Another option which she might want to consider is riding a fixed gear bike. I am not suggesting it instead of the solution you are looking for to using gears, but as something she might also like to try as well as part of her general rehabilitation and recovery of fitness and strength.

Obviously fixed eliminates the issue of gear changes, but it can also reduce the criticality of right hand strength for braking, i.e. use the left hand for the front brake and a combination of the weaker right hand and leg braking for the rear brake (and you generally do not descend as fast on a fixed, so there is less need to be able to apply maximum braking pressure).

Other options might be:

– old fashioned down tube levers, which can be operated by just one hand if needed, even to the extent of performing a double shift. Moreover, you can use more of the palm of the hand and wrist to apply
the force to move the levers.

– bar end shifters: either mounted on tri bars or in the end of the drop handlebar (where again the palm and wrist can apply most of the force needed to move the lever).

– Kelly’s Take Off Mounts are a variation on the same theme.

I myself would use an ISO taper BB (which is what Campag are), but Sheldon Brown is less dogmatic.

Which 3 speed do you have?

Nexus.

Brucey is the fount of knowledge on just about all obscure technical matters

Yes, I was amazed at the level of detail and knowledge in some of those hub gear threads.

Given some of the posts on there about Shimano hub seals (or lack of them) and problems with internal corrosion, I would be very tempted to have a go at drilling a lubrication port in any new Alfine 8 hub that had not yet been built up into a wheel. That seems to be the best way to keep the hub in good condition, i.e. regularly lubricate to flush out water and any small metal particles with the excess lubricant via the (poor/missing) seals, rather than the annual dipping of the innards in an oil bath as recommended by Shimano. One of the reasons why I choose 3 speed instead of 7, was that according to one of Brucey’s posts it should be possible to lubricate it in situ via the hollow axle (in the absence of such a lubrication port in the hub shell), and I need to buy some semi-fluid grease and a syringe at some point to try it.

It might be worth looking at some of the hub gear/Alfine 8 threads on the Cycling UK forum. One poster on there in particular, Brucey, appears to be the fount of all knowledge concerning hub gears. See for example this thread on internal corrosion in an Alfine and the question of hub seals and lubrication.

we’re now half a decade or more into proving that the Shimano torque recommendations are basically bobbins, numerous people have exceeded them massively with basically no warranty issues either.

That’s useful to know. I was aware that Rohloff has reduced its minimum ratio to 1.9 based on its experience of its hubs in use over the last 20 years, but Shimano don’t actively publicise the minimum ratios for their hubs in the way that Rohloff does.

I’m not too fussy about gear configuration; I’d like it to cover roughly 24-70″ so a 300% range or thereabouts, but I don’t care about how big the jumps are: even a 3-speed covering that sort of range would be viable.

Something to be aware of is that – with the probable sole exception of Rohloff – your 24″ low gear will require a chainring and sprocket combination which exceeds the manufacturer’s torque limits on the hub. Typically the minimum ratio is something like 2.1:1, e.g. 42/20. The loss of the warranty on the hub might not be a concern to you (especially if it’s second hand), but the limit on the ratios presumably exists for good engineering reasons and implies that ignoring it might shorten the hub lifespan or result in sudden catastrophic failure. I guess the usage and rider might have some impact on that, e.g. a spinner vs a masher and also the total weight of rider, bike and luggage.

That said, I myself am planning on fitting a chainring to a three speed which is below the manufacturer’s limit, and I think that is not too unusual: Dutch Bike Bits sell 33 tooth chainsets here specifically for people who want or need to do it, and I am hoping that the simpler 3 speed hub is better able to tolerate it than a 7 or 8 speed. I believe Malvern Rider has already done this to his Batavus and he has not mentioned any problems when he posted about his bike.

The gear calculator website shows a warning of high torque in red text when you choose unsuitable ratios, for example here with an Alfine 8, so you could have a play with it to see what gear options are available. Obviously choosing a smaller wheel size, e.g. 26″ instead of 29″, will give (slightly) smaller gears.

Try a Billy Wilder comedy. I’ve always liked ‘Avanti’, even though it was not reckoned to be amongst his best films by the critics, but there are plenty of others to choose from, like ‘Some Like it Hot’ and ‘The Fortune Cookie’.

