Post Of The Year - You Choose!

[Moderators]

So 2009 is drawing to a close and we've had an awful lot of posts throughout the year. But some of them stand out as special, and we wanted you all to vote for your favourite from our shortlist.

The shortlist has been compiled by various people with recommendations from CycleChat members. Obviously there are other really great posts as well but we thought these deserved a chance to win.

So... now you've read all ten posts, you can vote on which is your favourite.

 

[bonj2]

Message to farmers: don't bother pretending you're doing anything useful - you're not!

It's just occurred to me that, bar a couple of very large industrial-type farms probably in the cotswolds or somewhere or scotland, 99% of farmers in Britain are completely pointless.

Seriously, all they actually do is drive around in tractors looking like they're busy, when actually they just get given grants by the government to pretend to produce stuff, simply to 'keep farming alive' or some such bollocks.

The simple fact is farming in britain is unecomonically viable, given that it can be done a lot cheaper in countries like china, bangladesh and africa where most of our food is imported from.

The only developed country that has a serious farming industry is france, but that is because it is 99.9999% fields (as you'll know if you've ever flown over it in a plane).

My problem with farmers in britain is that they drive around in tractors at 15mph causing huge tailbacks of cars holding everybody up, they spread lots of mud all over the road, and cause a danger with their precariously piled up bales of hay - but are only actually pretending to do anything useful - their income is all from subsidies and not from actually selling what they do.

The only reason the government don't bin them all off is because the unions would get militant and it would cause a rise in the unemployment figures and probably because the EU would have a fit.
But they should simply re-employ them all as redevelopment workers to transform the land that is currently used for farming pretending to farm into something that people in britain will actually appreciate, and tell the EU to go and stick its hankering for the ideals of a bygone age firmly up its own arse.

 

[vernon]

I once lit a rocket in the kitchen because my son dared me to.

Not one to refuse a dare I lit the fuse thinking that I could douse it in the sink full of cold water that I'd spotted just after the dare was issued.

I duly lit the fuse and enjoyed the look of panic on my son's face - this was no ordinary rocket but one of those big star bursts.

I dunked the rocket in the water and the fuse continued burning - the look of panic was now on my face.

I ran to the back door to throw the rocket out but it was locked and the key wasn't in the lock.

During the lifetime that flashed in front of my eyes - I opened every cupboard door and oven looking for a place to lodge the rocket but the fear of the consequences from my wife was greater than my fear of the injuries from the pyrotechnic. The scene was like one of those Ealing comedies running around in circles desperately hoping for a miracle solution....

In the last few seconds before 'lift off' I found the back door key and managed to release the rocket outside.

It hovered and exploded directly overhead about sixty feet up.

My son was less than complimentary about my intelligence. For once I had to agree with him

 

[cookiemonster]

I have had a problem with one of my work collegues here in France. He makes continuous, what I can only describe as, pretty homophobic 'jokes' when I'm around and especially if there are groups of people around. I have bitten my tongue and the boss also knows but whether she has spoken to him I have no idea.

Today, I was given the task of driving him to Toulouse airport to catch his flight home to Holland. Halfway down the motorway, he starts up again.

I stop the car, in a cloud of smoke (nothing like a bit of drama) and head into the hard shoulder. I get out the car, open the boot, throw his bags onto the grass verge. I then open his door, undo his seatbelt, he was too surprised to react, and I grab him bodily and throw him onto the verge next to his bags. I jump back into the car, lock the doors and notice that his passport and travel wallet were on the floor. No problem, opened the sunroof and threw the wallet out. Then drove off.

I have just heard from the boss on the phone, who was really trying to be serious but was ready to burst into fits of laughter, that he arrived at Toulouse Blagnac 2 and a half hours late and had to pay KLM 215 Euros to get home as they wouldn't believe what happened to him.

I wonder if he will come back at the end of August?

 

[arallsopp]

Is early.

Got round in 107:06.

Hello.
Bed.

