It's written with such sincerity too!
Or seems to be at least.

I dread to think what would happen if you revved it up and then grabbed a handfull of brake (or should that be break).

No – but I did used to be an intel analyst, not really techy IT but I still love a spreadsheet of data to play with when given the chance.

Yes – MTBer (like duh), Scout leader, mountain leadership qual', Woodcraft teacher, race sled dogs.

Looks real nice. You know how some bikes just look fassst? -Your's is one of them.

+1Tom
non muso types might be impressed, but he wears his classical modes on his sleave and lacks any genuine inovation as a guitar player.
Morrelo's deconstructivism is far greater.

I'm thinking the same, got me a nice sensible Trek FX commuter bike last time, is it worth getting an proper MTB HT now too?

My only concern is that what with all the ConDem cuts will we find the scheme suddenly wound up and all of us having to settle in one fell swoop?

I used to work in a second hand record store and we would always refuse to take dance CDs as they never sell that well- dance by it's very nature is a disposable medium that is continually re-inventing itself.

Few people sit at home and dig out dance mania 95 to take them back.

Hip hop stuff always does quite well thou, you could try and offset one against the other pricewise.

I found it to be hookless directionless twaddle full of self indulgent pap.

IMO they take bits of Vai/Satriani water down with poor unimaginative time sigs and then anglicise it by cutting out the cajones. It's what would happen if radiohead tried to become King Crimson.

When there are bands like Chrome Hoof out there genuinly making enriched progressive music with balls and intead we end up with this rubish it makes my blood boil. They are to the present what ELP and Supertramp were to the seventies, ie nice 4/4 time non threatening easily digestible MOR AOR for people who like to rock out in a sensible controlled way that will be over by eleven and in easy reach of free parking.

Come on Muse you could be so much more, just try and scare some people just for once eh, or does your nice record label forbid that kind of creative self expresion?

Jaffa cakes and I always try to ensure we pass by the burger van that sells Ostrich burgers at about lunch time.

High protein, low in fat full of energy mmmm Ostrich.

I found it made the rubber and the moisturising strip on my razor rot really quickly.

I bought an old pick up a couple of weeks back just so I didn't have to strap bikes to the Merc. Probably cheaper than getting the dents and scratches taken out of the nice car.

BBB- I bet you've waited your whole life to nonchalantley drop that one in? 😉

It's a bit of a chancer thing to do, but times are hard.

Basically he's offering you money for apparently nothing, it's a win win.

I am swiftly developing a love of white bikes with nice clean lines.

I am v jelous of the ability to casualy mention CK hubs and other shiny newness in a throw away manner.

You lucky sod.

As a kid growing up in East Anglia I used to ride all over the place on dualA roads as it was the only way to get anywhere in a remotley straight line.

Come to think of it I regularly ride round three lane plus ring roads and the like getting to places now.

Just slap on a high vis to make sure you're extra visible and you'll be fine.

Isn't this a little bit like bullying?

– cue It's hip to be square by Huey Lewis

I just don't trust anything with moving parts from SSC, been bitten too many times.

+1 no teeth.

Wish I had put it so succinctly

Have you noticed that we only attack countries with badly-formed or zero armies?

Good point,

But, could that be a tell tale sign of a failed state with a high potential for insurrection and civil strife with consequent oppresion?

Hora, mate you've lost me completely.
Edit- well on part of it anyway.

I simply believe it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak and oppressed. I have no argument with a polly socio/economic globe. I believe the Truman doctrine and the Marshall plan were erroneous ideals best consigned to history along with McCarthyism. However likewise a lassies faire non interventionist attitude does bring to the fore the “all it takes is for evil to triumph…" maxim.

I disagree with the military being used as a political blunt instrument to enforce and ideal on people, and the consequent failure to address the subsequent political vacuum in a destabilised multi ethnic proto state will always begat a long term period of instability, the consequent re-drawing of the global map post two world conflicts still has ramifications today.

I really don't understand what you mean about the IRA or your references to heroin or George Bush (PS you DO know he's no longer in power don't you?).

I heartedly agree that to waste the lives of young men and women through a needlessly long and pointless conflict (we fought our way in, now lets fight our way out) is pointless. But there will always be a tipping point between sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong and looking out for the little guy. To systematically introduce the chance to develop a more egalitarian society in a country previously unfairly ruled does have a precedent, the success of the Kurdish society in the enforced Iraqi no fly zone after the Gulf conflict in the nineties and the developments of the post conflict former Yugoslavian areas is a testament to that.

However nothing’s black and white and I think I’ve veered way off the intended target here.