Of course you will no doubt be able to find links to the contrary, but this is the first link Google found…

The website is a US site in English. Think about that. Incidentally, it also uses the wrong spelling (it’s caffè, not “café” – maybe your search which gave that site as the first one also used that misspelling?).

I would not agree with all its definitions either. Flat whites originated in Australia/New Zealand, and the defining features are generally considered to be the relatively small amount of milk (so it’s typically a strong coffee/milk drink in a small cup) and the nature of the milk foam, which is sometimes described as ‘microfoam’ because it has very small bubbles. The microfoam does have an impact on the taste of the drink, and it is also what allows the milk to be poured in fancy patterns. Traditional cappucino drinks have tended to use milk/foam which has been steamed into much larger bubbles, and it’s not unusual to see ‘baristas’ using a spoon or spatula to drag that foam out of the steaming jug into the cup.

Making microfoam is a bit of an acquired skill compared with frothing milk for a cappucino, and it may not even be possible with the steam wand on a domestic espresso machine.

These distinctions have blurred somewhat, and some of the high quality coffee shops will offer flat whites where you can choose the amount of milk, e.g. 4oz, 6oz or 8 oz.

Funnily enough, one of the New Zealand baristas in ‘Milk Bar’, which with its sister shop, ‘Flat White’, in Soho were amongst the first shops offering flat whites in the UK, told me she preferred cappucino to flat white, pouring the frothed milk so that it sat on top of the espresso, and allowed you to drink the espresso through the frothed milk (like an irish coffee), and I keep meaning to give that a try myself.

I’m surprised it’s taken 43 posts for someone to mention “the Italians” They use it to make something that’s a bit like a caffè latte.

Erm, we were discussing “lattes” – an italian word (meaning milk) but one which used on its own in the English speaking world has a recognised different meaning, and it was you who introduced the term caffè latte. I think it’s taking the cultural appropriation a bit too far to tell the italians that what they call a caffè latte isn’t an authentic caffè latte.

If they went to a coffee shop and their caffè latte wasn’t made with a proper espresso they’d burn it down.

It’s not got anything to do with ‘proper espresso’: the shop has an espresso machine which can produce a shot very quickly. They wouldn’t burn the shop down; they would call for the men in white coats because it would be barking mad to use a mokka pot instead of the machine.

Somehow, I can’t see some italians arguing on tracciasingolamondo.com that the milky coffee they drink at home is not caffè latte because it was not made with an espresso machine.

but then it wouldn’t be a caffè latte. Which may be fine for you but not for others.

Most italians probably use a mokka pot to make caffè latte, so it’s rather absurd for English speakers to insist that this cannot be a “caffè latte”.

My point remains that when you add a large quantity of milk to coffee, the method used to make the coffee will have much less impact on the taste of the drink. Variation in the skill/technique of the user and in the coffee beans will probably have more impact on the taste of the drink than whether it came from an espresso machine or a mokka pot.

I sometimes like a sickly sweet espresso shot first thing in a morning over any other alternatives.

Good for you. We’re all different, and the world would be a boring place if all our tastes and preferences were identical.

But you need an espresso to make a latte. It isn’t about foam, it’s about having the correct coffee to which you can add heated milk.

The more milk added to the coffee, the less important the type of coffee. So you do need espresso to make a macchiato (espresso with a very small amount of foamed milk), but for a latte made with a significant amount of milk then you could probably get just as good results with a mokka pot or even a short strong Aeropress extraction.

Unless it’s espresso that you actually want, I think most people would be better off buying a grinder and getting fresh beans to make long black coffee using whatever filter system they prefer. Leisurely drinking a good long black coffee with your breakfast or elevenses is far more pleasurable than an espresso.

why is the coffee like sludge in the portafilter?

If you mean that it’s not a solid puck that you can knock out whole into the bin, that may not be just down to the machine. You might find that increasing the dose/amount of coffee results in a more solid puck, but this might choke the machine (equally you might like the results of increasing the dose). What you won’t be able to do is increase the dose and at the same time coarsen the grind to compensate and thus prevent choking, because you are using pre-ground.

