The politics comes in with announcing that you have lost a contract before the person awarding the contract announces who is taking over. That does not achieve anything other than creating a media story abut procurement that is spun to look like dropping the MO is unpatriotic.

FWIW I work direct with the MO as a partner in data collection and customer for their forecasting products. I can tell you that the MO will charge and extortionate for data that can be had for free elsewhere, so they have a

Can somebody clear something up for me please? If you follow a right of way on a bike what law are you breaking? You are not trespassing as you have a legal right to be there so you can’t be done for that. If you are causing damage then that is a civil matter between you and the landowner and this has to be proved and you are liable for the cost of repairs.

In essence what is the legal position for access on footpaths by bike? If we have a legal definition of this then it would help me understand what we need to do, or not do, to try and change things.

Two things spring to mind:

Met. Office is a highly commercial organisation, with a small free element. It sells added value products around the world in a competative market.
BBC is a grant aided organisation paid for by a taxation model. It has a worldwide commercial arm that tries to support of of the rest of the output. Most people use the BBC in some way and at the moment the licence fee is what funds it. Like most public bodies that are under pressure at the moment, every commercial contract MUST be tendered for.

MO is annoyed at losing the contract and takes a swipe at the BBC, so there is definitely at a bit of politics here and i do think that there is a Tory ploy to have a go at the Beeb here.

Hold it by its ears. Sharp blow with side of hand behind neck (called a rabbit punch for obvious reasons). Neck broken and off you go. That is what people who deal with livestock/get out in the country get to know. It is not cruel, or harsh it is how I have got my dinner on plenty of occasions.

Please stop Fury from singing at the end of the fight. Maybe Klitchko will use that as his motivation to shut him up 😉

Sandwich what you say is what amazed me, because you have enough trouble when on foot. When you are on a bike your ability to control the dog is reduced so much that it more danger to yourself and others that the dog would be on its own.

Some talented dogs out there, you know.

A trail dog is generally any dog that is used to following a bike around a trail, whether on bike or foot. They just want to follow their leader and show little interest in anything else. That means they are under control and are not a hazard to others. Alternatively it is a fithy dog of a rider who is not under any any control at all, but I meant the latter.

Rain over by early afternoon. Chalk dry as a bone, Tracks dry by this evening. Warning though: vegetation growth expected to be rampant with nettles and brambles growing by the minute.

In that sort of price range the Makita is good, but don’t be swayed by the bit set, particularly if you want to use the masonry bits. The general bits in those sets are ok, but the masonry bits are made of cheese.

Another shout for Carmen, but the Pearl Fishers is another one of Bizet’s operas that is fairly light and accessible. You may want to read the libretto and translation of the words to get more of a feel for music.

I still love my Suanders JetPacker. That is properly light and will do 2 people. I think the weight is around 1400g (from memory). You can still find them on ebay and I have just picked up a Saunders Basecamp for £40 as my wife loves them and can’t find a modern equivalent that she likes enough.

Sancho :[and what isnt sustainable about the countryside.]

Very little of the countryside management is sustainable. Most of the work and produce is reliant on some form of petrochemical, or a substance derived from non sustainable sources, to give us the cheap food that we seem to demand.

Back to the OP; the idea is not viable as the NPs are designated as national, but, by and large, privately owned. What are you trying to achieve by charging? As a revenue stream is collected you would then have to plan the spending in the NPs. What are you going to spend it on? Do you want the parks turned in to theme parks? As areas that we as a nation have decided are of national importance are designated and protected by legislation. Taxes are collected and a portion of those taxes are used to regulate and control that park. That is where you can change the uses and protection of the parks, not by restricting access at the most basic level, by charging everybody to enter.

Yes and No. Don’t buy a swiss army type as they do close on you. You and get junior opinels as a good start for how to use and care for a knife. All the kids in our family have one from about 5 onwards. We do a lot of camping in the wilds and you own penknife is a practical tool. If they get to age 7 and go off to camp without their own knife they are very unusual (possibly an exception) so they have had to have a couple of yearsof learnig how to use and care for it before they go away without parental supervision (they are supervised by staff btw).

As others have said if you teach them that it is a tool, not a toy and they learn how to use it safely (blood bubble principle) and what to use it on (start with bits of hazel and work your way up to fire lighting, spoon making and general whittling, etc.) they will have loads of fun.

We take hundreds of kids on wild camps and in general they are not country types. Once the novelty wears off they realise how useful a knife is when camping and are lost if they break or lose it.

Go for it and have fun teaching him 🙂

Another vote fornHas Bean. If you want a decaf they have a CO2 washed one that tastes amazing. The best decaf I have ever tasted.

The reason I don’t want a 29er in small (which is what I need) is that the geometry is wrong for me. I mostly ride xc and I like the bars nice and low. I either have to have a stem that slopes down or have reduced travel on the forks to get the front end down.

The 27.5s are better proportioned for the smaller frames.

In a word PILATES. This will not help cure your injury, but once you are recovered it will help prevent further injuries.

The series of exercises outlined by Joseph Pilates was designed to help men with poor posture, flexibility and bad backs. Go and find a good pilates teacher/class and make sure you get an induction so the teacher can find out where your strengths and weaknesses are. That way they can tailor any of the exercises to your needs. I have tried most other types of exercise and this is by far the best method for preventing back problems.

If you want a laugh you can find the original lessons by Jo P done in what looks like his pants. I think he is doing a move called teaser which is really hard.

