The grumpy thread

[ashmicro]

^^ correct, the unloved oddball 305. A nice machine I always thought. Had a spin on one years ago. Funny little headlamp only fairing, as I recall.

[retrogeezer]

there was a GPZ305 belt drive, I remember having the brochure for it when I was riding a 125 at 17! I thought it was a nice bike..

[retrogeezer]

RD250 I saw at the weekend:

 

[chaseracer]

Outta here with your brilliant old bikes! This is the grumpy thread, dammit!!

 

[Barry Cade]

I'm grumpy about bikes-I've been working on a BMW R1100RS identical to my old one and its made me really regret selling mine. I loved that bike.... also because we've just finished this :

 

 

I kinda liked having it about the place. 924 has to go next.

[eddyramrod]

The builders have fixed my swimming pool, and the tanker's been (3 trips) to fill it, all at my landlord's expense. Wrong thread? Not a bit of it! Now I'll have to get my pool-cleaning contractor back, at 110 euros per month which I really haven't got and can't spare...

[Guest]

The builders have fixed my swimming pool, and the tanker's been (3 trips) to fill it, all at my landlord's expense. Wrong thread? Not a bit of it! Now I'll have to get my pool-cleaning contractor back, at 110 euros per month which I really haven't got and can't spare...

 

That's a very ex-pat problem you have there Eddy. Still must be a ball ache, mind.

[chaseracer]

...I'll have to get my pool-cleaning contractor back, at 110 euros per month...

Would a pool cover be cheaper...?

[Albert Ross]

Better still, getting out of the pool to go for a piss is cheaper....

[MrDuke]

No conversation about pool-cleaning is complete without a reference to 'Guts' by Chuck Palahniuk. Apologies in advance to first-time readers...

[trigger]

I'm such a nob, I've just sold my PS3 as I hardly ever use it and it gets really noisy once it starts getting hot so I decided to buy a decent blu-ray DVD player instead.

 

After days of doing my homework on the internet i decided to buy one with built in WiFi and with the BBC iPlayer, So i go out this afternoon around the electrical stores see what they had, i end up in Currys and see a nice Panasonic one (DMP-BDT210) and buy it, get home and plug it in only to find it hasn't got the BBC iPlayer, I know this seems a little trivial but after spending nealy £170 on a bloody DVD player i expected it to have it like all the others makes have. I guess i can't take it back neither as it's been opened and used now as well.

[Volksy]

I would have thought you could take it back, it's not like electrical components on cars. Although returned because of an oversight may not gel with them.

[AnthonyG]

Do you ask whether it had the iplayer bit and they said it did? or not?

 

They might take it back if someone had said it had the bit you want and it hadn't, which wouldn't suprise me as it's Currys!

[scaryoldcortina]

I almost squashed a cyclist this morning. Proper shook me up, I was turning left at a set of lights, second car in the queue. As I moved forward indicating left and just starting to turn a twit on a racing bike passed me on the nearside, then turned right across my path If I hadn't glanced in the passenger mirror and slammed the brake I would have run him over. He was wearing a hi-viz and a helmet though, so I suppose he's invunerable.

 

Then I got to work to discover the MoT computer was down, Mick was in a flap and there were 3 people standing around waiting for tests Grrr.

[Pete-M]

Then I got to work to discover the MoT computer was down, Mick was in a flap and there were 3 people standing around waiting for tests Grrr.

 

Wasn't just you.... I was at an MOT station this afternoon watching the tester going ballistic because "IT'S NOT MY END... yet they're all gonna scream at me anyway".

[M'coli]

I almost squashed a cyclist this morning. Proper shook me up, I was turning left at a set of lights, second car in the queue. As I moved forward indicating left and just starting to turn a twit on a racing bike passed me on the nearside, then turned right across my path If I hadn't glanced in the passenger mirror and slammed the brake I would have run him over. He was wearing a hi-viz and a helmet though, so I suppose he's invunerable.

Fuxake, what an arsehole. I wear hi-viz when I go out on the bike these days - BS-standard saturn yellow t-shirt* with the reflective strips on - but am still ultra-cautious/ultra-assertive(but scared).

 

*I've walked into a shop wearing my T-shirt where people have sniggered until I point out that once I've been hit and am on the ground, I'm no longer a cyclist but a casualty, and if I wear this then any dependents hopefully have as good a chance of winning a legal case as a worker who wears this. What I don't understand is that the cycle clothing providers seem to think that a black jacket with a bit of Scotchbrite® piping at the seams is good enough for the winter is beyond me - I want to be seen or have no excuse for not being seen, i.e., you were texting at the time. Having been hit-and-run once already in the days before mobiles and sat-navs were common, cycling these days scares the shit out of me and thus I am very careful.

[DCLane]

I'm cycling most days atm - no hi-vis but I've got a white helmet with dayglo green stripes.

 

There's a few idiot cyclists who give the rest a bad name.

 

Yes, I do undertake in traffic and I'll go at the same speed as cars, but at least I check where the car next to me's going

 

Oh, and if any of the West Yorks peeps on here see me (grey bike, red rucksack, helmet as above) - no, I don't want knocking off

[scaryoldcortina]

TBH, the reason I was looking in the mirror is that I always do that before turning just in case I see something that means I shouldn't turn...

[eddyramrod]

That's a very ex-pat problem you have there Eddy. Still must be a ball ache, mind.

