I think we have a winner.

Man finds grenade in his back garden.
Despite claiming he didn't realise it was a grenade, he tried to defuse it.

…the RAF said it was very unstable.
'They weren't very happy with me when I told them I'd been holding it next to my ear and listening to see if it would go bang.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1309440/Plumber-unearths-WWII-prisoner-war-camp-garden.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Lycra. If you've got it, flaunt it.

Brecon Beast for me as well – weathers looking good

Met Office is showing 20 deg C with sunny intervals.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/wl/brecon_forecast_weather.html
Perfect mountain biking weather on a proper mountain. :-)
With 23mph gusts. :?

What, trailquesting ?

Bunnyhop…Hubby answered and said ' I've been worried about you…

Mrs MTG was late back on a trailquest recently.
I was asking other riders if they had seen her while they were out.
When it got to the 30 minutes late, all points lost stage, I said "I'm getting worried about her".
I think I might have spoiled the moment though by adding "She's on my spare bike".

OK, some background information.

Possible Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, trapped nerve in the neck, or both.
Waiting for the full diagnosis after having the tests. Currently on Naproxen, a sort of stronger version of Ibuprofen.

3 hours/55km last Sunday = no problem.
5.5 hours/67km the Sunday before after forgetting to take my morning tablet = neck pain.

Bikes available;
Lynskey Ti 29er rigid.
Gary Fisher 29er hardtail.

I much prefer riding the Lynskey, it just feels so much lighter and faster than the Gary Fisher. Trouble is, it's a longer head tube and the only forks I've got that fit it are carbon rigids.

I'm riding 90km at SPAMBiking September Blast the following weekend, where the Lynskey is the ideal compromise between an MTB and a CX bike.

It takes me a week or more to recover from a big ride, so maybe I should just plod round slowly and enjoy the scenery on the heavy and slow (in relative terms) Gary Fisher and save myself for Salisbury Plain.

Well, yes, normally that would be my attitude, but I'm a bit delicate at the moment when it comes to long distances over rough ground.
Getting off to walk a couple of hundred yards of rocks is no problem, but I don't fancy mile after mile of this…

Brecon Beast, although still not decided which bike or which distance yet.

I can see buses, both inside and outside my office.
I don't find them all that interesting to look at, but other people obviously do.
http://www.reddibus.com/Vehicle%20Allocations.htm

Surely the medium that it is floating in would be solid at that temperature, so it wouldn't float.

Seem to be lots for lorry drivers though.

Is that the case again now ?
It always used to be, but when I was working for a truck dealer a couple of years ago, we were losing work as transport companies and own fleets sold trucks and laid off drivers. There seemed to be a lot of experienced drivers looking for work.
Have things picked up again then ?

Even when there was a shortage of drivers, everyone wanted drivers with at least two years experience.
It was a common rant from people who had recently passed their test that despite the large number of jobs advertised, no one would take them on.

I would imagine there's very few jobs available for novice coach drivers.
I've heard £1000 is a typical cost for HGV lessons and test, it's probably about the same for a coach.
That's a lot of money to put up front with little chance of a job at the end of it.

There's always bus driver vacancies.
There's a high turnover of drivers. A few stick at it for life, a lot give it up after a while.

I know First have got their own instructors and examiners.
They will put you through a course of lessons and your test and give you a job if you pass.
The only drawback is that if you leave within a certain time, a year, I think, you have to pay back the cost.
They will only train you on automatics as well, which may limit your job choices if you ever leave to try coach driving, although most modern coaches are automatic anyway.

…particularly where the failure mode was directly related to the nature of that accident.

I'd say that's the deciding factor.

Cracked windscreen, split wiper blade, no fog light, passenger seat belt frayed – drive it home, fix it, take it back.

Bald tyre, brake pads down to the metal – best leave it there for them to fix, or trailer it home.

A lot of people are missing the point here.
The original question made it clear that the previous test certificate hadn't expired, so even if it fails a test, it is still covered by a valid certificate.

As for whether it is legal to still drive the car after the failure, you have the option to have the car repaired and retested at the place where it failed, or to take it away for repair and return it for retest.
If it wasn't legal to drive the car, you wouldn't have that option.

Did everyone else miss this bit right at the bottom then ?

The story later turned out to be false and was retracted by the magazine.

And if you can accept some aspects of a religion while dismissing others, it's not so different to those of us that dismiss all of it.

It's like a sort of cartel isn't it ?
Each religion knows that all the others are made up, so none of the others are going to prove that their's is made up as well.

My question is fundamentaly what makes the faithful believe their answers have more merit than the answers of other cultures?

