10 days in May a couple of years ago and the weather was great. It’s close to the equator so winter/summer doesn’t really apply but they do have wet and dry seasons. I thought it was ace – we hired a car and explored the island to get away from all the honeymooners in the all inclusive resorts.

I can’t believe I’m wasting my evening watching a thread on a bike forum about a man opening a safe. I love STW.

Not sure that’s the most flattering picture I’ve ever seen of Tasha… :lol:

I personally think the Lonesome Pine route is the best of the trails at Kielder. The descent from the observatory is awesome if you take it all in one go. No idea what conditions will be like at the moment, but can you post here when you get back, cos I might go up on Sunday ;-)

Seriously, those girls could just keep going and going. Either that, or they were cheating with the resistance settings!

I’ve never had sweat pour off me (literally) like that before. I spent the first half of the class wondering what had possessed me to sign up, and the second half secretly competing with the only vaguely athletic person there (who was making it look like a little pootle to the shops).

The only reason I did it was because I was sick of not getting out on the bike with all this crappy weather, and it’s less than £4 a session at the council gym in Byker. The flipside of that is that I have to go to the council gym in Byker (I cycled there and the receptionist wouldn’t let me chain my bike up outside, and put it in her office for safekeeping!).

We used consoledoctor.co.uk when our PS3 laser went. They are based round the corner from us in Newcastle so the other half dropped the console off and picked it up a couple of days later. Professional service and seemed like a good outfit. Would recommend if you don’t fancy doing it yourself and don’t want to fork out for a new/refurbished one.

Newcastle’s roads were fine today – a bit of slush but nothing drastic. Got to Middlesbrough on the A19 fine today, although the rest of the population on the road were driving even slower than usual for some reason.

Sure, it’s a salmon heart, but the principle’s the same

I grew up in a household where it was breakfast, lunch, dinner.
I went to a school where it was breakfast, dinner, tea.
I went to university in a town where it was breakfast, lunch, dinner.
I now live in a place where it’s breakfast, dinner, tea.

To avoid any mis-identified meals, I call them breakfast, lunch, tea. Dinner just confuses people.

PS there is only one way to pronounce scone – scawn. Those of you who say scone (to rhyme with cone) will be the first to go come the revolution.