I’ve seen some people working in ‘coffee shops’ using decent commercial equipment (e.g. in Marks and Spencer) use a brush to wipe out the sludge betwen shots, which I would take as a good indicator that they have not been properly trained to use the equipment and the coffee is probably awful.

In your case providing the taste of your coffee is good, it doesn’t matter.

Even the 20-25 second criteria is just an indicator of whether the shot is likely to be a bad one. It doesn’t guarantee that a shot within that time is definitely a good one, but if you get a 5-10 second gusher and taste it, you can be pretty confident it will be bad (but I suggest you taste it to find that out for yourself as part of your learning curve). Shots over 25s can be OK, even very good, so again taste it to see what they are like with your machine and coffee.

This is quite long but IMO just about worth the read (in particular as it highlights one of my long standing concerns – that the EU would find a way to legally ensnare the UK in any future euro bailout no matter what various agreements said – was shared by Cameron)

https://www.politico.eu/article/ivan-rogers-david-cameron-speech-transcript-brexit-referendum/

That’s a very interesting read, from the man who was the nexus of UK/EU relations and negotiations and who is probably as impartial as you could hope for in someone who provides a great deal of insight into the UK/EU relationship and what motivated Cameron and the other EU leaders. It’s especially interesting reading the context of recent history leading to the referendum, e.g. Mervyn King pushing for the UK not to take up its option of restricting immigration from the new EU member countries because it would boost the UK economy (which it did pre-financial crisis, only for it to become a major issue in the eyes of many voters when things got worse post-crash).

The way he sets out the historical chain of events, it reads like a Greek tragedy: Cameron’s negotiations were arguably a success, but were not really recognised as such in the UK, and the Brexit vote was in key respects a consequence of the very policy which the UK championed of enlargement to include the eastern European countries, in order to dilute the power of Germany and France and put a brake on the movement towards a more federalist EU, but which resulted directly in both the high levels of immigration and also tripled UK contributions to the EU. Absolutely fascinating insight.

I think everyone who has criticised Jambalaya heavily previously for failing to provide evidence for his assertions, owes it to him to read the article (it’s well worth it IMO).

this will be my first audax

From the website:

Think again about entering this event if this is your first ever 600km ride, if you normally take the full 42 hours to ride a 600km, if you are uncomfortable with having no AUK staffed controls or bag drops on route or if you are unhappy about riding gravel.

We have some training overnight rides in the spring which I hope will give me bit of guidance.

If you haven’t done so already, I would suggest entering some 300km and 400km audaxes, e.g. Chepstow 400 on 5/5 or the Poole 400 on 6/5

In your shoes I would prefer to attempt the Bryan Chapman 600km, but it looks like that event is already full (unless the Auk website is mistaken, since I am surprised that it would be full already, and I note the link on the Auk calendar is for the 2017 event website). The Bryan Chapman 600km is on 19/5, so would also be good preparation for your event and a good indicator of whether you would be likely to be able to complete it in the time limit.

google “nespresso machine issues” and see how many results you get

Meaningless in isolation given the obviously huge population size. In contrast Aldi are probably able to get away with high failure rates of many of its electrical goods in particular, because people know that the machines must be made to a very low price point, and failure after a short period is probably even expected. Short production runs for very limited short duration sales of particular product lines will limit bad publicity for poor products and prevent the sort of investment and refining of designs that deliver better and more reliable products. In some respects Aldi epitomises the throwaway society.

Furthermore, how long will those Aldi nespresso machines last…

FIFY [/quote]

I suspect that many – possibly most – Nespresso machines may be better designed/engineered and longer lasting than the Aldi machine, because of the success of the format and the investment by Nestle and the machine manufacturers (which are typically household names like Magimix), If the machines were prone to failure and/or had short lifespans, it would not go unnoticed and the bad publicity would damage Nespresso sales and the brand reputation of those companies.

