Ali C

Glad to hear you're getting over it Just curious to hear peoples thoughts on Covid and the vaccines now that a bit more time has passed. Are you more in favour of the vaccines now than before? Maybe your opinion has stayed the same? Or perhaps you're now swinging the other way and are more against vaccines that you were a few months ago?

those are some serious batteries if this is the first time they've needed to be replaced!! I want some for my Gopro

after 10 months of not having Wifi I've bitten the bullet and ordered a Virgin package. Just in case anyone here was thinking of doing the same I have a referral code where we'd both get £80.... http://aklam.io/s0XVRu Can't wait to be able to actually upload videos in a realistic time rather than the intermittent 4G I get here

I heard about this a couple of days ago, I've been waiting for news channels to report it but apparently it's not news worthy...you know, this thing that's crippled the world for two years, you'd think any news about how it happened would be front page material! I'm convinced there's an ulterior motive.

Nope, absolutely loving mine! I'm now in talks with them about sponsorship as I haven't been this impressed with a bike product in years. Only "issue" I had was that one of the lever bolts rattled loose after a few rides (not falling out loose but certainly not as tight as before) so absolutely no issues with over-tight bolts. I ended up dropping a tiny bit of threadlock on the bolts to stop it happening again (I need to do this with my Sram Codes lever blades too as they're practically falling out every ride) and I've not had to touch the brakes since.

ah gotcha now, yes ok that does make sense to get things in black and white

I'm not quite sure what you're meaning. We're due to be getting married at some point (been waiting until we get a house) so no plans on breaking up (but I guess there never is). She wants a house, I want a house, we both want to live together so it makes sense to inherit this house and give us both exactly what we wanted. I'm sure if she had just inherited money it would've gone on a house for us plus I'm pitching in half of the 150k from inheritance from my parents and some savings.

Gorilla tape is also excellent as a tubeless rim tape so well worth having some around

And that’s my stance on the whole thing, conspiracies and politics aside I admit covid is a potential threat but I don’t consider it a big enough threat to be injected with an emergency treatment (the FDA have only approved it as an emergency treatment) that I have no chance of receiving compensation if any ill effects occur. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to want to wait.

I still think taking a prescription drug without proper medical advice (a prescription), to combat something that has a proven pretty effective vaccine, when there are no published studies that have shown that it’s actually effective, is basically bordering on conspiracy theory action. It’s still a vaccine that’s never been used before, it’s the first of its kind and effects the nucleus of the cell. I’m not saying it is dangerous and even with as many uses as it’s had I still don’t want something injected into me if it isn’t 1000% necessary especially when they’re not all FDA approved. It’s something that should be provided to those at high risk (like originally planned) not blackmailed upon every person in the country/world. Ivermectin is totally safe (and has had real life results outside of tests). Some can call it a conspiracy but there’s definitely a movement to quash it’s reputation, I don’t believe it’s due to it not working. If you did want to go down the conspiracy route then we can talk about Blackrock and Vanguard who own just about every major company in the world including media and pharma…owned by the richest families in the world. It would sure be in their interest to quieten down ivermectin and increase the fear in the general public if they own the companies selling the vaccine. This is total conspiracy though, not my usual forte

I feel there’s a mass psychosis happening. The government says we should be scared, the media says we should be scared and the general public are whipped up into a frenzy of fear and segregation. For me it’s not *just* that we don’t know long term data, it’s the way it’s been handled by people who seemingly have no clue what they’re doing, or only doing things to benefit them (I’m sure Boris will have all his failings forgotten when he’s triumphantly claiming that under his party he “got the country vaccinated and out of the pandemic”) or their pals. I worry this is a the start of a yellow star type situation, we’re the frogs sat in a slowly boiling pot of water. “It’s just a lockdown” “it’s just a Covid passport” “it’s just a curfew” “it’s just barbed wire” etc. it’s maybe a bit of a jump to get to that conclusion but ever since Brexit was suggested I’ve lost all of my trust to these people in power and I personally find the whole vaccine thing fishy, my lack of long term data point still stands and I still think there’s other routes that could be looked into if it wasn’t so taboo but on top of that I simply don’t want any part of what the government is doing or saying. Covid is no longer a public health topic but is now totally politicized

