Certainly not. I’m 6’4″ with a 37″ in seam. You will probably need the telescopic seat post and personally I went for the H bars because of a lack of flexibility, but other than that, it fits fine.

A suede shoe brush.

Suede Shoe brush

Unfortunately, what we have is a 21st century banking-based one that is already sewing the seeds of the next ‘bust’, by using government backed loan guarantees (which, ironically, is in itself a fairly socialist construct) not to lend to business, as intended, but to fuel property speculation in the South East. Aaaaaah the joys of unregulated capitalism. What could possibly go wrong?

They are not actually lending to either buisiness or property speculators (aren’t they businesses anyway?). They are hanging onto it for dear life, which subsequently is depressing the already low interest rates. Why does a bank need depositors when it can get money from the government?

Where do you think we would be if we had not spend centuries regulating it, organising workers and fighting to get the vote etc- Dark santic mines? Child labour? or somwhere even worse than that – its not exactly universally good now is it hence why we have enough money and enough food yet millions die every year due to capitalism and the way it divides resources

And millions don’t die as a result of so called socialist states?

Did I say it was wrong to regulate it? This what I mean, we need an alternative.

I want a health service that works, a proper postal service, a gas and electricity supplier that isn’t going to rip us off, a national rail network that serves the whole country. But what we don’t need are over bloated councils, nationally funded steel works and car industries.

We need a proper balanced economy that works for a Britian in the 21st Century, not one based on the 19th Century.

You started it!

Anyone who doesn’t see through ‘red’ rose tinted spectacles has to be a Tory. I AM NOT A TORY. You are blind to anyones opionion other than your own.

I don’t follow ANY political party. I don’t trust any of them, they are all scum.

Groucho Marx once said he didn’t want to be a member of a club that would have him as a member of their club.

A similar principal should apply to politicians. Anyone who wants to be one, shouldn’t be allowed.

I think you’re confusing reasonable, decent people who possess a level of humanity, with Tory’s. I don’t know how. There’s little similarity

I expected a response like that from you, you moron.

Yes. Most people believe that the workers should get a better deal because they are workers themselves. And they have a point. I’m not advocating 70s style union belligerence but so many workers get such a crap deal it has a negative impact on the quality of life of a large section of the population *that needn’t happen*

You are right it doesn’t need to be like that and although I’m not on minimum wage, taking into consideration my age, experience and education it certainly feels like it.

But how do we take this forward. The so called political elite are only in it for what they can get, no matter what colour rosette they wear.

We need proper grown up thinking for the 21st Century problems we are now facing. It’s no use going on about what the Tories are doing or what Labour are doing.

We need someone who can actually take this country forward. But because of this stupid political systeme we have, it will never happen. We sit on a see saw of political incompetance swaying from one disaster to another, each blaming the last party in power.

Where is V when you need him?

Oh we do have a say. We just are just too stupid to use it properly. Every election time there are surveys asking people what they believe in, and most of us support left wing policies, by a big margin.

Why do most people support left wing policies? Given the wonderful self serving nature of the average British man or woman in the street, I bet it’s not because of some altruistic well meaning, but because they think they will get something for nothing.

Can I ask you a question? Where do you think this country would be if it wasn’t for Capitalism? We wouldn’t have had an industrial revolution, no industry, no railways. We needed people with vision and dare I say capital behind them to drive us foreward.

I was incredibly sad to see the end of so many nationalised industries, but what was the alternative. They were badly run, by people who didn’t care. Unions had too much power and they were bringing the country and these industries to their knees.

I’m all for looking after the less well off in our society, but not at the expense of bringing the down the country as a result.

Don’t forget in the late 1960’s income tax ran at 98% for top earners. That’s right 98%. No wonder loads of people emigrated.

I hope that voting is made compulsory, but we must have the option of ‘none of the above’.

I believe all keys have the transponder in them. It’s what turns the inbuilt immobiliser off.

Ford still wanted a huge amount of money just to code my key, plus they wanted the car for a day.

If you don’t need the remote, you need something like this:

Key without remote

Bolton Lock Co did the job in about 10 mins. They plug their gadget into the cars computer, put the old and new keys into the ignition, press a few buttons and they were done.

Any good locksmith that deals with cars should be able to do it.

I had this problem with a 55 plate focus. It is possible to buy the electronic bit of the key and the blank metal ‘key’ section from somewhere like Ebay. You then need to get a specialist to code the transponder to your immobiliser.

Bolton Lock Compnay did mine for about £35, but you need to take your car to them. It’s expensive for about 10 mins work, but I got a fully working remote key that did the doors, boot and immobiliser for a total of about £50. A lot of money for a key, but a lot cheaper than Ford.

