I read recently that dents on downtubes are ok as they are being stretched. Dents on top tubes are bad as they are under compression, more likely to cause the frame to fold with a big impact.

R v Razanskas [2009] – s.18 GBH – An utterly overwhelming case in which the defendant, a Lithuanian kickboxing champion, laid waste to an Afghanistani mini-cab office after employees of the establishment ill-advisedly took his bottle of vodka. Having allegedly taken-on everyone in sight, the defendant left the premises, though not before he had himself accrued significant injuries, including a shattered elbow from which the bones were protruding through skin and shirt. Leaving a lot of blood, other fluids and personal effects behind at the scene, he was said to have made his way home, affording the police a clear and sufficient trail of blood to follow. When the police arrived at his home address they found him naked (clothing already being in the washing machine), his girlfriend dressing his wounds and the knife that had punctured one victim’s lung lying on the floor beside his bed; the victim’s blood on the blade, the defendant’s on the handle. The defendant then went on the run for three years. The defence, in short, was that someone else did it. The defendant had professionally embarrassed one team of solicitors and counsel after the first trial and counsel secured a unanimous acquittal at the retrial. –Isleworth Crown Court.

I’ll probably get more time for that than killing someone in a car though.

I sometimes do deliveries to Kings Bench walk in Temple. If I see him I’ll [Comment removed at the request of the barrister’s chambers – Mod]

I hope this woman is haunted for the rest of her life(if it was my girlfriend she had killed it wouldn’t be very long). I suspect she so full of her own importance that she doesn’t give a toss though.

Didn’t write down the key number did I, duh.

Found Scapa 16 years in London shop I was delivering to last week. It was over £60 though. Got some in Andora for 20 euros last year, Lovely stuff. Will look for Ardbeg, I like peaty whisky.

Stop talking science and give me a good ghost story someone please? My rational mind says it can’t be true but I still enjoy hearing them. I like those creepy photo’s like the one with the pilots. Behind someone you can see the face of an engineer who had been killed a few days before.

missed out the word do :oops:

To get turner to the beefing up I suppose you have to be the original owner?

Have a 2009 one that I bought from here. I love it. I do worry a bit that it doesn’t have the extra welds of the 2010 version. Not ridden too many other bikes though, last bike was a 2003 blur that felt a bit short.

Lemmy in his prime.

I passed my test last month and everyone is telling me it will be at least £1000. No wonder there are so many uninsured drivers out there.

Had to watch it again straight away.

Thought I’d try 1×10 on my work/commuter bike. So bought a Zee clutch rear mech, xt 10 speed shifter, 105 cassette, 40t salsa unramped chainring and KMC 10 spped chain. It would fall off during rapid downshifting and sometimes on rough bits of road. Now I’m using an ancient (13+ years) xt mech with a 42t FSA downhill chainring and a cheap 9 speed cassette. Bought a chain device but never got around to fitting the cage. Don’t know why but hasn’t fallen off once, not even bouncing down steps. 10 speed chains also seem to wear out very quickly.

I totally agree with the OP. I hardly watch them anymore. Those jump videos are almost as boring as listening to golf on the radio.

Was using a 10 speed chain on a 9 speed front ring and it was fine. It was 1×10 setup though.

Got a bottle of Trappistes Rochefort No 10 in the fridge. 11.3 Vol but really drinkable.

I have pro 3 10mm adaptors, £8 posted ?

Think you have to check that the fork crown doesn’t touch the tyre under full compression.

Yup, fatter tyre on a 26″ = thinner tyre on a 27.5″.

I’d love to do a blind test – somehow get a bunch of riders to ride 26″ and 27.5″ bikes without knowing the wheel size, and see if they can tell the difference.

From On one’s site:

Thanks to Cambrian Tyres for supplying the HUGE 2.4in Continental Mountain King tyres measure up at a whopping 28.1in diameter, so whilst a lot of people are going on about “27.5in” actually being smaller than “27.5in”, we do wonder what wimpy sized tyres they’re measuring to get that result.

The price of chain guides is pretty silly as well.

London is pretty frustrating, only have to look at a light and it turns red. I’ve started to take it personally, like there is someone waiting for me to get to the light before flicking the red light switch. It doesn’t seem to matter how fast or slowly I ride. The b’tards.

