jailed for arguing with bike

I think this guy deserves some kind of award – the Basil Fawlty Rant Prize perhaps

Dry right through most of June and July in Herts / N London. Had some heavy downpours in the last couple of weeks but its warm enough to dry the ground out fairly well. Heavy downpours have eroded some bits and made them more interesting.

Local clay round here is pretty bad, especially just after harvest when there's all the bits of straw binding it. It can be like trying to ride on ice with a big brown pair of slicks, until everything jams up and its a case of carrying the bike. Its usually about this time I get a puncture. Horrible.

"Set of destructions" – As in "All Ikea furniture comes with a set of destructions"

For anyone in London this is why there is an enormous pile of scrap timber in the railway yard near the Wembley branch

Tree surgery – good for balance and co ordination too – I got a touch of arthritis and a few scars over the years, but avoided back trouble – a lot of that is due to bad lifting technique.

I have a pair of Meindl lace up jobs which I like a lot, look a bit like the Aquafells. Not cheap and a bit stiff and heavy for climbing, but waterproof and comfy even on my wide feet.

Some of them are falling on hard times.

[/Brian Sewell voice mode on/] Yesterday one of my clients sent me a Coutts cheque IN A BROWN ENVELOPE 😮 . Not only that, it was addressed in ball point pen. Well really! [/Brian Sewell voice mode off/]

I'm pretty sure it wasn't CFH, but couldn't swear to it, seeing as he is coy about his real identity.

Inside the M25 but there are loads of bunnies round here, plus foxes and the odd badger and hedgehog, mainly when the light's going. Also plenty of Muntjac deer in Bricket Wood, despite all the people who use it. Occasional kingfisher along the river, usually all you see is a blue flash as they take off, some nice big chub in the pools too. Green woodpeckers, heard more often than seen. Local play farm has Llamas as well as the usual sheep, goats, pigs etc. Once saw two humans mating in one of the quieter spots.

+1 to Husquvarna or Stihl – Makitas are getting quite a good name now as well.

Also +1 to getting trained and equipped to use it, I had two months off work many years ago due to a disagreement with a chainsaw and a dead tree.

For real cutting power you need one of these

Like the hip flask holder on the one parked in the snow. Is that for when the St Bernard dog can't keep up?

Had a job some years ago to dismantle a couple of large trees in a car scrap yard. The owner has stripped all the good bits out, so we had a fine time crashing big lumps of tree onto the cars from a great height. Best shot was caving in the roof of one and popping out the front and back screens without breaking them.

I like the idea of nailing the server motherboard to the wall. Also took a hard drive that was starting to play up down to the rifle range. .22 rimfire smashes up the external circuit board nicely, but it needs a .38 special or .357 mag to break the casing.

Rubik cubes explode very satisfactorily if you hit them dead centre with a .38 as well, best to hang them from a bit of string.

<<I still can't explain the shift from seeing the bike as mere transport to regarding it as an almost mystical pleasure…weird!>>

The great thing is that its still both

Its just good for the body and the head, 'nuff said. Just back from bumble along the local lanes, English countryside looking lovely as ever, if a bit dry and brown, leaned over a fence to look at the view and scratched a pig's back with a couple of pints at a pub at the farthest point, therapeutic in so many ways.

Also get the schadenfreude rides, when I've had enough on a hot afternoon and take off on one of my routes that crosses the M25 and its stationary both ways.

Fine old English clan the Camerons

I can't help thinking that letting him go was a convenient way of avoiding his appeal – there was fair to good chance he'd have been cleared, which would have been even more embarrassing for an awful lot of people, not to mention the inconvenience of having to find out who actually did it.

On the subject of embarrassment, how about our PM saying we were the junior partner to the US fighting the Nazis in 1940? – ERRRR hang on a minute – the US weren't in the war until 1943.

I find beer works pretty well:

High water content rehydrates.
Carbs for energy.
Hops make it thirst quenching.
Alcohol numbs the pain.
Readily and widely available in numerous variants.

Just the job, but I wouldn't put it in a camelback.

Gravy's right but most filters hold about ½ litre, so taking off the filter and emptying it might do the job, assuming you have started the engine to circulate oil into it. What is the overall sump capacity anyway? most cars have a reasonable tolerance of being overfilled, chances are it won't do a lot of harm.

qr and chain tugs each side – no problems

Is the Mercury Motel on the A6 still going? Used to stay there back when I had to travel up that way a lot about 10 years ago. I can't honestly say I'd recommend the restaurant – the chef did a starter based on black pudding and I got an odd look when I didn't want chips with the curry, but it had -er- character. Peter Kay probably got a few ideas from it.