Hate mine.

Bored with the work (hasn’t really changed at all in the last 5 years).
No chance of any promotion (dead mens shoes)
Crap pay (Degree, MSc less than I was on 12 years ago working in IT)

Went for an interview yesterday. Even though it’s not perfect, if they offer more money I’ll take it because I just want out. If I don’t get out soon I’ll be here for another 10 years with even less prospects.

HUGE respect to Nicole.

In my opinion, given that she succeeded mostly on her own merit, the greatest cyclists this country has produced regardless of gender.

Her record across all the different genres of cycling speaks for itself.

And I wouldn’t blame her in the slightest for walking away from the sport after the way she has been treated and reported by the cyling media.

Been wearing them for about 3 years and probably couldn’t live without them now.

I need glasses for distance, but being short sighted I don’t need them for close work. However, I work with computers all day so had that inbetween problem.

However, I got totally fed up of having to take my glasses off to read, plus the distance I naturally held the book was too far away to see smaller text (like cycling magazines). Hugely frustrating.

I also have prism i.e. don’t have perfect stereo vision so can’t cope with the vari-focal contact lenses. I managed for a while having one distance lens and one reading lens. Your brain is quite clever and as long as you get the distance/dominant eye bit right, your brain merges the images so you don’t really notice (I did when I got tired or too drunk).

The only problem I have with them now is when my prescription changes and I get a stiff neck from working on the computer and having to look through the reading part.

They are also not very good it you want to see something close up that is low down or on the floor. You can’t get your head low enough and tilted far enough back to see through the reading part.

So, not perfect but for me the best option.

I can also now read the sat nav when I’m on the motorbike.

Get it – No, most places require a Masters or at least be prepared to go get one.

Do it – Yes, writing the same old boring reports week after week after week is driving me INSANE.

I can’t stand another 10 to 15 years of doing this so I’m looking to go back to software engineering or I’ll do another Masters just so I can change jobs. Big risk though.

Bassenthwaite Lake
[/url]
DSCF9535[/url] by dsmavisto[/url], on Flickr

Col,

Ok, maybe I made a bad choice of words, but I was trying to get a general point over in a limited amount of time without boring everyone. There is nothing wrong with seeing beauty in things and having loving relationships (which most modern philosophy views as vitally important), but expecting life to be a bed of roses is thought of as being misguided and unrealistic. Maybe I should have quoted direct from The Chimp Paradox and said ‘Life is not fair’. Expecting life to be fair and just will always leave you disapointed. Treat life like it’s not fair and you are only ever surprised by the good things.

I realise it is a pessimistic view, but if we share anything in our image of ourselves, you probably have a pessimistic view on life anyway (really sorry if I’m out of order there). I actually like the person that I am inside, part of my issues are with my misguided view of what is on the outside. I assume that this is misguided, because I have been married once and now live with my partner, so I can’t be too bad on the outside.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t sit in a darkened room feeling sorry for myself and thinking life is crap. I just get on with what comes at me and enjoy life as much as I can. When something goes wrong or I don’t make it out on my bike (because the chimp is playing up), I try not to make a big deal out of it. I also try not to let other people upset me. They have busy lives and are just trying to get along the best they can and don’t need me messing their lives up.

I’ve had issues with my partner because, in my view, she works to hard and for too long. I try not to let this bother me now, but I also have the opinion that when I want to do something at the weekend (like biking), if she’s happy to spend all that time at work, don’t complain when I want to do something in the only free time I have.

See I still have issues.

Col,

I have very similar feeling to you although not identical. I often sit there wondering why I can’t bring myself to do things (not just ride the bike) and would rather not start them than fail. Unlike you perhaps, I don’t have the same sense of failure after an activity and usually enjoy myself when I have actually built myself up to do something.

As a bit of background, I also suffered from clinical depression when I lost my wife to cancer and was on quite high dose medication for over 5 years. I still have bad days, but most of the time I’m the same grumpy git I always was.

I recently read ‘The Chimp Paradox’ which does go quite a long way into answering the question ‘Why?’ we have this behaviour. It is natural for different parts of our brains to be in conflict and it is our responsibility to try and ‘manage them’. In the books terms, the ‘human’ part of the brain behaves rationally, the ‘chimp’ is irrational and will try to mess things up. The only problem is the chimp is a lot stronger than the human and without careful management, the chimp will usually win (why you feel like crap when you don’t perform to the chimp’s expectations).

I have also been reading some philosophy on the meaning to life. Very interesting stuff if you can bypass some of the more outrageous philosophical bull. Basically, life sucks and rather sadly you have to accept this. There are no magic bullets that will make things perfect, you deal with what you are given and make the best way forward you can without hurting anyone else. I know it’s a crappy answer, but unfortunately that is the reality.

