Ooooh, get you!

Did your mum not teach you proper? Glad I don’t drink in your local.

I apologise from the bottom of my soul for encroaching on your domain and providing a different experience with one of the the lights you had dismissed as crap.

This was as much for the benefit of someone else that may be lurking as anything. IOW I just think you don’t need to spend a big wodge on a rear light.

I’m sure Skodas are very good cars.

Smart and Cateye are not reliable enough in the depths of winter imo… water ingress and sub zero temperatures kill them…. thus pretty useless as a commuter light in proper winter conditions.

After daily use through 4 winters mounted on seat post, including plenty of sub-zero rides, I have found Cateye LD600 perfectly reliable with excellent battery life from 2 AAAs. The SP-6 bracket or equivalent is a much better clamp than the pathetic ‘one size fits all’ thing originally supplied with the light.

Can’t see the point in spending more. The upgraded version TL-610 is supposed to be brighter but I don’t see much difference.

Have to say it is a shame for Wales and the area.

Relax, Wales doesn’t mind in the least.

It’s a lot bigger than Denbighshire and, while the roads they chose are certainly scenic, this is not the only part of Wales where people can enjoy riding a bicycle in beautiful scenery.

No promised gilet, empty feed stops, poor signage, parking and timing issues… You’ll pay a lot less than £65 for an audax and the organisers always choose interesting routes. So why the big lurve for sportives and disdain for audaxes?

Alternatively, why not have a few days there and ride a variety of routes? I promise you there’s no shortage of possibilities.

When I hear “everyone’s doing it” that suggests to me they’ve all swallowed the same hype, not that it works. There are lots of gullible people everywhere.

If you like walking around looking as if you have an invisible TV (old CRT type) under each arm then regular gym strutting and preening workouts and protein shakes etc will surely help achieve that.

IMHO for being fitter and/or stronger it’s probably a waste of money. Most people can get enough protein in a normal diet if they eat real food. It’s not too difficult to eat more protein than you need, and too much is not really good for you. I can understand that some people value the convenience of powder but beyond that I don’t think it’s doing anything you can’t get anyway.

Beyond protein and vitamins I think things are considerably more expensive and one enters a potentially seedy world where anything goes. Best avoid, I’d say (but then I’m a BOF).

Mid-Shropshire Wheelers club runs on Sundays from E side of Shrewsbury. MSW also run floodlit sessions at 1km circuit (tarmac) on Tue and Thu evenings.

Wrekinsport[/url] based a bit nearer you, around Telford.
Newport CC[/url]
Also a new-ish club in Market Drayton[/url].

HTH.

At the recent MTB/CX races we ran at Sundorne in Shrewsbury the riders felt it was 50/50 – CX bikes romped ahead on the tarmac and flat grass sections but once in the woods the MTBs handled and tracked better. It’s a flat course with no dismount necessary and, as it was dry the MTBers felt that virtually slick tyres were the way to go.

All 3 races were won on MTB by Ben Price (Torq sponsored rider):

Recently picked up a Ridgeback MX20 for my lad.

It’s heavy, chunky and not a patch on his Islabike Beinn 20 (poor brake levers and inferior braking, dinner-plate 44T chainring) but otherwise he likes it. I’ll splash out on an Beinn 24 when he’s big enough, it’s worth the money.

there won’t be 3lbs difference in the frame.

300 grammes won’t really make any difference anyway.

oldgit, if you find a frame that you like and it is adequately stiff then go ahead. The differences are small even if they are perceptible and, as others have pointed out, there’s more to be gained performance-wise elsewhere.

More importantly, you would have the joy of appreciating it aesthetically every time you parked it up, washed it, rode it. On that score mrmo’s LeMond hits the spot for me. That’s a nice looking bike, lovely colours, something to be proud of.

Triples are heavier, wider, and harder to setup. But yes, they give you more gears.

Is 200g such a big deal? Then have a poo before you ride your bike. Or better still, go on a diet.

Triples are no harder to set up, and it’s not about having more gears, it’s about having useful gears.

I’d buy a road bike. I’m not sure there is any need to buy a women-specific model, but the only answer is to have a look around, make a few LBS salesmen work for a living. A friend of mine used her Marin hybrid but once she bought a Trek 1.5 she hardly rode the Marin as the Trek was lighter, faster and handled better, even with panniers.

Size and fit is top priority. I’d argue colour and styling is more important than specification. Why? Because you may well change the drivetrain, wheels etc sooner or later, and they all do the same job, but you won’t change the colour or frame shape.

The main brands compete and churn out terrific bikes. Ones I’d look at first include Giant, Specialized, Boardman but there are lots more besides. You may get a deal on a 2011 model as 2012 bikes will be along soon (if not already).

You could keep the Kona as a commuter/winter/hack bike that you’re not worried about leaving locked up in town, it may be worth more to you than you’d get for it.

