I'm going to be riding to work on my rig, on a guided busway. Does that count?

Perhaps too many traffic lights?

Reduce the speed limits and get rid of them.

The government could sell all the traffic lights on ebay, and wipe out the national debt.

Don't need a kit. Just a bit of hose that's the right diameter (I used electrical cable with the cores pulled out!). And a spanner.

Like theotherjonv says, it's only mineral oil.

Watch out for IR35, or you will be in for a nasty surprise.

If the tax man thinks that to all intents and purposes you're working for this company as a regular employee then you will be expected to pay the same amount of tax and NI as a regular employee.

That will include employer's NI contributions, which you will get to pay (ISTR).

The best way to avoid it is to work for more than one company.

If councils didn't install so many traffic lights there would be fewer incidents of cyclists jumping them.

Maybe that sounds backwards, but until the arrival of the World's Most Expensive Cycle Track[/url] my 3 mile route to work involved something like 12 sets of traffic lights. That's just silly.

Are those two really the only manufacturers of British steel HTs? Dialled bikes? Singular? On-One (perhaps not very niche though) ? etc, etc.

Do you feel an inexplicable rage whenever you see the countryside being uglified by giant faceless corporations and bureaucrats? Do you find yourself shouting at the radio when Tony Blair comes on? Do your summer holidays involve sitting in the car in a small seaside town, watching the rain swishing past the windscreen while eating fish and slightly warm chips (and of course curry sauce)? Would a pint of actual proper beer (no, not lager) somehow make the world seem slightly more bearable?

Doesn't he say that the photos are of a different bike? Or something?

It's one of the following:

(a) According to my real-ale friends beer costs about £1 a pint (taxed) when it leaves the brewery. At my local it's about £3 a pint. Just too expensive.

Or

(b) Everyone who used to be down the pub is now out riding around on bikes in the dark with absurdly bright lights having been terrified by the health police and the chancellor into giving up beer.

Or

(c) Everyone in Herefordshire has converted to Islam.

Snowing here just outside Cambridge. As it was yesterday. Cold nasty wet stuff.

I really have had enough of Winter now.

Lighter shoes?

Seems I'm an athlete.

I think I must be a new special kind of really slow athlete.

OK. Made it work at last. So, for the benefit of other people trying the same thing:

Used Joe's rimstrip and 2 layers of duct tape. But I think that was not really the important part. The important part was using a CO2 compressor rather than a track pump. Just popped on instantly.

My advice? Get a proper bike.

You might then manage to keep up with me 🙂

Sometimes there's a button on the back; hold it down while powering on and it resets to factory defaults. Or some similar incantation – RTFM!

Anybody had a similar problem? Or know what to do about it.

I had a FS on the roof with a Thule carrier which dropped out of the clamp in exactly the way you describe on the M6 near Cannock. Bike was lying horizontally on the roof held in place by the wheel straps.

I think it was a combination of a big fat tyre at the front which meant the front tyre could move around a lot, and not having tightened up the clamp as much as possible, and generally wiggled it around.

I now never put a bike up there if it's got more than a 2.1" tyre.

I guess the question to ask is: what tyres for being dropped off the top of your car into the path of oncoming traffic….?

Even has the original brake cables!

Made me fitter.

I've got a hardclimber. I bought it 'cos it was absurdly cheap and I so I didn't mind wearing it out just riding around. But it's very heavy, has quite a high rolling resistance, and doesn't grip particularly well (at least on Cambridgeshire clay). I quit using it once it started letting in lots of thorns.

I think I read somewhere it's designed for bike hire places where cheap and long lasting is what's required. It's probably very good at that. But I could be making that up.

I'd imagine it would need more skill than I have anywhere technical.

And 5% adding up?

Your boss may well be reading this right now!

Ghosts are not real. If you think you've seen one you just haven't spent enough time investigating what the perfectly rational explanation is. If your explanation involves pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo then it's almost certainly wrong.

Now go to bed and stop being so silly.

Surfer, I've already been listening to mood-altering Aaron Copeland on R3. That's bad enough that if I don't go for a bike ride pretty soon I'll end up crawling under a rock and hiding for the Rest of My Life…

So don't you start poking and prodding trying to make my complexes even more complex!

Yes, you're right. I think I just worry too much! Now – what's your address?

rocktheegozy – I got your email first. You got the BB!

It's for the BB!

I think my fundamental problem here is that I've got waaay too much guilt buried deep in my subconscious. Years of suppressed angst are finally taking their toll.

I think I probably got it wrong and I'll just have to add it to the giant list of things I've got wrong in my life over the years.

Fortunately, on this one the people involved will probably be kind enough to get over it and not worry too much. For the other things I've screwed up on a bigger scale, well, what can I say. I was young and inexperienced in the ways of love. The pain and guilt is still there, but is now just an occasional dull ache.

Dodgy firmware on your phone most likely. Does it happen with other devices, e.g. a laptop?

Tijuana Taxi – you are so right.

Just boggling.

It does at least mean we now have the weirdest cycle track in the whole world.

Seems to have been replaced by google search, which is almost completely useless 🙁

Searching for stuff on the classifieds could get quite boring quite quickly.

Then as soon as Im Dad walked back in- it would stop immediately. you knew as soon as he walked in. Same when he walked back out.

Your dad's extra weight on the floor joists was enough to alter that part of the building's dynamics that the creakings went away. You could probably have achieved the same effect with a large sack of cement.

I don't believe in ghosts.

But, I wonder what would happen if some fungus or bacteria was able to release a compound that could get into the brain and stimulate the visual cortex enough to make it think it was seeing something? The human brain can get quite enthusiastic about filling in missing details. It might well then just make something up for you, which you then get to "see".

You might even get consistent "sightings" from one person to another if there was something in the room which got used as a starting point for the made-up details. Perhaps a pattern in the wallpaper, or a particular stain in the floor boards.

If the bacteria/fungus/whatever involved also had its own reasons for releasing the chemical then it might also only ever get strong enough to have an effect at particular times of the day.

Might also affect other animals (e.g. dogs) with similar brain structures.

Should be quite easy to test if you have access to a mass spectrometer.

Or failing that, a dehumidifier might stop the bacteria/mold/whatever from doing its thing.

My aunt, who is the most serious minded, straight down the line lady you could possibly imagine (with a cut glass accent to go with it) was adamant they had a ghost at one of their previous houses (somewhere in darkest Essex).

My uncle was really annoyed that apparently everyone in the local town knew about this ghost but didn't bother to mention it to them when they were buying the house.

Some old chap would appear, and walk across the landing on the first floor. Except that where the landing had been redesigned a bit and went up a step, he went through it.

Lemon surprise pudding. See Delia for details.

Even the cluelessness? 1.8" NN.

🙂

Personally, I don't care what the weather man says. If the weather man says it's raining, you won't find me complaining.

I wouldn't actually mind about the all the expense fiddling going on if they were actually any good at their job.

If they had stopped us from going to Iraq just because Tony fancied himself as a big shot, or had stopped the ID card thing, or even the madness of the Cambridge Guided Busway, then it would seem like money well spent.

But they didn't. Which makes it all very hard to defend.

EDIT: removed exclamations of disbelief at that bike…

If it makes you enjoy your riding more then why not if you can afford it?

I think making yourself happy by getting loads of neat stuff has been tried a long time ago, some guy by the name of David…

is it just me? or is it practically impossible to buy syringes? – i get all sorts of funny looks when i ask for them, maybe i look like a smackhead…

Not just you. At the chemist in the village they looked at me like I was muck. They were fine when I bought a toothbrush.

Thanks! Just had a quick look at those on the OS map – they look amazing.