Unfortunately, I can’t really say how to help you specifically, but I can say how I get round it? First of all, I try VERY hard, not to have too high an expectation of myself. Accept that the best you can do really is the best you can do. Next, realise that it is your own brain that is playing tricks on you. No one else, just your own brain and this is not unusual. Third, and quite a big one, don’t beat yourself up if something doesn’t go quite right. I still have huge issues with this one and it is the one thing that can send me into a depressive state. Personally, I have to sit myself down and quietly think through the problem and how I can solve it. My psychiatrist used to call it looking for an exit off your ring road. It frustrates the hell out of my girlfriend, because she wants me to talk about it and I can’t.

In practical terms, I don’t like to plan to far ahead although I have to plan things like going cycling. I have to psych myself up to go out as that annoying chimp in my head will always find something else for me to do rather than put the lycra on and start pedalling.

It’s not easy, but unfortunately neither is life in general (well not for me anyway). I’ve no idea if any of this will help, but I sincerely hope it does. Good luck.

Rollers every time.

Turbo is as boring as watching someone else watching paint dry.

Tried the IDave route for about 2 months and lost a reasonable amount of weight, but hated virtually every meal I ate.

I’m not a great lover of meat of any type and all the preparation just didn’t fit in with the way my life works.

However, went on holiday to Portugal for a week and ate ‘normally’ (cereal for breakfast, pizza, beer etc) and put 2/3 of the weight back on.

Since getting back I found a website called Food Focus. It takes some details about weight, age, activity level etc and allows you to enter a daily food log, exercise log and body log. As long as you put the data in, you can track your input and output of calories.

It really makes you think what you are putting in your mouth and how much over your daily limit you will be by eating that extra choccy digestive.

So far, I’m about 5kg down in a just over a month. Haven’t been hungry and I eat what I want. For example, keep the calories down with lean meat and veg during the day on Friday cos I know I’m going out with the lads for a few on Friday night.

I also only get weighed on a Friday morning. Always hate making a monday even worse by finding I’ve put a pound or two on over the weekend.

I really wish I could have stuck to the IDave plan, but I couldn’t, it was too much hassle for me. I’m sure some of you will think adding to your food log 4 or 5 times a day will also be too much hassle.

I’m a bit paranoid about this, so!

1) Downloaded onto laptop.
2) Downloaded onto desktop.
3) Copied onto a 250GB external hard drive that is for general backup duties.
4) Copied onto a second 250GB external ‘tough’ hard drive that is only used for photos.

Most of the things on my computer I can download again, my photos can never be replaced.

If you don’t know where to stick it, you shouldn’t be sticking it anywhere cos you obviously don’t know what it’s for!

Instead of posting stupid comments, try reading what it’s actually for and the reason it was made.

GT85

Started looking at sheds a while ago. Came across these guys.

Harts Timber[/url]

As I’m 6’4″ I got them to make mine higher so I don’t go smacking my head every time I go in it.

Been told today that the police are ‘warning’ that there is a ‘traveller’ funeral in Rochdale. Even saw signs of a large number of caravans and white transits congregating on the Kingsway industrial estate.

Not saying anything will happen, but the police have mentioned it.

TooTall

Should we start calling you L Ron TooTall?

Just get Tom Cruise and John Travolta signed up and you’ll be set for life (or should that be after life?).

GlitterGary – Member

I have thought about emigrating before, but no one does pubs like the British.

One of my ideas for a business venture would be a British microbrewery. There are guys out there who make complete systems (of differing sizes) ready for brewing. I’m sure I wouldn’t have to jump through too many hoops to set one up in a small shed somewhere in France. After some of the Cidrerie places I’ve visited with dogs and ducks roaming about, I’m sure I wouldn’t have the hassles I’d normally get here. Have a little Bar Tap attached to the brewery and hopefully I’ll attract all the British boys and girls dying for a decent pint.

Teetosugars,

When you watch all those programs on the TV about moving to Australia, people are always surprised at just how much everything costs. The idea of the house in the suburbs with the swimming pool and barby is usually out of the reach of most people. Plus, things like utilities, household goods and sports club memberships are also very expensive.

Personally, I’m looking for a change in culture too. I’m sick if my neighbours kids using my garage door as a goal mouth, I hate the behavour of road users (of all kinds including some cyclists) and although I have a fantastic view of the countryside out of my back window, I’d like some more space to roam and weather that isn’t raining all the time.