Used to carry them on the bike but have had old style ones get clogged up with mud. New ones don't seem to suffer too badly but I still prefer to carry a short one in the camel back.

Plus like Olly said you don't have to swap between bikes, though I alternate between a camel back and messenger bag, so now have ended up with two pumps and toolkits – can't win sometimes.

If the trees are in a conservation area or have tree preservation orders on them you will still need the council's consent. Worth checking, if you get that wrong it can cost a lot of money and get you a criminal record.

Just out locally exploring a few bits I'd seen on the map, but not ridden, plus a few old favourites – funny how a regular route looks different if you go round the other way. Flax is out now, couple of wonderful big blue fields of it round here.

Helped out a couple of guys who'd had a tubeless tyre failure by giving them my spare tube [gave me a donation for it, thanks guys].

Adjusted the karmic balance by interrupting two other people's ride, but the way they had been going at it in the long grass I don't think they stopped for long. 😆

Probably Noel Edmonds – although a pick handle would make the time pass quicker.

Not a dig at the previous post, but it reminded me of this, not sure where I got it from, it might be Banksy:

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river has run dry will mankind realise that spouting native American sayings makes him sound like a complete muppet"

"Beer is nature's proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy"

Benjamin Franklin

"Going about the city as I do I have come to the conclusion that there is more health about the beer drinker than there is about the picture goer"

My Granddad – quoted in the local paper c.1935

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist……………."

Gen John Sedgwick, 1864

If I recall my chemistry studies from many years ago, most metals are pretty soft in their pure form, they way to make them stiff is to alloy them with small quantities of other metals like vanadium and chromium. I believe this can be fine tuned to get the properties you want. I would imagine that the stiffness of a frame depends on the composition of the metal as well as the geometry, tube dimensions etc.

I expect someone who knows more about it will be along soon.

BTW wasn't there a magnesium alloy framed MTB some years back, horrendously ugly thing, the frame was basically a girder and they kept snapping. Another project that seemed like a good idea at the time. Scrap ones must have burnt nicely though 😆

Daily Mash beat you to it[/url]

oops been spotted already

They're all over the place round here, part of riding in the summer, along with the briars, which are going like rockets as well. I think I was immunised by working in the woods when I was younger, but if you do suffer covering up with long socks / trousers is probably the way to go.

BTW they are one of the things the Romans did for us. One story is that they used them like Deep Heat to stop them feeling cold doing sentry duty on Hadrian's wall. No wonder they ruled most of the known world.

+1 for village / town green registration. Used it to advantage in a previous existence.

1] No
2] 54

Impact School of Motoring, in W.London

http://www.impactgroup.co.uk/

And for the best portrayal of a barking mad driving instructor see Eddie Marsan in Happy go Lucky – highly underrated actor

I don't need to, its a Land Rover.

Indian owned now but still built by Brummies.

Plus I loathe footy and I'm more assorted celtic than English.

In XP holding down the control key and turning the mouse wheel changes the front size. Turn the wheel the other way to reverse it.

Rail crossing scene in Red Rock West

"That V8 purrs like a big ol' cat don't it?"

Bye Dennis

Hardly ever see any other MTB ers on my routes round St Albans / Watford / Potters Bar but there are tyre marks on most of them. Used to regularly meet a guy on a road bike who was usually having a rest and enjoying the view but he hasn't been around for a while.

I still ride a 1992 Diablo plus – rear triangle is cr-mo, steerer tube is ally, three main tubes are titanium, bonded into the other parts. Front fork was cr-mo rigid but is now on Rebas. Still has the original saddle, ti handlebars, ally bar ends and cranks. All the rest has been replaced over the years and it has discs both ends after I got Argos in Bristol put a mount at the rear. [sorry retro bike people, but it is a working bike not a museum piece] I really like it but, I haven't ridden many other bikes to compare with it.

Like the look of the Torus btw

And they're tasty

Nice and dry here a few miles east of the Chilterns AND the bluebells are coming out nicely. And some jodhpurs around here today. Got back about 7 in drizzle, been raining harder since then so might not be as nice tomorrow.

As far as I can remember, which is quite a long time, whoever has been in Government has accused the BBC of being biased against them. That's healthy, I do worry about News International's smooth skinned little protege and his chums getting in and closing down the BBC. Is a Sky subscription cheaper than the licence fee?

Yep – best part of the year – between the trails drying out and the nettles growing. And the bluebells are coming on well round here.