Pretty much sums up my recent experience with them – very good.

Banshee Prime or Stumpy EVO 29.

Rode it a few years ago, and was rideable but not very interesting and a bit of a mudbath – you’re not missing anything by going on the road.

OP – you’re not the only one asking that question.

I needed a laptop for work with a decent amount of power, and finally settled on an MSI CX61.

Very happy with it so far. Was tempted by a macbook (they’re lovely) but the majority of my work is done on windows – I could have run VMware on the Mac, or spent a lot less and got something just as powerful, and with a lot more capacity.

My Spitfire is ace, would definitely recommend. Of the other bikes mentioned, don’t think you could go far wrong with a Rocket or a Stumpy EVO.

Had an old Spitfire, and have had one of the new ones for about 10 months now. It’s a smashing bike, sorted geometry, good suspension, 650b compatible (if that floats your boat).

Really happy with it – the old one was great (constant bushing maintainance was a pain though) and would happily have carried on riding it, but the new one is better all round.

Reminds me of the old Glossop Road baths in Sheffield, now long closed.

Ex Eurocom here, and know a few people at Blitz.

Crap situation to be in – best of luck, hope you get sorted soon.

FFS – not again.

Will keep an eye out.

Agreed Spacemonkey.

Fortunately Lemon64 has that covered..

http://www.lemon64.com/%5B/url%5D

The tracking / mapping side looks quite neat, but the visualisation software needs a hell of a lot of money spending on it unless the goal is to make people’s bike rides look really stupid. The amount they’re trying to raise won’t come close.

There was a stickman active at Black Rocks a couple of years ago, but nothing for a while.

Not seen anything on Crich, but not good if someone is doing it. Which trail is Belfast? The nice one through the wall with the stream crossings?

Banshee Spitfire ticks all the boxes, either a mk1 or a mk2. I loved my mk1, but my mk2 is better.

Ride round there regularly, so will keep an eye out.

Hope the rider makes a speedy recovery.

Yes – it can be done, see the thread below :

http://forums.mtbr.com/shocks-suspension/marzocchi-44-ti-rc3-140mm-internally-lower-travel-726972-2.html

Alternatively, send it off to Loco who will do a lovely job (he lowered my 44RC3Ti’s from 140 to 130).

That sucks – hope you get well soon.

Some good videos linked below :

http://vimeo.com/user955261
http://vimeo.com/user3329816/videos/page:3/sort:date

I had a Superstar one that lasted three weeks.

The box had a picture of a bloke doing kung-fu on it, but closer inspection revealed him to be on roller skates.

In summary, don’t bother.

No need for an adapter, space it out as per the photo above – the 20mm IS forks came with 2 big washers to do this.

The Banshee Prime looks bang on, if 29ers are your thing.

A 650b Rune would be worth a look as well.

I loved my Hustler, but I paid £1000 for it in 2005, and there’s no way I’d pay £1800 for one now. Also dropper post options are very limited by the 30.0 seattube size.

Build wise, I had Z1’s, XM321 rims on Hope Bulbs, XT cranks etc on it.

It made an ace little bike, but things have moved on and there are much better bikes available for less money.

Another vote for Parkamoor, well worth the detour and the road back isn’t hard work.

That’s really sh1t.

I’m just down the road from you – will spread the word, and keep an eye out.

White grips look great until the first time you use them.

I work next door to the Premier Inn, and know a few people that it could be. Will ask around.

everything from design through to coding and development

Again, it’s difficult to judge from so little information, but this sounds like the kind of degree that won’t really help getting a job in the industry as it’s too broad, and competition is so fierce.

I can only speak from the programming point of view, but the best graduates I’ve interviewed are always the ones with the comp sci / software engineering degrees. The exceptional ones are the ones who have also worked on games in their spare time.

I’ve interviewed a few applicants with generic games tech degrees, and none of them have got past the initial technical tests.

Not to dismiss your son’s achievements, but if he wants to work in the games industry then he’s at the stage now where it would be a very good idea to decide which discipline (programming? art? design? audio?), and pick a specialist degree that will give him a solid professional skill, and one that can be used outside the games industry as well.

Very hard to judge what kind of degree it is from the phrase ‘games tech’, but if he really wants a job programming games, he’d be much better advised to do a software engineering or computer science degree. Far more rigorous, and gives a much deeper understanding of computers and programming (and prepares you for jobs in *any* industry, not just games). If he really wants to do games, he can write them in his spare time – it’s what the vast majority of the best graduates that we interview have done.

Viz have turned it into a board game (contains rude words..).

http://fumaga.com/6557

Something to consider :

I ordered Flow, got Flow EX. I’m not disappointed.

It’s not official, and barely tolerated at best.

Would echo the comments about staying away when wet – it’s got so chewed up lately (especially after the summer we’ve had), and it’s sensitive at the best of times. It’s a real mess right now, and it’s not doing us any favours.

It’s one of my favourite local places to ride (and walk), and I’d be gutted to see a repeat of the ban from a few years back.

Cud were supporting? That would have been worth seeing.

Carter USM though – they were sh1t back in the day, and can’t imagine they’ve improved any now.

It’s a MkII, so has fully reverb-able 30.9 seattube. Nice colour too (that really deep blue, almost black).

Drop me a mail if you’re interested..

Alright Stu, wanna buy my Blue Pig mkII frame?

I know where you mean – he has previous, and is well known to the rangers.

I avoid that particular path, mainly because it’s sh1t, but also I don’t really want a run in with him. He has a major problem with bikes, and there’s no point antagonizing nutters.

MW Plumbing And Heating – used them for many years, very good.

http://www.mw-heatingservices.co.uk/%5B/url%5D

Yeah, lovely man, good old Boris, what a legend eh?

http://boris-johnson.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/boris-johnson-and-darius-guppy.html

If it helps hook people who might not have bothered otherwise, then it’s no bad thing.

If they then like what they hear, there’s plenty more to discover..

Beyond The Forbidden Forest.

It’s not exactly a looker nor did it have any replay value, but it was so tense and atmospheric and all the more impressive for looking so crude.