Bod wrote on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:21:35 +0000:

> Well, I bought a cheap Halfords (£89) mountain bike years ago and have
> used it regularly over trails. I've had no problems with it at all.

I paid £10 more than that from Sterling House for mine. 

A trip round Holland  (Schipohl - Groniongen -  Emmen -  Arnhem - 
Schipohl) on it wore out all the bearings. The bottom bracket had been 
making graunching noises since Emmen, and when I disassembled it at home 
there was not a complete bearing to be seen - they were all in little 
bits.

4 years later, and the only original parts on the bikr are the frame, 
forks and handlebars, and I'd replace the forks tomorrow if I could find 
some rigid, affordable, disc-only forks to fit.

I'll happily call my steed a BSO, even though it has some nice bits on it 
now.

-- 
Regards
Alex

http://www.badphorm.co.uk/

dgk  writes:

> On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 23:33:36 -0600, "Edward Dolan" 
> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Bill Baka"  wrote in message 
>>news:hctlr8$g7v$1@news.eternal-september.org...
>>> Edward Dolan wrote:
>>[...]
>>>> Bush will go down in history as a heroic president who began the war on 
>>>> Islamic extremism.
>>>
>>> You are a flipping fruitcake if you buy into that. I'm losing any respect 
>>> for you on this Republican rant.
>>>
>>> We shall soon see what kind of mess Obama is going to
>>>> make of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is going to bungle Iran too. It is 
>>>> what happens when you elect a man-child to the presidency.
>>>
>>> Enough bullshit, Ed. Kennedy was only 43 when he got elected and he did OK 
>>> until Dallas. It was either a CIA motivated solution to him and Marilyn 
>>> Monroe or a well oiled job set up by LBJ, the one president I really 
>>> hated, party not withstanding.
>>
>>JFK, just like Obama, was too young and inexperienced to be president. He 
>>essentially bungled our relations with the Soviet Union and handled the 
>>Cuban invasion like an idiot. He should have supported the exiles with air 
>>power which would have made all the difference. He also got us into Vietnam 
>>with no idea of how to win the war. People in their 40s, at least in this 
>>country, are still babies. You have to be at least in your 50s in order to 
>>have any sense. In fact, I like our presidents to be in their 60s.
>>
>
> Before the Bay of Pigs, Russia was faced with Cuba being continuously
> attacked by the US, and our nuclear missles were on their border. So
> they moved missles into Cuba. After the resulting hysteria, we
> promised to stop sending terrorists into Cuba, and took our missles
> off Russia's border. You would have done what differently? Started a
> nuclear war? That's a very likely outcome if we had sent planes into
> Cuba.
>
> Perhaps Castro was not the best leader for Cuba, but since we were
> responsible for Batista, that sort of nullfies our moral capital in
> the matter. Just like being responsible for the Shah undermines any
> moral objection we may have for Iran's current government.

And Saddam Hussein.

And had it not been for Pearl Harbour : and Hitler.

>
> I believe JFK was killed to prevent him from withdrawing from Vietnam.
> We did, of course, start the whole war to PREVENT free unifying
> elections from taking place as required by the 1954 Geneva Convention.
> We, of course, being so dedicated to democracy, refused to sign those
> accords because they promised free elections. Ho Chi Minh would have
> won overwhelmingly.