Dunno, but supposing one religion was proved to be true, by miracles on demand, prayers being answered, appearance of the deity, or some other incontrovertible means, would the followers of all the other religions admit they were wrong ?

Lynskey Ridgeline 29

How can a car be cool just for being a car ?
Anyone with enough money can walk in to a show room and buy one.

Cool is what you do with your vehicle, like driving a T55 down the M42 or doing wheelies in a 22 ton 6×6 truck. :wink:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbyFEMxAAg8

£37 including postage per pair.
I've done a few rides with them now and not bent them yet. :-)

Without wanting to sound harsh I'd suggest you may want to stop using lightweight kit…

Or perhaps manufacturers should start making components that will take heavier riders. :P
I think I've proved by now that Crank Brothers don't, it's time to give Ward Industries a chance.

Going on some of the replies on this thread, can the pope be arrested for inciting religious hatred ? It was all peaceful and tolerant in here until his name got mentioned.

Beards and map boards are cool.

I rode a three hour trailquest yesterday (did I mention I ride trailquests ?) and didn't encounter a single braking bump. :P

My message to politicians is make positive changes, not tax hikes!

How many politicians have you sent this message to ?
What was their reply ?

So, MTG, would your advice be to go right to ebay and report the issue?

I don't know. I don't use ebay enough to know exactly what the rules are, whether this guy has broken them, if you can prove it, and what ebay would do about it.

Until everyone has the sense to bid at the last minute, effectively reducing ebay to a sealed bid auction system, it will remain ripe for sneaky practice.

Not quite. In a sealed tender sale, the highest bidder pays their full bid, even if it's a lot more than the second highest bid.
These last second bidders only pay just enough to outbid the second highest bid.

You've convinced me though, anyway, that I should start using one.
Which one's best ?

To those who see nothing wrong, do you think ebay should be more like a sealed tender auction then, as that's what this trick has turned it in to ?

And then quote some fantastic weight saving over a conventional transmission without mentioning the batteries. :-)

Looks a bit vulnerable.
I can't see it surviving the first left handed unscheduled dismount.

Interesting cable run there, snaps.
I've always run mine under the BB and cable tied them to the chainstay.
Your way gives a smoother run with less bends, but I'd be worried about it snagging on my foot or the tyre.

I had to modify my speedbone a bit to make it fit the non flat outer face of the caliper mounting.
Have you got some sort of alternative to a speedbone built in to a post to IS adapter on there ? I can't tell from that photo.

"£25 is probably a very large fraction of what the guy spent on the bike in the first place!"
Yeah, I think that's the problem. A quick look on Halfords website shows their cheapest bike at £90.
It must be hard to explain to a potential customer that a fairly minor repair is going to cost nearly half the original purchase price of the bike.

I wouldn't bother carrying water for a 1 hour run or bike ride, just have a drink immediately before and after.

A personal trainer, for what is presumably her first 5km or 10km race, does sound like a bit of an extravagance.

"…it's the ones who want something for, or next to nothing…"
That's what I meant.

Most people accept that if their car goes in to a garage for service or repair, it's going to cost a lot of money. They probably resent it, but they accept it.

In the case above, he asked me how much a new pedal would cost. I explained again that he needed a crank arm, not a pedal, and guessed that he would have to buy a complete chainset which would be around £25.
He was shocked at the idea of spending £25 on his bike, yet he would probably think £100 for some minor repair on his car was normal.

"Don't think this has been done before?"

Inevitably, it has.
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/a-new-era-of-cycling-may-be-here-to-stay

For more information on Shackleton and his Boat Journey and some of Frank Hurley's photos, take a look at, http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/endurance/home/index.shtml

If it was written as fiction, it would be dismissed as being too far fetched.

"We are homeless and adrift"

Looks good, but I'm suspicious of anything that claims to be that good but has so little detailed information on the website.

Rohloff have a minimum gear ratio to avoid putting too much torque through the hub.
If this has got the gearbox directly on the cranks, it will need to be stronger. With more gears as well, it's unlikely to be lighter.

Why no pictures of the left hand side ?
Why no pictures of the shifter ? Looks like a Rohloff style twistgrip & two cables in that picture above.

Two guys I used to work with discussing prices and discounts at different shops of something one of them wanted to buy,
"Yeah, but what's 5% of £100 ? It's probably only about two quid."

Not climbing, but as an adventure story, nothing beats Shackleton's Boat Journey.

I've got a load of curtains off curtain side trailers which I use as tarpaulins over my firewood and other stuff.
If you can find somewhere near you that does truck body repairs, they may have some old ones they would sell or give you.
They would be ideal if you're going to improvise some sort of bender.

I've entered for three laps.
I see there's a 6 hour time limit though, so that's 15km/h for 90km.
It's going to be close. :?