 

Agreed, and I do realise that not everyone will be able to relate, so have a slight apology for raising it at all. And yeah, it has been rather a ballache. While the pool's been empty we've had about 6 weeks of heatwave. On the bright side, I haven't had to pay the pool cleaner for all that time, nor do I have to pay for the repair or the refill.

 

I still have a 2000 euro bill for the water that I used, replacing what leaked out. Hope someone buys my pickup soon!

[M'coli]

I'm cycling most days atm - no hi-vis but I've got a white helmet with dayglo green stripes.

 

There's a few idiot cyclists who give the rest a bad name.

 

Yes, I do undertake in traffic and I'll go at the same speed as cars, but at least I check where the car next to me's going

 

Oh, and if any of the West Yorks peeps on here see me (grey bike, red rucksack, helmet as above) - no, I don't want knocking off

There's a diffence between filtering and being a knob, but the going at the same speed as cars does piss people off - as a cyclist you're not meant to be able to keep up and some motorists find this scary because they've passed you and are now obviously behind so they don't need to consider you in their next actions. As some silly bint told me in the work's carpark after I'd turned up at work at the same time as her despite her passing me half a mile ago, "You're dangerous on that bike, you know: you should be more careful." Perhaps you should look in your rear-view mirror occasionally, you condescending twat.

[Des]

I almost squashed a cyclist this morning. Proper shook me up, I was turning left at a set of lights, second car in the queue. As I moved forward indicating left and just starting to turn a twit on a racing bike passed me on the nearside, then turned right across my path If I hadn't glanced in the passenger mirror and slammed the brake I would have run him over. He was wearing a hi-viz and a helmet though, so I suppose he's invunerable.

 

I've had similar, becoming more frequent as well, I think an increasing amount of the idiot drivers we've all had to suffer of late are downgrading to pushbikes. It appears that maybe they weren't driving like shit because they were feckless, but actually are that stupid.

[scaryoldcortina]

Yeah, if it hadn't been me and had been someone less attentive he'd be in hospital now. That's what annoys me most. Keeping up with traffic while on the nearside is one thing, undercutting a queue at a red light then doing what he did is asking to die imo.

[RoadworkUK]

"Filtering"

 

Hah! Every time I'm static on the M25 I can guarantee that some bell-end on a crotch rocket will "filter" past at 60.

 

Or "filter" past me and the million other motorists waiting at the barriers for the Dartford crossing. That's not "filtering", that's "queue-barging".

 

And, while I'm at it, how about utter asshole bikers who streak up behind me when I'm doing 80, then pass and gesticulate at me for daring to interrupt their 120mph death race. And / or do just whatever the fuck speed they want through roadworks with average speed cameras.

 

And, yes, I'd probably do the same. I CAN HAS HYPOCRITE STATUZ?

[TimothyClaypole]

Ebay:

 

Your seller performance is below standard under the UK seller performance standards programme.

 

We noticed that you've improved your seller performance--that's great news. However, you'll need to continue improving to avoid limitations.

 

I feel such a failure.

[DCLane]

There's a diffence between filtering and being a knob, but the going at the same speed as cars does piss people off - as a cyclist you're not meant to be able to keep up and some motorists find this scary because they've passed you and are now obviously behind so they don't need to consider you in their next actions.

 

True, but in mitigation m'lud:

 

- The traffic going from Dewsbury into Leeds city centre's awful in the mornings. A bike is naturally faster.

 

- I've got much quicker now I've lost the 3 stone this year. The bike [a Ridgeback Platinum - http://www.ridgeback.co.uk/bike/platinum ] will clock 45 en-route, with the limit being 30/40 plus a chunk of scary 70 dual-carriageway. It's often the cars holding me up, not the other way round. However I don't speed, honest

[M'coli]

I understand - I used to be quite good on a bike! Filtering - if car drivers don't like proper filtering, i.e., not going through stationary traffic so fast that you'll end up 30 yards down the road if some twat/passenger chooses to open their door on you, then get your arse out of the car and onto the bike. What would they rather have - some smug dude on a bike, or another frustrated dude in the car in front of them?

 

There are some cyclists that are utter aunts* too, though - and give the rest of us a bad name.

 

*Damned predictive text.

[Lord Sterling]

Touch screen phones, why do people like these things? They're difficult, slow and unpredictable to use. I got given some LG touch screen phone, Fatha_Sterling said that there was something wrong with the screen but it seemed ok when I used it, until last night the when screen froze. I found it it'll probably need a new digitizer which is fair enough.

 

When it did work a few days ago, whilst out trying to spot some passing shite, it took ages to unlock the screen and load up the camera by which time the car had already passed. With my OMG! buttoned Nokia, it takes mere seconds to unlock the keypad and load up the camera, its also easier to use it stealth like. Sad really as I quite like this new LG.

[Negative Creep]

Get a HTC Desire Z - touch screen and a qwerty keyboard. Dismal battery life aside I really like mine

[Lord Sterling]

They look really nice, Fatha Sterling has the fully touch-screened one. The Desire-Z is probably something I'd have if I wasnt constantly skint. But being me, I dont think I've ever spent more than £40 buying a phone (Contract phones aside) The best one I've got is a Nokia 6500 slide, which I previously had on contract, its got everything I want, it looks great, its got a great camera etc... However its locked to the 3 network and no one seems willing to unlock it. Though I'm happy with the Nokia 5300 I was given recently, nice and slim lined (Although I am looking for a Nokia E71/E72, used to use one at work and I was quite taken with it)

[Negative Creep]

Plus you can play Angry Birds, which is worth £30 a month by itself