Was the IMBA visit before or after the black run was ‘adjusted’?

Some nice fellow sent me shims for free to complete my build when I was desperate

There has been quite a few bikes built for people on here who’ve had theirs nicked out of the bits in others spares boxes with no cash involved (or personal services even).

I think you need to remember the old advertising adage.

“If one person is unhappy they’ll tell ten people, if one person is happy they might tell one other”.

Or words to that effect.

Interestingly UK Coal are looking into reopening quite a few mines, especially in the Nottinghamshire area, as the price of coal has risen so much and the coal produced from the Nottinghamshire fields was some of the cleanest burning, a major factor obviously with so much emphasis on green energy.

One of my colleagues is a former pit (face?) foreman, still has his licences up to date and has said that should they reopen he’ll be straight out the door.

What has it claimed to be?

What would ‘black route’ suggest to someone who has ridden and skied black routes?

Not arguing with you, just interested.

Lol, I don’t believe Fruit and I ever saw eye-to-eye.

Just stoking the fire……

RB – Did you know the NHM is open to about 2200 now days on certain days?

Sounds like the Whitworth Click Clack Bobbins to me.

Get your engine conbobulated with a Ferkins Half Wankle Fudgewokka. That’ll redangle those bobbins and should also sort out any potential side shooby.

Tell that to the garage word for word, wink and tell them ‘Big Vern’ sent you. That should garner a favourable response.

I took my daughter to the Natural HIstory Museum the other weekend. Would it be the temple of the Great Satan to a Creationist?

The Darwin exhibition was completely sold out for both days so we went and looked at the dinosaurs (which to be honest is what my daughter wanted to see anyway).

Llandegla. 😥

Although my views have been made in another thread it was still mtbing.

I wasn’t sat indoors doing DIY or at some horrible retail park looking for furniture called Fflorjkddddd so its all good I suppose. 😕

Oxnop – I may have the entire clamp section for one of those Thule downtube carriers available if you’d like it for nowt.

It was the only bit to survive my coming together with a height restriction beam unscathed (the tray bit was totalled).

genesis – Calm down dear, you’ll do yourself a turn.

Can you point out where I asked for 20′ gap jumps? Just a black route that is more difficult than the red route would be nice.

Oh and for people riding the trails with their dogs not to leave them in their dust so the poor confused mutt doesn’t almost run into all the other riders using the trail trying to see if they’re the poor animals owner.

samuri – Really? Spend all your time at warp factor on fireroads do you?

For what its worth, if I was in the area mid-week I’d probably give Llandegla another go. It was f&*%ing rammed today and may as some have alluded to have been part of the reason I didn’t enjoy it so much.

Signed, the owner of the battered blue ’05 Giant Trance who may have looked slightly disappointed at Llandegla today.

I’m slightly puzzled that getting a different means of carrying your bike on your car seriously improved your biking!

Even though I had bad experiences going to/from the places I used my MTB with roof mount racks the riding has always been as good. With the bike rack attached to the car and me being on a bike, in the hills, the actual means of getting said bike to said hills couldn’t really have much effect on the enjoyment of my riding.

Those Superstar Component ones are supposed to be really good.

The only argument against is fuel economy……

Not sure where you usually ride but a hell of a lot of the car parks I park in when I go MTBing have height restriction beams.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who has forgotten the bike is up their as he pulled into a car park equipped as such.

😳

In my ever-so-humble opinion (gained having used the three main options) and in the order that I would recommend.

– If you can put them inside. Buy a cheap bike bag if you are worried about dirt or even cheaper, a couple of black plastic bags.

– Rear tow ball mounted rack. Unless fitted by numpty they are rock solid. My prefered method if I’m carrying all the family bikes.

– Decent rear tailgate mount rack. Before I got a tow bar rack I picked up a Thule tailgate mount rack cheap at a Halfords sale and unlike their own brand rack or others of the ilk they are rock solid. The only problem is that the hooks that attach at the top of the tailgate ca cause paint wear if you don’t pad them out a bit.

– Roof mount. Really the last option. You’ll use more fuel, you may forget they are up there and drive under a heigh restriction beam (doh) and if the better racks aren’t completely rock solid, as an old bike of mine found out as it bounced off the bonnet after the mate who was driving that day’s fairly expensive roof mount rack (Mont Blanc Barracuda) it was well secured to before moving off failed after an emergency stop.

Yes I’ve not had much luck with roof mount racks which may have clouded my judgement slightly but thats my tup’ence worth.

The only rule I ever stick to that RD, it goes without saying.

Hmmm, perhaps thats it. Or perhaps he had had too much cake and didn’t think he had the energy in him to burn it off.

Professor Dog, your theory has legs.

pimpmyride – It may shock you but (are you sitting down for this), people have different opinions about things!

There I’ve said it, are you happy now?

Forum

noun
1. a public meeting or assembly for open discussion
2. a public facility to meet for open discussion

Sometimes people may even discuss things/people in a negative light that you view of in a positive light!

😯

Get over it dear, its only an internet forum.

