Even if a prison sentence is not suitable for her, surely a lifetime ban on driving is? It is not acceptable (one would hope) to kill someone by accident and then carry on just as before. If you demonstrate your ineptitude at driving, as this woman clearly, and tragically, has, you should have your license taken away.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that sees driving as a right, not as a disgusting, polluting and killing privilege, so far too few people are banned from driving after doing something like this.

Everyone who drives a car. Especially in a city or town.

Plastic bags: ban them already FFS

DezB

[thread closed]

That looks well chuckable.

Old Man Mountain make some great racks that attach via the axle and the brake bosses. I have the Cold Springs front rack, and it is excellent. They do mountain high riding racks or road low rider versions.
You can get them from http://www.carradice.co.uk

I have nothing real to contribute here, I just wanted to say:

Ti rings! Titanium!
So you don't carry excess grammage around with you on a ride just because you're married! Fantastic! 😀

[/Rant (ish)]

Pah. So many people are still so influenced by roadie ideas when it comes to mountain bike design.

Imagine there are two frames with the same design, same geometry, top tube length and all that. Except: one has the top tube lowered considerably and requires a 400mm post with loads sticking out (with plenty still safely in the frame) and the other doesn't and only needs a 350mm post. The riding position is identical.

One will have masses of stand over and no chance of ever smacking your balls on the top tube. The other…won't.

It's all about some perceived aesthetic perversion of having a long post. But hear this: mountain bikes are used differently to road bikes, and more stand over never hurt no one!

[/Rant (ish)]

The Cotic Simple is amazing. I love mine, running Pikes at 120mm. It is light, strong, good looking and er… simple. I think it rides really well, and lots of other people do too. Also, the customer service from Cotic is very helpful and friendly.

I saw a dog tormenting a bird on my last ride. It had mauled the poor thing's wing, so I smacked the dog and chased the poo-spewing thing away back to it's wax coated owners. No regrets.

+2 Wookster and rOcKet.

I've had a Sidekick, built as a pure jump bike, and a Trailstar LT years ago that I used for everything from jumping and dh, to all day xc epics. I really liked it, though it was heavy. The DMR swopout dropouts the new ones have look fantastic, the best dropout system I've seen on any bike, I think. For what you are looking at using it for, I would have said a Trailstar would be perfect. Southern Downhill will be a good place to find second hand ones if the ones above are no good.

Or you've just knocked me off my bike, I'll key your metal box as badly as I bloody well can 🙂

That's cool mrear, I'm not haranguing anyone. As an honest question, how do you lower and centralise your centre of gravity while keeping weight on the front wheel to give more grip when you corner with your seatpost up?

I don't understand this "I've got long legs so I don't need a droppy seatpost as I can get off the back perfectly well" attitude.

Part of the point of lowering your seatpost is to lower your centre of gravity and create space to allow you to move your weight around, both forwards and backwards. Just hanging behind the saddle doesn't really allow you to move your body weight around much. Your arms are likely stretched out and less able to steer without weight low and over the front wheel. A high saddle just isn't conducive to control while descending.

I don't really see how that point is arguable, though I can understand that some people might not want extra weight, complexity or ugliness. But not performance?

BigJohn, I have a feeling the attitude of horsey types, and their legal entitlements, are maybe a leftover from the aristocratic past, where the righteous and honourable could jolly around the countryside extracting serfs' produce as payment for their pitiful existence on the baron's land.

I've got a Gravity Dropper too, 4" multi drop. It has made such a difference to my riding. As Northwind says, they are all about FLOW. I never ride a section now wishing that I'd lowered my saddle before hand so that I could really ride it hard rather than teetering down. I will never ride a mountain bike without one now.

I'm excited about Rockshox getting in on it, I think that might be the straw that breaks the camel's back and the point when we start to see everyone using droppers.

Yeah kimbers, and motor vehicles are just as disgusting as smoking.

But where would be a better place to direct our ire, considering those stats of road deaths?

Vastly more people are killed by cars than by motorbikes. Yes, more people drive cars, but surely we should be trying to prevent the most possible deaths.

To do that, we should be targeting dangerous, and far more prevalent, car driving.

To do otherwise is much like police crackdowns on cyclists riding without reflectors: it is ignoring the bull rampaging through the china shop.

You're right Hora, I would just like people to keep it in perspective.

There is a lot of talk here that wouldn't be out of place on the comments of a Daily Mail article about cycling.

