Ernie_lynch ir RudeBoy and I claim my £5.

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Dana Schechter from Bee and Flower[/url]

Video here…

…although Toni from Curve would be close.

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I do update it Mike, just not often :) Why blog when you can be out in the sun?

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Black Flag, Rancid, NoFX/Rancid split EP, Wintersleep (Orca from “Seasons” DVD) and the new Today is the Day album…for some extra rage :)

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I have a Carosel frame bag from Jeff for the Solitude and might get a bar system and seat bag from Eric at Epic.

Pretty good bits of kit for light weight trips and even normal biking as you can take 2 bottles and extra kit with no camelbak :)

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THIS is mine, taking over from the Solitude Cycles one (RIP)

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SSP, neither, i’m just nice to you lot.

Thats good…keep it up :)

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No midge bars on offer :( Might pick up some Oury’s and Mary bars for the Xtracycle :)

Silly prices on lots of stuff at OO / PX…new business direction or overstocked / ordered?

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Anyone read any of the cluture novels of Iain M Banks…there is a man with some mad ideas about how people would modify them selves if the technology is available.

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I might be there with Becca is she feels like riding by then :)

Alex

Mrs SSP did pretty well in her first 24hr race…solo to boot! Only solo female singlespeeder and 13th solo female :) She’s even talking about next year already…

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OK, I’ll bite :)

A tent is great if you have a nice flat place to pitch it, and the time / energy. This limits you a little to where…and most places are pretty public so you need the privacy to get changed, sleep etc…

With a bivvi bag you can stealth-camp pretty much anywhere, you can use natural features for cover, you can cook dinner while in your sleeping bag and when you do drift off its looking at the stars and you wake up naturally to sunrise :) Pitching / breaking camp is done in minutes (11mins last time when some insomniac dog walkers damn near tripped over me!)

Throw in a £15 poncho / tarp and some paracord and pegs and you have some cover for really bad weather (like torrential rain all night!)

Bivvi kit listed here but I have slimmed it down a lot since then…my Welsh Ride Thing kit was sub 14lbs (sub 20lbs with food and water) including tools, spares, bike lights etc…

SSP Bike Packing Kit[/url]

I have the call-in and Spot pages saved in bookmarks ready for the daily check in each morning with breakfast.

Good luck to all involved!

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Pretty boring really.

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Where’ve the little Thatcherites gone?

Down the pub for a drink and you are talking to your self on the internet.

FWIW the pay of a tube driver is crazy when I work with guys doing very difficult jobs and being the best in the world at it for much less than that. Oh and we do have a union but the sort who negotiate and only step in as a last resort and not at the whim of a power crazed nutter.

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so there is potential for a dark psychological sci-fi with ancient alien artifacts, interplanetry spy agencies and corporations, mutant humans and maybe if we are lucky a 3 breasted hooker

Why not just make a film of one of Iain M Banks’s books? Use of Weapons gets my vote :)

Plenty of good stories to bring to the screen, why keep making sequels and re-makes?

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The simple reason being they were never made for it

BS, look at bike the pass stormers rode back in the late 1800’s across america or the early TdF whch was all on rough tracks (and on fixies with big wheels but I digress) Wides flared drop bars were the way to do it.

Off road drop bars, Jones / Mary / Luv Handles all put your arms at a more natural and efficient angle for steering and shock absorbtion. If they are set up right (hooks of the drop bars at the level of “regular” bars) they are just as good if not better.

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I’ll try that one if I see it anywhere here. Round Cheltenham area Thatchers and Stowford Press are the favorites, stowford on a hot day after a ride is lovely!

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Unless you have specified in the description that bidders with less than X feedback will have their bids cancelled unless they contact you first you are stuffed.

Give them a try, they could just be new to it (and not p!ssed off with the high prices / fees / dodgy sellers of fleabay)

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As pit bitch to one of “The Dames of Neich” solo rider I will be taking:

WTB Exiwolf 2.3″ for dry/damp/mixed conditions.
WTB Stout front / Michelin AT rear for wet conditions.
WTB Weirwolf 2.55″ f+r if its really dry and bumpy.

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Try the carbon prep paste first but I would loose the Thomson as they are all at the lower end of the tolerence for their size. I have seen this several years ago (first in a bike shop and then working for the then Thomson importer) and it has not changed.

A Surly constrictor seat clamp (complete with M8 bolt) might do the trick but a slightly fatter post (same marked size, just near the upper end of the tolerence) Cane Creek, WTB and Titec have all been good in the past.

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I did search for “HALFORDS” before I posted, not my fault if people can’t spell! :)

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Trail access would probably be a civil action, laying traps to hurt people is a criminal act. I would take a talking too from the fuzz if that nutter was stopped. Simple as.

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Wife doe not belive that Azerbaijan is a real place :) Nice lass singing though!

German entry has Dita VT in it? Might let the Mrs keep watching it then :)

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If he’s cutting saplings down and laying obsticles that are designed to harm / impeed others I would report him straight away.