RD – Yes cake IS a big part of riding bikes, as is beer of course, but if you are like me you earn it through riding in a calories out/calories in weigh off.

Dodgy eyesight, likes to spread muck and could do with some support as the ravages of age take effect.

Aluminium hardtail – Either a Klein or a Cannondale.

Steel hardtail – Early DeKerf’s or my old Dialled Bikes Prince Albert (it looked good to me).

No full suspension frames look good. They are purely practical devices. Thats the rules, I don’t make them. 😉

“Macbook. So shonky even crims don’t want them!”

😉

Sorry to hear you were broken into, its not nice when it happens. As others have said, it sounds as though you or someone else might have disturbed them in the act.

It is quite strange they took a couple of ice axes though. Perhaps its actually someone you know who doesn’t like you, they’ve been watching CSI a bit to much, are going to kill someone with your ice axes and leave them as evidence to frame you. Perhaps the rest was taken as cover.

Perhaps I’ve been watching too much CSI actually with a theory like that.

Hope you get it all squared away soon and the insurance aren’t too much of a pain.

I fly out to Amsterdam a couple of times a year (for an event called Wastelands, not for the doggy drugs and pros, btw) and Berlin every now and then for business and choose BA over ‘cheap’ airlines everytime.

I don’t want to have to rush to the plane to ensure I won’t be sitting in the loo for the whole flight, I like to have a drink without the person giving it to me smacking me over the head then stealing my wallet and I quite like to change clothes at my destination and carry a bag with my work related papers and lap top in. If such things are factored in then Ryan Air/Easyjet aren’t really that much cheaper than flag carrier airlines.

No snobbery at all grumm, I went with a completely open mind and actually looking forward to it as all I’ve heard (especially on here) is positive things about the place (which kind of counters your second sentence as SYW is the epitome of middle-class MTB sites.

rOcKeTdOg – As I said “I’m no riding God by a long shot“, I’m proud of my mediocreness.

As for the bike that the chap who was so short at my genuine question over his well-being was pushing, plenty of people on ‘Halfords special’ bikes were passing him (it was on the red route after all) and the fact he was wearing a pretty battered set of knee/shin pads and SPD shoes marks him out, at least in my humble opinion, as someone who has upgraded rather than someone who has loads of money and decided to buy the most expensive bike that the shop offered him.

Oh and don’t forget, I’ve ridden Leith Hill. I’ve seen the ‘mtbing is the new golf’ crowd with their brand spanking new bikes that they’ve pushed to the tower from the car park and will probably push back after cakes. I recognise the breed. 😉

simondbanes – Too difficult for who?

Its was on the black run wasn’t it? (Thats what the videos on Youtube often had in the descriptions).

If the bits that made it ‘black’ were removed why is it still called ‘the black route’?

Loddrik – I couldn’t really have pushed it much harder. I’m no riding God by a long shot but considering it was my first time around Llandegla and that I didn’t know the route it threw no real surprises up other than how un-black the black route was.

If I lived near by it’d be alright as a place to go for a quick blast but I really don’t think its worth traveling any real distance to see. Perhaps they are riding a little on the coat tails of trail centres that really do offer a technicality in their trails.

Sorry, I can’t leave you with that as the last word. .”Angry and rattled” how exactly?
In the respect that I must be because I don’t share your opinion on something that happened over two decades ago, was not a black and white situation then and on which a lot of ‘facts’ and ‘counter facts’ has been written by both sides of the debate as well as those Nottinghamshire miners in the middle?
I must apologise, I’ll brush up on my newspeak as soon as I can.

Lol at the old fart using a derivative of the “there is no decent music these days, its all noise” arguement. Are you Jeremy Clarkson in disguise?

Gg – If you rather not be drawn into a lenghty debate on the miners illegal withdrawl of labour then we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this. So much has been written on this subject (including a lot of revisionist re-writing by the TUC to show there was solidarity with the NUM) that for every piece of ‘evidence’ you pluck from that indisputable source known as the internet I can no doubt pluck a counter piece which you will no doubt wish to rubbish if it doesn’t suit your view. Of course my views of the events are ultimately concreted by the experiences of someone who actually lived and worked through the harassment rather than those gathered on some South London council estate from the local Socialist Workers seller.
Enjoy the last word.
;o)

Oh and PK, lose some weight and stop trying to claim for something your lardy, Clinique addicted body caused.
;o)

We could always talk about Jade Goody for a bit if ya like? How about credit crunch?

Oh and to directly comment on your poorly chosen quote.
They didn’t refuse to join a union, they formed their own one operated on democratic principles, they crossed no picket line as their union wasn’t on strike (though neither was the NUM officially) and they weren’t hired to replace striking workers as they only worked mines covered by the Union of Democratic Miners (that ‘democratic’ word again).
As for gloating over how many mines were left in Nottinghamshire, is that the common behaviour of the bitter and undemocratic left? How very sad.