Moreover, the way Nespresso makes coffee probably makes it easier and cheaper to make the machine compared with a proper espresso machine. It also delivers consistant reliable results: not great espresso, but acceptable in the absence of alternatives. In contrast espresso machines can be much more dfficult to get good or even decent results from: there are so many variables, including not only the performance of the machine, but also the quality of the beans, the grind, and the skill of the user.

I would be willing to bet that lot of people who think they are producing good espresso using their machines at home, are actually producing mediocre coffee at best, and often very bad coffee. They either don’t know what good espresso tastes like, or are drinking cappuccini where the milk covers up the taste of a bad espresso.

If you know anything about how waste should be reduced you’d know the first rule is not to make it in the first place.

But it is not so simple as ‘Nespresso is bad’, because there are environmental downsides to other choices, and it does not automatically follow that because Nespresso uses an aluminium pod for every drink that it is the worst from an environmental perspective.

For infrequent consumption, I suspect Nespresso might have less environmental cost than some other options (especially if a bag of coffee is only partly consumed and then thrown away when/before it gets stale).

Do those posters who condemn Nespresso ever get drinks in takeaway cups? My understanding is that only a tiny percentage are recycled, because only one recycling facility in the UK can recycle the plastic coated paper from which the cups are made, and it is clearly wasteful of resources to make a single use throwaway cup.

Furthermore, how long will those Aldi machines last, given their environmental footprint? I suspect that something made to such a low price point will have a poor environmental performance if it proves to have a lifespan of just the 3 year warranty (or less). Moreover, how many people will decide that they don’t like the coffee it makes or struggle to get it to deliver satisfactory results, and throw it away or stick it in a cupboard. Even the bags which coffee beans are sold in are an environmental cost compared with the large buckets which I have seen used to supply beans to some coffee shops.

I guess in an ideal world we would all have local coffee shops nearby serving good coffee at a reasonable price in good old fashioned ceramic cups.

I think for those saying “gravel” bikes don’t need discs, and that gravel rides tend to be fairly flat fire-roads

Which is not what I said.

When I commented on the advantages or otherwise of discs over rim brakes I was very specific in what I said, i.e. that it was ironic that on “actual gravel tracks” the disc brakes which would typically be considered essential for a ‘gravel bike’ do not offer much if any advantage (for similar reasons that kerley can ride a brakeless fixed gear reasonably safely on such tracks).

Gravel tracks are by their very nature flat/not steep. If they were steep, the gravel/stones would quickly be washed away or fall to the bottom of the slope.

To state the bleeding obvious, the extent of actual gravel tracks in England is limited, and an off road ride of any significant distance using gravel tracks would almost inevitably include other terrain where disc brakes would be an advantage.

As for the question of rim wear, I said “in my experience” and the limited wear on my V braked bike (which is now used almost solely on gravel tracks) over the last few years has surprised me, because I was expecting the smaller gritty particles in the gravel to wear through the rims quite quickly, and I could only assume that the reason for this was the lack of mud on the tracks to bind with the grit and turn it into an abrasive paste which the wheels and rims and pads would pick up.

That all said, it’s interesting that the gravel bikes built for the likes of Jan Heine in the USA use centre pull rim brakes, which are just one of the retro features like 650B wheels which they share with the French randonneur style bike upon which they are based.

Here is Diana Henry’s recipe for a Mumbai Toastie.

I make it in a frying pan, and I suspect that it might not be as good made in a toastie maker (better with unsealed edges?). If anyone with a toastie maker cares to try it, please provide feedback.

I use this recipe[/url], which does not use yeast (unlike the Guardian recipe). The measurements are in US cups, but they are easy to convert to metric.

although ironically discs don’t offer much advantage over cantilevers or mini-V brakes for riding on actual gravel tracks

lack of rim wear.[/quote]

Not in my experience, because the nature of the gravel tracks means you don’t need to brake much (there is no need to brake for traffic and the tracks are fairly flat, since gravel would be washed away on a steeper slope), and the smaller gritty particles don’t tend to get get picked up and embedded in the brake blocks in the way that does happen if the tracks are muddy dirt tracks rather than gravel tracks.

A gravel bike is just a subset of touring bikes…what probably defines it most is the clearance to take 32mm tyres at minimum and disc brakes

Id argue this really isn’t true at all.

