Didn’t someone once work out that from manufacture to scrap including all the spares, service and driving inbetween that the jeep wrangler was the most green car, helped a long way y the fact they last so long (or did I imagine it)?

Yeah, that sounds familiar… I think people were disputing the figures but the point stands that running one that’s already been built is better than building a new one, IF what you’re trying to achieve is lower emissions. In this case the green bit is just tacked on the end of stimulating the car industry.

The Chronicles Of Riddick seemed to be pretty much universally panned, but it was an great film IMHO

I was underwhelmed at the cinema but liked it much more when it was on TV a few weeks back.

Recently The Prestige was much better than I thought it would be.

The bracket that sits on the bars is fine (maybe a tiny bit rounded) but bits of the rails on the bottom of the light are snapping away, from the front end. The more breaks off the more it bangs up and down, and still more breaks off until there isn’t enough to hold it on to the bracket. Shame because the light itself is excellent and was just the job for me, but taping it to the bars isn’t very convenient!

Basically what clubber says. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where the easiest thing for everyone involved isn’t just to flog it to you at the end for £50 or whatever. What do they have to gain by doing it differently?

Niterider USB Minewt.

Did look at those but was slightly put off by the seperate battery pack- is it a pain to put on/take off every time? And does the mount stay on the bars or do you have to do that every time too?

Do you really need that car? Sounds like it’s holding you back. 12 miles isn’t all that far if you have somewhere to get yourself sorted out at the other end.

Stuck my head in the other day and was pleasantly surprised. I wondered if it might be a bit small being stuck inside Up & Running but it’s a decent size, lots of nice shiny kit, staff seemed alright (although I wasn’t taxing them too much) and a good location- for me anyway!

I wouldn’t fancy it. Just look at the way people react on here when they don’t get 20% off just for walking through your door, and then compare the prices on CRC or wherever to those in your LBS.

And that’s on top of the drawbacks of any job that involves dealing with the general public.

OK, I should have included price! <£100 really.

Nice bit of arguing that black is white there eh? I think precisely the opposite has happened myself. In fact its the first time in about 6 years I’ve bothered to watch F1.

There’s a good quote from Barrichello floating about somewhere- something like “if we need Ferrari or McLaren to win, why are the rest of us here?”

claimed that interest has already been stripped from the 2009 season by interpretations of the rules that have hurt leading teams.

Eh? I think saying things like this after season after season of dominance by the same 2 teams hurts F1’s credibility.

All that’s not to say that the Prius is a total waste of time. Individual cars may be not better, or perhaps worse, to build and run than a normal car, but they do represent the (AFAIK) first ‘proper’ car that a regular person could buy that is a step away from the ICE and maybe raised the profile of all this stuff with the punters. The benefits of the work/research that’s been done to get to that point should be put in the balance too.

Of course this is all in the context of making lower-impact cars to basically allow us to carry on pretty much as we have been for the last 50-60 years. I’m with miketually, aP, and others who’ve pointed out that it would be good to see a shift away from reliance on cars rather than just making those cars ‘greener’, a step in the right direction though it might be.

Fforest? Or something.

Currently liking the sound of ADvantages from all the suggestions so far- or another set of Fire XCs (in a different color!)

You don’t want people buying new cars ?, if so, thats pretty harsh on all those whos’ jobs rely on the motor trade. What would all those people do for a J.O.B.

That’s a good point, but I’m not sure it’s a reason to keep propping up something that is (IMO) becoming increasingly unsustainable- I’m talking about the current car-centric culture here rather than how they’re powered. And if that car-centric set up is to be replaced with something else won’t that create a lot of new jobs? I know it’s easy for me to say when it’s not my livelihood, but still, I think that in the long run keeping churning out cars to keep people in jobs might turn out to have been a bit short-sighted.

I had Nevegal/Blue Groove before but I don’t think I’d want to go back to them- the XC Pros felt so much faster! Never tried Contis so maybe I’ll give ’em a go.

I think they’re a bit like Blu-ray compared to DVD at the moment: some advantages but not, on the whole, a big enough leap forward to overcome the inertia of sticking with a very good, well-established alternative. It doesn’t help the people trying to push them that a lot of people’s first thought is probably of something like a thicker, less stretchy elastic band- I know they’re not, but I don’t have an intuitive idea of how flexible/durable/etc they are, unlike a chain.

I like it, except when I’m trying to fix something late in the evening before an early start for a ride.

The power does of course still have to come from somewhere, but even with fossil fuels it’s easier to keep things cleaner at the source than in lots of engines and the source could be switched to something greener later.

The only nagging problem I have with the subsidy for electric cars is that we don’t really want to encourage people to buy new cars at all- the green benefits of running the car are cancelled out by the energy/resources used to make it and most people’s impact would be reduced by just driving the one they have now for as long as possible. OTOH if someone is going to buy a new car regardless then it’s probably better if it’s an electric one.

I’m not wildy keen but do see it as the best available option in the relatively short term. Sure they’ll take years to come online but if we want to wean ourselves from fossil fuels there doesn’t seem to be a practical alternative at the moment. Yes, the waste is a problem but has to be looked at in the context of other problems it might offset.

Basically what sweaman2 says- you’ll probably get the location of the controls in advance, but not their values until you’ve started. There will very likely be a sticker on the SI box with the number/reference on it so you know you’re in the right place- I’ve yet to do an event where there isn’t, although I’ve not done an Inov8 one. When you get the descriptor sheet, not all of the checkpoints may actually exist and the value isn’t necessarily dependent just on how close they are to the start, but those last 2 points are event-dependent.

