The best bikes for the beginners

When it comes to purchasing your first bike, the choice is endless, making it tough to know what to go for. Here are the best buys on the market right now.

This is a cross-country bike, and it’s so versatile(多用途的)that you can handle any terrain(地势)on it, making it a great choice for those wanting to try various cycling subjects. If you leave on the thick tires it comes with, it can ride on various paths and can even handle some less demanding mountain bike routes. Alternatively, put on thin, slick tires and treat it as a road bike. It has basket and comes with Shimano Sora gears, which are outstanding for its price.

￡650,   Halfords.

Planet X is based in Yorkshire, which means you'd probably have to buy this bike without seeing it. But it’s worth it, because this is an excellent machine at a lower price. Planet X is a highly rated manufacture and this model comes with Shimano Sora gears.

￡439,   Planet X

Specialized is one of the biggest and most popular brands in cycling, and this is its hugely popular primary road bike. It comes with solid components from front to back and you'll look great out on the road.

￡575, Evans Cycles

If you can push your budget further still, this bike is worth the extra investment. The frame is made entirely from carbon, which is lighter, faster and more comfortable than the composition metal models above and gives you an all-round more enjoyable ride. It also means that if you get really serious about cycling, you don't have to upgrade as quickly as you would with a cheaper bike

￡800, Halfords

With rapid advances in medical science, cloning is slowly but surely looking like it could be in our near future. However, is it really an option that should be considered as a way to extend human life?

Reproductive cloning may help human families gain children, but there’s also a benefit for the animal world. It brings hope to people eager for children but unable to have their own or adopt. It can also bring about the recreation of species that have long since died, allowing scientists to fully study the species as a living creature instead of simply looking at images or bones.

Many believe that cloning can be used to replace failing organs. This will reduce the waiting list for organ donations and allow more people to be saved. Not only that, but because the organ is, in fact, your own organ, there would be less chance of rejection.

Cloning could prove helpful in genetic research. Using cloning technologies, genetic researchers would have a better understanding of the composition of genes and the effects of genetic constituents (成分) on human characters. There’s also the possibility of changing genetic constituents in cloned humans, and cloning could help fight genetic diseases.

While the cloning of body organs can help extend human life, it could also cause a lot of malpractice (玩忽职守). Along with the ability to clone desired characters, there could be the possibility of people deliberately reproducing undesired characters. This could lead to a rise in malpractices within society.

Cloning involves a process of creating identical genes. As such, there would be a lack of diversity in humankind. Scientists believe this lack of diversity will lower the human race's ability to adapt.

Whatever your view on cloning may be, studies show that the clone would in fact not be completely identical to the original just as twins are not completely identical. Though they might look alike, twins have different personalities and enjoy different things. The same could be said of clones. Even if technology were created in which your memories and thoughts could be transmitted (传送) to the clone, your clone would still be a different person.

My parents both left school at 14. They could read and write, but except for a quick look at the daily newspaper, reading and writing didn't play a big part in their lives. There were very few books in the house. When I was only 14 years old my father gave me an important letter that he'd written to the bank and asked me to check it for grammar and spelling mistakes. And there were quite a lot. He never wrote letters or postcards or even Christmas cards. So when he had to write he wasn't comfortable or confident. Does that mean that my father had a ‘low level of literacy (读写能力)’? I don't think so.

There are lots of different definitions (定义) of literacy. Some experts define it as having the reading and writing skills that you need to be independent in your everyday life. So, for example, if you can read instructions, write a cheque, fill in a form — anything that you need to do in everyday life — then you are ‘functionally literate’.

If you live in a society where most people are literate then you will feel ashamed and avoid situations in which you have to read or write. A friend's father finally admitted to his family that he couldn't read when he was 45 years old. He had bought the newspaper every day and pretended to read it.

Being illiterate can have a big effect on people's lives. Worldwide statistics show that literacy problems are associated with poverty and a lack of political power. More women than men are illiterate. Illiterate people have worse health, bigger families and are more likely to go to prison. So literacy campaigns must be a good thing. But don't forget that an illiterate person, or someone with a low level of literacy, isn't necessarily stupid or ignorant (无知的) — and may not be unhappy at all. Knowledge and wisdom isn't only found in writing.

Tenzing left his home when he was ten to work and help his mother，who was looking after their 2-acre ancestral farm after his father’s death. He did temporary jobs for the first few years and then joined a Malaysian construction firm，where he learnt to drive，repair machines, work on the Internet and even speak English fluently.

“In those 13 years，I learnt everything—driving, mechanic work，and how to set up a small factory. This made me gain much confidence to do almost all jobs,” says Tenzing.

However, as his mother was getting older, on December 12, 2006, Tenzing returned to his hometown in Assam. Having visited several farms, he came to know that tea could be easily exported and many tea companies were buying tea; so he also decided to grow tea on his farm. But as his family had never grown tea，he had no idea how to do it.

Being a layman (外行）in this field, Tenzing went to meet with many tea experts and followed their instructions. But whenever he sprayed pesticide (农药）on his farm, he’d get a headache and feel indisposed. So he started looking for alternatives, Tenzing did his research online and finally in 2007, he connected with people from a Canadian non-governmental organization and invited them to his farm, where they trained him. Thus, Tenzing started growing tea organically.

Today Tenzing has 25 acres of land, in which 7.5 acres is used for tea planting, and he grows almost all types of fruits and vegetables. His success inspired many, and farmers from other parts of the country also started coming to his farm to learn organic farming. He has trained about 30,000 farmers so far. Every year almost 100 tourists visit his farm from various parts of the world like the UK, Australia, Germany, etc.