Scab may be apt if it were a legal strike, but seeing as trade unions are democratic organisations and no democratic ballot was held before the illegal withdrawl of labour was announced by Scargill they never crossed an official, legal picket line and hence were not scabs.
The ‘strike’ was never legal and hence in the eyes of the law and the TUC at the time the action was an illegal withdrawl of labour accompanied by harassment of people going about their lawful business.
As an aside, seeing as the Notts miners didn’t want to be linked to the actions of an undemocratic organisation it was prudent that they form their own democratic union as a voice against their oppression by a socialist tyrant.

Who is the importer?
Is it the same people who import Yeti?

Had the Notts miners with the support of the government and the right-wing press not scabbed and formed their own scab union, then the strike would almost certainly have been successful.

The Notts miners were not ‘scabs’. The Nottinghamshire branch of the NUM were in fact the only branch in the country to abide by the NUM’s own constitution, whereas other branches that followed Scargill out on his undemocratic strike (failing to hold a ballot before strike action) and later harassment of Notts miners through the use of flying pickets were acting illegally, against their own constitution and without the support of the TUC.

Scargill was only using his position at leader of the NUM to further his personal political aims, strangely a very similar accusation to that often lobbed from the left against Margaret Thatcher for taking on the unions.

Of a personal note my father-in-law was (still is in his heart) a Nottinghamshire miner, as was his brother and I have heard first hand accounts of how Scargill’s bully boys turned up at the pit gates to harass the old fellas who worked the pit head and kids waiting for their dads before scarpering when the shift finished and some proper men turned up. Like all bullies they were a bunch of cowards, but gullible cowards led by a tyrant who is on record as a paid up supporter of Uncle Joe, the chap who killed quite a few more folk than that nasty little Austrian ever did.

Dance on Thatcher’s grave? I’d dance on Scargill now whilst the nasty little twerp is still breathing.

Nope. DU ammunition is still being produced by many countries although only the UK and US have admitted using weapons containing DU. The problem is that DU isn’t covered under any specific treaty.

It is the possible poisonous secondary effects of DU that is the main concern but the acts covering the use of poisons in war specifically exclude ‘nuclear material’ because they are covered under their own treaties. Unfortunately the nuclear treaties aren’t concerned with the poisonous nature of nuclear materials as generally (in the case of Plutonium/Uranium) its the explosive nature and mass-destruction caused that is the primary concern.

BTW, the A10 is only one of the many weapon systems that uses DU ammunition.

Will you be building it up as your steed or your mount?

Another point is that because at the bottom end the margins are tiny; (the list price for a basic Kia Picanto is GBP 5,995 and list price for the more mainstream Ford Ka is GBP 7,945).

You’ve quoted ‘list prices’ which provides little illumination on bottom end margins.

Because the Kia Picanto is priced nearly £2K doesn’t mean that it costs £2K less to produce than the Ford Ka. In fact its possible that the Ford Ka is cheaper to produce because of the huge amount of trickle down technology used in its production from other vehicles in the Ford range, paid for already from sales of those other vehicles. It could be that the reason price the Ka higher than the Picanto is purely down to where Ford believe they should pitch it to protect brand image or just at the price point they believe the market will accept.

I suppose improved medical care could be accused of being ‘non-green’ too then?

… thanks largely to the 80’s policy of privatisation and selling everything off for short term gain!….

Which lets be fair was based on the back of not wanting a return to the policy of the unions in the 70’s to strike over every niff naff and trivia ‘problem’ and thus burden the state with large workforces of ineffective employees in nationlised industries with an equally large amount of real estate and plant to support.

Of course the government is currently supporting the car industry so that hasn’t been entirely successful but at least they’re not all out on strike over the type of biscuits sold in the canteen.

…but do numerous small businesses grouped together not have the same worth as one big one?…..

No, is the simple answer.

Whilst 1000 businesses of similar size to yours may employ 6000 people between them its still small fry compared to the like of the motor industry which has nigh on 500,000 people involved, including in the many small companies of similar size to yours which provides services/support. Plus 1000 small businesses don’t generate anywhere near the amount of tax revenue that is generated by these huge industries that pay the top level of corporation tax, the tax (VAT) that people pay on their products and the tax that people pay on top of the duty and cost of the fuel that they put into these products.

Put it simply, the huge layers of potential taxation generated by the likes of the car industry far out weigh the potential tax revenue lost vs potential burden on the state generated by a large number of small businesses.

Its purely a numbers game.

If your company goes to the wall is there the potential for thousands of people to suddenly be reliant on the welfare state?

I suspect not.

Whilst its easy to see the government bailing out the banks/car companies with £XXmillion its not so easy for the layman to comprehend the alternatives.

On top of job seekers allowance the unemployed are entitled council tax benefit, free prescriptions, free dental treatment (if you can find a dentist of course) and a host of others rebates and benefits. Also those out of work may struggle to make payments on their houses and if they are repossessed then those people then become a further burden of the state through temporary housing costs etc.

Its easy for the likes of the Daily Wail and the chattering classes to denounce the government bail out of the banks and big industry but ultimately if they were to fail the country would be up to its ears in a hell of a lot more debt.

No its not right that private companies should suddenly become a burden for the state but this is where we find ourselves and there is no real sensible alternative, unfortunately.