 

[Hover Fly]

I was in the "Bull' in Coniston, having a beer break on my way back from Thirlmere, when I spotted three of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. "Too good for you" my companion said. When we got up to leave of of the women came over and asked if I knew the way to Hawkshead, now one thing Coniston is not short of is signposts to Hawkshead, any way I told her the scenic route, and she said,in a drop dead French accent "You are very kind, would you like to show us round?" Would I!!! Any I spent the rest of the week in their charming company. As we were saying good-bye, the future Mme HF said "You have been gentle with us, I want you to come to visit my castle". So phones were rung, tickets bought, and early November found me on the TGV going across Western France and thinking "What am I doing here? what if it's all a big practical joke, what if they slit my throat and steal my money?" Any way, it was a non-stop TGV and soon enough I was on the platform of Bordeaux St. Jean with a mobile that didn't work in France and no idea where to meet. After a few minutes I heard a voice "Steeven" and I was shown into the back of a car. After half an hour I was going through the gates of her gaff and being shown into the entrance hall. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself saying "Cor! It's bit posh here innit?" So I spent a week thinking I could get used to this and resisting the urge to call the cook to make me a bacon butty. The end of the week came and I was all packed up ready to go yam, when Sylvie came in to my room and locked the door. "I am not letting you go until you promise to marry me" she said, "You know you'll never have an offer like this again". So I did promise.

 

[rich p]

Hot? I was sweltering.
I think you'll agree I cut a bit of a dash!

 

[jimboalee]

A 12 1/2 stone cyclist riding a 11 kg bike with some kit might total 92 kg total vehicle.

According to the CTC's 'PowerCalc'.xls, their 'Tourist' bike of 92kg total weight riding up a 10% gradient requires 299 Watts at a speed of 10kmh ( 6.25 mph ). I would agree with this.

Let's analyse this 12 ½ stone cyclist.
He's 175lb which is 79.5kg or 780 Newtons total.

His crank length is 0.17m so he can produce 132 Nm max ( without pulling up the backstroke ).
He pedals at 50 rpm, and using the 9459.3 constant, is generating 701 Watts peak.

Wow, that's over double what the CTC says he needs.

6.25 mph at 50 rpm is a 42" gear, which to the witchcraft is applicable to a 24lb bike ( 11kg ).

The rider is 79.5kg, the bike is 11kg, his kit is 1.5kg totalling 92kg.

Now I ask you, standing up on the pedal can get 700 Watts; and it needs 300 to climb a 10 % at 6.25 mph on a 42" gear, can YOU do that or not?

 

[vernon]

Some time ago I retold the incendiary tale of me lighting a rocket in the kitchen and the ensuing mayhem when things went pear shaped.

Yesterday witnessed another insane but milder incendiary incident which was avoidable of pre-existing knowledge had been recalled and deployed.

After the evening meal, I was sitting at the computer desk typing away and miding my own business when two of my offspring improvised a game of table tennis using their hands and a ping pong ball. After several glancing blows to my body I suffered a direct hit to my eye and decided to end the game forever.

I seized the ping pong ball with one hand and retrieved a chef,s blow torch from the back of the desk, lit the torch and then used the flame to ignite the ping pong ball - mistake number one. The celluloid is very flammable.

I succeeded in blowing out the flames but my smugness was premature. The ping pong ball spontaneously re-ignited - mistake number two - I'd forgotten that very flammable should have read extremely flamable.

Good bye smug grin, hello wide eyed panic preceding a panic driven juggling of a fiery chunk of plastic until the heat resistance of my epidermis was compromised and I dropped the burning remains on the not so cheap woollen carpet and stood on them to put them out. Lifting my foot the extinguished remains re-ignited. Mistake number three - extremely flammable should be replaced with extremely f'kin flammable.

Having failed to be educated by mistakes one to three I stood on the burning remains again and again for mistkes four and five until the fourth stamp successfully extinguished the flames.

My kids were in agony from laughing, my wife was in pain from screaming at me and I am currently living in Coventry being unable to apologise without laughing.

The damage to the carpet has proved to be minimal with a mild scorching only just visible.


Thing is, I knew how rapidly celluloid from ping pong balld burned - I'd just forgotten/failed to make the right connections before I embarked on the trip to internal exile.

For those who want to explore the flammability of ping pong balls a tad more safely and impress the offspring with the effects:

1, cut a ping pong ball into small pieces.

2. Wrap the pieces in aluminium foil.

3. Roast the foil with a match or a lighter.

4. When smoke emerges from the foil drop it onto a saucer and watch the device fill a small room with smoke and the smell of wintergreen - your very first smoke bomb.

