About 3 weeks ago, I took a spill on my bike, I was wearing my helmet but since my helmet was old, I bought a new one in light of this incident and am basically carrying it with me all the time as before when I'd just leave it hanging on the bike. I hit the pavement on my cheek, face cheek that is, the upper cheek did get swollen, I'd say about the size of an egg and it did not really hurt but the blood did pool around my eye under the skin to make a black eye and it looked like someone took a black felt pen and made a black crescent basically under the left eye, I wasn't sure if it was going to go away but it did. Also, I noted when I ate at the Indian restaurant and got take-out with the Tumeric spice they use in their food, it seemed to get better by quite a bit. Just interesting, Tumeric they say is good for that.

So, the bottom-line is yes, keep your helmet on, if I had struck my upper skull without the helmet, I don't want to think about it. But beyond this, accident my fault, thank goodness, I was not out in traffic when this happened, carried something on the bike and it got caught in the front wheel and up over the handlebars I went! I'm overly cautious in most ways when I ride the bike except in carrying things. Now I will be with that as well. Carrying an extra cloth bag and cargo net to not leave this up to chance. Of course, I respect the individual's own choice to determine if they want to wear a helmet.

Apologies for the prosaic story here, had to say this.

I have a Raleigh Super Tourer from about 1982, Reynolds tubing, I tighten the left crank arm screw too tight and the screw broke on the left side of the Stronglight crank. It is a nice light bike. I wonder if this screw will have "French measurements" or if other screws would work. Because I have about 3 bikes, I've never really worked on this too much but should fix it.

Agree, a lot of bike shops now have a points system and you get some many points depending what bike you get and cost. You can then exchanmge points for helmet, shoes, clothes etc. SO if they don;t have that system it is well worh asking.

Oh if anyone wants a bit of challenge on the bike, I'm doing Lands End to John O'Groats in September if you want to join me

LEJO, good luck on that! How many days does one set aside to make that ride if I may ask?

Have a friend who really likes and plays ice hockey so on his recommendation I watched the movie "Goon", once it gets going, not too bad, the language was a bit colourful along with a few other surrounding factors which were a bit of a distraction and very silly but the sport story in itself is fairly good so that is up to the viewer as to whether they want to wade through the first 30 minutes of this stuff. See, a goon is a hockey player on your team that fights and according to the movie, fights to protect your own more talented players from the other team's goons, fighters, enforcers. I always thought an "Enforcer" was a protector and a "Goon" just got into fights, maybe make cheap shots. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1456635/reviews Reviews on the movie. The geography (Canada, New England, Quebec) is a bit interesting as well as this taking place largely during the winter.

Had to finally see Tin Tin, read the comics some as a kid. I thought the movie got a little to fantastic at the end. I'd have to read the old comics to see if the movie were faithful to the old comics, I've even had a Tin Tin t-shirt for several years.

I always thought one wanted to warn a horse and rider of their presence too because I thought there might be a risk a horse might be startled and throw the rider off. However, if this is not so, good. I'll just know to be careful that a horse could give a hind leg kick.

My mode of transport is horseback,i spend many hours a week riding roads, tracks and byeways meeting many cyclists.I would just ask one thing of cyclists if you are about to overtake a horse/rider, please please announce your intention,many modern cycles dont have bells but a simple Cyclist Passing Please with the voice will suffice, very often the first a horse or rider hears of a cyclist is a swish of tyres which may startle some horses triggering the natural instinct to kick out with a hindleg, be safe be seen and be safe be heard many thanks

Good post.

Yes, I have ridden trails where there are signs urging cyclists to alert horses and their riders that cyclists are around so as not to startle them, maybe they have these signs in your area. I do have a nice loud long ringer vs. a pinger and have used bells for years. So I hear you, every once in a while I will go through a wilderness area at night and sometimes ring the bell to let any wildlife I'm coming through. Bells may not be used as in the past but for me, they are still a necessity though for a lot of modern road cyclists, they don't want many extras on their handlebars.

'There be dragons', about the Spanish Civil War, I'd give it high marks, watched 'Atlas Shrugs' last week, wouldn't rant about it but it was okay and had a good storyline.

USA defeats Italy in Italy, 1st USA win over Italy ever, the two have played 11 times in 82 years. Clint Dempsey scored.

Hope England can come back, Netherlands is one of the best International teams.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1067583/

Water for Elephants, Circus Movie, what a flick!

