So where for original 1966 Action Men (actually older than me!)?

BHF Peak Challenge in April is about 90% on road now – it’s a great ride, just not very "off roady". Three big hills – someone died of a heart attack in front of us in Winster a few years ago. And it’s usually my birthday weekend!

Viking Challenge is not a particularly technical course, but when it is muddy – and it usually is – it is nasty thick gooey clay. In six inch wide strips. With 2 foot deep ruts either side. Full of water. That said, it’s a great event, well organised, regular food stops etc, though I understand there was some criticism on here about it last year.

No, hora, I wouldn’t – she’d tell you she wanted one thing and then just as you got started she’d want something else…..

Ooooh, I like that John Thompson thing – it’s on a route I have penciled in to try one day this soon as well…….

Get the colleague to document that conversations asap, btw!

avdave2 – I’d suggest there may be more "niche" forums to attend to your "wants"

I spend a lot of time having to listen to my mother on the phone moaning about the cold, the damp, the fog, the dark, the ice, the rain, the wind, my dad etc etc and how depressed it makes her feel and how she can’t wait for the light, the dry, the sun, the warmth etc etc.

I get so peed off with her that it makes me feel glad to be alive and doing as much as I can regardless of the season and conditions.

I’m with Virgin and for the last week our connection has been just making it up to 1Mbps – but we live over a mile from an exchange in an internet mad village, and we know it is not down to our provider

Struck me as a bright and successful young woman who had always been able to get exactly what she wanted no matter how difficult she was being, and had finally been brought into the real world.

I was actually hoping she had been "downsized" – I’d pay to have watched that!

When he sees that programme and how wet he was, he must be hiding from his colleagues at work today!

At the risk of sounding prudish, is that an appropriate programme to be showing this early in the day – I flick around the Freeview channels some days if I’m off and I wonder if some of the shows and films should be available when there are young kids around!

*goes off feeling very old….*

Need: To lose weight

Want: The self discipline to do it.

Maybe they should be the other way round

Similar thing with a mate last year – had a health scare, stupid lifestyle, not exercicing enough, young kids, big meals at funny times and alcohol etc etc. We agreed to enter the Manc 100 together to give him motivation to train and lose weight.

I lost a stone, he gained 2 lbs and still rode the 100 miles.

We are trying again this year!

What I learnt from this is that if he has had the shock talk from the doc, you might want to see what his missus can do to help him find the time to exercise, and what she can do to help his food choices at home – he is unlikely to be able to do it by himself.

There is no doubt that the medias desire to provide 24 hr TV and on line coverage means that more non-news stories and churned out and get a profile they don’t deserve.

I’m still not sure if the media has dumbed down so that people can understand it or that people dumbed down so the media had to lower itself to keep up – chicken and egg.

Either way, most journalists are lazy scum.

[Waits to see what dirt the News of the World can dig up on me by Saturdays deadline]

Might be some bargains on last years frames to consider – money no object, something like an XTR’d Turner Flux might be up his street?

Can anyone explain to me why we have to increase capacity at Heathrow – if(!) global warming is correct half of London will be underwater by the time it’s finished, so we actually need to look at moving more stuff away from the capital.

How does a third runway stack up with the governments green agenda anyway? And how much will air traffic drop in the next 5-10 years if the recession is as bad as they reckon? Could the costs not be better spent upgrading the rail network to reduce the volume of UK flights and integrate better through the Chunnel?

And don’t get me started on people buying houses near airports and then being upset by the noise, how dumb is that? I was brought up on RAF bases, spent 5 years in Crawley (next to Gatwick), now live under the East Midlands flight path – planes now are quieter than they ever were, and subject to far more control, so get over yourselves!

I live in Derbyshire, cover half the county, but my office base is in Nottingham.

I have a large poster of “British Sheep Breeds” next to my desk, some toy sheep next to my monitor, and when they require me to wear a tie, it has sheep on it.

What makes you think there is any rivalry – except I’m surrounded by gun-toting buffoons who think you need a passport to go beyond Ikea…..

Skoda Octavia 1.9Tdi estate here – we get 50-55 mpg without the bikes and carriers on the top but fully loaded, with two bikes we get maybe 47-52mpg.

Removing the bike racks and roof bars when not in use saves us about 2mpg.

