Keep pedaling your a long time dead

Wise words mate. Kind of sums it up; if only the rest of life was that simple.

Full XTR 1199 euro or 889 without the brakes

Linky? Before the kidney goes cold ?
http://www.starbike.com/%5B/url%5D ?
http://www.actionsports.de/%5B/url%5D ?

my 62 year old neighbour is still fitter than me

My regular riding mate is 64. His background is motor bikes; MX, enduro etc., mine is road racing and time trials. I wait for him at the top, he waits for me at the bottom. I have a secret suspiscion that he enjoys himself more than I do. Bastid!

is 43 over hill

I dunno, kids these days. I’d give my left leg to be 43 again :-)
I took a 15 year break from bikes, came back keener than ever. A bit slower, but very keen.

You could buy yourself and your missus a nice SS each and have enough left over for a cycling holiday somewhere warm.

Jesus! If I had that sort of money to spend I wouldn’t be wasting it on a cycling holiday with the missus! You obviously haven’t been married as long as me :lol:
Having looked into it carefully, I’ve discovered that Mrs Rusty has TWO fully functional kidneys. So basically she’s sitting on £20K of unused offal. Chloroform, scalpel, ebay, that’s the funding sorted.
http://www.lexs.co.uk/Product/Shimano-2011-XTR-M980-Drive-Train-Groupset here I come.

Carlsberg don’t make dogs … but if they did, they’d probably be Border Collies.

Taking it out riding with you is just the start of finding ways to harness the boundless energy and intelligence that characterises BCs. If you don’t, you’ll likely come home to find the furniture trashed, the garden dug up, and a hole in the fence where the BC escaped to come follow you. It can be a bit scary having a dog that you suspect is smarter than you.

I’ve had a number of BCs over the years, the last one being a BC x Kelpie that was a serious nails cattle dog. The longest run we did was 27 miles – Hay to Grynwe Fawr and back – I was on my knees and he was as fresh as a daisy. A proper working BC can do up to 50 miles in a day without problem.

BCs don’t like collars and leads – you need to get their respect so that they follow you because they want to. Taking on a 4 year old BC rescue is a big task, but very rewarding. My neighbour won world’s obedience championship at Crufts a few years back with a rescue BC.

BTW, if you’re in sheep country a hi-viz jacket for the dog is a good idea. We always put one on the BC/Kelpie when we went off the farm – it was known as his bullet-proof jacket, the idea being that it would give the yokels pause for thought before taking a pop at it.

Wishing you all the best with your new friend.

About 1/3 of that is the chainset to be fair, take that out and it’s significantly more sensible.

Get thee behind me Satan.

I much prefer wwaswas’s approach – if I look at like that I’ve now got £1600 to spend, which means I can get a full XTR setup, plus some decent wheels.
Of course, I’ll then need a new frame to put all the old bits on, otherwise it would be a waste.

Anybody want to buy a kidney ?

Yes, fully open. A bit muddy in places – the first long climb up through Bluebell wood is particularly sticky.

Are the pedals off now then ?

Pedal at bottom of stroke, allen key in pointing upwards, move top of allen key towards back of bike

Shimano freewheel remover

Clamp in vice and turn wheel as suggested

LH pedal has a LH thread, RH pedal has a RH thread.

No snow. Had a bit of rain over the past couple of days, so muddy in places. Should be dry at the weekend, but cold, with hard frost overnight, so watch out for icy patches.

I wasn’t being serious myself TJ, as the suggestion of playing A Jones at wing might have hinted. (Although it’s an intriguing idea – they’d have to make the game a few hours longer to allow for his run to the tryline though)

those lumbering welsh backs

I think your definition of ‘lumbering’ could do with review (unless they’re playing Adam Jones at wing in a surprise move) :-)

Just agreed with my mate that we’re giving our usual Thursday night ride a miss. Temperature is 1.8, it’s raining and foggy. Yuck.

a klein attitude in the purple linear fade colour scheme

Drools over keyboard … apart from the yellow cable outer, which is a crime of heinous proportions.

Gleaming Italian beauty from the golden age – a 1984 Colnago Master with Campag Super Record

And on a lighter note, Newsbiscuit reports “Bradley Wiggins still hopeful of victory in 2010 Tour de France”

On the face of it the 2012 tour is going to be as exciting as playing I-Spy in the dark; a few mountain stages in between the time trials.
But of course, being a bike race, anything could happen.

Can we discuss who will win the tour?

The bookies suggest :
1. Evans
2. A. Schleck
3. Wiggins
Outsiders. Menchov, Froome, Valverde, Gesink, Sanchez

An interesting article from Outside magazine on where the Livestrong money goes and the minimal real term investment they actually make in cancer research.

Some pretty daming evidence there (not)

During an investigation that played out over several months—involving dozens of interviews and careful examination of Livestrong’s public financial records—I found no evidence that Armstrong has done anything illegal in his role as the face of the organization.
…
When Armstrong travels on Livestrong business, the foundation insists, he picks up his own tabs
…
The financial records appear to back up Armstrong’s assertion

Livestrong is about supporting cancer sufferers, not about research. Perhaps the critics would similarly slag off Macmillan Nurses, a UK charity that supports cancer sufferers and spends not a single penny on cancer research?

