Looks like it, aye.

The Police – I’ll Be Watching You. Not a nice sweet romantic song, it’s about stalking…

Yeah, true. But it goes with my idea that there hasn’t been a great deal of development in actual suspension design, just minor tweaks. Someone else noted that things like ABP etc were all trying to mirror the characteristics of the Horst Link system, so the development of things like platform damping, the remote reservoir in the Brain, characteristic tuning etc have been the major advances in suspension, not (to as great a degree) changes in linkage design or pivot position.

Janesy – proves my point, to a degree. Brain is just a damping function of the shock. The FSR system is good on its own, but the Brain system is just a development of the shock, not the actual suss design.

Long as I’ve got the new bike built by then, I’d be up for that. Not been to either Lee or Cragg yet.

Just seen Little Roy (elderly Jamaican reggae chap) on Jools Holland covering Nirvana’s “Heart Shaped Box”. That was quite interesting….

Good call on the I&G Rum Cask, Tazzy.

I’m on Leffe Brune, the missus is on Hoegaarden, since it was mix and match 2 for £6 on the big bottles in Sainsbury’s.

Glitch -> Glitch in the Matrix -> Matrix soundtrack -> Juno Reactor

Mogrim – possibly, but maybe not if you’re having to put huge amounts of R&D work into delivering entire new systems. The changes in actual bike/linkage design have been minor (tweak a linkage, move a pivot, etc) compared to the leaps in damper design and setup. Since that development is being done by a third party (Fox, RS, etc) the R&D cost they put in is spread over a much larger number of units than a change to a bike design will be.

Rocky Mountain’s (sadly discontinued) ETS was pretty revolutionary when it came out, first mass-market Virtual Pivot system, as far as I remember – Outland/SC’s VPP wasn’t launched/developed at that point.

Thing is, in my own humble opinion, more people choose to use simpler systems and manipulate the shock stroke/characteristics. ProPedal/platform damping had just about eliminated the bob issues with single pivot bikrs (i remember my old non-PP’d Marin bobbing like a really bobby thing on climbs), so why not use the simplest/cheapest solution and tweak the shock tip eliminate the undesirable?

Shellac comes from the Lac bug -> Bugs -> Buggy

Ghosts -> “if dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts…”
Counting Crows, Mrs Potter’s Lullaby

Planet -> Galaxy -> Intergalactic

< makes Smoking Gun fingers, and applies for title of “Fastest Geek in the North West” > :D

As above, or “Freeze Panes” is in the View menu.

To jump to another cell, you need to create a bookmark in the second (target) cell, then create a hyperlink referencing that bookmark in the first (home) cell. Excel 07 can do it all in one go, in your home cell, right click and select.Hyperlink, then click on “Place in this document”, select your target cell and define the text for your Home cell, then click okay and Bob’s a good ol’ mate of your dad.

Happens fairly regularly… In fact, once a week… I think it’s called “Friday”

Stumpy – pipe for gear cable routing?

looks nice.

Be aware that a lot of the LED or CFL (low-energy) bulbs aren’t dimmable. We’ve been trying to do the same thing to replace the 9 50w GU10s in our kitchen and it’s a bit of a minefield.

In 2007 just use a Pivot Table:
Highlight the column with your grade data in it
Under the ‘Insert’ menu, hit PivotTable
When it brings up the Field List, drag your Column title to the Data Items field and then to the Values field. Make sure, since you’re using numeric values, the Values box then reads ‘Count of <column title>’ not ‘Sum of < >’. If the latter, right click on that item in the Valeues field, click on ‘Value Field Settings’ in the menu box that appears, and set it to ‘Count’.

Bob’s your probably-just-an-old-friend-of-the-family, you’ve got a little table that tells you the frequency of each discrete item, same as if you’d done a long sequence of CountIfs.

Yup. Imagine turning up at the Student Medical Practice on a Tuesday morning with second degree burns across one side of your face. Needless to say, lectures for the next couple of weeks were hilarity-ridden…

Bit of black onion seed in there helps as well. Always add that into my bhaji and pakora batter.

Turn it off, wait 30 seconds, turn it back on again? ;)

Well, it’s what our IT lot would tell you to do…

Aracer doesn’t willy-wave too much, not since he ran into the end of a railing in Bristol a few years back.

He does run quite quickly, though.

I’m with Stoner – probably 30-40% for me. But then I’m a Data Analyst and therefore a fairly heavy Excel user.

Dunno about thigh top, iRule (Ninjas) have two small pockets on the side, as do my Raidlight running tights.

Enjoy :)

28 total accrued at a rate of 4.5hrs/week.

Though that should go up in December.

