Its difficult, but often the difficult patients have differing levels of mental health issues on top of their physical problems. All you can do as a neighboring patient is think ‘thank f**** its not me like that’. Everyone has a right to good health care and it is difficult for the staff, but once you start picking and choosing who gets the health care, you open a whole nasty can of worms.

I’ve had it more from mates, how could you keep doing that when it has caused this.. My injuries aren’t life changing, neck and back brace for 12 weeks, no driving for 6 months. Wife, who cycle commutes, accepts I’ll be back on the bike, riding as much as possible. Indeed, for family sanity (and my sanity), i need to be riding to stop going mad. I’ll slow down a little, at least in the short term.

I know its not dramatic, but at least I can sleep though half an episode and not miss anything.

Sounds very nasty, heal well. Lots of netflicks (latest guilty pleasure is Ice Road Truckers, how can towing be such a drama).

I’ve just come into it, I find it entertaining. I was on sufferfest and riding lots outdoors but an accident has stopped me really going for it until neck and back brace come off (6-8 weeks) so it is the closest I can come to riding outdoors and lets me ride along on the smart trainer. I like the way it alters resistance to make the courses seem uphill or downhill. The point for a lot of people seems to be the group rides/races (only done one group ride so will see how they go). The social side seems a key.

Tiger snakes aren’t always striped, they are often mistaken for brown snakes. I live in outer Melbourne next to the Yarra river, we will see a few snakes over the summer, had one strike at the back wheel of the bike on local singletrack last year and seen one swim across the river (they do swim). We have 4 types of venomous snakes living locally, brown snakes, red-bellied black, tiger and copperhead snakes. Only seen one snake in our backyard luckily though.

Currently recovering in neck brace and back brace from mine. Hope you have no nerve damage. Give the concussion and body time to heal, I think I was over 4 weeks till my head was right-ish, don’t remember the first 5 days in hospital. Even now it isn’t 100%. You’ll possibly get tired very easily. recommend walking gently once you are mobile, building up. Once the doctors say you can, if you have a smart trainer get onto zwift gently. I’d never used it before, now doing easy-ish rides on it, not as good as outdoors but much better than nothing and decent variety on the courses. Good luck and stay positive.

I switched to diet coke and switched snacking to chewing on sugar-free gum. Yes you get alot of artificial sweeteners, but I would argue better than masses of sugar (it was causing me to pack on weight, hence my motivation, which also involved cutting down on booze).

Good luck guys, I’ll just continue the bimble for the moment, otherwise I’ll give in to temptation and I shouldn’t really be leaning over and changing gear too much while going hard, extra strain and all that. Look forward to exploring some new tracks on it.

The going too hard is my worry, it is tempting to push hard but counterproductive to healing properly. Used sufferfest for training, and had been planning on the pioneer race in NZ this year, they have held over our registration till next year as I’ll still be in the brace come the race.

Thanks. Really don’t want to be pushing too hard at the moment (also in back brace, T11 3 column fracture and occipital condyl 5 weeks ago). FTP at best was about 305, weight is about 83 ish). Might give it a go in a lower group first and see how I progress.

Finally joined zwift as I can’t ride properly till the neck brace comes off (7 weeks). Only doing gentle riding but nice to be on a bike even if it is indoors. Running a smart trainer (elite direto). Any tips/suggestions?

I never used to commuting in london (mainly on bike tracks) but since moving back to aus 10 years ago always do. I always did mountain biking.

As a side note at out mountain bike club meeting last night 3 of us who have broken vertebrae and had head injuries at same time had not been riding technical stuff at the time, I had been on a fire trail taking my time, don’t remember what happenned to put a fist sized soft spot on the side of the helmet and leave me in neck and back brace for 12 weeks (5 weeks into this). One of the others had been on a tarmaced bike trail. Tish happens when you don’t expect it and so aren’t prepared.

Had two Australian friends who raced, Kate Pengalese and Kevin Skidmore. Looked like a bloody hard race, cold and wet as well. The joys of scotland.

I’m a melbournian (although in my defence did live 7 years in england). Feel free to contact me for more info.

Depends on what you want, lots of beaches, might be cool (by aus standards), but then again is shaping up to be a warm spring/hot summer. Phillip island can be nice for the fairy penguins, if you want a couple of nights out then Wilsons promentry national park or the grampians national park are great. Lots of good mountain biking close by, would happilygu ide you but in neck and back brace after my latest misadventure.

Yarra Walley wineries, lots of foodie places also.

Cheers

Still don’t remember the stack that [ut me in neck and back brace 2 weeks ago, but was on a simple downhill fire trail I had ridden twice in last week on cyclocross bike. Full sus MTB dumped me, not sure how that happened (we weren’t caning it down either) and probably never will be.I’m counting on a while to recover, then a while to regain fitness, form and especially confidence. Might be back on gravel and road bike and tame roads for a while when I can get back on. Wish everyone luck with injuries recovery.

Will be so good to lose brace. High point of day is post shower when wife and undoes them. Then I can have a proper scratch ( I know not what you were thinking based on previous statement and a bit sad)

Similar to others, our two get walked before work. I’m walking them at 6.45 for half an hour (in winter with a head torch) and then the kids walk them in the evening when they get in from school (4.30 ish). They are both young dogs (1 and 1 1/2 yo) and can be very active but seem fine. Grumpy neighbour is quite happy to complain if they are barking during the day and have had no trouble for the last 6-8 months. They have access to the yard during the day via a dog door and we luckily can walk them off lead along the river near us, where they swim no matter how cold it is.

