Mrs Ace got pished/fished with a Yahoo acccount security update, same thing, re-enter account details to confirm.

She was shut out of her email, lost all her contacts, we all got emails saying she was abroad and in trouble and needed some money to get home 🙂

Since that happened i get emails from paypal and banks that i don’t use asking for detail updates 🙂

Things worth looking into.

Axle weight of caravan and towing ability of your car, you may have to factor in a new/bigger car.

Insurance costs, most likely minimal but worth checking.

Axle weight of caravan and weight you can tow on your driving licence, granted this will affect newer drivers more, but check things haven’t changed.

Maybe a quirk of doing HGV2, my licence was chopped down to towing 750kg in anything when i passed HGV, i could tow more weight before, now i have to do a seperate test if i want to tow trailers over 750kg.

Had a chat with a nice AA man (being rescued) all the flatbed lorry drivers had to go and do class 1 HGV after the AA worked out that due to the weight of some caravans most of there drivers would be towing a combination beyond there licenced ability and thus breaking the law, so rather a lot of AA drivers had to upgrade there licence (on the AA)

If you have never towed before, might be very worth well finding a nearby driving school that caters for big trailers and caravans, even if you don’t need to because you have an old licence….. getting some tips and first hand experience, at some point you will have to reverse it somewhere 🙂

own it with Bombers = STW answer to all lifes problems, loves it 🙂

Brazil…..Is that where the next olympics are ?

Wonder what happens if primadonna players fake an injury, might spice footy up a bit.
Only ever used to watch it in the 80’s if millwall where involved, mostly involved toilet rolls and stadium seats 🙂

for the less technical tracks i bet thats super stable at high speeds.

i reckon even i would struggle to cartwheel it down a track 🙂

Ok i don’t fully understand the nature of the event to be undertaken.

From a pure racing point of view, no pain no gain, ride till you can’t ride no more, roll off the bike, unroll a bivi bag with a sleeping bag already in it, crawl in job done.

Tent is more comfort but more weight (depending where you are) and can take time to pitch up (practice makes perfect and speeds things up)
Another Terra Nova user. Laser large, 10 years old, single pole, with 2 stub end poles.
Pitches as one, fly and outer are clipped together, takes maybe 5 mins to pitch up, hardest part is threading the single pole through.
Tailor pegs to suit ground/area you are going to.
Last trip out, ground was like sponge, the carbon fiber pegs weren’t ideal so i made some fatter longer wooden pegs for the 4 corner guys.
Now have a selection of the Alpkit Y beam pegs in standard and long length for future use.

As per d45yth, carefull roll up of the tent, i leave the stub poles in place, then it’s a case of unroll, pitch out base, pole in, guys, and other pegs. Practice speeds things up.
There are lots of tents to choose from nowdays, i can’t reccomend one as i have been on the same TN for so long.

I did pick up the lidl/aldi special to play about with as it looked possible to ditch one or both poles and use the bike or trees etc etc as a high point to tie off too.
Rocktrail brand,£13 more of a take to glastonbury and leave in the field thing than use beyond light summer use. Came up ages ago as a PSA in the monster bikepacking adventure bivi thread.

Still to try my cheapo special in the garden, but because it was cheap i can think outside of normal and not worry if i wreck it.

Good luck with the adventure to come 🙂

scurries off to look up event on google.

eat_more_cheese, i was at sourlies bothy in May.

Guess what was outside 🙂

A broken rack, your’s might not have died and is trying to come home, or more boring, someone else had snapped and ditched one.

Got panniers for going down tescos, if i ever get round to bikepacking then it will be a dry bag lashed to the rack, sleeping bag lashed to the handle bars, maybe a dry bag lashed to the seat tube.
Each to there own, from reading the topics here and bikepacking forums, it appears that for long periods of touring on fireroads and tarmac then front and rear panniers (or dare i speak it, a trailer) if i wish to go more rugged, short trips, singletrack, off road, then i would want to go light and have the bike more like a bike so slimline frame bags or lash bags into the frame.
Both ways have merits and failings, it could be that the more extreme end of “ultra light bikepacking” is more in vogue than “touring with panniers”

So far i haven’t seen a in the wild ultra light bikepacking set up on my travels, apart from the bloke who rode into SSEC2010 and used a bivi bag.
I have only seen variations of panniers and trailers.