Ahh, classics takes me right back to uni (geology) with discussions about lumpers and splitters.

What with that, the thought of frogsporn and 20 degree school holidays life seems kind of good, although for the life of me I cannot think why that conflagration should do so.

Yes, but as the inner tube/thorn/tyre moves again it may well keep letting out air. I think it works better with the slime and rag liquids, but they are harder to get in to the tube, unless you use scrapers and remove the core. Give it a go what have you got to lose?

We use this solution on industrial mowers and the like and pump a load of gunk in to the tubes to get them through the season.

Don’t forget Stannard in the Omloop against three Etixx boys. 🙂

It looks to be coated stainless. The body is stated to be stainless (as is the gold one) so I guess they are just trying to stand out a bit.

My 11 yo reckons Paddington and so do I.

Must be pronounced Pad-ding-TONNNN or you get in trouble round here.

Ride what you like.

Like what you ride.

But, above all else, just get out and ride……………

Wazzock

Nadir

Apogee

Pillock (from a scandanavian pillicock, which I think you can guess what it means)

Bandersnatch

You may want to look at this Fairphone[/url] which is an interesting concept. I have not used one yet, but I will need to wait for the next batch to see what they are like.

You mean you don’t use the dishwasher, no salt and some citrus degreaser?

Actually a lot of cooking can be linked to science, particularly chemistry. We do a lot of biology when I joint meat, or fillet a fish. Some of the morphology in a chicken is great for explaining dinosaurs, and saving and using ligament from a deer makes superb bow.

On a less controversial note balancing a needle on water (surface tension) to show how a compass works.

If it still does not work then there is a software power switch where you can turn it on and off. The diagnostics will tell you bt is working, but the icon will be red.

The security guys seem to need basic hostile situations training. You showed all the signs of not being co-operative so to do something that can be seen as massively confrontational is always going to go badly.
Nobody got hurt and the manager seems to have sorted it.

Sometimes you just need to vent and here is as good as any other option. Bearing all that in mind as you have got many tokens in the bank are you going for a ride tomorrow 😉

I brought a vampire motorcycle.

I used to drink in one of the pubs used in the film. Just so bad it may actually be good. Possibly.

I have never been able to find the reason why, but I get severe knee pain after a short 20 mile ride with look/spd-sl pedals. Go back to using spd then all day/multi day rides I have no pain. It is not the float as I have got cleats with the largest float available, so I just stick with the pain free soltion.

As for the stiffness/weight I have got loads of different shoes and the latest carbon mtb ones are nearly on a par with the road kit.

Barrington – there were several occasions when the drifts were moved to coincide with event. The drifts were on one date, the event posted the date and then the drift date was moved. The event organisers had tried to co-operate and were met with deliberate obstacles.

To be honest the horse lobby and the cyclists get on pretty well as bith are impacted by the motor vehicle problem. People get of lightly as there were over 100 reported animal deaths on the roads, yet the NFNPA has not tried to restrict speeds or volume of traffic.

It also does not mean that they all have to have a different number 😉

One of the main points of the objections to the charter are that the cyclists are being asked to show numbers front and rear. If you ride a motorbike on the road you only need one plate. The other thing is that the NFNPA are trying to regulate against people and an event that is on open roads that, has already been stated, can be ridden on anyway. The start and finish is away from the NF boundary to avoid motor traffic in the park, so where are the conficts?

The charter would have been ok if they had just put in the things that were enforceable. They will now find that there are enough people who will go out on the published routes of the sportives just to show how unenforceable the rules are. Not that cyclists can be contrary, or anything. Those local that are anti-cycling see nothing wrong with the sheer volume of motor traffic (I work in and around the forest and there are no go areas during the forest show for nearly a week!) so it is the degree of hypocrisy that is being shown here that is getting on people’s nerves.

If you add this to the fact that being a national park brings many benefits for locals (very few development pressures and protection of many things in the forest) the pay back is that it is open for the masses for recreation. If cycling is not recreation then what is?

Minipips is awesome. MrsM just said that there will be some seriously embarrassed teams out there behind a very determined 9 yo. 😀

Well done to everybody. I think I will have to go out for a couple of hours and have a word with myself about getting booked on some events this year.

Sorted. Will be very interested to see what comes of it.

Mostly Balanced : No need to replace the oil, you just need lots of incontinent friends able to pee on the hub to make it work again.

I offered to help only once on the ride that it happened on, but the rest of it was too funny. At the start all I had heard about was why I was riding my geared bike in the snow and not a far more suitable single speed with the superior CK hub. Now I had obviously forgotten that and never mentioned it again. Much….. 😀

Just flipping this round a bit:

Hope receive a hub that is broken. Takes a few minutes to fix and send back. job done.

Time taken to enter in to conversation/write to tell customer that shit happens/ bearings rubbish/you did not service it/many other unknown reasons* (delete as appropriate) takes as much time as it did to fix the issue.

Customer receives feedback and starts to talk/reply/converse with Hope.

Time is money for a small British industry that actually makes things. If you fix the issue and have a good rep for that then your name holds good. If you start to waste time on a multitude of non profitable work then you start to have to cut margins in actually making stuff. Downwards spiral and ffffffut there goes another manufacturer. I think that they have got the balance right and you can still phone them to see if the guy doing the repairs even thought to investigate why it happened.

just a thought….

For alloy (and you can choose your colour) Pro Bolt

For Stainless I use Stig’s Fastners

Excellent service and you can chat to them if you have any queries.