The Coach and Horses in Fenny Bentley, North of Ashbourne on the A515, was good last time I was up there ( a while back) l

We’ll bearing in mind English is a mongrel language with roots based in Latin,, a wide variety of Celtic languages, French, old German, Norse and a whole lot more I fail to see what’s the problem with more input from elsewhere.

Languages evolve over time as populations move around. Nowadays there is so much information movement that all langauges are evolving and changing.

….sorry, too pedantic? ( by the way, the English word pedant is from the French word pedant (accent on the e) and is itself based on the Italian word pedante which actually means “teacher” and that itself has a Latin and then a Greek basis…etc etc.)

Ok Then I would go for “Hello” as it’s a made up word and banning it for being an Americanism would be a laugh as we would all have to say “Ahoyhoy” as a greeting on the phone as Alexander Graham Bell intended 😉

Ditto all the above: I got a yellow card from the doctors earlier this year for high blood pressure and high cholesterol but unfortunately got a load of pretty useless advice too : stop smoking (never smoked), exercise more ( er, ok…does running, mountain biking and road cycling every week not count?) eat a healthy diet ( I do) etc. Oh, and after this bombshell ” come back in six months and well retest you, here’s a photocopied sheet on how to stay fit, lower your BMI and eat veg…”

Low cholesterol diet and desperately trying to de-stress now 😐

To sort out this conundrum: from the ground up its Scone (pronounced either way as I like to court controversy) then jam, then clotted cream, then of course Marmite.

There’s always the MX track near Telscombe.

Very cheeky I know but…. 😉

There is pump track in Angmering ( yes I know, miles from Brighton), dunno if its any good as there are always kids there when I go past it and I didn’t want to show myself them up.

I followed a Tesla roadster for about 30 miles on the M25 a couple of years back…looked like a seriously quick and nimble car and it was entertaining watching all the repmobile 3series BMW drivers having a go at outrunning it and failing 🙂

Model S with the high capacity battery really can do 300miles on a charge, if you are not being careful it’ll do about 250-260 and can outrun pretty much anything this side of top end Sports cars : one just did a drag race with a new Corvette Stingray in the US, the result was a 1:1 draw and you can’t carry 7 people in a Corvette!

I see a few Nissan Leafs around here, range is sub 100miles but they seem to be ok on motorways and can keep up with the rest of the traffic.

‘S future innit? At the moment the real work is using electric vehicles as performance cars as opposed to runabouts , all the upcoming ferraris, BMWs, Porsches and McLarens are hybrids with the electric systems used as performance boosters running alongside a a normal engine but also with full EV modes for city or heavy traffic use too.

Normal electric cars for the rest of us with decent range at a reasonable price will be about 5-10years down the line.

Making increasingly dangerous things out of pipes, ball bearings and bangers/fireworks.

Very high power catapults.

Two of my friends who involved me in the above also built a “powerboat” out of an old found ( washed up ) 6ft glass fibre dinghy with some big holes in to (repaired with fibre glass resin bodge) with a 20hp outboard motor and the donated handlebars and gear cables from an old shopping bike, we tested this on the river Dart during a gale and rainstorm….great fun and flipping quick, if a bit wet,…no lifejackets or indeed adults were involved 😀

Yes, you did do it right. If you are towing cars normally on road you can use the towing eyes ( the ones that screw into the chassis) but if you are trying to pull a car out of sand or mud you need to attach the rope to the vehicle chassis or, failing that, suspension arms of either car. Its a bit of a generalisation buy you risk shearing the towing eye clean out of the thread if you put too much force on it….tow rope and metal eye go flying…or you tear the bumper off if its made of plastic! Both not good.

For some reason I always read security company signs stating that there are “uninformed guards patrolling”

Eddie Hitler:

Can I help you sir?
…This is a sex shop isnt it!
Yes.
I’ll have five quids worth.
Very droll sir, I never heard that one before.
Oh, really, shall I say it again?
No, I’d rather have a pineapple inserted violently into my rectum.
…you’ve been working here too long mate.

Ooh, I do hope it was Poseidon., we can then have an adventure on a capsized boat with a priest who looks a lot like Gene Hackman 😀

Ditt everyone elses comments. Three weeks will be very full, you cant hope to see or do everything but you will have a lot of fun.

Really want to go back (been twice, last went 10 years ago and didnt take the bike) and ride around Rotorua, Wanaka and also rather fancied riding the trail up to the top of Mount Fyffe near Kaikoura.

Also we seemed to find really amazing restaurants right out in the sticks too, all in all a great place 8)

Stoner, I’m off work now (and slightly beered up) but here goes.

If you alter the lighting of your car from the manufacturers original specification without legal approval then you are effectively making the car illegal, it can also can screw the insurance too. This does apply even to classic cars when they are built to different specs and legislation compared to present day vehicles.