Spesh have a patent on the word “epic” ? nuts.

Then again i remember when Cannondale tried to patent the term and useage of “Freeride”
Think it was Rocky mountain that counter attacked with putting all there team riders in afro wigs, doing some mad freeride stuff for a photo shoot and team “Fro-riders” was born 🙂
Cannondale never got the patent, and i have a lasting memory of Bret Tippee (most likely spelt wrong or even wrong name) doing jumps and things in a big afro wig, gotta love the bike industry 🙂

£30 on the spot fine here, signs are up in town center, never heard of anyone being fined though, they seem more into doing parking tickets than safety.
Suppose when an old dear gets mown down on the pavement they might start dishing out tickets.

Is it not still illegal (possible by laws differ from county to county) to ride on the pavement ?

Then again i thought it was illegal to ride a bicycle without 2 independant braking systems….. loads seem quite incapable of managing that, see a few brakeless bmx’s ridden on pavements, don’t have fixie hipsters here 🙂

Ah missed the MacAvalanche thing, thought it was chopped, perhaps a race in Scotland afterall, or maybe not depending on things.
Best have a look on Nofuss webber 🙂

Just getting rider things filter through on FB Northwind.

Al broke his shoulder just above the deer fence crossing, then rode down one handed, he said the steak pie and chips at the bottom post crash were brilliant.

Ali on HT crashed out up top on his 9th, no Jesse or me racing this year, sounds like a few other regular HT’ers didn’t make it. 2 of the HT’s are home builds 🙂 hopefully get this right “SWT bikes” on FB or is it STW, Ste will tell me off for getting wrong if i have, Mark Amer raced again on his home made susser.
Gutted i missed it, that and no MacAvalanche this year…..tempted by the Tour de Ben Nevis, but you need to be fit and have buns of steel for that 🙂

Mr V from Orange bagged a win in his class, so zip tie the swing arm for the ride up pays off 🙂

No idea on actual numbers. And yes the track seems to get rougher every year 🙂 be all that bedrock they keep digging down to.

Perhaps it’s now too early in race season and riders are doing other events.

Oh dear.

Excellent tale, from the title i expected a curry to be involved.

If i knew how to imbed youtube vid’s i would post Johnny Cash “Ring of fire” for you.

Hope your feeling better 🙂

Bit different.

Had a dose of pnemonia.

Spent 3 days at home puking, decided maybe best to see a doctor.
Instant “can you get yourself to Musgrove Park Taunton” dad was sat outside in the car as i couldn’t get myself to doctors.
1 hour later in hospital, doctor said grab an over night bag, they will keep you in overnight for tests.
That was early monday evening, i thought it was dicky food upset.
Tuesday morning, doctors round, they tell me i have Pnemonia, treatment had all ready started in the night, 12-48hours and most people are going home.

At 36 hours medication was ramped up, and i became an interesting patient, as i was having an odd variation of pnemonia that they don’t see often.
Spent 7 days in hospital, doc reckoned 1 week for each day in hospital, so expected recovery is 7-8 weeks.

This was 3 1/2 weeks ago. Came out of hospital 2 1/2 weeks ago.

Week one could hardly do anything. Start of week 2 i could walk about 500m then done, by end of week, could do short trips in car, and walk about 2 miles with a rest halfway (home to super market and back)
Week 3 having a go at work, overdone it first day, so doing half days, getting stronger ever day, but taking it easy, will most likely do half days next week as well.
Hopefully by week 5 should be nearly normal, but still taking it easy.
Around week 6 should have another chest x-ray to check if lungs are clear.
So best skip the Fort William DH enduro and the Klunker classic piss up deathtrapbikes event 🙂

It’s taken a while to sink in, but it really is going to take several weeks to bounce back.

