Giant Hogweed tops the lot. Looks like a giant version of Cow Parsley (pea shooter plant), but the if the sap makes contact with your skin, it starts burning. Get it in your eyes, and you can go blind.

I have my Inbred set up with steel forks and fat albert tyres these days. I previously had 80mm Bombers on it, but didn't really see the need for local trails.

I have a cheap folder and old Raleigh racer for commuting duties, should I ever fancy it. To me using an expensive mountain bike for commuting is just daft when there are any number of cheap bikes you could be doing it on, and not worrying about.

Not read the whole thread, but I reckon the track records must be horrendous. They reckon Obree was actually breathing out a fine mist of blood like a racehorse does.

At this exact moment, Goulash with steamed dumplings as served at a place I stayed at in the Czech Republic.

Ask me tomorrow and it'll be something completely different.

Prestas may well flow enough with cores in. I'd take the tyres down to a car tyre fitting place and see if they can blast them on with their airline. If they can, you know that a compressor will do the job for you.

Standard small compressor has a 25L tank. Flow rate is the key thing, so take valve cores out if you can, and use 10mm hosing. Motor size does not matter for pumping up tyres. Cheap ones are £60 on ebay.

Shotblasting is one of the most air intensive thing you can do with a compressor. So I'd forget it. Makes using air tools / paint spraying look like light duty work, to the point that most shotblasting compressors are designed soley for that job.

The Cotic Soul seems to be a whole half pound lighter than an Inbred. I'd hardly call that scaffolding.

Army surplus combat jacket. I have a long back and usually have trouble with jackets riding up, but I borrowed my mates old one, and it's mint. 6 massive pockets to carry kit in, and long enough to cover my arse when I'm stood up. Mine's a combat 95 pattern one, but I would imagine they'll all be of a similar length.

Another bonus is that they cost about 20p, so it doesn't matter if you ditch it. Unfortunately, you do look like a scally / the cyclist wing of the IRA.

You'd need ABS. Any kind of rapid stop on that will lead to a faceplant.

In my view, stuff that's got mass appeal isn't really the BBC's remit. I like the fact that they can produce really high quality content without worrying that Ant & Dec might be getting more viewers.

Standard standlight setup. Not full whack but bright enough to stop you from being run over.

I've seen the Reelights, and the idea would be provide rather more power than they do, and work by a different mechanism. The aim would be to produce at the very least 3W, which is enough to power a reasonably bright LED, but preferably more.

The idea is that you'd be able to run decent off-road lights without batteries.

Just drive to where you fancy, pull in at the tourist info and ask / use a guidebook or sat nav POIs. French campsites are uniformly pretty good, and you'll never be stuck in a camper van.

You also avoid having to be at XYZ on certain dates, and can take diversions as and when you fancy.

Research methods 101 – Correlation is not Causation!

Proper traps baited with nutella. Don't mess about with humane traps – they'll be back inside the house before you are.

Come on. If you can't work out how to knock a star fangled nut in, pay a man to do it for you. It's obvious!

Are we talking universal as in available everywhere, or universal as in everyone has it?

Available everywhere:
1) Would be a massive help for rural areas, allowing people to set up businesses and work from home, improving the economy.
2) Would allow doctors to make web consultations for people in remote locations.
3) Reduced traffic.

They're not hard to think up.

Available to everyone:
1) Kids in houses without books have some hope of reading something improving.
2) Allow the poorest people in society access to the cheapest prices.
And so on.

Ding!

You need something north of £300 a week to make it worth going to work if you're recieving a decent selection of benefits.

Buy one from John Lewis with a long guarantee. I think they do 5 years for free on some electricals.

Every vehicle I've ever sold on ebay has been to someone who turns up and drives home in it, having never seen it before.

The thing is, if the sellers got good feedback and gone out of their way to show you the faults on the thing, the buyer has a fairly good idea that it's an honest sale. Thats why the stuff with bad photos and descriptions go for so much less.

Every time I've ever sold a car on ebay, I've also got more than I'd think to ask for it.

1) Stick an extra lane on most motorways, dual almost all A roads, and widen inner city roads.

It was half term last week, and every day my mainly motorway commute was halved, saving me an hour a day. It would pay back in terms of reduced stress and pollution, and increased productivity.

2) Make public transport work. I'd love to be able to get on a bus or train and be able to get a bit of work done, lounge about etc.

3) Ban unpaid work for businesses. Internships only serve to ensure that people without cash are unable to get work experience, and that people with cash, do.