There was no test for EPO when armstrong was winning.

The UCI began using a urine test for EPO in 2001.
Armstrong won the Tour in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.

Maybe this year Wiggins can show that you can be nice and still win?
Or will his negative drug tests and lack of a murder conviction prove that he’s doped-up axe-wielding serial killer? :D

My main problem with Lance is he seems like a bit of a ****

From what I’ve seen of him I’d agree with that, but I guess nice guys don’t have what it takes to win the TdF 7 times. It’s a bike race, not a personality competition.

The answer to anybody who says Armstrong must have been innocent because he was tested lots and never tested positive:
Marion Jones

So all drug tests are useless then? If a rider tests positive it’s because he’s been doping. If he tests negative it’s because he’s been doping but getting round the tests somehow.
Or does that just apply to Lance ?

only because you know all other arguments proclaiming Lance’s innocence guilt are laughable.

The reason that LA never failed a drug test is apparently because of a massive conspiracy involving the testing labs and the UCI. The evidence for this being the ravings of Tyler Hamilton on a US TV show.

Hamilton countered Armstrong’s claim of having never failed a drug test, saying that Armstrong told him in a relaxed, “off the cuff” manner that Armstrong had failed a test at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland.
“People took care of it,” Hamilton said. “I don’t know all the exact details but Lance’s people and people from the other side, people I believe from the governing body of the sport, figured out a way for it to go away.”

Google is doing wonders for my knowledge of foreign languages :-)
Contador suspendu deux ans
Dos años de suspensión para Contador
?Contador wordt voor twee jaar geschorst
Contador utstenges i to år
?Contador suspenso dois anos
Contador für zwei Jahre gesperrt
?
?

A 2 year ban, backdated, er, 2 years. He can ride the Vuelta this year but not the Giro or the TdF.
Andy Schleck is now the winner of the 2010 TdF.

You can add the top loop of the black from the top of the blue – at the top of the blue climb turn left on the fireroad instead of right to the blue descent, after about 400 metres the black goes off to the right up into the trees. Follow the signs round and you end up at the top of the blue descent. Adds about 30 minutes.

You can also take the fork off the blue descent onto the black. Then at the bottom of the big jump section on the black turn right onto the disused fire road and this will bring out near the bottom of the blue where you can join the green again. Adds about 10 – 15 minutes.

I work with some guys in Edmonton, Alberta. They’re currently experiencing a freak heat wave, with temparatures expected to soar to above freezing. I was there last February and it dropped to -32, but no-one raised an eyebrow (possibly because their eyebrows were all frozen solid).

-11 in the Surrey Hills

Quite possible in a local frost pocket. Widespread low temperatures last night reported by the Met Office[/url] :
Sennybridge, Powys -11.3°C
Braemar, Aberdeenshire -10.9°C
Benson, Oxfordshire -10.8°C
Altnaharra, Highlands -10.4°C
Woburn, Bedfordshire -9.9°C
Okehampton, Devon -9.7°C
Redesdale Camp, Northumberland -9.6°C
Shap, Cumbria -9.2°C
Pershore, Worcestershire -8.9°C
Coningsby, Lincolnshire -8.6°C
Katesbridge, County Down -8.1°C

Did Brechfa last night – green/blue/bits of black. Hit the snow half way up the blue; ruts and tyre tracks through the snow frozen solid, which made life interesting. My freewheel then started sticking, alternating between fixed and neutral, which made life even more interesting. Got home and found it was -5. Went down to -8 overnight and it’s still -2.5 now.
On the plus side, it’s the first ride for ages when I haven’t come home plastered in mud, and it’s lovely sunny day outside.

Stylistically a nice clean layout.
Apart from the header in a fancy italic font which is totally at odds with the rest of the style. Change it to match the font used for everything else is my advice.

Is there actually such a thing as horse ‘trials’

If you mean events/races, there’s lots of endurance/enduro type stuff for horses. I’m told the arabs are getting into it in a big way and spending silly money on suitable horses. I’ve a friend who used to do lots of endurance competitions and had a horse that could go up and down anything – required nerves of steel from the rider though !

If you mean ‘trails’, then yes – they’re called bridleways :D

That bit of black has ‘the big dip’ in the middle and two steep berms at the end. OP suggested that that sort of stuff might be off-putting for the lady in question.

You can link red and blue in two ways

Three ways :
3) Carry straight on along fireroad at top of final red descent and after 1.7Km turn up another fireroad to the right which after 1.5Km will bring you out at the top of the blue descent on your left. The blue descent is definitely not to be missed !

They were common on cross bikes until relatively recently, but friction levers were just a lot easier to use when anchored to a solid down tube than on the bar ends. There was also more drag when running the cable through the extra foot or so of outer taped to the bars.

If you want to soak up the atmosphere at a race in Belgium, try the Ghent Six (6 day indoor track race), an amazing experience. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IJ4hLNAeDA

Amazing. Not many other bikes from 1904 (I think) still working today I would have thought.
Ask him if you can try it out at Cannock Chase !