That’s what I meant, some of them have a smooth bit where the pedal sits.

It’s a shame as they seemed to be a decent shoe. those are the free riders.

Without the smooth part of the sole or dotty?

What do you mean? the entire sole is dotty apart from the stealth logo.

Do you have a link to the ones you have?

these http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/five-ten-sam-hill-impact-vxi-mtb-shoes-2015/rp-prod118583 I have the 2014 version i think. pretty much the same though.

Has the outer layer of the sole delaminated? It did that on one of mine, which caused hugely increased wear – and 5.10 sent me a replacement pair free of charge.

yes this is what is happening, the rubber sole can be pulled away from the plastic underneath, it’s not glued on anymore. I shall try the warranty replacement first.

Edit: I got them from chain reaction, who do i contact?

Thanks guys. All I needed to know.

The owners are the council.. managed by them too..

Build smaller jumps, make them a little less obvious, and just accept that you don’t live in whistler?.

Or, talk to the council. it’s not that they are big, 15ft, 25ft, 30ft and 32ft..

I do have a few ideas as to why they got knocked down, they got a really teeny tiny bit large 😛 and that the area we built in was sandwiched between two footpaths (non of them leading to the trails i might add)

fact is that most of the trails we’ve built are all in one area of the woods, the medium sized doubles, big drops and a slopestyle trail all in a smallish area, the rest of the trails are spread out around the woods.

These apeared recently though, that’s what’s kinda worrying. Didn’t see them the last time I cleaned my bike (couple weeks ago)

Chalk and flint, I have a 6 inch reminder cut into my dianese spine guard from a mildly slippy day. It’s not that scary there but if wet it can be totally frictionless with the added bonus of spiky flints to cut you to ribbons.

You make it sound scary :/

Dust is better then riding on grease. Looks like I’m getting a full face lid (661?) I know HT will be fine. I have knee and elbow pads but the facer needs to be bought.

Yeah that place is well slippy if it’s wet and if it’s starting to dry out is bloody lethal!
You’ll definitely want a FF if your doing the DH tracks though.

This shows how slippy the trail surface was just last week … https://vimeo.com/m/93234476 did someone spill a truck full of oil onto that track!?!?! that’s insane… I’m planning on going in the dry, like dry dry dusty dry.

So it seems I’m gonna wait for a full facer

Oh, I forgot the mention I ride hardtail.. (pretty good on rough stuff that said) so crashing is a little bit higher risk then on a squishy

Sorry for not being around to answer your questions and fill in some details, but I have not abandoned this thread!

Anyway, the general consensus is that I should go to a collage to get maths & English GCSE’s And Yes, that is what I plan todo. My closest college is West Herts College and I took a breif look around their site and the do offer English + math courses for 16+ So I’ll drop them a email.

And, thank you all for your advice. My head is alot clearer now without the notion that I’m done for. Saying that Educating myself, doing the college course are the rest of my life have moved into it’s place.

Get a Tom Dowie course, cheap and he’s one hell of a good coach.

To answer your main question, Yes and No. Yes you can learn some stuff of reading or watching it online, but basic stuff since you don’t have a professional showing you how to do it and spot what your doing wrong.

That said, I did learn to jump and to corner quicker from watching youtube videos but when I got professional coaching he took my technique and threw it out of the window and completely reshaped my Jumping and cornering. Also Alot of videos/articles don’t tell you what could be going wrong and how to sort that out. Not a single jumping video shows you how to pump they all tell you to pull up and keep the bike level. This is wrong. Get a coaching course, Tom dowie coaching is priced nicely and you will learn more in 2-4 hours then months of doing it on your own.

Wait, What’s this I here about 4 seconds? what does that even mean? Try runtastic mountain biking, used that in the past seems pretty accurate.

Also went out for a spin after school today! **** awesome, trails nice and dry, all the leaves brushed off by me and other riders last week, was a blast. AND I became KOM on my local DH so i’m pretty happy that i decided to take the bike out.

Why don’t you just bring a spade next time you go to your local trails and fill the holes in?

I’m always doing that. Over the weekend some pretty big bumps appeared. I don’t know. Maybe cos we’ve just built it and it’s not compacted enough.

Thanks for the answers guys!

Well, That’s for me to know and you to find out (or not :P);)

Was also wondering the same thing! saved me from making another thread!

So, what you really should be carrying is:

A phone with ICE contacts or no pin lock (Locked phone is useless to someone that finds you lying unconscious in the middle of the trail.

First aid kid is useless without QUICK CLOT This stuff is a life saver I haven’t had to use it, and hope I will never have to It will stop arterial bleeding and save a life.

ID – same reason as the phone

First aid training. Something designed around outdoors and more adventurous sports. You may one day save a life with it.

Spare inner tube, what? Isn’t this irrelevant? No. It can be used as a tourniquet or sling. I’ve heard of guys saving a life by tying a spare inner tube around femoral artery.

Honestly, if you/someone has a injury more extreme then a busted artery, You have a slim chance of making it.

Oh, and always ride in a group. And don’t go to of piste.