I would take it easy, you don’t want to flake out mid ride in the middle of nowhere and need mountain rescue or air ambulance.
Double check with your GP first.

Nurses and Docs at Musgrove Park also top notch, strangely getting into hospital was easier than getting out….. couple of people did runners…. not self discharge, did a runner ? seeing what the nurses have to put up with, but still finish a 12 hour shift smiling, was well impressed.

Q/R forks are 9mm open dropouts.

15mm need a 15mm axle and hub.

20mm need a 20mm axle and again matching hub.

There are Q/R 15&20mm hubs/forks but they require a dedicated 15&20mm axle and hub.

If you buy a 15mm fork you will most likely have to buy a new front wheel. Some newer high end hubs can swap spacers to run different size axles, unlikely a budget bike OEM spec wheel will be able to do that.

I bought Dia compe MX 2 v’s and levers.

Stock pads where ok, but once worn i switched over to a set of Aztec cartridge pads.
Being stiffer units the difference in braking performance was a drastic improvement.

If your brakes don’t have cartridge pads, then a good set will improve things and be cheaper than a new brakeset.

Faff to set up, but once dialled in, swapping out pads is a doddle, remove split pin, push out worn pad from cartridge, clean cartridge with old toothbrush, push in new pads and off you go

A crankset shy of having 3 rideable bikes.

If i had to scale back.

Would keep the Karate Monkey, at the moment set for SS on v-brakes, so a disc&gear ready spare wheel set, cable disc brakes and a bouncy fork would be on order.

Can race mountains, or xc, or SS events, even a bit of DH racing, and if the frame has issues i can practice my welding skills and brace it up.

bag of prawn crackers to eat on the way home with the Chinese takeaway ? 🙂

Big bowl of del monte fruit salad and vanilla ice cream next.

Then a cup of tea.

Then an early night.

Ribeye steak, with new potatoes and green beans and asparagus in fake butter
With a bottle of Guinness

🙂

So from reading this.

Center Parcs, bit rough then 🙂

Ohh thats not a bad price, thought the linkage would be more than that, would be tempted to just go for it myself now 🙂

I got a 04 stumpjumper FSR as the SX was a hard to get frame only option back then.
In 07 i got the SX trail, hardly used it in 07, over biked myself, but never sold it, couple of times people have tried to buy it from me as they knew it’s low use history. Now the wrong side of 40 🙂 so glad i kept it, burly allrounder.
Have looked at the 4x racers with 100-120mm travel, beefy short travel bikes are more fun, but then i am used to racing hardtails.
If i had sold the SX Trail i would struggle to replace it nowdays 🙁

If you take the plunge and get the linkage, would love to see updates on that.

Seen a few old SX’s running old 150mm zocchi Bombers up front with out issue.

The frame is pretty beefy and up for some abuse.
Just thinking out loud know, no offence intended, is it worth trying to add a bit more travel, would that not increase the leverage ratio on the shock and make it work harder ? it’s an old frame, trying to upgrade it, or maybe time to look at a new longer travel bike.
Cost of linkage ?
Cost of custom tuned & serviced rear shock ?
I would go for your lower AC height fork at 150mm over the AC of old 150mm bombers, and have the shock tuned up, run a burly rear wheel and DH tyre 🙂

Do the switchback guides run Alpine hardtails or is that another company.
In short i would tune up what i have, over trying to add a bit more travel, well sorted shock is worth looking into.
I would race your SX down Fort William 🙂 be nice and nimble and lively ride.

Thought the SDA had raced Glencoe this year already.

Maybe take a squisher then, Karate Monkey and hucking at my age may end badly 🙂

I see on the FB page that the red run has more work going on 🙂

The topic of Enduro bikes at the Fort.
Fair few coming out to do the 6 hour DH enduro race. Managed to chat to some of them on air sprung rigs.
They all enjoyed themselves, but did point out that the bikes where right on the ragged edge of what they can do, lairy nervous fun, don’t recall any blowing up. Few DH bikes let go…..