Shame I'd forgotten about the smoke bomb. Its recollection might have saved the day yesterday

Maybe not

 

[GaryA]

Yet another mobbing magpie thread.......?
Should i bother...do i have time?
First thing...i get where Nick is coming from I too never wanted kids, I was never bother about it then opps it happened (regulars may remember the missus was diagnosed infertile but ultimately wasnt and finding out with 4 months to go meant termination was morally reprehensible*)
*google the physical procedure

That sounds kinda negative but quite the reverse, we embraced the whole experience and its been all the more incredible for it being unexpected..it teaches you a lot about human nature...not so much the 'problem' of human nature but the denial of human nature which is the real problem...
The spontaneous open generous loving needing caring nature I've seen develop in the young 'un is the normal, natural state of humans in a loving nurturing environment...which I like to believe, even as complete amateurs, we have managed to provide. When that natural spirit of exploration, curiosity/playfulness is supressed (usually because it creates a mess) it creates the inner resentment which can last a lifetime, that cultural-civilised obsession of control, of putting in-you-place of controlling life is the real distorter of human nature.
So when we are out and he's toddling along and wants to stamp in a puddle or spend ages plating with a dirty stick, I let him, he obviously has a inner need..its something very important to him....and guess what, after a while, curiousity satisified, he comes away looking sooo happy but next time the puddles and the stick have less fascination..its the same with most things.
If however I drag him away in a tantram with some false promise, all it does is increase the need to explore that puddle/stick increases the probablity of another tantrum when nasty controlling daddy supresses his spirit in the cause of 'growing up'.The (natural instinctive) rage he feels in having his spirit crushed is the same rage I feel in having my spirit crushed by the dispairing necessity to earn a living in this culture and society...its not natural, it never was..and being broken by civilisation means not being able to see that your gilded cage is still a cage.

 

[dellzeqq]

I came out of the Urology department at Guys, my eyes watering, my hands, thrust deep in to my pockets giving what comfort they could to those parts so recently offended to various insertions, and set my steps in the direction of a series of signs showing the words 'Way Out'.

The spaces between the buildings in Guys Hospital have been turned in to atria. This saves a vast amount of energy, and makes the passage of enfeebled patients more comfortable, but the atria have been filled in a haphazard way. An exhibition here, vast palm trees in pots there. They're low lit, which means that at half past five the night presses down in to each glass box, giving an 'end of the day' air to them.

In one atrium a man played a baby grand piano. The acoustics didn't do his playing any favours, but it stopped me in my tracks. He was playing variations.

Piano variations grab my senses by the scruff. Maybe it's a childish love of patterns. It might be that I like a game of hide and seek. Whatever - this was clearly an original piece of work based on Gershwin, and his take on Gershwin was both ferocious and delicate.

I sat (carefully) on a low brick wall and listened. I was joined by a man who had been hauling a squeaky palette jack across the atrium, a sort of David Lean 'rustic by way of RADA' touch.

At the end of the piece I went over and thanked him. We spoke for a while. He was Australian, about 65, with long swept back hair that reminded me of the first Doctor Who. His fingers were proper pianist's finger - etiolated, wan, almost phthisic, but still formidable. He played Chopin variation, and then a piece by Busoni that re-worked a Beethoven Ecossaise. And I asked him about Frederic Rzewski.

I'd gone to a recital of Rzewski's work some fifteen years ago. My intention had been to sleep with the girl who invited me. Her piano playing and my drawing sustained an affair of surpassing erotic adventure. Days, nights, weeks and months slid in to one another. But, if you had asked me what I expected of the recital the answer would have been 'not much' because it was one of the conditions of our attachement that she should not play any music composed by those whose names began with R. Think Ravel and Rachmaninov.

The Rzewski piece was a revelation. Complex, convoluted even, but always a song. X and I have long since parted, but not a month goes by without my listening to the CD that I bought after the recital. And from Rzewski I went back to Beethoven and Bach.

The Australian leant back in his chair. 'Ah, Fred....a throwback....the last of the great nineteenth century virtuosos. He's playing in England soon'. And then he played some more.

So I went home and ferreted around the internet. Indeed he is playing in England - in Huddersfield at lunchtime on the Saturday after the final FNRttC of the year. If I leave Brighton at seven I might just make it....

So the more astute of you will have realised that bicycles don't really feature in this post. All I can say is this - the evening light, the music, the conversation and the recollection all conspired to put me in the happy frame of mind that a spell on my beloved Colnago inspires. It's usually about the bike, but it's not always about the bike.

 

[Moderators]

So now you all get to choose!

 

[Twenty Inch]

Allsop's post for Post of the Decade. I can't remember being so compelled by a piece of writing. Everyone who rides a bike should read it.

 

[yenrod]

>'Post of The Year'?

Shaun you forget one:

Anything by me....

THATS A JOKE BY THE WAY !!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Moderators]

Congratulations to Arallsopp who has won the post of the year!

Thank you all for voting and I'm sure we're all grateful to Shaun/Admin who enables us to enjoy CycleChat and its posts (and posters).

Happy New Year to all of you and here's to a great 2010!