Some from this weekend's two day festival wedding…

Sorry – pic heavy but shot 870 images over the two days…..

My folks bought an 'Easy-start' Stihl saw which gets through enough FC logs to keep all their stoves and the stoves in their three hire cottages going all winter.

As the name suggests it's a doddle to start – no need to yank the ripcord – a gentle pull starts it every time.

My stepdad taught me to use it in five mins and I managed to work for three straight days without taking off my leg…

I know everyone always recommends what they have as the Best Thing for the job, but….. +1 for a Focus estate. Haven't looked at prices recently but you'd get a decent one for £2000 no doubt. Parts very available and cheap (especially if you've got a decent scrappy nearby), local mechanics know their way around them and they are pure mile-munchers.

Mine (X reg) frequently goes up and down to Skye, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and London. High mileage means lots of new tyres and so forth but no major mechanicals yet….

Touching the Void, obviously and The Six Mountain Books by Shipton will make you want to run into the wild blue yonder before there's nothing left to explore.

Withnail and I is a work of flawed genius. I must have seen it 30 times and would watch it again tonight if it was on t' telly.

Maybe it's a generational thing, or perhaps it comes down to the viewers experiences or past lifestyle 😮

Halifax. Thread closed (now that the kid who wants to go for a poo in someone else's house is off the air).

It's like buying a Zippo lighter (I used to be a smoker) – if you spend a bit of cash, you don't leave your lighter on a pub table.

I take extra special care of my Oakleys – lost one set and the dog chewed another. The pair I have now (polarised lenses) have lasted two years so far…

Sorry – no idea what model they are – they were 'new-old-stock' from a well established ebay seller, i.e., they'd been sitting on a shelf for 20 years, untouched. Got a pair for the better half from the same seller – they were Hatchets – very pretty but quite wee.

THIS PLACE[/url]

does a load of cheap Oakley stuff – got my first two pairs from them.

Sorry, not PinkBike, Dirt ^^^

+1 for the Charge Blender. My mate has one and loves it so much he even wrote an article for Pink Bike about it called, Why I love my bike:

here it is here

Photos by me 😀

Bought a neon yellow Muddy Fox Courier from our local police auctions – it had fetching pink paw prints all over it. Some years later it got pinched from the back yard – the insurance company said the nearest thing replacement-wise was a Muddy Fox Rock 'n' Roll full susser!! I nearly cried when my folks refused to claim on the house insurance for fear of losing their no-claims 🙁

The thieves did me a favour really – saved up and bought a rigid Kona Lavadome which did me fine for a few years until it got swapped for a bright purple Alpine Stars with my first ever sus forks – RSTs no less.

Brand new, boxed, Sigma 105mm macro lens – guy had 12 for sale and I stuck the same stupidly low bid (£60) on each of them. Totally forgot about it until I got the ebay email telling me I'd won. Seller was a bit miffed…..

Proper retro Kona Hahanananana, completely original and practically unused. No-one was bidding as the seller was in deepest, darkest Somerset and specified local pickup only. I asked him if he would courier it to me if I sorted it out and paid. He immediately agreed, I won the bike for £20 and paid £18 for the courier

I snapped a set of alu bars landing after a tiny wee hop off a tree root. Mangaed to stay on and escaped a fall. I don't think about it at all now – any bit could fail at any time – if you worry about it you'll never get back on your bike…

The oldest one in the book has worked a few times for me. Slip a four pack into your mate's bag, let him carry them up the nearest big mountain then ask if he'd like a beer. "Would I!!" Take beers out of his bag and watch him trying to stay p1ssed off as he enjoys an ale and takes in the view.

Add Mark Datz to that list to ensure another smelly corpse.

Kevevs – Member
Beer is so last year. Few lines of coke pre-ride. Speedballs to keep going. Bit of ketamine post-ride…

Many, many years ago, in Aberdeen, my regular bunch of riding mates invited my pisshead mate out on the next ride, and to my surprise, he was very enthusiastic about it. I'd tried to get him out on his bike several times with no joy; "I'll hold you all up, I'm totally unfit, I'll be embarassed", etc., etc…

Even more surprising – on the day he kept up amazingly well all day long. He was up front most of the time, pedalling with furious and wanton abandon. We smoked a bit of weed and drank a few tinnies – all in all, a glorious day out.

On the way back though he started flagging and eventually just stopped dead. We went back to find him and he was lying in the heather hyper-ventilating – turned out he'd been necking speed all day and had run out, poor b@st@rd. Taxi for Boozy Pete.

…..and have to impose radio silence for 30 minutes after DURING the Archers….

This makes more sense to me 🙂

Jesus, which marketing school did you go to? One for Stoopids?

Shib – have you actually ever attended any marketing courses at all? Do you actually know what marketing is? I've been on loads (mostly just to get business funding or for networking) and every single one, without fail, has told me that identifying your target market as 'The General Public' will result in a massive business FAIL. Even the Pound Shop has a very specific target market…

And I must agree that calling strangers on a forum 'stoopid' makes you sound, well, stoopid. Dammit, look what you made me do.

Hmmm – OK but I tend to try and attract non-bland, non-middle-of-the-road clients, so I present myself in a way which will attract interesting people.

Surely spreading yourself out to attract 'The General Public' is exactly what they tell you not to do in marketing class one?!

Only read the first page, then this one. Bl00dy Norah!*

*Not really surprised….

What a stinking situation to end up in – really sorry you've gone through this (beeen lurking and reading updates since the start). Was thinking a lot about your predicament as I have just bought a D300 body off a guy over at ephotozine – he's a long time member (as am I) but I'd never had any dealings with him before, either in the forums or in real life.