The good bits of British culture I really enjoy and am really patriotic about, but these seem to be getting more and more rare. I’m generally just getting fed up of what Britain is becoming and I’m not sure I want to be here in another 10 years. Greedy bankers, riots, politicians that continue to wipe their elbows when they’ve been to the toilet.

Why not make the break now and make a life elsewhere.

I moved to Morzine 10 months ago, love it… no regrets at all

Was it for work or just because you wanted to go?

Pitched our tents at the side of the road on the Col de Peyresourde waiting for the Tour de France.

What no one seems to realise or accept is that we cannot save the planet. We might be able to delay its demise, but we and the planet will inevitably be toast.

Ok it’s a few years off yet, but given that, due to the laws of physics, we will not be able to do a Star Trek and occupy other planets, we are all doomed.

Lets party like its, 13,999,999,999.

Can’t remember who said it yesterday but they described what the Euro politicians are doing as “saving the cancer and letting the patient die”.

My OH is usually very understanding about what I spend my money on, but with 4 bikes already, she can loose her patience sometimes especially as my nice bike tends to live in the house rather than the garage.

However, I’ve got a new Titanium road frame and carbon forks hidden away in the loft which I’m itching to build up. I keep dropping subtle hints that I’d like a Ti frame as I’ve wanted one for years, but the usual response is “why do you need another bike?”.

My current plan, as I’ve got a big birthday coming up in May, is to tell her that I’ve bought myself a birthday present. She can’t complaing about that! Plus the fact that I’ll need some time to put a few components together, May will be a good time to bring it out into the open.

BoardinBob – Member

There are certain members of this forum who would swear that black was white because it fitted with their predictable, short sighted and narrow minded politcal views.

Unfortunately the OP asked a question that you will never get a correct answer to (Have you read some of the religeous threads?).

Politicians are all scum who, as Jessa says, should be shot in front of their families, for crimes against humanity.

Relatively balanced outlook on the British economy without all the crap from the pseudo-politicos on this forum who believe that only they know the truth.

If god is so powerful that ‘he’ created the heavens and the earth and all the creatures on the earth, why is ‘he’ letting the devil ruin it all? There is no logical or illogical reason to torture the population of the planet for no other reason than an egotistical one.

All religious questions that cannot be answered logically are always answered with a further unprovable solution (why do bad things happen? Oh that’s the devils fault).

If there is a god, I’m pretty damn sure ‘he’s wetting himself at this discussion. ‘He’s certainly not the loving god that most religions portray, ‘he’s there with a lab coat on connecting electrodes to our brains and rubbing lipstick in our eyes.

And lastly, if there is a god I’m being buried with a baseball bat, cos when I’m stood at those pearly gates, I’m going to beat the sh1t out of ‘him’.

Yours sincerely

Angry Atheist.

barnsleymitch – Member

I nearly didn’t post my messages because you are never going to change peoples minds who don’t want them to be changed. I have however, been at both ends of the spectrum of belief and read enough of the bible to make an informed view.

I have very personal reasons that I’m not prepared to go into on an open forum, for being an atheist.

I’ll have a Pendle Witch please.

barnsleymitch – Member

Don’t shoot the messenger.

I know loads of people with higher degrees who are religeous.

From my own personal experience, I was a christian when I was younger, but after a lot of personal issues, I choose to disregard the existance of any higher power.

Sh1t happens and there is nothing we can do about it. It’s not god or the devil; it’s life (or death as the case may be).

On that basis, given that all successful societies have had a religion, it looks as if we’d have had to invent God anyway if he didn’t exist, so what’s the worry?

I suspect the reason for successful societies having a religion is something to do with having non fiscal or political control over the people. I.E. we can make them do things by making them feel guilty that they won’t go to heaven.

This is going to sound really arrogant, but there is recent research to suggest that the more intelligent in modern society are either atheist or agnostic.

Before anyone else points it out, I am acutely aware that if we prioritised living out the bits we do understand from the Bible, we might have a lot more credibility than we currently enjoy.

Is that what it’s all about, credibility? The christian church especially the church of england is so liberal it’s untrue. And don’t get me started on the guilt trip the catholic church uses to control its followers.

I’m sorry, but if the bible is the word of god, is it all not the word of god? You can’t go chopping and changing to make yourselves popular with the masses. Politicians have done that for years and look where that has got us.

Religeon was invented by man, written about by man and sustained by man to control the masses and create power for the few.

If you want a true modern equivalent, look into scientology. Invented by a third rate science fiction author who was on record (if his followers haven’t removed it) as saying the one true way of making yourself rich was to invent a religeon.

To make that up would be impossible

Tell L Ron Hubbard that.

Morality differs between the old and new testaments.

Eye for an Eye.

Turn the other cheek.