dicky – feel free to drop me an email (in profile). I go out at least once a week with a couple of guys from Boldon (just up the road) and you're more than welcome to come along. Sometimes just local pootles like up the old railway to Newcastle and back along the river, and quite often out to Hamsterley / GT / Whinlatter – wherever we've got time to go really.

There's not a huge amount directly from your doorstep (know the Rosedene well!) but once you get out towards where I am (New Herrington) there's some good but non-challenging riding to be had. Been up to Penshaw a few times;

DBC – off to check your link – not sure how far away you are…

Well, made some enquiries and it looks like a few of us from Macamland (Sunderland) are going to make a weekend of it in Ambleside. Going through Sunday, perhaps a trundle round a lake or two, watch the film at night, camp, then epic ride on Monday.

If anyone fancies a lift give me a shout.

I would have been there with bells on and with plenty other riders too. Sure we're not the only ones who are going to be mighty peeved if it's not happening.

Hmm, I have a rigid Canondale S/S and a rigid geared Kona, both of which get ridden a fair bit.

I also own and ride a uni but not to the deviance level of that chap who falls over in the mountains all day and then camps out all night in a bin bag – can't remember his username – he had some pics up a few weeks ago…

Good to see some excellent advice for the OP from those in the know. Not a sterling outcome but sounds as if it's sorted at least.

I was harassed by a debt collection agency for a couple of years. Long story short – basically I bought my way out of my car insurance contract after being messed around for months. I'd paid up and sent through all documentation several times but never got a certificate of insurance.

I got a three day producer from the traffic cops – the insurance co claimed I'd never been insured with them and denied ever having received any money / documentation from me. I faxed through bank statements showing the payment and copies of the letters thanking me for my payment but just came up against a brick wall.

The cops turned up at my work (I drove for a living back then) and shouted the odds in front of my boss and colleagues – called me a liar and much worse.

Eventually the insurance co sent out a temporary cover note for the day I got stopped by the police. Needless to say, after I'd paid my late fees to the police I immediately wanted to cancel my 'non-existent' policy. It was at that point I had to buy myself out of the contract – a one off payment of £100 which I made over the phone under heavy duress.

Two weeks later a letter came through the door demanding "the outstanding balance of £420". Phone calls only resulted in the same demand for cash and a complete denial of any payment from me. I swore at them horribly and vowed they wouldn't get another penny from me.

Another week and the letters started arriving from a debt collecter, threatening all kinds of unpleasantries should I choose not to pay the original sum plus added fees of another couple of hundred quid. I just kept ignoring them all and a year later moved away. The collecters then managed to get a hold of my elderly mother (unbeknownst to me) and threatened to empty her house unless she coughed up, which she did!

That did solve the problem but left me in the same mood as Mr Nutt in terms of considering flame throwers. Had to pay my mum back almost a grand too. GRRRR!

Unrelated rant over, sorry….

Another vote for the Superstar pedals – I ride in nice weather with Five Ten Stealths – much better looking than the regular ones IMO, and if you care about that kind of thing….

Really do feel like I'm glued to the pedals now. Used Wellgos and DMRs in the past and the SS pedals are very tough and hardwearing in comparison.

🙂

There goes the article 🙁

Thanks for all that – very much appreciated. Will turn off water and 'leccy and be ready with a big pair of pliers in case something horrible comes out 😯

Actually, having had another look, I'm going to take off the baton running vertically up the wall, bend the pipes back on themselves and screw the baton back on.

P.S. – think the rad pipe theory might be right but the whole house is a bit jerry built and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the clamped ends were holding in a tidal wave of boiling water…

EDIT: yeh, my pipes are RAD dude

Yup – that's kinda the problem – as you can see, following them back would involve knocking most of a wall down 🙁

Well worth buying a copy of autoloader;

Autoloader[/url]

A beautifully simple little prog. All you do is point it at the directory of your original files, press F1, it opens the first file, you work on it to your heart's content. Press F1 again, it saves it according to your own parameters into whatever folder you specify and the next file opens on your screen.

Repeat ad infinitum, or until your directory is finished.

It's a great tool for working on a large number of pics and the guy who wrote it (Mike) has just sent me the new script for CS5 (I bought it four years ago) so ongoing support is a given.

The best thing is you can automatically run an action on every file (i.e., save for web at whatever quality) which sounds like it's perfect for your needs. Drop me an email if you've any questions…

My Juicy 7s rear caliper rubs all the time. I've just resigned myself to the fact that it happens and there's sh1t all I can do about it. Pretty certain it's not affecting my performance though….

Mastiles – that 'look' is definitely no longer niche – everyone's at it. It's been branded as 'lifestyle photography'. Exactly as you describe – get the family down to the beach / fave park / wherever else, take lots of natural looking shots of the kids playing, put together a nice little book, charge arm and leg, job's a good'un.

I tried kids' events for a while (footie touraments and the like), thinking that I really did need to find a niche, but have since decided to stick with regular old portraits using a portable studio kit – I suppose the USP is that I go to my clients at a time to suit them and do the shoot in their living room, where they feel comfortable? Although I am still more than happy to do the down the beach shoots too…

To the OP – the only time I make any real money out of portraits is in the months before Xmas. Having said that, I put precisely £0 and (nearasdammit) 0 effort into marketing portraits so any comissions are a bonus.

Yawn! Needs The Rocket to add a bit of flair and much needed pace….

That semi-slicks and broken glass on trails don't mix – two punctures for me and my Maxxis Wormdrives, and a good few more for the other guys. Mate's Halo Twinrails stayed unpunctured tho….

