The dad of a mate at school did it, I took the mickey and he pointed out that his dad got paid to travel the world, drinking beer and having a killer beard. Put like that,it sounds pretty awesome.

Strava says I ran a mile, uphill, in 45 seconds. I also apparently jumped from the summit of one hill and back again in a second, a leap of maybe half a mile.

Should the Olympic scouts be using Strava to find the athletes of tomorrow?

ok, sorry for the lazy arse response earlier… Starting form Where ever you are in Leeds, head up the A660 towards headingley, from there head up weetwood lane and follow that to the ring road cross the ring road and then turn left up Adel lane, follow this until the road forks offering Arthington Rd and Eccup lane, I’d follow eccup lane. Follow this all the way to the A659. Turn left towards Pool in Wharfdale, In Pool, follow the A658 then turn left onto Leathley lane (B6161) follow this until you are up as near to the A59 as you can be bpthered going (its uphill here!) then follow the beautiful yorkshire lanes back towards Otley, then ride home along the A660.

nice route, not too far from civilisation but getting some good climbs on without needing to be too strict on route following. (basically, go to pool, go up the hill, come back down, go home.

Can’t be arsed writing a huge route out on my phone, when I get up tomorrow afternoon I shall present you with a route so mighty you will move to Leeds, buy a whippet and drink only ale brewed on a 15 mile radius of the mighty aire!

Thanks all for your input. I’ve been operational in the ambulance service for 11 years, prior to that I was a talented barman in the student union.

Project management seems to be the right sort of role for me, in that it pays the right sort of level (NHS band 6+) and appeals to my interest in improving and making changes on a wider scale. I enjoy patient contact, but increasingly it has become routine and whilst there are many positives to my role and benefits of shift work, it does not fit well with family life at the moment and the longer I leave it, the greater the pay drop if I do change roles.

Given my Paramedic qulaification pretty much guaranteeing me work when i need it, project based work with a fixed(ish) deadline would be good in that I can chop and change every few years as well, keeping my foot in with ambulance work, whilst moving forward into other directions.

How much would a management qualification be beneficial as well? PRINCE 2 seems to be, “pay the money, do the work, put it on your CV” and use it as a key to get jobs, would other qulaifications be useful or a waste of money if not specifically required?

Also, as I’m in the mood for asking speculative questions, does anyone else have any ideas for jobs that pay £30k, are monday to friday 9-5 ish and don’t require a degree?

morrissons own brand. Every other sausage has disapointed me in some way.

Good bunch, helpful and friendly spent a lot of time trying bikes and all the staff seemed keen for me to get a bike that fitted well and didn’t try and sell me everything but the bike Iw as asking about (though didn’t mind me trying different bikes out). Also a good shop to”pop into” with the mrs, as there’s a nice cafe, art galleries and fancy shops in the same building!

3 options here, Ask nicely in a pharmacy, they may do you some if you can prove it is normally prescribed to you… (unlikely but might work)

ring 111, emergency prescription request, OOH GP faxes prescription through to late pharmacy, (easiest option)

Walk in centre (may have limited prescribing rights, may refer you to A&E, which wont really help!

Crosstrax are good, can take a while if they’re busy, but thats kind of obvious really. Re-cycle are good but not for high end stuff I find, plus pricing is a bit hit and miss sometimes (gear and brake setup on one bike £27, same job on another bike £45) but hey ho, bikology in hyde park seem decent but years ago they damaged my frame (cosmetically) and didn’t fess up at the time. No big deal but they couldn’t have missed it and went down in my estimation for not mentioning it. Woodrups are mostly ok, but it depends on who you deal with. Stif were crap and over priced for work being done, so no loss there (pretty shop though!), Vertex bikes on whingate seem good, done some bits and pieces for me, and so far so good. Really depends where you are. There’s also a newish shop in horsforth run by a fella who used to be on here, who i bought/ sold some bits with a few years back, decent fella and apparently a good shop, though I’ve not been in yet.

portsmouth to Leeds, baking hot sun, no air con, via M25 (don’t ask) and a child that vomited every 20 mins and screamed the whole way. Had to stop at every motorway service station on the way to mop up vomit/change clothes/ rest/ took 11 hours.

yeah… I tried one of these recently and wasn’t keen, I don’t know specifically what it was about it, it just didn’t feel right to me. Maybe its the look? I have a Korean squire tele in black which has new electrics and new pickups in it, sounds awesome, but keeps breaking :-( mostly due to my shoddy solder work i think! I tried a few new teles for my birthday and settled with a baja in obvious blonde/ black configuration, thogh was quite tempted by the graham coxon signature model

Wait until 6.30, ring 111 get a local ooh appointmet tonight. The system works, people just aren’t told to use it properly.

my dislocated shoulder plus complications had me off work for 6 months, i had to give up boxing and stopped going to the gym. I did however find that I could still ride (road bike only) so started taking my riding more seriously and less for granted. trained properly, completed a few big sportives and me my goal of riding to my mums house in France.

