Official: Lance Armstrong says he is coming back

@Jack Sexty thanks for the quality control. There would still be a few takers if you went in the more ... artistic direction of course (for those of us who recall Boatsie).

@Smoggysteve - yeah, I don't really think H G Wells would be a great choice as he was more interested in utopias. He did write a lot though, so there will be some relevant bits. George Orwell's 1984 is certainly relevant, but PKD covers so many modern themes in his works “There will come a time when it isn't 'They're spying on me through my phone' anymore. Eventually, it will be 'My phone is spying on me'.” ― Philip K. Dick

Will the Sun be re-running their pictures of 16 year-old female children topless, from Page 3 in the 1970s, or do they just like digging up other people's past mistakes? In saying that the perverts who authorised that probably don't consider those actions a mistake.....

@hawkinspeter I was thinking more George Orwell's dystopian settings for many of his novels myself. But HG Wells would kind of work too.

@chrisonabike The "fewer e-things" one is genuinely complex. For disabled, many of the "not EAPC" things are transformative. For example, e-Assist wheelchair attachments, which basically turn a manual wheelchair into an e-Trike by adding a front wheel with integrated e-assist. These of course have no pedals, unless they are a hand-wheeled version. That can turn the autonomy radius from as far as you can wheel to 5-15 miles. And is of particular value for those who cannot have a driving license due to their condition. Equally, sit-down scooters are important. This is an e-scooter with a seat. Wheels for Wellbeing suggest essentially no restrictions on use by user (stigma of "disabled vehicle" etc), but treat them as cycles for techical regulations (eg 25kph limit, dump all the expensive paraphernalia on a Class C 8mph mobility scooter), and expect the users to behave like pedestrians in pedestrian spaces, and cyclists in cycling spaces. It's a persuasive and straightforward concept.

@chrisonabike The "fewer e-things" one is genuinely complex. For disabled, many of the "not EAPC" things are transformative. For example, e-Assist wheelchair attachments, which basically turn a manual wheelchair into an e-Trike by adding a front wheel with integrated e-assist. These of course have no pedals, unless they are a hand-wheeled version. That can turn the autonomy radius from as far as you can wheel to 5-15 miles. And is of particular value for those who cannot have a driving license due to their condition. Equally, sit-down scooters are important. This is an e-scooter with a seat. Wheels for Wellbeing suggest essentially no restrictions on use by user (stigma of "disabled vehicle" etc), but treat them as cycles for techical regulations (eg 25kph limit, dump all the expensive paraphernalia on a Class C 8mph mobility scooter), and expect the users to behave like pedestrians in pedestrian spaces, and cyclists in cycling spaces. It's a persuasive and straightforward concept.

@mdavidford - I think you may have confused Orson Welles for someone else (possibly H G Wells?). Orson Welles was a film-maker and actor. However, Philip K Dick was truly the prophet of the modern age. “Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups... So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.” ― Philip K. Dick

@Rendel Harris If budget is the sole priority, I would agree it's probably possible to cobble together a cheaper setup. But I guess this has the advantage of simplicity - just buy it, wait for it to be delivered and you know you're good to go. To get a £100 "sound and solid" old bike, I assume you're having to scour the internet and deal with the cesspits that are Facebook Marketplace, eBay etc., avoiding scams and obviously stolen bikes. You need to find a bike that fits, and although it doesn't need to be in perfect working order, you're still using most of the drivechain so you need to check that's all serviceable condition. If your £100 bike needs new chainrings, new chain, new bottom bracket etc., then it's no longer a £100 bike. You might also want things like new bartape, new saddle etc. Find a bike that looks good, and you normally still need to faff with arranging collection from the seller. This gets even more complicated if you're pernickety about fit. Many older and/or cheaper bikes won't have geometry charts available online so you might have to guess whether you can replicate your desired fit measurements. Some things you can adjust easily (e.g. saddle height - assuming the seatpost isn't seized!); some things can be amended with a bit more time/effort/money (new stem, new handlebars); some things you might discover are pretty much impossible to change to your desire parameters (e.g. effective seat tube angle will be limited by the range of fore/aft adjustment on the saddle rails; maybe +/- another couple of cm if you switch an offset to/from an inline seatpost - at additional expense). Building a stand for the fork might be relatively easy for you, but it requires a degree of competence, some tools, probably a trip to a hardware store etc. No insurmountable challenges, but I can see why someone might decide to just splash some cash in order to have a nice, new, known quantity turn up at their door, ready to go.

We're living in the kind of world that might have been in one of Orson Welles' novels. 😉

Just dropping by to apologise for the errors in the first version of this article. It shouldn't have been published when it was, and it's now been edited. We'll be better from now on, apologies again.