Yep, good result. The new rule changes have highlighted it but isn’t that what F1 is all about- exploiting what the design rules allow as far as you can? It would have been daft if they’d banned it.

I’d say just ride what you’ve got, stick the others in the car if you’ve space just in case it is a mudbath. Like someone else said, what bike you use (within reason- obviously a full-on DH bike isn’t ideal!) doesn’t really matter unless you’re out to win it!

That said, when I replaced my Nevegals with Fire XC Pros I realized how sluggish they’d been and I wouldn’t be too keen on doing an enduro on them now.

remove your old cassette from your current wheel

buy single speed converter kit (I prefer ones with individual spacers such as onza)

stick converter kit on your wheel

fit chain tensioner if you don’t have horizontal dropouts

remove front and rear shifter / cable / mech / chainrings you don’t need

ride, ride, ride

Got it! Thanks all.

Thanks guys, I knew it’d have been covered somewhere but couldn’t find it!

The thread thepodge linked to mentioned a new wheel- is this not needed then?

I think Rab will make you a rectangular bag to your spec, you’d have to ask them about price though:

http://www.rab.uk.com/

Go Button, been struggling with second rate machinery for too long.

Yep, about time he had a chance to do something and I reckon he’ll grab it with both hands.

Commentary starts at 6:00am, though I wish they would give the actual race start time.

I think someone on the radio this morning said it was 7.00?

You should be able to get round one way or another but you can expect to be wrecked at the end.

Could it be that you just don’t understand the science? Is it fair to cast doubt on someone’s conclusions just because you yourself just don’t get it?

+1 That’s a fact of life on the intertubes though isn’t it? People spend 30 seconds thinking about something generations of scientists have spent their working lives thinking about, and haven’t the objectivity to wonder whether their conclusions are as sound.

Ok, so why jolly well have not chimpanzees ‘evolved’ anywhere like Humans?

Because you’re working on the assumption that everytime a species evolves, the old species dies out, ie, chimps become humans then die. It doesn’t work like that. Some chimps could have evolved to suit a different habitat/ set of conditions whereas another colony 100 miles away, had no need to. One set evolves, the other stays the same.

You’re also working on the assumption that ‘better’ in the context of evolution is directional, which it isn’t. Put another way, why should chimps evolve anywhere like humans? Or grow wings? Or gills? Or lose their legs?

Evolution involves some sort of selection pressure acting on a population. Evolution could just as easily work to make chimps more primitive if that pressure makes it beneficial.

Also, man did not evolve from apes, we share a common ancestor. I know somebody has said this already but it obviously needs repeating!

Now, the irony of followers of Science, dismissing religion as something which lacks ‘proof’, are happy to accept, as the Truth, stuff which is equally unproven.

Like, Jupiter is a big planet X miles from Earth, and consists of X chemicals and what not.

No Human has ever been to Jupiter, to collect any samples. So how can they claim, as gospel, stuff for which they have no evidence?

So presumably you think that gravity and the FSM/fairies in your garden should be be treated as equally plausible? Because there’s about the same amount of evidence for gravity as there is for the chemical composition of Jupiter.

I don’t follow the logic that says that a theory with a solid body of evidence to back it up should be regarded as no more valid than some speculation with absolutely no observable evidence, if it still has some gaps.

I’ve not done the Brighton one but I’ve done a few of the other cities and it’s probably not going to be ‘proper’ off road. Very likely it’ll be mostly bridleways/country parks etc. A lot of people doing it won’t do much mountain biking (or maybe much biking at all) and they all have to be able to get round.

That said, the Rat Races are really good fun and you should definitely do it!

One for the Range Rover Sport(?) used to really wind me up- the one implying that driving a ridiculous car at ridiculous speeds in built-up areas was the same as skiing through trees like James Bond, as well as a bunch of other things.

Is it the kind of place where you can buy kit from the manufacturers a little cheaper than retail?

Mostly the emphasis is on the ‘little’.

Panaracer Fire XC Pro 2.1. All year round.

Same here.

This incident is a classic example: the press have been all over it, publicly hand-wringing about how how awfully dangerous skiing is. But when was the last time that the quarter of a million people injured on UK roads each year got a headline?

Exactly, it’s interesting the way the media report on things involving risk. It’s awful for the families of people that do get hurt, but it seems like a disproportionate response given the numbers involved. As GrahamS said it’s because it’s not normalised in the way that other things that as just as dangerous (if not more so) are.

They’re good, but the cable needs a bit of looking after- mine at least spends a lot of its time not working, and I can’t say I miss it too much.

It’s probably on one of those other threads AB’s found, but the top of the leg has a little cable stop on it- if yours doesn’t that might be an obstacle to fitting one.

It’s not a mispronunciation as such, but when I used to work in an outdoor shop people referring to Lowe Alpine as “Alpine Lowe” (or “Alpine Low-ee”) used to irk me a bit.

Knights move was my first HVS (as for a lot of people I think) but I’d agree that it’s a bit of a soft touch. I’ve had much harder times on some VSs in the Peak.

I’m pro-helmet but anti-compulsion. And this contributory negligence business is plain daft. If another driver hits me in my car, causing me injury, would a judge say “you should have been driving a volvo instead of a fiesta, it’s your own fault”? I think not…

This is the main problem with it isn’t it? The idea that a victim is responsible for the severity of his injuries quickly becomes ridiculous. It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that in this case it’s underpinned by some unspoken belief that cyclists shouldn’t be on the roads, but if they want to try it, well, they’d better be prepared for the consequences of their foolish actions. As ransos says it’s hard to imagine the same logic being applied to drivers.