This thread was foremost in my mind as I paid £700 into the bank a/c of a guy I'd never met / knew very little about. My transaction went like clockwork but was scary nonetheless.

Sounds like the guys at the bank are finally sitting up now the police are involved – best of luck and keep us up to speed…

I broke my key, went to my local Mr Clutch and they drilled out all the locking nuts. I supplied a replacement set and the whole job cost me £20. Bargain.

Oh, and I bought the replacement set at a nearby autoshop for about £15.

Well there's one outside my house with an unbroken white line on it, which I think means that I shouldn't park there. But I do. And I haven't been towed yet…

Oh, just got it 😳 Took me a minute…

Seriously, you so should (not wee on their weasels) but set up a monthly £2 donation.

This vid gives some food for thought

*Do Not Watch if you are a pleasant human being with normal sensibilities*

And if you do, a wee donation to PETA might be a good idea.

The Southern Yeti – Member
I'm no fan of animal cruelty but if next doors cats persist with sh1tting all over my chipped slate drive then this could be the final solution!

I was just thinking that the woman was probably sick of having cat sh1t in her garden and must be one of these odd people who seem incapable of being scary enough to keep cats off their property – it really isn't hard (woof).

It's less intrusive (IMveryHO). Slows everything down much less and doesn't poke its big electronic nose into everything you do before saying, "Hmmm, OK, I suppooose it's alright for you to do that.."

user-removed – Member
My mate ran a prog called decrapifymycomputer on my new PC World machine and it killed off all the nasty bloatware which came pre-installed. You can download it free from c-net.

Worth doing for the genius name alone….

Posted 1 day ago #

mboy – Member

Or just go into "add/remove Programmes" and uninstall them all for yourself! Simple really…

Posted 1 day ago #

Well, that's kind of the point smartypants! This software ^^^ gets rid of all the daft floating toolbars, unhelpful 'help' functions, horrible wee preloaded photo and video stuff and screeds of other stuff, much of which is buried in the program files and which doesn't appear in control panel's 'Add or remove software' option. And it does it all in one big lump rather than have to wade about and find it individually – obviously you're given the choice of which cr@p to remove before giving it the go ahead…

Again? Not bikey, but here they are nonetheless. Two weeks camping it up in the far North West of Scotland…

STOP TAKING MY F****ING PHOTO YOU PR1CK

HTH………….

+1 – whatever else folk make of Fred (is it you?!) spitefulness isn't one of his attributes IMHO. Think a hard lesson has been learnt here. The OP it should be pointed out, has history. I seem to recall another thread in which he slagged off the copy (words) for a publication he was editing – I remeber being a little concerned and having a wee cringe on his behalf when I read it….

+1 – Frankenstein is surely trolling?

Frankenstein. I am sorry to inform you that both my wife and I were were brought up around guns and neither of us are hillbillies or fanatics. We also still have all our own teeth 🙂

Being allowed to shoot guns as a child instills a sense of respect and responsibility IMveryhumbleO. It's also great fun – at least as much as riding a bike…

Yup – 50 feet from a public highway is the law. But…. I do exactly what you are proposing – I open the patio doors and shoot through the kitchen and living room. My kitchen door opens onto a public highway and I haven't been arrested yet.

I only shoot pennies though and they don't make for great eating.

Other than that, occasionally take the guns out to a nearby disused quarry with no bother.

My mate ran a prog called decrapifymycomputer on my new PC World machine and it killed off all the nasty bloatware which came pre-installed. You can download it free from c-net.

Worth doing for the genius name alone….

Whilst I made my feelings clear about the OP on the original thread, that is truly a nasty, thoughtless thing to do.

P.S. It wasn't me.

Yep – this idea is plain daft. It's a PR nightmare for the police – it's not just daily wail readers getting hot under the collar, it's stupid enough to get even the most liberal types a bit annoyed.

As has been said, why on earth can't the bikes go to a deserving cause?

Well on the upside, just been in touch with the good chap who runs my website at Photium[/url] and it turns out there's a standing order option, so have removed PP from one facet of my life…..

I also emailed PP before I posted here – just got their meaningless automated response asking me to call them 😥 I tried this once before and after many hours of PAYING THEM for the privilege of listening to crap music, I finally got to speak to someone whose English was almost literally non-existent and who was only capable of reading out the paypal "help" function's nonsense for twenty minutes. Might as well have asked the dog for help.

EDIT; another account – not a bad plan. I could just 'gift' this twit his refund using a credit card and if he's any kind of a gent, he'll close the dispute. If he's not, he'll deny receiving any money from me. *Cries again*

At tails – Woah – is that right? I almost started the process tonight!! I think the buyer is a genuine guy, just a bit naive and headstrong….

Thanks. I feel so much better now. Can you think of a better way to reach an international market for a collection of 1920s – 30s gramaphone cylinders?

EDIT; that last was aimed at the 2nd poster

Quite a few on the coast to coast but none particularly interesting…

Best one I can think of is the one on the old railway line starting at Trinity in Edinburgh. Long, dark, drippy and spooky!

Nice to hear all the stories of older lads who spend their days lifting massive weights and still have full mobility / good backs. My grandad smoked 60 a day and lived to be 100 too*.

I'm just going on what I saw at several different courier / delivery companies, and what I saw was loads of older gadges with shot backs who could only take smaller loads / forklift pallets. Perhaps they had all lifted stuff badly before the wall to wall video training kicked in on everything from how to lift a box to how to use a hammer?

I reckon the ultimate job for general fitness which will last into old age would be something like a dog walker or park ranger. Out roaming about most of every day, with the occasional need for a burst of energy.

*might be a lie