Aravis and Grand Massif – well it is where I live!!

The Epic kit is very good. Unfortunately it was the Elixir brakes themselves that, for me at least, were a complete PITA. When they they worked they were great but even from new the pistons were forever sticking and they needed bleeding every few months. So I ditched them and went for Shimanos.

I’ve just been in my man cave shortening the hoses and bleeding my new XTs using an Epic syringe at the calliper and a shimano funnel at the lever. The mineral oil is much nicer to use and the process seems simpler than the Avids.

But most of all the brakes themselves are lovely. Used them for the first time during the PDS on the very wet and muddy Sunday. They were great out of the box with no bleed and long hoses. In the evening I only had time to spray some oil on the chain before going away for 6 weeks. Today they’ve worked faultlessly…I’m very pleased indeed.

I snapped my ACL and badly tore my MCL in a ski accident a couple of years ago. Advice from both surgeon and physio was to cycle as much as possible both pre and post op to build up muscle strength – all subject to it not being painful. I bought a turbo and watched lots of films!!

I agree with Jambalaya above re other exercises – loads of vids on youtube.

I’m going with a couple of mates from Annecy – if I can get my brakes sorted in time!

Awesome info guys people, thanks very much indeed. I’m pretty good at gears but was getting lost on the brakes and pretty fed up of sodding around with the Avids.

Anyway, I’ve been on the blower to a few bike shops and spoke at length to Mark in the Ruislip Specialised Concept store. He spent ages explaining everything and confirming all your sage advice so I thought “sod it” and have ordered all the stuff though him – they’re matching the crc prices. I’ve emailed a load of pics so he’ll get all the bar bracketing right (I hope).

I’ve gone for XT, Icetech rotors, 203 up front and 180 at the back…for both bikes…well it’s my birthday tomorrow after all :-) . Picking it all up next week hopefully.

Now, how to break it to the Mrs…….

Cheers for that Fog, it’s also what a chap in a specialised concept store candidly said! CRC are doing the XT for £65 each end and with the SLXs out of stock in many places I might just go for that.

Do you think it’s a good idea to change rotors too?

Ade

re the rockhopper – I’ve got one of those from 2000 and it’s still my most used bike. All it’s needed in nearly 15 years is a new middle chain ring, chain and cassette, and some decent gear cables. With some Schwalbe Marathon Cross tyres I’ve not had a puncture for 6 years!! Mine’s the same blue/silver colour as Marks above.

IMVHO there is very little “healthy” in muesli. Sugar, carbs, salt. You’re much better off with some boiled eggs. We’ve become obsessed with the “grains are good, fat is bad” message yet we certainly didn’t evolve to eat grain, and there is pretty much no actual evidence that fat is bad. On the contrary it’s sugars which drive an insulin response which drives all sorts of nasties.

Capt. Kronos – so you know it works!!

BTW what malaria did you have? We’ve had a few chaps at work get it in Nigeria and sadly one of them died – scary stuff.

I managed to get a dose of “weight reducing” food poisoning in India just before Christmas. I did a lot of “driving the big white bus” and you don’t want to know about the other end.

As for the bread addiction, I too found that difficult to cut down on. I’m doing low carb not no carb, so a “proper” fondue is fine every now and then, and I did do “soldiers” with the boiled eggs this morning – but when I do I just make sure I really enjoy it then “beast” myself with exercise afterwards.

Peeps

I’m 3 months or so into a lower carb eating regime. It was recommended to me by a mate after I’d complained to him about feeling knackered all the time. About the same time I saw this book by Gary Taubes recommended on a thread here so bought it and read it…

Now, I’ve always poo-pooed low carb diets – I’ve run 5 marathons as part of my first mid-life crisis and the advice has always been carbs and glycogen are good so to read a reasoned account of why that ain’t necessarily so was..well..a bit of a revelation! It’s clearly written by a chap with a scientific background who seeks evidence for what he says, and moreover shows how there is very little evidence for the perceived wisdom of low fat/high carb regimes pushed by the establishment.

