Oh but we like to be sneering, nasty and outdated (as well as sexist). 😉

Prejudice rocks! 😆

But seriously, I will take your points on board just incase I decide to be a bit more mature in future.

We simply can’t discuss anything to do with race, so lets have a pop at Essex girls and boys. They’re an easy target and we can’t get acused of racism or being BNP supporters if we make fun of them at their expense 😆

One of mine is exactly the same as yours Snowslave. I have always locked mine which makes it impossible for the bracket to come open.

http://www.bikely.com?

I’ve been using cycle carriers for well over 10 years and I have 3 of them. I have never had a bike come loose. If the bracket is clamped correctly, there is no way the bike will come adrift.

Have you heard about the new “Macbook Airhead”?

…and as long as it’s a decent make like Thule.

I once bought a cheap roofbar and the steel brackets that held the bar failed. I was heading down the M11 after a great weekend and a gale blew up. A gust of wind ripped 2 sailboards, still attached to the bars, clean off the roof. The brackets remained on the car, but the rest landed on the hard shoulder on the opposite carriageway! It was very fortunate that nobody was coming the other way.

Not a new trick, but the subject superbly lends himself to ridicule and the execution of the piece was very slick indeed. Very funny!

munkster – Member

I splashed out and got one of these. Works well. Battery Logic were very good too. That looks awesome!

Tankslapper, are the batteries new? NiMh? If yes, give them a good few charge cycles to allow them to reach their optimum performance.

My experience is that new NiMh batteries are pretty disappointing to start out with.

High gloss screens always need cleaning. Every tiny fleck of dust, finger prints etc show up much more on these.

Doh! How did that happen? 😆

Call Mojo and ask them how to identify it? If you don’t already know, Mojo are the service agent and UK distributors for Fox products.

Call Mojo and ask them how to identify it? If you don’t already know, Mojo are the service agent and UK distributors for Fox products.

Loads do. Ask your LBS if they do (mine does).

Vacuum cleaners, noisy kids and loud tvs that aren’t being watched. 😆

Next week I will mainly be playing my drums after my neighbours go off to their place in the sun again.

Well agents do charge a humungous amount of cash for taking zero risk and merely have to introduce you to a buyer. The marketing details are not beyond anyone moderatey computer literate. They are supposed to handle negotiations and ongoing communications, but would you trust this to a firm that has their own agenda? Sorry, I just cannot see their “value add” and the pricing is way way “out of the zone”.

I’d definitely opt for a private sale, but check any agent’s contract small print to which you might have agreed to.

You could try wireless-N, but i believe there might be some isses with proprietary services/BT Homehub hardware (the second phone line). BT homehubs are known to be average on performance (made by Alcatel-Lucent).

You could try running a 10/100 ethernet extension cable to another strategic point in the house and buy a cheap wifi router and create an extension hotspot. £14.99 wifi router from eBuyer.com

A shameful 23%!

I have a theory that all ultra-homophobic closet gays would come in at or below 30% 😆

Maybe I should “come out” now.

Oooooh duckey! Mwah! 😆

Stevo (only 3 years Alpine experience, but I do live here year round!)

PFFFT! I’m not jealous! 😉

They did teach counter steering on my DAS 2 years ago.

Re. the comments about it being better to go into the back of a suddenly stopped cars – there was a bloke at my old work who did this on a pushbike and spent 3-6 months having his face rebuilt! He never looked anything like normal at the end of it. He was lucky to survive!

That looks like going round and round in circles to me!

You can do that in any car park!

The BBC has also taken a dig at Apple for blocking the path to a full download service for the iPhone. “Apple keeps its DRM technology close to its chest and has so far not licensed that technology to third parties,” says Rose.

“This means that as of today, it’s not technically possible for us to make rights-protected BBC iPlayer programmes available for download from the bbc.co.uk/iplayer website in a format compatible with Apple devices. That’s a major missing piece for us and a disappointment for Apple device owners, so please know that this has our full attention.”

Good old Apple Corp!

Enjoying watching iPlayer programmes on my allegedly inferior Nokia 5800! 😆

The BBC has also taken a dig at Apple for blocking the path to a full download service for the iPhone. “Apple keeps its DRM technology close to its chest and has so far not licensed that technology to third parties,” says Rose.

“This means that as of today, it’s not technically possible for us to make rights-protected BBC iPlayer programmes available for download from the bbc.co.uk/iplayer website in a format compatible with Apple devices. That’s a major missing piece for us and a disappointment for Apple device owners, so please know that this has our full attention.”