Don’t discount the triple just because you don’t use every gear. I find the middle ring great for pootling about and switch the big ring for downhills and when I’m cracking on. The granny is there for the really steep hills.

One downside of compacts is the big jump between chainrings, and a mate finds he’s often riding big-big or small-small. Neither is an optimal chainline. As for weight, you’d probably save 200 grammes, which is next to nothing. The money may be better spent on wheels and tyres. New wheels, mmmmmm! 8)

I’m not saying compacts are bad or inferior, but I’d seriously think hard before spending a good chunk of money switching from a triple unless you are adamant it’s best for you. Have you ridden one and found it to be better?

Regarding placebo, one question is – if what might be a termed a placebo reaction occurs is that necessarily a bad thing?

And what about Nocebo?

@crikey, even you have to admit you don’t know it all. The complexity of the human body is not something medical science has yet mastered. We would like science to explain everything but even in this technologically advanced age it can’t. That’s not an excuse to dismiss any claims of quackery and snake oil selling but I’d suggest it is better to approach techniques and methodologies with an open, enquiring mind. Plenty of widely held myths and assumptions and even so-called ‘facts’ have been debunked.

Scepticism is about having an open mind, but not one that’s open to cobblers…

Scepticism isn’t the same as saying something is bollocks while knowing f-all about it. Having an open mind means I don’t need a doctor’s opinion* and isn’t the same as an open wallet.

* who are also fallible and prey for drug companies.

My wife has found Bowen technique beneficial. I’m always sceptical of these things, but it’s certainly not like homeopathy (which might work, I don’t know). It wouldn’t hurt to be open-minded, you might be surprised.

I find Reflexology is really good for me and couldn’t care less if some ****t on a forum is convinced it’s a con (after checking what it is via google).

The most interesting thing about being a veggie is the way it seems to wind up meat eaters, who cares what anyone else eats?
Rampant meat evangelists are as bad, if not worse than fundamentalist veggies.

My wife finds that any mention of being a veggie gets people on the defensive yet she never suggests they shouldn’t eat meat. When she decided, on environmental and animal welfare grounds to give up meat I said I’ll go along with it (she cooks most days). I’m not a veggie, I occasionally eat fish, but after 5 years I don’t miss meat at all.

@McHamish you obviously don’t realise the hectarage devoted to growing crops (grazing, silage, cereals etc) for livestock, how much grain/grass a cow gets through to make 1lb lean meat or a pint of milk, or the energy and water used to make and supply it. By all means eat meat, but don’t defend your decision by talking rubbish.
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/embedded-water/

@seosamh77 you might think everything’s there for us but I think you’ll find there are plenty of berries, flowers, herbs and fungi that will kill you or make you very ill, as will alcohol if you try hard enough.

I don’t think cow’s milk is as good for humans as the MMB/Dairy Council would have you believe (particularly claims about calcium and your bones), but I wouldn’t go as far as saying people shouldn’t drink it. I’m not into dictating, but I do feel the industrialised agriculture and food processing industries today allow people to make ill informed choices based on advertising so they feel it’s fine to eat lots of food with excess sugar, salt, saturated and trans fats and goodness knows what else. I think artificial sweeteners are very bad and would be happier if they were banned.

Last year on a long ride one chap took a slug of his drink and nearly puked. He said it tasted of the tablet/powder and couldn’t drink it. I always wash mine in the sink (with Ecover or other mild w-u liquid) and never have any problems. Takes a minute or so.

If it’s juice, squash, energy drink etc don’t leave it in the bottle overnight if you can help it. A bit of mould won’t kill you or I’d have been dead years ago.

It looks like one of my favourite descents on the A686. But then, I don’t take it at race pace surrounded by a peleton…

But you’re not paid megabucks to do it for a living.

warton has it right:

Its simple, you go down to the best of your abilities. if you’re shit at it then accept that and move on, don’t whine like a little girl

So that’s “true racing”? Bollocks. First class whingeing, that’s what it is. HTFU Andy, or get an office job like us professional desk jockeys.

My legs hurt today. Need to get out and do some short sharp rides I think.

You did it properly then 🙂 Just spin easy today.

Pacing a TT takes time – the first mile or two should feel a bit too easy, then build the effort so the second half is harder and the last mile is the hardest when you’re desperate for the finish line to arrive ASAP.

As well as trickydisco’s 3-line mantra I’d suggest adding “Can I pedal any harder?” “Can I change up yet?”

For training try 2 x 20mins at FTP (the pace you could hold for an hour) with 10 mins easy in between, twice a week. @Ro5ey, if you race hills train on hills, if you ride flat courses then train on the flat.

TT is addictive VERY addictive.

^^ that’s the voice of experience.

