He was a doorman involved in the underworld, violent and raped his ex-girlfriend.

He was jailed for beating a child.

He had more previous.

He didn't slip and accidently pull the trigger multiple times.

At what stage could it have been anyone 'normal'?

I remember some people posting on here that they'd had a pretty bad upbringing but turned out alright I cant remember what you said hora but to me this proves my point life can go anyway.

I dont know maybe he had a bad child hood and turned to drink, drugs and steroids at an early age maybe this actually affected his brain chemistry. Testosterone can make people both aggressive and paranoid both behaviours set out above.

Maybe he was clever enough (police informer) to get away with these things so nothing went wrong for him till it was too late to change his behaviour.

I dont know I suppose it depends what you description of normal is but I could see for most people a few bad decisions during your teenage years might make life turn out very differently to how it did.

Also are you suggesting he could nt have had a normal life no matter what ?

It really bothers me when you get the usual Daily Mail headline calling a criminal evil, sub-human or degenerate. Trying to distance them from a normal person.

People dont seem to make the connection that it could have been them if their situation had been different. That potential evil is inside all of us.

Or maybe people do and it scares them hence they try and distance the purpitator.

But this is too far the other way with people just concentrating on the fact he had a bad upbringing without concentrating on the fact that he had the chance to change his behaviour, get help etc etc…

It seems some people just cant do anything by halves. Things have to be black and white, either some ones a goodie or badie. Not the truth which is that there is some good and some evil inside us all.

I was thinking about getting an SSD to boot from in the end I just got a new seagate 7200.12 1 TB as my old hard drive started to fail.

Im glad I did the 7200.12 gives a nice speed boost over my old hardrive which was a seagate 7200.10 or something.

And Have to say I've already managed to get my windows 7 boot partition to 60GB.

Ok this is excessive and its my fault, I think I may have installed all the langauge pack I have loads of games on their etc etc.

But for my main desktop I do think the boot drive needs to be a bit bigger than 64GB.

Still think you need to wait with SSDs for the hardware to mature and come down in price.

Saying that I ve been waiting for a couple of years.

(I do know I could have installed software somewhere else but it is nice to have it all together.)

To me it seems obvious the reason there is a conflict is because one group of people tried to impose their will/power over another group of people.

However they did nt manage to impose their will strongly enough to completely destroy the other culture or completely drain it of its political power.

Ie one side cannot beat the other side. Therefore compromise is needed.

If you think religion is not relevant read up on the history

Clearly religion was relevant in defining the conflict to a very large extent, but whose to say if both everyone in NI was the same religion there would not be Unionist and Republicans still.

And why can't they just report it as a religious conflict? It's like an elephant in the room.

I dont really understand what you mean by this ?

Even if suddenly everyone in NI agreed there was no god, there'd still be catholic atheists and protestant atheists.

Seemed to disappearwhen I got older and more confident

Actually scratch that,

Seemed to disappear when I got older and didnt care so much.

It's probably telling that when I'm flowing down the trail, just reacting, and not thinking too much, is when I ride the best. When I stop to think about it is when I get into trouble.

I used to be like this when I was a kid. Especially for games like Cricket/Rounders where you have too much time to think and not much time actually doing anything to get the adrenaline flowing. Never had it with MTBing though.

Seemed to dissapear when I got older and more confident, although I do sometimes get it if I play golf and Im having a bad day.

I've only got an nexus on mine. But totally agree with this statement.

Depends – for ease-of-use and maintenance my Rohloff has been a godsend – don't always feel like cleaning the bike as much as I should and its put up with the crappy winter we've just had without a glitch and no interference or fettling necessary (it gets a bi-annual oil change though)

I know someone will say it will break in a couple of years and you wont be able to fix it. But it looks like shimano are starting to take hub gears more seriously so it a couple of years I'll just buy a whole new rear wheel.

hey woffle you dont get on the paddington train at maidenhead do you ?

If you want to get on the train, get a Brompton. The Dahon owners seem rather reluctant to fold them.

Well I fold my dahon on the train every day and also put it under the table at work. The only thing I have to say is when folded the bike may not be that stable if you put the saddle too low/too high. I cant say I've ever seen any one not fold a dahon to put it on the train ?

Here's mine with a full 30l bag on the front, and a 22l bag on the back. I rode it from Sheffield to Hathersage, and the only iffy handling was downhill on a gravel farm track.

Thats a pretty impressively laden Brompton ! and going down a farm track on that is even more impressive.