Good old Apple Corp!

Enjoying watching iPlayer programmes on my inferior Nokia 5800! 😆

You don’t need rubber gloves! If you get some on your hands (which you shouldn’t except very ocassionally), just rinse off with COLD water. Paint stripper these days is watered down for health and safety reasons. If your existing finish is powdercoat or stove enamel, you might find that Nitromors will only soften the paint.

This is how I did my frame recently:
Apply nitromors, allow a few minutes. Stickers and some paints bubble up really quickly. Scrape this loose stuff off and then immediately re-apply the stripper all over.

15-20 mins later, use a spokeshave or a stanley knike with a rounded off tip (use a wetstone to grind away the tip etc). Slice off layers of paint as much as you can get off.

Re-apply paintstripper, wait 15 mins and scrape off any stubborn bits then use a coarse scotchbrite pad to get right down to the metal. Wirewool clogs quickly, sheds steel fibres and isn’t so effective at getting paint off.

Awkward nooks an crannies can be dealt with using a brass sparkplug brush (£2 from halfords). Really awkward bits require a Dremmel with a wire brush bit or a carborundum tip – be careful and wear glasses when using a Dremmel. The idea is to not remove metal, but those carborundum tips are pretty soft. Go very gently and you will be fine.

Wash down and then lightly go over the frame with 120 grade wet and dry. Finally wash and then dry off with a clean rag.

One gleaming bare metal frame! 😀

You could try finding someone to blast clean the frame, but these firms often empoly “numpty” who will blast away bearing surfaces and threads at the same time. (I had an antique bedstead blasted once, they wrecked it because they couldn’t be bothered to remove all the brass components – even though the boss promised they would)

Powder coating after this is best as it is very durable and fills any small imperfections as it bakes on. Expect to pay £25 for a typical bike frame.

No, if you don’t normally ride flats, don’t try to learn in the Alps.

What?? “Learning” to use flat pedals? “Learning”? Am I missing something, or do people actually learn to ride a bike without using flat pedals?

So you are advocating using SPD’s for the inevitable steep downhill sections in favour of using the safest pedal for the terrain?

How many downhill bikes dont have flats?

(10 years experience of alpine MTBing BTW)

Get new inner cable and clean everything. If that doesn’t fix it, get a new front mech.

I remember it well! Based on Tom Browne’s – Funkin for Jamaica, Chic, Sugar Hill Gang and other ancient stuff.

If you like that, you’ll love this: Vinyl Morpher – Funky![/url]

“One Nation Under a Groove” was a track by Funkadelic BTW 😆

Stephen Plowden, advisor to influential road safety group the Slower Speeds Initiative, has written to the governmental committee stating bikes over 600cc should be banned

Well the misuse of power is one element that presents danger, but this wouldn’t reduce fatalities. People are resourceful, and manufacturers will produce highly tuned “rockets” whatever the legal capacity thresholds are. Frankly, I think 600cc is plenty for most riders. I used to be able to risk my life at breakneck speeds on a 2 stroke 250cc. It would be a shame for the guys who like to plod round on big heavy Harley Davidsons, or the guys who do long journeys on supertourers. Another case of people misunderstanding the problem!

Personally, I’m not sure, but there is a school of thought that believes that ‘they’ are making motorcycle training more complicated and costly in a bid to put potential riders off … while hiding behind the ‘improve rider standards’ card.

Probably. “No bikers” would be an ideal solution for road safety campaigners etc.

Would they still expect a rider to do it in snow or ice too?

now that is just being silly!

Unless you get caught in exceptional circumstances, riding on ice and snow is suicidal behaviour. 99% of bikers don’t attempt this.

Haha, the inevitable backlash! 😆

I bought a Creative Zen Micro a few years ago which was great in it’s day. It appeared when iPods were the size of small novel, like the Creative players that preceded the iPod range.

I now have a Nokia 5800 which has surpassed expectations on all counts. All boxes ticked thanks! 😀

I do listen to music, lots of it!

Please let me know when they bring out an iPod that isn’t locked in to iTunes….yawn

Must be all the trojans/viruses on your pc connecting to dubious servers

Nokia Sports Tracker is great because it has a facility to easily upload to your routes/workouts to your onlibe account on Nokia’s server. You can log on and recall these, download to the phone etc at will.

Viewranger is not an application that allows routes to be saved or analysed by a web server application. Route planning can only be done on the phone itself, but it’s a good app. that gives good detail. With Viewranger map chooser you can get up and running with a tailored map form £20. Bargain!

