34, Landscape Architect and Planning consultant.

I use Beer In The Evening quite a lot for finding boozers in the smoke.

Yeah I've been recommended the Brother as well – might be the same one? £180 sounds about right – currently reduced to £150 in Argos.

We've just bought two cats – ma and son. Junior is getting his knackers cut off today and that'll cost about £65. Cat flue jabs are costing £140 I think, for both. I don't know how long they last but I hope it's not an annual renewal! Whiskas in gravy is their choice of food at the moment – think that costs £6.50 for 12 and they have four pouches between them, daily. Plus dry food at a couple of pounds for a box. Cat litter – £1.14 for economy litter from Tescos and they seem to love that more than the expensive stuff. Worming is another cost. Contemplating buying a new monitor cos they love playing chase the mouse cursor with claws unleashed.

After much testing we went with an xbox 360 cos we don't use blueray and xbox was cheaper. But the xbox console is so blinking confusing. You cam't just put your game in and play. If one player is logged in and then you load the game and you want to play two player you have to press up and down and left and right five times and press jump four times and switch the consoles off and on a few times, restart the controllers, restart the tv, flick the mains switch a few times, ask the cat, go for a ride, and then finally the second controller logs in and off you go, only to discover that 1-2 players doesn't actually mean split screen but that you can only play against an other player via xbox live and not the person sitting next to you in your lounge. And the xbox is quite noisy too. So now we just get the controllers, aim them at the cats and pretend we're controlling them in a real-world version of cat tekken.

Are these rides the same as:

http://www.mtbberkhamsted.co.uk/index.htm

If not, will look out for a role-call…

ooooh, I'm in Tring so this could work. What time do you ride?

Now if you'd said "flood zone" that would be lead to a more open discussion. Flood plain ("I'm on a wide open plain" as someone stated once) suggests a rather flat area with a water course running nearby. If however, you're referring to flood zone that can represent any area, and its likelihood of flooding is rated accordingly.

Passed through SF earlier this year. Instantly wanted to move there. Great place – fantastic riding t'other side bridge and surfing/riding south of the City.

Mrs Monsta was chief lenswoman at the Mega this year (as well as racing). We were pretty pleased with the results and sent them to a well known UK DH magazine but they never responded, so would be interested to see what the STW massif think…

Go to http://www.woodoffe.co.uk/photography/woodoffe for more.

The shame about the London olympics one is it doesn't have any identity. The one with the O's linked up into rings is simple and creates an association between the host and the event:

When's Chocky coming back? And Zigzag (on bbc2 at 3 in the morning). They were proper sci-fi shows.

Not intending on specifically running it in winter. But the first ride will be in the winter, so I wondered whether the road kit is any worse at dealing with Ridgeway chalk and Swinley sand.

Norway is great. It's expensive if you do expensive stuff; cheap if you are prepared to muck in. We went backpacking there about this time a few years back (which is ideal as there are a lot fewer tourists clogging up the windy backroads). Alcohol is expensive but the coffee is fantastic – as are the coffee bars.

We went to the Geiranger fjord, hired a guide and a two man kayak and had a fantastic afternoon paddling about. I recommend that – much better than just taking the ferry. One time we went fjord fishing, caught a very large fish, took it back to our B&B where we exchanged it for a free night plus breakfast. We went to 'A' on the Lofoten islands which was also great – white beaches, impressive scenery, suprisingly warm sea. Did some wild camping there for a couple of nights with a bunch of Danes who'd just come over from Holland. So we made a fire, went fishing in the lake and then swapped our fish for the nice things they'd brought with them from Amsterdam. Which was nice.

Bergen was good and we got three days of sun which is apparently quite unusual. Definately go to Grieg's place. Even if you don't like orchestral music (which we got to see by chance which was a bonus), just chill out in little wooden Troldsalen concert hall for a bit. If you go to Oslo, definately go to the Vigeland Park which is pretty impressive. And if you can get the train that goes from Oslo north to Trondheim that's quite a good little journey in itself.

Avoid the trolls, unless you like that sort of tacky rubbish, in which case you'll be in troll heaven.

"so i gave her (…) a mouth full"

*snarf*

I'll be mostly flanking the Ridgeway but on road on the skinny tyred machine trying to see if I can ride it faster on road than I did the Ridgeway offroad on the fat tyred springy machine. And stuff like that.

And then on sunday I shall be mostly watching the "CX race in Sir-windun" and supporting the GWR team. And maybe Thurman Merman even though I have no idea what or who Thurman Merman is. But that just adds to fun of it all.

I was a club swimmer, stopped for ten years. Wanted to have a go at triathlons so did a Total Immersion swimming refresher course then joined a masters club. There was a mix of other strokes as expected but it was all good conditioning to get back into swimming. Once I built my strength up I joined a tri club swimming session as well and mixed it up with the masters club. That way I got lots of enduro swimming with the tri lot and power and sprints with the masters.

I'm dealing with a non-liability claim at the moment… A month in and so far my insurance company have generally not been particularly helpful other than readily supplied a cheque for the cost of writing my car off. I'm not accepting it till the other policy holder accepts liability given that the driver of their white transit van drove into my stationery car during fairly slow moving rush hour traffic. Problem is, apparently our insurance people can't get hold of the other contact details of the other policy holder despite the fact I got the policy details (and before some smartarse asks why I didn't get phone numbers, d.o.b., etc, I was on the fast lane of a motorway, and as I moved over to the hard shoulder, the other driver tore off before I had a chance to get the plate etc).