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=16565736&highlight=#16565736

Some of the comments here seem pointlessly negative.

Is £60 to enter a race event such a big deal compared to how much you spend on your bikes?

If so then fine, don’t enter. Spend the money on yet another set of tyres, some overpriced sunglasses or extra bling for your bling bike* that’s already blinged up instead.

* not the everyday bike or the hack bike or the CX/road bike.

This is a bit late (to say the least) but if anyone is still wondering about offroad tyres for the Beinn 20 then they might want to look at Schwalbe Mad Mike 20×1.75. My LBS got them in when the ETA for Conti Explorers kept being put back, £11 each.

I had bought Schwalbe SV6 inner tubes (intended for up to 1.5″ as he runs Marathons for the road) although SV7 are the size Schwalbe specify for 20×1.5-2.0″.

SV=presta, I don’t think the schraeder tubes (AV)will fit through the valve hole in the rim.

For the really keen Schwalbe also do a Marathon Winter in 20×1.75″ for £40 each.

BTW the Beinn’s 20″ = ETRTO 406, whereas some 20″ tyres are 451.

as for degreasing…white spirit and a jam jar?

Noooooo!!!

Don’t do it. Quick way to kill a chain – you just strip every last trace of grease from between the plates, which you can’t replace.

We are big fans of Islabikes.

There are two sizes of 20″ flat bar model as well as a 24″. If you ring them with the child’s height and inside leg they’ll be able to give you a pretty accurate suggestion over the phone. But if you can visit the shop near Ludlow it is highly recommended. There’s the Ludlow Food Centre and a nice café next door too 🙂

Take her to see the Flight. If she likes it don’t mess about, just buy it.

Although while you’re in the shop you could always get her to look a more upright road bike before deciding, so you can at least say you explored the options.

Duggan, you can tell stories like that to your grandchildren when you’re old (and with age comes license to exaggerate a little).

Hope you don’t mind me laughing at with you over it, but I’d say that ride was character-building, and anything but boring.

Until recently I used So Internet (http://www.sointernet.com) for hosting. IIRC it’s about £50/year for website, £35/year for email-only account. Uptime was good and I very rarely had anything to grumble about, they seem helpful enough on the rare occasions I had to get in touch.

I only moved away when the IT support team I deal with at work offered me a hosting account for free, so I wasn’t going to pay for it.

It’s just like buying a bike – go to a shop, test them out till you’re sick of it and want to go home, buy the one that ergonomically speaking suits you best.

+1. A colleague of mine went in to Jessops thinking the Panasonic 4/3 was just the ticket but she couldn’t get on with it and bought a Canon.

All the big brands – Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Sony, Pentax/Samsung and Panasonic – seem to be producing consistently top quality equipment, they’re all so good you can’t really say there are any duffers.

the cycling press are pretty harsh on dopers i think

That hasn’t always been the case, and in some quarters of the road scene the omerta is still strong. Just ask Paul Kimmage. However, more are reading the runes and realising the obvious – that high profile drug scandals are damaging the sport by deterring sponsors.

there simply aren’t many truly bad products out there. There are some that are better value, or look better, or are finished better, but very few that are truly awful.

This is a good thing, of course, but doesn’t it make reviewing bikes (or writing one of use to prospective buyers) virtually impossible?

ugly talentless duracell

Never heard that in that context before- PMSL

I did, far too often when I was younger.

At least I’m not bald.

They didn’t have central heating in caves is my opinion.

Opinions based on experience welcome.

So have you lived in a cave or is that opinion NOT based on experience? 😉

19° at night would be stifling! I’d have thought that too hot is worse than too cold. My kids have always slept better when it’s a bit cooler in their rooms, though they slept next to their mum for quite a while.

Such things will become obvious in time. Try to tune into your intuition, it has worked for thousands of years before parenting magazines or the internet were around (though they can be handy).

There is a mini Tesco (Express?) a mile or so towards town, in Ditherington. The new Tesco Extra is on the cattle market, the old Tesco site off Featherbed Lane is now bare concrete and tarmac. There is a crossroads with a set of lights at the entrance to the big Tesco Extra, it can be a long wait to get out while the lights go through their 4-way cycle.

Tesco may have created work (for whom?) but they still flouted the planning laws, as they have done elsewhere. Shropshire Council are puppets (or muppets).

The money people spend at Tesco would have been spent somewhere else, one store doesn’t magically create money in people’s pockets. Is it a coincidence that there are more boarded-up shops in the town centre than I can ever recall. I was working nearby Lancaster Road when the new store opened and Tesco were providing free buses to transport people to the store from other parts of the county. How can anyone compete with that?

Rumour was that the empty pub on the corner was set on fire deliberately, twice IIRC, enabling Lidl to acquire the site earlier than they would otherwise have done.

Tesco built a store in Stockport. It was subsequently found to be alot bigger than they were giving original planning permission for.

