New Forest, yes.

Ayups. Not self contained but the batteries are VERY small and you'll get both bike and helmet lights for £250ish.

Organic 355, I got the neoprene ages ago from a local wetsuit manufacturer and stitched it myself at home. Try any good watersports retailer and they should be able to at least give you a lead to a souirce of neoprene.

Just had another thought. Is there an artificial ski slope anywhere near you?

Check the local Yellow Pages for themed entertainers. We got a Dr Who themed party for our son a couple of years ago with full sized Dalek.

Failing that there' always cinema and pizza.

Windsurfed through an evening cloudburst where the low sun lit up the backsplash from the rain so it looked like I was surfing through knee deep glitter.

A week touring Japan by bike.

Crossing the Mayhem finish line at 23H 59M and 25seconds to get my mate out on a final lap and being mistaken for an Orange factory rider by the commentator.

Current wisdom down here says Shimanos good, Gaerne Polar better.

My Shimanos work a lot better with the neoprene gaiters I made a couple of months ago. I now have dry feet even on rides when my mates' feet are "swimming".

Becaus she no longer holds any attraction for anyone with an IQ above 50.

That photo makes her look like a Thunderbirds puppet!

Looks rather Thetford-like to me, which is no bad thing.

Who needs hills when you've got pedals?

Roll on SSEC10 (preferably with warmer weather)

It all depends on the weather and how good you are at riding through sh1t.

Seriously, if it's wet there it's really really claggy. The sort of clag that sticks to everything and snaps mechs like twigs. In those conditions 14 laps would get you into the top 30%. If it's dry then you'll need 20+ for the same result.

Perfect Balance Cycles/Singuloids/New force, whatever we decide to call ourselves this year, we'll be there for our seventh Mayhem.

Roping off areas? Yes we're guilty, but when there's 40 or so assorted team members and families it's nice to have them camped all together.

Sounds a little steep if you're a regular and you were having other stuff done at the same time.

Gamut chain device, 36T ring with the chain line dead straight to the 17T sprocket at the back, which is the ratio I run on my singlespeed, hence the one I expect to use most.

Clashes with the Brighton Big Dog for me but don't let that stop you!

Keva – Member
nope, love riding in the frosty cold. If anything heat and humidity seems to sap my energy.

Heat and humidity gets me really fired up to ride hard. Just shows we're all different despite being built to pretty much the same design.
I'll confess to taking it steady the morning I had to ride 35 miles in 40+C on a Greek holiday.

You're probably not wearing enough to get or stay properly warmed up.

In cold weather I can ride at a steady, comfortable pace without sweating or feeling unduly cold but if I'm anywhere near race pace I'll get very warm indeed under my kit and usually have to remove a layer after I've warmed up. I find winter hardest to maintain a comfortable temperature when riding hard because wearing all the kit needed to stay warm stops the sweat from doing it's job of cooling me down.

Nice story Edukator, it may be that people like you put an end to the wild fluctuations that property prices have seen in the last 20 years. Until recently I wouldn't have thought that there were enough people out there clued up enough to watch, wait and pounce to affect the market, but with all the 'Homes Under The Hammer' type programmes on TV that's probably changed.

Sorry to hear about the cat, we had to let one of our's go just after Christmas. He'd been on heart pills for over a year but developed a tumour on his jaw. I felt bad about doing it because he was still a happy boy but his mouth was quite a mess and he would only eat anything he was hand fed.

I wasn't trying to be holier than thou, just realistic. I get the impression from the OP that he is looking for a means of continuing to spend on his lifestyle at the expense of long term planning. I think if he had been the victim of misfortune he would have told us.

Don't know the music but it's made me want to go on a ski holiday.

Or just learn to live with debt and not feel guilty about it?

Sounds like the original poster has been living beyond his means and if he does sell his house is unlikely to make the kind of investment that will leave him comfortable in the future.
He talks about taking his son somewhere nice which I would read as an expensive holiday. Truth is most young kids will apreciate their parents spending time with them more than great scenery or exotic locations. My 8 year old's best holiday last year was the weekend we went camping and surfing in Cornwall.
He has to accept that he has already spent tomorrow's money and make some cutbacks until he's straight again.

It might make a difference — if you drive like a boy racer every time you're out in torrential rain.

Dancake, if you andd your wife live for ages do you really want to be paying rent through your retirement?
If you really want to spend money now there are plenty of equity releas schemes out there. A guy I once lodged with sold his house to go travelling and now he has nothing.

FireEye make some nice anodised spacer kits that come with two different sized sprockets so you can experiment with ratios for £20.
KMC 8 speed chain is cheap and strong.
I've never heard of anyone (other than cynic-al) having trouble with a Surly tensioner.

Edit:
Singlespeed chainring bolts are available from Stronglight (chromed), Brand X (anodised) and probably many others

Oops, several orders of magnitude out on Pluto's orbit. 3 light years is about right.

29053621916092543.7952m

More understandably (perhaps), 29053billion kilometers, which is about two and a half times the diameter of Pluto's orbit

I'd vote for the Merida 901, mine's lovely.

CRC, Wiggle, Merlin, Halfords = Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, Morrisons

They'll all have loss leaders, overstocked items to clear, higher margins on items they think most folks won't notice'

There was a report on the BBC news in the last couple of years showing how Indian call centre workers were losing their jobs to Africans who would work for less. Sooner or later there will be no-one left in the world who will work for peanuts and living standards throughout the world will be far more even than they are now. The losers wil be those who cannot resolve regional conflicts and the current 'first world' who will see large rises in the prices of manufactured goods as cheap labour becomes a rarity. The price of imported food will also rise as increasing prosperity for the third world nations allows the producers to achieve better prices locally and become less reliant on exporting.

That's my forecast.

Remember — HUNGER IS GOOD

Should have elaborated on that. Hunger for a while but don't leave yourself short overall.
A good breakfast, a good evening meal and something light and healthy in between works for me. Don't eat anything more after that evening meal or snack in between meals.

schrickvr6 – Member
There's only one way – Eat less, eat less and crap do more.

(Above words from schrickvr6 rearranged slightly)

Remember — HUNGER IS GOOD

If you're still hungry after a meal have a hot drink (without sugar obviously), that will tide the taste buds over while the stomach registers it's got something to work on.

38-14 on 26×1.5 slicks. The commute's only a mile but I do use the same bike for winter road training rides sometimes. Then it feels a bit spinny.

I've shied away from EBBs because I'm very fussy about the pedals-seat-handlebar relationship and don't want to mess that up when I tension the chain.

Any half marathon you enter should have a water stop half way.

If you're that worried during training just do a 6.5 mile loop from your house/car twice.

BBB do 80mm and polished silver in oversize.
I think they used to do 75mm in matt silver with a 25.4mm clamp up til a year or two ago so you might be lucky to find someone with old stock if you spend some time searching.

If you're not running regularly there will be a big difference between 10k and half marathon. If you're training for it do somewhere near the distance occasionally but make sure you get a good session in at least 3 times a week if you want to do it justice.

I once managed 1:21 but have always struggled to get near 40 minutes for 10k :?

For sitting spinning your way through long rides Alfines are brill. But for point and squirt, dodging the trees in the woods riding they don't have the crisp pickup of a singlespeed. That's why I have two rear wheels for that bike and can swap them and fit the shifter in 15 minutes or so.

5'9" and 11st.

People tell me I'm skinny but I think that says more about what most folks perception of the 'norm' for a 45 year old is these days ie 'a bit rounded'.

Our 8 year old son was 'helping' wifey when we played scrabble last weekend.
Out of the blue he showed wifey how she could get the X on a triple word score, also using an S and an E.