No. But some site in’t America said you had a goat!

Loads of people said exactly the same when I made a video with one of them. Lamb fact: Lambs are pretty cliquey, and far too cool to hang out with goats.

I’d make a more specific gif too, but I’m too busy doing cool things with my cool friends.

slowrider said: Plugged by stw towers rather than a forum member, quite a difference IMO. far better vids out there that don’t get plugged because they aren’t in the clique.

… and they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!

This “3D printed shirt“

No, all SLX stuff. This is the rear, and this is the front.

HG81 11-34 cassette, which I made sure of because I’d read the mech doesn’t play nice with 36T while researching for the build, then an SLX double and bash setup at the front. M670 shifters, and I’ve found it’s always shifted well (It stays indexed for much longer than the SRAM X4 did on the last bike).

I wrote the first break off to bad luck or bad technique, but now I’m kind of annoyed, don’t trust the chain, and am a little worried that a new chain might slip.

Hmm. The 93 isn’t even near 75% wear, but I might try the X10-73 since it’s only a tenner or so.

Bah, I’m not going to make it out. New brake pads are faulty, plus undiagnosed chain issue means I’d be asking for a mechanical :(

I’ve been using one of these for a over a year and it’s good:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/EasyAcc®-12000mAh-Portable-Capacity-Smartphone-Black/dp/B008YRG5JQ

Later models marked the port output current, earlier ones were annoyingly unlabelled. Going by the links above it looks like you can get more for similar money now though.

I’ll be there. Not sure about Chipps or Clover, probably :)

How long does it take to ride the canal from Tod to Hollingworth?

Not sure about the canal, but probably around 20 minutes on road.

Clover says “It’ll take him about four minutes”.

The first series had eight episodes, there were many more in the second. But a lot of people like to pretend series two didn’t happen.

It’s obvious in the second series when Lynch leaves and returns. When he puts non-sequitirs or weird sub-plots in, there’s an uncanny coherence to them. Without him, it felt like the directors were just resorting to weird random bs for no particular reason.

Oh, and then there’s the agonising series two plotline with Hurley looking sad a lot and saying things like “It’s not just a place, it’s a feeling”.

My 26″ hardtail feels like a lot of things, but defunct isn’t one of them lmow20. A 27.5″ full suss is more comfortable over rough stuff, but there are even descents I still do faster on the HT.

If you end up riding with any group that laughs at you over wheel size, sack them off, they’re w****rs.

On a scale of whimsy to f***ery, I wouldn’t put threatening someone’s job very close to the whimsical end :P

She seems like a tosser and I hate what she said, but the focussed, organised rage she’s got back from the internet is way overboard. It doesn’t do good things to people.

Probably not.

It’s twitter and facebook innit? Inherently good at pile ons; I bet she’s learning a lot about her job right now.

Air-headed Females

cookeaa joins Derek_starship in setting off the HU-MAN FE-MALES klaxon by talking about women in a weird and clinical sounding way.

Customer suggestions to make things cheaper or do them for free seem to be based on anecdata, and uncannily aligned with whatever’s best for them rather than whatever business they’re dealing with. A race to the bottom on pricing isn’t going to do anyone any good. If bike shops trended towards doing stuff for free, the ones that survive would probably have to accompany that with a much harder sell.

A softer approach is building community rather than just appealing to people’s wallets. I know of one LBS that luckily has a lot of space. They’ve built a cafe at the front, a load of ramps in the warehouse out back along with a venue to host parties, and are hoping to also put in a pump track and maybe a foam pit too. I hope it works out for them.

I’ve used Oakley Nanoclear on polycarbonate and glass lenses. It’s not perfect or amazing, but definitely an improvement.

(Offer free tubes and fitting, but a surcharge for air. “Perhaps you’d like some of our premium gases sir?”)

I see the same at work. Customers saying to developers “You should sell this at half the price because then you’d make more money through higher sales” etc.

Best answer I’ve seen was “Actually, I’ve experimented with that without publicising any price drops. I have two years of data that make me pretty sure that my pricing is right and you’re wrong”.