I think you should go for both applications, but I would hesitate to say which is best. That’s somewhat subjective.

Your vendor sounds like a fussy stupid twxt who has no understanding of the legality of a binding contract of sale. He has to vacate on the agreed day of completion.

An issue with the roof should have been flagged by his survey. As his property is new, he should expect a certain number of snags. It’s nothing to do with you if there are outstanding matters. He should complete and then submit a snagging list to the builder.

Stick to your agreed completion date. Get you solicitor to pen him a letter to this effect. Maybe your solicitor has some suggestions as to how to get the vendor to understand his obligations to you.

Good luck!

flat pedals

Brownsea is owned by the National Trust. Try asking them about cycling on the island. FInd out if the ferry company accept bikes too. I was thinking it would be a no, but the NT are very pro cycling these days. You could argue that getting to the ferry by bike was eco-friendly etc. On the other hand, you could probably ride round Brownsea in 20 minutes, so is it worth it?

I recommend the Isle of Purbeck (which is actually a peninsular). Not that far from Sandbanks/Studland. Ride the two high ridges starting from Corfe Castle up to Kingston, along to Durlstone then over to Ullwell and up along back to Corfe. There are a few lung buster climbs and some awesome views.

And if you were riding in the teeming rain, you would have altered your speed according to the conditions. The test doesn’t allow the rider to change their speed according to the prevalent conditions

I totally agree with that thought, but 30mph in the rain is not a high speed in many many situations and if a suddenly hazard comes from nowhere, you might not have time to adjust your speed. I think it is daft expecting a rider to continue at the same speed before a swerve in this test exercise. The test is failing to recreate a certain hazard scenario.

Maybe an extended test ride would be more useful – 2 hours or so. The examiner could instigate a hazard anywhere along the route regardless of the length of the test, but hey, that would be dangerous wouldn’t it?

No I dont’ know that his door didn’t spring open after being securely closed. Of course, for the past 40 years I have seen doors on lorries and trucks suddenly springing open all the time!(not)

Take a look at the hinged doors on a truck next time you are out and about. They are pretty failsafe. I therefore made the assumption that the driver had not secured them. Let’s not get too PC about it eh!

This was incredibly dangerous to any road user, not just cyclists! Pedestrians and cyclists being the most vulnerable.

The xxxx who was too lazy to secure the rear door of his pickup truck should be banned and definitely loose his job for gross professional musconduct! Failing to observe simple safety precautions could have easily result in someone being killed, not to mention the thousands of pounds worth of damage caused.

Use your PC with windows media player. Create a playlist and leave it alone. However you can intervene and add/remove tracks, shift them up and down the playlist if required. Setting will allow automatic crossfade so there aren’t any gaps in the music. For the past few years i’ve done numerous parties for people I know as well as my own. It’s very easy, but I would rather someone else had the responsibility so I can relax at these events!

iPods are useless without iTunes. Get a player that handles all the different formats if you don’t want to use your pc for this gig. Do you want to rely on you little iPod’s battery for such an event?

I accept how sexy iPods are and that they have a great UI, but they just don’t cut it in many other ways. I’d have one if they:

1) accepted a replaceable battery
2) supported multiple formats
3) had an FM tuner
4) worked with any other application other than iTunes
6) suppoerted drag and drop
7) had the best audio performance
8 ) were competively priced against alternative manufacturer’s players

Good looks and a fantastic interface don’t outweigh the negatives for me. Sorry to all you iPod fans (I know you outnumber the rest of the MP3 owning population by 10 to 1 – how weird is that?)

I think the point being is that they cannot make allowances for bad weather. The move would be easy to make in the dry, but if it was teeming down it would be another matter. And of course different road surfaces handle differently.

But in a real life scenario, you would have to swerve anyway. Hazards don’t just occur in the dry and on perfect road surfaces!

15 accidents as a result of this test exposes the fact that the motorcycle test is not a stringent enough test of a rider’s ability to handle a bike and is not safe!

Knowing the rules and getting through a test isn’t easy, but it doesn’t filter out the people with insufficient machine handling skills. The test is focused on doing everything safely to the exclusion of competent handling.

I say make everyone learn to handle a motocrosser on rough, muddy, wet and hilly terrain. Learning to slide and shift your weight around to this extent will make for a much more competent road user.

I did a DAS a couple of years ago and rode almost 30 years ago for around 3 years without bothering to take a test (36k miles). However I learned to ride a bike offroad first, the best handling course imho!

A little swerve like the one in the video is a non-event to a competent rider. The test should ensure riders are competent in all respects – period!