gangzoom

Randomly whilst in HongKong got hold of some tickets to see England v Barbarians last week....it was a bit of demolition by the Lions, was pretty amazed how they could manage to play in 30degree heat and 90% humidity, just sitting in the stadium was hard enough work due to the heat But it was great entertainment the fact the players started throwing good old fashioned punches at each other after 4 minutes was good fun...none of this rubbish you see with footballers who seem to fall over if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction ...oh and stadium was alright too.

Wasn't a fan till I actually saw one the other day. Much more road presence in real life, shame I wouldn't be in any position to consider one for another 20 years

A quick update, have just completed LEJOG (Land's End to John O'Groats) on a pedal bike. I ended up doing just under 500 miles over 5 days and the rest of the lads who did the whole thing did over 900 miles in 10 days!!! 116 miles was the longest day, out of Moffatt, blasted past Glasgow and ended up north of Loch Lommand. Managed to some how sustain an average speed of nearly 16mph over some decent hills. Didn't have to stop on any hill, but the monster at Drumnadrochit out of LochNess nearly killed me, 10-15% gradient over 2.5 miles. Best bit was smashing it into Fort William at over 30mph as we all had unplanned 3 mile sprint to a non existent finishing line. We were lucky in having a support van (thanks to our other halfs) but saw lots of people doing it unsupported!! Its defiantly a once in a life time event but have really opened our eyes what the human body can do when pushed. The car is defiantly getting less use these days, after all I cannot really justify driving 10-20 miles to get to somewhere when I know I can now cover 100miles+ without problems on a pedal bike!!! Already planning the next challenge, probably a route trip across the Alps or California Plenty more photos to come but just want to get home and sleep in my own bed now!!

Morning all!! It's a lovely sunny day here at Land's End and am about to set off on a bike ride to John o'Groats with a few mates. It's going to take 10 days and on the drive down we started to realise how far it is.... Looking at Google maps also helped to confirm far we have to go!! Unfortunately I cannot do the whole ride due to work commitments but doing 60% in total..So stage one awaits, only a couple of 9% drags between us and some beers at the end of the day If anyone would like to help us raise some money for Dementia Care UK that would be much appreciated, as said I'm only doing 60% of the ride but the rest of the lads are doing the whole thing, so any contribution would be appreciate!! ...better get riding, hoping for tail wind all the way!!

I've graduate in 2005, but in the last 12 months I've some how managed to get involved in doing a few postgraduate degrees all at the same time, whilst still doing the day job. So officially am currently a student in 4 universities, Cardiff, Leicester, Manchester, and Birmingham (with student/NUS cards to prove it) . I'm doing it all part time, and its really hard work at some times mixing work and study. Going from a day job which I'm quite use to been in control and than the next day sitting in lectures getting..well lectured at is quite a shift, and took me a while to adjust. But I love it, have learnt so much in the last year its quite amazing!! I have had to fund quite a bit of the postgraduate stuff my self, but longterm wise the extra qualification will easily pay for themselves .

Looks like a fab car, keep it and drive it till it breaks...Why did you want to sell it in the first place? Surely is miles better than the Z

Went to look for some hills around Leicestershire yesterday...not quite the alps (or even anyting like the peakdistrict), but still found some decent climbs. Also had the frist puncture of the year, took my time fixing it. Didn't see or hear another car/person/bike/phone for 30 mintues, absolute bliss, perfect way to relax and destress

I could have never imagined I would spend serious money on it, but I thought the same when I bought the Zed ..and before long your end up dressing like and joining the "cool" kids on the playground

1000ft on climbing in just over 12.7miles, that's good work!!! I can see why mountain bikes all have massive gears

Sounds like you've got everything you need to get started Enjoy the gear and start getting some shots in...just hope you don't get hooked and end up spending silly amounts on stuff you really don't need (like my self) .

You can end up spending EASILY double/triple what you pay for the camera body on lens/tripods/other gadgets... Looking back at some of my photos, actually even with just the kit lens/built in flash, hand held, you can get some great shots. In regards to protecting the lens, I have gone way off lens filters, I dropped my 17-55 f 2.8 last year. The filter smashed and scratch the top coating of the lens . Reading up on the topic showed that the actual lens is made from hardened glass, and much harder to break than any filter. These days I just use a lens hood if needed (to stop lens flare), but mostly protect the lens by been careful and not dropping it

I have a 550D, and the 600D has the same sensor, cannot fault it, its fab. I would recommend also looking at flash guns, i waited a few years before buying an external flash for my 550D, now it stays on the camera almost all the time when I'm in doors. In regards to lens, I've gone through the kit lens, the 50mm, a Sigma 17-70mm 2.8-4 IS, and now use a Canon 17-55 f2.8 IS. The Canon 17-55 is now by far my favourite lens, the constant f2.8 through the zoom range is amazing, that along with the fab ISO range of the sensor lets you get some amazing shots.

