Deore if you are on a tight budget (you can get a full set for £100 if you look around), SLX if you are not.

The World’s End.

Edgar Wright back directing with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and if its anything like Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz then it will be the best sci if (and funniest) film of the year bar none. Here’s hoping.

Trailers for Pacific Rim make it look like a brainless Transformers style movie (ie robots hitting each other) but crucially Guilermo del Torro is not Michael Bay so it should be good too (and its robots hitting big monsters so there is one major difference already)

Second part of the Hobbit is out in November too.

What. On. Earth….. 😯

Brilliant…if Greece wins does Germany have to pay for next year?

Greek ska tribute act?

I wonder if his mum went to Iceland?

Mullet hair alert!

Come on Bonnie….STAGE DIVE,

Anyone else watching the Romanian entry and thinking that perhaps Nigel Farrage has a point? 😯

Schwalbe Duranos: Grippy, fast rolling, durable and puncture resistant unless you run across large pieces of flint hidden in puddles…

And for that piece of sage advice Rob, I would like some more of your damn fine Russian Winter imperial stout please 8)

Dammit.

No more Sheradenine Zakalwe turning up at unexpected moments, no more super sentient warships…Boo.

Still, he’s enjoying his remaining time hopefully with some suitably dark humour and good whiskey and has a great deal to show for his life.

Thanks Iain for “The Bridge” the Culture and “Against a Dark Background”, everything else was a bonus,.

Right, I’m off to savour and enjoy The Hydrogen Sonata.

African or European Swallow?

…sigh….

Well, each to their own I guess but to access the lanes I normally drive on would have involved trying to get through 3miles of gridlocked traffic with no guarantee that once I had cleared this the lanes would be either passable or indeed open…Not really sure how winter tyres would have helped in this situation unless they allow you to drive through hedges, crash barriers or over other cars (well, to be fair some people had actually managed to do this without using winter tyres but hadn’t managed to get much further)

Oh I do love threads like this 😀

Well from my privileged position as one of the (insert generic singletrack forum noun here) people in the middle of the problems on Monday night here’s my tuppence worth.

Yup, it was pretty bad. The last three miles of the m23 were stationary and then the next 7-8 miles of the a23 (whuch are currently 2 narrow lanes going through roadworks starting on a steep downhill then up another steep hill , this is the main commuter route between Crawley and Brighton) were stationary gridlocked cars due to a lot (and I mean a lot) of crashes, one of them very serious. On a normal weekday evening its busy, one crash on a normal working day can screw the whole area up. Add in sub zero temps and a blizzard that hits at about 3:30pm to this and you have frozen roads regardless of how much you can grit them as once traffic stops, the salt/grit can’t help as the cars/trucks tyres can’t move this around and help keep the road surface clean of snow.

So, a couple of small crashes on the a23 caused some problems, tailbacks happened then a big crash caused everyone to stop. The road froze and stayed frozen. All the trucks got stuck. Emergency vehicles had to access the accident….

Oh what fun.

My normal drive home does not involve the a23, I go down a lot of quieter B roads but I know that these are bad when its icy so I didn’t bother, stayed on the major roads which would have at least been gritted, and went around Horsham on the A24 which was better. But….I did have a few moments when I thought I was going to crash into people who were panicking on icy roads ( anyone who drives a merc, MX5 or BMW needs to learn how to drive in Sweden IMHO 🙂 )

The problem later on was abandoned cars, broken down cars and people who couldn’t get up icy hills ( hint, first gear and idled throttle or start in second and be very gentle with accelerator, clutch, brakes and steering)

I was wondering for a while where the gritters were ( but not in a Daily Mail reader style rant) but later on, having crawled round a corner saw one about 200 ahead stuck in the same traffic I was.

So the roads were covered in ice. A few crashes. Lots of people were just trying to get home from work. All the side roads were off limits as they were covered in snow. Once you started you basically had to continue or you could abandon your car ( causing more problems for everyone else who then had to get around it) and walk a long way home.

