Can i just say thanks, this thread has cheered me up enourmously! :-)

BTW, i’m 45, she’s 28, and no, it’s not an “Internet” thing, we spent 12 days together, hit it off from the moment we met, you know, the thing where you find yourself just looking into each others eyes for a long time after you’ve been talking and that NOT being weird, where the silences are comfortable, not awkward….. lol!

I generally find it hard to comprehend falling in love with someone at all, irrespective of distance, which is what made it something of a suprise to me as well!

Watch Ken Burns “The Vietnam war” series!

Also

“19 minutes to live” by Lew Jennings

and

“Black Cat 2-1” by Bob Fori

lol no, she’s not called louise!

(or indeed brian…. ;-)

Proves that i am indeed far to clever for my own good……..

;-)

PS. even diving, it’s probably drier in there than a few of the rides/riders back home!! ;-)

No riding for me over christmas, as i’m in Thailand, but i’m still using my legs a bit for a spot of diving instead ;-)

And yes, that is indeed a christmas hat i’m wearing !! #gettinginthespirit

Knowing where you ride locally weeksy,then i deffinately agree you need a bike with a high BB and short cranks for normal XC type stuff! Those £*(%£^&%”ing tractor ruts are horrible!

Unfortunately, a bike with a high BB is not ideal for non pedalling rough stuff, so realistically, it’s a two bike shed. Given that second hand downhill bikes depreciate like they’ve just gone out the start hut at champery, perhaps look out for a cheap s/h, older DH bike? Get a “xtra large” of a 5 year old one and it’ll still be long enough even by modern standards!

To clear typical trail fetaures, like annoying holes or trees across the track, you don’t need to be able to “flat land manual” ie to be able to unicycle along on the back wheel for a considerable distance, which is lucky, because no, you probably can’t learnt to do that in a day! (i think i took me 2 years…)

However, in a day a decent coach should be able to teach you the basics to unweight and lift your front wheel for plenty long enough (lets say a couple of meters) to enable to you stop sticking that front wheel where you really shouldn’t! (like in massive holes and then going OTB ;-)

That technique, also translates directly into jumping and bunny hopping and is the corner stone of techniques to start your “3D” riding experience!

in my experience as a totally average rider, what you need is LENGTH and lots of it!

I moved from a large zesty, which isn’t really a particularly small bike, to an XL mondraker dune, and it’s amazing, simply because the “Middle of the bike” is such a wide zone now. Previously, i felt that i had to have my weight in just the right place, especially on drops, now, there is just more leeway for error, which is amazing, because error is how i ride!

Taking that massive bike to the Alps was actually eye opening, as i got round tight Les Arcs hairpins of certain death that i’d never got round on the much shorter zesty, simply because of stability and the confidence that gave me!

So whilst travel is useful, to try to swallow your mistakes, length is ime, actually far more important!

(and yes, it takes more effort to manual and bunny hop, but because of the stability and wider “centre” window, i can actually flat land manual this bike, which i could never quite manage previously! The only iussue is now when i get back on my HT, every time i manual or wheely i pretty much end up sat on my ass on the floor behind having forgoten i’m riding a much shorter bike……..)

You’d have thought that Guy has a bit of jumping experience from his MTB outting surely?

Must be easier to jump a massive crosser than some spindly little mountain bike that bucks you OTB at the drop of a hat surely?

He also seemed to have managed to mostly get over his habbit of saying everything twice

He also seemed to have managed to mostly get over his habbit of saying everything twice

I’m in the same boat with my c456, which really doesn’t get ridden much, if at all these days. But if i sold it, i’d not get much for it really, and to buy it back so to speak if i changed my mind would be more expensive…

So, if you can afford to, keep it. If you really need the money, then yeah, sell it…….

I have two, one which looked fine but wasn’t and one which looked really terrible, but wasn’t!

1) A new trail appeared in my local woods. AH-HA i thought, new trail! Lets ride it. So i sent it off down what was a rather good trail at an significant rate of knots, only to send a blind turn/drop off a large log combo that turned out to be the end of the trail, because that’s as far as the trail monkeys had got with building it! Luckily, there was a huge and soft looking rhododendron bush, so i chose to crash into that. Unfortunately, that same invitingly bushy bush was also where said trail monkeys had hidden their trail building tools, and as i crashed in, a caught the handle of a large spade straight up and under my jaw (i was in a full face helmet), which slammed my mouth shut, to the point where i saw stars for a good few minutes. Amazing, nothing broke, but it felt like i’d not found a soft landing so much as a knockout one!