Moving the reflectors and fitting new turn indicators in a different position is probably a risk as the car could fail its MOT or be classified as unroadworthy if you are pulled over by the police ( if they know what they are looking at…)

Unless you get approval to do this by getting the car SVA’d and even then its not quite as simple as “I will just move them to this place as that’s where I have space” However I would not recommend getting a classic car SVA’d either as it could fail on something totally different as its being tested as a modern car.

I could be wrong as I’m used to working on new cars where we have to fully homologate stuff to stricter rules

To be honest I would leave well alone and use hand signals! 🙂

Update. Just rechecked my OS maps. No, there are no Bridleways that cross Cissbury ring.

There are gates across the trail as well and the ban on cyclists is made quite clear (lots of signs on the gates) so please don’t ride there. If you want to do some technical trail riding in the area then go and try out the trails that Steyning MTB built…much more fun and all legal too 8)

Info on them here at http://steyningmtb.tumblr.com/

As everyone else has been saying, You’re not allowed to ride on the ramparts of Cissbury ring, one of the reasons was that a few ( well, possibly 10 or 12) years back some people had effectivly cut a pump track around the whole ring. I didn’t know that the ban on riding through the centre has been lifted though as I thought this had been downgraded to a footpath, but to be honest I can’t really see the point of doing that as there are better and quieter trails in the surrounding area…

Oddly enough, the Strava segments shown on the google earth pic are in that pic don’t show the two best (and legal) ones.

Still, all the trails up there are a bit sloppy and slippery at the moment.

Oh and the SDNP authority has a land access rep who does trail running and mountain biking. When the authority was being set up they were (and still are) extremely supportive of the mountain bikers, just remember the forum is not the Park Authority, just interested parties.

I could give you all a very long lecture on the full legality of car lights and exactly why things are the way they are, historical background reasons, technical info, UN ECE homologation etc. but as that all seems a lot like being at work I wont (even though I am at work, so it would actually feel like work regardless)

However, if you really feel the need to trust your life while driving at night to a pair of 5w sidelight bulbs that would struggle to illuminate the inside of a small fridge…

..wanders off mumbling about the important and fundamental differences between Lumens and Lux.

If the jacket is still waterproof then just use something like Nikwax techwash or Grangers wash and proof (You can also use pure soap flakes and handwash in cold/lukewarm water instead)then leave to drip dry (dont put it on a radiator).If this doesn’t work then use the waterproof restorer as well but in a second wash cycle.

whatever you do DONT use normal washing powder/liquid (it contains bleaches which will remove all the waterproofing treatment or fabric softener which will just screw up the fabric.
For the above reasons if you are machine washing clean out the detergent tray before you start.

If you have eVent jacket then once the jacket is dry, give it a once over with a warm steam iron (use a teatowel so you dont damage the jacket)as this brings back the full waterproofing. Works a treat.

I rode a loop from High Salvington to Chanctonbury and back via Cissbury yesterday, all the main bridleways are ok. Theres some gloopy mud and flooding in some places but the core SDW is actually all ok and you can get a good few offroad loops done, it’s one of those times you are actually thankful that someone has done some trail taming and resurfacing!

Being the South Downs though, its a bit slippery on the obvious chalk downhills.

I would forget the singletrack for a few weeks though, I haven’t bothered going anywhere near Stanmer or Whiteways as I know what that will be like. Here’s hoping for some colder weather and a few deep frosts to make some nice hardpack…

Otherwise, get out the roadbike and break out the mudguards 😉

Sean Penn…Shanghai Surprise.

Sorry Sean, it’s the only blot on an otherwise excellent copybook.

Mark Strong

Up until the end of 2013 I would have said Saoirse Ronan however I did have the great misfortune to see the Host yesterday which was utter sh!te.

Bruce Dern

Humphrey Bogart

Ingrid Bergman

Gary Oldman : don’t diss the Fifth Elelment…bonkers French SciFi 🙂

Judi Dench ( er…..damn! just rememberd the Chronicles of Riddick…)

Javier Bardem

The infinite monkey cage. 🙂

Not just the best thing on the radio but the best thing on the airwaves. Then it’s Radcliffe and Maconie on Six Music and Kemode and Mayo’s film reviews on Five live tied for second place.

Radio 4 is generally great except for John Humphries and the Archers of course.

OP, I’d suggest blowing your nose and using Olbas oil as well as it does keep your head clear and let’s you recover, take lots of vitamin C too ( can be loads of fruit or fruit juice, whatever you like or are happy eating/drinking), finally to ensure that the cold is really knocked for six you should also bunk off work and go on a singlespeeding trip to Afan next month… 😉

Whenever someone has stated that my design work looks very professional I have always acted a bit dissapointed and told them that I was trying to be more “pro-celebrity” 🙂

You forgot to mention single mums, feral children, people who don’t hold doors open, careless parking and those young people who wear jeans so low their y-fronts are on show who insist on playing their transistor radios VERY loudly with their modern ” hippity hoppity music” that causes cancer.