Tourers are (until you start merging into the audax end of the touring spectrum) designed to take tyres at least that large, often plenty larger, plus mudguards.[/quote]

I would stand by my fundamental point, which is that gravel bikes are a subset of touring bikes. As you yourself say, it’s a spectrum, and touring bikes cover a very wide range, each of which is optimised for it’s particular variation or niche. Basically, unless a bike is an MTB or a race bike (road, TT or CX) or falls into some special niche like folders, then it’s probably a tourer. For some reason people don’t seem to like to think of themselves as riding touring bikes or touring, despite that being what they are doing.

Gravel bikes often don’t allow for mudguards.

I suspect gravel bikes which don’t accept mudguards will be a fairly short lived/limited genre, especially in the UK. Many people who are esentially using these bikes for touring (as opposed to CX racing), soon get fed up with the lack of guards in winter, and we end up seeing the same threads on here with people asking how to fit them to their On One Pickenflick or similar frame without mudguard fittings. It makes sense for manufacturers to include mudguard fittings since the bikes should/will have the necessary clearance anway, and not including them will reduce their appeal to many potential customers.

A gravel bike is just a subset of touring bikes…what probably defines it most is the clearance to take 32mm tyres at minimum and disc brakes

Id argue this really isn’t true at all.

Tourers are (until you start merging into the audax end of the touring spectrum) designed to take tyres at least that large, often plenty larger, plus mudguards.[/quote]

Gravel bikes often don’t allow for mudguards.

No, touring bikes are more heavily built than gravel bikes.

Some touring bikes are more heavily built than gravel bikes, but they do not define or limit what is a touring bike. Some touring bikes are less heavily built than gravel bikes.

In any case, “a relaxed geometry all day comfortable bike with wide tyres strong wheels rack and guard mounts” is pretty much the very definition of a touring bike.

A gravel bike is just a subset of touring bikes, and what probably defines it most is the clearance to take 32mm tyres at minimum (but probably much more than that, i.e. 40mm or even more) and disc brakes (although ironically discs don’t offer much advantage over cantilevers or mini-V brakes for riding on actual gravel tracks).

The bike trade and it’s marketing people won’t admit that gravel bikes are simply a type of touring bike, because they think it will lose them potential customers, e.g. sportive riders and the like who ride race bikes and don’t want to think of themselves as ‘tourists’, even though ‘touring’ is often what they are doing. So instead they refer to Gravel and Adventure bikes. In reality the likes of Josie Dew have adventures on touring bikes, and the rest of us just do a bit of touring on our ‘adventure’ or ‘gravel’ bikes.

It is a lot easier to walk into a shop and say I want a gravel bike than I want a relaxed geometry all day comfortable bike with wide tyres strong wheels rack and guard mounts etc

That’s a touring bike.

One of the charges against Rolf Harris. (I’m going from memory so detail might be wrong) A woman claimed he assaulted her at an end of show party in late summer and the trauma gave her some kind of eating disorder or some such. The defence pointed out that her disorder had shown itself at the beginning of summer. So she changed the story and claimed the assault was weeks earlier.

Fair enough. On that point it sounds like the Police investigation was not sufficiently rigorous, and even if they failed to challenge the inconsistency when interviewing the witness during the investigation, ideally the CPS would have spotted it when reviewing the file and deciding whether to prosecute. However, I presume that there was a great deal of evidence to investigate and review for the multiple charges, so I think it’s less significant than if that particular witness/charge had been the only evidence/case for which Rolf Harris was tried.

The “room service girl” charge against Stuart Hall. (Yes, I know what you’re going to say, and it’s irrelevant to the point.) The “Fareham” charge against Rolf Harris. At least one of the charges against Dave Lee Travis (mind you I only remember two of the charges).

I think you are probably better informed of the specific details of those cases than I am, but again I note that for each of these individuals these were one charge out of many, so I find it less surprising that the charge was added to the others only for the unreliability of that particular evidence/witness to be exposed in court.

Maybe or maybe CR and PG were both totally innocent.