2) Coming down off the top of Les Arcs, from Arc1600, down through the woods, under the pipes, and cutting down through various brilliant trails, i thought i knew where i was, so sent it off a blind drop, which if it were the one i though it was, would have been into a lovel long smooth landing into a nice vertical gulley. Unfortunately, THAT gulley was not actually on the trail i had ended up on, and i basically sent it out into a massive spikey bolder field because the trail i WAS one had a 90 degree switch back at the bottom of the run in! Astonishingly, despite the almost certain chance of serious injury, landing from about 15 foot up at about 20 mph, i managed to land directly on top of one bolder, that “cusioned” (relatively speaking) my fall, and then bounced to land flat on my back on the only other large smooth bolder on that side of the mountain! Astonishing, especially to my riding buddies who were already composing my eulogy, all i suffered was a brusied lower back, and was bascially un-injured and rode the rest of the holiday fine! In fact, i nearly twisted an ankle trying to recover my bike that had bounced some distance and was making a bid to beat me back to Bourg :-)

It seems, er complicated?

A bit like the script writers were trying to lever in anything they could to link to the other films, regardless of if they fit or not?

Just me?? ;-)

More importantly, i eagerly tear open my copy to find out what the month of december brings, and what, I DON’T BELEIVE IT, it’s only an %#!*!ing Ebike……

They’ve done this on purpose i tell thee!

#anebikeisnotjustforchristmas

The problem i think is that there is no longer any difference between politics and business.

Our politicains can all seemingly lie us much as they like, and seem to all have some sort of finger in the pie so to speak, so i just can’t believe a single thing they say, due to a confilict of interests that seems to be tollerated by the “system” these days…..

Even if the machine failed to completely empty the system of the (non toxic) gas, then it’s still the technicians responsibility to determine that case. Which is easy, cause when you crack a fitting it goes “hisssssssss” as the (not empltied) gas leaks out under pressure………..

Most A/C servicing instructions are implicit in this respect, asking the technican to listen for escaping gas when the system is disconnected.

BTW the example of being “cut up” by someone in the turn right lane at a traffic light going straight on:

You may have no idea they are going straight on, but you should always consider it as a possibility, either deliberate “queue jumping” or just someome unfamilar with the road or lost.

Assuming you aren’t leaving the lights on the yellow like an F1 driver at the start of a GP, there should be plenty of time to spot the fact they haven’t actually turned right, and are encroaching on your lane, which gives you 2 further options:

a) Use your car as a battering ram, and spin them into the central reservation or oncoming lane of traffic.

b) just Lift off / brake if necessary to re-establish your safety zone and just let them in.

Option a) despite being satisfying in theory really has no point. Your car is wrecked, you’ve just ended up with a load of hassles / paperwork, your insurance is going up next year, and you may end up in jail due to causing death by dangerous driving. Realistically, all that has happened is that there is another car in front of you. so what? there’s probably 100 other cars in front of you already!!

If the person doing the “cutting up” is the sort of person who cuts people up deliberately then do you really think that you are going to change their mind or stop them doing it? If that IS really important to you, become a police officer and join TrafPol so at least you can do it officially…….

The trick, is to improve YOUR driving to the point where you can pre-empt the idiots and therefore be in a possition to just sit back and watch them be idiots from a safe distance!

Applying defensive and advanced driving techniques not only keeps you safe, it gives you the tools to be able to actually enjoy other people being idiots!

I now spend a lot of time spotting idiots before they do the inevitably idiotic thing they were about to do, but that i have distanced myself from, and therefore avoiding “getting caught up” in it!.

Classic examples are slow cars on the motorway pulling out from behind a truck at the last minute because they haven’t even spotted the slow truck ahead (which has been pbvious for at least a mile up front) or the 100 mph “lunatic” arriving at warp speed behind them. That ALWAYS causes conflict, but nto conflict that i will be anywhere near!