Bring back the birch I say and while we are at it we can also bring back the glorious elm that all the flippin foreigners poisoned in the 1970s, oh yes they said it was only insects but they were foreign insect sent over to kill the trees….foreign unemployed insects that were here illegally and all on benefits.

😉

this was rather novel when I were a lad:

The only way around this at the moment is fully adaptive Led systems that use camera based light detectors to actually aim the light beams around oncoming vehicles ( you can get these on high end Audis, BMWs and also next years Mondeo too among others) when you see it operating its very cool and works well but it’s currently expensive and not everyone can afford an Audi A8.

Xenon systems as a rule need auto light levelling and additional beam control to prevent excess glare to oncoming vehicles, this is only a legal requirement on 35w systems, lower power Xenon systems don’t require this though. A lot of issues of glare actually come from poorly set up halogen based lights and/or people using high power blue/white bulbs in normal lamps, also glare can be a subjective issue, it depends on the driver, the road, the weather, the state of the windscreen etc.

People think Halogen lamps are better because they are cheap but the bulb performance degrades over a worryingly short amount if time (long before the bulbs actually fail) whereas Xenon is far more robust, lasts longer and uses less power so less CO2 emissions but its a lot more expensive. Most new cars should be using LED headlights within the next ten years or so though as the car world catches up with what cyclists have known for years.

Some companies are working on GPS based light aiming so the cars lights actually aim into corners and down into dips on the road but at the moment such systems are illegal to sell or use on public roads.

Yes, I design car lights as part of my job.

Oddly enough I was talking to someone from the UN ECE Global light legislation ( automotive lights are done under a UN legal framework) earlier this year about very high power ( read 1500 lumens and higher) bike lights….these are starting to be recognised as a potential road safety issue as the lights beams have none of the beam control a car light has to have. Legislation may follow…

…hang on, it’s Friday night….must….not….think….work….must….drink….wine 🙂

http://sussexmuddyarse.wordpress.com/

Not just a damn fine bike club for all ( well, most) of your trail needs in sussex and surrey but there is cake too 8)

There is a (very) good and in-depth report on it from the Royal Society:

http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/shale-gas-extraction/report/

Ah, Claire Grogan, pure class there Rob (many men of a certain age can probably remember the feelings of confusion she caused back in the early 80’s)

As for me, New Order playing Blue Monday ( if I am trying to be cool) or Thriller by Michael Jackson (If I am being a bit truthful…Bryan Adams is far more accurate though)

Great photos as ever, thank for sharing Sharki 🙂

The problem is that doing anything to increase capacity on the railways is eye-wateringly expensive.

The bigger problem is that doing nothing is also mind-bendingly expensive but is far far easier and means that the problem just goes away for a bit and then comes back later only worse.

Oh and it’s £40billion for the whole project. The group that said last week that it was £80bn had, for some reason decided to include the costs of The cross rail project in their calculations in order to make them look far more appealing to headline writers

Well, I am all for free speech and free expression and non-censorship, however, I fully agree with Singletrack on this one ( STW aren’t censoring, just reminding everyone of how vile the Daily Mail is)

Well done guys, consider next years subscription renewal as a given 8)

CX will probably give you some more options but even on the roads the hills might mean the mountain bike is the way to go. Depends on your fitness.

IMO You will struggle to find enough bridleways around Dartmouth to string together a decent off road ride unless you have a load of local knowledge or go 100% cheeky trails.

So I guess that’s a 22in frame with 29er wheels?

Mmm, Niche.

Take a large pencil sharpener to your elbows…believe me, you will find this very useful 😉

It’s also not the first time drilling has been done in sussex, there is a small oilfield at Singleton (hidden in the forest) near Chichester that has been operational and slowly expanding for about 18 years. There are 5 or 6 “nodding donkey” type oil pumps so not quite at a Dallas style Ewing oil level.To be honest you wouldn’t actually know its there until you get right alongside it.

Met Parachute may be the way to go helmet-wise if you feel you need more protection for your lower face or underneath your chin. The advantage of this over a “normal” full face helmet is that the chin guard is removable and it will vent a lot better so is still good for XC.

There a lot of people on STWwho are a bit anti these but I have a few mates who use them specifically for trips to the alps.

It’s normal. A long as the tyre bead is still attached to the rim socket and there arent any obvously large holes in the tyre you can just re-inflate em and get on with riding. To be honest I tend to find that for the first two or three rides after fitting the tyres need to have more air added then they seem to properly seal and stay inflated as the sealant has a chance to fully cover the inside of the tyre and work its way into any small gaps/holes etc.

4-5 weeks though and any tyres will start to loose pressure.

Why Sharki , you old smoothie… 😉

Have a chat with these people ( their wheelbuider is brill) strada wheels[/url]