Tomm

I wear contacts + goggles or sometimes just contacts (and keep my eyes shut when they're underwater). Why are you so scared about getting the contacts wet? If you take them out soon afterwards and stick them into solution there's no real danger of infection. Seriously though, contacts and goggles is perfect. They might let water in after 10-20 minutes, but all you do is stop for 2 seconds and let the water out? Which is the same for anyone - contacts or no contacts?

You know CRC have a snow section, right? There are a few big shops, don't know of any particularly cheap ones. The Snowboard Asylum Noah's Ark Snow and Rock

If you're set on keeping it in the right vintage, DMR V8s would still be authentic. And if you want one of these brakes in good condition, let me know. http://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-Shimano-Deore-XT-V-brakes-brake-set-BR-M739-/310343792777#ht_774wt_922

I've got Stan's Flows at the moment - Only had them a couple of months but they seem good so far. Mavic rims are OK but none of them are really wide enough - at least not the non-DH rims.

Still, most roadies would be more than happy with 6.5 miles in 15 minutes (25mph sustained) on a road bike. It's a lie that you've ever done that on a DMR. Perhaps you're mistaken and you did 5 miles in 25 minutes, or the clocks at work/home weren't synchronised / whatever.

Don't ever send any money as a gift - you have no recouse at all. If you receive money as a gift I would think it's OK.

I just memorised my HSBC IB number years ago and it's fine. I don't like the calculator thing though - too easy to misplace. The HSBC calculator thing isn't like other ones - you don't put your card into it. I think the way it works is the first time you register, it asks you to choose and input a random 4 digit PIN (you don't tell the bank or the website this pin) however the bank does know the serial number of your Secure Key pad. The pad has an algorithm (depending on the device's serial number) that converts your PIN into another number (6 digits). If you know the algorithm (presumably the HSBC servers do) and your initial response then you can predict which 6 digit the device will come up with on subsequent uses. Similar to RSA ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_(algorithm) - the Secure Key's serial number would be the 'public' key) although I don't think it's quite as secure as full-blown RSA - it's just an additional layer of security.

Eh? You're saying greener/faster/stronger/fitter/better aren't allowed as words because they start with a consonant? I would have thought cleverer was technically OK but since it doesn't quite sound right, most people would use the 'more clever' form.

It would be hard work. Mind you, going down a set of trails on a road bike would be hard work too...

Which will be better for riding distance on the road? A bike made for doing skids and jumps or a road bike? Duh.

I've just spoken to paypal and they said as long as I send it recorded to a 'confirmed' address it will all be kosher. I am still skeptical.

His feedback is legit but the way these things work is if someone hijacks an innocent person's ebay + paypal accounts, they can bid on whatever and pay using Paypal. Then, when the real owner of the account finds out his account has been hacked, they'll put a claim in with paypal who will do a charge-back, then get the money back from me. I.e. I'm out of pocket and I no longer have the steering wheel. He also said for the inconvenience he wasn't going to pay the postage, he would tick the 'collect in person' box but still wanted me to send it. I suspect this means that if I do send it, Paypal will be like "WTF did you send it?" and they won't give a toss about proof of postage / delivery etc. I think the best plan is to call Paypal in the morning as you say...

Right, so I sold my xbox steering wheel on eBay. LINK MS don't make them any more so in theory it's worth £80 ish. But this guy has paid £148. He emails me asking for address and phone number so he can pick it up. I send him my phone number and two minutes later I get a call. He says he wanted to pick it up locally - but I told him the wheel was in Sheffield not Lancaster (to be fair it wrongly says Lancaster in the ad) and he gets irritated. Fair enough, he lives near (ish) to Lancaster and he can't pick it up so easily. He then tells me that he's currently in Switzerland (doesn't seem to be in too much of a hurry despite the story that he's 'roaming'), and I have to send this parcel to his mate in Blackburn and he will send it on to Switzerland with a load of his other stuff. He doesn't want me to send it to his confirmed Paypal address. He's paypall'd me the full amount (£148) and it's shown up in my account when I log in as 'completed'. But I'm scared of Paypal charge-backs where they withdraw the money after I've sent the item. Reading this back to myself, I'm 90% sure it's a scam. He makes it seem urgent, he paid over the odds, he wants me to send it to a non-verified address, and he told me he was making a 'leap of faith' in sending me the money. So I don't know what to do now. I could phone Paypal in the morning, that's one option. What should I do? Refund the money and offer to the next highest bidder (possibly also part of the same scam in order to inflate the price). He wants me to send it first thing tomorrow.