Or people coming down slip roads, and managing to prefectly position themselves right next to a massive truck, and then running out of slip road (100% of the time, there is a completely empty road ahead / behind should they have just changed there speed minutely)

Or people on roundabouts, clearly people who can’t even correctly operate a small plastic switch on the steering column and indictate correctly, so what chance do they have of navigating a complex, multilane road feature without cutting up about 3 other motorists

All these types of situations are all BLATANLTY obvious, sometimes even minutes before they happen if you just learn to observe properly. Once you learn the basic skills and signs to be able to spot these incidents before they happen, your own driving becomes much, much less stressful, at whatever speed you drive :-)

“Salt water make some more sense”

Well if you want to make, and then die from inhaling, Chlorine gas i’d agree…. ;-)

“We’re not gnarly riders on gnarly bikes, just a family trip, so that might make s difference”

ah. Given that La Thuile is a genuine test of a master map makers steady hand to draw so many contour lines so close together, it’s not somewhere i’d particularly recommend for family riding, unless your family name is “Atherton”….

How is it described on here, something like “Super Innerleithen” :-)

A few years ago, everyone turned up at Coed y Brenin for a fun day out on our bikes.

We, i say everyone, because someone (who shall remain nameless…) went to Afan by mistake…….. DOH!

The software is a custom bit of code written for interface to a now obsolete electronic control ecu. Yes, we could reverse engineer it and write something modern in it’s place, but that’s currently time we don’t have!

At the moment, the XP laptop it resides on is effectively sandboxed from the outside world (no network coms or data exhchange via USB sticks etc) so is reasonably safe. It may be a question of just moving to a XP VM on a newer Win10 laptop, and doing the same with that, but i wanted to explore the idea of having that VM available to any Win10 machine. It sounds like that isn’t a good idea from what you have said!

EV actually could provide the solution and not the problem to our grid and it’s energy resource!

As EVs get ever bigger batteries (over 2 times the average energy capacity compared to 4 years ago) people don’t actually drive any further. In fact, thanks to increasing traffic densities, IT infrastructure costs, people are driving less distance on average than they used too.

Take my “little battery” i3. It has just 22kWh, and my daily commute is 32 miles, which would be considered a long commute (average uk commute is ~11 miles). I average just over 4 miles per kWh, so my daily driving energy requirement is 8 kWh. That means, even with my 4 year old, small battery EV, i have something like 10 or more kWh i carry around with me, that could be used for short term storage and load levelling.

Today, most people are at work during the day, and at home at night, which means for example that solar generation is of no use to most private transport needs. But, if we made laws / gave tax incentives to install solar at our places of work, we could charge our cars where they sit in the day, and take the power home with us to run our houses over night. And that “storage” is, effectively free for the network. The vehicle owner can earn money by letting the network access their excess energy buffer, and can minimise their costs by buying ‘lecy when it’s cheap, and selling when it’s expensive.

It’s worth remembering that a typical passenger car in the uk is actually parked up for typically 98% of it’s life! Using that time makes sense to me :-)

The ‘burn looks like it’s running pretty sweetly! Not yet had enough rain to do more than dampen the sand yet i guess. Must get back there for a few laps ;-)

They are tough old beasts, might not be an ex-excavator with bit of careful lubrication! (oe-err missus)

Has anyone suggest you buy him an eBike yet??

#runsandhides

That’s actually not such a stupid idea! Hows about a first stage eicyclic gear that sits in the crank through tube, as the BB is big these days for stiffness that ought to be possible, driving the crank ring backwards with respect to the crank itself?

That would allow the high mount derailleur, and help it stay clear/clean as the chain line would be going backwards up high

“Just a quick question, if I’m doing 70 mph which I was and there is plenty of room to pull out how am I possibly to blame”

you use the phrase “plenty of room”

But then say

“I fully appreciate not everyone sticks to the limit but mini man was plenty back but took proper umbridge to my manoeuvre which I’ll clearly admit must have slowed him.”

ie you do admit that you “slowed him”

Those two statements are mutually exclusive. Now, unless you post the full footage from front and rear camera’s, we (the thread readers) have no evidence on which to decide the truth of the matter. What ever you did, whatever the truth, the fact is, it pissed off the mini driver.

Finally:

“The finger probably sent him in to rage mode and it obviously wasnt ideal, but **** him I ain’t being bullied out of the way by a speeding dickhead.”

