Tomm

I know it's lame to compare suspension designs. So here goes. It's just an Orange ST4? http://www.orangebikes.co.uk/bikes/2010/st4_s/

Saints? All the Avids I've ever dealt with have felt amazing, but they f**k up in weird ways. On my DH bike, the pads keep moving together when the wheels are out, so you can't get the wheel back in. The pistons won't move back, either. It's really f**king annoying. Still, I tried some Avid Elixirs the other day and they sure feel nice, so I can't say I wouldn't be tempted by a set...

Except that Shimano brakes never, ever, boil? At least not in my experience. Those deore brakes are really pretty good - I'd certainly rather have that than a Juicy 3 (which unfortunately I do have on my DH bike).

Been there, ridden that. And yeah, it's as good as it looks. Shame it's several thousand miles away, eh?

You photoshopped the car but you left her clothes ON?!

Like this?

Surely Mortal Kombat on the Megadrive?

Really left? Compared to the Americans? That's not hard You should have a look at that quiz. They make a distinction between left / right and the authoritarian / libertarian. Although they are often linked (left + libertarian, right + authoritarian) it's not necessarily so. It sounds like you're quite libertarian from what you've said - Same sex marriage, marijuana. I.e. state control is a bad thing, people should do what they like. The left / right thing is a bit different - you may (or may not) believe in the welfare state and public funded health care for example. Personalities and past misdemeanours (Iraq, the credit crunch) aside, Labour is a traditionally closer to the Lib Dems than the Conservatives ever will be. You might not want to vote for Brown, but labour's policies are much more "ghandi" than those of the conservatives? Yeah, Ghandi isn't as libertarian as I had imagined.

I don't really have that much opinion on the election, but the policy to repeal the awful Digital Economy Act is why I'll be voting Lib Dem. Plus it would be nice to see some real political change, and this is clearly the best opportunity to get it that we've had as long as I can remember. If you want to learn more about the digital economy act, this is worth reading IMHO: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/16/digital-economy-act-cory-doctorow

Practise? It's not that hard. Or whizz it along the carpet. That's the other option.

Yeah, Pitches are really nice. I've got a friend who's had one for ages and loves it, and another who's just bought a Pitch frame. They're basically just Enduros, but a lot cheaper. I reckon they can take a bit of a hammering, and if you're relatively light they should last well enough. The angles are a bit steep for proper DH though.

It's nicer now - those cranks bent on my first outing with them (despite their £200 RRP ) so they've been replaced with the new Saints. I've also removed the blue from the bashing which has always annoyed me, and done my own Zebra-striped bash design which (surprisingly!) looks pretty cool.

It's an Iron Horse Sunday. It might have a bit less travel (I think it's 8") and it's certainly a bit lighter than a big hit, but I don't think it's going to be that different really. You probably want something like an Sx Trail or Commencal Supreme mini-Dh? Santa Cruz Bullit?

WTF, that was weird. And slightly creepy. Anyone know how much Geniuses get paid?

For an XC bike? I wouldn't bother, totally not worth it compared to what else you could buy for that sort of money. I'm currently loving my XTR shifters, they're beautiful! If you do insist on really expensive wheels, I'd go for the Crank Bros ones. Pimp as f**k. http://www.crankbrothers.com/wheel_design_iodine.php That surely isnt the way to treat that bike! Nice riding though. Where is it?

Interesting theory. Did they not check your receipt? Actually I'm fairly sure they'll have your information on the computer? Providing that you book an appointment in advance* I've had only good experiences with Apple. I've actually had 4 iPhones now - the first 3 all developed different faults. Each time, they just take a look down the headphone socket and dock connector (with an otoscope ) to check the moisture sensors, and handed me a new one there and then. Mine's well out of its 1 year warranty now though, I doubt they would be so helpful. * If you don't book, they're really irritating and unhelpful. I bought an iPod years ago, got home and the play button didn't work (it's kind of useful). I took it back the same day, expecting a replacement, but they were insisting that I needed an appointment - so the 'genius' could check that the button was broken! It wasn't until I started raising my voice that they actually looked at it.

Fair enough you're harbouring an injury, but for 99% of people who have never ridden a bike "properly", I doubt they have a strongest leg. Most people just use their legs to walk / run / swim / climb stairs. I reckon most people have fairly equally-strong legs!

Regular / Goofy is apparently around a 60:40 split (with more people regular, obviously!) - in snowboarding at least. I don't suppose Skateboarding is much different. I think it's a similar sort of split for riding trials - I made a poll on it a few years back, it's possibly worth searching for that. Whether there's any correlation with being left-footed and left handed, I don't think so. 'Handedness' (E.g. for writing) is hard-wired into your brain, but with riding / snowboard stance I'm fairly sure it's just a case that most people will pick a favourite foot and stick with it. Eventually, you'll get used to having your favourite foot forwards, and anything else will seem foreign. If you try hard enough, you can learn with your "bad" foot forwards though.

I thought it was never going to be finished Looks nice.

Pikes are ace forks, I love mine. They're a completely different class of forks to DJ3s (I have some of those on my jump bike as well) which are basically just made to take the sting out of botched landings. I've had my Pikes 3 years and they're still working great. With regards to putting them on that frame, it's not a totally stupid idea, your bike shop sound like nobs. Having said that, you can get second hand hardtail frames dirt cheap so that would definitely be worth thinking of. And yeah, of course you can stick the forks onto a new frame - providing you don't cut the steerer down too much (as a guide, leave 200mm). P.S. If you get Pikes, learn to service them (clean the seals and change the oil), and they'll feel good as new again each time. It's a 10 minute job if you've done it a few times.

I'm fairly convinced that XT is the only way to go if you ride regularly. It just lasts a lot longer than anything cheaper. My exceptions would be chains (Sram seem to be a bit cheaper/better IMO) and rear mechs. SLX mechs are virtually the same, and if you break mechs a lot you'll probably bend it before you make it go sloppy (the rate of going wobbly seems to be the only major difference from deore up to XT - in terms of shifting performance from new, there's not much in it).

Usually the proportion of memory given to the graphics card is controlled by the bios - nothing to do with windows. I guess one way to check would be to see how much system memory you have. E.g. If you've got 2Gb Ram (2048 Mb), and your graphics card is taking 512Mb, Windows would only recognise 1536 Mb of RAM (2048 - 512). So If Windows thinks you have 1984 Mb of RAM (I.e. 2048 - 64), then the problem lies with your bios, and you have to go in and change the settings (Press delete on startup, usually but may be different for your laptop). If Windows thinks you've got 1536Mb, then the problem lies with the graphics card drivers as already said. I would be quite surprised if it was impossible to find working drivers somewhere. EDIT: Maybe try reading this http://www.sevenforums.com/drivers/12826-ati-mobility-radeon-x1300-driver-download-install-error.html

Yeah, I saw that trailer the other day - looks amazing. I'm loving MTB films at the moment.

Yeah that looks much better than mine. The other major annoyance about mine is that the artist search times out after about 5 seconds of not touching it. So if you're trying to select an artist, and then have to concentrate on the road for a few seconds, it resets. It's just stupid stuff like that which would be very easy to sort out. I reckon they made the cheaper head units irritating in order to sell the expensive ones...!