I considered it great, lots of movies I can like, mediocre, good, these first categories still entertaining and my 3rd category, great.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenton_Joel_Carnegie_wolf_attack

Wow! Wolf attacks, interesting subject.

Bringing this topic back up, I just don't get it now that an investigator is saying he is not positive that Mr. Speed's death was an intentional suicide. Respectfully, this is a shocking story that somehow, one wants to make some sort of sense about, saying he was depressed or summat like that.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2094096/Gary-Speed-inquest-Wife-slept-car-hours-death.html?ITO=1490

Has anyone heard anything or have any observations?

http://www.soccerway.com/national/mexico/primera-division/2011-2012/clausura/

The Mexican league doesn't have an FA Cup, Copa Del Rey like your European Leagues, they have this oddball setup where basically they have two champions a year and during each season, each team plays just one time but it still comes down to playing a team two times a year. Their league isn't bad but with these drug wars going on, I wouldn't want to go there, period. There are probably some nice areas still but the teams travel all over. Javier El Chicharito Hernandez played for the Guadalajara Chivas (goats) team. From the website, "Clausura" means closing, "Apertura" means opening. I saw about 4 months ago, Sept. Octoberish the international match Mexico/Brazil, Ronaldinho played and seemed real happy and waved to the fans and that was at the Stadium, close to a state of the art stadium in Torreon where Santos Laguna play. Torreon is a bit in the drug war area as is Monterrey but I guess the border area is worse. Almost every club has a number of South Americans, even Americans. They may well have a rule that a certain number of Native Mexicans have to play for the team.

I like the Santos Laguna logo a bit. It's a bit like some of the Spanish clubs, not all but a good number of the Spanish clubs have a crown in their symbol. It's curious you don't see that in England but there must be a case somewhere but for Spain, Real Madrid, Real Betis, Real meaning Royal, it's seems most of the clubs do.

Of course that Netherlands team was very good, a lot of it is subjective, I'm sure the Hungary '54 team was very good as well and then, there are other circumstances that have effected "some" World Cups, read history if one wants to learn about those, it kind of steps on ethnic toes to mention anything and that's not my purpose but the WC is not always perfect as really, the '74 Cup might show, there was that swimming pool deal with the Dutch team.

DE4Life: Thanks, you may be correct. Also, there are a number of footballers with beards, I should have said a full beard like Socrates, that might change it a bit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/may/21/seven-deadly-sins-socrates-brazil?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

And indeed, it says he studied medicine, well, that would be enough for me.

He smoked at times, there are a lot of articles on him. When I have some extra time, I will look up the wikipedia article on him. Seemed to be a decent sort, sorry to say, he had problems I guess with alcohol. Garrincha did as well, another famous Brazilian player.

Rest in Peace Socrates, in '86, my friend would talk about him and I didn't know many of the stars too well. I think they called him the Professor because of that beard, you don't see too many, if any footballers with beards nowadays. Corinthians is a famous club team out of Brazil, I heard Socrates did a lot with them, I'm not sure if we would know who Corinthians were if not for Socrates. Really struck me because my friend was such a big fan of him, I think they said he had a 2 step penalty kick.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/right-way-to-remember-gary-speed-2949399.html

Some fair ideas here:

Many local towns have been devastated by a series of suicides in relatively quick succession. There is little doubt that 'copy-cat' suicides have occurred as vulnerable youths see suicide as a way out with the likelihood of a massive outpouring of grief and their names being always remembered locally due to the tragic events.

Copy cat? We don't know about that 12 year old but it is strongly coincidental at this point.

This reminds me some of the Kurt Cobain suicide, founder of the Nirvana rock band.

RIP, Gary Speed

thanks kamy and everyone, its good to know people care about others who suffer from this 'disease' makes me feel a whole lot better

This is not the place and time to speak too much on this but just growing up is hard enough, someone back in school did away with himself over a girl, those kinds of stories aren't even totally rare. I think a lot of people have had problems. Now, that I'm an old boy, it's all downhill!! But truly, I do believe I suffered more in my 20s.

Seedstral: In 2009, Robert Enke, a goalkeeper for a German club killed himself and last week, a match in the Bundesliga was cancelled because the referee attempted to kill himself but he survived http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/soccer/wires/11/25/2080.ap.soc.bundesliga.referee.2nd.ld.writethru.0384/index.html So really, these are 3 recent events. I hope those who suffer will reach out for help.

I would send my condolences too to his family and friends and I hope they will find comfort in this time.