Only one side has bar tape on at the moment, but it was the side with the bar tape where I was slipping towards oblivion!

Maybe I'm just inept….

Mr Tomac has suspension forks (and a load more actual talent).

On my other rigid bike – which has riser bars – I hold the bars really loosely when descending bumpy stuff, so that I don't get shaken to pieces. Works fine. I can steer, brake and maintain consciousness all at the same time.

Seems like with drop bars I may have to choose two of those three.

(Pictures to follow).

i would be genuinely excited to see a system developed to help normal lazy bikers like me.

It's already been done. Single speed or hub gear.

I mean, we don't get many earthquakes

The UK is one of the most earthquake prone countries in the world, as you would expect given our moral decay.

The British Geological Society web page shows 5 earthquakes in or near our country in the last thirty days!

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It's just that they're all tiny tiny earthquakes that no-one notices. Go figure.

So rather than building safer houses, they're going to make everyone feel guilty?

Just a Sunday morning ride around the fields. Like everywhere else, fantastic weather. First time out on (most of) the new bike.

Nobby Nics are totally rubbish. Post them to me and I'll get rid of them for you 🙂

Turns out it was all a mistake anyway. The Met Office just had a theory about how the ash might spread. Which just wasn't as accurate as one might have hoped for.

So we can all go back to buzzing around in jet aircraft again now.

Is the chat forum only for MTB related chat?

Ordered brake mount on Thursday from CRC, arrived this morning.

Jane Eyre. Best book ever. Fact.

You're paying for his food and petrol, yet you yourself are unemployed?

Take a deep breath, and then ask him to pay his way. It's only fair.

Ofcom's advice:

Malicious or nuisance calls, whether from people you know or from complete strangers, are a criminal offence. You should tell your phone company as soon as you receive a malicious or nuisance call from somebody. It doesn’t matter whether you know the caller’s identity or not.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consumeradvice/landline/privacy/silent/%5B/url%5D

This has some good tips for long road trips and stays in hotels.

Pam Ayres is from Stanford in the Vale, a good thirty miles Westish from Reading.

Well, I've just glanced through the UKIP April 2010 manifesto and it doesn't mention cyclists, bikes, junctions or any of that stuff.

It's better than spending the evening reading this forum.

Same as uplink, but only since January.
EDIT: no problems with slashes, but there aren't that many rocks round here.

North West of Tarbert, Harris.

If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.

You're getting the making cuts and proper accountability for spending mixed up.

Perhaps. Is "accountability" the system whereby whichever political party is in power, it's the same endless layers of empire-building civil servants and quangos spending money on things they think will make them look good at the next level up of their bloated parasitic organization?

NHS computers for example.

NHS National Programme for IT? Originally £2.4Bn, and now somewhere north of £12Bn.

The only consolation is that we're keeping great British companies like IBM and Microsoft going.

I don't like having a large state sector. It just seems that public employees are not very good at spending money wisely, so I'd rather that money was spent by individuals.

Just thinking locally to me, the county council has blown the thick end of £160M on a guided bus that's 2 years late, spent several million on random consultations trying to get us to like congestion charging, and pays the chief executive £200k (I'd happily do it for half that and a free supply of bike chains and brake pads).

When it's not your money it's awfully easy to waste it.

Stunning – where did you get the route from?

Off here, a few months back.

Weather today is not quite so nice though 🙁

Whatever technique they've used needs to be re-introduced!

I suspect it's partly down to not being used much. It's clearly being actively maintained, but in a very discreet way.

very very nice I must say, what part of the country is that?

Harris. Outer Hebrides. Fantastic place.

did you manage to clear the climb back up from the beach ?…we didn't !

Not a chance! It never even occurred to me it might be possible, tbh.

Did wonder what it would be like riding down it. I think you would need nerves of steel.

Heading to Harris tomorrow, via Perth.

I guess we won't be doing much sunbathing on the beach.

More police officers has more effect on crime than the death penalty (can't be bothered to look up the references, but you just know it's true).

Plus, rather depressingly, the legalization of abortion. Apparently.

what advantage do you get from it ?

As any fule know, bike speed is proportional to nicheness.

Now that single speeding is no longer niche (official government statistics on gear usage will soon confirm this), all those single speeders are, as a result, going no faster than regular bikes, and in some (rare) cases, actually slower.

Fortunately, help is at hand for the velocity-challenged – 29ers are still niche enough to offer a noticeable improvement in speed.

Of course, 650b is even faster than 29", for obvious reasons.

…religion has no place in modern society.

Evidence?

That looks like a belief-based assertion to me. Typical of the society we live in.

Thanks. Walking on a bearing from one place to another sounds kind of dull though.

British Museum. And Courtauld's gallery.

Are HMRC blocked from this *public* forum?

So, apart from posting irate comments on STW, what do we do?

Petition on the Number 10 thing?
Writing letters to MPs?
Everyone gets a MX bike and puts the trails back to how they should be?
Burn down county hall and put the heads of the ROW officers on long spikes?

Sounds improbable.

grtdkad – do you have any references for the carcinogenic path reports?

Cambridgeshire County Council have done lots of this round here.

One particular bridleway used to be just a nice grassy lane, with a muddy section at the lowest point.

They had some money to improve countryside access for the new town of Northstowe. So they ripped it up, dumped a mixture of rubble, bits of plastic and general crud on it, covered it in gravelly crud and earth and then waited for Winter.

Winter duly came and it's now a churned up mess. I used to be able to cycle along without putting a foot down (it's only a bridleway next to a field) but that's impossible now. The middle section after some rain is just glooptastic mudfest madness.

This is a photo of an earlier section where it's actually passable. It's just ugly.

I've come to suspect that the people who work in Cambridgeshire County Council actively dislike the countryside.

EDIT: they cause way more damage than MXers ever could.

In addition to those advantages, using power-curved cranks can increase 30% rotational momentum

Weight 1200g.

What's not to like?

They're niche. That means you go faster doesn't it?

This is a scam I think.

There's also a trick whereby they "prove" they're from BT by appearing to cut you off. They tell you they're going to cut you off and then "hang up" saying they'll call back in a few minutes. You then try to make a call, and can't. When they call back you pay the money as they're obviously from BT

Of course they haven't really disconnected you, they've just put their phone on mute.