When I said it seemed the Police made a mess of the investigations, I didn’t mean that they were probably guilty and the Police were at fault for failing to investigate properly and gather the necessary evidence for the CPS to charge, but rather that the Police conduct of the investigations was improper (tipping off the BBC to the raid on Cliff Richard’s home, and seemingly dragging out Gambaccini’s investigation in the hope that the publicity might encourage other accusers to come forward, rather than actually undertaking the investigation of the allegation that had been made against him in a proper and reasonably timely manner).

I’ve yet to discard my theory that the A List celebs with big money were left alone because they could afford a good defence. You say there’s no evidence. There’s *some* circumstantial evidence, isn’t there, like the fact no A List rock stars were put on trial even though they were active at a time when you left school at 15. As John Peel said, I doubt they were checking ID.

I think that the prosecutions of D List presenters and DJs etc. that have happened have mostly involved sexual advances and assaults that were neither expected nor welcomed, whereas possibly it was less straightforward in the past with the groupies and fans who possibly welcomed the advances from A List rock stars. I suspect that such cases did present dilemmas for the Police – not in terms of fear of the legal defence team that immense wealth could buy, but rather in terms of getting evidence if the young person did not want to cooperate and in terms of the Police force itself probably reflecting the general societal attitudes of the day, which were evolving (i.e. until we get to the point where it is widely accepted that even if an underage person ‘welcomes’ and even sets out to attract such sexual advances from an A List rock star, they are underage and cannot consent). I think Bill Wyman and Mandy Smith was a case in point, which probably would be treated differently today by the Police (and be regarded today by many more members of public as criminal behaviour).

By rubbish evidence I mean, for instance, “outofbreath claims slowster touched my ball sack when I was 15”, then you prove you were in orbit around the moon for the whole year when I was 15 and I change my story and claim it was when I was 14. That evidence should not be enough to see you in court, even if a jury might buy it if it’s presented with several other accusations.

Thank you for clarifying. Please provide some examples of actual cases where rubbish evidence of the kind you describe has resulted in the CPS deciding to prosecute.

Agree, I think policy has changed in recent years – I suspect they realized it was blatantly unjust.

You’ve changed your position from one of saying that “there’s something about the media pressure when accusations are made against celebs that mean trials are held where the evidence wouldn’t normally support a trial” to now saying that that is what used to happen. Again, would you please give some examples of cases where this did use to happen.

you’ve picked two odd cases to cite as examples

They came to mind as the two most obvious recent high profile cases where the CPS came under a great deal of media attention and even outright pressure and criticism, despite which they took decisions that appeared to be based on their standard criteria (better than 50% probability of conviction, in the the public interest etc.).

There have been other high profile celeb type cases, e.g. Dave Lee Travis, but I cannot think of any that support your argument. I don’t think there is any evidence whatsoever that the CPS was influenced by Cliff Richard’s ability to pay for the best legal defence team possible: if anything, it looked like the Police made a mess of the investigation, as they also seemingly did with Paul Gambaccini.

Will we still be allowed to use “schadenfreude” after Brexit?

Yes, but it will probably be under WTO terms and you will have to pay a 20% tariff and import duty to use the word. This will discourage the use of such foreign words, providing a major boost to the English language and encouraging people to use English words instead of such foreign interlopers.

However there’s something about the media pressure when accusations are made against celebs that mean trials are held where the evidence wouldn’t normally support a trial.

Please give us some examples of cases where this has happened and it was generally accepted after a not guilty verdict that the evidence was never strong enough in the first place to justify going to trial. If anything, recent cases involving the likes of Cliff Richard and Greville Janner suggest that the CPS do not act as you say (whereas the Police investigation of Cliff Richard and some others has appeared to be influenced by the media or consideration of the media response).

If you put people on trial with rubbish evidence, sometimes juries get it wrong and mistaken guilty verdicts occur.

If by ‘rubbish evidence’ you mean evidence that is patently false/unreliable and cannot stand up under scrutinity, then I would be confident that it would be exposed as such in court during the examination and cross-examination of the witnesses. If you have examples of cases where the jury accepted clearly false/unreliable evidence and convicted someone as a result, please let us have them.

