I found a whole new wood near me, all criss-crossed with trails and byways

I’ve got a Nokia E51, it’s 2 yers old and still going strong – 5 days on a full battery, always reliable, does internet and email quite adiquately once you’ve got the hang of it, not the most easy to use I’ll admit thought.

I’d had a few previous Nokia’s which were rubbish but the E51 has changed my mind a bit – will probably have another Nokia when it dies and would definitely have one over most i-phones (which as far as I can tell never really work after the 6th or 7th update)

molgrips – if you want to know what happens at Reading Velodrome look here

http://www.readingvelodromeracing.co.uk/

public are allowed in to watch the league racing On the monday’s so you could always go along and have a look first

My mate works for BMW – folding seats are an extra on almost all of them (think it’s called assited access), you won’t get them as standard

"It's always in the last place you look"… well obviously, you don't carry on looking for things after you've found them!

yeah, but the 900 only works out at about £50, so that's £27 I could spend on beer.

Does anyone know if the mickey mouse is really that much better as a light, or are you just paying for stuff like having the switch on the bar and the colour change battery meter?

Sorry, i know I'm being a pain…

I'm fairly skint – any opinions on whether it's worth spending the extra to get the mickey mouse over the 900?

my name is Toby, my friends are lazy, they call me Toab.

Nothing to do with tits on bulls…

I prefer getting looks from other passengers when I get on the train at Martins Heron

Coed y Brenin is just up beyond Dolgelleu – when I was in Aber there busses with bike racks on the back that went right past it.

I think a lot of people say Coed Y Brenin is a bit tame though

I'm I the only person who finds them all a bit weird and creepy?

Give me Ivor the Engine any day…

My dinky laptop has no DVD drive and I've always just copied the files from the CD / DVD (all of them) onto a flash drive, then put the flash drive in the laptop and clicked on the exe file.

Have done it with MS office etc and never had any problems – just installs from the flashdrive

PRINGLES!!!!

it starts of as starchey salty loveliness – then after the third tube the stomach cramps begin…

J E James cycles? no idea ho long they've been about but their site has a lot of green

mine's never dropped but you do have to trim the front derailier a little to keep it happy

Pretty sure I saw that on saturday – I noticed it because it was locked up with something totally crappy and the two bikes looked odd together.

I think it was on Broad Street near Smiths but might have been further down (I was walking from Hobgoblin to Facebar so it was somewhere between those two)

That was between 4:30 and 5 o'clock

If it wasn't the same bike it was bl**dy similar and I doubt there's that many of them around – at least it's still in the same town

not exactly a spam – I'm in one of the support bands for tomorrow nights gig and I was interested to see how popular / well known they are

the very slightly nearer, but very slightly more expensive off-license (as I was feeling flush and lazy, rather than my usual skint and lazy)

born Aldershot
brought up Tetbury (Gloucestershire)
Uni Aberystwyth
now Reading (sort of crash landed here)

Not very exciting really

Reading seems to have a bit of a rubbish reputation but I quite like it – the rep keeps the ponces at bay, and there are plenty of proper pubs.

What about the old tale that they perish with age and should be replaced every two years regardless of impact?

I think it sounds unlikley but end up buying a new one cos I'd rather waste £30 than waste my head.

Also, does anyone know if they're recyclable at all?

MY bro lives in stroud

Not sure about trails, although if you get an OS map of the area and find a bridleway heading out North or N.E ish I'd bet you'd find something out that way. Alternatively could ask at Noahs Ark, bike shop a couple of miles out along the Cirencester road.

Plenty of nice pubs, fairly hippy/guardian reading kinda place (one of UKs first Fairtrade towns, Woodruffs in the high street was UKs first all Organic cafe I think)even has it's own local currency that you can use in some independant places (the Stroud pound)

Plenty of good cafes to eat during the day (Star Annice, Mills, Woodruffs) but not so much in the evening that I can think of, but there's the usual chinese / indian / kebabs.

Great farmers Market every saturday.

Should still be a few old school B&Bs in the town – torist info office is in the subscription rooms (which anyone will be able to direct you to.)

It's pretty cool

my job is impossible without a book called the International Classification of Diseases and Realted Health Problems. Basically 1200 page list of diseases, injuries and other things that don't bare thinking about with a 4 digit code for each.

mind if I tag along on sunday – I could do with getting to know Swinley a bit better.

Swinley!

(as soon as I get out of the office – which will probably be sooner if I don't put things on forums)

Thanks guys – I've got a much better idea of where to look and what I'm looking for now.

cynic-al – no, I'm not on Orkney.

Thanks guys

Practise isn't totally seized – got on OK with the adjustable but wasn't ideal.

Will practise on the good bikes once I feel a bit more confident but the whole idea of getting this old rattler was that if I screwed anything up with it it was no big loss and the good bikes are still ready for the weekend

Tried an adjustable but the bike's been in someones shed for ages and a lot of it's pretty stiff.

Hadn't thought of halfords (doesn't spring to mind as local branch staff are usually rubbish) but will have a look see

You are forgetting – the remnant of jam/beer is by now old and somewhat funky (possibly even a little furry) and therefore has a stronger smell..

Well, it's always worked for me anyway.

"but sometimes when you are trying to have a picnic they just don't know when to quit"

When picnicing take dregs of a jar of jam or honey (or a beer can with a little left in it). The wasps smell the the jam/honey/booze and go and get stick/drowned in it, allowing you to consume your sandwiches peace.

Auditing the council's new cycle routes on my roadie with the local cycle campaign.

Did you know cyclists can see signs that are only 4 inches square, on an overgrown lamp post, on the wrong side of the road, covered in grafitti?

Never mind, maybe a proper ride next week…

Hmmm, will my liver survive if I join this and continue to patronise my local real ale pubs… probably not 🙁

(I'm lucky, there's at least 5 decent real ale pubs in a ten minute ride from my house)

I translate medical data (including horrific biking accidents) into four digit codes so they're internaitonally comparable. You put the wrong number in and you can accidentally record "injured falling from space craft" when you mean "injection of antibiotics" which is quite odd.

Get to read lots of people's medical notes too.