Ace ride, cheers all.

Gorgeous ride, cheers all!

I’ll be the guy eating something at the Wine Press next to a BlackBlue Pig.

I’ll be the guy confusing everyone by also turning up on a black Blue Pig.

I learned that yes, it will very much be worth saving up for better, lighter wheels. By trying out road hairpins with 2.4s full of water :D

“Misfit discovers he is special person in secret world just beside our own[/url]”

numpty cyclists […] on the footpaths, ringing their bells at me!

2/10 on a scale of 0 to Stewart Lee.

I have come to the, unsurprising, conclusion that the UK infrastructure just does not support bikes

Not that it’s the case in every European city with good cycle infrastructure, but much like most UK cities, Amsterdam was infested with cars and only lobbying by parents and cyclists changed that[/url].

(I’m envious of your access to a decent cycle network).

Oh man, the links from this thread are a goldmine of impotent middle class rage :D

bordering on criminal

any kind of liberty

alleged noise level and nudity

should have talked to us

Sort this mess now

totally and utterly unacceptable

ordinary population

normal daily lives

In!

ms jones either has a lopsided head or the helmet has been shopped on slightly skew (central vent/nose alignment)

… or she has a slightly twisted head, just like me. Trying on new helmets is always annoying ¬¬

I wear one because an SUV once did a lane change between me (left lane) and a car turning right in the next lane, almost hitting me and the back of the car. Had to slam my brakes on to avoid getting left hooked onto the pavement. I caught up, sped alongside shouting “You almost ****ing killed me back there!” through the drivers’ window, and they just nodded as if that was okay.

Oh, and there was the white van man who, when I was keeping up with traffic, in the correct lane for my exit on a complex roundabout, sat on his horn behind me then undertook just to scream abuse and push me into the next lane of traffic. Police were at the station, when I mentioned what he’d done they shrugged.

As the motorbike guy shows, helmet cameras aren’t a cure for the kind of tribal bullsh*t people get mired in, but I’d rather have one than not. If some drivers or other cyclists want to assume I’m a sanctimonious youtuber, f*** ’em.

Contour HD has good ergonomics, and the front assembly turns to level your shot (projects a laser line when you need it for doing that too). Video quality not quite as good as a gopro, and pretty pants in low light. The sliding on off switch is really affirmative and easy to use with gloves on. Recording at higher definition limits the field of view, only 720p lets you use the full angle of the lens.

I’ve only played really briefly with a Garmin Virb, but it has a similarly chunky and affirmative switch.

I’ve also been messing around with the new Shimano one; it makes audible beeps when you press the button to start and stop, and the beeps for each thing it’s doing have a nice and very obvious difference to them. Not as usable in gloves, but not overly difficult to find the button on top and push it. The mobile app seems to be well built and gives you straightforward access to settings. Footage quality is really good, it over-saturates colours a bit, copes well with high contrast scenes and does okay in low light (A bit smeary as you’d expect though). Compatible with gopro mounts, and the widest shot it can do is 180 (If you chest mount it, makes you look like Stretch Armstrong and even the slimmest arms flap like bingo wings over bumps. (Edit) Full res still of the widest mode: http://puu.sh/9ncqv/bb65c866bc.jpg). I’m still experimenting with it, but the convex lens protector makes ring shaped flares under some lighting conditions and, because it sticks out, is a bit of a magnet for dirt and water.

That’s why head mounting is best for filming commutes, but second best to a chest mount for filming trails. It’ll get most of what you look at rather than just the road ahead.

Yes, it works both ways.

Some people reckon a camera on your lid modifies drivers behaviour too; hard to quantify but I seemed to get a lot less hassle after starting to wear a Contour for commutes.

Also yet to post any self-righteous guff to youtube.

Depends which bits you’re commuting, and what your riding style is.

I got a single speed for it last year, the body position isn’t upright but isn’t overly aggressive. Narrow bullhorns make it great for filtering. It’s light and quick, but the highest thing I had to climb was London Bridge. Even if you’re near Forest Hill or something, you don’t need a huge range of gears.

Not all MDF is made with formaldehyde:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/woodworking/faq-mdf.htm

The stuff that is catches fire very quickly though!

I am having a very busy day at work.

I’ll be there!

A banana in an MRI scanner:

It could go through the frame and the rider. The air gap is nothing for a voltage that high.

:D

Do the rubber tyres provide any safety?

Given that you’re exposed to the open air, no they don’t. The lightning can arc through you then into other objects or the ground. If you’re in a car, it’s the body that protects you from a lightning strike by routing it away from you, not the tyres.

Edit: Is your name Roy?

These ultralight ti skewers (various brands):

Weeny little clamping force. Small climb, easy gear, I once had one spit the back wheel out and twist the brake side dropout. Lucky the frame was steel.

Replaced it with Hope, no problems since (you’re not the only one oliwb). I’ve been told any QR needs to be tight enough it leave a mark on your palm when you close it, and doing that it’s held up for a few months without ever loosening during a ride.

Edit:

These Sealskinz gloves:

Waterproof membrane inside, cotton cover on top. Too hot for most seasons, and in winter the outer part soaked through in the rain then my hands froze.

Not as major as gearboxes and workable belt drives (the Cavalerie stuff has me really hopeful though), and basically an optional part of riding for most people, but I can see a lot of gadgetry moving toward integration and sensing. Look at all of the shaded out icons that sometimes appear briefly in the top bar of Shimano’s camera app:

(The settings in the app also include wheel size).

The first few generations of this integration will probably be awful to use, but as they pass and elements of it become cheaper, I also think it’ll become more automated.