I then bought and read The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. Again a very engaging read with the overall message being that we’ve evolved over millions of years to eat meat, fish, fat, nuts, berries, foraged greens etc, to exercise mostly at low levels, to sprint every now and then, and sleep lots. We certainly haven’t evolved to eat grains and sugars that require a rapid insulin response to deal with them. The modern high carb western diet has caused many of us to become insulin insensitive and to “forget” how to burn fat stores as our primary energy source, and how to effectively deal with the food that we eat.

The message in both is that carbs drive insulin drives fat body fat production. Counting calories doesn’t work for weight loss long term. Exercise as the main driver doesn’t work either – it’s 80% food and 20% exercise.

So, mid november last year, I’m off out on a long hilly road bike ride with a very fit mate here in the french alps including an ascent up the Col de Plan Bois near Thones which is 13% for much of it. I haven’t eaten many carbs for nearly a month. In my head this has “bonk” written all over it but to my amazement no – I kept a HR below 80% and felt fine all day!!

I’m about 8kgs down, eat plentiful great food, and above all feel great. It’s perhaps worth pointing out here that weight loss really shouldn’t be the driver and we should be more concerned with body composition, but I can’t deny it’s nice to see the numbers falling!

I did mine at the age of 42 skiing. Big dislocation, helicopter of mountain, and reduced with a mix of morphine and valium which was very nice!

The problem is if you damage the laburum (annular ring of cartilage which forms the cup) then re-dislocation can occur especially with the arm in a high position. I had 3 subsequent subluxations (where it pops out but the ball doesn’t go right around the corner) and I got quite good at popping it back in myself. After the fourth I had it re-scanned and the cartilage was detached at the front and had taken a bit of the bone along with it so there was very little holding it all in. This is called a bony bankart lesion.

I eventually had surgery (keyhole) 3 years ago here in France to screw it all back together and have had no problems since.

Bankart Lesions are much more likely when you’re young ( :-) ) but if you have one then re-dislocations are very likely unfortunately.

I had to dig the car out!!!

But when I did I got to go snow shoeing here :-)

@freeagent

wilco roger! driving past it shortly so will take a few snaps. the beauty of building on a slope is that the sous-sol (cellar) effectively comes for free as you have to dig the ground out anyway. I’m already planning out the power points for my ski and bike workstations!

@ I-Ache

Certainly i’m interested in build stuff advice but it’s mostly done now. Doing electric/alarm/music/data and plumbing layouts now. Costs are spiralling upwards but better fitted now than later.

I’m in the process of building a house that will have a 100 square metre workshop in the basement. How many n+1s will I be able to have there before I get found out?

If anyone missed it it’s on iplayer here.[/url]

Park Book Link Cheaper on amazon.com in the states though.

They also do some good stuff on their website here.

HTH

Liverpool – AC Milan in the Champions League final in Istanbul – a mate got 2 tickets via the uefa draw. 3 nil down @ half time and still won. Highlight for me was Dudek’s save from Schevchenko.

Ok not a sport event but queued overnight in Bristol to get tickets for the original Live Aid. Highlight of the event was a very loud rousing chorus of “get your tits out for the lads” directed at Whitney Houston! Queen weren’t bad either!

But personal highlight was Swindon 4 Leicester 3 to get into the premier league. Best game of footie I’ve ever seen!

Oh and not forgetting countless Stranglers gigs!!!!! Assuming Hugh Cornwell and JJ Burnel stuffing bananas up gobbing fans’ bums counts as “sport”

get one of these.

Then get a decent stand and start collecting a few tools.

The Park Tool Help Section is excellent too.

And remember, despite what your wife/girlfriend says,messing around with your bike(s) for hours in the garage is NOT “wasting time” !!!!!

Just in, some dramatic video footage of a baldy middle-aged bloke with a hurty knee tootling carefully down a gentle slope yesterday!!! Just to practice youtube upload (my first go) and to try and persuade some roadie friends to ditch the lycra every now and then!

@jambalaya

I’m probably not the best person to ask as I’m just beginning to discover it myself having only just got back into MTBing. I’m very much a novice as I’d only done HT bridleway/southdowns riding whilst in the UK before moving here at the back end of 2008. I bought my first FS bike at the end of last year and did a couple of days scaring myself in La Clusaz and on the Semnoz. I had great plans for this year which were scuppered in April when I snapped my ACL skiing….doh!