Oh and no, I don’t have winter tyres on the car ( they are only really useful if everyone has em TBH)

It’s all so much better on the continent where they can cope with such……er…..now having lived in Germany I know this is not true. We used to have exactly the same problems during the start on the winter. . Colleagues in Koln have been telling me about Monday and Tuesday which was also very bad on the motorways…same problems with ice. Oh and you have to have winter tyres on your car there. They don’t stop crashes or problems, they just make things a bit better if everyone has em but the average winter is a lot worse then here.

I can also say that in Geneva yesterday (out on a biz trip) it was about 8-10 degrees, blue skies and sunshine, no snow below about 1500ft.

But yes, I agree, Cheryl Baker is a twunt.

Quest Adventure in Worthing, always have had had good service from JP and co there plus good stock, good advice and always friendly.

However, they did introduce me to Strava… 😉

Ah yes, thumb shifters….

All those happy memories if those heady times 23 years ago…

Back when indexing was shiny, brave, new and rapidfire was viewed as being akin to witchcraft. 😉

Never saw the problem myself and nearly got burned at the stake for my heretical views.

” you’re a coward and a liar and…..NOT THE FACE, NOT THE FACE!” 8)

that video has just so cheered me up this morning.

Space probes have been flown through the rings around Saturn and through the asteroid belt with no problems (yes they did aim for the gaps but you can’t see small rocks that far out…)

Space is very, very big though.

By the way, the International Space Station does get hit by small debris, the Cupola (the viewing port) got hit a year or so back, made a nice little pock mark in one of windows… http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2012/06/14/micrometeroid-hit-iss-cupola/

Third glass of a rather cheeky Merlot.

Now undergoing the traditional Friday night transition from upright to horizontal (currently perpendicular)

House mid nineties garage integral bathroom?

Wow that’s quite a niche music taste 😉

My civic iCDTi needed a new clutch at 77k miles, replaced under warranty as the main clutch plate had warped: this is a known issue on them. IIRC If you leave the clutch slipping for long enough it can knacker the dual mass flywheel.

Aircon needed regassing and a new control solenoid just before christmas.

Apart from being rear-ended by an uninsured white van a few years back that’s pretty much the only issues I have ever had with it, still does 54-55mpg (mix of motorways and A/B roads) and its done over 100k miles now.

The Audi A3 is possibly going to ride a bit more smoothly unless its on 18in alloys and might be a bit more fuel efficient if its got a 1.9 diesel engine but the Civic can swallow much more kit and is a bit quicker.

It also looks better too 🙂

Well I’m scared…

I had a look at the video of this plane last night…ok I’m not an expert, just interested but here are some thoughts:

There is no head up display.

There is no optical targeting pod either.

The engine jet outlet looks a bit, er, small…

The two air intakes are very small and placed high up and far back…nice for compressor stalling.

It’s quite shiny… If that’s a stealthy paint job then it’s totally different to what everyone else has been doing…

The cockpit looks a bit ( read, a lot), like a mock up.

The nose cone is tiny…is there a really really small radar in there?

The cockpit canopy is a bit, er, bubbly isn’t it,? looks like its not very clear or that smooth…

Is their super stealth material actually plywood and evo-stick?

It looks like the hangar doubles as a stable.

Could it be…..

a (really bad) full scale model?

Shimano R540s are a good bet for cheap road pedals. Just remember to spend some time setting up the cleat positions and they will be fine. Mine were £20 from wiggle last year with floating cleats, bargain

Yes you can use MTB pedals on a road bike but, having had a comedy moment cornering hard whilst pedaling and striking the pedal on the ground, I suddenly understood one of the reasons why road pedals are single sided…Also the bigger pedal to cleat location area makes a big difference putting the power down too 🙂

A good recommendation for shoes are DHB R1.0 as they work really well (only good for road cleats though) and I think they are actually made by Lake too so not a cheapo generic knock off.

Nigel Blackwell.

