Captain Scarlet

I guess that is just a customer service thing, part of what I expect my postage price I pay when shopping for items online is to ensure it is packed well, and of course with feedback systems asking how well the item was wrapped. Our Raleigh P&A delivery is an oversized box with all the items put inside loose, then packed with a bit of newspaper, the stock inside only takes up about 1/5 of the box. But as it goes through Raleigh's own dedicated courier, its not so bad I suppose.

I've heard people mention this a lot, another similar one being "Fixing/building bikes all day so you can;t find the time/be bothered to do your own". I don't feel "Oh not another bike!" when I see mine, as the high specification usually means parts fall together making it a breeze to fix/replace parts than on a cheap mountain bike. I guess it's also the type of bike, as trials is an incredibly uncommon type of bike, it is very unlikely I have to build or fix one at work.

Maybe I was a bit strong and worded it wrong. I'm not trying to say that Halfords don't do well, because that would be like saying the sky is red, I just think it has changed peoples personal expectations of the cycle industry. I worked in a Halfords store for 9 months, I couldn't hack the environment that the manager knew nothing about bikes and was prepared to give away free bikes as "Warranty" just because customers couldn't perform basic bike maintenance which is covered in their respective handbooks, individual Bikehut stores are the way forward and the introduction of the Bikehut brand definately made some difference, but it should still be treated as a separate store to the rest of Halfords. My store could have easily benefited by having its own "Bikehut Manager", an angry customer would come in and ask directly for the manager, (as said, he doesn't know bikes so never took repair as an option). The manager ultimately just wants to make this customer happy, but in the process makes the Bikehut staff look idiotic by using his authority and position to cheat the system and provide a quick and easy fix to the problem that this customer may have. The majority of the time, a new bike. To the customers it is a game, soon after they would ask "Can I have some free accessories for the inconvenience?" and of course the manager would promptly reply "Yes!" without any hesitation or question. With the shop I am at now, as the owner is still up to date and concise with bikes as the industry has changed through the years, he can address customers matters in a sympathetic manner, finding a solution to the problem and ensuring that the customer is happy, not just throwing them the last resort option of a new bike, which just shows lack of confidence in the product itself, and therefore inexperience of the sales person. I've only seen the MTB range, is there much change in the BMX's?

Bin this topic, new one with a deadline near the end of August, with the rules and theme clearly stated. Definately in for manifesto.

A cat. Good food, incredibly powerful and flexible, and they sleep a lot.

Wow you remind me on my ex. Really not much of swine flu around here, apparently some of the local schools had a few cases, so most likely I'll get it from the thieving 10 year old's coming in and out of work.

Anyone got the picture of Sam Wheelers moped and his 24" on it, that looked mental! Would definately be something I'd be interested in doing in the future, I bet its a piece of piss on a Gold Wing.

As much as I'd like to do the whole thing, I doubt I could afford anymore time away from work, but will most likely be down for the few rides at the starting leg. (Southend and London).

As far as I am aware, as they monitored/measured his speed from a static location/position they have perfectly good evidence that he was speeding, but then it is whether they have video evidence of his speeding or just a general speed watch activity.

Such a well made video, it's like the video was one great line, and I've never ever imagined camera work like that to work so well in trials, it was almost skaterish but a hell of a lot smoother. Ultimately if you want to finish trials then that's another experience that you've had fun at in your life, why drag it out if you don't want to ride?

You start like a foot away from the edge, if you do that gapping technique on slippery surfaces you could expect that result 95% of the time.

Is this right...? Or am I missing something?

Can I have someone's number in case we turn up fashionabally late. Still no promises here yet.

What the trials community..? I'd imagine trials is probably less than 5% of the industry currently, it's a bike old market out there. I personally think any workers of Halfords shouldn't be allowed to post in here, I wouldn't consider it as mover in the cycle industry, mainly because it gives people the wrong impression that you can get a good quality cycle for under £100, making most independant cycle retailers look a joke. Exchange rate is bollocks, naturally it puts the prices of production up, leading into cost and therefore retail prices. But it's almost guaranteed prices won't go down when the exchange rate sorts itself out.

Might be down for this, along with a couple other locales...

No fisheye...fail?

A lot of regional and national level competitions require it as a rule to have your legs covered, so ideally if you wanted to wear shorts.

It was with Smarties tubes, I don't think a cat would be able to reach the bottom of a pringles tube. If your expecting someone to come over, leave your bedroom door unlocked, stack them all up on the inside of the door, when you hear a knock just say "Come in", then blame them for the mess they have just made. Make a gigantic drum set out of them, like adapt each one for a different tone/sound, and play a badass 5 minute solo on them. or how about a directional antenna?

It's a beast, sex is irrelevant.

Upgraded piece by piece, would like to have a build as shiny and newish looking as the Echo looks in the photos, tempted to get new forks and wheels.

May as well make this the "Media thread" or something along those lines, would be quite handy to have. One question to ask, I am looking at Universities and their respective courses, I'm looking for a course on the television production side of the industry, do the majority cover the broadcast/studio based television as well as the on location stuff? Aside from Television production, I can't tie down into more of a specific area, is this okay or do I need to be more specific about what I want to do in Television for a Uni course. And finally what courses could some of the graduates here recommend?, what do they cover and how relevant/useful is it to you now?

Plan what your going to do first, don't just say "Oh some random guy who I'm not telling his name is thinking about doing a London ride". What is wrong with planning a date in the near future, with plenty of time and notice to get everyone out. As cool as London is to ride (just as a landmark and the amount of people rather than spots) I vote somewhere else that might actually be ridable in a larger number. I doubt it would be bigger than the last one, Jack Meek worked his arse off getting some of the big names last time.

Because the bike trial sections in it suck, it always features misprints and usually sounds as though it has been copied and pasted from a converted French trials site. Whether Trials is big enough or not, they still manage to produce a 2 page spread of trials news (and even a lot of that is condensed down), so it's not about trials being boring. For quite a large magazine they should be able to put at least one trials write up along with the usual trials section. Am I right in thinking that MBUK was a massive influence on the older generation of riders, introducing Ashton and Hawes, yes to be fair it was modified XC but they still documented it and made it into trials, that was featured in the mags, so why not now? Definitely in for the crap reviews, I was reading an old copy at work the other day (probably around 06/07), they were reviewing pretty much every hydraulic disc brake on the market very top it said "We have not included cable discs, as the most expensive cable disc doesn't even compare with the cheapest hydraulic disc."

Camping in the toilet always works.