We've finally had our potential house valued, at first they estimated the value from looking online at other houses and how they've sold in the past. They came back with £385k which was far too high (we have to pay half to buy out Jane's brothers share). I think they assumed we wanted a higher number as usually when a house is left in a will the family will sell it but we want it lower so we can actually live in it. This house is the smallest in the area (2 bed bungalow compared with 4-5 bed houses) although it does have more land. They sent someone round to look in person and have now said the value is £320k...We thought it was a £300k house but everythings taking so long we will just accept it. Apparently it doesn't even matter it turns out, we can just agree a price between family rather than having to go by the valuation so according to Jane her brother will accept the 300k number if it means we can get a house to ourselves, he's a workaholic electrician and not short on cash and just wants to pay off his mortgage so we're going to set up our own mortgage and he gets the £150k share. We're happy as this means we get a £300k+ house for £150k. At the moment we're still waiting on lawyers to finalise things but we're hoping we can get all the paperwork done by next year and start actually making this house ours.

This is something I’ve brought up with friends, the government has seemingly done everything it can to make us unhealthy during the pandemic when they should’ve put all-round health as a number one priority. Lockdowns might have helped but there shouldn’t have been any restriction on how long you can go out and exercise or where you can exercise (I got kicked off a pumptrack by the police despite not being near anyone else). Gyms should’ve opened sooner than they did, especially in winter when some people can’t go out and exercise due to the weather or darkness, keeping them shut as long as they did caused physical and mental health deterioration. The whole “eat out to help out” was just encouraging people to eat fast food, not ideal when exercising is limited. Im shocked when I go into towns and see how large everyone is, it’s far more common to see overweight people than it is a lean person. If health is a help in fighting off Covid then there’s been a lot of wrong steps during this pandemic

No it’s the same here, there’s free kits that can be sent out and loads of centres you can go to, my issue is that they seem woefully inaccurate (I know lots of people who’ve tested positive while having zero symptoms). There are more accurate tests but I believe they cost around £70 (the type needed of you want to travel abroad).

I’m not going to pay for a proper test and the number of people who get a positive test with zero symptoms from the free ones makes me question their accuracy. I’m going to just see how it develops, I just feel like I’ve got a very slight cold

Don’t think I’d do anything unless there was damage done?

Fair enough, I did think it would’ve been odd if they included last years stats too. I had wondered if I had finally contracted Covid as I felt pretty rough yesterday but I’m confident it’s just a cold as I don’t have any of the symptoms so I’m just gonna see how it goes. I did hang out with someone who had a cold given to him by his young kid and then I was outside in the cold for a long time yesterday so I’m pretty sure it’s not Covid

Personally it’s never been something that “wore off” if I tried to endure it out, I had to find components that lessened the effect. If you can find a foam grip in a firmness you like it’s pretty easy to skim off some material (I used a knife, other methods may work too). I rather liked some cheap foam grips from eBay that the name escapes me (they were kinda Richey copies) but they were a bit inconsistent, they were cheap enough that you could buy a few and chuck the ones you don’t like though.

I read somewhere (top research there Ali) that hospital case figures used both this years AND last years figures, this would obviously include the whole time people were unvaccinated. Take that with a pinch of salt unless I/you can find proof though. I’ll totally come back and admit I was an idiot if I end up seriously ill, that hat will get eaten but until then I still don’t think it’s worth it personally. I’m not here to convince anyone to not take the vaccine, people can do what they like, this is how I personally feel about it.

You mean from a spreading it point of view or catching it? (Or other?)

Hopefully this means easier travel in the future, especially if they get rid of Covid passports but I guess this might apply only to vaccinated people? edit: apparently they’re thinking of scrapping vaccine passports by winter, I wonder if other countries will follow suit?

Oh? I didn’t think they were spamming!

Lol! It was such a small case study that it was far from conclusive (fewer than 40 people if I remember correctly and 7 needed looking at closer). From other sources it seems similar to taking certain supplements, the body will stop producing certain things if it is being provided it from an outside source but when that source is taken away the body will return to producing its own (creatine for example).

Not sure, they weren’t controversial just showed a study from a Nigerian university around ivermectin and effects on sperm.

Looks like some got deleted