Hold on, I’ve just realised why that username felt a bit familiar. Doh & facepalm.

(for other readers, he’s my neighbour)

How did you find it? I rode in the fun category and huge fun. The course designers had done an amazing job putting together a challenging, fast and technical lap, I was impressed (and ready to throw up by the time I finished my second lap).

Kind of gutted there aren’t any more short-course Gorrick races until the Autumn…

@captain K – what were you doing at CAT? I was there a couple of weeks back – awesome place.

Fingerbike’s just bought one, although unless he’s pulled his finger out, it’s not built up yet. He brought it into work the other day and the colour’s lovely in the flesh – quite a retro shade of mint green.

After seeing it, I switched my Pompino order from white to glow in the dark. It should look rather pleasant with a brown charge spoon saddle and matching bar tape.

Apparently they don’t really glow in the dark that much though, so don’t think it’s an additional safety feature…

Agreed – as a recent convert to turbo training, I can’t imagine reading a book during a session.

Passively enjoying music or MTB vids plus staring at my heart rate monitor is as much as my fragile little mind can take.

I’m about to order one, but struggling with the choice of colours (yeah, yeah…). Looking at these lovelies, I’m leaning towards the white, but the glow in the dark option intrigues me. I haven’t seen any decent pics of them during the day though – are they off-white or vile lurid green?

Much prefer the old decals too. Maybe a respray is in order? That metallic red ones looks stunning.

Last year I swapped my steel Inbred frame (pre-456) for an identical TI version – built up using all the same parts. There’s a steep little climb near my house that was always a granny ring gradient that I cleared in the middle ring first time I rode it on the Tinbred. That might be down to the lighter weight or the placebo effect of a nicer frame, but I’m not sure I care either way :)

It only cost me £350 off STW classifieds, so I was a v happy bunny!

+1 for PJ Harvey!

Best. Thread. Ever.

Me too! Anyone leaving Walking Bottom about 10 fancy a few hangers-on? Our dependable local knowledge is too ill to ride. I qualify as local, but I’m rubbish at remembering how to connect all the decent stuff together.

For the fellow n00bs (I subscribed around issue 30), this might be a useful bit of background reading:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://Gofar-mtb.com

I chuffin’ love the internet.

@fruitbat The cynic in me can’t help but wonder what kind of country mansion that would be if you weren’t running four Alfas?!

Four cam belts… four sets of lambda sensors… four rolls bars… sixteen coil packs…

Great responses – thanks.

In no particular order:

@fruitbat – another Alfa? No chance! Like everyone says, they’re lovely to look, sit in and for the 30 seconds when everything’s working they’re amazing to drive, but the level of reliability is appalling. It was having two £600+ bills in the last six months that was the final straw.

To everyone that suggested a Merc, thanks, but my dad’s had a fair few and I’m not quite ready for that stage in my life just yet ;)

Coz the Mondeo kind of came out of the blue, I’ve not looked at what others are going for on AutoTrader, PistonHeads, etc. but thanks for everyone that pointed out that you can get them with fewer miles at that price. I’m not in a huge rush to buy one, so I’ll definitely take a look around. Certainly seems they’re not a lot more than a Focus for a lot more car.

Oh crap. My turn.

£250 so far though.

Dig deep for prostates!
(they should totally use that as the offical Movember motto)

@saccades good to know, thanks for the info.

@mincer Yup – it’s a lovely frame! I might be interested in those Rebas. Could you drop me a pic or two, and an idea of how much you want for it?

@muffin man – 130mm pace stem! It’s lovely and old school, but yes, a little long for comfort these days.

@karnali – thanks – I think your steerer might be a touch short, but I’ll check and email for pics if not.

What are pre-DT Swiss Pace forks like? A good option?

This may be a dumb question, but have you spoken to Crank Brothers (or relevant importer) about this? Such a degree of failures happening to a seemingly very loyal customer might get their attention.