As long as your bike is in good working order, then it should be allright.

Rough guide to bikes, from doing 5 6hour DH enduros

Rigid, just don’t 🙂 i tried it, Jesse from Alpine bikes raced it.

Hardtail, very doable, rider needs to be special/nuts.

XC susser, seen a FSR stumpjumper race, he blitzed the race up and was traumatised on the downs, bike made it so did rider. Not ideal.

AM/All mountain, air sprung, single crown forks, bike will be on it’s limits, lairy fun. A more burly build and coil units will enhance things.

Freeride/Park bike, did it on a Spesh SX Trail last year, not quite the magic carpet ride i expected, but the old SX soaked up most of it and was quite nice until i lost rear brake.

Downhill Bike, best tool for the job, Chipps knocked out 12 laps i think last year on a top end Orange, his first time 🙂

More burly spec will be more damage proof, lots depends on the rider and skill level.
Haven’t gone through a set of brake pads in the wet up there, but i always put new ones on pre-race anyway. I do take a spare set just in case.

Foods good in the cafe too, although i reckon the Glencoe fry up is better 🙂

If your a world cup level rider then a full face and knee pads will do.

If your not a world cup level rider and don’t bounce too well in the rock gardens (most of the track) then pad up as it takes some time to rescue broken riders.

Just ride carefully, if in doubt, pull off the track and walk round things.

The big world cup jump is world cup only so fenced off.
Most things are rollable and smaller jumps can be ridden round.
Did i mention it’s a tad rocky.

Quick run through.
Top section and boardwalks, nice and easy, smooth, when you exit the last boardwalk you are into a rock garden with a steep tight exit, you can pull over and walk round.
Track snakes down with some more steep turns, and some blind drops, only a few feet, get the line right and there is a steep ramp on one side to roll down, if it’s wet don’t dab the brakes on these ramps you will lose grip and slide off.

You snake down to the Deer Fence crossing, don’t dab brakes on the cattle grid 🙂 you tend to find people grouping here for a arm shake and little rest, maybe roughly halfway.

You are now heading down to the woods, track is now mostly down to bedrock so bit choppy.
You will pass the big WC jump on your left, you drop down a tight turn and into 3 steps, just about rollable, this brings you to the big white wall ride, not far to the Motorway now.
Batter your way through the gully of rocks (mind your toes)and stumps, another small metal wall ride, turn left over a metal bridge and prepare to enter the motorway over a table jump.
Steep run out, loads of speed (great fun when brake has failed)some small step down jumps, and into the big hip jump, you can ride round the ramp, next is the newer motorway section, first jump is the worst, tables are easy.
This brings you to the Tissot jump, you can ride round that, then we have the “off beat wall” some of the worldcuppers jump this ! really fast section of track, you will see the finish as you crest the wall.

If you keep hard right on the finish jumps it’s more rollable, also less chance of being taken out or jumped by a faster rider hitting up the jumps 🙂

In an ideal world, get there the night before and walk the track, remember where the blind drops and ramps are, easier than trying to see on your gondola ride up.

Spares.
Inner tubes, carry a mini pump and tube on track if you can, long walk if you blow up top.
Expect a rear tyre to be runined after 10 runs, assuming your body lets you make it that far first time.
Spare wheels are handy, i take them but so far haven’t needed them. Seen many who don’t bring them, but need them.
Spare mech hanger and rear mech and cable. Easy to go chainless so something that can be fixed at home.

Check Alpine bikes, shop in the Fort William and rental shop in the Gondola station in the carpark. They do rental bikes and sure they rent armour as well. So quite possible you could rent armour for the day over buying a set to maybe use once. Well worth checking out, not knowing anything about you i would advise padding up.

The red DH run is easier, just don’t try and jump the boardwalk tables if it’s windy as you get blown off the boardwalk 🙂 the red joins the WC track just below the big wallride, you can jump onto the motorway or go down the fire roads.

