Hard core, you know the score etc etc. Get your topsoil from a proper place (they can mix compost in and get soil to match whats already in your garden to ensure even growth if thats your thing). As for the filler, find a local building site where they are digging holes and ask for some from them, they have to pay to ge rid of it and will happily dump their waste in your garden for free!

try Stif in Leeds, they sell a lot of swobo stuff (including bikes)

Its constructuve dismissal if they force you out/ fire you by changing the demands of of your job without consulting the work force. Get yourself (and any colleagues who feel teh same) into a union (GMB will take on anyone, but there is better groups out there who may know more about your area).

Trouble is, if you become a militiant PITA your head is still first on the block, but at least you’ll get a fair pay off?

See the guy on the right on his fixie? Do that. In the shopping centre. that’ll learn em!

works on mine… just hang the mech as normal, adjust with a little bit of cable tp get the line and let it pull your chain tight. only need tp use one jocky wheel as well, but don’t try and trim the mech down for weight savings, it’ll only snap!

I couldn’t buy a knife block in ASDA the other week as I’d forgotten my driving license. DEspite being 27, I guess I’ve just got a pretty face?

I’m all for protecting the youth and redcing knife crime, and I can see that a pointy knife might make a good weapon, but why would a knife weilding hoodie want a read knife? And more to the point, If I were going to stab someone, I wouldn’t buy a whole knife block (hard to conceal) I’d just buy one knife, or even more likely, I’d steal it!

To make matters worse, my pen knife broke a few weeks ago and I really want a replacement (Its a really useful tool!) but I can’t find one anywhere that I like and if i ask in fishing/ outdoor/ tool shops they look at me like I’ve P$%%£d on their kids.

And now its raining as well. Brilliant.

I blame the daily mail!

I’d go, but i live in yorkshire, which despite having some of the best riding in Britain, doesn’t have many events. I’d organise one myself but I’m lazy.

My Jake the Snake is my main commuter, doing 120 miles a week its fine as a road bike, the brakes on the top are overkill, but does make track standing easier!

TBH, one of my biggest fears riding road bikes is that they’d snap under me (irrational fear i know!) My JTS quashes this fear ever since i started hopping over potholes on it.. just get out and ride!

I thought that might be the case… I’ll be taking it apart and having a look then me thinks!

Nobody?

If it says ambulance on the vehicle, there is a risk of being flagged down to treat incidents. responsible staff ill be first aid trained and carrying associated equipment. As for a bigresus bag, I guess they’re johnies/ Wanabes and carry huge resus bags full of out of date bandages and safety pins?

Lots of nice ratchet straps off of trucks, some good tarp, several wallets (all returned, one put through someones door based on the address of their drivers license), a selection of drugs (a bag of weed, several small bags of pills and a fairly large bag of unknown white powder) sunday mornings riding past night clubs as they kisk out is always a laugh!, 2 mobile phones (retuned, one owner gave me a bottle of wine), a perfectly good tyre for a road bike, some nice drinks bottles, a lot of broken glass and a bag of shopping at a bus shop (bread, fish fingers, cake, eggs etc).

Wouldn’t mind some new oakleys though…

following this conversation, I tohught I’d better check this program out…

A-level psychology, people who don’t like aspects of their lives/a bit shy and some nudity. I used to go to parties like that when I was 17. Move along people, nothing to see here.

oh yeah this ones common… small businesses get bullied into paying for shoddy booklets, often with some quite shoddy advice inside.

wee in their shoes, then invoice them back for the expense of your highly filtered uniquely flavoured, limited edition urine. I’d value mine at £450 per sample. I would however, send many samples.

There’s not much point in writting to my local paper, being as they struggle to proofread most of their work. The spelling and grammar are appalling, they often get names and details mixed up and often the same story is repeated several times in one issue, just under slightly altered headings.

And yet I still check in here every day….

hmmm.

I was on a nice DH in the Lakes one summer when something strange happened with my chainset. On further examination I ad lost 3 chain ring bolts and just one was holding it all together (but had rotated enough to throw the chain). I can’t say for sure that I lost all three on that one ride/ descent but I’d never noticed it or had that problem beofore. Now I always check the bolts tightness before and afer every ride. Just one of those lessons you I learnt from experience!

met a young lady who was convinced her skin was faling off. Tuns out she hadn’t slept for a week and was nailing huge ammounts of speed…

TBH I don’t understand why people still use speed when coke is cheaper now and pills are everywhere, but then i guess everyone has their reasons for their drug of choice, however, if I were to se recreational drugs, I wouldn’t choose speed, its just grotty!

cat foods gone up…

I had similar thoughts… also was checking out the kona honky tonk… I’d refer you back to teh earlier arguement of “why discs on a road bike”. I bought a jake the snake and the canti’s are more than enough stopping power… you have to remember that you just don’t need the same quality of breaking for roadbikes!

I got done on one of these.. said I’d deliver “within nottinghamshire/ West Yorks” as my dad lived on one side of the county and my sister on the other (and I live in Leeds). Nothing massivley valuable, jus a stack of guitar magazines, the one guy offered £85 Buy it now (whihc I didn’t ave set up) so I let teh auction run.winner bid £15 and expected delivery to Whinchester. A few phone arguements later, he complained to ebay that I didn’t provide the goods (I posted his cheque back!). Tell the numpty to organise a courier himself!