Otherwise, another vote for Time ATACs. I’ve been using them since 2002 and the main drawback issue is that I can’t jump on my SPD-using mates’ bikes to take them for a spin. I’ve had to replace two sets of bearings in all that time in the Aliums. Rocs have been maintenance free and faultless.

Thanks, but I’ll pass – I’m getting my hub rebuilt by a mate for beer.

@_tom_ I might be interested in your hope+717 wheel. Could you drop me an email with the spec and condition? A photo would be great if that’s possible.

Ta lots.

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I'm in, and probably bringing a couple of other guys along too.

I'm fed up with giving any more money to Murdoch, so I'm cancelling my Sky sub too. If you want to keep the sky box, as l45key said, you need to pay £25 for a viewing card that allows you to watch free-to-air channels: http://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/faqs-freesat.aspx#q3

If you want to keep the Sky+ functionality, you'll need to pay Sky £10 a month.

Alternatively, keep the dish and wires, ditch the box and get a Freesat box from Humax that does all the same stuff. http://www.freesat.co.uk/

I'm looking at replacing my Sky+HD box with the Humax HD PVR that's £200-250. Plugs straight in, does the same stuff and will pay for itself in about a year.

Just curious – why did you get rid of your 305? I swear by mine.

I remembered my other favourite treatment earlier – a stinking hot curry.

I think it says a lot that since I posted the original question I've got to the stage where I can't even consider going out. Time to put my feet up in front of the tellybox then.

@glenncampbell -I think I've got Seasons on DVD somewhere, I'm just worried that I'll end up even more frustrated if I'm watching people do precisely what I want to be doing right now. Maybe the F1 might be better.

@mrmo – athlete? *chuckle*

@Ticklinjock – grapes and tomatoes sound good, but not quite as good as the beer and chocolate that have just come back from Sainsbury's :)

Arse.I've just got back from my holiday, so haven't touched a bike in over a week, and I'm suffering withdrawal symptoms.

Thanks for letting me know. It's not the person I thought it might be.

I hope she's OK – I get chills thinking back to my mate's big stack in 2001 when I had to carry him and his bike back up a hill to the road, and then find a house to call an ambulance. I don't ride off-road solo anymore because of the fear of incapacitating myself in the middle of nowhere.

This may seem a random question, but did you see what bike, or even the colour of bike, she was riding? This fits the description of a friend of mine who regularly rides up Holmbury. A couple of us have texted her but not had any response.

Cheers.

I'm on the mildly chunky side and have been for years, and despite being a regular rider I've never managed to clock up serious enough miles regularly to really make enough of a difference. Like many people, snacking is my downfall, especially when bored or in need of distraction.

Back in October I had a moment of clarity and started two things which have helped me start losing weight at a fairly sustainable level.

1 – Every evening I email myself a list of everything I eat that day. Anything I feel any guilt about eating I mark with [XX] in the email. The act of owning up to yourself what you're actually consuming is pretty powerful and gives you a reason to pause before grabbing that one little custard cream. I've set up a separate gmail account to keep a bit of separation between the diary and my usual inbox – I don't need to read it too often.

2 – I created a spreadsheet (I'm a geek. Sue me.) with three columns – date, current weight and target weight. I set a target weight for a couple of milestones in the future, add my weight every few days, then graph all of it. What I end up with is a neat graph showing my weight loss over time against the rate I need to hit to meet my target. It might sound a bit complicated, but it's actually dead simple. I use google docs so I can get to it anywhere. If anyone's interested I can share the template.

Between October and November I went from 99 to 95kg without much hardship or overt dieting – just cutting out the crap and eating smaller portions.

From November 30 to December 24 I lost another 6kg, but that was thanks to a serious bout of 'flu and a chest infection. Not recommended as a weight loss method, but I'm now pretty confident that I won't be putting that chunk back on.

Going out to buy jeans the next size down is a pretty cool experience :)

I'm aiming to ditch another stone in the next three months, but I recognise that I need a little more effort than I've put in so far. I recommend Frank Kinlan's site for sane, practical info on diet and weight loss.