Unfortunately this ^^^ is the really dangerous bit. Basically, two drivers came into conflict, for what ever reason, but neither drivers would back down. The result, luckily in the this case, was just two idiots trying to intimidate each other, and luckily that was that.

Next time, you (and the mini driver) might not be so lucky.

Don’t misunderstand me, the mini driver is clearly a total **** but, if you read the judges summary in the road rage crash case i posted earlier in the thread it says:

‘You didn’t start this but whatever provocation there may be I regard as slight. You reacted to Eaton’s driving and thereafter you fully participated in a road rage incident.’

ie, it apportions blame to both drivers, regardless of who “started it”, simply because neither would back down. That, really is the lesson here imo.

Watch out cycling (and walking) through dirty water you can see the bottom through, because it’s not unheard of for the rising waters to lift manholes covers………

Just got an email telling my to stop trying to avoid the swear filter!

apparently

1) the “t” word is considered swearing (i guess the mods live sheltered lives eh ;-) )

and

2) T then a letter, then a star then a letter is not ok, but 4 stars is?

I’m not saying we should have a free-for-all on swearing on this forum, but really, that seems a little bit silly in 2019 doesn’t it?

(mods note: i’m not complaining, i genuinely didn’t know that to swear i had to make sure i used all stars rather than some letters separated by stars, from now on i’ll make sure i swear in full symbol mode)

BTW, just for reference, this is the level of stupidity on our roads:

X Factor star crashes car after lobbing peanuts at driver in road rage row

Watch how a minor incident ramps up, and how drivers with no driving skill end up, upside down in the hedge! (thanks to modern cars, they both walked away, had there been pedestrians or a bus stop where they crashed they would both be doing time for man-slaughter…..)

BTW, for cases such as the OP’s it would be interesting to see the entire, un-edited footage, especially if their dash cam includes a rear facing camera.

I’m not suggesting they actually did wrong, but what ever they did annoyed the other driver to the point where they were willing to cause an accident to get back at the OP, and it would be instructive for all to see exactly what that was………..

Not only could have the mini driver avoided the incident, even worse for them they SHOULD have avoided the incident.

It’s clear the mini driver was a **** and the OP got mixed up in their ****tery, for what ever reason. It wasn’t the OP’s fault, but they could have de-escalated the situation. Lets be honest, look at the pic the OP has put up, we could very well be sat here with both drivers up in front of the courts for causing death by dangerous driving. And that is my only point, who ever started it, it’s in your best interest to be the one to do what-ever is necessary to avoid the situation spiraling out of control.

Don’t get me wrong, that is hard, especially for us men, to put our pride aside to be the one accept the situation and defuse it, especially when we feel it’s the other drivers “fault”

I’m not geex, because i can happily admit i’m not a great driver and there are plenty of mistakes i’ve made and continue to make, that i can always learn from others, no matter their skill or experience level. But on the flip side, i’ve been lucky enough to have a job where driving, and driving very high performance cars, has allowed me to gain a skill set beyond that of the average driver on our roads. But being “better than average” does not make me great, far from it. The biggest difference that an advanced driver can bring is attitude, rather than any particular skill. Particularly being able to analyse what happened when you (inevitably) make a mistake is a true advantage, and one i try to use wherever possible

“Without knowing anything other that what’s been written on this thread, how in the wide, wide world of sports can you conclude that the OP deliberately obstructed the Mini driver?”

i didn’t. the don’t obstruct other deliberately, what ever the circumstance” quote is referring to the poster on the first page who suggest they deliberately slow down when someone comes up fast behind them in order to obstruct them because they are speeding

The OP made a mistake. Due to a lack of observation, forward planning, training or experience, they got themselves into a dangerous situation that could have been entirely avoided. In this case, they were not the idiots, or the ones who initiated the situation, but as i maintain, being “right” is great and all, but not if it comes at the cost of being “dead”.

In the ideal world, all drivers would be considerate, observe and avoid conflict, but that ideal world doesn’t exist. Fortunately, there are some really simple, really easy to carry out techniques to avoid conflict, that massively reduce your individual chances of being involved in an accident. Those techniques do however sometimes require you to put your pride aside and be the one to defuse the situation, to pro-actively change your speed or path in order to lower the risks.

On our modern, fast crowded roads, these situations are becoming more and more common. Road rage is real, it affects all of us, so all i am recommending is that you do your best to drive to avoid it…….

What would i have done?