Did 84miles yesterday, rain, hail, sun all in one ride. Was out on the older Trek, got covered in mud/cow poo. Do apperciate the fun of mountain biking but am far too OCD about having a clean bike to try it, even a tiny drop of mud on the bar tapes annoy me!! Going to try and hit another 20-30 miles today, who needs a car to enjoy the B roads This is the Trek am using most of the time, lovely DurAce groupset, super smooth shifts but cannot justify spending that much my self. Just the rear cassette alone is well over £100, though it does weight half as much as the cassette on my own bike..must resist!!

I'm not sure "average Joe" could ever afford to go and watch F1, but than again must circuits actually do offer cheaper 'standing/non-grandstand' seats. For example you can still get tickets for this years Monaco F1 for £70ish. Theres obvious lots of people in F1 just for the glamour and money, the most expensive tickets are usually the "Paddock" ones, but are probably the most boring, usually only giving you sight of the cars in a straight line, but people buy them because they are glamours. All that aside if you cannot see the skill required to race a F1 car than fair enough, just like I cannot understand how any one finds Golf or Cricket or Football exciting. Actually I cannot think of anything worse than sitting in a football stadium watching some people kick a ball around a field for no reason

Enough of all this mountain biking rubbish In preparing for a Lands End to John O’Groats bike ride I’ve ended up rediscovering my interest in road bike. Will do the ride on a friends old Trek 5500, with full DuraAce groupset but have treated my self to a lovely pre-owned Trek Madone 3.1. The main groupset is 105, but has a smattering of SRAM and Ulterga bits. The cabron frame has a lovely finish. But the DuraAce wheels are the star, lovely rolling, feels really stiff but cannot believe how light they are!!! All in have spent about £1.3K, more than I would like, but I’m really happy with the end result. Despite been 2nd hand the bike really looks new, and with the DuraAce wheels it feels only slightly heavier than the Trek 5500 (previous near top of the Trek bike range)…I fear the limiting factor is going to be my legs and lungs

Having been to two GPs, I have really do get just how skillful the F1 drivers are. On TV you really don't appericiate the speed and the moves these guys are pulling off. The two GP races I've been too both had support from races from 911 GT3s, Ferrari 456s, F2 cars, all of them are SIGNIFICENTLY slower than the F1 cars. You can really tell the speed differential when you trying to take photos, with 911s your get 4-5 shots down a straight as they go by, with a F1 car your get 1 shot if your prepared and quite often they are so much quicker by the time the lens has focused the car is long gone!! Compared to F1 cars the pace of the 911s/Ferraris in particular seem very very pedistrian. In a city circuit like Singapour where you could get really close to the cars, it really is scary how close to a concerate barrier these guys are prepared to get lap after lap. Trust me you need some serious balls, and a bit total disregard for your own self preservation to do what the F1 drivers do, I know I certainly don't have the balls to drive a F1 car to the limit, let alone the skill!!!. After going to the Singapour F1 even my wife now understands what its all about, the racing this year has been fab, I'm really really tempted to go to another race this year.....just need to find the time (and money)

I reckon if you add up the amount of money you have gone through with that lot you could have easliy bought a M3.....or a new house (deposit anyways)

Lovely cars, at 22 I had a £500 Micra that couldn't do more than 60!! Paying under £1k for insurance is fab too, my £500 Micra cost me £900!! A quick remap/tune and the 335i will eat up the S5 in a straight line. Though I know if I has access to a 300bhp RWD car at 22 I would almost certainly crashed it...After all I did manage to write off a 1.1 106 whilst managing to do about £3k of damage to a brand new A4, thus proving my insurance company right I was a high risk driver

Saw these racing in a support race when I was at the F1 last year...they make a lovely noise. Very jealous, am sure your love it....Note to self: Must work harder

If you just want to surf the web I suspect your be happy with any tablet. What are you wanting Bluetooth to do? I've just realised we had just about every generation of the iPad in the family, to be quite honest the original iPad is as useable as the current iPad 4. Yes the screen on the new one is pretty but functionally they are all the same. Apple stuff is great but very overpriced, again i speak from experience of having owned/used just about every mac desktop/laptop since the 1990's, but the user experience is so much better than what you get on a Windows machine....I keep on telling my self the next computer I get wouldn't be a overpriced Mac...Currently waiting delivery on a Retina MacBookPro with a SSD

That's shocking! How many folk would just accept it and pay up? I'm suprised you haven't had the "Joy" of visting a BMW main dealer despite having owned a few....My car goes now where near a BMW main dealer, I would say the worst thing about my 335 is the fact it has wears a BMW badge .

I'm currently doing a dissertation on a similar topic....Found out yesterday the current smartphones and tablets have the same processing power as the first/second gen super computers from the mid 1980's, they weighed about 5 tons!!! NASA and the US military used them to calculate/project what happens in the event of a thermal nuclear war...I use my iPhone/iPad to play Angry birds and waste time on the internet http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~luszczek/pubs/hpec2012_elb.pdf

It's the Le Mans Blue finish, looks really good. I need to get out and give her a good detail, I'll pop some pics up when I've done that I was going to say BMWs look best in Le Mans Blue....not that am biased

E39 M5s looks great, what colour is it?