Got a token one and it kept coming loose gradually until the needle bearings would pop out of the cage and make it impossible to steer. So bought one of those SC1’s for a fiver and been ok since. Would like to find a 1″ stem in a sensible length though. Using a normal stem with a shim and I don’t like it.

I’d like a big piece of concrete to drop on the head of the scum that stole my bike 3 weeks ago.

Had my 3 month old Scandal nicked from my balcony on Friday. Had loads of good bits on it. It was my work bike too so now have to build another one quickly. Still can’t get it out of my head, not sleeping too well. They moved 2 bikes out of the way to get to it.

http://vimeo.com/67523930

Also read that the woman hit in the head by the gas canister died. Probably the woman in the red top from the photos. But no-one knows and I don’t think the Turkish government are gonna be very open.

I’m not sure I’d call it brutality

Love to know what your idea of brutality actually is?

Interesting blog:

http://defnesumanblogs.com/2013/06/01/what-is-happenning-in-istanbul/

Done and shared on facebook

Spent ages saving for some z2’s back in 2001. Went to all terrain bikes and for some stupid reason walked out with a pair of Judy’s. Big mistake, did get some x-flys a few years later.

Yup – a Superstar HT2 bottom bracket lasted one and a half rides for me. It was ok though – it was all my own fault. I’d not read the instructions that aren’t included with the BB. I’ve only ever fitted, oh, maybe 30 bottom brackets in my life and chose this one to screw it all up. The Hope one I replaced it with is still going strong several years later and yes – if you’re using GXP cranks, the adaptor works a treat.

Same here, bought a ceramic one a few years ago, there was play in it straight away. Wrote to superstar and they said it was my fault. Use hope now, no problems. Gone back to square taper on one bike.

How do you get the video up there and not just the link?

Thanks

Ritter sport

Bought one the last time around, total rubbish.

If you take out the valve core you can pump them up quicker. Once they are seated pull the tyre off in one place and pour in a bit of sealant. Turn the tyre around and re-seat it and put the valve core back. Then pump up again.

The UK is being plunged into an imposed period of national mourning at the death of the nation’s longest serving and only female Prime Minister. Yesterday we looked at her domestic legacy; today we look at her love affair with despots.

In 1969, President Nixon authorised Operation Menu, the air assault on neutral Cambodia, in secret and contrary to International Law. During one six month period of 1973, the Nixon-Kissinger White House dropped more bombs on Cambodia than it dropped on Japan during World War II; equivalent to five Hiroshimas. More than 600,000 Cambodian civilians were killed by this bombing.

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot marched into Phnom Penh on April 1st 1975 thanks in large part to the bombings which he leveraged to create a previously nonexistent popular support for his brand of Maoism. The ensuing genocide would be one of the bloodiest in human history, leaving 2 million Cambodians (a fifth of the entire population) dead.

What is less well known is that the Thatcher government was using the SAS to train Pol Pot’s armed forces to carry out this genocide. When the insidious regime was defeated by the Vietnamese in 1978, the US government (supported by Thatcher from 1979) moved heaven and earth to restore the mass murderer to power.

For more than four years from 1983, the SAS trained Pol Pot’s troops in secret camps on explosives, mine laying and psychological warfare and supplied them with Royal Ordnance with which to slaughter their own people.

The Thatcher government also lied to cover up its role in the genocide. The Foreign Office responded to a Parliamentary question on the matter with the following:

“Britain does not give military aid in any form to the Cambodian factions,”

Thatcher herself, in a written response to Neil Kinnock stated:

“I confirm that there is no British government involvement of any kind in training, equipping or co-operating with Khmer Rouge forces or those allied to them.”

But, by 1991 the Major government admitted the UK’s role in training and equipping one of the worst genocides in history.

On September 11th 1973, Augusto Pinochet was supported by Friedmanite economists and the CIAto conduct a military coup of democratically elected President Salvador Allende to prevent him implementing a programme of nationalisations; specifically the nationalisation of ITT the telecommunications company. By the end of the night Allende would be dead.

The US and UK governments saw a great opportunity in Pinochet. They used his total control of the domestic population to test drive their neoliberal economic theory. They were unable to drive through the extreme free market ideologies at home as the electorate would not stand for the consequences of mass unemployment and so on. Pinochet willingly obliged in return for financial and military support for his regime. Pinochet provided quid pro quo and supported Thatcher’s Falkland’s war.

