Lol – I better pack brolly!

Ben – emailed you your ticket. Let me know if it doesn’t come through.

All gone now I’m afraid folks. Those who were lucky to get one please come and say hello.

ChunkyMTB – ticket emailed to you.

Kid Cragg – one left but Ben asked for it. If he doesn’t provide an email address for me to send one to him then it’s yours.

nickb – yours has been emailed.

benp1 – please let me know an email address to send one to.

I’ve found one more so there is still one left after Ben’s has been sent.

DT78 – I’m doing one per person to keep it fair. I’ve emailed your ticket to you.

enfht – it has been emailed to you.

It’s a fair bit bigger this year than it was last year. One ticket gets you into the Bike show, the Triathlon Plus Show and the Telegraph Outdoor and Adventure Show. They are expecting 60,000 plus people to visit!

Not sure if it’s the case but I heard you could pay an extra pound for entry to the Motorcycle show too.

I’ll be there with the Gloworm lights and launching a new running/road cycling visibility vest.

If anyone wants a pair of free tickets I’ve got a competition running that closes tomorrow with 3 pairs of tickets up for grabs. You can find it here – https://www.facebook.com/crgmoto

Now fitted with flats, a Gobi saddle and Racing Ralphs.

I work for Hitachi… why is it so great we didn’t get the order?

Agreed. Hitachi are currently building a massive new factory a couple of miles from me that will bring loads of jobs to the North East.

I found a tic during the Summer and removed it. Over the next 10 days I felt more and more unwell – fever, aching muscles and joints, constant headache etc. The hospital decided to treat for Lymes.

Spent several weeks on some properly nasty antibiotics (they made me sun sensitive so I had to plaster factor 50 on any exposed skin or it felt like I was on fire).

7 months later and my joints are clicking and stiff, the cartilage around my lower ribs on one side decided to detach and 4 weeks on it still not right and I’ve been getting very low peak flow readings. No idea if it’s still connected. Hopefully not.

Hawkshead Sun dried tomato and garlic chutney is lovely – especially with cheese.

Rather like Reggae Reggae sauce and occasionally a bit of chili sauce.

Wow just writing them down makes me realise I have too many.

2 pairs walking boots
1 pair Salomon XA Pro
2 pairs XA Pro goretex
1 pair Salomon Mission trainers
1 pair Saucony running shoes
3 pairs various Timberland boots
1 pair Wolverine boots
2 pairs brown smart shoes
1 pair black smart shoes
1 pair wellies
2 pairs AM40 cycling shoes
1 pair Specialized spd shoes
2 pairs Teva sandles

Got my winter tyres from Funky Tyres – loads cheaper than any of the big online sellers and they were delivered direct from Nokian in 3 days. If you message them or post on their Facebook page what you want they will quote various options.

https://www.facebook.com/funkytyres

Then got them fitted by a local tyre place for £30 for 4.

Am I correct in thinking that there were 2 buses?

One stationary on the left dropping passengers and an oncoming one that you were forced in to?

Both will almost certainly have front and rear facing cameras.I have a friend whose company fits and services the cameras for numerous bus companies. If you know which bus operators were involved I’ll see if he has any contacts that could help. I would think the local depot manager might be a good start.

My folks house used to be fed by a well but it would dry up on occasions during long dry periods.

They had a bore hole drilled which is extremely unlikely to dry up (if it does the UK will probably be desert given it’s on the edge of the North Pennines.

They should look at the option of a bore hole to reach water aquifers below the depth of the well.

It got better as it went on. It took me back as the gags were so similar to 20 years ago.

I lead a group of 14 riders down a 1/2 mile long section of green lane on a ride last May. It obviously hadn’t been used for a while as it was wall to wall waist high nettles. I tried to knock down as many as I could but all you could hear was people yelping behind.

Fortunately everyone saw the funny side but my legs still got the occasional tingle the next day!

Strangely I find that nettle stings seem to boost my legs. I could be simply that you forget the tired feeling due to the stinging.

Unless you’re a free house, I wouldn’t even contemplate it

This 100%.

Until recently there were 4 pubs in and around our village. All owned by the same company – Enterprise Inns.

In the last 4 years, every one of them has closed at some point. Now only 2 remain open (both seemingly doing very well), another is boarded up and up for sale (it’s 1 mile outside the village on an A-road with no houses nearby), the other closed and is to be knocked down and turned in to a house.

If you are not freehold, you have to buy from certain suppliers who have artificially high prices and poor choice. Not only are you nobbled by the price but also you can’t offer what the customer actually wants.

If you do actually make a success of it, the leasing company will get greedy and bump your rent up thus making it impossible to make any money so you close anyway.

This happened to a very successful pub a few miles away. People would travel for miles to eat there and it was a storming success. The Pub leasing company decided to cash in and doubled the rent so the landlord had no option but to close. The Pub company then found that they could not find a new landlord. A local who loved eating there was gutted his favourite pub had gone so he bought the freehold and now leases it to the original landlord for a very much more reasonable rent. Happy days.