Wish me luck.

I've taken the FSR out for a couple of short rides since it had the RP23 transplant, and I've got to say I love it. It feels so much more stable and usable than the old Brain shock.

I won't say it's a completely different bike, but the handling is what I hoped it'd be like with the brain tuned properly. Considering how close I was to selling the frame and buying a Ti hardtail, I'd say it's been a great move.

Now my bikes are all sorted, I just need to stock up on cold weather gear and some decent lights so I can get out and ride the damn things a bit more!

Apologies for the road content:

Van Nic Euros with Campag Centaur

That was fresh out of the box. It's got some miles on it now. Lovely.

The Ride[/url] is a pretty cool alternative – more of a book than a magazine. It's £7 a pop, but the photography and writing are worth it. It's not just for roadies, but all cyclists. Issue two had pieces by (among many others) John Tomac and Chris Hoy. Even the few adverts it contains are nicely designed and fit into the style of it.

They're giving away issue one as a PDF. I can't see Rouleur doing that ;)

Well, the shock arrived yesterday so I got my toolkit out last night to fit it. Everything went pretty smoothly, up to the point of trying to get the plastic bushing out of the fat end of the old brain shock, so it looks like a trip to the LBS is in order…

bennyboy1 – did you do the swap yourself?

That's all great advice, thanks. Especially bennyboy1 – that was exactly the answer I was looking for. I've picked up a barely-used second hand one off eBay, so when it turns up I'll chuck it in and see what happens!

I'm assuming the mounting hardware for the RP3 is the same as the brain-fettled Fox shock that comes as standard?

As for the higher BB – that sounds like it might be a good thing as it seems on the low side normally. The head angle shift doesn't sound like a big deal either – my other bike is an Inbred with old school long stem and flat bars, so I'm used to a racier setup. The FSR's got a TALAS fork, so I guess the head angle is a movable feast anyway.

The people I sit next to now think I'm soft in the head. I was practically crying with laughter all the way through. Hat tip!

As a dad to a 2.5 year old boy, this really got me. I can’t wait until the day I can go riding proper bikes with him, and my biggest hope is that he enjoys mountain biking as much as I do.

I’ve suggested my wife reads it to, to understand what goes on in my head :)

I’ve got a silver 03 plate 2.0 JTS Sportwagon that I was my attempt at ‘sensible’ before my firstborn arrived. Lovely, lovely car. As they say in the owners’ club “life starts at 3,000RPM” – especially around country lanes in the summer. I can easily fit a couple of muddy bikes in the back with the seats down, but it’s just getting muddy arseprints on the red momo leather seats that bothers me.

I’ve had a couple of service issues – lamba sensor, coil packs and front suspension, and the cam belt change at 36k was a bit of a sting. As someone said before, forget about main dealers and find a good, local independent garage. The guys at Rusper Alfa Romeo are a great example.

Most of all, when you get one, drive it properly. If you’re trundling around at 2,000 revs the whole time, you might as well have bought a Focus.

+1 for Godalming if you’ve got a family. It’s a little pedestrian if you’re young free and single though. There’s plenty of riding in most directions – out over the North Downs, the Devil’s Punchbowl, 25 minutes to Peaslake…

I was there with my 2.5 year old son too. We both had a great time – I spent most of the time there bouncing around like a 12 year old. That blue Lambo Murciélago sounded amazing at full chat over the start/finish line.

It’s funny to hear Andy the 456 owner in the vid talking about how he span it earlier – we were watching from the outside of Gambon when he did that, and it got a *huge* cheer.

Do you reckon they raised more money than they spent on petrol for all those supercars lapping flat out all day??

I have a pair of white Etymotic 6i’s I’m selling on (upgraded to Etys ER-4p’s) – they sound amazing and are great value considering how close they are to the 4p’s, which retail at about twice the price.

£45 posted with new rubber flanges on, boxed with carry case and manuals (currently about £70 on eBay).