Get yourself over to the Trough of Bowland. Or Gisburn if you want trail centre type riding.
Lee Quarry's not really worth the drive – far better 'natural' stuff round Todmorden/Hebden Bridge if you want to head in that direction…

Compact = Gay. Fact.

I bought a s/h bike that had one on, swapped it for a 39/53 as I didn't have the gears for pedalling down hill, and as someone else said, you spend an awful lot of time flapping around between chain rings to find the right ratios.

There once was a fella called Tony,
Who'd come out with a load of baloney,
He'd throw a diversion,
By attributing this perversion,
To his imaginary friend, the big phoney…

Big foreheads. Eeeeee….

Why do people always sound drunk when they say "Azerbaijan"?

There once was a fella from Reims,
Who liked his missus to shag rugby teams,
And when she came back from tour,
She was usually quite sore
But brought him a box of assorted creams.

I once met a couple from Tebay,
who like the occasional three-way.
But they struggled to find,
The suitable kind,
Until they posted an advert on ebay.

There's a lot of it goes on… There are websites where they advertise for single men to join them.
All sounds like good dirty fun between consenting adults.

What happened to the prawn?

Forum aggro (and road rage) come from people not being able to properly relate to others when they're not physically standing in front of them face to face, I reckon.

I can only speak for myself, obviously, but it's rather good sport throwing a loaded opinion into a roomful of singletrackers, with the safety catch off and watching it go off.

I also rather enjoy winding up road ragers until they're a seething, purple mess spewing bile all over their windscreens whilst hanging out of the window gesticulating. It makes me chuckle as I drive off into the distance. Contrary to what a certain cockernee my think, I don't actually get angry. But I do confess to gaining a perverse pleasure from watching people get really wound up by my admittedly unsubtle opinions.

I wouldn't employ you. Fact.

Thankfully it would be within your trial period, so no redundancy. Kerching! 😉

I'm a lot of things PaddedBrain Elfinsafety, angry certainly isn't one of them.

To me, getting a tattoo is placing yourself in an "out" group. The majority of people don't have them, so you're increasing the chance of being seen as an unknown quanity. Simple as that.

Very succinctly put, Tron.

And Moley, Cardiff is not an accurate cross section of the UK. I'd expect more tattoo wearers in that area due to a higher average incidence of unemployment and lower social standards.

She was no rocket surgeon, buy hey, I wasn't really interested in her brain.
And no, I didn't have to pay her.
😉

Recently met a girl with 2 bars through her tongue and a hoop through her "budgie's tongue".
Covered in tattoos too. I wouldn't give her a job, although she gave me a particularly enjoyable one… 😉

I apologise if you set this definition out in one of your earlier posts.

Apology accepted… I think I re-explained my thoughts on this 1 or 2 pages back to the village idiot. Go and have a look.

So you and molgrips are in agreement then? You're not judging their IQ or their level of stupidity by their appearance, but their likely level of education.

IQ and level of stoopidity aren't the same thing. I know singlespeeders and basejumpers with very high IQs… 😕

TSY has it, once again.

Before you start high-fiving, I would judge a person's socio-economic background and education based on their tattoos. I wouldn't judge their actual IQ based on whether or not they have tattoos.

Kettle on, biscuits open, chair in 'recline' mode…

You're right about one thing, there's certainly a communication issue here. But if you're going to continue using well known and established expressions but atribute a meaning other than their dictionary definition, we're always going to have problems.

lowbrow does not mean unintelligent.

Jeebus Moley…

Adj. 1. nonintellectual – not intellectual

in·tel·lec·tu·al (ntl-kch-l)
adj.
a. Having or showing intellect, especially to a high degree. See Synonyms at intelligent.
b. Given to activities or pursuits that require exercise of the intellect.

I didn't say anything of the sort!

Erm…

I do see a correlation between crap tramp-stamps and other low-brow chavvy style things though.

From the Free Dictionary…

lowbrow [?l???bra?] Disparaging
n
a person who has uncultivated or nonintellectual tastes
adj also lowbrowed
of or characteristic of such a person
lowbrowism n

Does that help, Shib?

It just helps prove that you've been talking out of your arse for the past few days. You're happy to admit that you can judge a person's social status by their clothes and 'type of tattoos', and yet you've spent several pages tying to flame and ridicule me for making the assertion that I am fully aware that people make those judgements and cut my commercial cloth accordingly!

You really are quite the village idiot.

I do see a correlation between crap tramp-stamps and other low-brow chavvy style things though..

Ha! You narrow minded f***er! 🙄

However you seem to strongly believe that ANYONE with a tattoo is stupid, and you also seem to believe you can instantly guess all abotu a person just by looking at them.

There you go again! How on earth do you get through life unscathed? I've clearly stated that appearance would be just one way I'd judge someone (using yourself as an example, remember?), and I clearly stated earlier in the thread that I think people with tats are STOOPID FOR GETTING TATTOOS in the same way that base jumpers are stoopid for jumping off buildings, and I'm stoopid for trying to out-cycle Andy Schleck… Remember?

Ah I see. If there's anyone you don't agree with, you brand them stupid and ignore their arguments. And you say you don't have a closed mind.. right.

We do indeed judge, theEye – but the important thing is whether or not we are prepared to a) be generous in our judgement, b) change that judgement once we get to know the person better and c) whether or not we are prepared to doubt our initial assessment and take the time to find out more about the person not just dismiss them.

Oh dear, your compromised brain has done it again Moley. You're quoting someone else there!!!