During a seventeen year brutal dictatorship, the Chilean economy was ripped apart by the economic reforms put forward by Milton Friedman and his Chicago Boys. His efforts to suppress opposition would see the killing of over 40,000 Chilean citizens, according to official figures. The regime will be remembered for the Caravan of Death, Operation Colombo, and turning the nations Football Stadiuminto a prison camp for political prisoners, housing over 40,000 during his rule.

Following his exile from Chile in 1990, Pinochet was an annual visitor to Thatcher, staying with her in London and bestowing her with gifts of flowers and chocolates. They were close personal friends.

In 1998, Pinochet was indicted for human rights violations in Chile by a Spanish prosecutor and arrested in London six days later. He was held under house arrest in a beautiful cottage on a country estate for a year, seemingly in an effort to allow the dictator to die peacefully under house arrest in the UK without ever facing justice for his crimes. During this time, Thatcher came out of retirement to plea on Pinochet’s behalf. She campaigned for his release from house arrest, argued against his indictment and visited him regularly.

In her many salutations of the merciless dictator, Thatcher thanked him publicly ‘for bringing democracy to Chile’. A more stinging insult could not be delivered to the hundreds of thousands of Chileans forced into exile, and those grieving the tens of thousands killed by his regime.

One of the anecdotes supporting the myth of the Iron Lady involves Thatcher coaxing George Bush Snr into a bellicose response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the launch of the first Gulf War. She actually created this narrative herself, stating in interviews that she told the nervous US President “look George, this is no time to go wobbly”.

Thatcher spoke less about the £1bn of taxpayer money her government spent propping up the Hussein dictatorship throughout the 1980’s. The House of Commons had voted to support a position of neutrality in the Iran-Iraq War and signed up to the United Nations arms embargo. The Scott Inquiry of 1996 found that the Thatcher government had operated in secret to ignore the United Nations arms embargo and supply military support to Iraq (the aggressor in the war). Official misconduct included shredding documents to cover the smuggling of British Chieftain Tank Hulls into Iraq and abusing credit lines meant for civilian trade development in Iraq to buy munitions.

This eight year war cost over a million Iranian lives, and up to half a million Iraqis. In the run up and aftermath of the most recent Iraq war, supports of the war were often found saying ‘this is a man who used gas on his own people’. This refers to the chemical gas attack on Halabja in 1988, which killed thousands of Kurdish civilians. It is important to note that this attack was carried out in the dying months of the Iran-Iraq war, while Thatcher’s government were providing military support to his regime.

On hearing of Thatcher’s death, US President Barack Obama celebrated her as “one of the great champions of freedom and liberty”.

There is a particular irony in this choice of words, given her role in championing some of the world’s worst despots.

Just days before, Obama had spoken as Nelson Mandela lay prone in hospital:

“When you think of a single individual that embodies the kind of leadership qualities that I think we all aspire to, the first name that comes up is Nelson Mandela.”

Thatcher disagreed. In stark contrast to her public praise of Pinochet, she showed utter contempt and hostility toward Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress while they opposed the racist South African apartheid state. Speaking in 1987, while Mandela was still serving his life sentence she stated:

“The ANC is a typical terrorist organisation … Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land”.

Mandela himself refused the invitation to visit Thatcher on a trip to the UK in the early 90’s.

It is often said that one can best judge a person by the company they keep. Margaret Thatcher kept the most despicable company. She gifted her friendship, together with the military and financial support of the nation, to the service of some of the 20th Century’s most tyrannical regimes. She condemned freedom fighters like Mandela as terrorists in the same breath. To describe such a person as a champion of freedom and liberty is to rewrite history itself, making a hero of the oppressor and demons of the oppressed.

Never planned on going tubeless but bought some wheels with flow rims a few weeks ago and thought why not. Back tyre is a hutchinson cobra, not sure if is TL ready but went on fine and made the great snapping noise as the bead went into the rim. Front tyre is a hans dampf TL ready one, went on fine but disappointingly didn’t make the snapping sound. Looking forward to trying them off road. The weight of 2 MTB tubes is quite a lot really.

So 29er’s then??