monkeyseemonkeydo

Deng always just throws all his bits on bikes for the promo shots. Does he do much testing at all?

. Not the bikes themselves, just the stupid looking setups he's used.

Most of the people on here are like 15-16. To them anything over 20 is ancient. So yeah, 35 is just insanely old...

I hear they're mainly Welsh down that way... Tends to result in the worlds most insanely f**king annoying patriotism known to man.

The only issue is the soft aluminium lockring which gets mullered over time. I don't use a pin spanner (had one but it was the wrong size...) so I always use needlenose pliers but my lockring looks like it's been mauled by a miniature lion.

ORLY?

Hey guys, just another quick update. Went to see Terry this afternoon and he's still doing fine and on the mend. Working back to health slowly and seems to be doubling the recommended exercise times much to Hazel's distress! He went down to Bournemouth beach on Wednesday and I think was very glad to get out of the house. He wanted me to thank everyone for their kind messages and all the cards he's received. He's been genuinely touched by the amount of people who have been asking after him and thinking of him.

Brilliant! Always love watching Mike ride. For want of a better phrase it always seems to be fully 'balls out'! Looks like you had a really good trip too- I really ought to make the effort to do something like that but between being rubbish at finding time and being a bit lazy I dunno if it'll ever happen... Anyhoo, awesome vid!

Oh get over it. Your question was answered in the first few posts so whatcha complainin' about?!

Loooooosssseeerrrrr

Wowowow... what did that say before the edit? PM me if it was amusing...

That's the problem though, the sites are pretty much 100% legal. They're not daft. And so long as the sites remain legal and functioning people will continue to download, it's inevitable.

Come on, you're not exactly Douglas Bubbletrousers are you?! You three are still seeing it from the outside to some extent. Ok you're far more into it than I am but I still believe that if the artists were the ones complaining things may change. While they're apparently not giving two shits and are happy with the money they're making people will continue to steal music. Of course the other side of it is that it is way too easy to steal music. Surely it's easy for the fraud squad to track down the big players who're sharing hundreds of thousands of illegal tracks rather than trying to scare everyone who leaches the odd album to see what it's like.

But in this day and age do sites like Myspace and Facebook not make life much easier? Invite all your friends, they invite some random people and with a bit of luck you may end up with a hardcore following. If you're really good, people will know about you. You start by playing little local venues, maybe get the odd slightly bigger gig off of that. You're not telling me that every successful artist out there funded their own first recordings and album production so they could get themselves out there? You certainly don't need to mass produce your own CD album to let people hear what you can do. At worst they record what they do in the best way they can (be it mic recording, camcorder or whatever) and get it to as many people as possible. Otherwise they could scrape together and book an afternoon at a small recording studio and go from there. You're calling people like Simon Cowell dumb? Yes people put money into new bands who have that something special. Every artist out there was a gamble of some sort to begin with surely?

He's a bit of a loser these days... was out at the Abingdon DJ ride but that was the first time in months and he's since broken his rear brake so was riding brakeless briefly... Long story short not really. He's a loser .

Your band split up and stopped doing something that you loved doing because you weren't likely to make hideous amounts of money out of it? As was said above, I didn't realise music was purely about making money. Again, there will always be music. The quality coming out of the recording studio will always be the same (or, in fact, improving as technology allows). As such whoever might upload the track to a P2P site isn't going to have been recording it on a hand held tape recorder at the door... I also very much doubt that's the case with regards tours. If you define 'big enough' as having a big following of fans then how much money they and their record label make (which is likely to be substantial regardless what you say) then they will be able to sell tickets to a tour. If you fill out Wembley Arena and charge £40 for the tickets you'll be turning over half a million quid a night. Say 20 nights at various places and you've just turned over £10 million in ticket sales. Tours are about popularity of a group, not how much money Sony have lost in illegal downloads vs. legal ones. As said before, if a load of idolised artists started saying how much they and their industry was being hurt people might take notice. When it's some unnamed suit trying to bring down Pirate Bay because he only got a $5 million bonus instead of a $6 million bonus people are going to support the Pirate Bay guys who are trying to 'fight the establishment'... something which in the past the artists have always tried to do. Interesting, no?

I call bullshit. There will always be new, good musicians coming through the ranks to become successful. If it's made a little more tricky because of illegal downloads (which, lets face it is pretty unlikely because until you're successful and have a record deal and are releasing albums (making money)) then so be it. Successful musicians will still be successful, have selout gigs and make millions in record, ticket and memorabilia sales anyway. I can see it from your point of view, for the artists trying to make it big but it's always been like that. Until you make it big there's no money (or record sales or illegal or otherwise downloads) anyway. Artists will always have to be pretty cut-throat to make it but when they do it's funny how I never hear them complaining about illegal downloads. Fact is the people complaining and bringing lawsuits are the fatcats from Sony or wherever who are trying to protect their multimillion pound salaries. I guess I just find it incredibly hard to feel sorry for the music industry when there are so many wankers like Simon Cowell sitting on hundreds of millions of pound fortunes...

Poor lad, can't even afford new tyres... Bike looks pretty good though . Any thoughts on final colour Joe?

Same. Makes it HD.

Yeah I was hoping that until I got my last one saying I owe them around £14k. Deep joy.

While also further devaluing degrees and ensuring that around 50% of the population will have a nice £20k+ debt before they even get a job. Genius.

Dude really knows how to make a bike look good doesn't he?! OBM... I'm getting the slight impression that you don't really like the whole 24" thing...

I said those because I have no idea who's 'in' right now and those were two names that popped to mind... Ok, so you're telling me that Beyonce, Black Eyed Peas, Stone Roses, Lady Gaga, Lily Allen, Kings of Leon etc. etc. (taken from the current album chart and the one's who I've actually heard of (and aren't dead)) are struggling to make ends meet and pay the rent?

Yeah man, I'm sick and tired of having to tell Bono to f**k off when he tries to sell me a Big Issue outside Tesco's. Just the other day I had to step over Steven Tyler who was wasted in a doorway covered in cardboard boxes. Last I was aware, successful musicians are never short of a penny or two...

Yeah but seriously, who actually buys music these days?