Cycling UK Forum

The state of our public health is a national and individual sadness.
When one considers the joy to be taken from being fit and well, and the discomfort and general life limitation of being overweight and unfit, it is profoundly dispiriting.
Not that I have any illuminating insights on how this can be corrected. Or how it's been allowed to happen. Is it just entropy in action?

I recently came across a book by Bettina Selby in our mess room and borrowed it to read over christmas.
It was noticeable that she camps quite often in people's fields/gardens after knocking on their doors. As an arriviste in the world of cycle touring, I wondered if this was common practice.
A couple of caveats:
- Book was written in 1990 ish
- It's a book, not a document of record

Psamathe wrote:

horizon wrote:

Psamathe wrote:
Or, if you hide the "New Cases" (by clicking on the "New Cases" label/key in the same way), the y-axis will re-scale to show the deaths more sensibly.

Ian

Done that, thank you. Though I'm still not seeing the upsurge (I'm just listening to Jeremy Hunt on the radio!)

If you look at "new deaths" for early Dec e.g. 5 Dec 426 and most recent 604 (using 7 day average to get over the weekend reporting effects). To me that is a significant increase.

Ian

Analysed by date of death, rather than reported date, there has been a smaller (10%) increase date since mid november with no obvious spike.:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details ... e_of_death
We seem to be well through the looking glass when it comes to using data to justify any particular course of action though.
Obviously any significant increases in cases of the at risk demographic that might have taken place over the festivities will take 3-4 weeks to filter through, so won't be visible yet.

Hi. Thanks for input.
The redness has dissipated as predicted. Sent the photo to the gp and prognosis was as above. I visit the opticians every 18 months or so, so will have a physical examination then.
Blood pressure (and heart rate) are pretty low at rest. I've never checked them when undertaking vigorous exercise.

Thanks for the reply. Will tap them up tomorrow.
It does look a little like that (Apologies for focus). I'll read up the notes.

I noticed a couple of days ago that I had a deeply bloodshot inner half of one eye. From the corner up to the iris, top to bottom.
No particular discomfort or vision issues.
I remarked to my wife that this was perhaps the 2nd or 3rd time this year that it had happened, and that it had never happened before this year.
This year is the year that I have started cycling.

I then remembered that when cycling a couple of days previously, my eyes had stung noticeably. I wouldn't have said that sweat was dripping profusely.
Is this a cycling thing, or is correlation being confused this causality?

Jdsk wrote:

Ben@Forest wrote:quoted:
There has been one notable empirical fact that must be taken into account here. That is, that the overwhelming majority of people who become seriously ill from Covid are those who are elderly and/or already suffering from conditions that would be expected to shorten life. It is no secret that modern medicine, particularly in advanced countries with public healthcare systems, has devised ways of extending the ordinary life span by many years, or even decades, often by the use of a wide range of prescribed drugs designed to prevent what used to be the usual causes of death. As a consequence, most Western countries now have a much higher proportion of people over the age of 80 than ever before.

I hope it is not necessary to say that I believe this to be a good thing. But could it be that the high death toll from the virus in advanced countries is a direct consequence of having kept alive so many old people who are now protected from heart and respiratory failures that would once have taken them from the scene at an earlier age?

And if most of the deaths were in children many of them would only have been alive because they had been vaccinated against once-common childhood infections, and if they were in young adults many of them would only have been alive because they had been treated with antibiotics for what were once sporadic lethal infections, and if they were adult women many of them would only have been alive because they hadn't died in childbirth or shortly afterwards.

Modern medicine and public healthcare systems, huh?

Jonathan

PS: There are good arguments for not treating certain conditions in certain groups of people, but they don't look anything like this.

T
I'm imagining a water engineer leaning on his metaphorical shovel and wondering why the white coated corps claim all the credit...
There's good reason to believe that clean water and good food is as important in increasing life expectancy. More so in certain environments.
Cutler, D., Miller, G. The role of public health improvements in health advances: The twentieth-century United States. Demography 42, 1–22 (2005)

Went out and saw it tonight. Lovely clear skies, which I don't think it will be tomorrow. Nice view of mars as well.