I whole heartedly applaud those who are able to question everything and I dissagree with the use of force as an instant resort. I think the aid workers, charrity workers, volunteer doctors and many others are just as heroic.
And yes I think to present an informed choice and not to pretend the army is just for making rope bridges would be a better concept.

Edit- Hora your last paragraph, re an informed choice is kind of my point too I think.

Only last week some young soldiers were blown to pieces out in the field, and it left a bit of a bitter taste to see that lifestyle being promoted at a family orientated event like Mayhem.

Yes some brave young men who joined up to face the reality of having to lay down their lives on a daily basis to reduce the threat to hundreds of people. People they will never know threatened by being blown apart in their own country as they inocecntly go about their daily lives. people who will never thank them, or even know that they had their lives saved. People like you and me.

OP I understand your point in the distaste for "hey kids guns are cool and fun, join the army and you get lots of guns" type marketing approach. However anything that breaks down barriers and introduces people to the military as people and as an institution for vocational betterment and not just a factory producing meathead killing machines is fine by me. I'm sure most people are capable of developing the idea of the longer ramifications of a life in the military and won't be bowled over by a blow up soldier and a trade stall.

We all love our kids, but nothing would make me more proud than having a kid who is willing to shoulder the resposibility that he is willing to risk his own life to save hundreds of others. I'm sure the world needs sales reps, accountants, traffic wardens, nail technicians and so many other jobs as the way of the world in an economic free state neseciates it. However we still need brave men willing to make a sacrifice for this to continue, bravery is not the absence of fear, it is doing your best despite it.

A scrubbing brush for in the shower with really hot scalding water.

Totally invigorates and is excellent at shunting off a hangover.

God bless Wilkinson's

At 25 I had loooooads of money. At 35 I have money, (just), I wouldn't worry about it. By the time you have kids & a mortgage you'll be just as skint as everyone else.

+1

As a young man I had a top life touring the world as a DJ, now I'm a publuic sector drone with a wife, kid & house.

Easy come, easy go life's tough.

OP, I kinda get your point but if you have a lot of cash sometimes people will comment, your mates are hardly lyniching you are they? If they'd stormed your house killed your children and declared the environs of your estate a socialist republic maybe you'd have space to comment.

Didn't Giro do a three part threaded bottle that could be dissasembled and swapped with friends to make different colour combinations?

I had Biopace too, almost literally a case of reinventing the wheel.

I tried to sell strips of pipe lagging cut and painted as mounts so you could fix your watch to your handlebars.

-Only to my mates you understand, I wasn't brazen or old enough to put an add in MBUK.

Only sold three

I remember a friend with a girvin flexstem and Rockshox on

PMSL the mental image of trying to ride anything like that is hilarious.

DCD- weren't they made by Pete Tompkins AKA Mr Crud?

EDIT – Oh yes, it says so on the side 😳

Action Force Headquarters.

Made of card and slotted together, but still amazing.

Shortly after my parents twigged that Action Force was all about men with guns and I didn't get any action force or military related gifts ever again.

"mmmm a book on the wildlife of the serengetti, let's see if it can make an effective helipad for the action force helicopter!"

SFB, Fair comment. I shouldn't have generalised. But my point still stands.

for example, I had to deal with an issue a few years ago where someone in a buss queue asked a kid not to ride his bike on the pavemnet so the kid stabbed him for dissrespecting him.

I don't want to get drawn in here (but probably will knowing me).

If we’re talking about US cops then I have no right to comment as I do not live in that society or have any experience of the realities of that service (and no watching the Wire or NYPD blue does not count).

But, yes I agree, it never fails to amuse me the amount of people who think that if they get really angry or start swearing and throwing punches that it will resolve a hopeless situation.

When was the last time you saw a night club doorman announce
"Well seeing as you’ve called me a C&*%, by all means feel free to come into the premises in your drunken state with your shirt covered in vomit, can I get you some drinks too?”

I think the red mist does have a lot to do with it, that and stupid bast4rd pride, we live in an age where everyone refuses to lose face and lives in a bubble where fear is confused with respect. No-one likes to admit they are beaten or take true responsibility for their actions a good deal of the time.

(EDIT) Wilber- Re' your car story, I've been there too mate. Good example.

Can you not stitch up the coven as a little leaving gift?
Just be honest and say you would have stayed but they make it impossible. You've got nothing to lose unlike your boss who has just lost a valuable employee he was willing to throw money at to get to stay.

Good on you mate, at first I was all for taking the money as you hadn't actually said you hated it on a personal level I thought it was more on the "I'm treated like a monkey" level not "I'm treated like dirt".