She stayed with me until she moved to Notting Hill
She said it was the place she needs to be
Where the cocaine is fair trade, and frequently displayed
Is the Buena Vista Social Club CD
I thought she’d be back in three weeks and we’d go wandering the Peaks
Sojourn in my Uncle Joe’s ashram
For when you’re in Matlock Bath you don’t need Sylvia Plath
Not while they’ve got Mrs. Gibson’s Jam
Alas I’m brooding alone by the runnel
While she’s in Capri with her swain
And the light at the end of the tunnel
Is the light of an oncoming train

😀

Singletrackmind, all of us who know you know that under that hard, rough exterior you are a beautiful, warm, kind-hearted person ( and that tv documentary was a proper hatchet job too)

You did the right thing and the result is one grateful neighbour, these are the kind of things that this country has forgotten about: Decent people doing decent things. Brings a tear to my eye.

Bet he tried on all your underwear while you were out though…. 😉

Pragmasis chains get very good reviews, their ground anchors are also very good too and they also supply decent quality Squire locks ( all Sold Secure silver and gold rated so the insurance companies approve their use)

Best Rock band, well, there can only be one and that one is of course the legendary The Bishop and the Warlord…

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=fL4dxWpO6CE&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DfL4dxWpO6CE&gl=GB

Woofity woofity woofity…

8)

Well worth every penny if only for the fact we all got one month last year when a very cynical and negative media were shown to be totally out of touch with the rest of the country, that things in the 5th or 6th biggest economy in the world are actually pretty good (not perfect but still ok), people are generally nice, we can build and run very cool stuff and good things actually do happen quite a lot of the time 8)

All of the above is also the reason why I don’t watch EastEnders…. 😉

A (very) good interview by Sir Patrick Moore with Neil Armstrong from 1970 :

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=PtdcdxvNI1o&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPtdcdxvNI1o&gl=GB

Great pics, fantastic pics of the Stags 🙂

Thanks Sharki for such a great post, almost puts your guiding skills to shame 🙂

Carmina Burana by Carl Orff

Or it’s “I’m on a horse” by Old Spice. 🙂

You can get to the bike park from the trail, it’s just after the “graveyard” section . Turn right off the trail at waypoint 36 and you will be at the Bryn Bettws bunkhouse/chalets, then just go up the hill (it should all be signposted too)

Just seen it…flippin’ brilliant 🙂

Yes, its a short book, but they were able to use a lot of the appendices from TLOTR

GF series is very very good as are the G series cameras as they have interchangeable lenses. I have. G2 with a pancake lens and the standard macro, seems to work a treat and is less bulky than a full size SLR but very nearly as good (ie unless you are a full pro you won’t notice the difference). The sensor and CCD is nice and big and the lenses are very good quality.

GF series is probably better for carrying on a bike as it smaller and lighter (doesnt have a viewfinder as standard though if Iremember correctly)

Sharki (pedals still attached…for now)

🙂

Big thanks from the whole Muddy@rse group for a great day out!

Ah yes…”make yer own trail…” 8)

Not to mention the alfresco multi tool choice of a rotten log and stone, giving a trailside repair that lasted almost 3/4 of a mile and one pub stop 😉

Many thanks to Sharki, Buzz Lightyear and Eliptic( did I get that right?) for the excellent guiding yesterday. For those of us who had never ridden on the Quantocks before we all agreed that it was so good we will be back for more.

We apparently managed to break Sharki yesterday ( his crank did fall off again on his journey home from the pub, and after I had shown him the correct shimano preload tool and he said, “no need, it’s all fixed now”… 🙂 ) I guess he was as knackered as te rest of us as he decided not to ride today.

We did find “The Chimney” today…that was fun, if a bit hairy in places 🙂

Thanks guys.

Singletrackmind I was thinking of you when I was out this morning ( and I quietly avoided the temptations of the Chichester sportive)…I think you did have the right idea though, the trails this morning were basically just muddy slop..Still good fun though.

By the way, a slippery Duncton hill sounds like a good laugh 😯