I’ve used HSBC for years, following a disastrous first few months with RBS. I’ve had this conversation a lot, and what I’ve picked up is that service varies massively from branch to branch.

HSBC had an account open in an hour and cards etc. to me within two days. RBS continuously screwed up for six weeks, and when I phoned to close the account and told the business manager why, he said “Oh well, these things happen”. Both of those were in Nottingham. Friends in London have had terrible experiences trying to get set up with HSBC, but I found them great.

Their anti-fraud seems to be on a hair trigger, so if you travel abroad for work, warn them in advance.

Hills are the only time there any use, you’ll spin out on the flat.

That’s absolutely untrue with a 46-16 in Calderdale. I used it everywhere in Nottingham and London, but now it’s pretty much just for whizzing along the valley bottom for shopping. I can get it up some of the hills here, but it doesn’t feel like I’d have knees left after a year of it.

It gets worse, but only slightly:
http://politicalscrapbook.net/2014/07/adam-walker-new-bnp-leader-convictions/

Here we go..

Gaww, yeah, it seems you can hardly chase some kids around in a landrover then slash the tyres of the bikes they abandoned in terror at all these days without the pitchfork wielding PC mob bloody interfering. I remember when the whole country looked like a Constable painting, everyone did national service and werthers originals something something.

Terrahawk, yesterday afternoon :)

It really makes me wince to see other cyclists going down the inside of buses, or riding between lanes that are moving faster than them.

A friend invited me to a fancy dress party, and the theme was “Come dressed as a panda or Elvis”. I decided on panda, but it was a really busy week at work and I spent most commutes thinking “F***, that party is on Friday, where am I going to find a costume?”.

Friday morning, I remembered I had a sleeveless white hoodie, I just needed a long sleeve black top to go underneath, some facepaint, some gaffer tape and a white hairband to make ears. Quick trip around a shopping centre after work, whizzed home, housemate did a really excellent job of painting my face then gave me a lift over. As she drove away and I knocked on the door, I thought “It’s a bit quiet”.

My next thought, as the door opened, was “Why isn’t Sophie dressed as a panda or Elvis?”. I was 24 hours early, and this was on their wall for ages.

Careful if you’re going to mess around with LiPos:

or, it’s a myth :P

I once helped a guy with a puncture who was pushing his bike along a cycle path late at night. He didn’t have tools, and didn’t seem confident, so I fixed it. Just after I’d finished, I noticed he had a bit of blood on his face, and asked. Turned out he’d crashed and got the puncture and then some because he was pissed.

Me, inwardly, as he hopped on the bike with a cheery thanks and rode away in a slightly wobbly line: “Oh, f*ck”. Hope he got home okay :/

filtering should it be made illegal

Nah.

I filter on the outside.

This. I went through a phase when first commuting where I wasn’t confident enough to overtake on the right, but as my fitness increased I was happier hammering it past there, where everyone stood a better chance of seeing me.

I also tend not to filter in multiple lanes if traffic is moving. If one lane is moving, I’ll take that lane, if both are moving, going between them is a stupid risk.

In other news, Captain America is now black.

And why would that be an issue at all?

“Some of my best friends are super heroes!” :D

Did someone say Strong Female Characters?

Drac said: Love this comment on the Telegraph page.

Oh, thanks Drac :) That’s lovely Speak You’re Branes fodder. Less believable! Priceless. “That thing about the Norse god hanging out on Earth and carrying an otherwise immovable object around is fine, but if that god also doesn’t have a willy that’s just pushing it over the line into the incredible and I shan’t stand for it”.

The rage at this is better than a decade of continuous disappointment in George Lucas.

Then I’ll follow it up by awaiting absolutely any argument in favour of film, comics and games protagonists ridiculous weighting in favour of straight white guys. Then laugh hysterically some more.

Good. I’m happy Marvel want their line up of heroes to be more representative. We have more than enough gruff white guy protagonists to identify with thanks. If anyone wants to claim this is PC gone mad or a shallow attempt at marketing, then I’ll happily laugh hysterically at them.