Each to their own but I just would nt want to do that. I've tried a brompton serveral times and the steering just feels too quick for me.

Personally I'd rather swap the fact the bike folds slightly larger. (but it does fold just a quickly and easily) so much greater stability.

Actually personally I think dahon are pretty close to everything I want from a folding commuter here.

Dahon XL

Unfortunately its still too heavy and pricy, but its got some really important features.

24" Potholes no longer a problem
Proper Stem so wont feel skitish
Internal Gears no need to swap chain or fettle to keep them work
(will probably be 11 speed from next year and lighter)
Disc Brakes so no longer have to fettle with brakes to keep them working

As you can tell I would like a commuting bike which pretty much takes care of its self so I can spend more time with my MTB's.

Im not too sure about the Dyanmo etc.

Although the total weight might not be so bad. The weight for all the other bikes is without accessories ie lights,rack etc this weight already includes them.

I know some people are very comfortable on bromptons but I've tried both Bromptons and Dahons.

Im pleased I got a Dahon much more like a proper bike especially if your going to be riding 15 miles each day.

If I'd have known about the airminal I'd have looked at them too.

Theres a guy on my train who uses one seems to take considerably longer to fold and more difficult to carry but if your cycling 15 miles the 24" wheels might be useful.

I think a 24" dahon would be really useful too and I think they do a couple but none of them seem to be set up for speed/commuting more poddling to the shops.

Armour ! The post nettle buzz is an integral part of the experience (esp if combined with beer) !

Im in Twyford Berks not sure of where in the chilterns your planning on going.

There was a shower this morning but the ground is drying out very quickly.

Also the rain seemed very light I dont it will have made any difference in forested areas. I doubt its going to be muddy.

Did nt you read the post yesterday its because you have/havent got a imac or possibly linux

85mm

For some reason I dont really like Cwmcarn either. I think it was mainly from doing a BUCs there a few years ago and it rainly solidly for 36hrs

Thoose who do would think there job rewarding even if it was just sticking on a dial on a radio in a massive factory
What a load of p1sh.

Did you read the rest of the post ? to be honest it was meant to be funny rather than factual.

But I think there is a certain amount of truth in it none the less, it was really meant to address the fact that certain people(myself probably included) seem to think the grass is greener on the other side and if they were just doing something slightly different their job would be great. When they could probably enjoy their current job and get alot of satisfaction out of it if they could apply themselves to it as much as they do their hobbies or other areas of their life.

There are also some people who do love working and with in reason will strive to do as well as possible and enjoy work even if the job is actually a bit rubbish. Personally I would wonder whether "some" of these people will put so much effort into other areas of their lives.

My post was full of generalisations and generalisation will always be very inaccurate but maybe there is something behind them.

Obviously in the real world there is a difference between being a sweat shop worker and a CEO the pay for a start !

I think if I were designing furniture and products as opposed to buildings I'd enjoy work, or perhaps if I were designing buildings that looked different

Get real, if you were designing furniture you'd wish you were designing buildings. If you were designing individual buildings you'd be annoyed at all the little details and the amount of time wasted thinking about the design and how nobody ever appreciates your ideas and how it takes so much longer than designing something standard but you never get any more credit for it; oh and wish you were designing standard buildings!

People either enjoy work or they dont. Thoose who do would think there job rewarding even if it was just sticking on a dial on a radio in a massive factory. They'd be able to go on for hours about the different textures of the knob and who if you approached it from +/-0.1 degree you might not put it on so efficiently and that this would change the efficiency of the factory by up to 5% a year. Which also happens to be the profit margin of the product and how if they didnt do their job properly the whole factory would not be profitable and would close destroying the local economy and just plunging the world economy over the edge and how their job is the most important job in the world.

Unfortunately most of these people actually end up with a decent job and your forced to listen to them as if they really are somewhat important.

The rest of us would hate our job even if it was flying round the world partying all night and sleeping with a collection of the world most beautiful women. We'd still find something to complain about, oh no sorry I cant party/sleep with entire team of hot celebrity cheerleaders tonight, this work is really tiring me out, I just fancy a night in with a cup of tea and some hob nobs.

However, a lot of even 2nd cat roadies train and race more than 15hours a week and have 5% body fat. I bet they have a higher V02 max and lower resting heart rates than a lot of premiership strikers.

Yeah but would they be any good at professional football ? Probably not.