4) Sort out education. Don't care if it's grammar schools, free schools, or whatever, but the current system is very poor. See point 3. Class is the major determining factor for educational attainment in the UK.

5) Gas anyone who can't watch football without making a series of semi orgasmic noises.

Your logo jumps up and down on the first page when I mouseover it. Is it meant to?

Firefox 3.5.8 by the way.

My old Howies 17 seconds jacket had "Always make tea in the pot" on the washing instructions…

Whopper with no mayo. Lovely.

I don't consider things such as pork pies to be rubbish (unless we're talking cheap ones). They're ace.

I'm guessing their most expensive wheelset, or if you count that as two, their most expensive set of forks.

I'd love a good house price crash. They're too bloody expensive, and it doesn't do anyone but owners of multiple properties any good.

Very often it's basic maths and english. Most of the graduate employers use them, so grad job sites often have practice tests. Wikijob has a couple, and SHL are one of the major providers, who also provide practice questions. Do practice, it makes a big difference.

There are also personality tests, which you can't really practice for, but are far less commonly used. They have check questions so it's difficult to mislead them.

Not a message statement, but I worked somewhere that was going through the process of making a large proportion of their staff redundant. Something like 60% at my level, and 40% at the level above.

One of the partners sent an email to another partner, explaining what a good time he was having on holiday, the food & hotel were fantastic, and how he was having a trip in a private jet later in the week.

For some reason, the partner thought that the rest of the office would be interested to see, so he printed it out and stuck it to the noticeboard…

Contract rates are always higher than normal wages. Best way is to work via a Ltd company.

If you really do mean contract basis, you're liable for NI, Tax etc. and will need to employ the services of an accountant. The upside is that you can expense a hell of a lot of stuff to save tax (ie, breakfast, lunch and dinner if you're at work for a long day). But still, I'd expect contract rates to be at least double those of the salary.

On the other hand, if they've offered you a 3 month contract on the payroll, to do the job and see if you're any good at it, then they're just being cautious / taking the mickey, depending on your perspective.

Once you've started entering veg into the village fete competition, you're probably totally assimilated :lol:

He's a tit. Proven by the number of dogs he seems to think are untrainable.

My girlfriend and I used to pull in a bit more than that between us (no kids). That was living in Nottingham (most likely cheaper than down south), running a two cars. We weren't broke but we weren't rich either. That said, I pretty much paid for all my car's running costs with mileage expenses, and the girlfriend drove an old Citroen. And I did the majority of the work on them (servicing, discs & pads etc).

I personally think that is marginal money if you've got a kid to pay for as well. I've no idea of what tax credits etc. you can claim though.

If your mate owns a garage, he'll know where to get one for a good price. He certainly should be buying stuff cheaper than you ever will be, unless you regularly use the same motor factors and know the staff well.

Smoking ban + recession.

I find beating brand new spanners quite amusing too.

I seem to remember buying some Planet-X / On-one bits from them a while ago. They arrived.

It limits your risk. You'll probably work out slightly cheaper to have second hand bikes even if you do replace a few bits, but it can be gutting when you're having repairs done and start thinking "I could've had a new one for an extra £XXX". Just depends on your point of view.

The flipside is that you won't feel so gutted the first time you crash and ding the paint…

Auto wipers sooner or later become rubbish. My Peugeots ones were – I suspect it was down to wear to the screen upsetting the sensors. And then you have no intermittent mode. Lovely!

My first mountain bike was an ex-hire giant from a trail centre.

I hadn't had it too long before it needed a new bottom bracket, cranks, rear cassette etc. They don't get much TLC, so the drivetrain components take a hammering. Over time I also upgraded bits I broke, and a mate still rides it now without any new bits.

That said, if the bikes are sold after 30 hires, they're probably a good deal. I think the bike I bought was a year or two old at least when I got it.

I suspect if you're asking on here, you don't have any mates who know about mountain bikes to look them over for you. So I would suggest taking along a ruler and applying the technique detailed at the bottom of this page:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/chains.html

Basically, the entire drivetrain – chain, cranks & cassette wear in unison. If the chain is bad, the entire rest of the drivetrain will be bad. And replacing the whole lot will cost £100 or so.

Beyond that, rock things that have bearings in them to feel for play – if the wheels, cranks or fork bearings have play, you're going to be spending money again.

Some second hand bars to replace my old Reetard ones which will snap sooner or later given the gouges I've taken out of them.

This afternoon, I'm going to order some oil, some grease and some Fenwicks. And a crappy style saddle clamp so that I can fit a proper saddle to the exercise bike :D