Off Topic Bill Nicholson Arms

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Yes, England looking less than the sum of their parts again. Or maybe we should accept that, for all the hype, those parts don't amount to much anyway. At their clubs, they have foreign stars in key positions; they don't play so well without the influence of these players alongside them. They particularly miss the creative players - Silva, Mata, Coutinho, Eriksen from the clubs represented.
 
England are shackled by the hype surrounding certain players and a manager who is too reliant on workhorses like Milner and Henderson (play one not both!) and who continuously plays players out of position despite having actual, viable players for those positions in the squad.
 
"Smashes the WR by a mile - literally"

All very confusing. I thought the hour attempt was meant to be on a 'basic' road bike.

In principle, the bike Wiggins rode did not look much different from the Colnago that
Rominger rode in 1994 (though no doubt there is a centimetre here and there on
wheel widths, bar/frame heights, frame angles etc) .

Posting a record for "Best human effort" category that got as close as possible to
53km/h was what I was expecting today.
 
The RDBD said:
"Smashes the WR by a mile - literally"

All very confusing. I thought the hour attempt was meant to be on a 'basic' road bike.

In principle, the bike Wiggins rode did not look much different from the Colnago that
Rominger rode in 1994 (though no doubt there is a centimetre here and there on
wheel widths, bar/frame heights, frame angles etc) .

Posting a record for "Best human effort" category that got as close as possible to
53km/h was what I was expecting today.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there have been a lot of rule changes. There is now just a single one hour record.

The bike has to comply with UCI regulations for track pursuit bikes - which means we still see high tech bikes, but at least they are recognisable as bikes.

When this record was high profile in the 1990s in the days of Obree v Boardman it just became a battle of aerodynamics so certain modifications to the bike and riding styles/positions of the cyclists were outlawed to try to return the contest to more of a pure cycling endurance test. F1 has had to introduce similar regulations to prevent the sport similarly becoming no more than a technological battle.
 
"When this record was high profile in the 1990s in the days of Obree v Boardman it just became a battle of
aerodynamics so certain modifications to the bike and riding styles/positions of the cyclists were outlawed to try
to return the contest to more of a pure cycling endurance test."

Rominger for his 1994 attempts rode a bike much akin to Wiggins today.
He did not use the monocoque frames pioneered by Boardman, and then taken to
extremes by the Pinarello used by Indurain.

Obree made the advances in riding position, but prior to the big guns getting
involved, the bikes he built for himself were not particularly revolutionary tech.

The "best human effort" is IMHO the basic standard that should be used.
To see how far above 50 km/h can be reached before you need serious changes in
aerodynamics, should be the grand challenge.
 
NowsufferinginSpain said:
Well, here's some facts from the benevolent state of Qatar, reported only a few days ago. These workers are held under the Kafala system whereby their passports are confiscated and they have to work under the conditions specified by their employer ( as Qatar is an absolute monarchy, that means the state) it has already been called modern slavery. Maybe you find all this acceptable? I don't!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-...-2022-reveals-exploitation-of-workers/6511660

Qatari claims that not one worker has died are just laughable. Or they would be if it weren't for the fact that it's the deaths of human beings they're talking about.
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Of course I don't find that acceptable. Neither do I find the EU's treatment of similar workers acceptable (we refuse them entry completely so they resort to paying smugglers in desperation and drown on the trip).
 
PowerSpurs said:
Of course I don't find that acceptable. Neither do I find the EU's treatment of similar workers acceptable (we refuse them entry completely so they resort to paying smugglers in desperation and drown on the trip).
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The vest majority are not workers, but refugees. We didn't invite them, as Qatar has done, we don't confiscate their passports and hold them virtual hostage, as Qatar does. We don't work them 16+ hours a day! as Qatar does. Yes, thanks to plastic Blair's collusion with the idiot son of Bush, we ****ed up their country and most probably their lives, and we owe them something. But that's another story.
 
humanbeingincroydon said:
With those two guidelines in place, let's look at the stadia for Qatar's bid...
80,000-capacity stadium - not yet built
60,000-capacity stadium - expanding the 40,000-capacity Khalifa International Stadium to 68,000-capacity
40,000-capacity stadiums - eight not yet built, plus a couple of 21,000-capacity stadiums are being doubled in capacity.
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White elephants? The population of Qatar is 278,000!!! The stadium capacity is going to be several multiples of the total national population. Of course they could be building them for their large population of migrant workers...
 
vimhawk said:
White elephants? The population of Qatar is 278,000!!! The stadium capacity is going to be several multiples of the total national population. Of course they could be building them for their large population of migrant workers...
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Funny how nobody ever brings up statistics like how you can get literally half the population of Monaco into the Stade Louis II...
 
NowsufferinginSpain said:
The vest majority are not workers, but refugees. We didn't invite them, as Qatar has done, we don't confiscate their passports and hold them virtual hostage, as Qatar does. We don't work them 16+ hours a day! as Qatar does. Yes, thanks to plastic Blair's collusion with the idiot son of Bush, we ****ed up their country and most probably their lives, and we owe them something. But that's another story.
Click to expand...
I was meaning the mainly Indian and Nepalese workers in Qatar. If I was a poor person in India I suspect I would find the opportunities in Qatar quite attractive and would be quite pissed off at Europeans trying to claim I was being exploited by being paid more than I could ever get in India. Particularly since European countries offered me no work opportunities at all. The conditions are unacceptable by Western standards but still better than many Indians could hope for at home. I'm very happy arguing for the conditions to be improved but reluctant to require the opportunities to be taken away entirely as that will just force thousands of Nepalese and Indians to be sent home to poverty, disease and death.
 
PowerSpurs said:
I was meaning the mainly Indian and Nepalese workers in Qatar. If I was a poor person in India I suspect I would find the opportunities in Qatar quite attractive and would be quite pissed off at Europeans trying to claim I was being exploited by being paid more than I could ever get in India. Particularly since European countries offered me no work opportunities at all. The conditions are unacceptable by Western standards but still better than many Indians could hope for at home. I'm very happy arguing for the conditions to be improved but reluctant to require the opportunities to be taken away entirely as that will just force thousands of Nepalese and Indians to be sent home to poverty, disease and death.
Click to expand...

As I've already pointed out, India is not the host of the world's second largest sporting tournament! In my opinion, if you are awarded this honour, even if it was by the most underhand means, then you accept the obligations that go with it. Perhaps the current corrupt hierarchy of FIFA don't care about the suffering and deaths of these workers, but hopefully any future regime at FIFA will ensure that future holders of their premier tournament will uphold acceptable standards of treatment for those involved in the construction of any infrastructure required.
 
NowsufferinginSpain said:
As I've already pointed out, India is not the host of the world's second largest sporting tournament! In my opinion, if you are awarded this honour, even if it was by the most underhand means, then you accept the obligations that go with it. Perhaps the current corrupt hierarchy of FIFA don't care about the suffering and deaths of these workers, but hopefully any future regime at FIFA will ensure that future holders of their premier tournament will uphold acceptable standards of treatment for those involved in the construction of any infrastructure required.
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Its hard to disagree with the sentiment but in the real world the outcome of such a policy is that the World Cup will always be held in countries with no immigrant workers and so will provide no opportunities for workers in poorer countries to break out of poverty.
 
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