I like it,

A normal but slightly obsessed guy that we can all laugh at*, while secretly seeing some of ourselves in him.

Compare to all the car adverts featuring uber-cool young people, empty city streets and trendy out door lifestyles.

At least bicycle man has dreams we might realistically aspire too.

*apart from being able to side hop up steps though.

When I went there a couple of months ago there was tons of winter stuff in large and extra large which was just what I was after. A lot of it was less than half price.

I suppose you just have to take a chance on what they have in.

I wouldn’t make a trip there specially, but if you just happen to be passing its worth a look.

And the shop staff are super friendly.

Froome isn’t in yellow not because of respect, but because until the flag drops today without Martin, TM is still technically the leader.

Not sure that’s right. Don’t you have to sign on before the start of each stage? If you don’t sign on you are deemed to have withdrawn, which is when TM would loose his status as leader?

The last MTB club I was in spent money on:

subsidising club kit
subsidizing race entries
subsidizing trips through the UK and Europe
Buying a club van
buying various bits and pieces of kit eg. bike lights for use by members, club generator etc.
Organising road races, xc races and sportives. (which was the biggest recurring expense)

income came from:

membership fees (£20)
race entries
sponsorship

Although membership fees were very important, the biggest earner was road race entry fees though the club struggled to break even on XC events. Sponsorship was meant to cover the cost of subsidized kit, but rarely did.

The government will have to break its own pay restraint for its lowest pay grades if it wants to comply with its new improved minimum wage.

And that’s ignoring the bill for subcontracted staff who are only just making the current minimum wages.

Can we close hospitals, fire and police stations.

Tescos, the fourth emergency service.

There was I guy I used to see around the local TT circuits a few years back. Dunno how old he was but he looked about 100. He used to hobble about the carpark on a walking stick. Looked like somebody’s granddad come to give some support. Then he got his low-pro off the back of the car and give us young ‘uns a run for our money.

The thing about cycling is that, as long as you don’t fall off, its a very low impact activity.

Makes me wonder about these new rules due to come in next April. The ones where non-EU workers who are earning less than £35,000 after six years in the UK will be deported.

I suppose from the perspective of a Tory MP, anyone earning less than 35k can’t have a “proper” job and won’t be contributing to society.

So as well as nurses, teachers, most civil servants etc. , legal aid lawyers are also seen as only one step up from those nasty benefits claimants.

Americans and long hours.

In my (limited) experience of working with our American cousins, they’ll never get something done in half an hour if they can spend two hours talking about doing it instead.

The vast majority of them, (unless i am missing something?) actually chose to buy a house near one of the busiest airports in the world

Or perhaps they chose to live in their hometowns. The ones they grew up in.

In a fit of boredom I found myself watching the UK parliament channel at 10.30 the other night.

There were five guys in the house discussing the problems of “stone theft” in rural areas and wondering if the government should be introducing stricter laws along the lines of what they did with scrap metal merchants a few years ago. There were no arguments or raised voices, just five guys having a discussion.

All very dull and unexciting, but probably an important thing to look into, especially if you are a farmer who has just had his dry stone wall pinched.

Isn’t the latest thinking that not all dinosaur species became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous?

Some of them survived the mass extinction event and carried on evolving.

I’m looking at one now. Its sitting on a branch and going “coo”

You sure it wasn’t left hand drive?

Well the baby was being held by the “passenger”, and one of them must have been steering the car!

I overtook a car on the M4 last night.

The driver was bottle feeding a baby.

Congratulations,

You have discovered “touring”. On a “touring” bike.

He damaged TEN T-shirts?!

Santa come but once a year . . .

Not sure what model it is.. it’s black though

red ones are faster

It might depend on the type of Moulton. I think they make some cheap* heavier ones branded as APB as well as the beautiful 531 tubed jobbies that set the speed records and cost about the same as a Cornish village.

*cheap being a relativity term, obviously.

Anyone injected Stans Jizz into an inner tube via the valve core ? Just wondering if this would work.

I’ve done it. I couldn’t get tubless to work using 35mm Smart Sams at 75psi, so i poured the latex into the inner tube (it needs a removable core).

Did this last autumn and its worked so far…

Selfish consumerism – Prices everyone else out of the market.

Well the folk selling the houses don’t have to sell to the highest bidder. They could get all altruistic and sell to other locals. So who is pricing who out of the market?

Robust, mechanically simple, built for comfort and rough surfaces.

Could do with mudguards though.

Actually, ignoring all the gimmicks, there is a lot of progress in road bikes. Year on year you tend to get better eg. stronger/lighter kit at any given price point. To me that seems like real progress.

Don’t know how the rim width compares to the Bontranger Race, but my favorite off road wheel is an Aksium which will fit a 35mm knobbly with no problem.

Why is electronic shifting and cramming yet more sprockets in at the back wheel seen as “progress” and not just marketing B/S (like 26/29/650B)?

“How to fail at nearly everything”

It won’t be any good…obviously

The 21/14 unit-per-week guidelines were literally made up.

Yes, and one of the programs conclusions seemed to be that, for the two test subjects concerned, 21 units a week was probably too high.

(It may not be too high for everybody though)

I’ve toured on both.

For 60+ miles a day I’d go for drops but with the tops set at about saddle height.

If you go for flats you’ll also probably want bar ends on them.

Isn’t it spelled “bey”?

Bey (Ottoman Turkish: ???/Bey, Arabic: ??? / Bek, Persian: ??? / Beg or Beyg) is a Turkish and Altaic title for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders (for men) of small tribal groups.

I’m pretty sure most of the voting public have trouble telling the difference between the free movement of EU citizens and “immigration”, (or at least my Daily Mail reading MIL does).

A politician making deliberate vague promises about things he can’t do anything about in a cynical attempt to get more votes. who’da thought it?

So a lot of people have some beef with their employer.

They withdraw their labour for a day and in return lose a days pay.

Whats so wrong with that?

If you were self employed, didn’t like the money someone was offering you for a job and could afford to turn it down, would you? I can’t really see the difference.

When buying an item from a country where duty is due, Ebay now gives you the option to pay the duty in advance.

E-bay don’t make the customs declaration, nor would they pay the duty to the customs authority, nor could they do more than make an estimate of the possible duty and VAT due. So I’m not sure that would work very well.

I did an MA in History/Archaeology just for fun a few years back. I did it part time over three years so i didn’t have to give up any income, and fees weren’t that high. And yes, I really enjoyed it but no, it didn’t help my career in any way whatsoever.

i would quite like to do some sciency type stuff, but I don’t really have the time or money at the moment.

9k a year would buy a lot of coke and hookers though….

Get yourself something nice in Ventile. Hilltrek do a cycling jacket and its made in the UK.

As I posted you can charge for car parks

Don’t most car parks charge anyway?

Thing is, our National parks aren’t really “parks”. They are just parts of the country that have a bit of countryside we think is worth preserving. People live there and there is plenty of business and industry going on in them. You cant just fence them off and restrict access.

And what about AONBs – they’re sort of like national parks. Should we try and charge to enter them as well?

How about:

To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

But to work, that would require a human animal whose sole motivation wasn’t narrow self interest.

It’ll only get worse now Cameron can cut what he likes.

The worst thing about a Tory win is that we won’t see Boris Johnson as leader of the oppostion.

Imagine a Milliband/Johnson confrontation at PM question time!

Ninfan and makecoldplayhistory have got it right.

Surely 29er is the socialist solution. And with proper centralized planning we’ll have 15000 29er wheelsets to go on 4000 26inch bike frames.

26inch has got to be the conservative choice – they don’t frighten the horses dontchaknow?