A few years ago I bought my daughter a telescope for Christmas. Went out on a clear Christmas night and accidentally got Saturn in the field of view. One of my more pleasant surprises. Seeing Saturn and its rings 'in the flesh' was amazing. Made me think of the first time someone managed it. Must have been extraordinary.

Cyril Haearn wrote:Upgraded to majoring on groats
Microwave them with lots of water, let them cool, microwave them again, add coarse oats, leave overnight, microwave again in the morning

What happens if one forgets to prepare the oats the evening before?

Not sure if by groats you mean the ground oatmeal that constitutes real porridge imvho?
I lightly toast a mix of medium and coarse meal and then add 3-4 × vol of water and bring to the boil.
Leave overnight in the saucepan.
Reheat in the morning with salt. Add cream&sugar depending on how decadent I'm feeling.
If i do it in the morning i add a bit of extra water and simmer for approx 20 mins. It works, but obv more energy inefficient. I also read that some nutritionally beneficial transformative process occurs during the overnight resting.

When I'm on an early shift, backpacking or touring, I premix rolled oats, powdered milk, salt and sugar and then add boiling water and leave for 10 mins. Needs must.

Returning to the OP's best intentions...
Scotland outwith the midge season would be my UK choice. West coast and islands. March/April in my mind already.
As for further afield, I'm a newcomer to touring, so even heading into France is something I'm really looking forward to.
I visited Romania a couple of years ago (not on a bike), and think that parts of Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania would make an interesting trip.
Basically, anywhere then...

pete75 wrote:Why? If someone wants an on street charger outside their house let them pay for it and the electricity it uses. Should be fairly simple , a sunken kerb edge charging socket with a cable from their property running underneath the pavement.

This reads as someone who doesnt live on one of the thousands (millions?) of terraced streets in the country.
Where we live, parking outside one's own property is completely inpractical. The only way it could possibly work is for the streets to be provided with a dense network of public charging posts which are signed into as required.
Even then, i suspect the practicalities would prove insurmountable. Sometimes it's necessary to use a little imagination and think of how the other half live.

Assuming that this is the hg400 9 speed, i think it'll be just fine.
I recently installed the 11/34 which is identical except for the biggest cog and didn't notice any gapping issues. Getting a nice low bottom gear has been fantastic. As stated earlier, the bottom gear is for nasty hills, so the lower the better ands surely you'll just drop down once for the duration.
I went 11/34 because the spec for the sora medium rd gave that as the max size. If (as suggested above) it could have happily run to the 36, I would have put it on.

Jdsk wrote:

horizon wrote:... and look for alternative solutions...

That's always a good idea. Any suggestions?

If it's along the lines of the Great Barrington Declaration that needs to include:
* Predicted number of deaths
* Assumptions about herd immunity, showing the working
* What isolation of the elderly and vulnerable would mean in practice.

Jonathan

Not wanting to be picky, but an answer to a similar list of questions on the policy followed currently seems lacking...
Deaths?
Cost per qaly?
Economic costs and associated dislocation?
Undermining of democratic control/rule of law/individual rights vs the state?
Etc
There seems to be an assumption that these don't exist or that there is no need to provide them.

I restarted cycling this year.
It's a bit route one, but after experiencing soreness on a couple of saddles, I bought a lightly used brooks b17. It's been fantastic, my impression (!) Is that the shock absorbing qualities of the hammock are more effective for my particular requirements than any amount of gel.
More than in most subjects however, ymmv.

I've just got back from a couple of days in the forest of bowland after lowering the gears on my pretty row rent road/touring bike.
What a wonderful thing it was - went from lowest of 34/27 to 34/34. My first hilly trip with no pushing.
I dont think I would have had the faintest idea without advice on this forum, but managed new chain (suitably trimmed), new cassette and new rear mech without too much drama (thanks brucey and jdsk).