Sounds like the sort of NIMBY Gloucestershire seems to attract :(

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Work really well, dead easy to service and endless tuning options.

They take a little fettling to get set up but its pretty easy (lots of info on the Mav website) and worth the time.

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Been with Tiscali since they took over screaming.net years ago. Nevr had an issue and house move went fine.

On TalkTalk for phone and I was signed up to their broadband package but changed my miind after 3 days (reading the reviews on line!) and notified them and asked to cancel the contract with in the 16day cooloing-off period. I then went through the same BS as Ziggy and ended up sending a letter to the MD with “Personal and confidential” on the envelope so only he opened it…two phone calls later it was sorte after 3 weeks of arguing and legal threats on their part!

Bunch of @ss

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Matthewjb, not read Look to windward yet :) So many good books not enough time!

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Culture ships for sure. Not sure orbitals count as they are constructs that are stationary, and I can’t rememeber if they have a Mind in them.

Clear Air Turbulance (CAT) for shear life-likeness and shonky all round charm (ok, I know its fictional!) but Consider Phelbas was pretty life-like and unlike a holywood movie and I hope they never make a film of it!

Have a look here for Culture Ship names

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Bothys don’t bother me, just give me the middle of a pine forest where I can hunker down on the pine needles and snooze!

Not sure how much sleeping I will be doing, as I hope to cover some (easy) ground in the dark. All depends on the GR’s!

Right, off to cook a curry and not think about maps or Wales!

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Solitude 29er (4.52lbs frame only) drop bar singlespeed with On-One carbon forks, Phil Wood / DT TK7.1 rims, WTB tyres, Thudbuster post and other reliable but not really light kit = @27lbs Designed for all day / multi day rides with bivvi kit (another 10-15lbs) and minimal maintenance.

OS Bikes Blackbuck 29er EBB (5.4lbs frame only) with Juicy 7’s, Mav SC32’s, Hope SS hub / DT X470 rims, WTB Exiwolf / Stout tyres with slime tubes, Mary bars, CC Thudbuster post, cheap Race Face cranks @29lbs ish Designed as my hooligan bike for messing about on, ie 3-4hr rides with the club in the Cotswolds / FoD.

I know I could get them lighter but only at a cost (financial, reliability, maintenance) and TBH I would not ride any better :)

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FlatFish,

That is the luxury packing option for lazy tours, this set up will be stripped down…no coffee press for a start! I took the bike I intend to use out today for a quick 35km in the FoD to make sure it all works and the new stem is ok.

Bothy? Well I know one a little way south of the start point but other than that I am in the dark. The 4 maps cover quite a big area so its any ones guess (although I have drawn a 40km radius round the start GR in Memory Map to get an idea)

Can’t wait for the GR’s so I can start pouring over the maps I have sat here next to me!

Alex

Michelin AT’s are pretty good year round and they last quite weel too (just binned the rear off the wife’s bike after 18mths of use commuting and off-road)

WTB Exiwolf for all round (2 new ones on the wifes bike), Weirwolf for the dry but a little lacking in cornering grip so rear only really. I have fitted a Stout on the front of the hooligan bike for a little more front end grip :) Exi rear / Weir front on the other “more sedate” / epic ride rigid bike.

I ran a pair of SB8’s and was bitterly disapointed in slow rolling, low cornering grip and flimsy sidewalls. WTB Vulpine would be a better rear tyre in dry conditions.

Bonty ACX are great and on a par with the Michelins, but they wear faster.

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Well I like it :)

Like this one too

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Sheldona as they have plenty of spare tubes :)

Or me as it would p!ss off JoB

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Sheldon,

RB has plenty to think about with all the conspiracy theories he keeps reading about…I know this because they* are watching his every move :)

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*you know, “them” the ones with the black helicopters employed by the lizard men!

Sorry the title seems to have been cut short:

“something that’s less useful than Sheldona’s extra top-tube and it’s not RudeBoy”

Rudeboy yesterday…

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She saw the satire but the way that you were routing for the main character even when he started doing really nasty stuff was disturbing (but very well written)

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but the book that has most disturbed/intrigued me is The Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks.

Add to that The Player of Games and Consider Phelbas. Very disterbing in their own ways. I am trying to get the wife to read Use of Weapons but she is very anti sci-fi which is a shame.

Sophies World (can’t remember author) and Nightwatch (yes, a Pratchett book) are bothe really good, infact TP is pretty good at getting to the emotional heart of what it is to be human (or troll, or dwarf) and populates his books with people not “characters”

Life of Pi was good but no tears, I will read the Time travelers wife when I get my copy back!

Not read American Psycho as the wife read it and banned me from reading it as it was so unpleasant but readable at the same time. Considering the content she covered in her degree (peadophiles and other unpleasant mental illness) it must be pretty bad.

One that I will have to search out is a real life account of an undercover female soldier in 1970’s northern Ireland…really good insight to what it was like with out all the testostorone sloshing around! Although she did have a big brass pair….

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