It’s a world cup track. I don’t find it’s that technical, it can be very very fast, and is rough and rocky.
Bunch of us race it on hardtails for extra thrills 🙂 and it has been rigid raided as well.

Ride within your limits and it will be fun. Also worth checking out Glencoe mountain ski resort down the road, chairlift, the fearsome DH track double black diamond, and a not so steep red run….. must go back and try that myself as the MacAvalanche dosen’t appear to be on now this year 🙁

There are premium rate text services out there, you get charged a normal text rate + £1.50 for information.

Text checks on car history etc etc. Unlikely but possible you may be billed, so worth checking out, due to volume of texts it should be obvious that there machine has gone wrong.

PAYG, if no credit phone shouldn’t accept messages then 🙂
Maybe a new sim/number is the way to go if no one admits to a fault.

contact phone company.

just in case your being billed, could be a scam.

I would like to think the phone service provider you use could block the texts and shed some light on whats going on.

Tim Flooks made a dramatic difference to my old Bombers.

From forum surfing, it would appear that FOX & RS forks need lots of servicing.

My old open bath chunky bombers don’t need any where near as much attention as these new fangled superlight weight offerings.

Future Geax curious here.

Proper mucking about on mountains or DH racing, been using Hans Dampf, square unramped knobs so bit draggy on xc.

XC, WTB Bronsons, nice tight center knobs, low profile, roll nice, large side knobs for off camber cheeky lines and cornering, nice tyres and coped better than expected in mud.

For feeling a bit a racey, Conti CX race 700c 35mm, quite a surprise in all weathers. Ran around 55-60 psi, more grip than expected, when they wear out will most likely get the larger 42-45mm version. Roll well, good tarmac manners, cheap but taken some abuse 🙂

Might try the Conti xc 29er race tyres instead, but liking the CX tyres.

Was done yesterday.

🙂

Made me smile 🙂

not laugh out loud spit tea over the keyboard, and the door chain earlobe bit made me wince a bit.

Bet somewhere out there, is a real person like that 🙂

Been running track wheels 700c on a Surly Karate Monkey 29er frame.

The rear wheel is 120mm, so running chaintugs inboard with an extra spacer to space the axle out to 135mm.
Think the rims are 18-19mm wide by 30mm deep semi aero track rims on track hubs.
Have run 2.3 Bronsons and Hans Dampf tyres with no problems, but wider would be better.

When i get round to it, then a proper 29er disc ready wheelset will be coming.
Cheap option was to use the rim brake 700c track set i already had and pick up a set of v-brakes, worked allright for a few years now, but i fancy gears on the Monkey 🙂

Managed to wring over 3 seasons of DH racing out of a pair of Airwalks, bit sponge like in the wet 🙂 but for the discounted price couldn’t fault them.
Worked well for me with flat pedals.

strange…
my first double post, edited it out.

My first one a 04 Spesh P3 weighed in around 37-38lbs.

Went to steel frames and still a burly DH spec build, dropped to 34-35lbs

Went to 853 Superfly styler deluxe 🙂 and some carefull changes but the same fork/wheels, depending on tyres 31-33lbs, Been running a triple butted steel Atomlab Pimp2 which is a similar weight.

When not doing DH racing, i got a nice Surly KM, haven’t weighed it but reckon it’s under 25lbs, SS and v-brakes, very nice for xc and pootling about.

Got one 13ltr Alpkit extra, the more rugged one.

After a wet week in Knoydart, and finding out that my new rucksack is not as waterproof as i expected, and going old school with bin bags reminded me of how fragile they can be.

Anyway, picked up a couple of 2 ltr, a 15 ltr and some 4 or 5 ltr Karrimor bags. 10,000mm rating, build quality appears to compare with my Alpkit, unused so far. Only slightly cheaper than Alpkit.
When in Sourlies bothy the Finnish couple we met where using the Karrimor dry bags, they where most happy with them.

