Thorn Cycles Forum

Community => Muppets Threads! (And Anything Else) => Topic started by: Andre Jute on March 03, 2014, 08:40:58 pm

Title: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: Andre Jute on March 03, 2014, 08:40:58 pm

http://www.chainreactionhub.com/latest-news/1284-if-you-go-down-to-the-woods-today-mountain-biker-almost-becomes-grizzly-bears-picnic
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: jags on March 03, 2014, 09:42:42 pm
Scary Stuff Andre :o
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: JimK on March 03, 2014, 09:54:46 pm
We get bears around here but just black bears. Scary enough! They can run really fast! I have never had to test myself against one, happy to say! I've bumped up maybe 20 feet from a bear on a couple occasions, but they don't seem any more interested than I in getting any closer.
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: brummie on March 03, 2014, 10:12:55 pm
Here in the UK today I had a close encounter with a 'March' Hare on the commute home - not particularly scary compared to a bear ! - I had a can of 'Hare' spray handy in my saddlebag just in case  ! ;D
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: jags on March 04, 2014, 12:02:08 am
 ;D ;D ;D very good hair spray where did you dig that one up from .good tho ;D ;D
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: Andre Jute on March 04, 2014, 12:10:12 am
I'm more interested in why Brummie carries hairspray... Is he one of those dashing photographic models one sees in fast convertibles or on expensive yachts?
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: brummie on March 04, 2014, 08:42:35 pm
I'm more interested in why Brummie carries hairspray... Is he one of those dashing photographic models once says in fast convertibles or on expensive yachts?

I was offered some modelling work on the radio once, but to be honest I only carry a can of Hair restorer in the saddlebag these days. ( Brooks Proofhide is probably more appropriate ! ):D
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: Andre Jute on March 05, 2014, 12:39:55 am
A lady I know is loved by every man she has ever met. She doesn't use words like bald or balding. Instead she says, "He's going light on top."
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: peter jenkins on March 05, 2014, 10:23:07 am
I prefer to think of my sparsely covered crown as my "solar panel"
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: il padrone on April 01, 2014, 08:42:22 am
Beware of the bears in Australia (http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2013/03/drop-bears-target-tourists,-study-says), especially if you have a foreign accent. They get particularly enraged in autumn ;)

Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: Danneaux on April 01, 2014, 05:38:33 pm
Quote
Beware of the bears in Australia, especially if you have a foreign accent. They get particularly enraged in autumn
A friend who moved to Australia in childhood was telling me about these, Pete. Said something about most attacks occurring on or about April 1st.

Dunno why....

 ;D

I'll be wary of them anyway if I come to visit.  :o

All the best,

Dan. (...who doesn't like the look of those fangs  :o )
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: Matt2matt2002 on April 01, 2014, 06:05:09 pm
A lady I know is loved by every man she has ever met. She doesn't use words like bald or balding. Instead she says, "He's going light on top."

I have a wide parting
 ;D
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: brummie on April 01, 2014, 08:14:06 pm
I have a wide parting
 ;D

It takes me a lot longer to wash my face in the mornings than it used too !  :D
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: John Saxby on April 01, 2014, 10:03:01 pm
"Follicly challenged"?  Nah, never--why would I, at my age, waste my hormones growing hair?

Beginning to think this thread hardly, er, bears thinking about...
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: Andre Jute on April 01, 2014, 11:03:01 pm
Beginning to think this thread hardly, er, bears thinking about...

The jokes get more desperate the longer Spring and good riding weather takes to arrive. this time of the year northern hemisphere bicycle groups are a psychological study in cabin fever.
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: il padrone on April 02, 2014, 02:21:03 pm
The chrome dome on top is an aerodynamic advancement  :D
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: John Saxby on April 02, 2014, 04:34:58 pm
Quote
The jokes get more desperate the longer Spring and good riding weather takes to arrive

Too true, Andre. Jus' couldn't stand it any longer, so I up & betook myself to the Land of Prawns, & am writing from Maputo, in Mozambique.  Will return to the Great White North only when I am reliably informed that the snow is well & truly gone, say late April.
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: Andre Jute on April 02, 2014, 05:01:38 pm
Too true, Andre. Jus' couldn't stand it any longer, so I up & betook myself to the Land of Prawns, & am writing from Maputo, in Mozambique.  Will return to the Great White North only when I am reliably informed that the snow is well & truly gone, say late April.

In Johannesburg at one stage I owned a smart restaurant, to give employment to a hotel manager and his wife who lost their jobs when I fell out rather explosively (it was Guy Fawkes night) with the owner of the hotel where he worked before. Every morning I would send the company plane to Lourenco Marques, as it was then, to fly in langoustines, a shellfish somewhere between a very large prawn and a lobster; mine was the only restaurant in Johannesburg to serve them, and of course I dined there often. Now I have to cycle to get rid of the cholesterol. Not a bad trade-off.

My executive assistant went to LM for her honeymoon, so we made up a party of raucous friends, and turned up too. LM was a wonderful place back then, much more fun than going to the Great Barrier Reef or Miami, and I daresay now. (In between there was a dull, humorless civil war.) Forever sunshine. Lucky you.
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: John Saxby on April 02, 2014, 07:17:11 pm
There's still a regular flyisng-fish (as it were) service between Mozambique and the Rand, Andre -- updated version of Kruger's lifeline, so to speak.  When we lived in Pretoria 10 years ago, we used to go to a place in the SE area, not far from Groenveld, called Crawdaddy's, which specialized in All That. Splendid noisy joint, and good value.

You may have seen Nando's in the UK (& Ireland too?), a much-to-be-preferred alternative to the wretched take-out stuff sold by McDonald's, etc.--Nando's does Portuguese flatties, peri-peri, and a range of sauces.  I'm not sure how well it travels beyond Southern Africa.  Nando's is good at one-liners: their small Ford delivery trucks were adorned with slogans like "Poultry in motion".  They ran into problems in an election a few years ago with this one: "We don't just make promises -- we deliver!"

To keep this slightly linked to cycling -- it's to be avoided in Maputo, I'd say, partly 'cos of the dreadfully potholed streets (humungous private-sector investment, no evident counterpart in public infrastructure), partly 'cos of the congested traffic (4 x 4 plague).

J.
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: Andre Jute on April 02, 2014, 08:00:26 pm
I'll tell you an African ride I'd still like to do. From Cape Town via Sea Point and Hout Bay around the back of Table Mountain and back into the city via Muizenberg. I used to do that in a Porsche with the tail hanging out but I'm more mature now... Or down the mountain towards George or Mossel Bay, leaving aside the small problem of first cycling up a 3500ft elevation. There's also a road down Kilimandjaro, but I never saw that in a good condition, so it might not be as much fun as those South African passes with their superb Italian-engineered surfaces. (Many of them were designed by Italian prisoners of war who elected to stay when offered the opportunity.)
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: John Saxby on April 02, 2014, 10:10:55 pm
A friend from Zambia days half a lifetime ago now lives in CT (near Muizenberg), and though he's in his late 70's, rides the Argus each year and others of the "Timed Events" in SA. (It was our ride together from Pretoria to Durban to mark his 70th b'day that really nudged me into longer-distance cycling.) Your ride from Sea Point eastwards & round the back would be similar, and well worth it, for sure. There are some splendid rides through the Kleine Draakensberg as well. Trevor, my friend in CT, tells me that the possibility of returning home sans bike is unfortunately all too possible (if not yet likely).
Title: Re: Close encounter of the teddy kind
Post by: Andre Jute on April 02, 2014, 10:58:32 pm
Pietermaritzburg to Durban I remember as 50 miles downhill...