One point about the 4wd for ‘tricky’ moments: because it’s part-time 4wd, when it’s engaged you’ll kill the diff in a few wheel turns if you happen to go round a corner on a firm surface (i.e. tarmac), so it needs to be consistently tricky to make it usable

I drove thousands of miles every winter with my old Hilux in 4H, she loved it.

I’ve had a Hilux and an Amarok. The Hilux was good, I’d have another. The Amarok is definitely a bit more “car-like” but there aren’t that many of them around second hand.

This looks amazing!!!!

You should really get professional HR advice before you take any further action.

Shandy how long have you been doing the 16-8 thing? How have you found it.

About 3 months. I’ve lost about 10lbs, I don’t really want to lose much more. As long as I eat clean, I can pretty much have whatever I fancy in that 8 hour window. The weight seems to stay off well with the odd slip-up or big night out.

Basically it has got rid of a half-stone I have never been able to shift without doing 12-15 hours training a week, and always seemed to ut straight back on. I think half of it is eating very little processed food and the other half is the 8-16 pattern.

I don’t do the extreme days as I haven’t needed to and if I am doing a long ride I just move the window a bit and start eating an hour in. After a big recovery meal I’m never hungry later anyway.

Other studies have shown that missing breakfast, or not having breakfast until you get to work, leads to increased stress levels which, as that article points out, are not good for you.

Yep everyone reacts very differently to their food, one of the keys to that 8-16 pattern is picking the right 8 hour window for you. I find 12-8 about right but I have never been fussed on breakfast or on snacking in the morning.

VW part-build some of the vehicles in one location, then ship them to another to finish them. If there is a parts shortage when they go to finish your vehicle, you will wait longer. It takes them at least a week, if not a fortnight, to move a vehicle between factories or from Germany to UK. If the garage have fronted up and told you they haven’t started building it, you will never see it at the garage before 21st November. If the dealer is part of a big chain they will just string you along and mess you about until they are forced to give you the deposit, because the salesman will want to leave as much money as possible in the deal for him. A smaller dealer might be more prepared to come to an arrangement.

VAG are a right bunch of VAGs about this, our pickup was 4 months late. Not long after it arrived we needed heavy duty springs in 3 Crafters, the Volkswagen garage quoted us twice the price of the standard springs. They are actually the same price from VW. We won’t be back.

I bet if you went through the week and just made sure you front loaded the day and then had very little to eat for your evening meal you would lose a similar amount of weight.

You could, but in my experience it is easier to be disciplined eating later in the day. There is an article here about cortisol levels, insulin and blood sugar, that suggests why it is easier to skip breakfast.

http://www.leangains.com/2012/06/why-does-breakfast-make-me-hungry.html

Overpriced on the MTB side, even the road bikes are only really good value at sale prices.

I have looked at it the last couple of years but have never been able to get a combination of fitness, time and weather.

Most reports mention the hike-a-bike around Col de Forclaz and the extra time it takes. There are plenty of shops convenient to the route to stock up on food. The idea I have got a bit obsessed with is staying in Chamonix, leaving the car in Courmayeur, doing a day back to Chamonix, decent nights kip and resupply and another day back to Courmayeur. Two long days and not as much time to enjoy the scenery but with 2 young kids I don’t have time for that.

I have a few different bits of North Face stuff, its very good. I have had a lot of MTB-specific stuff from the likes of Raceface and Sombrio and the quality of the fabrics and fastenings are rubbish compared with the big outdoors brands.

Smooth talkers have no place in politics then…

Bushings…

I would advise finding a gym that has a better selection of equipment, if possible. Your physio should be able to help with some weights, but if your ankle isn’t up to things like swimming, realistically you need to do specific rehab. I have done a lot of functional movement and mobility work for a knee injury that has made a massive difference.

Diet is the main way to stop yourself adding body fat, if you can sort your diet out and do exercise (that you enjoy) 3 or 4 times a week then you will shape up.

I’ve lost half a stone of bodyfat in a month on a pretty loose version of leangains. Eating from 12-8 or so, black coffee or water the rest of the time, every day. I find it suits me very well, I don’t get hungry in the mornings and I generally have time for a good lunch and dinner. I find the 8-hour window encourages me to “eat clean” and stay away from processed sugar.

