I have also defraged, deleted programs, deleted temp files, spybotted as well.

What else can I do?

Its not to say that you can't get better by just doing mtb, but I think it's easier and faster to progress with a road bike and some form of motivation to use it.

My fitness has improved greatly since getting a road bike and doing some longer rides with them. Most of my training is for endurance events as well. Now i can go faster and for longer.

(riding with my mtb mates I'm one of the faster guys, but with the roadies I'm often dropped off the back, though they do wait for me at the top)

Luckily we've got lots of hills around here so the riding isn't too boring. Quite exciting seeing some more of the countryside that i'd otherwise miss and also some of the big hill passes in the welsh valleys. (Bwlch pass between the afan valley and the Rhondda is meant to be one of the Uk's best road rides).

As for commuting it can be really good as well. Riding for 45 min x2 everyday will help especially if you mix it up a bit with different speeds and intervals of some sort. Good to go the longer, hillier route home as well if you can.

Berm Bandit, it doesn't fall under the old bill to deal with environmental crime. Fly-tipping / illegal waste disposal is the responsibility of the Environment Agency and your local authority. So best grumble at them instead

I knew a lad who was into hifi and he'd never turn off his amp.

Shocked my environmental sensitivities at the time but I'm over that now.

the rhondda and an amazing cafe in Treorchy

All the trail at Brechfa or at Afan in a day.

The length of the brecon beacons in a day?

Some of the transwales day routes could be adapted I suppose.

Porthcawl
Cowbridge
??

One speaker mounted to the handlebars, the other to the seatpost. Subwoofer in the 2nd bottle cage.

woah, he's got some camel toe going on there!

cfh, likewise I think I used some once, was a bit impressed and then never bought any.

I remember that for about half a season in about 1994, they were the thing to have.

I think i might give them a go…

There was a whole debate about whether they let you take in more air, or just the same amount of air more easily, with critical studies showing that more air wasn't possible, then the breathe right people saying it was just meant to make it easier to breathe.

venemous bloodsucking parasites. ..?

I just can't do him justice.

That was really good, only i wish the uci would stick to biking and let freecaster do the music.

I think Cameron looks very weak, and not to mention hypocritical, every time he tries to attach the others on the ground of trying to spread fear in the electorate.

I thought the bbc weren't going to stream this debate as due to impartiality they would have to include ukip/bnp + the other cranks. (greens excepted).

Quite a good point by David about young families saving. Then Gordo dropped a bomb on him…

cripes, dave just shat himself again re expenses

The bbc link above is much better than the guardian stream btw

I think Dave just followed through.

http://www.pscycles.co.uk/ Abercarn nr Cwmcarn

http://www.tredz.co.uk/ On the outskirts of Swansea, just off the m4 (15 minutes beyond the Port Talbot junction)

or a passivhaus

(scroll down a bit)

Wow, ecohouses that look good and also perform well.[/url]

Yes but it would be a greater percentage of a much smaller total.

Not really like any of those but i just discovered
Pantha du prince

When you've done that really really well there's no cost imperative to do anything else. Apart from hook up to a district heating scheme.

Bear, basically my problem my problem with ASHPs is the lack of any independently published data on the performance. There are lots of manufacturers claims, like coefficient of performance of >4.5 However, in practice because the poor performance in winter this would seem to drop significantly, and if it gets near 3 then you might as well stick with an efficient gas boiler.

Some of my colleagues have looked into this and it would seem that attempts to publish proper performance data have actually been pulled by manufacturers.

Anyway, the people I've spoken to who have had extremely high bills for this winter, aren't too happy with their ASHPs performance.

I suppose the renewable heat incentive might change this, but who knows at this point?

I made a bit of an effort last summer to learn to jump.
Getting my head around the "push in to the face of the jump" was the biggest change in what I was doing. Quite happy on tabletops now, and just warming up to doubles.

Cwmcarn freeride section on the xc trail is a good spot for progressing from small to medium sized tabletops.

jakeclyro is right and hoodoo is wrong about paybacks. FITs turns the old financial model (hoodoo) on its head.

molgrips, I think the OP is interested in saving energy, that's why I suggested it. OP said, "I like to think I am as Enviromental as possible", which I took to mean saving energy and reducing carbon emissions.

Bear, air source heat pumps (ASHP) and solar systems actually make a good match. (it's not like the ASHP gets in the way of the panel, one is generally at ground level, the other is usually on the roof). With solar hot water, you can reduce the heat demand from the building and therefore the work the heat pump has to do. With PV you can provide some of the energy to run the pump. Neither of these however, addresses the fundamental problem with ASHP which is poor preformance in winter, when the external evaporator coils may freeze up. All a bit irrelevant as ASHP
is not a good choice for any property on mains gas.

matt_outandabout, dropoff and jakeclyro are talking sense.

For more opinion I would recommend the forum on this site.[/url]

You will get much more impartial advice on that forum than you will get from speaking to any installers or sales people from a solar (or ASHP) company.

I think the payback for Solar Hot Water fitted to an A+ rated boiler is pretty poor, like >20yrs.

http://hmccc.s3.amazonaws.com/21667%20CCC%20Report%20AW%20WEB.pdf
on page 173.

"Even if you are on mains gas, going down this route could save you money by getting rid of your gas requirements & saving on the standing charges."

BS!

http://www.bsdlive.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3142370

If it was an offgas property in Devon then I'd support an ASHP. But as they're on the gas network I'm not so sure.

Actually I'd say PV costs more like £5-8/kW installed.

Molgrips, why is this not a retrofit project? If the house is already built then it is a retrofit or refurbishment.

People regularly talk about payback times for retrofit insulation.

And also for replacement boilers, but not for new ones.

For pv a rule of thumb is £4k/kW installed. Although this a highly variable depending on what company quotes.

In terms of size, roughly 4m2/kW

Cost of installing Solar Hot Water is about £4-5k. Make sure the system boiler cylinder you buy is compatible for solar hot water. Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) if it happens, might provide a FIT style payback, but not until 2011 at the earliest.

I would still say the pv/FIT route is much better than the hot water panels, as you'll be able to make money on your installation (after a few years payback) rather than just slowly pay off the initial investment. Much quicker payback.

With solar thermal hot water, you will only save gas, on an already efficient system.

With solar PV you will save on electricity, which in carbon dioxide terms has approximately a 2.7 times greater carbon intensity than gas. Good for displacing the impact of any TVs, kettles or computers you might have.

In terms of energy efficient refurbishment measures to your house, for energy efficiency the best thing you can do is insulate and draft proof.

Then fit a new efficient A+ rated boiler, radiators and TVRs.

Once you have fitted a new boiler, the payback on Solar Thermal panels won't be very good, because you're not saving very much fuel to fuel the water (already very efficienct) – although you will still save some energy. Conversely if you were fitting a solar thermal panel to an existing, less efficient boiler, it would be a better payback.

At this point you'd be better off with a solar panel for electricity, i.e. Photo Voltaics (PV). This will cost about £6k-8k but is now a good investment due to the newly introduced Feed-in-tariff mentioned above by allthepies. You can get something like 38p/kWhr for all electricity that you generate. Would getting a bank loan to do it, probably. And you will save significant amounts of carbon intensive electricity in the process.

For some more info see http://www.tzero.org.uk/About.aspx

yes hans i think it might be a p1ss take

Make sure you put the allen key all the way into the bolt before tightening.

+1 what joe said.

Especially the bit about joining your local club. Depending on your local rivers and what happens kayaking can be pretty dangerous, so definitely worth learning the basics properly.

I will be wearing arm warmers tomorrow morning. Essential equipment.