Since I broke my scaphoid, riding flat bars hurts, but rod bikes are stangely ok..

http://www.myvouchercodes.co.uk/discounts/wiggle.co.uk#discounts

I find waterproofs get too hot. Do you commute in your work clothes? If not, Just get some tights, they keep your legs warm and you get to show colleagues your “pride” without getting fired. Failing that, for 15 mins, just get some waterproof walking trousers to whack on as over trousers… prepare to sweat though!

I get my Glucosamin from netto for about 70p, I don’t kno if it works, but it reminds me to take my vitamins if nothing else!

I ticked “other” on a form at work (don’t see how my race effects my ability to do my job). since then I’ve been invited to attend a discussion group on minority needs, a conference in London, been asked if I’ll speak at training sessions on diversity and equality and was invited to join a minority advice group as part of the union!

I feel its my duty as a member of a minority to partake in all the opportunities offered to me, after all, I am a southerner living and working in Yorkshire.

C1 is 7.5 tonne, C1E is 7.5 plus trailer i think, D1 is mini bus, D1E with trailer. B relates to cars, A to motorbikes FKLNP is i think tracters, milk floats etc. weirdly, mine includes “tracked vehicles” (I’m gonna get me a tank!)

If you passed before sept 1997 you can drive non articualted trucks upto 7.5 tonnes and minibuses up to (i think?) 8 passengers.

After that date, you can only drive upto 3.5 tonnes.

Which is poo, cos ambulances weight about 4 tonnes so I had to do an HGV test (about £1000 all in) just to drive ambulances slightly bigger than the ones I used to drive.

I tihnk you can still drive a minibus, so long as its not for “hire or reward” i.e you don’t get paid or anything (ideal for charitees etc)

Oh yeah, for those still suffering from problems with scaphoids, you can have it removed I believe, whichstops the pain, but leaves your wrist substatially weakened apparently (though I don’t know much about this..)

The thing about the scaphoid is that the blood supply runs past it then loops back. (poor design?) Anyhow, a fractured scaphoid is a nightmare injury given that its such a small bone. It heals quite quickly (leaving pain over the site (in line with your thumb at about wrist level) and weakness in the wrist in certain postitions. It can also cause thumb pain.

Problem is, if its healed slightly out of postiion (as fractures have a knack of doing) then it can put pressure on the blood vessels reducing peripheral circulation to the bone its self and areas distal to it. (this is a problem.)

Unfortunately, if it gets worse you can get all kinds of horrible symptoms (including pain, numbness, weakness and spasms), usually treated by corrective surgery.

In the past this fracture has been poorley treated and it is no coincidence that a high proportion of legal cases against A&E units relate to hand injuries which have been misdiagnosed.

Good news that its not arthritis, X-ray may well (hopefully) come back negative, but X-rays don’t tend to show blood vesels too clearly. If the pain keeps on, keep on at your GP, if the pain is specifically over the scaphoid then thats quite indicative… Exercise shouldn’t cause any new problems, but stop if it hurts, load up on Glucosamine and cod liver oil and try wiggling your fingers and keeping them warm (if it is blood flow)

Good luck and hopefully it’ll just go away in a week or two!

I down graded from an Orange Patriot to a 456 and have never regretted it. It does everything I need it to, climbs ok (gets up everything I can manage!) descends amazingly and the flat bits are ok.

Check superstar out… alfine hub, built into rear wheel for £200 irrc

Black route used to get very muddy in two places, othersise it was fine… couldn’t speak for the red route (never did it) but I hear its very good.

ok, my swobo has red rims and red chain hubs and a red chain, and mud guards and panniers and lots of lights.

But I don’t concider myself “fakenger” just a someone who commutes on a fixed gear bike..

I do about 40 hours a month overtime (yup thats 5 week months). that said, with our overtime rates and inncentives and a wedding and new house to pay for it’d be rude not to. I’ve cained it over the last few months of crap weather and the reward is in the new bike I just bought.

I’m having a month off at the moment, but will be back trying to do 20 hours a month from now on (back at uni part time from feb).

Being as I work weekends anyway as part of my rota, that means nothing tome, though I only work ovetime as part of my shifts (I.E adding another shift to a block of 6 etc)

I once dared to suggest to a few horse riders at Wharncliffe that they should wait where they were for a few seconds as more riders would be coming down the trail. cue abuse from lady at teh front along the lines of "we were here first, Its a BRIDAL path and we can go where we want, you have to give way to us!" etc. Being a mature, well balanced adult, I responded by waving them on, only for a few seconds later three DHers to emerge at full whack from out of the woods (one of them air born) much skidding a squealing from brakes to avoid dropping off the other side of the fire road and some very spooked horses.

I used to ride horses, and it is a pain when people act in a selfish way, but if your horse is easily spooked, don’t take it where other people are likely to be (we’d ride young horses on private land). That said, some people are just idiots. Put on a horse, there just bigger idiots.

Settle. Cold, windy, muddy, snowy and tiring!

I’d agree with you on that one.. we did a stupidly long climb for a "sweet" downhill. Sweet downhill turned out to be a fire road, into galeforce winds, with hail blasting us in the face. Slowest descent ever!

I stayed at a proper poverty place (50E a night i think?) but it was nice in a raggedy kinda way. Dont know if you’re poverty stricken like me, but it was called hotel passage i think. Also, even if yo’re not staying there, the restaurant is very good!

I seem to have lost the ability to do this (on skinny road tyres) mind you, going to SPds and road bikes at the same time probably didn’t help!

I tend to turn my bars to the right, dip my left leg and kind of rest the bike on the edge odf the tyre. hard to explain, but it end up with the bike at about a 75degree angle.