A good wedding photographer friend of mine is now only offering short (four hour) wedding packages and is concentrating most of her marketing efforts on child portraiture.

She has a ready made market as she has two kids of school age and she's naturally very chatty and gregarious – so she gets a lot of business just by chatting at the school gates to other parents who then go off and look her website.

Her clients seem very willing to part with a lot of money for her work. So there is a market there if your wife is charismatic, business minded and willing to spend a lot of time and money. As has been said though, it is a very, very competitive area to be entering right now – to be completely frank, I wouldn't start again right now, purely due to the numbers of (sometimes) talented amateurs willing to work for free, or next to free….

Not really – we head to the track at Darlington or Bunnyhill in Hartlepool for full on jump practice. Hamsterley's the place to be though!

alpin – it's spelt f-u-c-k.

+1 to the sentiment above ^^

One of my first jobs was a pizza delivery driver and it drove me up the wall when you'd get sent to a street full of houses with no numbers – also worked as a driver for Parcel Farce for a few years and had similar problems – you want yer parcel? Get a f3kkin number on yer house numbnuts!!

Now I'm a respectable wedding photographer I spend a lot of time in unfamiliar housing estates knocking on the wrong doors trying to find my would be clients. Grr!

As said above, next time it might be the police / emergency services – seconds cost lives and all that……..

The discs which came with my Juicy 7s were 160mm front and rear, but it is a Halfords bike……

Right cheers for that – I'll shift them about a bit tomorrow just to get as much of the pads touching the rotor as poss. Sounds like it shouldn't make too much odds though. Off to Darlo jump track tomorrow so hopefully won't run out of brake 🙂

Cheers – that means some of the pad's braking area is unused though right? That is, it will overhang the edge of the rotor and cause uneven pad wear?

EDIT: really foxy? Might just leave them as they are then – I just wondered if the sharpish edges on the rotor arms would destroy my pads – seemingly not 🙂

Done! New grips fitted too – off for a play round my local woods – hooray!

Ah. Cheers guys – off to fit it right now….

Used to commute from Aberdeen to Cults on my mum's BSA 1930s ladys' shopping bike. It had giant wheels, a full chain oil bath thingy and a basket. I loved it but broke it after several months of bunnyhopping and rough ground on the old railway track 🙁

Go to the pub at the time he is coming round.

OR

Start a thread here in the hopes that random bikers will each send you a couple of quid (wouldn't be the first time…)

Seriously, just ask him for a bit more time.

Hmmm – prolly feel like a d1ck but will fulfill a childhood fantasy if nothing else….

TBH I'm totally sick of 5 minute vids of my left hand / the sky / the scenery passing by at 90 degrees, so I just bought a set of these bad boys;

camera sunglasses

Even if the vids are still cr@p, at least the camera will be pointing in the direction I want!

Yup – works now. You're getting better results than I've managed so far – all my vids are unwatchable due to mahoosive shakiness 🙁 I wonder if it's due to my using industrial velcro which might be allowing some movement? I'll try taping the thing on next ride….

Private vid 🙁

I wish I had a Canon G anything for riding with. As it is, I usually take a D300, SB-800 (flash) and usually a tiny light stand… If I'm really travelling light I'll sometimes take my wee Pentax Optio which does great video but has limited manual / TV / AV functions.

Trying to give up my Drum baccy habit right now – almost a week in.

Re smoking t'other whilst out riding, my mates and I spent pretty much every ride stoned off our t1ts when we were in our teens / 20s. Mind you, we were also pretty much permanently baked off the bikes too, so no change there really…. I do remember having to make a pipe out of a hollow stick and a foil kit-kat wrapper once when it transpired no-one had brought any rizlas on a three dayer out the top of Braemar.

Bah! Can't book tickets for another month at the Tyneside, Newcastle – bet I forget and miss out 🙁

Suits me – car park by the bike shop?

Can I just +2 (3?) to the 2L, Focus Tdi estate. I know that in a thread like this everyone nominates their car as being the best / most economical / mahoosivest but my Focus swallows 2 bikes with wheels on (just roll them in at an angle) with kit no bother at all.

It then gets me to Skye and back from Newcastle three or four times a year, Aberdeen and back at leat twice a year and general running about duties in between, including plenty of motorway miles down South.

As a wedding photographer, I also need a smartish looking car which never fails unexpectedly – it never has 🙂

Whenever I hit a brick wall like this (hasn't happened for the last few years, touch wood) I just back up all the important stuff and go for a destructive restart – saves so much faffing and has the added bonus that your daughter's laptop will run much faster.

Sounds like you have the boot disc so should be quite straightforward. One morning setting everything up again is a better option than several evenings trying to identify a problem by scouring incomprehensible forums inhabited by 18 year olds…. (not this one obviously!).

There's a track on mine called, "Oh Mama". It's the very worst kind of slushy, sentimental, cod-bluegrass, country crap and I've no idea who it is or where it came from – all layered Irish whistles, bad harmonising and lyrics about a dying Civil War soldier coming home to his mum.

It invariably pops up whilst at speed downhill – all I can do is seethe until I hit the flat and am finally able to pull the headphones from my dirty, invaded ears.

Didn't realise that "Fit it with a rock" actually had provenance 😯

Lurked for a few years but didn't start posting 'til after the big bang. Think my old user name was ralphie….

Some great pics here. Grum – really like both of those – been back for third look now! Agree with comments above re the first – it's a grower! Second just looks amazingly peaceful. Mostly though, I think I like them as they don't look processed to death – so many landscape shots do now 🙁