From the Office of National Statistics:

Motorcyclist road casualties, % from the whole of the UK in 2002: 6.5
Car Occupants road casualties, % from the whole of the UK in 2002: 69.7

We're missing the wood for the trees here. Cars kill, maim, and injure, motorbikes kill, maim and injure, and bitching about some Sunday motorcyclists isn't the best way to stop that. I'm far more concerned about the average joe bloggs monday to friday slaughtering people with their 'right' to drive.

Maybe the consequence then is that we should trust and admire sportspeople as much as we admire politicians.

If you're going to buy a £2.5K frame, you're not going to hang £300 forks off it are you?

I question the need for a £2.5K frame in the first place. If you can afford it, then that's great, but I would rather our sport/hobby/culture/whatever stayed closer to cheaper SoCal hippy roots. That's just me though.

I can't help feeling that the short travel/hardtail movement in DH is a positive for just this reason. Hardtails can be much cheaper for any given quality level. Performance may not be as high, but it provides a better access point for most people.

And MTBers dont dabble in illegal substances

Yeah, I'm sure they do, but the xc riders are just roadies that have got lost. 😕

Bloody leg shaving, lycra fetishist, plastic bike riding with support car weirdos.

And the UCI can f*** off and all, Swiss power tripping anal retentives.

Zokes, I suppose the issue for me is that people who drive fast, or 'make good progress' or whatever term you want to couch it in, often believe they are a better driver because they do so. Invariably, they are not.

Yes, I would prefer to be overtaken by a driver who was paying attention and gave me lots of space than one who wasn't. But I'd also prefer if they were driving slower. If you think otherwise, then I rather doubt you have cycled much on the roads. A car overtaking a cyclist perfectly legally at 55mph in a 60mph zone feels like the wrath of God going past.

Speed kills.

Wrong, the roads are there for those competent to use them. This is why we have driving tests.

Oh, and for cyclists who don't need to pass a test at all, oh and horse riders, who also don't.

As a cyclist, I'm far more scared of fast drivers who think their speed and how close they can overtake is representative of their virility, than of someone driving slowly.

TJ, you're ace, bang on.

I wonder how many people have been killed because a motor vehicle was going too slow? Not many I'd wager. As a driver, you should always expect a cyclist or other road user to be travelling at anything from 1-20mph or whatever, unless you are on a dual carriageway or motorway.

And they'd be right to do so, Tron.

As a thread hijack, is there any reason hydraulics couldn't be used for gears? I much prefer the idea of bleeding my gears instead of cables!

Surely someone couldn't be bothered to half dismantle their bike every time they want to park? If that's the price of a riding a nice bike in a city, then it's too high, IMO. Get a hack…

Yeah, I think I'm going to go for the large hitman, as that's the only one in stock anywhere. I've sort of decided that if it is too big, then it's never going to lose that much value and I can swap it for a small, or, more likely I will love being able to carry loads of stuff on it!

Yep, I actually have LUST tyres on my bike running tubeless on UST rims without any sealant, as I didn't have any and couldn't be bothered to buy more. LUST is completely tubeless.

Well, I'm not sure what I'm going to get now, the small y frame is sold out everywhere.

Thanks everyone.

How do you find the large hitman? Too big?

I've been phoning around shops and it seems the small Y Frame is out of stock everywhere – bugger!

I don't think I would use it off road, just on the road to get to good off road. I think any trailer would ruin my fun off road.

Well, I imagined I would never fill the large up, but maybe it would only take one occasion when I needed more space/weight to really annoy me?

The difference between a pendant and pedant is that a pendant should be hung, whereas a pedant should be hanged.

I find this interesting, because I ride a small Cotic Simple.

I am 175cm (5' 9"), right on the edge between a 16" small and the 17.5" medium. I have about 27cm of seatpost sticking out, which is quite a bit.

But even on the small I find the top tube quite long and I don't think I'd want the extra length of the medium. I run a 70mm stem. I find manualing the Cotic more difficult than other, shorter bikes I've owned. I've not owned enough different bikes though to make a good comparison I suppose.

Morocco is amazing, though I haven't been there on my bike. I spent some time in the mountains though, so I can tell you to expect dust and rocks, and lots of heat. One idea I would fancy in your position, would be to get a cheap flight to the south of Spain, then cycle to the ferry across to Morocco and on into the mountains. Then you could fly home from Marrakech after your tour.

the Earth will not sustain us forever

Actually, there is no reason it couldn't, provided we all lived a bit more reasonably.

Or at least until the sun exploded.

let's just stay put and keep our heads down

That sounds like a great idea. Don't we have enough to sort out on this planet before we go looking for more. Like, say, poverty, disease, climate change, etc, etc, etc…