However, if by ‘rubbish evidence’ you mean evidence that appears in court to be generally reliable, but is subsequently found to be unreliable or false because investigation reveals it to have been perjury or an expert witness giving incorrect statements (as happened with Professor Sir Roy Meadow in Sally Clark’s trial), then I don’t think it’s right to put the blame on the jury and simply say they got it wrong: they tried the case on the evidence that was presented.

I don’t think its correct or compelling enough to prosecute on her testimony alone.
To contextualise that for you, it means I am unhappy with the judicial system.

Thank you for the clarification. Given, as I said, that many (most?) trials involving rape and other sexual crimes, including paedophilia, will rely fundamentally or even wholly on the testimony of the victim, I don’t think many people would agree with you.

You appear to feel that if the judicial system was followed then all is right with the world. In fact in history this has proven to be the route to tyranny. Which happily is why we have parliament and amendment to laws etc.

It’s generally accepted that it is the rule of law, as enforced through a judicial system, that is the main protection against tyranny and of the rights of individual citizens, e.g. Magna Carta, judicial review etc. I am not aware of any tyrannies that have originated in a nation’s judicial system – the typical modus operandi of tyrannies is to neuter, disband or subvert the judicial system once it has gained power, rather than to come to power via the judicial system.

I’m not sure they got it wrong, I am also not sure they got it right.

but you also say

I don’t feel any of it was rigourous enough

and yet

I have not seen the evidence, they [presumably including Rolf Harris] may well be guilty

I don’t really understand the point of your posts. We have a system of trial by jury, where the jury hears the evidence and is instructed only to pass a guilty verdict if it is sure beyond reasonable doubt. Very often in cases involving charges of sexual crimes like rape and indecent assault, the evidence will be one person’s word against another’s (which is presumably the reason for the low conviction rate for rape). In this case, the jury considered that the evidence from the prosecution witnesses was sufficient for a guilty verdict.

My statement was meant to be applied to the jury, not the judges.

The judges had new evidence showing that one of the accusers apparently lied. The jury did not hear that evidence, but I can see no reason to believe that if they had, they would not have found Harris not guilty on that particular charge.

Yet one jury carried out an unsafe conviction as ruled by the appeal court. Not all convictions are watertight.

I don’t see what the problem is. One of the multiple charges of which he was found guilty by the jury has been found to have been based on false (perjured?) evidence. You seem to imply that the jury was at fault for ‘carrying out an unsafe conviction’, but it wasn’t: it simply passed its verdict based on the evidence as presented to it. It has now been proven that the evidence for that particular charge was false, and the appeal court has consequently overturned the verdict. In that respect it seems to me that the legal system has worked.

What makes you so sure?

What makes you so sure that the jury got it wrong on the other charges?

The case was based on her telling the same story over 15 years. I just don’t find that compelling.

However the jury which heard all the evidence found it not only compelling, but also sufficient to consider him guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.

It is well know that the letter referring to 1986 pointedly puts him in the clear of assault as she was over 16 then.

What about the bit immediately preceeding the reference to 1986?

Nothing took place in a physical way until we had moved to Highlands. I think about 1983 or 84 was the first time.

I can pinpoint a date, 1986, because I remember I was in pantomime at Richmond.

I would suggest you consider one of the various prescription lens cycling glasses from the likes of Optilabs[/url]. A prescription insert offers worse vision and is more likely to steam up than well designed prescription lens compatible sunglasses. A photochromic lens should suit pretty much all riding conditions.

Logically, this should result in no significant change for you when riding, because you should be wearing sunglasses or safety glasses anyway for off road mountain biking, given the risk otherwise of stones, dirt etc. being flung up from the front wheel into your eyes.

In rain, I would suggest a hat with a peak under your helmet like the traditional cotton casquette. For winter you can get similar styled hats in synethetic materials.

My understanding is that coffee needs some hardness in the water for taste. One of the barristas in Curators Coffee in London told me that London has awful water for making coffee, and they had to use a high end reverse osmosis system with, I think, a bit of kit after the RO system to add back in the required level of hardness (total dissolved solids?).