I’d recommend you a swan, but I heard they were all gay. It’ll be a child’s face next time…

Injections. So much so I actually punched a nurse who was trying to administer my measles jab at school (panic attack/fight or flight reaction – I apologised a lot afterwards) and spent the next year or so seeing a psychologist about it. It’s not the pain side of it, it’s the thought of metal under my skin. Can’t even watch Casualty if they’re sticking needles in people. Have had all my travel jabs recently and it took serious relaxation exercises and telling the doctor “if I pass out, just give me the damn jab while I’m unconscious”.

Another +1 for Grant Lee Buffalo. Mighty Joe Moon was an amazing album!

I would also add Joseph Arthur to that list.

Molgrips – before you spork out on those, try the Injinji toe socks. I ran my ultra in them, feel a bit odd at first, but stopped me getting sand and dirt in between my toes. Worked really well for me!

Well done that man.

Run, have fun, get some professional advice if it hurts (more than it should do). Go to it, and good luck!

Your character is obviously reprehensible, Molgrips ;)

I’m in the camp of ‘vaguely minimalist’ – I now run with a forefoot strike, but in January I didn’t. Old shoes were screwing my feet up badly, and making every run blistery sore-kneed hell. I knew I needed to run more as training for AR, but couldn’t run more than once a week without my legs and feet getting wrecked.

My gait analysis revealed me to be hypermobile, and the motion control in the shoes was what was f’ing my legs up. Shifting me to a neutral shoe started the process and helped me get back to running without pain – and I mean knee, shin, and lower back pain as well as not blistering. From there I could at least run regularly without a week off to let the blisters heal, and as I did my gait changed again from heel- to mid/forefoot strike, which meant at my next analysis (I have one done for every new pair of running shoes), i’d changed so much I could shift into a more ‘minimal’ shoe without over-stressing my calves and achilles trying to get used to them. I still wouldn’t use a completely ‘barefoot’ shoe, a la Vibram or the new Inov8s, just yet, but that’s my choice. I’ll keep getting analysed before I buy, and if one day they turn out to be ‘right’ for me, so be it!

@crispedwheel – cheers dude, but the OP also asked

What do you like about running? Can I do
anything to make it more fun ?

I think we all agree that running’s more fun if you’re not injuring yourself, right? So Molgrip’s trying not to injure himself at high pace over a short distance, which he finds fun. I think he probably enjoys the research as well, and I’m very much with him on that, I research routes, pore over maps, obsess over my gait etc… Each to their own.

just so you can run a bit quicker (and with a
higher fun quota) over a 14 -21 minute run?

Nothing wrong with that! Everyone’s got their own aims. Some people want to do 20 mins fast, I like doing a good few hours slow (insert stamina/technique gag here)

I’m with Molgrips that, if something’s hurting you, you need to alter something in your running. Our thoughts on what and how are different, but that’s life. Everyone has their own approach, eh?

Stick_man – doesn’t work for everyone. My gait adapted as I ran more (changed a hell of a lot between January and June!) but I wasn’t trying to ‘force’ it to. I wouldn’t advocate trying to conciously change your gait, other than on the advice of a physio if you’re suffering badly.

I won’t go into the geekiness of it (for fear of upsetting Stever further ;) ) but honestly, get analysed and see what works for you rather than forcing yourself to someone else’s “ideal”…

Stever – Bingo! What do I win? ;)

Barefoot is where its at, however you’ ll need some barefoot shoes to do it properly

hurty knees…

Okay, half right with the barefoot thing. Big, important part, especially if you’re getting knee pain –

GET A GAIT ANALYSIS AND SOME PROPER SHOES.

Sorry, did I say that loud enough?

Honestly, it could make a massive difference. Yes, it means spending some money, maybe, but if you’re running in the wrong shoe, it’ll injure you more than it’ll help your fitness. Barefoot/Minimalist shoes don’t work for everyone, same as any other type. Get a proper analysis from a decent shop (I use Accelerate in Sheffield and heartily recommend them) and listen to their recommendations. Most will do analysis free if you’re buying shoes then and there.

Knee pain could be just about anything from ligament or cartilage issues to mask-tracking and misalignment of the patella. If the pain is down the outsider of your knee, it could be ITB problems, which often stem from gait issues or pushing too hard too fast. In which case, back off, simmer down and give it a chance to recover.

I remember watching one of the big fell races when I was a kid, sitting on a wall as the runners came past. The legendary Joss Naylor trotted by, a good couple of minutes ahead of the pack, and one of the old farmers next to me turns to his mate and says “Joss looks knackered”. His mate’s only response was “Joss always looks knackered…” Kinda true, but I still wouldn’t fancy my chances of beating him round Borrowdale…

Binners, are you a complete wuss? ;)