Deja vu. They did the same with the massive Tesco Extra in Shrewsbury. Shropshire Council rolled over and said “no problem” to retro planning permission.

http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2010/11/01/letter-shropshire-council-is-without-conviction-over-planning-rules/

Supermarkets are big enough to bully suppliers and force other retailers into closure. If you’re either of those you may have a very different perspective to shoppers or shareholders.

My sister looked at a Raleigh MTB style bike (bright orange paint?) for her son which was about £160 new, but it wasn’t a patch on the Islabikes Beinn 24. If you find a Raleigh secondhand at least it’s likely to be cheap. That might be a good idea if it’s likely to get abused/neglected.

Specs and build quality on Ridgeback MX24 are pretty good, so that might be worth looking at. It seems most 24″ wheel models have bouncy forks and front mech, neither of which is neecessary for a 10 year old.

In 2008 Nick Clegg went on the record to tell us they wanted to scrap tuition fees (official LibDem video):

Now the Tory puppet named Vince Cable says “a promise isn’t really a promise when you’re a politician”. In any normal job they would be disciplined, sacked or even deported.

Two-faced, U-turning, lying scum.

Fundamentally, you still have to put a decent subject in front of the camera to make a good picture.

Yeah, but lots of people don’t – they use the camera’s foibles as the reason for the photo. As I said already further up the page, the people who produce interesting pictures with a Lomo can do good work with any camera.

Digital cameras and mobile phones are suitable for “not taking it seriously” (98% of what’s on Flickr), you don’t need a scans from a poorly made film camera with a duff lens and light leaks to do that. I’m not saying anyone shouldn’t experiment or even do good work with one, but using a Holga does not make someone an artist.

It’s the specs of dust / paint doing 200km/hr which it has to cope with rather than the pressure drop!

And getting the effing thing (and the people) up there in the first place.

A selection of NASA’s earth-from-space imagery from their Flickr stream[/url] showcased here:

http://www.cruzine.com/2010/11/16/earth-space-photography/

I didn’t think the OP’s photo of the woman in the ISS was that special TBH. Quite some view, though. I remember being impressed by James May’s Edge of Space programme where he flew in a U2. Whenever normally laugh-it-off TV presenters are rendered speechless you know it’s something special.

Olympus Trip (or any number of unwanted film cameras lying in attics and cupboards across the land) would do the same thing but are not as ‘cool’. Or try a pinhole for something genuinely different.

DIY black and white could be fun if you have a darkroom setup or scanner but shelling out £££ for colour dev & print when most of the pics are rubbish (and the others are ‘arty’) isn’t my idea of a productive use of my time or money.

I’m not saying the idea is without merit but why the necessity for a toy camera? What’s wrong with using an old SLR with a cheap, scratched 28mm lens? Use the exposure guide off the film box, “f/8 and be there”.

The people who produce interesting pictures with a Lomo can do good work with any camera. I’d suggest digiphotoneil’s two examples work because of the subject and/or composition rather than his choice of hardware.

Film choice is very important and it might not be a bad idea to take advice on this if you are a digital kid.

No, surely that’s part of the experience?

Should I call his HR dept.

Absolutely yes, without doubt.

I’m a serial complainer. My adage is: if you don’t complain nothing ever gets fixed. Whether it’s talking on mobile phones, tailgating or bus/taxi drivers cutting me up then braking if I think it warrants it I’ll email or phone the company. Some responses are more vigilant than others but most companies take it seriously. One local business wrote back to say that they guy had been warned about it before and was sacked on the spot. Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn’t but I did my bit for road safety.

Complained about a police driver once, he was driving a marked car like a stupid young pr*ck along a busy and accident-prone stretch of the A5 in Shropshire. West Mercia took it seriously – an investigation, home visit from the appropriate officer to make a statement, fill in forms etc.

On my old rigid Kona I have some TorTec chromotec mudguards to fit 26×1.0-1.5″, they might be about right.

Old ones were a cut above. Since the MK IV that’s no longer the case.

My dad bought Golfs regularly since the 1970s and I’ve been driving my aged Polos into the ground for 20 years. Until the late 90s Golfs were among the nicest cars in their class. Not the fastest or liveliest handling, but solid and reliable, just like the adverts.

On the MK 4 Golf and the subsequent 52-reg Polo he’s had recurring issues, mainly gizmos rather than mechanical breakdowns. The Polo’s filler cap solenoid failed twice. Heater probs and other niggles (leccy mirrors and/or windows IIRC) too. To date the 57-reg replacement has been fine.

And VW dealers are invariably arrogant tossers.

I sold my MK2 Polo with 190k on the clock, running as sweet as a nut. The current one shows 160k, now doing 5k p.a. as I ride my bike to work. I’ve clocked up 210k between them.