Agree with Sportdirect shops only carrying a small Field&Trek section, i have mail ordered and there is way more on the website.
Very aware of the hit and miss nature of the Karrimor brand.
So far using KSB Event boots vibram sole, very nice and comfy.
X-lite carbon walking poles, they hit quoted minimum weight, and took a lot of abuse.
X-lite sleeping mat, so far so good.
Last minute impulse buy before jumping on the train was in the Field&Trek shop in Fort William, grabbed a pair of weather tight water proof trousers, for £20 well impressed, they saw a lot of action.

Have seen conflicting reviews on the Karrimor waterproof coats, first reviews are positive, 3 months later some issues, and heard the jokes about the down gilets not having much down in them.

The bags are worth a punt. Was a thread on here the other day about Halfords knocking out dry bags for 40p !

🙂

Bit more random thoughts have popped into my head.

For technical riding, it will be hard to compare my rigid raiding against a dual susser.

On fast open DH tracks, Fort William and Glencoe, not so tight or technical, my Karate Monkey was super stable.
I tried to jump a bomb hole on the old army road/jeep track at Glencoe, that burst the lower headset bearing.

On a tighter shorter more technical track, steering was fairly nimble, getting your bum out over the back may require some adjustment, bigger wheel=more bum buzz.
I found the limit of the v-brakes and steeper riding, hence discs to come. Under heavy front braking there is an element of the v-brake twisting the rim, not much but enough to veer off into clipping a tree.
I would expect a more up to AM/DH bike with disc brakes to ride as well as a 26″ once you are dialled in to it.
Have seen a fair few photo’s of 29ers ripping some of the technical trails out in Whistler.

🙂

Weak wheels ? 🙂

Bought a pair of on-one track clinchers so i could run v-brakes on my Karate Monkey, this was the cheapest way for me to go.

Apart from normal riding SSUK SSEC and a Clunker classic, my 700c track wheels have been caned down the motorway section (from the big wall ride down) at Fort William, overwhelmed the v-brakes on standard pads doing that, good giggle though.
What else, did the MacAvalanche last year, rigid raided it, if my freewheel hadn’t died i would have got in group B, did worry a fair few Orange 5 and big hit DH bike riders.
And did a more normal domestic DH race, used Hans Dampf tyres.

I did expect to fold a wheel, so far i haven’t, looking at some lighter disc ready ones so i can run gears and disc brakes.

For DH racing will stick with 26″, for anything else quite liking 29″ i would like to try a 29″ susser in a DH race.

On the roll over things easier.
I found that at a certain speed the rigid bike does start to skim/roll over small things, this does have a feel of short travel suspension, however…. a rigid bike is still a rigid bike, the geo stays constant unlike a susser, and if you hit something large you can expect to feel the hit and hold onto the bars to hold your line, where as a dual susser will soak up most mistakes.

Haven’t been gentle on mine, maybe i am a smoother rider than i think, i don’t know, but haven’t folded a wheel or seen one folded.

Just try one out, you might like or hate it 🙂

Always used to be under 700mm, mostly around 680 as that’s what came fitted and what i was used too.

Times have moved on, the wide bar thing is viewed by most as “too wide but i can cut them to fit”
ODI have a bar that comes with extenders that screw into the bar end so you can fine tune width that way without cutting.

Tried some Spank 777, comfy but wide, full length hurt my shoulder’s they felt unnatural.
Trimmed down to about 720mm which for me is spot on. It did get amusing in the DH world when wide was in vogue, some very uncomfortable looking bikes 🙂 but most riders cut down to suit themselves.
Although it was mostly born of fashion and marketing, the bike industry has done a lot of us a great service by having easier to get (nowdays) bars that can be fine tuned.

I like them 🙂

when i was a lad, can of coke and portion of chips for 50p 🙂

Think thats roughly £2.50 in most chippys nowdays…..feeling old thinking about it.

And i thought the Karrimor and Alpkit ones where cheap, thats a proper bargin.

Shame no Halfords nearby, would have nipped in and grabbed a few.
Nice find.