A friend of mine runs a comic shop with a roughly 50/50 gender split in audience and a very large age range. They did this over the past few decades by (among other things) making it look less like a stereotypical comic shop, putting all the stuff about men in spandex at the back, and filling the front 2/3 of the shop with art books, interesting contemporary fiction, etc. They call their audience “the real mainstream”.

It reminds me of this piece[/url] on representation in video games:

The piece was conceived around the different lives that games imagine for my son and daughter. Specifically, it was conceived at the moment I heard my daughter, who’s eight, explaining that she had just “earned” a footballer as a boyfriend in the salon styling, make-up and accessorising game she was playing on her tablet. Normally my reaction to this kind of gendered cultural ick is to explain to my daughter why the thing she’s just encountered is limiting or offensive, without destroying her enjoyment of the thing itself. But this time, in the same room in which my patient bit of super-liberal parenting was to go down, my 12-year-old son was playing FIFA.

Those of you with 12-year-old sons will realise this isn’t a huge contrivance of fate, as playing FIFA is often what 12-year-old sons will be found to be doing at all times and locations. What struck me, though, was the aggregate potential being revealed by games to my children in this moment. My son was being told, is told every day, that he can join the ranks of the elite athlete superstars we have elevated to the highest strata of the cultural firmament; that he can earn the instant adoration of thousands with a sharp turn and a kick of the ball. That he can win the World Cup. My daughter was being told that, if she got her eyeliner just so, and matched her clutch bag flawlessly with her earrings, she could fulfill her own potential by becoming an accessory in turn for the protagonist of a different story.

And, well, **** that idea.

Creak near pedals:
Double check torque, still creaking.
Remove and grease threads, still creaking.
Remove, clean threads, plumber’s tape, still creaked.
Remove tape and replace with threadlock: still creaked.
Over-torqued a bit: stopped creaking for about 2 hours, then started again.
Build completely new bike with new chainset but same old pedals: no creak!

There’s probably a reason those cranks on the first bike were new but cheap on ebay. Regardless, the solution to a squeak on your bike is to build a new bike.

I’ve found making eye contact when possible seems to make a massive difference. It’s like that’s the point where a driver stops treating me as an object.

The worst comeback I’ve ever heard, from someone who came within a couple of inches of my bars to get to a red light 30 feet away: “But I’ve got a baby in the car. I wouldn’t do *anything* dangerous”.

brooess:

However, IME when someone drives like that, they don’t have the confidence and maturity to cope with an adult discussion about the fact they were driving dangerously, so you’re best letting them go…

Some do, though I’ve met plenty as you describe. Most drivers I’ve talked to didn’t realise what they were doing wrong and were mortified at the thought of hurting someone else. It takes a calm but forceful approach to put it across though, and that only comes with practice.

chief1409, glad you’re okay. Don’t really blame you for losing it at them, I’ve done the same.

Just after signing up for a half marathon, I fell down a single step, hyper-extending my right foot and obliterating most of the ligaments either side of the ankle.

Weirdly, everything around the achilles and at the front was intact, so the hospital said crutches would be bad for it and I’d just have to get around on it until I could walk normally again. It took six months of hobbling, but healed just in time for me to put two weeks of training in and run.

I got Haribo from them last week deadkenny :P

I’ve found superstar’s stuff more hits than misses, and their pedals are excellent, but their branding is so frigging loud and all over everything they do that I tend to look for other options when buying components.

With the exception being that its just getting more expensive to make things overseas levelling the playing field in the traditional chap labour countries

Not quite. What I’ve heard is that for more advanced forms of manufacturing, such as 5-axis CNC milling, the machines are going to cost you about the same wherever you are in the world, and with a growing middle class in China, people with the skills to operate that kind of kit want better pay and are in more of a position to demand it. That makes it more viable for companies like Hope to still be working over here. The likes of Raleigh seem unlikely to bring production back though.