Surely producing a carbon frame is far worse for the environment than producing a steel frame? I would be really interested in any research that anyone knows about the relative carbon/pollution costs of the various materials bikes could be made from.

How do you get to use it for free? It seems that you need an invite from a premium user, but I don't know anyone that has a premium account.

I'm sorry, this doesn't have much to do with the Whyte (which does look nice though,) but I just wanted to say that that last picture is wonderful! It's a really beautiful riding shot. Congratulations.

What tyres for crap roads?

There are a great many advantages to simplicity. More money is one of them. Just sell the hardtail if you don't ride it. If you really find yourself pining for something else, then, hey, you've got room in your garage now!

Climate change? Wots that then? Innit?

We were out around Milngavie today. It was a massive slippy icefest and I nearly died about 10 times slipping onto my head. Fun though when the rain started and the ice sheets became ice sheets with rivers flowing down them…

Get out, it's always worth it!

I spent a month living in Varanasi, and I must say, if you have the opportunity to visit, then you really should. It is one of those places you can spend days wandering around just trying not to look to stupid as you stand in awe of everything around you.

India must be the greatest country on earth…

Maybe (hopefully) it will prevent him from breeding?

Isn't the place of the journalist to be a witness? To record, to write, capture an event and show people: "This happened. Look, think, act."

I started mountain biking when I was 8. I'm 22 now.
Biking's the source man, swear to God.

Kona Wah-Wah

They have a excellent replaceable pins, a big wide thin platform, they're good value and have lasted me ages now. Excellent grip with my 5.10s.

+1

Backup before you do anything you might regret later…
Don't touch the iTunes Music folder through the Finder. If you have duplicates in iTunes, delete them through iTunes. If all your music is in iTunes already, I would delete the contents of the other MUSIC folder. If all your music isn't on iTunes already, put it on and then delete the MUSIC folder.

I think this is an awesome thing to do. I have a Cotic Simple, a bmx and a thing for riding and locking up around town, carrying loads and cargo as I don't drive.

The whole jack of all trades/master of none expression is a really interesting one. I recently rode the West Highland Way on a hybrid about 2 sizes too big for me with slick tyres. It was fine. I mean, my mountain bike would have been a much better bike to use, and it would have been faster. But I still had loads of fun, it was just a different sort of fun. I can't imagine thinking I couldn't ride my Simple in Morzine. It wouldn't be the fastest, most efficient, best bike to use. But hey, I'm not racing (not even my mates) and it's just fun isn't it? The Rivendell folks have got some interesting ideas about this. They're all bikes, we're the ones who constrain them.

I'm afraid I don't have any pics online grum, I don't use flickr or anything. I'll send you an email with a few this evening if I can.

Cars are, and always will be, a social and environmental dead end for humanity. Destroy the car!

I've got a Panasonic G1, which is just a little bigger than the GF1. I really like it a lot. I have the 20mm lens and that makes it a very compact camera, with a lovely viewfinder and good controls. It's not a pro camera, but there is no shutter delay like a compact camera so a single action shot is fine. And it's tiny so you can slip it into your camelback and not feel it. The GF1 is even smaller, so I think it would be great. I understand that the GF1 performance is similar to my G1.

Forum posting too mrmo?

I have a Time Capsule, which I really like for the backup functions. It works really well with Time Machine, and I share an external hard drive on it too.

I like it. It was cheap and it's always nice to get a bit more space on your hard drive, which is one of the things Snow Leopard does, as it is a smaller install than Leopard. Think of it as £25 for about 7gb of internal hard drive space. I also liked getting the 4 finger swipes on my older non uni-body Macbook Pro.

Blower, what size is your Bfe? I might be interested.

Get another credit card and buy a flight somewhere, then go on the run! Catch Me If You Can style! Awesome!

That looks amazing.

Geetee, I think you're quite right there. Nicely put.

sax – That's why adjustable seatposts are such an amazing idea! They give you the best of both worlds, pedalling height going up, suitably low going down.

EDIT: And with no faff with a QR, all from your handlebars!

I think uppy-downy seatposts are the best. And I ride a singlespeed uphill with flat pedals, and I weigh 65kg…I'm clearly a massive soft poseur and not worthy of the description 'mountain biker.' I make myself sick. 😀

Have you been to Glasgow?

Cannondale Super V

Because they look incredible and I lusted after one for years. One day I will own a Cannondale with a Lefty. I must!

Maybe, with support built up using my position as Minister for the Environment I would stage a coup with the crusties and hippies and install an anarco-enviro socialist government. Mwhahahaha!

Why not get a nice simple trailer pulling-shopping-buzzing around town-family-cargo bike? Cheap and nickable without too much heartache.

Can I have the ministry for the environment?

Is mountain biking a sport – or merely a past-time?

a sport

Nah, it's a way of life innit?

I'd love to have a little cafe with literary pretensions, bookshelves and snugs. I'd sell my cakes and homemade bread sandwiches, and it would have secure bike storage and wooden floorboards painted white.

It would be bright and people would come in and talk about travel and adventure and environmentalism and literature.
Oh, oh, oh!

TJ +1

It seems to me that saying most car drivers care and are considerate actually flies in the face of most cyclists' experiences.

abductee – bicycle culture in full effect: I love it, thankyou.

Cookea, any greater enforcement of rules for cyclists only serves to diminish the likelihood of more people cycling. More cyclists makes us safer.

The bicycle is the ultimate symbol and expression of freedom. That may sound poncey or whatever, but I firmly believe that helmet laws, reflective gear, lights, are all largely a smokescreen hiding the real problem. I use all of those things to hopefully help me stay alive. But the reason I have to? Motor vehicles. You cannot hide from this reality.

As someone said earlier in the thread, how many cyclists and pedestrians would die or be injured if there were four times as many cyclists, with more infrastructure for us, and fewer motor vehicles?

MTFU and sell the coffin, ride your bike. Now that's good fuel economy.

I'd go for a BFe. The angles are fantastic and Cotic are fantastic to deal with.

Some of the posts here make it sound as if all cyclists are suicidal ninjas intent on throwing themselves under car wheels.

I don't know how many of those posters cycle on the roads regularly, but I'm sure if they did they would know that in the main it is drivers of motor vehicles, not cyclists, who behave irresponsibly, dangerously, and arrogantly. All with upwards of one tonne of metal and rubber, perfect tools for mowing down peds and bikers.

No BlingBling, the roads aren't their fields. If these bulls, to perhaps carry the analogy too far, were also destroying the fields, the hedges and trees in them, killing the people using the footpath around the field AND burning the sky with their farts, do you think we might make an effort to stop them, turn the bulls into frogs or something?

Yes, reading that over I definitely took the analogy too far!