For what it's worth I doubt it'd make that much. Stick it on pinkbike, you might get £200.

Anyone want an official xbox 360 steering wheel and pedals? I've got a barely-used one which I'm selling, they seem to go for £80 + postage on eBay, so £75 inc postage to anyone here. PM me

Bizarrely I didn't read that article above, and I still used the term megaslut.

I've wondered this before, too. It depends whether you're talking about mean, median or mode as 'average'. Cool people, read on. If you make a few assumptions (two heterosexual partners per interaction etc) then draw some graphs: x axis = the number of lifetime sexual partners, and y axis the number of people with that many sexual partners. You'll get an approximately bell-shaped curve, with the mean in the middle. Let's take men first (the blue line on the graph). If we assume that the graph is perfectly distributed about the mean (I.e. not skewed) then the mean number of partners=median=mode. Essentially this means that if the average is 5 partners, then the number of people with 4 partners is the same as the number of people with 6 partners etc. Now imagine a second graph for women (pink line). We'll assume that the number of interactions are the same (I.e. the area under the graph is the same as the male graph, and the mean is in the same place as the male graph). However, imagine that for there are a handful of women who have slept with hundreds of guys. We'll call them prostitutes or megasluts. Even though most of the individual women in the population have slept with 2-3 men (so the mode average will be 2 or 3), the handful of prostitutes sleeping with hundreds of men each will 'skew' the graph to the side. The mean average will be the same as the male mean average (5) but the mode (the tallest point on the graph) is 2. If you've read some statistics that the average number of sexual partners is different for men and women, they may be talking about the modal (or median) average as opposed to the mean.

What you'd need for some real money saving is some sort of high pressure vessel filled with helium at high pressure. More helium = more floaty. P.S. If you've been on this forum less than 5 years, you probably won't get this reference

I've ridden a lot of those trails

Yeah, the big hit is not a good deal. That Orange looks really nice for the money.

You could ride a 5 inch trail bike on most DH tracks in the UK (that goes for most international DH tracks, really), but it's not the right bike for the job. I'd compare it to riding a trials bike on dirt jumps. A dedicated DH bike is way faster on decent trails. That said, I rarely ride my DH bike because it's a pain in the ass to get to the top of the hill, so if you want a bike for just hooning about in the woods, then a 5-6" travel 'trail' bike is the best compromise IMO.

Orange Fives are closer to 6" anyway. I've got a Commencal 5.5 (similar bike to Orange 5) and an Iron Horse Sunday DH bike. They're completely different - the Iron Horse is way more stable at speed, but I'd never want to pedal it up hill. For some UK not-really-DH races you'll get away with shorter travel bikes (especially if you need to pedal lots) but for proper DH you'll want something heavier duty than an Orange 5. It depends a bit on what you plan to do with it: If you're getting lifts or just pushing up then get a DH bike. If you're planning on sessioning DH tracks but maybe riding to the top on a fire-road, then a longer travel (160 - 170mm ish) freeride bike might be what you want (E.g. Lapierre Froggy, Orange Alpine, Trek Slash) If you're planning on going on decent XC rides with a few downhill sections thrown in there, get a 150mm ish XC bike (Like an Orange 5).

If they're mountain bike canti's (not road U-brakes/calipers) then yeah the mounts are in the right place. However the brake cable leverage ratio is different - if you don't change the levers at the same time, the brakes will be really mushy. Not unusable, but very squidgy and you'll have to run the pads closer to rim (I.e. your wheel better be straight).

Yeah, one of the best things about BF3 is the climbing over stuff, it's really fluid and easy to climb.

I bought Battlefield 3 initially, spent quite a while trying to get into the online modes, but never properly got gripped. I wanted to love it but I just didn't. It definitely feels more like a simulator but I'm not sure that's a positive thing. I think the main problem is that I hate campers/camping. On COD I would always flank the opposition and knife campers from behind, you can't do any flanking on BF3 because of the no go zones and it basically encourages you to sit a hold positions rather than run out and kill people. Which is just irritating. Just given in and bought the new COD - the controls feel much smoother and it just seems to have a great feel to online multiplayer. Feels very similar to Modern Warfare 1 (in a good way). So far so good, although I wish there was a gun game mode like on Black Ops.