It took me a few moments to notice everything that’s going on here:

Sure, here’s a rough cut of the most usable stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VcKDGIGi58

Afraid water on the lens ruined a lot of the rest though :oops:

Bolle Silium have fairly slender metal frames and look okay IMO.

No dog poo, but I’ve had a few bugs hit hard enough to splatter, and always get mud in my eye if I forget them.

bearnecessities, that’s bad advice that could put genuinely depressed people at risk. There’s a lot of scaremongering about anti-depressants; the picture you paint of them being handed out willy nilly and people becoming dependent on them is nothing like the cases I’ve seen.

OP, go get whatever support you need.

CBT? You want the OP to pass his Scooter test?

Cognitive behavioural therapy.

Your doctor is a good starting point, and MTFU is terrible advice for depression.

Exercise has good effects on mood, as can any kind of expressive or creative activity. If you go onto anti-depressants, it might take a while to find the right one for you. They can also take a few weeks to properly kick in.

I know quite a lot of people who’ve suffered depression, and spent a lot of my own childhood and teens depressed. Different things worked for all of us. Some are on anti-depressants. One found that learning Buddhist meditation really helped. Others needed counselling. For me, it was writing about it for years, just to get it out.

Good luck fella. It can be a long, slow and frustrating path, but there’s help out there, and it can get better.

I’ve not had them long enough to recommend them, but a friend works for a shopfitter and recommended Makita’s 10.8v stuff for me. He said everyone on site has those plus 18v, and generally leaves the 18v tools in the chest for most jobs. The 10.8v drivers are lighter, better balanced, easier to use for long periods, and spare batteries are cheaper.

Those guys don’t have to drill into much stone though :)

Going by the audit exemption shown in their info at companies house, they’re an SME, for whom R&D tax credits give 225% tax relief. Only available if the company owns the IP resulting from the research though.

A Saracen Kili Racer, around Cromford in the mid-90’s:

Can’t remember how MTB first caught my attention; probably because my older brother had one. Those Ritchey Z-Max tyres were absolute pigs for picking up sticky mud. Spent ages messing around on jumps behind a Nottingham industrial estate too, went through so many wheels. LBS loved me :)

Yeah, really long. Mine is a decent fit with the dial system, but even with the strap tightened right up I can get more than two fingers inbetween it and my chin.

I’ve been looking at SLS for some other stuff lately, but using Stainless steel (Bronze infused) which is significantly cheaper than Ti, it’s most interesting if you are looking at replacing a machining process as it actually gets cheaper, the more material you can eliminate from the part.
You get to the point where a relatively intricate component which would cost a fortune to machine due to all the operations, costs less and weights less than if you did it on a mill and/or lathe, all the little rad’s Chamfers and undercuts that bad designers often chuck in, complicating models and bumping up machining costs, suddenly become a saving, it’s great in that respect.

I’ve done a little bit of 3-axis CNC milling, and this is really interesting to hear; thanks.

He, I went to Muse Mechanique, near Seal Rock, yeah? It was cool.

I don’t know seal rock, but it’s also not far from Ghiradeli square IIRC. It has some really cool old pinball machines, as well as some early arcade cabs and really weird old mechanical stuff. The guy who runs it whizzes around on rollerskates fixing things.

We’re quite a way off 3D printing being cheap. It being prototyping tech makes it convenient for some things, but very kludgey to scale into production beyond short runs.

cynic-al is right about the piers, they’re a horrible touristy old crock with adverts shouting at you from every surface, but hidden among them are:
Musée Mécanique[/url], full of weird old arcade machines.
Segway tours by Electric Tour Company[/url], who make you wear hi-vis and a helmet, but it’s totally worth it just to mess around on a Segway if you’ve never ridden one before. Much more fun with friends obv.

Food:
If you find yourself near 9th and Irving (Near east end of Golden Gate Park), Arizmendis is one of the best bakeries I’ve ever been to.

The Sycamore in The Mission does pork belly donuts. Deep fried, battered pork belly filled with maple syrup. You can basically feel your arteries clogging up as you eat them (Slightly dodgy neighbourhood around 16th and Mission though; not as dodgy as Tenderloin).

If you like architecture: Coit Tower (Telegraph Hill, which it’s on top of, is well worth wandering around too. Most of the roads marked on google maps are wooden boardwalks through the trees, which have parrots in them), Palace of Fine Arts, Embarcadero Center, De Young Museum (Has a good observation tower, some free exhibitions, excellent sculptures in the grounds, and a permissive photography policy in most galleries).

If you like nature or science: The California Academy of Sciences (opposite De Young) has a living rainforest habitat with lots of non-native species.

If you get tired wandering about near Market, Yerba Buena Gardens is a nice spot to relax.

Marin does have some spectacular views. Repack Road’s just up near Fairfax too :)

Yes. Ben Mills is the spitting image of me, and he was on X-Factor in 2006.

At the time, I had hair the same length, hadn’t had a TV for years, and worked in a club, occasionally shrugging when people told me “You look like that dude from x-factor”. Fast forward to December, not long after he’s been eliminated, I’m out for a friends birthday in Nottingham. Bloke comes over to the table, sticks his hand out, and responds to my blank look with “Ben, you really didn’t deserve to get kicked off”.

It takes a few similar walk ups for me to work out who Ben Mills is and what X-Factor is. Friends catch on, and in every pub look for people gawping at me, detouring by them on the way to the bar to loudly ask each other “What did Ben want?”

Later, I’m peeing and the guy at the next urinal glances over, screams “IT’S BEN FROM X-FACTOR!” and in seconds, about a dozen guys surround me, pumping their fists over my head chanting “you’re sh*t and you know you are”. Only time I’ve actually peed myself laughing.

(Edit: oops, edited swears)