Thing is, the insurance company have made no effort to keep me updated. I tried calling this evening to find what was happening, got through to someone who said they'd find out something, put me on hold and then a few minutes later the muzak went straight to a VM stating that the offices were now closed!!! (This is a very well known insurance company with a lot of annoying adverts involving a nodding dog).

It just beggars belief that insurance companies can be so staggeringly ignorant when it comes to helping their customers.

and that postage!

Yellow?? Looks more like coffee to me…

Thanks Sam, I need to get to Soho. I was gonna do the GUC from my pad in Tring to Watford then had a look at google maps for Watford to Soho and saw roads…

Parapenting is quite fun. We did it at sunset for added atmosphere – nothing like running towards the edge of a cliff with a frenchman yelling in your ear “run! run! trust me, eeez ok”…

“Michael is no longer with us”. Uri has just confirmed it. And the Lord has Spoken. And so will all of Michael’s ‘good’ friends over the next days, weeks, months…

BBC news, the thriller videos are rolling out…along with the entire back catalogue!

What tyres for rainbows?

1500m for your first tri? Flippen ‘eck, I take it you’re a good swimmer!

Ok, much of what charlie says but these also work for me (one ironman, lots of olympics and a few sprints):

Swim: go easy, pace yourself esp. over 1500m. I try to stay to edge of the pack if it’s an open water start cos I’d rather be pushed slightly to the side than pushed under by some over-agressive swimmer.

Swim-bike: put towel folded into a ft square under shoes. Sprinkle talc on towel so arrive at bike, put feet on towel and sort helmet out, then shoes on and off you go. If it’s hot don’t forget some sun block. Sounds ridiculous but I’ve raced in New Zealand where I fried because I didn’t spend 30 seconds slapping the stuff on my legs and neck (and they had sun block at every drinks station on the run and bike). Also, last two hundred metres or so change down a couple of gears and spin on approach to the bike/run transition so your legs aren’t pumped from pushing a 52-11.

Run: remember to take your helmet off. Socks are good (put talc in your socks before you start the race then shake the socks a bit), quck squirt of energy gel (make sure it’s open before you start the race) then off for an easy 10k canter (the first 2m or so are always a giggle).

Good luck!

STS,

I joined Bigfoot after I met Graham at one of the KSX events. He taught me a lot about riding down hills very fast without braking. Did you ever ride the epic ‘shore about eight years ago or so at Pope’s wood?
Suprising how many people ride those trails. My favourite (the rollercoaster?) is the first one you hang a right off buckshot road. When the trails are dry and dusty, oooh, it’s so much fun.
<puts on rose-tinted oakleys and drifts off to happy riding place>

We did a 3hr intro to kitesurfing while in Belize (Caye Caulker) last year. My recommendation is (if you haven’t started yet) when you do your intro/beginners course, go somewhere with warmish water cos you’ll (probably) spend a lot of time standing in the water practicing your 8’s or doing body drags. We’re going to the Red Sea in October for a week’s tuition which will hopefully get us up to the level of actually standing on the board.

I used to ride with the bigfoot lot and I think a couple of them know the where-abouts of the trail name history. Legend has it the shrine trail was named so cos when the trail builders were hacking away some overgrown ivy on part of the planned route they discovered a wooden toy shrine to jesus and mary and joseph.
The Christmas tree trail is so named cos the switchbacks form the shape of a typical Christmas tree drawing. And it’s interesting that you have the Christmas tree trail and the shrine trail both linked through religous connotations. There’s also the trail that goes along the back of that campsite which I recall is a popular place during pagan holidays.
That’s what I was told anyway, and they have a nice murky, mythical atmosphere about them, so I’m gonna stick with them.

I might have to email you the spreadsheet 🙂

Ok, the new lines would be at the bottom.

My simpleton users are inserting a new row. You see, I’m introducing the concept of a ‘spreadsheet’ into the office so it’s all pretty exciting for them.

Next question:

If I add a row, the function from the previous cell isn’t automatically copied into the next cell. I’d have to copy and paste the function. Is this the case or can I set excel to automatically copy the function across? Note that I dragging isn’t an option – this has to be as user friendly as possible…

>> try =sum(a3*$a$1)

That worked. I didn’t know about the $ feature. Cheers.

Can you post the function here?

See
Set2Rise thread

Sponging-Machine, you pipped us to 13th! I was in Bertie Maffoons.

Course was the best xc singletrack riding I’ve done in the UK and that includes trail centres. It was just awesome – so many trails that it was enough to settle into a rhythm and get to enjoy it. At first the long climb out onto the plain on the first lap was a killer, but after a while it became the recovery part of the ride. The hardest part was that little bit of chalky climb above the campsite that climbed out to the road, but it was good to break up the groups of riders coming in off the long flat bit.

Only critism: Mule Bar’s PA pumping music so loud that people 5 miles away were complaining. It might be an all-night race, but a bit of quiet time is appreciated. That said, the music was pretty good!

I thought the fairly small number of racers added to the quality of the event. I’m not sure that doubling it next year is such a good idea. More people = more bottlenecks = slower ride. There was enough space that almost all the way round you could keep up a good pace, and everyone on the course had a really positive approach to moving out the way if you were coming through because it only happened probably one or two times per lap.

So yeah, well done Spam Biking.