Admittedly Rooney has a fair bit of puppy fat but so do some of the best footballers ever ie Maradonna

Its difficult to make out what makes a good football player though. It coyuld be the genetic disposition to put on puppy fat means the player just happens to be more skillful ?

But I have a feeling that the extra weight can actually help at times, I mean your 2nd cat roady may even have no problem out sprinting rooney in running race, but on a football pitch rooney would just lean into him and he'd fall over.

the scrahder valves are in the middle and the old valves of which one leaks are on the outside.

Hi got some pictures of them here

For some reason, I think its possible to upgrade these to schrader valves so you can attach a normal suspension pump to them and that I have the upgrade kit at home sat there for the last 8 years or so.

On the other hand I could be imagining this. I will take pictures tonight and get back to you.

doh !

Why not just a trip round europe ? Try and see as many places as possible for as little money as possible ?

skeggy ? Bognor ?

Its 1 mile short so go the A1

bell own £7 at asda

I'd say check your position first. I have full suss and I imagine if your lazy it might be worse for your back as your more tempted to sit down to ride thing out rather than stand up.

However if have the right position, do ride rough stuff by standing up etc I imagine it would help to a small extent.

Milton Keynes is in the midlands, however Wobourn is south of milton keynes and as Milton Keynes is the border Woborn is in the south.

Im not too sure it would be safer after 18.

If people are learning to drive at 17 chances are there still doing A-levels and at home driving Mum and Dads car, or at least left school but still in contact with parents. Personally I'd think they'd be more likely to drive safe for a small amount of time because of this.

Im not sure 18 which for alot of people co-insides with first year university would be a great idea.

I still think 24" would be a good size wheel for folding bikes.

Dahon have started doing one

http://www.fudgescyclestore.com/index.php?p=96249

but they need to get a fair bit cheaper/lighter yet.

I think you on about a dahon with 20" wheels.

I have managed to ride it 20 miles one day but I'd never want to do this everyday.

or are you on about this

http://www.chamberlainecycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m7b9s19p1011&rs=gb

Which would seem more appropriate for 8 miles each way

On a separate note.

For the same 10 degree stem upside down the position of the bars will be further away if the steering is straight.

As the 10 degree will work against the fork angle not with it.

This would make little difference at 60cm but if you had a 130cm stem the bars may be quite a bit further away.

However… Oli Beckingsale pointed out to me that with an inverted stem your bars get further away from you ie lower as you turn, particularly on sharp corners, which is A) undesirable and B) a fair point. Putting spacers on top of the stem may look a bit lame, but is a better way to achieve the same thing IMO.

I've always felt this to be true, Although I've often been told its not. I ran my stem upside down for a bit and it did nt feel right. It was 100mm *10 degrees.

Somehow I cant visualise it someone needs to do some cad work and create an animation.

Hi Rossi,

Any chance of sending me a fullsize version of these pics ?

http://ledburycc.org/coppermine/displayimage.php?pos=-1417
http://ledburycc.org/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=1&pos=1477
http://ledburycc.org/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=1&pos=650
http://ledburycc.org/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=1&pos=648
http://ledburycc.org/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=1&pos=636
http://ledburycc.org/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=1&pos=634
http://ledburycc.org/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=1&pos=308

scu98rkr@gmail.com

Cheers Roger

I've lived the south for about 10 years now, originally from staffordshire.
The wooded type singletrack is as good as anywhere. And there are lots of places to go for this
guildford/surreyhills/northdowns/chilterns/swinley/tunnel hil etc

There are also some places that are reasonably quiet ie chilterns and areas like the ridgeway/marlboroughdowns/lamborndowns/southdowns can give you that big open space feeling but the descents are nt as good in comparison to the north. Although the ups can be difficult with the chalk reflecting the sun.

The main problem with the south is that turns into a mud bath in the winter. You do get use to riding through it and there are trails that arent muddy but there still is ALOT of mud.

Coming from south staffs the soil is very sandy and drains easily. If does nt really matter what time of year you ride there.

I'd be tempted to say pay up.

If your really bothered just pay like £15-£20 and he'll probably call it quits.

Isnt this also present in Brocton Coppice in the north of Cannock chase ? clicky

Sounds like its spreading so maybe its too late to stop the spread now ?

Also the the title is slightly misleading
'Afan trails under threat'

The trails arent under threat the trees are ! At worst the trails might be closed for sometime but they'd still be there when it reopened.

And if it went national they could nt close every forest. It would mean alot of dead trees presumably though.