As the OP, traveling in no particular hurry in the LH lane:

Used good observation and spotted the “pinch” that was about to occur (namely the lorry about to impede me, and the fact that the RH lane had an approaching vehicle in it, meaning that moving right to clear the lorry could bring me into conflict with that vehicle), and depending on the situation and either (i wasn’t there, i don’t know what would have been more appropriate, sorry)

a) slowed down in the LH lane, allowed the lorry to join in front of me, and the car on my right to continue past me (least possible conflict, but means i have to slow down, which can have secondary consequences (depends whats behind you, and any braking in heavy traffic can cause bunching and a shunt further down the road)

b) Accelerated in the LH lane, to get “in front” of the truck before it joins (low conflict, but slightly higher risk, as i have to speed up to do this, depends on road being both clear, and it being safe to do so ie no additional hazards identified before this action)

c) Accelerated, indicated, moved right into RH lane to clear the truck, but made sure i was travelling at a speed to actually be pulling away from the car in the RH lane, then smartly move left after passing the truck to clear the RH lane (Some potential conflict, potential for having to exceed limit, but allows me to continue at speed, again, depends on hazard identification

Without being there, or without good observation up to the decision point, it’s impossible to say what would have been the “best” choice. It would not be a “snap” decision, but based on previous observation and to so extent road knowledge (ie if you regularly drive the road, you know what fixed hazards are up ahead, and hence can make a more informed decision)

If i’d being driving the mini then:

Approaching a car in the LH lane travelling slower than i am would immediately result in actions, typically

1) Reduction in closing speed, so the point where should they move right, i can stop without hitting them (of course, as speed is time/distance) at some point, if you are going to pass them, this becomes impossible, but realistically, closing speed ought to be appropriate to maintain ones safe space.

2) Position my car to the RHS of the RH lane to maximise visibility and the size of my safe space, and ensure i sit in that cars blind spot for the minimum amount of time

3) Observing the truck coming down the slip road, i know where they are going, i can assume they are likely to be slower than a car, and hence the car in the LH lane may pull right to avoid/let out that truck. (the “pinch” again)

Again, depending on exact timing, hazards and conditions:

a) Slowed down well before i’d got anywhere near the car, presented them with a space in the RH lane (i wouldn’t flash them out, the lane is there for them if they want, i won’t signal you to use it). Allowed the car to pull out and pass the truck

b) Accelerated, so as to pass the car BEFORE they get to the truck and pull out

c) Accelerated hard, swerved across the slip road de-lineation markings, behind the car in the LH lane, undertaken the truck on the verge as it moves rh onto the main carriageway, whilst giving both drivers the finger and blowing my “dukes of hazzard” horn….

(ok, perhaps not option C, but it’s an option right??? ;-)

“Because maxtorque was driving the mini , its not even funny.”

Read my posts, and point out where they suggest i’d drive like that?

“I kind of get this, but also;

– imagine now you’re in a queue of people, all going the same way, maybe making your way out of the cinema or theatre at the end of a performance. Do you all just accept that’s the speed you’re moving at and the time it’s going to take to get out of the exit, or because someone is fitter / more aggressive / a good runner are they allowed to run through the middle and folk step aside for them with a cheery wave and a smile.”

ime, that doesn’t happen. When someone rudely pushes past, you might get the odd mutter, but very very few people will actively try to prevent them pushing past, mainly because they’ll get punched.

And that’s the difference, in our little insulated metal boxes we feel safe, we feel like the king or our castle, and so we are more likely to take on risk, that when it’s just us and our fists, very few normal people would take on…

“Why are you so concerned about not pissing off speeders?”

er, go back to the original post in the this thread, which is the one where there was nearly a serious collision because some one “got in the way”

When you “get in the way” for what ever reason (poor observation, being a unoffical TrafPol, or just because you’re also a muppet) of another motorist, your chances of having a serious accident go through the roof. Yes, the “speeder” was wrong, yes they are probably a ****, but why you’d want to become a **** yourself, and possibly kill yourself or someone else just to prove they are “wrong” escapes me…..

Enjoying the moral high ground is a lot harder from a hospital bed, and really completely impossible from the morgue……..

You prefer more near death experiences then tthew?? Let me know your number plate, and i’ll cut you up like a kipper next time i see you on the roads….. ;-)