AEG gas hob, extractor, oven and fridge – all installed 10 years ago when the kitchen was fitted.

Hob is excellent, extractor is noisy but otherwise good, oven had an element replaced a few years ago.

AEG dishwasher packed up a few years ago – blocked metering thing and uneconomical to repair which is common on them). Was replaced with Bosch which seems OK.

Would fit AEG again.

Don’t think HiTec have anything to do with Sports Direct as suggested above.

30 years ago Hitec were leading the way with light weight trekking boots. Before you could pretty much only get heavy leather hiking boots and then they started using Goretex membranes and lighter cordura type uppers.

No idea what they are like now but back then they were pretty revolutionary.

http://www.leisurelakesbikes.com/p/10453/yeti-asr5-full-suspension-mountain-bike-frame-2013-sale

I had the exact same problem a few years ago when I moved business premises.

They combined the new lines on a One Bill account but didn’t seem to know themselves that they’d done it and got more and more threatening demanding payment for lines that were already being paid for. Took ages to sort it out.

Very sad. This is very local to me and I’m sure I’ve seen the poor guy riding this stretch of road previously. It’s shocking that it took so long for someone else to help the lady who had stopped.

I’ve only ever ridden it once on the way back from Darlington and swore never again. There is a quiet back lane that pretty much runs parallel which I would always use in preference (although it is often wet and muddy and adds a couple of miles to the journey). This stretch of the A68 is fast dual carriageway with a very poor surface and fair amount of HGV traffic. There is no cycle provision at all.

I wonder if it’s a Manitou thing.

A mate had the same problem with a set of Manitou’s recently. We tried a couple of wheels both ways round so it was definitely not due to dishing.

Also the fork didn’t appear to be bent as once the caliper aligned there was no disc rub and the wheel span freely.

All in all it was very strange.

They look very similar to some prototype Chinese pedals I tested.

On the ones I tested, to achieve the low profile, the bearings were incredibly thin and lunched themselves.

Was having this very conversation in the pub last night. I have to agree with loads of the films mentioned above – Happy Gilmore, Dumb and Dumber, Transporter and Crank films.

A couple more to throw into the mix are Nacho Libre and Peewee Herman’s Big Adventure.

If you’ve got a vehicle like that and don’t know the water depth or if there are drain/inspection covers that have lifted then use the vehicle. Plus it looks like fun.

If the environment agency warnings are correct only 6 inches of moving water is enough to take your feet away (although it looked pretty still in the video).

I’ve managed to run Conti Grand Prix 26″ 1 1/8 tyres on my Stans Crest rims with no problems.

I hate pubs with loud dance music and prefer real ale (showing my age). Last time I was in York did a few pubs around High Petergate – Lamb and Lion, Three Legged Mare, Guy Fawkes Inn – beer was excellent in all of them and decent live music in the Three Legged Mare.

I has this happen selling a complete bike a couple of years ago. I refunded the seller and cancelled the transaction.

There was no way I was going to send a bike on the off chance that Ebay/Paypal might be good enough to let me have my funds.

I pretty much only use Ebay now for collection only items with cash payment.

Will keep a look out when I’m in Darlo – shared on FB

It is only 400 lumens so as a standalone light not much by todays standards.

There’s a railway service track near here that joins 2 towns on a little used line. The track is mainly more than 20m from the railway line and in places more like 40m away. The railway property is so wide as the line once connected to a wagon works and was part of one of the biggest sidings in the world. That’s all gone now.

It was used for many years by locals to cycle to work from one town to the other in either direction. It’s far safer than the only viable road route.

Then British Transport Police made it target number one and spent weeks hiding in bushes issuing fixed penalty notices. I’m not aware of any accidents on the track, anti-social behaviour, vandalism etc but yes it was trespass. It is a shame as it makes an excellent safe traffic free route.

Get the T5 and then get the M2 when it gets released in 2015.

CRC

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/marzocchi-55-rc3-evo-v2-ti-forks-2013/rp-prod106896

A friend works in Botswana and has had many people he works with fall victim to HIV.

At one time almost 40% of the population there had HIV which is almost unbelievable. HIV rates there have fallen to about 25% which is still shocking.

The average life expectancy was 65 in 1990 but had fallen to 35 by 2005 and is now back up to 53 so the HIV education campaigns are working.

I’ll ask my Mum when I see her. She collects these 18C figures – most are not hugely valuable and can be bought fairly cheaply at auction. They are also devilishly hard to identify the maker as most are unmarked.

My totally non-expert guess would be that it more likely to be Staffordshire simply due to the quantities made there. I would imagine a Scottish pottery figure would be more likely to be dressed in Scottish national style but I know nothing.

Probably try a Scottish auction house specializing in pottery.

She has apparently posted on twitter about having ‘a sex dream about an autistic kid’ previously too!

She has some issues.

this woman is in PR and worked for a company that specialises in African-American Dating!

FTFY

Her employer have said that she’s been fired.

The new Lego movie looks really good. Seen the trailer and I wanted to see it as much as our 2 boys.