I know I could earn more in the private sector as a project manager type but after six months working for a venture capital fund I learnt what workplace bullying and utter misery really feels like.

Now I use my skills in the public sector to shift cops and council workers about to make things better for people and feel so much more invigorated (if a little scared of the new Govt)

You can't get the mpegs to run anyway, cough cough or so I hear anyway cough.

I don't think I understand
Are you mad because he got his bike back and didn't give the kid a pasting or because he didn't arrest him?

If he's off duty and he's just after his bike like any other normal citizen then job done what's your problem.

If he gave him a pasting, then that's his job, career and chances are most of his mates gone.

He arrests him for being in possession of a stolen bike, first question to any civilian can you prove it’s your bike? “Did you just go after a kid on a bike the same as yours and conveniently get it back?”- it’s a whole can of worms.
And to make matters worse there’s no proof the kid on the bike is the thief not to mention the p155 all sentence he’d get out of it (thanks CPS)

And as already pointed out if it all happened in his back yard so to speak then there is the family element too to think of. If the kid on the bike is the thief then he knows where the cop lives so can send his mates round to put a brick through the window or steal the bike again.

All in all you sound a little too angry about what is ultimately a happy ending

Bloke gets bike nicked. Bloke gets bike back.

my LBS account total (paid account not credit) is approx five grand in five years including four bikes.

one is CTW scheme and another was an insurance payout after the first got nicked.

I used to spend loads before I got married.

These days I'm the same as Cookeaa – I get pocket money except I have to use it to pay my phone bill and anything else that we as a couple dont benefit collectively from.

As a result I have precious little to spend on my bike these days and I'm all to aware that the cumulative cost of a few trail side snacks, car parking if I go to a trail centre not to mention petrol makes riding a costly business.

Well it's a case of perspective what's the better headline.

Off duty cop stabbed to death over bicycle

or

Keen cyclist reunited with bike through wife's vigilance

Basically you would be in a sticky situation trying to leave in less than the sallary frequency (ie less than a month) other than that it's dependant on contract but not unusual- think of it this way it shows you or at least your role is valued and can't just go to seed suddenly.

We got married in the ice hotel in Lapland, just the two of us with no family. I'm family phobic and our two repective familes are like oil and water mine's so Southern and repressed I don't think I seen my Dad without a tie on till I was ten and hers are typical brassy Nortehrn Blackpool.

At the time I was working as a £7p/h office temp and my wife was earning £18K (which we thought was a fortune) and we paid foreverything ourselves without anyone's help.

Wife's dress came from ebay (£5 for a red velvet evening dress from Vietnam) with a cloak from a fantasy clothing maker.
Mine was an old Napoloenic theatrical millitary costume.

We spent a bit on traveling around before and after, but the actual cost of the wedding plus flights came in at under two grand inculding a night actually sleeping in the ICE part of the Ice hotel before moving to a cabin. I'm a total tightwad so I still complained at that cost but it was good.

+1 Toys19.
It makes it look like a supermarket special.

If it was anodised purple it might at least hark back to the halcyon days of the 90s and Mint Sauce (sigh the memories of youth).

I sit surrounded by empty desks at work after two redundancy culls.
Kept my job as I'm self funding so basically protected from public sector chop bar physicaly losing my office & fixtures.

I bought my (first) house at start of the dip so got a good house for less than it was worth, but could only get a fixed rate mortgage with a monthly payment of just under a grand leaving just enough to pay bills.

wife voluntarily changed from good paid but horrid job to lower paid but job she liked, this is now threatened by higher education cut backs- old company downsized dramatically a few months after she left.

Cost of living has risen to a level where we have no choice but to spread bill payments over months so we're always paying everything constantly and I eat last nights tea for my dinner at work every day etc.

Have no disposable income at all- can't even put in for office wiprounds.

Basically I'm treading water, but I'm not drowning and confident that I'll be able to remain ok but not brilliant for the future. So for me its a four.

I believed an online tip on a bike maintainance website that muc-off was just watered down white spirit (I think they missunderstood the concept of de-greaser). So I made one parts white spirit to twenty parts water and sprayed it all over my muddy bike.

Three years on I am still paying the price slowly replacing the parts, bearings, stickers….sob

😳

Well yes, you may have a point on the team ethos, but playing football on your own is a lot less satisfactory compared to riding a bike and ask anyone who won the TDF and they'll say the cyclists name not the team ditto motorsport.

I can just get up and go for a ride, if I want a game of football it has to involve at east one other person.

As for uniform, I meant compulsory wearing of a team colours to identify yourself not sport specific clothing, I'd hardly call my ski jacket a uniform.

Ugh, the lure of the troll… I'm being drawn in.