As the teacher, the thing that sh*ts me is the people who complain about how easy it is. If it is so easy why don’t they do it… don’t have the qualifacation then go get them, just like the teachers did.If it was an easy job there wouldn’t be the retention problems. I genuinely enjoy it and went into it as a mature age student (mid 30’s, about 15 years ago), after not being happy with my job at the time. It can be a hard slog at times but is also very rewarding.

Make sure you have soft something between the keyboard and the screen, otherwise eventually the screen accumulates scratches. This has happened to my last two work laptops (admittedly after commuting every weekday with it in a backpack over two years).

38C here in melbourne commuting home today, too hot for a fun mountain bike ride.

I did this at the end of last year, old flat bar commuter got retired to kids duty and for riding to places where there isn’t secure lockup. New CX bike served as gravel grinder and commuter as well as occasional race steed. Meant I could take on smooth single track and longer rides easier on way home. It has a set of file-tread type tyres on it which roll well on bitumen but grip well on gravel also. I find I ride it more than my nice mountain bike or roadie due to the convenience of being able to do longer fun rides home from work.

Really happy with my salewa mountain trainers which I bought early this year. Most comfortable set of boots I have owned.

We got our kids phones when they went to secondary school (admittedly that is a year later than in the UK), had alot less of an issue with the phones than the laptops the school required them to have.

I’ve got a high end scalpel, lovely bike. Service intervals on the lefty are relatively frequent though. Lefty is a great fork though, would happily put one on any new build I did.

Also Lapierre are currently discounted here as apparently they are pulling out of Australia, potentially making their warranty work even more difficult, they do have a reputation for being difficult here in Australia (maybe due to the distributer or not, I don’t know).

Go a rim braked bike unless you are planning on riding it regularly in wet conditions, the wheels at the same price point are much lighter (and the whole bike will be lighter). Second hand roadies are generally a better deal than mountain bikes as they are less beaten up and are often sold to fund the next must have purchase (not something any mountain biker would ever do…). I was lucky and got a very good deal on a second hand cervelo with dura-ace 10 speed, it is a joy to ride around where I live (warrandyte in victoria) on the hills etc, much better bike than I can ride, and I have never suffered from too little braking, although I don’t ride it in the wet very much.
Road bikes are great for base fitness, and covering much bigger distances, but you will see lots of examples of dangerous driving, try to stick to minor roads if possible.
Also you can use mtb pedals and shoes, I haven’t seen any good reason to switch them over on mine as I have run mtb pedals for years (although I do have good rigid XC shoes). Have fun.

bouldering on a beach cliff in northumberland, had been staying low as I was there alone (other than my dog). Fell 3 foot onto the only rock on the beach and broke my heel. cue a 1 mile crawl/hobble to the carpark with the dog trying to lick my face and jump on me all the way back and a very grumpy wife to drive me to hospital, pack up camping gear, look after small children and drive me home to london the next day.13 years on and I’m still paying for it.

Just had my focus mares repaired by the guy in the vid, he did a bloody good job, very well re-detailed also. Quote for a new frame from focus was $3000 AUD, the repair was about $700 AUD and the frame is no heavier and seems as good as the original.

Fermi Paradox explained:

We took larium when we spent 2 weeks in tanzania, the technicolour dreams were very trippy, but no other side effects. My son was 4 years old and he used to call them his ‘shouty dreams’.

Sunday before last was riding the cross bike on some local singletrack, stopped to allow an oncoming moutain-biker to get passed and failed to unclip. Bike went down and full weight on side of top tube. Cue loud cracking sound and swearing. Top tube cracked. Bloody mountain biker didn’t even stop despite seeing me topple. Frame is now in getting assessed and hopefully repaired as it was the n+1 bike and only just d-1

I’ve got two of the Giant branded ones, both seem fine (I won one of them, the other is the high-end one)

Only 25 km seperate them though. Still over 800km to go

We use it and the EV3 stuff at the school I teach at, lots of stuff on the web. I can send you some of the education stuff if you like. The software (educational one at least that we have) comes with a comprehensive set of tutorials. Most of the stuff I have now is for the EV3 sets as that is what we use, but the tasks can all be done on the NXT bricks. Cheers

I think mine is 2014 or 2015 (bought it dec 2014). I have had two frames replaced under warranty (the original cracked just above the front derailer mount, the second under the bottom bracket, neither was crash damage). Warranty service here in Aus was great, no issues. The original reynolds rear hub was a nightmare also, paid to have it upgraded to a swiss DT hub and has been brilliant since. Now runs XTR 1X11 and XTR race brakes, is about 11 kg including pedals and running proper (not stupid light) tires (frame is large). Lefty fork is brilliant.

Mira Grants stuff is quite readable, the Newsflash series and the Parasite series, one is zombies and other might as well be though.

I had some stuff called solugel or solusite when I used my face as a brake. No scarring and it healed quickly (faces do though). Unfortunately I’m still as ugly as ever though.

Scishow
Scishow space
crashcourse
GCN
cinemasins

Whether to buy a fast XC hardtail or a cyclocrosser as a winter bike (and it is only mid-summer here). Oh the stress.