There is a lot of interesting stuff on leangains about insulin and cortisol levels. Its popular with people who lift weights but there is plenty of information in there that will benefit anyone.

Bitter that everyone was cheating, how annoying!

Its a bike race. The bike racers were probably concentrating on the bike race.

Try as many as you can, and remember the head tube is as important as the seat tube when it comes to getting a proper fit. I was well within the height range for a 58cm Cayo, I’m now on a 60cm Genesis and a 61cm Scott.

They are making themselves look a bit silly there.

BBC Website streams Ulster games or English commentary is on the red button on s4c

I’ve got the Enter the Kettlebell book, I would use a 12, 16 or 20 depending on the exercise. I’m not very strong. You need to be careful with them because the swinging motion can cause a lot of strain, its easy to get carried away trying to give yourself a workout and strain something. Start out light and focus on technique, not numbers of reps or size of the kettlebell.

You might want to look at http://www.mobilitywod.com/page/86 as well, cycling can give you some mobility issues and imbalances around the hips that aren’t conducive to swinging kettlebells around.

I have normal bindings that take five seconds longer to tighten up than Flows. 😆

I think the easiest way to comfy bindings is matching them to the boots. I’ve always had Burton for both but there are lots of combinations where the shape of the boot and binding helps avoid pressure points.

The AM looks very, very nice. As for value, it depends what you’re after. Its a bit daft taking the launch prices of 2013 products and comparing them with current stock on clearance.

Maps suggest you could get out to Stainburn by BW through Rigton, up to Stainburn moor and cut across the woods the Norwood trails, and then to Stainburn.

You can do that but it’d be a bit of a detour from Harlow Hill and there are a lot of stiles and gates on the BWs round there. I tend to ride straight out to Stainburn from Pannal, and just do more riding out there. The is a farmers lane that takes you off the Otley road into the back of the wood, or you can go round by Norwood Lane.

You are eating hardly any protein and a lot of processed carbohydrate. Both those things are bad for energy levels and recovery in my experience. Since you’re already doing steady state cardio and getting nowhere try throwing in some weights. Take a look at leangains.com, very interesting site.

Rad!

Pity it has a stupid bent seat tube so you’d actually need two seatposts to run one like that. ^^

a rather badly thought out bike easily marketed towards mugs it would seem.

He is obviously working on his core strength.

Thanks folks, going to drop into Maplins for some mini cable-ties so that sounds like a winner!

I went to buy a kids bike today, the one we wanted was fully built up on the shop floor, my daughter was all excited. When we went to pay we were told we couldn’t have it because the workshop wouldn’t have time to PDI it until next week.

Yeah I’m sure its £35 worth of kit. The IT guy told me they’re charged private customers as much as £100.

IT guy has dug them out for me, so thats saved some money and hassle. I asked customer services if this kind of extortion is commonplace in the industry and got back a very polite email that completely ignored the question 😆

I’m off to put the spare BT ones to one side in case they start charging too.

It wasn’t deliberate, you could tell from Hoy’s expression that he knew he was trying to make a joke, but the combination of language difficulties and a poor interviewer was making an issue out of nothing.

Its a bit like gyms in January, hopefully some of them will enjoy it and stick at it.

One slightly awkward interview and the media is all over it, I’m not sure why this is even newsworthy.

I did it two years ago, did a bit of training and got round in just under 11 hours. The midges at the race briefing and in the campsite were unreal, but they weren’t too bad on the trail. Definitely get a good start, I sat back a bit and ended up surrounded by guys on supermarket specials and people who couldn’t handle the red trail. I did it on a full sus but a hardtail would be fine. The bike isn’t the most important thing, pacing yourself, minimising stops and watching your food and fluids will get most people round no problem.

I will have to find them first! If they had told me on cancellation I would have had them put to one side.

I’ve had this with 2 of the 3 Conti tyres I’ve owned, I was going to try the UST versions to see if they were stronger. The casings are pretty weak given the price of the tyres.

We have a cage for ours, it stops them wrecking the house when they’re young and controls the mess overnight. They get used to it very quickly and see it as “their” space.

If you don’t want the dog to beg, don’t let anybody feed it from hand, they are greedy wee things and you will end up being stared at every time you try and eat something!

What are equivalent caravans going for online?

The other thing I just don’t get is why they route the cables down the front of the downtube.