I’m guessing if this guy was wearing a full facer he would of been fine apart from a banging head ache and a concussion. Makes me want to get a full facer right now.

But in the end, it was the rider’s fault for jumping it. Bit of a more than he could chew and it came back to bit him in the ass. Props to the rider who had the blanket and bandage!

What eeks me the most though is the fact that the pub was 200m down the road and did no one bother to go ask for help? There’s a pub at the edge of my local trails and some guy cutting down trees for the council managed to trap his arm under a decent sized log. As the story goes his work mates rushed off to the pub to get some lads down there to help them roll the log off his arm. The pub was 600m-ish away and they came back running with 10 guys in tow. Anyway that’s getting of topic.

Glad the rider is all right though. Apart from having his face smashed in which COULD of been prevented by wearing a full facer. I just hope the guy can go back to having his face without it being totally disfigured! Good luck man, have a speedy recovery.

Well, you should worry about your crack! On a serious note, if it is a crack and you keep riding it will dramatically fail as all carbon parts do if they develop a crack or the carbon was miss layed.

I carry around a small Life systems one and took all the stuff out and put it into something less bulky. Also I recommend Having quick Clot or similar with you at all times.

Some strava time seem fake. On one of my local tracks some rider did 87kph on a tight twisty track with small berms and big jumps How the hell is that possible? I’m not the best rider but I’ve been riding that track for ages and I only have ever managed around 50kph and that is just about the fastest that seems fit for this small tight twisty DH track..

I don’t use anything. When riding the glasses are clear, fog free. But when I stop the fog up almost instantly. Starting of again un fogs them.
I use some cheap wrap around with vents in the lenses.

AKaskittles,what do you mean by unreasonable backlash,he’s not the mafia

Loss of money, banned from ebay, law suit, death, you don’t know this guy! he can be a mental fat bastard

Go to chicksands you WILL NOT regret it

refund, you don’t need unreasonable backlash…

All this talk of chicksands – will have to skive and visit next week !

alot more fake sick days are in the future for me D: I **** love that place, visited first time today, so much to ride! dual slalom is the best, pure speed 🙂

Seen Tom coach lots of times when visiting Chicksands – clearly very committed to helping what ever level of rider is attending progress.
Really friendly bloke, have been tempted to book some myself with him.

Please post again if you do go.

He is one seriously quick rider – raced him on a previous visit – proper handed my arse in my hand on the dual track and think I am 2nd place on Strava for past 2yrs I saw him coaching someone today and before i left i could actually see some improvement. I think i’m going to jumps and drops course 🙂 read the testimonials of people on his site, and you guys also are saying he’s one hell of a rider/ teacher 🙂

I was thinking about doing the jumps and drops course, I already can jump and do drops but would like to refine them, also advanced skills

pedal till 10mph, stop without feathering a few times and done!

12g? threadless?

IF it’s a 12g threadless co2 cartrige you need, these work http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/25-Crosman-Co2-POWERLETS-12g-Powerlet-Gas-Cartridges-Airgun-Pistol-C02-Capsules-/190752475875 cheap as, used for pellet guns, but work for inflating tyres

I actually live in a decent MTB area, Swinley forest, chicksands, aston hill, tunnel hill, woburn all within a 40mile drive 😀 and my local trails are pretty beast aswell.

Though, saying that. I’d still rather live somewhere with alot more hills. I.e peak district or close to one of the major bike parks in wales.

But then again, you either have the option to move to a place that has the best darn biking in the UK and kick back and enjoy your NEW DSL internet connection. Or you live in a area that has great biking spots within 20-40 miles! This is one of the hardest things to decide on!

So anyone who’s not a natural born jump-god should leave the new blacks to the likes of you…….. Who injure themselves by forgetting their bike is still set up for a canal towpath?

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/hit-jump-with-lock-out-enabled-on-suntour-epicon-forkIn the end it wasn’t on lockout. I THOUGHT It was. When I got home that evening I stored the bike upside down. Thus draining the oil away from the lockout system. when i took it out again it wouldn’t lockout for that reason. Cause of crash – to much speed and overshot the landing completely.

Anyway. Who rides with a locked out fork on a towpath? I only said what I said because It’s true. Someone may do the all the jumps in gully, and think there up to the level of the blacks.

Gotta start somewhere, or were you born with an innate ability to hit 20 foot gap jumps?

Sounds like a good set of trails to progress on. Hell I’m interested by the first two at least! Yeah gotta start somewhere, but not on the big stuff! And yeah, the first 2 sound the most appealing to me the third one sounds like it would be alot more technical and a bit slower

People are gonna get hurt, gulley rats might have reason for a DH bike, gaps will be cased at a phenomenal rate.

More local stuff to ride, would gladly lend a hand.well, to be fair it’s there choice to ride stuff they can’t handle. Last october I saw a guy smash his front wheel into the landing of one of the gaps in axle run, he broke his wrist and fractured most of his ribs. It’s there choice really.

If you can’t jump, don’t jump.
If you can’t do gaps. don’t do them
if you can’t do drops, don’t hit em!
People will get hurt. But it’s there fault and their stupid cockyness