The next time I dislocated my shoulder I couldn’t afford to be off for 6 months so I changed jobs from an operational role to an office job, still cycling lots but no gym work again.

Its now a year since my shoulder has last been out of its socket. I’m back onto gym work but focussing much more on general health rather than size/strength. I have applied to join the army reserves as it turns out I missed the excitement of boxing more than I realised and I fancy a new challenge whilst I’m still young enough to get there! I still struggle with riding a mountain bike and haven’t tried since august, though I’m on a road bike/fixie/CX most days.

I didn’t notice at the time, but apparently a major injury had quite poor effect on my mental health, things are looking up now but my life lacked focus, and as is so often the case, being unable to do the things I wanted to do for the last 2 summers caused me to do very little but sulk, which is never healthy.

If the shoulder comes out again then it will be a surgical repair and this will require a further 6 months recovery off work and will put an end to my Army dreams. As such I should be being careful with my shoulder, however, building up strength through easy weights routines etc risks bringing it out, but also builds muscle that helps keep it in place, I decided to live normally and deal with the consequences as and when they happen (easier now I have other qualifications meaning if I can’t do my job I can be promoted to a different office based role).

Next target is getting back on the trails. I’m never going to be rad to the power of gnaaaarrr! but I quite fancy going back to “big days in the hills” riding like we used to do back in the 90’s/00’s. With Maps and cake and hard tails.

Keep healthy chaps/chappesses, being broken sucks!

If you’re after a modern or future classic, consider the cars that young people want and will have money for on say 10 years. As a 30 year old now who is less guided by insurance group/mpg I was looking at r32, Cupra r, focus rs etc. easy money as an investment… An older, interesting vw. Maybe a 4×4 golf from the continent?

Sportier and different I have to second the Nissan/Datsun z cars. Lush

I don’t pretend to know a great deal about hackers, but I guess they’re reasonably skilled at computers and stuff. I’d have hoped that if I had the skills and knowledge required to hack a northern mtb skills website, I’d at least design an attractive website. Its like the 90s attacked big rock! if thats the best iran has then tbh we can continue making half the army redundant and just invade iran with children armed with sharp pencils and a vague idea of visual basic!

As a related aside, if you look into specific “arabic speaking regions” adult entertainment, its always filmed in really poor quality. Maybe the UN should air drop some GoPROs and peace and happiness will flow down the mountains, through the valleys and invigorate the flatlands.

husband/dad/cyclist skills:

Wife complains pram is broken. It has a flat tyre, the wheels keep jamming and the grip is torn.

Puncture repair, strip/clean/repack wheel bearings, Bar tape = perfect pram. Boom.

I nearly bought one (also 32, also always wanted a porsche). My wife insisted it had to have 5 doors so got a leon Cupra R instead. A little part of me died that day when a dream slipped out of my grasp. By the time I next have the money to buy a decent motor (and not need a sensible car) 924’s, 944’s, 928’s and even 993’s will be rare and too specialist for my pockets.

Enjoy it and know that I’m jealous

depends. I have one leg shorter than the other and suffer knee, back, pelvis pain and also indigestion problems. Chiropracter “re-alligned” my pelvis and things seemed to get better. Long term answer was uilt up shoe sole.

There have been various threads over the years about chiropracters and the magic/nuts debate. It worked for me, but I dind’t like the answers (I like nice shoes). I’m sure a good physio would also be able to provide similar, if less rapid, but with greater longevity soloutions

Live in Leeds, support the saints. Why? Cos I’m not a *offensive swear of your choice*

If you’re a nurse then it’s officer time for you! I’m in the process of rejoining the reserves in a non medical role as I fancy something completely different! As a reserve you volunteer to deploy rather than get sent and from joining to ready to deploy takes a few years normally anyway.

My wife isn’t keen, but understands my need to “play out” I plan to up my commitment and then look for a safe deployment where family can come too (Cyprus/canada/ uk training roles etc).

As for running, I’m a fatty, map a mile and a half and run/ walk as fast as possible at least thrice a week, working up distance rather than time, as a cyclist I found it was legs not lungs that let me down but I’ve dropped from 17 mins to 13 in just a few weeks of training, though I am struggling with the upper body strength a bit!