As for your little A, B or C exercise (well done on your alphabet lessons, I see you're making sterling progress), we've not discussed any of those points.

You apparently KNOW for a fact that you can tell all about a person just by looking at them, despite being proved wrong when you attempted it above.

Now, this is where your lack of intelligence has got the better of you. The decision of whether or not to employ someone with tattoos is based on the fact that I KNOW a large sector of my potential client base will judge them unfavourably.

You should really get some magnifying glasses if you're going to try and read my posts from on top of your high horse.

What you're doing, Shibboleth, is ASSUMING a personality based on what you THINK you can gather from the picture. You've really got no idea whether or not it's right, have you? How could you?

No Molgrips, what I'm doing is using all the information available to me to form an opinion. If I was considering you for a job, I'd learn that you were argumentative, self-righteous and smug from your forum postings, and from your photograph, I'd take the unswerving opinion that you should be seated as far away from the biscuit draw as possible.

I'm clever enough to judge people using all available information, the way they look being one of them.

I don't apologise Yunki, my opinions are hard fought, and stand me in good stead. There's nothing narrow minded about having formed opinions, I hate to ressurect the analogy, but no matter how many people try to convince you, I'm sure (well I hope) you find child porn abhorrent. Does that make you narrow minded?

Standing one's ground and explaining beliefs and values in the face of opposition should not be confused with narrow mindedness.

Of course having a tattoo done in a non sterile environment by an edgy stoned drug runner has its downsides – not least the explanation required to get a hep and hiv test

Of course, that's not in the slightest bit stoopid. 🙄

What am I really LIKE. Am I stoopid or not? How do I feel on the big issues. What are my politics?

I already know that you're very argumentative, smug, self-righteous, and you pride yourself on a misguided belief that you've somehow elevated yourself to a higher level of tollerance and understanding than anyone else, when really you're no different to the vast majority of other people.

You simply feed your own smugness by building a holier-than-thou 'online persona' which is little more than painting by numbers. Indeed, the picture you've chosen is very interesting, because you want to portray an image of the adventurous, well travelled explorer, as well as caring, UV-conscious family man. It's typical of the sort of picture your sort would use as a facebook profile pic. I suspect it was far more carefully considered than simply a random snap shot that you just happened to have lying about the place, and the fact that you're so proud of it tells me that what I've just outlined is exactly what you 'aspire' to be.

before i leave and never return to this thread, shib.. what job do you do?

I run a graphic design company. See ya x

I'm not trying to impress you Phil, merely proving you wrong. You assume me to be a completely selfish person who never does anything to help his fellow man. I've proved you to be wrong. Fact. 😉

Here's a pic of me – what am I like?

From this picture, I can tell that you have an adequate sperm count; struggle to maintain a healthy weight in spite of moderate exercise; you favour muted earth tones; and prefer to shop at Blacks and Millets rather than Hugo Boss or Emporio Armani. Fact.

Surely spreading yourself out to attract 'The General Public' is exactly what they tell you not to do in marketing class one?!

Jesus, which marketing school did you go to? One for Stoopids?

so what contribution do you make to society Shib? what good deeds do you do for your fellow humans on a regular basis?

On a regular basis? I cycle 150 miles coast to coast each year to raise money for charity. This year we did it in 9.5hrs and raised around £14,000 for Cancer Research. Last time I raised a similar amount for the MND Society. At the moment, my company are working on 2 pro bono projects, one for the Rotary Club of Great Britain and one for a local Nature Reserve. These are annual projects. Are they regular enough?

As for your assertion that most charity collectors are tattood or pierced, that's a particularly stoopid thing to say, but if it's true, it's probably down to the fact that they can't get a proper job so collect money for charity for minimum wage.

I don't have a problem with being judged at all iDave. I relish it and accept it as part of life and part of business.

My policy on appearance is to make it as benign as possible so it appeals to the widest gamut of customers.

I'm more than happy to be judged on appearance and I exploit the fact that myself and my staff are.

In my experience, conventions tend to exist for good reason and it's very immature to think that you can change conventions. Business is a numbers game, and it would be stupid to do anything other than try to stack the odds in your favour.

yes thats what id like to know ! why are people judged constantly on changes they make in their life….its rediculous really… we should all be free spirits and not worry what 'other people' think about us…

Purile, childish codswallop. The fact remains that you can tell an awful lot about people from the way they look, and only an idiot would ignore visual cues when judging people.

And yes, I did actually say 'judging people', because we're all allowed to do it, and we all do it on a daily basis. Whether it's judging whether someone is fit to be left in charge of our children; to fix our cars; or to be our life partner.

This modern aversion to 'being judged' is typical of the current generation of idealistic bedwetters who, armed with their Open University sociology or psychology degrees and Jeremy Kyle on series link descend upon the 'real world' with absolutely nothing worthwhile to offer.

In my experience, those who have a chip on their shoulder about 'being judged' are the ones that come out badly when exposed to close scrutiny. Fact.

Elaine, try not to choose Flash Art Butterflies, get some custom art.

Don't be daft, she wants the ickle flutterby off of page 19 in pink with purple spots… 😉

How about a lily while you're at it… 🙄

Fact remains, you should not consider people stupid just because you don't like something they did.

So you've never considered someone stupid for doing something you consider pointless or damaging?

If I shaved the top of my head and died the rest of my hair ginger, you'd probably think I was pretty stupid. I mean, you think I'm stupid on the basis that I have different values to yourself, so what the hell makes you think you should have a monopoly on thinking people are stupid???