For home use, I expect that you would instead be looking at one of the cheaper (non-RO) filter systems which reduces the hardness rather than completely removes it. This should greatly reduce the amount of scaling up in the coffee machine, but I would expect that it might still be necessary after several years to descale the boiler with citric acid or similar.

I use the Everpure Claris filter system. You can buy either a small cartridge and the head, or get a bundle with pipes/connections and a meter if you will connect it to an inline fed espresso machine.

If you just want to use it to filter water into a jug, you’ll need some plastic john guest pipe and connectors (plus a valve to allow you to isolate it if you do not already have one upstream). The head itself has a valve, although I’m not sure about the wisdom of using it frequently as an on/off tap (it’s left permanently open when connected to an espresso machine).

As I said, you want some hardness, so the Everpure Claris system has a dial on the head to control the amount of filtration, and you use a kit like this one to determine how hard your water is and what setting on the dial to use (I’m sure I paid much less for the kit than that though: fish tank equipment suppliers probably sell the same thing for less).

You’ve not said where in the ‘Nordics’, and I suspect that there could be significant differences in the temperature/weather conditions depending upon where you are going, e.g. Artic Circle, Stockholm, Hardangervidda etc. etc.

If you have not already done so, start doing your research into what the likely range of weather/temperature conditions is for the time of year for that location.

If it’s cold and wet then I would have thought that kit suited to Scottish mountain winters would be suitable. However, if it’s cold and dry, i.e. constantly below zero, then I suspect that your waterproof socks would not be a good choice: garments with waterproof membranes are never going to be as breathable as equivalents without membranes, and below zero I suspect waterproof socks would result in constantly damper/more sweat soaked feet than just plain wool socks.

I suspect that the gentle hiking will be the least of your clothing worries: while you are moving even gently you will probably generate enough heat to use the same outdoor clothing you would use for winter walking in the hills in the UK. Instead I suspect your biggest problem may be if you are outside and inactive/standing around for significant periods. If so, as well as very well insulated boots, you are likely to need an insulated coat and trousers rated for low intensity activity in those sorts of conditions, plus similarly insulating hat and mittens.

I would have thought that it would be easier and cheaper to buy suitable kit immediately when you get there, or in whichever major city, e.g. Stockholm, you will go through on the way to your final destination.

Very nice indeed, moorsey. It looks very stylish and tasteful. The colour scheme, silver components and finishing kit all look just perfect together. You clearly had a strong vision of what the bike should look like when you chose the paint scheme and parts, and it looks like you have executed that vision flawlessly.

The only problem I can foresee is that such a bike demands that the rider be equally stylishly and tastefully attired, and it may not be easy to find the sort of kit that would go with such a bike, since ideally it too needs to be classic and understated in appearance (although a plain white jersey, plain black shorts and white socks would be perfect in summer).

As for the comments about spacers, I think you have chosen correctly. The suggestion that there is a definitive correct bar height which will never need to vary is ridiculous: it’s not unknown for pros to ask their mechanics to change the number of spacers during a stage race. Slammed stems neither look good nor are they good practice (manufacturers like Trek insist upon a minimum amount of spacers to reduce the stress on the steerer). As for high rise stems, I fear that there is simply no hope for anyone who could even think of fitting such a thing to a lovely bike like that.

Regarding the 3 feet distance, the OP was riding along a country B road so there was probably no kerb, just a verge. The condition of such roads within a foot or so of the verge is often very variable and even dangerous: that is where the road surface is most likely to break up and potholes develop. Several years ago there was a court case where a cyclist claimed against the local authority for his injuries as a result of the poor surface at the edge of the road causing him to fall – the court held that the authority was not liable and had no duty to ensure that the edge of the road was not in a worse condition than the rest of the road. In other words, it not only put the onus on the cyclist obviously to look carefully where they were going, it also effectively implied that the cyclist should not ride close to the road edge, in order to use the better road surface closer to the middle of the lane. The case was covered by the cycling press at the time, which concluded that it effectively gave the green light to local authorities not to bother fixing potholes etc. at the edge of the road.

Lastly, I doubt most experienced riders would cycle any less than 2 feet from the edge or the kerb, and in practice that probably means that much of the time they will be nearer 3 feet away than 2 feet away.