I have a really, really good sense of smell. This is of limited use, but has proven useful when lost and looking for a river.

I had a mk1 Marshall shred master. It was awesome, it got stolen and now they cost loads to buy off eBay!

Butterscotch blonde telecaster, black single ply scratch plate. I’ve got a Baja at the moment, which is lovely!

dog soldiers, just gets sillier and sillier but they must have been having fun!

bag into beam will come ut, or shake everything to bits, massive bolts with spreaders held mine up… But as an idea, the gym I trained at had heavy bags on metal bars spanning the floor (several bags, easy to move out of the way).

How about a scaffold bar mounted to the walls, heavy bag hung from that, lock in place with pins, slide away when not needed, doubles as a pull up bar.

nitrile glove round filter, run engine to warm oil (and glove) second glove on hand and unscrew. (this only works if A: you can reach it and B: its not mega tight

just got rid of my 820 lumia for an iphone 4s, on a much more expensive, 24 month contract. Sold the 820 for £30 in the end as that was all i could get for it. Its an amazing phone, but pointlessly crap at the same time. I liken it to a owning the fastest car in the world… great for bragging, but you can’t get jet fuel down the local esso and you still have to sit in traffic with everyone else!

pro:
Good camera,
good battery life,
“different”
Cons:
All the Aps are buggy as hell,
All the apps you know and love? Not available on windows phones
All the add ons and gadgets you know and love? Not available for windows phones
Want to put music on it? That needs a special program on your computer, which is buggy as hell.
GPS constantly loses signal or adds distance on (I felt strong the other night, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t run 5 miles in ten minutes, regardless of what GPS says)
Dropped it and it broke (though Iphones do this too)

The final straw was when I was looking at getting a heart rate monitor for it and it turns out they are only compatable with older phones!

You can synch it with your xbox though, which is massivly useful, to someone, somewhere.

We have one. Turn it on to clean it out once a month, otherwise it’s just a big bath with holes and a plug/

MTFU and talk to your dr. everything seems worse this time of year, but if it is developing into a problem you want to get it beaten before the sun comes out. You may well come out of this slump by yourself, but you may as well get a little help along the way.

For reference, I have recently self referred to CBT, it ws frightening taking the first step, but actually admitting it ight be a problem rather than stewing it over in my head made me feel a bit better straight away.

7.5ton lorries = bad news generally as people over 40 can drive them on a car license. Anything bigger is generally ok as the drivers are quite aware. Except buses, they are all out to get me.

(IME)

99p prices exist so cashiers have to give change, making sure that sales get run through the till, cutting down theft by staff and creating better account keeping/ receipt giving.

on the subject of interesting money facts… it used to be m job to sort usable notes from “dirty” bundles. picking out dyed notes that could be recirculated, burnt notes, water damage and bloodied notes. Minging job!

There was a large batch of fake £1 coins that as metal values soared were worth more than the scrap value of a £1 coin (though not the cash value)

I used to be able to reel off the weights of different values in different notes but not anymore.

Come to the grand depart, camp in my garden, free eggs and a decent chop shop down the road. Only £150! For £300 I’d probably go and spend a few days in France and watch the finish in Paris, rather than 20 secs of blurred peloton in the inevitable rain!

Nice place, small town feel. MTb course through the dunes at noordvijk, great for kites/kite surfing/ kite buggies. I was in noordvijk rather than Leiden. It’s windy, fat bike could be a laugh

Been man +1, that’s my standard brew now!

Cbt for pain management is evidence based and is showing good results
Sometimes it is called “expert patient pain management program” or “w-pain toolkit”. It it works in a similar way to the mental health side in its more about controlling your pain and changing the way you respond to it. Probably best accessed through gp referral to I apt.

Have a look at http://www.paintoolkit.org for more info

Hope that helps,

Jim (husband of Cbt therapist)

Double buggy and unicycle for propulsion. Job done.

student/nhs/bluelight/MOD discount worth having (about 9% IIRC). if getting credit, 0% is available online, not in shops. Open office as above is great, plenty of older versions of software available for free download, however, updates to OS can cause problems

Apologies for thread ressurection…

Yeah I’ve used Robs, sensible advice, I was tattood by someone else (a girl with a cmaper van, can’t remember her name) and she was spot on, Rob himself has done a lot of work on my mate and its all tip top, though he did moan that you need to be pushy to get your hours worth as he did have a habit of wandering off when several hours were booked!

Robyn. Perfect pop