We started in Croix Fry then climbed up to the top of the Beauregard, and messed about up on the plateau before heading back to the car via Colomban and a rooty descent to Croix Fry.

Do you mean the trail all the back into Thones? Would like to give that a go sometime.

Yeah sorry! My Mrs is from here. Real bummer of a place to live 8)

Nothing on a bike but huge shoulder dislocation and ACL rupture (both needing surgery) on skis!

I’ve just read ”Why We Get Fat” by Gary Taubes.

Now I’ve always been a great believer in the calories in/calories out argument and as an absolute it must be true (you cannae change the laws of physics!), but there’s a theory that it’s how your body processes these calories that’s important – does it use them to increase fat store or make them available for use? For some people carbs seem to be really bad, and we surely haven’t evolved to eat the huge amount of refined carbs/sugars that we do.

I’ve always poo-pooed Atkins type diets but it was a very interesting read, especially the bits about how carbs elevate insulin and triglyceride levels and the damaging effects that has.

life is not a dress rehearsal

Vredestein Snowtrac 3s for both cars already mounted on some old alloys! Snow forecast at 800m this weekend so gonna at least do the 2 wheel drive this weekend! :-)

I think he need to change his forum name to PDQ! Either that or we all think the Grand Prix is having a dull bit! :-)

No one has mentioned yet that its actually an offence to show a flashing red to the rear of any vehicle :-/

I don’t think that’s the case anymore (for the UK). See here.

Rear Lamp
One is required, to show a red light, positioned centrally or offside, between 350mm and 1500mm from the ground, at or near the rear, aligned towards and visible from behind. If capable of emitting a steady light it must be marked as conforming to BS3648, or BS6102/3, or an equivalent EC standard. If capable of emitting only a flashing light, it must emit at least 4 candela.

I’m guessing On One don’t do much in Italy – “pompino” means “blow job” in Italian! :oops:

Cheers! New shorts ordered. Seems to work fine on clearance suff too!

Tw*t it, soak it, then use a proper allen socket rather than a flimsy allen key.

800km – certainly not every day, and defo not on the bike!

Brilliant – makes my teenage ditch jumping in Lawns Woods on my Raleigh Olympus look a bit tame!

Spall isn’t a brummie don’t you watch top gear?

He is here!!!. Classic stuff.

Oh yes, White hole. “she’s topped it! It’s a felt-ripper! That planet is off the table and into someone’s pint”.

Played for and GOT!

Cougar & Lunge

I hang my head in shame, of course it was! But it is the one with the despair squid though isn’t it and the wreck of the Esperanto? I need to dig my dvds out. Better still i need to actually buy a NAS drive then rip them all so I can watch them immediately….if not sooner!

Ah those were the days, a few beers in the Moss in Altrincham, take away from the Shere Khan, and Red Dwarf all night.

Favourite ever episode – Despair Squid. Esp Timothy Spall to Rimmer (brummie accent) “You didn’t find the micro dot in the “i” of the swimming certificate so you’ve been playing the crap version of Rimmer all this time – that’s a classic that” !!!

I live in France and whilst I do think it’s “ace” I also think the general standard driving here is dreadful compared to the UK. Now I didn’t do much road biking in the UK so perhaps they maybe a bit more “bike aware” than than the Brits, but for roughly the same number of cars on the road they have double the number of annual road deaths – says it all really.

Would you rather have engine A that does 60mpg and produces 80g/km of CO2, or engine B which does the say mpg but burns “dirtier” and produces 150g/km?

I don’t think that’s possible. The carbon in the fuel has to go somewhere and is mostly emitted as CO2. (probably some CO as well). I would have thought mpg is inversely proportional to CO2 g/km. As my Mrs has just opened a bottle of red someone else can do the research….hic!

So to summarise, (and to hopefully stop my 25 year flashbacks to dingy lecture theatres), – lubricating threads can reduce thread friction meaning that less torque force needs to be applied to achieve the desired clamping force……phew!

See here.

…of course I don’t own a bike torque wrench so will continue to do bolts up until it feels about right, adding a splodge of any old copper paste to the threads to stop them seizing up.

And relax!