With hindsight, I’d have got a towbar rack, principally as we cannot get two bikes and a roof box on the standard Skoda roof bars

4 weeks for me – it’s no longer a “snip”, it was a “slash and burn” as they cauterised the tubes and then cauterised the wound closed. Would have been fit enough to get back on a bike within 1-2 weeks but the wound reopened and took another couple of weeks to close again. Chafing from stubble regrowth was quite uncomfortable mind. But not as uncomfortable as when we discovered the guy hadn’t put enough anaesthetic in before applying the fancy soldering iron to my tubes!!!!!

Whatever you do, don’t be a hero, as if it goes wrong it can go badly wrong – a mate got his badly infected and spent 6 weeks at home unable to wear anything other than a long baggy T-shirt.

All of which reminds me I’m due to send my sample off in the next few days. Best do some Google searching for “inspiration”…..

They used to have a reputation for being on the large size – if he can try one or get to the shop he might be better off before he buys (says the guy that followed their sizing advice and ended up with a bike a fraction too big to be worth upgrading….)

Whatever size Cy tels you to get!

I’m half an inch or so shorter, was told I’d need a medium and a 90mm stem, and he was spot on!

That’s not a short wife – 4’10” is a short wife, and if anyone has any tips on a similar spec bike for similar use for MrSwadey, I’d be really grateful!

A couple of thoughts occur to me on this…

1) Has the “victim” of this racist attack spoken up about his view of the case, or is everyone getting their knickers in a twist on his behalf without his sayso?

2) If said “victim” was shocked/traumatised etc by the incident, why didn’t he complain at the time and

3) Assuming he is now serving in the Pakistani army, how on earth is he coping with the real stresses of fighting the Taliban up in the mountains?

I suspect that this non-story has come about because:

a) Young, famous, privileged young man makes a fool of himself in the past (Nazi costume, drinking binges etc)

b) The gutter press decide to watch out for him so they can have another go

c) Said young man goes through Army training, comes out the other side a much better person, and goes off to serve his country with distinction and more courage than most of us have done, depriving the gutter press of their target

d) Some scroat sends in teh 3 year old video so the vendetta against him can be started again.

He was young and foolish, but appears to have grown out of it.

Anyone got a video of him being call “ginger nut” by fellow cadets they want to sell to redress the balance?

2 year old and a 5 year old, and an understanding wife/washing fairy – only got back into riding when the first was born and I “wouldn’t have time/money to justify the gym membership”. Several bikes later…..

Currently commuting to work 3-4 days a week – 17 miles per day.

Most Wednesdays night ride if I can find someone else going out

Most weekends – one longer ride if other family commitments allow

Commuting is a big help for keeping legs ticking over, takes a couple of weeks to get organised properly to make it fit in easily.

Night rides after the kids have gone to bed have been useful.

Decent “bad weather” kit helps, as you are often allowed out when the weather is too foul for a family day out at the weekend!

Obviously, you need to be able to offer your other half the time they need for their hobby in order to get the time you need to ride. And I know we are lucky in that MrsSwadey only works one day a fortnight, and I have flexible hours that mean I get to spend time with the kids each day.

Rightly or wrongly, the IDF are effectively fighting a war, and, strangely enough, in war, innocent civilians get killed and maimed in horrific ways – it’s happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Vietnam, ….Wars of the Roses…..Norman Conquest….Roman invasion…..etc etc

It’s a terrible thing, it always has been. But it is not the same as the atrocities committed by the SS that have been mentioned.

Dumfries and Galloway is great if there are younger kids – castles, farm parks, zoos, great local food places, beaches, Forestry Commission parks, some of which have bike trails…..

We had two great years holidaying near Dalbeattie with two under 5s. MrsSwadey – a non-biker – reckons Kirroughtree and Mabie (Farm Park next to the Stane) are two of the best spots we’ve found!

Usually caused by MrsSwadey putting on the washing machine just as I get the pressure washer started up – shouldn’t make a difference, I think it does…..

Cheer up – MrsSwadey found yesterday she needs £2.5k of dental work to sort out a tooth oming through in the wrong place.

Wouldn’t be so bad, but she spent the same on laser eye surgery just before Xmas.

I have not yet used the phrase “you could buy a bike for that!”

I’m using some Costco own brand (Kirkland?) Merino Trail socks – lovely and warm. Cost about £8 at Costco for 4 pairs, lots on ebay in the £10-12 a pack range.

I’m loving my Endura Windtex jacket – think it was £55 from CRC – been toasty warm commuting in this last week in sub zeo temperatures with just a thin base layer under it

It’s also the only piece of kit that MrsSwadey says looks good on me!